As the political top continued to spin nearly out of control today, I was struck by two things: Democrats' love/hate relationship with taxes and their conviction that government is THE answer to everything.
First, taxes. They love to impose them on everyone else, but they personally hate them so much that they avoid paying them at all costs. Did you see where yet another Obama appointee, Rep. Solis, has some tax problems? Well. not her, but her husband. She also "forgot" to disclose her connection with a union lobbyist effort all the time she has been serving in the House. Since she was the treasurer of the group and not a "lobbyist," she says she shouldn't have to disclose it -- despite House rules that say otherwise. And even though the president is requiring his staff who have had lobbying ties to recuse themselves from anything involving their past connections, Solis has made it quite clear that she shouldn't have to do that because she technically wasn't a lobbyist.
On the second point, Obama put the spin on today to pressure the Senate to pass the biggest boondoggle in our country's history. His mantra is that if they don't act now to pass the stimulus bill, crisis will turn to catastrophe. What I find interesting is that he never proposed a stimulus package himself. He just left it in the hands of Congress. That's leadership? Is he going to pull that with the budget too? Just hand Congress a blank check that our great-grandchildren will be paying for all of their lives? To get the public behind the stimulus, Obama released a 102-page promo with talking points of how each state will benefit from this package.
It all made me think about something Daniel Webster said nearly 200 years ago about people becoming too reliant on the government: "If left to their own choice of pursuits, they depended on their own skill and their own industry. But if government essentially affects their occupations by its systems of bounties and preferences, it is natural, when in distress, that they should call on government for relief." But after serving in Congress for a few years, Webster changed his mind and started pushing for government to establish tariffs and take other actions that negated free trade. I guess that even in Webster's day, there was something in the Capitol water!
Posted by Mari
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How quickly they forget! Was the 750 Billion dollar package Bush pushed for that much better than this one? I'm reminded of the classic definition of insanity--doing the same thing over again and expecting different results. You both are just annoyed because the pork in this package doesn't benefit your causes. Personally, I'd rather pay for infrastructure and education over more military spending any day.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that, I think any "stimulus" package is foolish and will just put us deeper in debt than we already are.
You forget -- we haven't even come to the budget yet. How much is Obama planning on spending on the war in Afghanistan? And it looks like he's planning on keeping our troops in Iraq for nearly two more years. So much for his promise to bring them home on Day One.
ReplyDeleteBut I agree with your final comment about any "stimulus" package just putting us further in debt.