In The Sperm Of The Moment
"In another stunning example of hypocrisy, congressional Democrats are wasting taxpayers' time and resources on a legislative measure to censure Congressman Joe Wilson so they don't have to talk about their exceedingly unpopular health care plan. If we are going to march members down to the well of the House to apologize, Joe Wilson is going to have to get in line behind Nancy Pelosi, who attacked the intelligence community who protects us, Charlie Rangel who cheated on his taxes, Jack Murtha – a walking scandal, and we all know how the Democratic leadership tried to protect William Jefferson. Democrats don't want an apology. They want a side show."
Michael Steele
GOP National Committee Chairman
2 comments:
Sunny,
Great post. Whenever I see politicians like Steele decrying their opponents as hypocrites, I wince. The fact is, they are all hypocrites – Republicans and Democrats alike.
This Wilson character ought to be hauled down to the floor to apologize for his boorish behavior. Because, like his policies or not, Barack Obama is our duly elected President and ought to be treated with respect. Two-bit politicians like Wilson come and go, and like all such blowhards, need to be reminded that we expect a much higher degree of decorum from our elected officials.
President Clinton had to put up with a lot of his crap, in his first two years and his last two years especially. But as your economic graphs point out, the American economy and the national budget were in very good shape during the Clinton Administration. Part of that success was due to the conservative influence of the Republican congress after 1994, but much also is the result of President Clinton being a pragmatic politician. The country was just not interested in some of his ideas (government health care comes to mind), but once he understood that, things went well for him and the country.
So your post is good, and your graphs are good. The only suggestion for improvement would be to extend that graph a bit to show how the Obama Administration/ Democrat Congress is spiking both the deficit and the public debt. Bush was a profligate spender, and he drove the budget from surplus to deficit. Almost 400 Billion into the red. But this current guy and his allies in congress are doubling/tripling/quadrupling that deficit. That is a huge problem that needs to be addressed lest we become a permanent debtor nation.
Question: If you stack $1.00 coins all painted red, how high is a stack of 1.6 Trillion? How much higher is it than a stack of $400 Billion?
Progress means having to deal with large numbers: more money, more people, etc.
I don't think Clinton and the Republicans had to work together to accomplish things and be fiscally responsible. But Clinton came out of the governor school of experience. Bush did too, but I think he spent less time in the library than Clinton. I think there was a bit more mental engineering going on in Clinton's brain than Bush.
I think everyone understands the debt and deficit problems that loom ahead. However, Lord Keynes would advocate government spending during times like these and fiscal restrain during the booming years earlier in this decade. Unfortunately, we are dealing with politicians and they all tend to survive quiet nicely after leaving office -- regardless of how much destruction they leave behind them.
RK, are you better off today than you were last year or five years ago or 8 years ago?
I agree with your comments on Wilson. We should be able to hold adult converstions and deal with the issues at hand. Take us for example, we can hash over these things from different perspectives. There are things we don't agree on and things we done. But at the beginning of the day, we got to get up and go to work to earn our daily bread (unless you are a filthy rich greedy Republican). You got to mow your lawn and I got to mow mine. I know some of my life experiences have harden my mind to see things in certain ways and other things change as time goes by. I vote for Democrats, Republicans and third party candidates -- but I mostly vote for Democrats. It doesn't bother me if my best friend votes a staight ticket for Republicans -- that's his choice. My wife votes straight ticket for Democrats. Hey it's our individual life and we make the decisions we make based on the experiences, whimes, hiccups, personal moods that engulf us. And so it goes...but we do need to act as a civil society that understands the importance of open, civil discussion of the issues. I just hope your not a Viking fan...
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