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Liberals are soooo out of touch

By Alisa Craddock
web posted August 11, 2008

Were we really surprised when Nancy gaveled the House into recess, turned off the lights, "killed" the cameras (eliminating the "witnesses" in true thug fashion) and took off on their lovely 5-week vacation without passing an energy bill? Republicans, smelling blood in the water, or perhaps genuinely moved by the outrage and desperation of the American people, 70% of whom desire to allow more drilling, have stayed and refused to leave the House chamber. The president has lifted the ban on offshore drilling, and asked the Congress to vote on it. "All the Democratic leaders have to do is allow a vote….They should not leave Washington without doing so."

But Nancy, the big "I AM (The Most Powerful Woman in America) would rather eat a cockroach than cooperate with the president in a matter of the general welfare, while she hunkers with her liberal pals in secret trying to figure out a way to make the Democrats look like heroes with policies that make them look like crooks. She refused to allow a vote, and brought the gavel down to silence discussion of it because she knew there were enough votes to pass it, because she's "trying to save the planet". And while the poor of American (you know, the ones they always claim to represent) have had the value of their low end salaries decimated, and are screaming at the top of their heads, and their fingers are bleeding on their keyboards, Nancy is enjoying her nice, long summer vacation, sipping on her mint julep or whatever she drinks to drown her guilt, because she apparently has no regard for the dreadful burden that the people of this country are shouldering, with increases not only in gasoline, but home energy and food costs (driven higher by the increase in oil).

Just put a little more air in your tires and tune up your engine and it'll take care of the problem…

Or better yet, go trade in your paid for gas guzzler for an expensive new hybrid. I'm sure the savings on gas will offset the $500/mo payment.

Of course, we can't lay it all on Nancy's lap. The federal government has had 35 years to deal with the looming problem of dependence on foreign oil, and oil dependence in general, and has sat on their hands doing nothing, or worse, has actually obstructed the free market that might have produced the alternatives that would relax the dependence on foreign oil, and reduce the demand for oil overall, which would also keep the prices down. ( Liberals hate free markets.)

Instead, the Fed has been running up the biggest debt in the history of the world -- $53 trillion to be precise. If we stay on our current fiscal course, we will be bankrupt in 10 years, say all the actuaries, all the objective (non-partisan) scorekeepers of the federal government, as reported by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis), who is the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee. He also cites estimates by the General Accounting Office. But not to worry—Congress is set to let the Bush tax cuts expire. (Liberals hate tax cuts.) That should help pay for the debt.

Except Mr. Obama says he will use the money collected when the tax cuts expire to pay for his universal health care plan. But since the Bush tax cuts only helped the wealthy, the poor will not suffer from the expiration of the tax cuts…

Really? I suppose that may be true if you aren't paying taxes, but I do, and I remember the nice bump in my pay when the Bush tax cuts took affect, and I have a very modest income. My taxes were cut by about 20%. Those who made $350,000 a year or more got only a 12.5% tax decrease. The super-wealthy got even less. But don't take my word for it. Here is an article from 2004 by Steven Landsburg, writing for Slate.com—a liberal site, attesting to the size of the tax cuts the poor received compared with the wealthy.

Of course, Landsburg (being a liberal) doesn't agree with the tax cuts, and blames our rising national debt brought on by both tax reductions and increased spending, on Bush. Though we cannot see how voting for Democrats would be more fiscally responsible than voting for Republicans (liberals hate fiscal responsibility), apparently Mr. Bush hasn't met a federal program he didn't like either, because our budget deficit occurred on his watch, and we all agree he should have used his veto pen a lot more. But it was Congress that handed him the budget to sign. Now there is a mess, and who is going to clean it up?

All of that aside, the fact is, the $53 trillion debt that is projected in the next ten years is from our three big entitlement programs—Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and the problem with those systems is not Bush or even the Democrats. It's the fact that the government runs them in the first place, instead of privatizing them and letting them compete in the market. Clark Howard, who has a financial advice program on talk radio, mentioned a few weeks ago that one of the most important and sensible things we could do to lower health care costs is to compel the medical industry to provide prices for their services just as, say, dentists do. Then empower the consumers to shop for healthcare providers. (I'll bet it would improve the quality of healthcare, too. How we are treated while we're being treated makes a world of difference. The alternative is "rationed health care" and we all know what that means…). Competitive pricing is one of the provisions proposed by Rep. Ryan in his plan to solve the looming $53 trillion disaster. It sounds like a most promising plan. But, as he notes, nothing is getting done in Congress right now. We've got gridlock. (Liberals hate promising plans). So for each year we delay, add $3 trillion more to the debt.

This is another issue we've known about for 35 years (or more) and have done nothing to solve.

In addition, the problem of illegal immigration has been on the table for approximately the same amount of time, and once again nothing has been done. The Heritage Foundation determined that if amnesty were given to the estimated 12 million illegal aliens living in this country, it would cost this nation $2.6 trillion, a good portion of that will be from government entitlements, especially retirement. (The estimated number of illegals in America has been revised to 20 million, so these figures are probably higher.)

These are three problems that are crippling our country and, combined with the social chaos fomented by increasingly immoral social policies, which are foisted on children against their parents' will, and we've got a full scale calamity looming. A House divided against itself cannot stand.

We have two distinct visions of America competing for our national soul. This gridlock cannot continue. We have to choose. Are we going the way of the Soviet Union, or will we get our train back on the course it was set upon by its Founders?

One thing's for sure. Things are about to get very ugly. ESR

Alisa Craddock is a columnist and activist in the culture war, a convert to Catholicism, and describes herself as a Christian Libertarian. She may be contacted at alisa.craddock at hushmail.com.

 

 

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