Fighting to Preserve Liberty in America
Judging by the two mail pieces I just received from my congressman, Tim Bishop, it looks like he has settled on his reelection strategy. After all, he doesn’t want to run on his record (ObamaCare, bailouts, Stimulus, trillions in deficit spending); with the demise of earmarks he can’t say he’s bringing home the bacon; since he is facing a re-match in his reelection bid, using the same smear tactics this time around will be harder; so let’s scare the bejeezus out of the seniors.
In today’s rant titled, “The Angry Rich and Taxes,” Paul Krugman continues to amaze how the man won a Nobel Prize for economics. I know, I know, it was for his work on international trade. I keep telling myself, but it just seems so strange that when he wanders into other areas he seems so lost. But then again, he was a paid advisor to Enron.
After his introductory riff he gets down to business, “The rage of the rich has been building ever since Mr. Obama took office. At first, however, it was largely confined to Wall Street.” Ever since Mr. Obama took office and primarily from Wall Street? Wall Street spent tremendous amounts of money to get Obama elected over John McCain and Krugman is trying to tell us that they were upset with him from the day he took office? Here are the numbers:
Who is crazier, Krugman or all those folks on Wall Street, who we are told are devilishly clever, who spent a fortune to elect a man they hated the day he won?
I’ll bet you thought I would be writing about Roland Burris, the senator appointed by Governor Rod Blagojevich under dubious circumstances. No, Senator Mary Landreau of Louisiana just sold her vote on the senate health care bill to Harry Reid for $100 million.
Here is what was reported by ABC News.
On page 432 of the Reid bill, there is a section increasing federal Medicaid subsidies for “certain states recovering from a major disaster.”
The section spends two pages defining which “states” would qualify, saying, among other things, that it would be states that “during the preceding 7 fiscal years” have been declared a “major disaster area.”
I am told the section applies to exactly one state: Louisiana, the home of moderate Democrat Mary Landrieu, who has been playing hard to get on the health care bill.
In other words, the bill spends two pages describing would could be written with a single world: Louisiana. (This may also help explain why the bill is long.)
Senator Harry Reid, who drafted the bill, cannot pass it without the support of Louisiana’s Mary Landrieu.
How much does it cost? According to the Congressional Budget Office: $100 million.
But don’t worry, the talking heads in the lame stream media will soon be circling the wagons saying that Senator Landreau didn’t personally get any money, she got it for her state. But where did the money come from? Your pocket, my pocket, and your children’s and your grandchildren’s pocket. In short, Harry Reid is using the coercive power of the IRS to take your property and give it to Louisiana so that a deeply flawed health care bill will get passed and Mary Landreau can get re-elected. Seems fair to me. Does it seem fair to you? Isn’t that what makes you proud to be an American? The arrogance of this Congress and administration are incomprehensible. They see Tea Parties across the country rising up to protest their out of control spending. They get blasted when then go home for their summer recess. Poll after poll says the country is opposed to the stimulus package, cap and trade, the health care bills, but they just keep rolling on.
Let me quote from the Declaration of Independence:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness — That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
“But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their Future Security.”
These are troubling times. We cannot allow these abuses to continue without speaking out loudly and strongly. Our government has gotten far too big and out of control. It’s time to shrink it back to where the Founding Fathers envisioned it: limited and unobtrusive.
