Posted on 10/29/2005 11:26:41 PM PDT by Tom87
You heard what the Senate did to Tom Coburn's attempt to impose some sanity on spending.
How do they live with themselves?
Years ago, interviewing economist Walter Williams for a show ABC News called "Greed," I was perplexed when Williams said, "a thief is more moral than a congressman; when a thief steals your money, he doesn't demand you thank him."
That was silly hyperbole, I thought, but watching Congress spend, I see that I was naive and Williams was right.
When the Democrats held power, I confronted Sen. Robert Byrd about wasting our money on "Robert Byrd Highway"-type projects in West Virginia. His answer was as arrogant as he was: "I would think that the national media could rise above the temptation of being clever, decrepitarian critics who twaddlize, just as what you're doing right here."
"Twaddlizing?" I asked.
"Trivializing serious matters," he explained.
I persisted, "Is there no limit? Are you not at all embarrassed about how much you got?" Byrd glared at me in silence, and finally demanded, angrily, "Are you embarrassed when you think you're working for the good of the country? Does that embarrass you?"
The Republicans promised to change the culture. Democrats sold panic. "Don't vote for them! They're going to shrink government and take away your favorite programs!" They needn't have worried. The Republicans got elected, but if the Democrats' goal was to expand the government, they were the real winners.
Once Republicans were in power, they started spending money even faster than the Democrats did.
Big spender Ted Stevens responded to Coburn's good suggestion to kill a "Bridge to Nowhere" with a tantrum on the Senate floor: He threatened to resign and "be taken out of here on a stretcher."
Good! Sen. Stevens, please go. I'll even help carry the stretcher.
Unfortunately, Congress has an unwritten code: "Don't threaten the other congressmen's loot." The Senate reprimanded Coburn by voting 82 to 15 to save the Bridge to Nowhere.
The Ketchikan, Alaska, bridge is particularly egregious because it's a bridge to a nearly uninhabited island. Yet it will be monstrous -- higher than the Brooklyn Bridge and almost as long as the Golden Gate. Even some in Ketchikan laugh about it. One told us, "Short view is, I don't see a need for it. The long view ... I still don't see a need for it."
Last week, Alaska's other senator, Lisa Murkowski, said it would be "offensive" not to spend your money on her bridge. When she first became a senator, I asked her if Republicans believed in smaller government. She was unusually candid: "We want smaller government. But, boy, I sure want more highways and more stuff, whatever the stuff is."
I'll say. Alaska's pork projects spanned 67 pages. They get much more than other states. "Oh, you need to come up," she said. "You would realize it's not pork. It's all necessity ... People look at Alaska and say, 'Well, gee, they're getting all this money.' But we still have communities that are not tied in to sewer and water. There are certain basic things that you've got to have."
But my children shouldn't have to pay for them. If people want to live in remote areas of Alaska, why can't they pay for their own sewers and water, through state or local taxes, or better yet, through private businesses? Why should all Americans pay to run sewer lines through the vast, frozen spaces of Alaska? Because Alaska has no money?
Don't believe it. Alaska has so much money, it has no state income tax or sales tax. Instead, it gives its citizens money from something called the Alaska Permanent Fund.
Stevens, Murkowski and Don Young, who once told critics of the Bridge to Nowhere that they could "kiss his ear," are not unique. Republican politicians talk about limited government, but the longer they are in power, the more they vote to spend.
Spending your money, they want "more stuff."
Just who are you going to take up arms with and who are you going to shoot? Are you some frustrated terrorist?
Unless you're under 14.
"It is wrong. Reagan didn't win cold war."
Sure he did. Ever since, there's been not one decent espionage book.
I'm not going to take up arms against anyone, I simply stated what I believe to be the truth. I'm not in favor of it but the increasing stratification of American culture cannot be ignored and there seems to be no instrument to stop it.
These people are shameless...
Why would Alaska want the dough spent on a bridge, which they can't eat, which can't care for their illnesses, which won't educate them? If there must be largesse surely there are smarter things to put the largesse towards.
I thought that was when you put that wad of cotton in a bottle of pills.
I think you've gotten it in one. It's gotten to the point that the number of people who benefit from federal handouts exceed the number who pay for them. The result is that voters have an interest in maintaining the status quo when it comes to federal programs.
About 20 years ago, the "throw the bums out" mentality had national-level term limits at the forefront of many discussions. But when polling organizations dug into it, what became clear was that everybody wanted someone else's bum thrown out, as long as their own bum was bringing home the gravy.
As far as I'm concerned, if you receive government money, or you don't pay taxes, you should have no say concerning spending legislation. But that wouldn't be democratic. "The people" would have less power. Less power to steal from taxpayers, that is.
You seem to be getting close to Heinlein's propostion -- that to vote, a person must be a citizen, and to become a citizen, that person must contribute to the public good in some way that demonstrates he or she is able and willing to put public good ahead of personal gain. It seems that idea would eliminate about 90 pct of our current political representation (except McCain, but then maybe we could put in a "stupid clause").
Ted Stevens' childish tantrum on the Senate floor was an embarrassment to Republicans. The whole lot of these spendthrifts--regardless of what letter they have after their name--need to be sent packing.
Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) gave one of the most galling performances of arrogance in that debate over his beloved pork that the Senate has ever seen. When he threatened to pick up his marbles and go home, the rest of the Senate caved like the wimps they are. Alaskans ought to be ashamed that this parasite represents their state.
Agreed, but you can't fight city hall (tho many have tried in Dallas:) and you definitely cant fight Congress and Senate.
WAIT what am I thinking yes we can next year 2006 ::wink::
Without infrastructure we'd be in a sorry place.
hmmmm...term limits ay?! Tried that in 1994. Got Newt Gingrich thrown to the wolves, got Bob Dole the presidential nod......
Creeping socialism. Creaping envirowackoism. It costs a few thou to build a septic field. It costs a few thou to drill a well. It cost a few pennies of juice, a day, to operate the pumps, and you don't have to pay a bill to the town...
I don't know of any towns in AK that don't have enough space...
I wonder how many years you could operate a couple of these, for just ONE Billion TAX dollars?
North Carolina has a fleet of them... the USERS pay to ride them!
WHY DEMOCRACIES FAIL
A Democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of Government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largess out of the public treasury. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that Democracy always collapses over a loose fiscal policy, always to be followed by a Dictatorship.(Written by Professor Alexander Fraser Tytler, nearly two centuries ago while our thirteen original states were still colonies of Great Britain. At the time he was writing of the decline and fall of the Athenian Republic over two thousand years before.
REPUBLIC VS. DEMOCRACY, U.S.ARMY ANALYSIS <- Good read!
Even riding the ferry across the Hudson from NJ to NY is quite an experience in winter.
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury. From that time on the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the results that a democracy always collapse over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the worlds greatest civilization has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence:
*From bondage to spiritual faith
*from spiritual faith to great courage
*from courage to liberty
*from liberty to abundance
*from abundance to selfishness
*from selfishness to complacency
*from complacency to apathy
*from apathy to dependency
*from dependency back again to bondage."
-Alexander Fraser Tyler
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