Eric Cantor, the House Republican whip, explained the vote against the House “Stimulus” Bill:
“Democrats turned the bill into a pork-fest. There was almost nothing in the
bill that pro-growth Republicans liked. . . . There was five times more money in the bill for resodding the Capital Mall than for job-creating tax cuts.”
Mike Pence of Indiana declared:
“This was our first step back toward a unified opposition to big government spending plans.”
More than one Republican said that, despite great respect for President Bush, they found it liberating no longer to have to vote on his continual demands for government expansionism.
“Yes, we know that voters are still angry at us because of the growth of government under Republican rule in the last several years,” Mr. Pence admitted.
“But this vote sent a message that we will fight against the Pelosi Democrats when they conflict with our core principles.”
It’s refreshing to know that Republican leadership in the House has rediscovered some Conservative values. We can count on one hand real Conservatives on K Street but are pleased they delivered a unanimous vote against the Pelosi “pork bill” disguised as “stimulus.”
It’s now up to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to demonstrate the same leadership an deliver at least a near-unanimous vote against the plan that would validate what House Republicans did this past week. Indeed!
In my mail box from The Heritage Foundation:
The truth is that the vast majority Obama’s Trillion Dollar Debt Plan has nothing to do with stimulating the economy and everything to do with permanently redistributing spending and power away from the private sector and toward government. That is why the plan is costlier than the Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined.
That is why it is larger than the entire GDP of India.
That is why the plan will send our debt-to-GDP levels to unprecedented heights.
Remember, only 15% of the spending in this debt plan goes to infrastructure. So where does the rest of the money go? Obama’s Trillion Dollar Debt Plan doubles the size of the entire Education Department and according to the New York Times, expands government health care spending in a way that fundamentally “rewrit[es] the social contract with the poor in ways [the left] have long yearned to do.”
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February 5th, 2009 at 12:02 am
I’m really having a hard time why so many seemingly intelligent people are unable to see that this is just party politics. Everything the D’s and R’s are doing is just superficial contradictions. The R’s had no problem expanding gov’t beyond belief during the W Bush years, and all of a sudden have changed their tune? No f’n way (pardon my abbreviations)!
I’ve never read your site, and don’t know if the following views are welcome. You are free to ignore and/or delete them as this is your site. Here goes.
Government is a business. People work their way up from the ground floor (as aides or some such), learn the jive, and get promoted. But, the business of any business is staying in business. Follow me here? When my party is in control, I stick with them because there is power in numbers. (Marx, God forbid, wrote the same thing over 100 years ago). This means that the will to act (and even raison d’etre) stops being ideology and starts being blatant self-preservation and, at a more abstract level, group-preservation.
When my party is not in control, I buck and fight. The reason for this is not as apparent as the previously stated “complicity rationale.” The reason is even more psychological: in our current two party dichotomy, the populace begins to understand things by way of the contrast heuristic. IE we errantly begin to believe that there exist true dichotomies in reality. If one party votes one way, the other must vote another.
Please don’t take my use of party to be traditional R’s or D’s because it would be far too easy to find an aberration (or counter-example, if that’s more palatable). I’m merely implying any relatively superficial, or at least widely perceived, similarity between two politicians.
February 5th, 2009 at 1:35 am
Brandon:
Party politics has been out of control for some time. I believe the 2000 election pushed hate over the top and politicians as a group got increasingly greedy.
Liberals, and this goes for the blogs too, are unable to handle a conversation; on TV they talk over the other party as a tactic to not allow a response and the Democrats are increasingly Leftist, with many moderates joining the GOP (neo-conservatives) and polluting Conservativism in that party.
These Neo-Conservatives were spendaholics and G.W.Bush has that as part of his legacy — allowing Conservative principles to take a hit. He has admitted as much and I hold him responsible for the irresponsible spending of the last eight years.
Government is NOT business, it’s all about power, favors and making a lot of money on the side or later as a lobbyist. It’s POWER and was never intended to run as a business but as a not-for-profit body required to keep the people safe and serve them and not take away their individuality. That has been changing slowly and Obama/Pelosi/Reid/Schumer/Durbin et al are Marxists with a goal of more power, more government, and less freedom for individuals.
Parties vote to their agendas, I have explained the Democrats agenda above. Republicans are learning a lesson through loss and realizing they must change their ways to survive and become fiscally responsible once again. Republicans must find their way back to Conservativism to survive.
I invite you to visit Take Back The GOP and read through the principles of a true Conservative and Classic Liberalism. There is a lot of material but you should find it worth your while. Our links page provide other avenues to join the fight against Socialism and to keep our Constitutional rights intact.
Thanks for visiting and I hope you find joining Take Back The GOP something you would find in your principles.
February 5th, 2009 at 10:15 pm
LC,
You are right, government has become about power; however, power has a curious property of increasing itself, rather than decaying. You must agree, that the process of self-preservation (negative entropy) or even expansion is a property of business (especially if you are of the consensus view of the open systems [ie biological] theory of business systems). Either way, there is really no reason to argue the fact, as we are both tapping various aspects of the multidimensional construct that is government.
I do wish to remind you (and possibly your readers) of the nature of our bicameral parliamentary system. Though the President does have a very strong influence over spending and policy, the President must also have complicity within the Congress (and, to a lesser extent, the Judicial system). GW Bush is not personally AND solely responsible. Many of the same congressmen (R’s, in particular, but also D’s) “hopped right on the trolley” during expansionist periods. Both groups profited.
When I speak of fiscal responsibility, I must admit that I am not an economist, and can only base my rationale on my own “common sense.” I have only a cursory understanding of the fractional reserve banking system, a bare-bones understanding of the effects of fiscal manipulation, and world currency exchange rates are, to me, magical–I fear that I am not alone on this one. I said all that to say, I’m not sure what fiscal responsibility means. The global economy is a startlingly complex system that even our best and brightest have yet to adequately model. How are we to understand fiscal responsibility? Seriously, if you know, please enlighten me. Should the government spend as little as possible? What are its responsibilities to the citizens and tax payers? Preventive maintenance? Advancement of society? If so, how? Quality of life? I really could go on for days asking questions. And, honestly, I believe if any solid answers did exist, they would have been made manifest by now.
So what is to guide our policy? Ideology? We both agree: that baby was thrown out a long time ago.
February 6th, 2009 at 10:45 am
For some lesson in economics please visit The Idea Channel and spend some time their. Milton Friedman taught the opposite of Maynard Keynes and what Obama and his ilk in Congress wish to do with the economy now.
Also, sign visit The Heritage Foundation and you will find more on economics and finance concerning government.
Spending never solves a recession and the government would do well to reduce and eliminate the deficit, not grow it exponentionally.