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I always expect Democrats in Congress to do the wrong thing,
the selfish thing, the power grab thing. Paraphrasing the famous words of
the late great Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban, the Democrats
never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. They never let me down. And so it is with the fraud that we
call "Pay-Go."
Pay-Go is legislation, demanded by Barack Obama and Nancy
Pelosi and all their minions, that requires "spending
bills" be paid for prior to their being approved. In other
words, if a bill is contemplated that would cost, for
example $10 billion, that $10 billion would either first have to
be raised by increasing revenue (aka increasing taxes) or cutting
spending from elsewhere or both. The idea is to specifically
not raise the deficit or add to debt.
Sounds pretty good, no?
So here's a "transportation bill" in which the Dems
decided to extend unemployment benefits, to beyond the 99 weeks
already provided mind you, and also spend money on some
transportation construction projects and they need $10 billion to do
it. And so, of course, the first thing the Dems do is by-pass and
exempt themselves from their very own Pay-Go legislation, which they
passed just a couple of weeks before, and fund the bill by borrowing
the money instead of raising the money. The deficit be damned, full speed
ahead over the "fiscal responsibility" cliff. Why am I not surprised?
If the Democrats can't find $10 billion to spend on this
transportation bill, out of an overall Obama budget of $3.8
TRILLION (less than 3/10,000 of 1%) they will never cut
anything or balance anything and have absolutely no intention of ever
doing so. The mask is off this nonsense.
But while I condemn Barack and Nancy and Harry and all the
rest of the Democrats for their obfuscating the fact that they have
absolutely no intention of curtailing or slowing or lowering or
stopping any spending, and apparently seem just as satisfied if the
nation goes bankrupt, no Republicans can be found similarly
condemning the Democrats and holding their feet to the
fire.........that is except for Republican Senator from Kentucky, Jim
Bunning. Jim Bunning is using
his power, authorized by a specific senate rule, to block the
bill from being passed until the Pay-Go requirements are
met. And except for pulling a temper tantrum there ain't
nothin' no one can do about it.
Only Jim Bunning has drawn a line in the sand and yelled to
EVERYONE, even to Republicans, that enough is enough. Only Jim Bunning has pointed to the
law the Democrats just passed and demanded that the Congress live
within the means Pay-Go requires.
And this is essentially what I worry about, that too many
Republicans are too afraid of the "consequences" to do the
right thing.
But beyond merely the fraud perpetrated by Pay-Go are questions
even more fundamental, like how many months of unemployment should be
funded? If 99 weeks are not
enough, than how many are enough? Are we willing to fund 5 years of
unemployment benefits? How
about 10 years? What's the
limit?
And what's the limit for all other spending? As indicated above, the budget for
FY'11 is $3.8 TRILLION of which $1.4 TRILLION was borrowed. Is that the limit? What if next year we need to borrow
$2 TRILLION or maybe $4 TRILLION?
What's the limit?
And what's the limit of government? Can they do anything they
want? Can they stop your
medical treatment if it becomes too expensive? Can they shut down your heat or air
conditioning if you use too much electricity? Can they cut off your food supply
if you gain too much weight? Can
they limit how much carbon you exhale?
What exactly are the limits, because right now there don't
appear to be any limits, none!
I'm hoping Jim Bunning is only the first, in a long line of
others, who force us to ask what are the limits of our government.
And that's all there is to it.
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