Never Send a Political Hack to Defend The Indefensible
Based on what Mr. Shrum says in this article, it’s obvios that he’s clueless on what’s happening outside the Beltway’s echochamber. Here’s the opening to his article:
So after all the bipartisan ambience generated by the White House, the stimulus package passed the House of Representatives without a single Republican vote. The President says he’ll win over some Republicans in the Senate, but Arizona Republican John Kyl claims GOP support there is already “eroding.”
They won’t admit it, but like the de facto leader of their party, Rush Limbaugh, Republicans want the President to “fail.” Their arguments, if one can dignify them as such, are by turns petty, dishonest or ignorant, ahistorical and ugly.
The pettiest point was their complaint about the modest funding for birth control in the original version of the House stimulus bill. Heaven forbid, or at least Pat Robertson does, that the poor would have access to family planning. So at the President’s request, the provision was removed; the funding will come later in a different piece of legislation.
Mr. Shrum is intellectually insulting. Let’s go through his misstatements one at a time, starting with this:
…like the de facto leader of their party, Rush Limbaugh, Republicans want the President to “fail.”
Republicans voted against the President’s bill because it did precious little to create jobs. Most of the money in the House bill is pork, payoffs for political allies or money that’s spent 3 years from now.
What Shrum and his mindless allies at the DCCC are advocating is spending $819 billion. A mere 25-30 percent of that $819 billion are tax cuts. Even the tax cuts aren’t all tax cuts. They’re checks to people who don’t pay taxes. Let’s remember that $4.2 billion is allocated to neighborhood stabilization projects that will be administered by ACORN and like-minded organizations.
Here’s a list of things originally included in Ms. Pelosi’s bill:
- $650 million for digital TV coupons.
- $6 billion for colleges/universities, many which have billion dollar endowments.
- $166 billion in direct aid to states, many of which have failed to budget wisely.
- $50 million in funding for the National Endowment of the Arts.
- $44 million for repairs to U.S. Department of Agriculture headquarters.
- $200 million for the National Mall, including grass planting.
- $400 million for “National Treasures.”
Here’s what John Kasich, the author of the budget bills that brought us 4 straight budget surpluses, told Sean Hannity tonight about the contents of Ms. Pelosi’s Porkfest:
HANNITY: Look. This is $1.2 trillion worth of debt.
KASICH: That’s really unbelievable. Just think about that. Over a trillion dollars. We’re gonna have a deficit of $1 trillion and we don’t even know where the TARP bill is going. We don’t know where this bill is going. Sean, this kind of debt means it’s a claim on future income, which means higher taxes at some point. In the short term, it could mean higher interest rates & it can mean high inflation. Which means if you have any money that you’ve saved and didn’t invest it, those dollars are going to be worth less. Sean, this is a disaster for families & for children.
That’s only part of what John Kasich said. Here’s more:
KASICH: Sean, I would argue with the Democrats before this election that, if Obama doesn’t seize the process, that Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi & all these big spenders, these committee chairmen are just going to jam through everything that they’ve been salivating thinking about & it’s precisely what’s happened. Obama lost control of the process. This is a bill supposedly to get the economy going. You can’t stick all of your stuff in this bill. And Sean, here’s the worst thing: Using an economic crisis when people are afraid (CROSSTALK) And then they go “We’ll jam all this in.” It’s an excuse to jam all their stuff in and Obama better take control of this process or we’ll…
There’s literally pork in this bill for every major special interest group the Democrats have. There’s money in this bill for ACORN, their voter fraud specialists. There’s money in this bill for unions. There’s money in this bill for the environmentalists. There’s money in this bill for House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey’s son:
A top House Republican is demanding an investigation into whether the more than $2 billion for national parks in the House stimulus package is proper in light of the fact that the chief lobbyist for the National Parks Conservation Association is the son of House Appropriations Committee Chairman David R. Obey.
NPCA is a major player in advocating for national parks funding, and its senior vice president for government affairs is Craig Obey, son of the Wisconsin Democrat who has long been his party’s top Appropriations Committee member.
The money included in the stimulus bill that passed Mr. Obey’s committee, $2.25 billion, was about equal to the National Park Service’s total yearly budget, and would be a staggering increase and almost three times the $802 million that the Senate Appropriations Committee approved for park spending in its stimulus bill.
Does this sound like a bill that puts families first? Or does it sound like a bill that puts the Democrats’ special interest allies first?
Here’s something else that John Kasich told Hannity during their interview:
KASICH: When we were balancing the budget, and we did, and we paid down the largest amount of national debt in modern history, we had surpluses, trillions of dollars when our team left Washington. And you know what Sean, we made hard choices. They’re making no hard choices. And rhetoric isn’t going to get it done.
John Kasich and Pete Domenici forced Bill Clinton into making some difficult decisions. I’m certain that they said no to lots of frivolous things. They couldn’t have balanced the budget without first setting their priroities and without putting their foot down.
There’s no reason people should have confidence in President Obama’s economic team. Timothy Geithner doesn’t walk on water. He wasn’t even interested in watching the TARP money sent to NYC banks. Not surprisingly, much of the TARP money vanished.
Once and future presidential candidate Mitt Romney told the GOP House retreat that the size of the recovery package threatened to set off hyperinflation. Either he was intentionally deceptive or, like George W. Bush, he slept through economics classes at Harvard Business School. The danger now is not inflation, but a descent into deflation. An economy with a paralyzed private sector needs public spending to create demand, production, and jobs.
If hundreds of billions dollars worth of extra pork are run through the system over the next 2-3 years, inflation will be high. It will have a dramatic negative effect on the economy. It won’t happen immediately but it will happen:
KASICH: They’re gonna end up with either higher inflation or higher interest rates, a slower economy and ultimately a tax increase because of this tremendous debt.
Anytime I’m confronted with either believing John Kasich or Bob Shrum on economic policy matters, it’s an easy choice. Bob Shrum has been a political hack for the Democratic Party since the Sixties. John Kasich actually balanced the budget 4 straight years.
Forgive me if I’d prefer skipping that multiple disaster question. According to one of the sharpest budgetary minds in our nation’s history, passing this bill will either cause high inflation, high interest rates or be a drag on the economy. I’d rather see Republicans demand that the bill be rewritten to include things that will jumpstart our economy. John Kasich has the right prescription for that:
KASICH: Sean, look, the stimulus package, what they should do is, you’ve gotta cut taxes, give people an idea that they’re gonna be permanent. It will change their behavior. It will give them an incentive to invest in the economy again. Some stimulus? Sure. Roads that are going to improve productivity in the country, not stuff like $60 million for new cars for the federal government.
Taking money away from the job creators is foolishness. This bill doesn’t increase taxes but it doesn’t extend Bush’s tax cuts for small businesses either. With a shaky banking system and the likelihood that the tax cuts that affect them most will soon incresae, why shouldn’t small businesses be cautious?
Bob Shrum has been a loyal liberal attack dog for decades. He isn’t unintelligent. He’s just used to making foolish arguments and talking down to people. This article highlights both those habits. Whle Democrats defend the indefensible, support for the bill drops.
That’s what happens when you trot out a political has-been to make unconvincing arguments for the stimulus bill.
The good news is that we have a number of great spokespeople arguing against it, starting with John Kasich. Anytime the face of the Democratic Party is Bob Shrum or Nancy Pelosi and the face of the Republican Party is John Kasich or Michael Steele is a good day for the GOP.
Thanks to the Mother Of All Porkfests, the GOP looks poised for a run of good days.
Technorati Tags: Bob Shrum, Stimulus Package, David Obey, Nepotism, Pork, Inflation, Nancy Pelosi, Democrats, John Kasich, Balanced Budgets, Fiscal Restraint, Michael Steele, Tax Cuts, Republicans
Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog