Sen. Specter: “It’s the Best We Could Get”
Arlen Specter should be ashamed of himself. Not only did he stab Republicans in the back. Not only did he help exponentially increase the size and scope of the federal government. Now he’s saying that this compromise was the best they could do:
“Personally, I would prefer not to be on the edge of the pin, as so frequently is the case in this body,” Specter said in a floor speech last night. “But I do believe we have to act, and under the circumstances, this is the best we can do.”
Note to Sen. Specter: Not letting the Senate act would have forced Democrats to scale back the size of this monstrosity of a bill. Had you and the Dames from Maine held together with the rest of your Senate GOP colleagues, you could’ve forced President Obama and the Democrats to trim hundreds of billions of dollars of wasteful spending from the bill.
This is what happens when voters let politicians stay in Washington too long. Their priorities turn into the lobbyists’ priorities rather than their constituents’ priorities.
The price we’ll pay for this abdication of fiscal restraint is immense. Not only are we spending alot more money now. The dirty little secret is that the spending in this bill gets added to the budget baseline for the next budget cycle. Once budgets are set, that amount is forever calculated into future appropriations.
I know this isn’t a glitzy subject but I’ll put it forward anyway. Now’s the time to start a campaign for replacing baseline budgeting with zero-based budgeting. Democrats, with the aid of a couple wayward Republicans, telegraphed their intent to dramatically increase the size of government.
Instead of sitting still, we need to tell Democrats and other lobbyist puppets that we won’t tolerate their misbehavior. We need to tell the lobbyists’ puppets that we demand smart policies that shrink the amount of inflation. It’s time government started doing the will of the people.
Specter said that against the backdrop of mounting job losses announced yesterday, “the psychological impact if we were to reject an activist approach would be devastating.” He said the “eyes and ears of the world” were on the U.S. government, watching its response to the economic crisis.
Specter said he had already noted “certain grave concerns” with the stimulus legislation and had asked President Obama why he was “wedded” to completing action on it by Feb. 13. Specter said he told Obama this was too fast “for a bill of this magnitude.”
Instead of holding out for a bill that won’t piss our money away in unprecedented amounts, Sen. Specter agreed to vote for this abomination. Instead of telling President Obama that the priorities expressed in this legislation were wrong priorities, Sen. Specter caved. Instead of demanding a bill that doesn’t impose a hidden tax increase in the form of higher inflation, Sen. Specter agreed to waste an unprecedented amount of money.
What’s worse is that Sen. Specter has bought into the myth that we’re experiencing a genuine crisis. We aren’t. We’re in a recession that needs to be put into the rearview mirror. We don’t need, however, to panic, which is what President Obama and the Democrats are selling.
I wish Sen. Specter had read what I wrote here:
This is not a jobs bill. It’s a political payoff.
This is not a jobs bill. It’s a political payoff.
This is not a jobs bill. It’s a political payoff.
This is not a jobs bill. It’s a political payoff.
Another sad part to this story is that Sen. Specter’s vote hands the seat to the Democrats in 2010. Pennsylvania political insiders I’ve talked with expect Josh Shapiro, a Philly state representative, to win.
Technorati Tags: Stimulus, Inflation, Recession, Arlen Specter, RINOs, President Obama, Fearmongering, Democrats
Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog
February 7th, 2009 at 11:27 pm
Whadaya mean, these guys aren’t Democrats? They’re jackasses, aren’t they?