Posted by
Rich on Saturday, March 22, 2008 9:29:45 AM
Have you ever noticed the primary difference between liberals and conservatives?
Liberals attack government to get more of it.
Conservatives attack government to get less of it.
Our very liberal friend and former editor of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune Waldo Proffitt is the perfect example. In his column, "Hostile takeover of government" he remembers the good old days of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Mr. Big Government himself.
FDR
gave us Social Security, which is about to bankrupt this country. If
FDR had supported private savings accounts in the 1930s we would all be
millionaires by now. How could FDR have known that government would
take the money we put into Social Security and use it to feed more
government rather than invest it in our economy? Social Security is the
biggest Ponzi scheme ever.
Anyway,
Waldo rants against the usual suspects President George W. Bush and
former Governor Jeb Bush, "So, here in Florida, with a Bush as
president and a Bush as governor, we got a double-strength
prescription: Cut taxes, cut services, dismantle regulations. Cripple
Social Security. Turn over Medicare to private companies. Make it more
expensive for children to get medical care. Make it more expensive to
attend college, and more difficult to fund decent public schools. Do
not spend enough to maintain roads, bridges and other elements of the
infrastructure."
We say fantastic, congratulations to GWB and
Jeb. Let's do more of it. Less government regulation, privatize Social
Security, privatize and deregulate Medicare, cut taxes, cut
non-essential services, privatize our state colleges and universities,
provide real school choice by providing vouchers to parents, eliminate
the onerous property taxes and move them over to the fairer sales tax,
and let families bear the burdens of taking care of their own by
empowering them.
Take all the money saved from doing these
things and give it to the people and families that pay taxes. Do not
give it to those who do not pay taxes. We want to see a national sales
tax and elimination of the income tax because one taxes consumption and
other productivity. If we can't do this immediately then let's start
with a flat tax and have everyone in America pay something toward our
national defense. That is fair.
As for the S&L crisis of the
1970s we say we are glad it happened, just as we are glad we are having a
sub-prime problem now. That is how the markets work. Lenders gave money
to more and more people so they could buy their own homes. Some were
speculators and they got burned, good. Some were honest families that
stretched their budget to have the American dream, let's try to help
them with lower interest rates or a temporary freeze in rates. Some
were given loans to feed the greed of the market, punish the predatory
lenders. Otherwise let the market correct itself. Will we all feel some
pain? Yes. Will we get through this crisis? Yes.
The thing that
is really is disgusting about Waldo's article is his "cheap shot" at
Senator John McCain. Waldo refers to the Keating Five congressional
investigation that was part of the S&L crisis. The Keating Five
were 4 Democrats and one Republican.
After a lengthy
investigation, the Senate Ethics Committee determined in 1991 that
Democrats Alan Cranston, Dennis DeConcini, and Donald Riegle had
substantially and improperly interfered with the FHLBB in its
investigation of Lincoln Savings, while Democrat John Glenn and
Republican John McCain had been only minimally involved. The Committee
recommended censure for Cranston and criticized the other four for
"questionable conduct."
That is it. In reality the lawyer who
headed up the investigation said that he recommended that Senator
McCain be dropped from the investigation. The Senate Ethics Committee
disagreed because if they did that then it would only be Democrats
left. They needed a token Republican - John McCain.
Waldo knows
this and still slings mud. Sad that Waldo would stoop so low. But that
is what former employees of the New York Times do. Sling mud without
basis in fact. We call that in the blogosphere "tabloid journalism".
We agree with Ronald Reagan who said, "Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other."
If we stop feeding the government baby we will get less you know what coming out the other end.