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12/17/2009
Parins on Congress: Goodbye to Institutional Memory
“There ain't going to be no money for nothing if we pour it all into Afghanistan. If they ask for an increased troop commitment in Afghanistan, I am going to ask them to pay for it.” – US Rep. David Obey
Okay, Dave Obey, so sharp tongued, witty and colorful, a veritable Will Rogers of a lawmaker. And it seems so reasonable to require President O’s Administration to pay for government priorities in the war on terror (cough or clear your throat here, maybe blow your nose.) But there is something askew with Obey’s ‘war surtax’. Can you see it? Not if you look straight at it. Head on it makes some sense, injecting the idea of shared sacrifice in this long and paradigm-shattering war.
President Bush2 failed in that respect, telling Americans after Sept. 11, 2001 to just go back to shopping. Shopping, a traditional American activity after all, would let the terrorists know that they had not won. After all, he calculated, this was a contribution Americans could make to the war on terror.
He was so wrong, and as many Presidents before him, he proceeded to compound his error with his own $168 billion stimulus plan, featuring absurd, minute (laugh here) tax rebate checks to help you shop. Let’s not fail to mention the adieu-unto-you $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program [TARP] encore and another, final curtain $100 billion to bail out GM and AIG.
Cue the “real” spending please, as First Chair Pelosi and the Peoples Democratic Orchestra, tuned and ready to pick up the next chorus of spending, never missed a beat, plunging the Nation into a debt spiral from which recovery demands the steely nerve and bow string sinew last exhibited by the GI generation.
Back to Obey: Can you see it now, the error of his ways? Here it is:
Dear Mr. Obey: If it is so important that your president pay for an expansion of a war necessary to keep terrorism off our shores, why the Holy Canoli did you not make our Supreme Commander pay for his bloody worthless $768 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.?!?!?!!!
WHAT IN GOD’S NAME WERE YOU AND CONGRESS THINKING? Where was the need to pay for the war then? You should have every hair of that natty grey beard plucked from your chinny-chin-chin with rusty tweazers in Wausau City Hall by a Republican granny with arthritis and astygmatism.
Priorities are smart at all levels of government, we need to prioritize spending. I can agree we need to prioritize military spending to support our soldiers out there stiff arming terrorism for us unworthy masses. God bless you all.
Mr. Obey, I do not support your war surtax; your sudden realization that we need to prioritize spending - after 40 years in Congress and a chairman’s gavel on the House Appropriations Committee - your fiscal epiphany is precisely the reason why we need to hang institutional memory and THROW OUT every last member of your august body.
Spare no one. Throw out every member of Congress! They always argue how their institutional memory makes them more valuable if re-elected - and you know what that institutional memory is worth? Zero, zilch, nada. Were we able to toss the legions of federal bureaucrats with them, we could make a real difference.
Because here is what the Institutional Memory whispers to members of Congress: When your grandfather’s Congress faced adversity, they taxed a little more and spent a little more and everything got better. And when your father’s Congress stared down woeful times, they taxed a little more and spent a little more and all was well again. So, when trouble breathes down your neck, what are you going to do?
We now have an entire Congress that has never innovated, never even met the Mother of Invention. All they know is, “When the going gets tough, the tough tax a great deal more and spend a great deal more.” Incapable of thinking outside that box, as history proves, they won’t be able to think for themselves until they are tossed out on their cans.
It is a crying shame, folks, but our backs are against the wall and we have limited choices but to strike out at friend and foe alike. They are all infected and must be purged, to save our constitutional life, liberty and property.
Richard Parins is the President of the Brown County Taxpayers Association.
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