Truth - Al Franken [73]
So this wasn’t a left-wing plot to socialize a bastion of free enterprise. This was about corruption trumping principle. Principles like “don’t enslave people” or “don’t force women to have abortions.”
Although the Saipan episode does call DeLay’s “pro-life” credentials into question, at least he was being consistent on the issue of “choice.” On the mainland, Tom DeLay doesn’t want women to be able to choose to have an abortion. On Saipan, he thinks it’s okay if they can’t choose not to.
For Tom DeLay, this wasn’t about human lives. This was about golf trips. It was about his nearest and dearest friend, Jack Abramoff, getting millions of dollars. For these old buddies, government wasn’t about serving the public, it wasn’t about freedom or democracy, it wasn’t even about sticking up for ideological principles. It was about personal gain. Living high off the unspeakable misery of the poor and the powerless.
Republicans. They’re not all like that. But more of them should know that this is what their leaders are about. After all, as Tom DeLay said to the Saipan slave drivers:
You are a shining light for what is happening in the Republican Party.
Saipan and the Tigua are just the tip of the iceberg. In almost every aspect of government—from energy to military contracting to environmental protection to health care—you find the exact same kind of cynical looting and betrayal of the public good.
These people should not be running our country. They should be in prison. Or forced to work at K’s Hideaway, singing “Knock Three Times on the Ceiling If You Want Me” while taking it in the caboose from a Japanese businessman.
Enough vacation. Back to work.
11 Social Security:
Franni vs. Bush
On January 25, 2001, just five days after the inauguration of a new president under disputed circumstances, Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan testified to the Senate Budget Committee about the new challenges posed by the country’s incredibly and unexpectedly sunny fiscal outlook. After eight years of Clinton-style fiscal discipline and economic growth, the era of big deficits was over, and we were running surpluses like nobody’s business. Greenspan was excited.
The most recent projections from the OMB [Office of Management and Budget] indicate that, if current policies remain in place, the total unified surplus will reach $800 billion in fiscal year 2011.
It was hard to believe how good things were. But the numbers were solid. Greenspan painted a picture of abundance with what was, for him, an almost frothy enthusiasm.
In almost any creditable baseline scenario, short of a major and prolonged economic contraction, the full benefits of debt reduction are now achieved before the end of this decade—a prospect that did not seem likely only a year or even six months ago.
In other words, our collective ass was in ice cream. The rules of the game had suddenly changed. Even after making every school in the country a palace; even after spending hundreds of billions on the Star Wars program—maybe even enough to achieve one successful test; even after providing health care to every man, woman, child, and pet in America—and abroad—even after all these things, we’d still have money to burn. We could even afford an enormous, humongous tax cut for the wealthy. In the rest of his speech, Greenspan warned about the dangers of having too much money, of paying off the national debt too quickly.