On Apr 6, 2:31 pm, Keith In Tampa <keithinta...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Let us hope that it is not that far yet D.B. I pray that it is not
> deteriorated that badly.....
Well, Keith, let's take a look:
[Q] - By almost every measure, Washington is hopelessly corrupt.
And we are at once victims and accomplices.
Career politicians are spending the country to near-bankruptcy as they
feather their own nests, tighten their leash on our necks and pat us
on the head. They take our money, bend it to their will, then return
small portions of it at their discretion to make us feel it has all
been worth it.
Washington is to the taxpayer as the drug cartels are to the
addict. . . . Meanwhile, with the power to give out our money as they
wish, congressmen take campaign money from lobbyists and industries
they regulate. Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., is only the latest poster boy
for that, but boy is he a good one. There may be no one who better
represents all that is wrong with Washington. The powerful Senate
Banking Committee chairman got a sweetheart mortgage from Countrywide;
he has received $280,000 in campaign contributions from troubled
insurer AIG; and he made sure that AIG executive bonuses were
untouched by Congress — then claimed for 24 hours that he knew nothing
about it, before reporters forced him to admit the truth. --
http://chronicle.augusta.com/stories/2009/04/05/edi_517159.shtml
Meanwhile, back at the trough:
[Q] - The Obama aide disclosure that shocked me wasn’t Lawrence
Summers making $5 million at a hedge fund, but Tom Donilon “earning
$3.9 million as a partner at the Washington law firm O’Melveny &
Myers.” … Summers is a big-time economist, advising people with lots
of money at stake on questions that involve, you know, equations. He
had to “solve math puzzles” to get hired! I’d expect him to be
expensive. But Donilon’s just a political Washington lawyer. He makes
almost $4M? Wow. I didn’t know I’d fallen so far behind. Somebody
really ought to do something about the growing income inequality in
our society. --
http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/kausfiles/archive/2009/04/06/tom-braden-s-omituary-plus-sniggergate-and-donilon-envy.aspx
I mean, yellow-belly cops are one thing, but this is another:
[Q] - It was surely an act of hubris for President Obama to ask
Congress to approve a $3.6 trillion federal budget for 2010 that runs
a trillion-dollars worth of red ink its first year and then projects
half-trillion deficits every year thereafter for a decade. Congress
has never before been asked to consider spending of such magnitude,
not even during wartime. Obama’s budget proposal also included
provisions committing the nation to far-reaching policy changes that
are certain to drive federal taxes higher, send gasoline and
electricity costs soaring, socialize doctors and patients by putting
Washington bureaucrats in charge of health care, and make Uncle Sam
the Daddy Warbucks of college tuition for everybody. . . . So how did
Congress deal with this landmark legislation? The House of
Representatives gave opponents exactly 20 minutes to present an
alternative, then gaveled the Obama measure to approval. The Senate
approved it after considering a handful of amendments. But note that
even before the 2010 budget was approved, this Congress had approved
spending more than $1.2 trillion, or $24 billion per day. That’s $1
billion every hour since the 111th Congress convened in January. --
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/Banana-republic-budgeting-should-shame-Obama-Congress-42502587.html
That's just a cursory look, today. So, yes, I'd say we're well beyond
the politeness of tea parties. Which means Americans are either tone
deaf, or trapped by abject fear. As if they didn't have a drop of
Irish blood coursing through their frightened veins.
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