CONFUSED CONSERVATIVES

"Conservative" (yeah, sure) Congressional Republicans have replaced their hero, Ronald Reagan, with Mr. Potato Head, who better reflects their intellectual heritage.


That sound you don’t hear is the thundering silence of self anointed “true conservatives” not screaming in protest over the “stimulus package” which finally united Republicans and Democrats in Congress. What can you call a bill which will ladle out over $160 billion this summer in “rebates” of $600, $1,200 for married couples, plus $300 per child, to Americans? I almost wrote “taxpayers,” except that the bill’s largesse does not extend to wealthier taxpayers who earn a few thousand over $75,000 ($150,000 for married couples) while dispensing billions of dollars to those who pay no taxes but who do have a valid Social Security number (illegals need not apply). So they aren’t rebates to those who paid nothing in taxes.

“Communism,” perhaps? After all, the bill does nothing less than to redistribute the wealth of the nation-- if that nation is China or Saudi Arabia, from whom we will cheerfully borrow the money to be tossed in the air like Pac Man partying in a Vegas strip club. Naah, “communism” is too retro, too 1950’s. It’s lost its sting. Maybe “bribery” would be a better term, since, not coincidentally, the checks will arrive just a scant few months before every member of the House and one-third of the Senate is up for election- including two Senators who will be vying to take the top spot in the executive branch.

And here is what our Congress hath wrought: a drain on the United States Treasury to subsidize short term purchases (Congress’s stated hope) that will get our economy kick started again just in time for the Fall elections. None of that money will go for desperately needed infrastructure repairs, benefits for wounded veterans, or extended unemployment for those laid off in the recession.

True conservatives, how do you feel about the fact that our fiscally imprudent lawmakers declined to pass any legislation that would cut spending or increase taxes to pay for the giveaway? Where were your gatekeepers? Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell jumped on the giveaway bandwagon, alongside his ideological soulmates, Ted Kennedy and John Kerry. Georgia’s uber conservative Saxby Chambless didn’t blink an eye at signing on to this misbegotten piece of legislation. Hey, he’s up for re-election this year. Perhaps he can provide us plebians with some circuses to go with the bread he is parceling out. And you can’t blame Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama for this example of 21st century irresponsibility- they didn’t bother to show up to vote. But John McCain voted- yea, of course. After all, he’s the “liberal” Republican in the race for President.

And the hero of the American Legion and the American Enterprise Institute, who had no problemo vetoing extra funds for health care for children because some needy adults might get helped, too? Does he have his veto pen ready to wield? Here’s the damning quote from the White House: "This plan is robust, broad-based, timely, and it will be effective," President Bush said in a statement. He called it "an example of bipartisan cooperation at a time when the American people most expect it."

Okay dittoheads, Limbaugh listeners, Fox news channel compulsives. Read those quotes again, and then try to muster enough breath to tell the rest of us who live in the real world why we should elect conservative Republicans instead of those dastardly “tax and spend” Democrats who would turn our wonderful Darwinist capitalistic U.S. of A. into a Socialist workers’ paradise.

And please don’t let your heads explode from the cognitive dissonance of watching your beloved leaders sign on to legislation that would have made Karl Marx proud. Republicans, it turns out, can pander to the masses with the best of them, doling out dollops of borrowed money to the undeserving in hopes that they will further unbalance our trade deficit by spending their government checks buying Asian manufactured electronic toys.