Dana Milbank captures the awesome lack of intellect of the Republicans elected in 2010. These are the people that the Tea Party wants to elect more of, because they are so much smarter and more awesome than that pretend smarty-pants elected President in 2008.
House freshmen have been on the job for almost exactly a year, and until now they’ve done little more than talk about cutting the national debt.
But on Wednesday morning, eight lawmakers finally decided to take action. They scheduled a “major announcement,” invited the media and declared that they had a plan to reduce the deficit by — are you sitting down? — $1.5 million.
That's Million, with an M.
The eight lawmakers announced that they were returning unused portions of their office budgets in the hope that the money could help pay down the debt. And they were feeling mighty pleased with themselves.
“Now, I can hear the pundits saying, ‘Oh, these freshmen — they’re just grandstanding,’ ” said Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.). Now, why might a pundit say that? Well, maybe because Duncan delivered these words while posing before TV cameras and holding an 11-by-17 mock-up of a check with “taxpayer protection” written in the memo field. Upon completion of the grandstanding, they marched into the Capitol to deliver their “checks” to Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio).
The reason we are making fun of these people is because they don't realize that they are making fools of themselves before the press and even many average Americans. For one thing, $1.5 million when the deficit is being measured in billions and trillions makes them look like rubes. And for another thing,
...returning office money at the end of the year is a routine event on Capitol Hill. As Politico’s Scott Wong noted this week, virtually every senator does it. Many House members do, too — without holding a news conference.
If anything, the exercise showed that thrift among the freshmen lawmakers is relatively rare. Landry said that he and the others invited any lawmaker who had saved office money last year to join them at the event — but the turnout was less than 10 percent of the freshman Republican class.
So all they did was emphasise the fact that more than 90% of the new Republicans elected in 2010 who demanded that government tighten their belts, didn't do the same with their budget. Hmmm.
Milbank ends with this,
But the low dollar value didn’t detract at all from the lawmakers’ overpowering sense of self-righteousness. As skeptical questions came in from the congressional reporters, Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho) became defensive. “People like yourselves question the motives of people who are trying to cut down the debt,” he complained.
No, but they do question the motives of people who, a year after arriving in Washington with plans to change it forever, march around the Capitol grounds with phony checks.
This isn't to poke fun at the fact that these eight Congressmen saved the government some money. Good for them, really. It's about proportion, thinking little accomplishments warrant great attention and praise. Many others do what they did every year without fanfare. And more to the point, saving money from a Congressman's budget is a lot less painful than trimming billions from programs that feed the poor or help kids pay for college, which is what Republicans are demanding.
--Trakker
Give half back
Budget 2x. It works at home, too.
Posted by: horsec | February 02, 2012 at 08:21 PM