No one can accuse the Lame Duck session of this Congress of being dull.
At first, Congress was busy fulfilling Rich Lowry’s (National Review) description of this as the Lame Duck with a tin ear. With the critical need and an emphatic electorate calling for immediate action on the economy and jobs, the Democrats were more interested in slipping in the last few liberal pet projects they didn’t get jammed into the Stimulus bill. Only people like Reid and Pelosi would consider the Dream Act, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and internet poker the top priority items under our current national situation.
The Debt Commission’s report provided some food for thought to break things up. The Commission came up with some useful ideas but in such a short time to consider it, there was little hope of adopting it as is and so it got swept aside.
But things really started popping with the unveiling of the compromise tax deal agreed upon by Congressional leaders, the president’s top financial brains and the President himself. As if the compromise deal didn’t itself provide enough fodder for questions and anger, the President outdid himself in a somewhat surrealistic news conference in which, as former Bush press secretary Dana Perino put it, he managed to “make both sides mad at him.”
One commentator noted that incoming House Speaker John Boehner had been notably silent the last few days, while fireworks went off all over Washington. The reason being, of course, was he didn’t want to risk blocking anyone’s view of the Democrats ripping and tearing at each other over how bad they felt the deal was. After all the nasty things Dems said about the deal and the President’s failure to appease the far left of his own party, House Democrats spent Wednesday trying to drum up enough support to force a vote in their own caucus to prove to the President that they wouldn’t even get a majority in their own Democratic caucus. They hoped that would be enough to make sure the deal would not even make it to the House floor for a vote.
Many of the left’s staunchest Congressional members fairly seethed with indignation that the “rich” were to be handed some windfall. The left is totally clueless that when they declare any citizen’s retained earnings as a “cost” to the government, they look like some wild-eyed fanatic on a Russian street corner fanning the flames of class warfare. A whole procession of Dems lined up at one news event, coming to the microphone I succession, raging against letting the “wealthy” keep some more of their money. The 59 percent of their income that the top one percent already contributes to fund the government is entirely inadequate, apparently. I sometimes wonder if they would even blink momentarily through their frothing if one of their number introduced a bill to take 100 percent of the earnings of all millionaires.
The President did nothing but fan the flames of class warfare at his news conference. No one appreciates the absurdity of such rhetoric better than Stuart Varney, the British-born financial commentator on Fox and Fox Business. He concluded an appearance on Sean Hannity’s program on Tuesday (Fox News Channel, 12/07/10) thusly:
“This is the United States of America, not old Europe. Class warfare does not work in this meritocracy that is called America.”
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Lame Duck with Tin Ear Entertaining But Not Productive So Far
No one can accuse the Lame Duck session of this Congress of being dull.
At first, Congress was busy fulfilling Rich Lowry’s (National Review) description of this as the Lame Duck with a tin ear. With the critical need and an emphatic electorate calling for immediate action on the economy and jobs, the Democrats were more interested in slipping in the last few liberal pet projects they didn’t get jammed into the Stimulus bill. Only people like Reid and Pelosi would consider the Dream Act, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and internet poker the top priority items under our current national situation.
The Debt Commission’s report provided some food for thought to break things up. The Commission came up with some useful ideas but in such a short time to consider it, there was little hope of adopting it as is and so it got swept aside.
But things really started popping with the unveiling of the compromise tax deal agreed upon by Congressional leaders, the president’s top financial brains and the President himself. As if the compromise deal didn’t itself provide enough fodder for questions and anger, the President outdid himself in a somewhat surrealistic news conference in which, as former Bush press secretary Dana Perino put it, he managed to “make both sides mad at him.”
One commentator noted that incoming House Speaker John Boehner had been notably silent the last few days, while fireworks went off all over Washington. The reason being, of course, was he didn’t want to risk blocking anyone’s view of the Democrats ripping and tearing at each other over how bad they felt the deal was. After all the nasty things Dems said about the deal and the President’s failure to appease the far left of his own party, House Democrats spent Wednesday trying to drum up enough support to force a vote in their own caucus to prove to the President that they wouldn’t even get a majority in their own Democratic caucus. They hoped that would be enough to make sure the deal would not even make it to the House floor for a vote.
Many of the left’s staunchest Congressional members fairly seethed with indignation that the “rich” were to be handed some windfall. The left is totally clueless that when they declare any citizen’s retained earnings as a “cost” to the government, they look like some wild-eyed fanatic on a Russian street corner fanning the flames of class warfare. A whole procession of Dems lined up at one news event, coming to the microphone I succession, raging against letting the “wealthy” keep some more of their money. The 59 percent of their income that the top one percent already contributes to fund the government is entirely inadequate, apparently. I sometimes wonder if they would even blink momentarily through their frothing if one of their number introduced a bill to take 100 percent of the earnings of all millionaires.
The President did nothing but fan the flames of class warfare at his news conference. No one appreciates the absurdity of such rhetoric better than Stuart Varney, the British-born financial commentator on Fox and Fox Business. He concluded an appearance on Sean Hannity’s program on Tuesday (Fox News Channel, 12/07/10) thusly:
“This is the United States of America, not old Europe. Class warfare does not work in this meritocracy that is called America.”
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on December 8, 2010 at 6:42 pm Leave a CommentTags: Political & Economics Commentary
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