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Blog No. 19 Senator Lee vs. Scrooge McDuck

IO Nov 2013 - Gold Duck for WebSenator Mike Lee has not been a favorite of RINOcracy.com. Most particularly, we strongly disapproved of his effort, along with that of Ted Cruz, to seek the defunding of Obamacare at the price of a government shutdown. Nevertheless, we salute Senator Lee for his willingness to address an issue that most Republicans have tended to tiptoe away from: income inequality. While the subject is often raised by liberals, a typical Republican response has been to mutter a complaint about “class warfare” and attempt to change the subject.

Senator Lee, however, has introduced legislation intended to mitigate economic hardship through tax reform, and it has drawn favorable comment from several quarters. Nevertheless, as constructive as his proposal may be, Lee’s recognition of our underlying problems and the need for action–by Republicans–may be even more important. Speaking in September to the American Enterprise Institute, Lee’s remarks are worth quoting at some length:Read More »Blog No. 19 Senator Lee vs. Scrooge McDuck

Blog No. 15 The Washington Soap Opera and the Tea Party Tax

The latest episode of our Washington soap opera descended into self-parody, recalling Carol Burnett’s classic “As the Stomach Turns.” Faithful to the formula, the episode ended with the major characters surviving but faced with dire predicaments just ahead. So it was with the bill finally passed by the Senate and House to end the government shutdown and the threat of imminent default. The crisis is over, but not for long: the operation of the government has been continued only through January 15 and the debt ceiling suspended only through February 7.

The most popular phrase to describe Wednesday night’s Congressional action is “kicking the can down the road.” If the beloved William Safire were still among us, he would no doubt enlighten us as to the origin of what has now become a cliché. In Safire’s absence, Timothy Noah of New Republic used Nexis to trace the term back to arms control discussions in the eighties. Noah suggested that kicking the can down the road had not been a bad idea in the earlier context and, writing last January, argued that it might even be the best approach to the budget deficit. Indeed, even in the most recent crisis it was certainly preferable to allowing a government default or even prolonging further the shutdown. But surely enough is enough. Lurching from crisis to crisis is not only a distraction from addressing other important issues, it also deepens public cynicism, and exacts a toll on the economy when we can ill-afford such a burden. That toll could be dubbed most fittingly “The Tea Party Tax” (or in the lexicon of RINOcracy.com, “The Oozlum Tax”).TAX TEA PARTY OOZLUM3Read More »Blog No. 15 The Washington Soap Opera and the Tea Party Tax

Blog No. 2 Taxes, Spending and the Deficit

A development in Congress last week seemed peculiar even by the standards of that troubled institution. For years, Republicans have been complaining – quite reasonably – about the failure of the Senate to pass a budget. Pass a budget, they said, and proceed with the process of negotiating a reconciliation of the budget passed by the House in the ordinary way. Now that the Senate has, after four years, finally passed a budget, three Republicans in the Senate, self-styled “tea-party conservatives,” have blocked the appointment of a Conference Committee to do exactly what the Republicans had been demanding. Senator John McCain’s description of that tactic as “bizarre” seems altogether fitting.Read More »Blog No. 2 Taxes, Spending and the Deficit