Death and Taxes; Clowns and Cowards

By William L. Garvin
“The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.” Thomas Jefferson

The next time you see a recreational vehicle rolling down the highway with the bumper sticker saying “Spending my kid’s inheritance”, take it as a sign of sound financial planning. The other option is to hurry up and die this year before the Bush tax cuts expire and the Death Tax returns!

The current Democrat Congress talks out of both sides of its collective mouth on this issue. The Democrat leadership, including the President, continues to berate Republicans for holding tax cuts “hostage.” First, the Democrats hold an overwhelming majority in both houses. Second, despite this majority, they have not yet introduced a bill to extend the tax cuts. It is hard to fathom how a bill can be stonewalled when it has not even been introduced! Shame on this Democrat duplicity.

Maybe it was the shortage of time. Let’s see, wasn’t the House and the Senate on recess from August 9 through September 12? Maybe it was the arduous nature of governing for a whole three weeks that caused the current cessation of business in the House. Madame Speaker Pelosi was the one who cast the deciding vote to abandon ship and run for the hills. She could just as easily have decided to stay and work for the American people but she chose not to. How can she now blame the Republicans and the nearly forty Democrats who voted to stay in session? Rest assured she’ll find a way.

Maybe the House was so exhausted by rushing to complete the Federal budget before October 1st (the beginning of the federal fiscal year) that they didn’t have time to address the tax issue. But wait…they still have not produced a budget. Either they don’t want the public to know just how bad their economic planning is or they have adopted the incompetent California legislature as their model. In either event, the American people deserve better from their representatives.

They did however have time to bring on the clowns, in this case, Stephen Colbert. Madame Speaker heartily endorsed this lapse in decorum. (That was predictable since she has yet to schedule the hearings for the ethically challenged Maxine Waters and Charlie Rangel.) Now Mr. Colbert could have tried to testify as an informed citizen on the plight of the migrant worker. Instead, he chose to remain “in character” and provided nothing of substance to the proceedings or the consideration of the immigration issue. Naturally, His Smirkiness had nothing at all to say about the crime and cost of illegal aliens.

What of course they did have time to do is set the stage for the lame duck Congress with twenty bills that will spend another $400 billion dollars. By every estimate, there are going to be a considerable number of fiscal conservatives elected to the next Congress. Rather than heeding the will of the American people, the current fiscally irresponsible, tax and spend coalition will do whatever they can to cram more of their redistributive agenda down the taxpayer gullet.

This was made perfectly clear in the Senate. Senator Jim DeMint proposed an amendment to extend the spending resolution from December 3 until February 4, 2011. This would in effect provide the continued funding for all governmental operations in the absence of a budget and resultant allocations. The amendment was voted down 60-39, essentially along party lines. The net result will be a lame duck Congress, many of whom will have no further accountability to the people since they have been voted out, will try to pass an omnibus spending bill. You can count on it being filled with pork, earmarks, and deficit spending.

We have clearly seen with Democrat control of the Presidency, the House, and the Senate that they have an insatiable thirst for spending that can only be quenched by increasing the taxation and confiscation of private wealth. As one political science professor noted: “Republicans play to win; Democrats play dirty to win.” This Administration has proven that maxim!