Joe Biden: Scaring the little people in flyover land
In another version of the “pushing granny over the cliff” scare which typified the resistance mounted by Democrats to Social Security reform, VP Joe Biden is out there trying to scare the people about crime in order to spend more on shoring up the Democratic base (more political cronyism) to be found in teacher’s and public servant’s unions:
“Murder will continue to rise, rape will continue to rise, all crimes will continue to rise,” if the Democrats agenda isn’t passed, he added.
Because, you know, there’s a direct correlation between murder, rape and the number of cops on the beat.
Except both murder and rape stats have been in a downward trend since 2006. In 2006 the murder rate per 100,000 was 5.7, rape 30.9.
In 2010 the rate for murder was 4.8 and rape 27.5. In the two intervening years, those numbers continued to fall. And we all know we’ve been in the recession for at least 3 years and there have been cutbacks in police during that time.
So, unsurprisingly Biden is wrong and is pushing a myth (they’ll “continue rising”) when in fact, the stats show a steady drop for the past 4 years.
But he’s shameless in his fact free attack:
Then in the same speech he wished Republicans were themselves rape victims. “I wish they had some notion of what it was like to be on the other side of a gun, or [to have] a 200-pound man standing over you, telling you to submit.”
Amazing. Vice President of the US and trying to pull this political hackery complete with the usual scare tactics off. Of course, look at his boss.
~McQ
Twitter: @McQandO
Harry Reid: Crony jobs bill to shore up the political base
If you’ve ever wanted a good argument against seniority as a good way to pick leaders, Harry Reid is your poster boy. The Nevada Democratic Senator and House Majority leader manages to make himself look stupid on any number of occasions during a legislative year. His latest:
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Wednesday indicated Congress needs to worry about government jobs more than private-sector jobs, and that this is why Senate Democrats are pushing a bill aimed at shoring up teachers and first-responders.
“It’s very clear that private-sector jobs have been doing just fine; it’s the public-sector jobs where we’ve lost huge numbers, and that’s what this legislation is all about,” Reid said on the Senate floor.
Really? That’s the sector “government” needs to worry about more because “private-sector jobs have been doing just fine?” Where in the world, other than the Senate cloak room, has this man been?
What this is, and anyone who can’t figure this out doesn’t deserve to be in a political discussion, is just another version of cronyism. Teachers unions and government unions are where you find the Democrat base. This is throwing taxpayer money to that base in order to shore it up for the upcoming election. Nothing more.
He has access to your tax dollars and spending them in this way benefits his party. Screw the country, he has an election to win. Of course he’s also the Senate leader who hasn’t offered a budget in over 900 days. That’s dereliction of duty.
Reid reiterated his emphasis on creating government jobs by saying Democrats are looking to “put hundreds of thousands of people back to work teaching children, have more police patrolling our streets, firefighters fighting our fires, doing the rescue work that they do so well … that’s our priority.” He said Republicans are calling the bill a “failure” because they are “using a different benchmark for success than we are.”
Yeah, they’re using the private sector where jobs generate revenue for taxes to pay for all the nonsense Reid spouts.
Government workers are not producers in the sense of the production we need to get the economy going. But they are voters. This is an attempt to keep them in the Democratic corral long enough to get Democrats re-elected. Then Harry probably won’t care very much again.
Remember, when Obama was calling for his jobs bill to be given priority, Harry Reid was on the Senate floor expounding on the virtue of … bike paths (and, naturally, calling for government to pay for them).
Ever get the idea that we’re all now serfs on a huge plantation paying for the whims of our “leaders”.
~McQ
Twitter: @McQandO
More ObamaCare waivers an indication that it is bad law
There’s a lot being written and said about the latest batch of ObamaCare waivers and the fact that many have gone to companies in Nancy Pelosi’s area. And, of course, the agency granting them has claimed that Pelosi had absolutely no effect on them being granted.
Okay, that’s not the important point anyway. Tim Pawlenty actually manages to stumble across it as he claims cronyism in their grant:
"I don’t blame people for trying to get out from underneath it — that it is an awful law," Pawlenty said. "But when you have that many needs for exemptions, it tells you that the law — it is a warning sign that the law is broken and doesn’t work."
Ya think? You have about 26 or 27 states challenging the Constitutionality of the bill and its individual mandate. You have hundreds, if not thousands of companies, agencies and businesses seeking waivers. And obviously, there’s an organization in place to grant those waivers. Imagine a job where you review and grant waivers to a law. I don’t know about you, but that would tell me there must be something fundamentally wrong with it.
Pawlenty is also correct about his broader point – those without the ability to appeal for a waiver are stuck with paying the piper:
"Another example of really crony politics or crony capitalism, if you’ve got the right connections, the right lobbyists, the right interest group, you get your special deal, and the rest of us get our wallet out, and that’s in the tax code, it’s in earmarking, and now you see it in ObamaCare.”
Yes, exactly. His larger point is absolutely correct. Those without the connections do indeed end up having our wallets looted. Cronyism is certainly alive and well and very prevalent not only in the treatment of ObamaCare, but in other areas as well. Which brings up an ironic point – for the party of “fairness” this seems singularly unfair. Yet Democrats aid and abet it – in fact, just like Republicans, they use this sort of process to gain favor with certain constituencies … at the expense of others. And by expense, I’m including paying the bill too.
ObamaCare is an obviously wretched law. What was supposed to be insurance reform ended up being a polyglot of government bureaucracy at a huge and unaffordable price.
Now we hear the House GOP members saying that repealing it is “hard”. We hear candidates like Romney and Gingrich saying they agree with parts of it, like the individual mandate. Cronyism is directly linked to power – it’s a give and take process that benefits politicians. It comes as no surprise to me that both sides are engaged in it up to their necks. The problem is it is unlikely to ever get fixed since it is the fox guarding the hen house and enjoying the job.
~McQ
Twitter: @McQandO