A fiend in need, a right-winger indeed

‘To have revenue there must be taxes’

- To be identified below


Time to lay down the law, literally: You want services, find the money. You want limited government, we’ll limit your own government.

This would be a politically opportune time for President Obama and congressional Democrats to do just that.

So there was Susan Collins crying about post offices that might close on Maine’s offshore islands. Michael G. Grimm and Nan Hayworth bawled about flood victims on Staten Island and in upstate New York counties. In South Carolina, fellow Republicans who want to rule us crowed about shrinking the very government that currently operates remote post offices and brings relief to citizens who lose their homes to Irene.

Then Mitt Romney told the faithful for presidential contenders on Labor Day that Americans “simply have to rein back government to be what it was considered by the founders.”

Founders like George Washington? From the farewell address in 1796 of America’s first president: “It is essential that you should practically bear in mind that towards the payment of debts there must be revenue; that to have revenue there must be taxes; that no taxes can be devised which are not more or less inconvenient and unpleasant; that the intrinsic embarrassment, inseparable from the selection of the proper objects, ought to be a decisive motive for a candid construction of the conduct of the government in making it, and for a spirit of acquiescence in the measures for obtaining revenue, which the public exigencies may at any time dictate.”

Republicans define “public exigencies” according to their political exigencies.

Unemployment insurance is no exigency for Republicans. Neither is health care. Nor gun-related crime in Philadelphia and other big cities. Unless these issues involve enough of their constituents, they don’t care.

Eric Cantor picked the wrong issue when he urged that money to help flood victims be offset by other cuts. The House majority leader made himself vulnerable to attacks because to even hint at this is tantamount to opposing motherhood and apple pie. This was compounded by criticisms from Republicans whose constituents must now swim for their supper.

Maine Sen. Susan Collins, ranking Republican on the Senate’s Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said at a committee hearing on Sept. 6, 2011, that post offices on two islands in Maine could be shut down as part of the Postal Service’s effort to close its deficit. As a visitor to Maine, I share her concerns about the closings and any actions which might be detrimental to Maine.

However, Collins has habitually stuck with Republican positions - with some exceptions - that have driven this country into the ground, particularly her ongoing support for tax cuts for the wealthy.

Collins joined Sen. Thomas Carper, a Delaware Democrat who chairs the subcommittee charged with post office oversight, in attacking the Obama administration for its inadequate response to the post office’s crisis. “The proposals put forward by the administration to date have been insufficient,” Carper said, as The New York Times reported. (nyt, b8, 9/7/11)

“I just don’t understand why the administration doesn’t have a plan to put before us today, given the dire straits that we’re in,” Collins added.

We take their word for it, but why should Obama bother with a plan if Congress refuses to allot him sufficient funds?

House Republicans smacked back at Cantor, indirectly, in demanding aid for their constituents, particularly northeastern representatives who sounded off in a Times piece. (nyt, a24, 9/7/11)

“You can’t put a number on keeping citizens safe,” said Michael G. Grimm of Staten Island, where many homes were flooded. “It’s something the federal government must do. For example, if we’re attacked, we wouldn’t hold a budget meeting.”

Nan Hayworth, who represents northern Westchester and other counties due north of NYC, said, “My priority in the coming weeks will be to see that the Hudson Valley has all the federal resources necessary to recover from Hurricane Irene. I simply won’t let politics get in the way of doing the right thing for our families and communities that have been affected by the disaster.”

Funny, but she never let “politics” stop her before.

Cheers to Rick Perry for criticizing the distribution of $245 billion in federal farm subsidies from 1995 to 2009, as he did in a book published in 2010. Were we surprised to learn he received at least $83,000 in farm subsidies between 1987 and 1998 when he was a cotton farmer in West Texas, as The New York Times reported. When he becomes president, he pledges, government will become more “inconsequential” in our lives.

As inconsequential, perhaps, as the $17 billion in federal stimulus money that the Texas governor used to balance his state’s budget; the $2.03 billion in a recent fiscal year for Texas’ role in the No Child Left Behind program; his acceptance of a $1 million federal grant to administer health-care services; his demand and receipt for federal money to fight wildfires; and his request to the federal government for $350 million to imprison illegal immigrants in county jails and state prisons in 2009 and 2010. All this was catalogued in the same Times article. (nyt, fp, 8/29/11)

Obama was wise to target a defective bridge linking Ohio to Kentucky in need of repair - the home states of House Majority Leader John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, respectively - as he touts his jobs bill which calls for higher taxes on the wealthy.

Obama and congressional Democrats and other good-government advocates can hammer home Republican demands for federal money when they need it for their home states and districts.

Moral of this story: Republican leaders might be careful in the future about living in adjoining states.