Yes, I'm going to call these guys hijackers. When you take things hostage to further your ideological goals, that's what you are, a hijacker.
Demanding bigger budget cuts, Republican Senator Tom Coburn is taking the 9/11 memorial hostage.
No shame at all. War spending? According to Republicans, we can't cut it EVER. Taxes? We can never raise them, EVER. Thus, we can't afford anything else. This is why we can't have nice things.
Sen. Tom Coburn is blocking legislation that would provide $20 million a year in federal funding for the National September 11 Memorial & Museum at ground zero, demanding that co-sponsors of the bill come up with cuts to pay for the spending, his office confirmed to POLITICO.
“Our debt is our greatest national security threat, and Dr. Coburn makes no apologies for forcing Congress to make choices and avoid unnecessary borrowing,” said John Hart, a spokesman for the Oklahoma Republican. “If providing federal funding for this effort is a critical national priority, the sponsors should pay for this effort by reducing spending on lower-priority programs.
“It is also important to question why we need a $20 million earmark for a 9/11 memorial when private and patriotic Americans across the country are generously supporting this noble cause,” Hart added.
thinkprogress.org
Bold text added by the diarist
I thought terrorism was our greatest national security threat? I thought that was why we are at these wars in the first place.
Unreal.
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In your state, Senator Coburn, there is a memorial to honor the victims of the Oklahoma City bombing by a terrorist named Timothy McVeigh. Can you imagine what an insult it is to say that we can not honor our dead in New York unless we allow you to hurt Americans somewhere else to defray the cost? How would the people of Oklahoma feel if a New York Senator did that to them? Did you consider that some of the people hurt in your budget cuts to offset the $20 million for the 9/11 memorial might be from Oklahoma, or in New York? Oh, my mistake, I was under the assumption that you might care about the victims of 9/11. My bad.
I think we should end the wars. I think we should tax the rich. When Tom Coburn says that America can't even afford war memorials, he is saying that I am right without making budget cuts that will hurt Americans somewhere else
Now, to be fair, Senator Coburn is one of the few Republicans who actually agrees with me that we can afford to make cuts to America's runaway military budget. The American Navy, for instance, costs more than the next eleven largest navies in the world combined. But it's not like Senator Coburn is against having wars, it is paying for wars that he has a problem with. Republicans look at war and tax cuts like a free lunch, we don't have to pay for them, they pay for themselves. They don't. Someone has to pay, nothing is free. The rich refuse to pay their fair share, not in taxes, not in workers wages, nothing. Budget cuts are being paid for in the suffering of regular people who will feel the pinch when the services that they depend on go underfunded, and those people aren't corporations, they are people like Tom Coburn's constituents in Oklahoma, but Tom Coburn doesn't care. On paper he will tell his staffers to say that building a 9/11 memorial is a noble cause. In reality, he is against it.
Taking the 9/11 memorial hostage for budget cuts when you are a full-throated supporter of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that we launched because of the terror strikes by al Qaeda on 9/11 doesn't just make you a hypocrite, it makes you a monster. If you truly want to honor the victims of the terror attacks on 9/11 do not block the funding of the 9/11 memorial, take anything else hostage, though I would not that taking things hostage is in itself a terror tactic, but the irony of that would certainly be lost on you.
Therefore, if I may be so bold, on behalf of my fellow New Yorkers, allow me to give you a hearty, New York style "Fuck you, Senator Tom Coburn".
The only difference between Tom Coburn and any other hijacker is that for some reason, Republican voters keep sending these hijackers to the Senate
Until they stop this hijacking of the 9/11 memorial to further their ideological cause, every Republican should change their bumper-stickers to say "Remember 9/11, unless I have to pay taxes for it."
You can follow me on Twitter @JesseLaGreca
12:31 PM PT: I have removed the word "Christian" from the description of Timothy McVeigh because though my point was to say that not all Muslims are terrorists, I do not want to insinuate in any way that anything about Timothy McVeigh was Christian.
My apologies to anyone who may have been offended