In an insightful meeting at the Delaware Republican's Lincoln Day dinner Saturday night, Grover Norquist, the featured speaker, came to give the locals an idea of what was going on in Washington.....
More gridlock. More obstruction. More intransigence, In his speech, the prime points were that there would be no compromise. Republicans were dedicated to seeking full sequestration. They were going to cut spending no matter what was going to happen. They don't care if Dover AFB is going to close; its a good thing because the military budget will be cut in half. They don't care if Highway funding is going to be fully put all upon the states; sequestration is a good thing, it is going to cut the budget in half. They don't care if there will be no beach rebuilding this summer; Republicans are going to cut the Federal budget in half. There will be no agriculture support payments; Republicans are going to cut them in half. There will be no Federal Medicare or Medicaid payments reimbursements made to the states; Republicans are going to let sequestration cut them in half. When heaven forbid, an oil tanker turns the beaches and marshes of Rehoboth to Ocean City Md, into this century's Valdez calamity, Both state's will have to use their general fund to clean it up; the Republicans are going to say no to all new Federal money.... Remember the last East Coast hurricane relief? You were lucky, was the implication. Forget about any more for any storms in the future...
On the revenue side,....
.... huge tax breaks must continue going to oil companies and oil hedge funds; Republicans are going to say taxes were raised too much already. Huge off-shore tax breaks will be maintained by billionaires and millionaires; taxes are raised too much already for any more billionaire loopholes to be closed. (If pressed, they might do away with the mortgage interest deduction since that doesn't affect billionaires; it only affects the middle class so it won't create any economic impact. The implication was that Republicans will do what is necessary, but only to those economic levels below the upper class; that is where they draw the line... ) The clear message was: it is time to make the poor suffer more; after all, the rich have suffered far too much already.
More gridlock. More obstruction. More intransigence,
"You can't have compromise when both parties are going in the opposite directions." said Grover. "It doesn't do any good to say no, no, no, ...yes. It has to always be no, no, no... no."
More gridlock. More obstruction. More intransigence,
There was little that was new. Grover did express hope that as the Obama/McCain wave of Democratic Senators comes up for a vote this next election, many in traditional Red states, playing a no-gain defense until the new team comes on board, is their best option.. Grover Norquist also made the point that due to the Republican redistricting, the red districts will outnumber the blue in the House until the next redistricting in ten years.
A decade of decadence is a long time.
Grover did bring up an interesting concept. That we have red states and blue states with governors and legislatures of the same party, and they will be a laboratory of who is right, red or blue...
We will see within these experiments whether theology can trump economics, whether philosophy can support a family, or whether an idle belief, can pay the bills.... He seems to believe that side by side experimentation will bode well for the red states instead of the blue. He is thinking only as a rich person.
We shall see if middle class voters agree with him; if they prefer living in a first class blue state or would rather forebear and reside in a third world red state....
He praised Indiana erroneously, calling that a school choice state. Instead voters threw out their gung-ho school-choice education head and replaced him with a Democrat who is going slow.. He praised Indiana's privatization plan of the Indiana Turnpike without mentioning this road had not had upgrades to it in over 5 years. It is called the most dangerous Turnpike in America. (The money collected is going to the investment bankers)... He derided California which has finally under Democrats achieved a balanced budget. He praised Wisconsin's eradication of public unions without mentioning that because of Scott Walker's governmental pay cuts,the economy in Wisconsin was collapsing while all others were bouncing back from the recession. So though his scenario as presented, painted a glowing picture to those Republicans seated before him, it was full of errors.
But I confess, I agree with his premise. I too would like to see vindication that in order to run a stable economy you need what's been missing: a balance between profits, taxation, and job growth and the only way to achieve that is to tax the top echelon much, much more so they reinvest in their state to avoid paying higher taxes.....
As was just done in California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland; all economies that are now rising while those of red states are falling or staying the same.
Unfortunately we will have to make the states our laboratory. We will have no choice but to rely upon the state level to analyze what is working and what is not and then derive from pure evidence, which one of our two parties we need to completely eradicate and do away with.... so government can begin to compromise and to work again.
For on the national scale, Grover promised it: All we are going to have is..... More gridlock. More obstruction. More intransigence,
We will have it; because Mr. Norquist said so. He promised it in Dover Downs, in Dover Delaware on February 9th, 2013....