Remember that WSJ editorial Tuesday that pounded the GOP-run Congress, stating, “You know spending discipline has collapsed on Capitol Hill when one of the lone voices for fiscal restraint is House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi”?
“With a lifetime Citizens Against Government Waste rating of “Hostile to the Taxpayer,” Ms. Pelosi hardly qualifies as a fiscal conservative. But at least she understands what the out-of-touch Beltway Republicans don’t: The latest polling shows that voter support for the GOP is slipping, especially among normally loyal Republicans, and their spending spree is one big reason. This is an important moment for Republican governance that threatens their control of Congress. (Emphasis mine.)
Now, CAGW has named as its “Co-Porkers of the Month” none other than … oh yes …
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) and Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Don Young (R-Alaska) … for their response to requests to cut spending to offset the costs of Hurricane Katrina.
Rep. DeLay has said that cutting the 6,000 special-interest earmarks – for items like landscaping along the Ronald Reagan Freeway and a visitor center in Gray, Tennessee – in the recently passed $295 billion Highway Bill would adversely affect “important infrastructure.” … MORE BELOW:
He went on to posit that the Republican-led Congress has “pared [the government] down pretty good,” though it has in fact presided over the largest increase in federal spending since the Great Society
When asked about redirecting the $450 million for the Gravina Island and Knik Arm bridges (renamed “Don Young’s Way”) to hurricane victims, Rep. Young said: “They can kiss my ear.” He then called the request the “dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.” Instead of kissing Don Young’s ear, taxpayers should shout loud and clear that they want him and his colleagues to give up their pork and cut the fat.
For adding all Hurricane Katrina relief to the deficit without agreeing to offsetting spending cuts and exaggerating the fiscal competence of the Republican Congress, CAGW names Reps. Tom DeLay and Don Young Co-Porkers of the Month for September 2005.
Now, we don’t share many values with CAGW. But this is still sweet.
it’s a mating ritual.
It’s why they seem inbred.
we don’t share many values with CAGW
We don’t? Let me say right up front that I am totally ignorant about this particular group — name sounds good, but what is in a name anyway, right? But here’s the thing (or maybe several):
When I hang out at RedState, or more importantly with my right-leaning friends, I hear them bitching about the same things we do (albeit coming from a different angle), but in general: the media, politicians not representing, government fuck-ups, crumbling inrastructures (educational, physical, “moral”), the feeling of being “on their own”, not enough time in the day, the country having lost sight of things that really matter, etc. etc.
It occurs to me, and I also have to give Red Harvest’s diary some credit spurring me to articulate this, ’cause I have been thinking about it for over a month now (and I still may not be doing it well), is that the the place that we need to go is where the common ground in complaints (the weak spot to borrow from RH), the dissastifactions of everyday life — forget the die-hard partisians on either side — they are not worth the energy…because party is not where it’s at, where it’s at is the common demoninators, even if we come at them from different places.
This is the wrong thread to go on much further about this — so along with RH, I will let is marinate for a while….
And people older and wiser than me, who have been there done this, please feel free to burst my bubble with your experience!
😉
…something to suggest to your right-leaning friends when you’re discussing common gripes and what to do about them is that age-old expression: Who pays? Who benefits?
LOL! MB — that phrase (though the latin version cui bono, right?) has been indelibly seared into my very DNA by my grandfather. [eye glance sideways, up and down along with a blown kiss for him — never sure where he might be now that he no longer shares this space with us]
Read more about him here
He died in ’94 and I never can understand the “god rest his soul” thing people say — not only would Phidias not have liked it one damn bit, I know he is totally NOT resting his soul — it lives on.
Anyway, it late and I’m a bit crazy right now — thanks for the comment, you bet you ass it’s a thing I ask them all the time (though not in Latin — hoho) I don’t have any rabid, Bush-cultists, or raving fundementalists among my friends, so we learn a lot from each other …
cui bono is only the “who benefits” part — anyone know how to say “who pays?” in Latin — I know I once knew this…at least I remembered I forgot!
I’ve posted two different years for his death (in the two comments) — it was ’95, not ’94.
…though from different ethnicities and classes, had a lot in common. Mine could be a right bastard, too, an unapologetic misogynist who thought his avid work for the downtrodden and oppressed ended when he crossed the threshold. Nonetheless, he taught me about union solidarity, to question authority – without ever using those words – and to keep fighting no matter how long the battle seemed like it would take. He died of black lung 25 years ago on my birthday in November, and his impact will be with me until I die.
I could be wrong about this, B, but my impression is that CAGW is a libertarian — perhaps somewhat anti-government — group .. the same people who bitch about welfare queens, etc.
Well, I do harbor a latent libertarian,, she only comes out every now and again, but she’s there — I’ll go see what I can find about them later on this weekend. And when they’re talking welfare queens, they mean the ones who hang out on K Street, right?? lol if only!! I crack myself up.
CAGW has been around since the mid 1980’s. While there is a whole maze of ugly connections between CAGW’s founder J. Peter Grace and the rightwing group Knights of Malta, various eugenics groups, some ex-Nazis and the John Birch Society, CAGW itself does yeomans work in tracking and identifying “pork” in government spending.
Libertarian, though, is perhaps too kind of a term to describe them, however. As it is, the term “Libertarian” has been corrupted in recent years, as have so many other terms, like liberal, conservative, faithful, patriotic, etc. Real libertarians understand the need for government, and even understand the need for social programs that enable society to function. But many people these days who claim the mantle of “libertarianism” as their cloak of legitimacy do so because it allows them the appearance of ideological legitimacy in their opposition to any and all government regulation that they don’t like. And it is these faux libertarians, ultimately, that CAGW is most representative of. They have a clear, if unstated agenda to categorically oppose any and all federal government regulation that would permit the common citizenry to be adequately protected from the depradations of the business commnity.
What you say about your right-leaning friends;
Shows how efffective the destructive impact of the wingnut propaganda machine has been. The wingers have duped so many into believing the battle is between the left and the right in this country when in reality the battle is between we the people and them the duplicitous politicians.
They’ve ginned up this culture war and tricked millions into believing in it, dividing us against each other in order that we don’t all unite against them.
Every tyrant since time began has worked a version of this tactic on the public he sought to dominate.
We the people all have the same basic problems in our lives whether we’re on the right, left or center of the political spectrum. And our politicians do what they can to keep us divided in an attempt to enhance their own power. This is the major tragedy of our political climate today; that our politicians see division as strategically more advantageous than unity.
A fitting designation. Repugs now stand for excess and wast. (amongst other things.) But if we harnessed all the hot air coming out of DeLay, we could probably heat all the federal buildings in DC and save a bundle.
It should read “waste” not “wast”. Preview, preview, preview.
FYI — try to catch PBS’s NOW. It’s about FEMA.
This is an hilarious turn of events…
Well it would be if it weren’t so true.
It’s helpful to join CAGW’s mailing list for any number of reasons .. and they send out very little e-mail, which is good.
cagw.org