Eating One’s Youngin’s

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has decided to eat some Republican youngin’s … at least figuratively.  He has blasted both barrels at John Boehner for not acting post haste and passing the $60 billion Sandy hurricane disaster relief bill that a generous Senate sent to the House last week … see: Washington Post Story

I think that trencherman Christie has grabbed his knife and fork a little too quickly in this case.  This Senate bill is chock-a-block full of unrelated pork (as emergency bills too often are) … and only about $9 billion of this money is really required for emergency relief.  The rest is open for debate … which is precisely what Boehner intended to do.  So now we see that fiscal-conservative Christie is really a RINO big-spender at heart … particularly when the money is coming from the other 49 states. 

Yes, disasters are a little special and this country has slipped into a modus operandi where the federal government makes everyone whole in such cases.  This really is our government assuming the role of a disaster insurance company that extracts no premiums from its clients.  In fact why would anyone buy flood or hurricane insurance when the Feds are just itching to give you money in such cases?  (Full disclosure … I too have received such unexpected largess). 

There really needs to be a set of rational and hard-and-fast rules established to deal with such disasters ... in order to keep our country from really falling off the fiscal cliff.  Or is this too much to ask of our self-serving lazy legislators and our ever-expansive Administration?

Thumb in the Eye

President Obama’s timing is exquisite.  Just as the United States is Thelma-and-Louise-ing over the fiscal cliff, he decides to rescind the cost-of-living pay freeze on government workers that he imposed back in 2010 … see: Huffington Post.Story. This almost one percent increase in the cost of government salaries clearly sends a clarion message that he could not care a tinker’s fart about reining in government spending.  All he wants to do is to continue to bloat up things in Washington … and he wants, nay needs, tax increases in order to do it.  He is giving a thumb in the eye of the those in Congress who are concerned about his style of tax-and-spend Federalism.  And he is doing it in his typical cagey end-run around the powers of our legislature … daring them to deny themselves a pay increase … even suggesting that this is a near-bribe in order to get his way.

And of course our Senate is following suit in that they just voted a $60.4 billion relief package for hurricane Sandy victims which is strewn with all kinds of constituent goodies that have nothing to do with the hurricane.  How in the world will our government ever get even close to balancing its checkbook if they continue to pay disaster insurance claims when they have never extracted insurance premiums in advance from said victims? (See: WaPo Story). The answer is never.  That is, “never” until such time as our government totally runs out of money.  And the time of our fiscal Armageddon is rapidly approaching.  Still, our national media paints the Tea Party and other fiscal conservatives as the antagonists in this drama.  They should be ashamed of themselves.  Their thumbs are also aimed at the public’s eye sockets … only many of us don’t yet realize it.