Quote of the Day

"Mr. President, I probably come at this from a slightly different perspective. I remember when FDR beat Hoover in 1932. So I remember the Great Depression very well. I don't remember any of the many government programs affecting the course of the Depression. Government programs didn't work then, I don't know why we think they would work now. Mr. President, I think our obsessive borrowing has fully mortgaged my kids and my grandkids. Now we're working on mortgaging my two great-grandkids. Mr. President, I think it's more than a little bit selfish to try to solve our economic problems which we created by burdening future generations yet to be born."
- Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md

Several years ago I met Roscoe Bartlett at a Young Republican event and ever since I've been disappointed that I'm not in his district.

I don't know if he still does it, but for years he would introduce a bill to the House that would move Tax Day from April 15 to October 15. If you think about it, April 15 is about as far away on the calendar from Election day as is possible. Move it up any earlier, or later, and you may still have taxes on your mind when you vote. Now, we can't have that in a democracy can we?

Rep. Bartlett's bill would move Tax Day to just one month before the election. That way, the voters would have it fresh in their minds just how much money the government took away from them when they head into the voting booth. Of course, his bill never went anywhere, but he kept reintroducing it anyway. Now that's my kind of politician... If only the rest of the Republican party were like him.

Plus, how could you NOT vote for a man named Roscoe?

I won't be changing my party affiliation to Libertarian... yet...

I have to say, I'm proud of the House Republicans today; which is something I've not been able to say for a while. Despite the popular new President, and the typical politician urge to be seen to be doing "something" every single House Republican voted against the Obama Generational Theft Act. Not only that 11 Democrats voted against it as well.

Unfortunately this Crap Sandwich of a bill still passed which still pisses me off no end. The Wall St Journal did an analysis and discovered that only 12 cents of every dollar of spending is directed towards actual economic stimulus... and they admit that they're being generous. The rest of the money is pure pork and government growth. There's even $600,000,000 in there so the government can buy new cars. Can you afford to buy a new car this year? No? Well the government can, with your money...

Oh, and no one seems to consider that the $825,000,000,000 will have to be financed by bonds. The CBO estimates that the interest on that borrowing will be over $300,000,000,000 bringing this spending binge to well over
$1,100,000,000,000.* Didn't we get into this economic mess because too many Americans bought more than they could afford by running up debt that they couldn't pay back?

Anyway the point of this post was that I'm oddly proud of my Republican party affiliation today. I consider myself to be Reaganite Republican: low taxes, small government. muscular foreign policy. To my great disappointment, since the Republican party retook the House and Senate in '02 the Republican have been the party of big government, maybe not as big as the Democrats, but still big. Maybe they've learned their lesson and are getting back to their roots... I doubt it, but maybe, just maybe, they are... If not, Libertarian Party here I come.

* I know I could and should write out "billion" and "trillion" but I find that those words have no real meaning after a while. We hear "trillion" so often it just becomes a word... it's so big, and beyond us, that it becomes meaningless. However, writing out $1,000,000,000,000 (trillion) gets you to pause and say, "holy crap that's a lot of freakin' zeros"... or something like that...

The Obama Debt Plan

Or as Michelle Malkin likes to call it the "Generational Theft Act"...

This whole "stimulus" bill that's passing through Congress right now is one of the most awful pieces of legislation ever. The Democrats, and unfortunately a bunch of Republicans as well, are using the excuse of the recession to throw massive amounts of money to their own pet projects. There's already a $1.2 trillion (1,200,000,000,000) budget defecit and they're looking to pile on at least another $800 billion on top of that. Where will this money come from? Future tax increases, that where.

Bonus Watch

I received a new briefcase/laptop case in the mail today (on clearance from Eddie Bauer) and while I was checking it out I discovered this watch inside. I thought maybe it fell off of someone's wrist, but the metal band was latched, so it didn't get in there that way. So I really have no idea how it got in there but, well, there it is.

It's a Nixon "The Player" watch and I have to say, it's one of the ugliest pieces-of-crap I've ever seen. The general styling just ain't my, um, style. Throw in the plaid face and it just makes that much worse. There's no way I'd wear that thing... it's not just the ugly but the fact that it's also kind of scuzzy with some other guy's wrist sweat.

I do feel bad for whoever lost this thing. According to the Nixon website, it has an MSRP of about $160 so someone paid good money to have this thing pollute his wrist. I guess i'll just give it to the Goodwill.

http://www.nixonnow.com/watches/mens/the-player-A140.html

The thing doesn't look that bad on the manufacturer's website. For some odd reason, they don't offer the fine plaid face anymore...

The Government's View of the Economy

'Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.'

- Ronald Wilson Reagan