OPINION:
ANALYSIS/OPINION:
Anytime you hear a politician talk about needing “revenue,” grab your wallet and run. Anytime you hear a politician talk about “raising” $600 billion in revenue, grab your wallet, any silverware you haven’t already melted down to keep up with taxes, and your children’s piggy banks. And run like the wind.
These thieves have pillaged our government retirement program to pay for self-celebrating schemes that would land any officer of any corporation in prison. They made outlandish promises they knew they could not keep. They have squandered the precious taxes that we have already given them to pad their own political fortunes or so they could play Sugar Daddy to all those “in need,” such as the ethanol “industry.”
Of course, the poor have fared no better. On them, the Washington politicians yoked impossible mortgages that the poor had no hope of keeping up with. In their maudlin self-love, the politicians tell themselves that they merely killed these people with kindness. Not so. As the liberal heart unchecked so often does — among both Democrat and Republican politicians — they killed these poor people not with kindness, but with their own shortsighted, selfish desire to feel good about themselves.
Then they plowed us generations deep into debt covering up for their reckless mistakes with bailout after bailout after bailout. Now it is time to bail out the bailouts.
As we spiral toward the second dunk of a “double-dip” recession, Washington lawmakers have gotten very sober with all their grave talk of defaulting on the massive debts they foisted upon us. Rep. Ron Paul, a rare statesman in this town, is even warning that we should check to make sure our gold is still in Fort Knox.
The politicians, they assure us they have tried everything to right the ship. Everything, it turns out, except — stopping the spending! Or cutting all the crazy obligations they signed us poor suckers up for.
So, what is their solution now? They come back to us lowly, innocent taxpayers and say, “Here is this giant, huge problem. You need to pay even more of your hard-earned money to fix it.” Only they couch it in offensive euphemisms like “raising revenue,” as if they were some kind of venture capitalists with a bright idea to sell investors. These reptiles wouldn’t last 10 seconds “raising revenue” with their loony ideas.
What is even worse is how the media here march right along in lockstep, spewing all the lies and propaganda required to keep this fantasy alive for so long.
One of the only times in recent history of this town that mainstream reporters covered with any degree of outrage a “tax increase” was earlier this month when a band of serious, grownup senators led by Sen. Tom Coburn prodded the Senate to vote to kill $5 billion in welfare we taxpayers have been giving the ethanol “industry” every year.
Aided by duplicitous Democrats and sold-out Republicans, the press howled that this was somehow a tax increase because it meant the ethanol “industry” would pay higher taxes — in other words, the same taxes the rest of us suckers have been paying all along.
What would we ever do without these cats looking out for us taxpayers?
• Charles Hurt’s column appears Wednesdays. He can be reached at charleshurt@live.com.
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