PrintFebruary 12, 2009
Opposed to dumb stimulus spending
Obama acts like the only alternative to his trillion dollar spending is to spend no money at all.
I don't oppose all spending.
After September 11th, after witnessing the carnage and destruction, the dust and the tears, I supported the Bush Administration's plan to restore the nation's economy through targeted tax cuts.
I don't oppose all spending. And I know that in the crowd who feel the way I do today, there is no shortage of patriots, or of patriotism. What I am opposed to is a dumb spending bill. What I am opposed to is a rash spending bill. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Rahm Emanuel and Nancy Pelosi and other arm-chair, weekend economists in this Administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in jobs lost and in hardships borne.
What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like David Axelrod to distract us from examining the causes of a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income - to distract us from Cabinet appointee scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst 6 months since the Great Depression.
That's what I'm opposed to. A dumb spending bill. A rash spending bill. A spending bill based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.
Now let me be clear - I suffer no illusions about the current economic situation. It is a brutal time. A difficult time. A time when millions are losing their jobs.
It's a bad time. The world, and the American people, would be better off without this economic climate.
But I also know that the current economy poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to its neighbors, that our economy is not in shambles, and that in concert with the international community the recession can be contained until, in the way of all petty economic setbacks, it falls away into the dustbin of history.
I know that even a successful trillion dollar stimulus will require government interference in the private sector of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences.
I am not opposed to all spending. I'm opposed to dumb spending.
So for those of us who seek a freer and wealthier world for our children, let us send a clear message to the president today. You want a fight, President Obama? Let's fight to restore economic liberty, through a shutting down of the financial networks that support cronyism.
You want a fight, President Obama? Let's fight to make sure that the businesses of America can do their work, and that we vigorously enforce free trade treaties, and that the fear merchants in our own country stop inciting a protectionist trade war that would rage across the globe.
You want a fight, President Obama? Let's fight to make sure your so-called allies in the House and Senate, the progressives and the liberals, stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality, and mismanaging our economy so that our youth grow up without education, without prospects, without hope, the ready recruits of extremist political groups.
You want a fight, President Obama? Let's fight to wean ourselves off Middle East oil, through an energy policy that doesn't simply serve the interests of Al Gore and Greenpeace.
Those are the battles that we need to fight. Those are the battles that we willingly join. The battles against ignorance and intolerance, corruption and greed, poverty and despair.
