Slouching Toward Washington
November 4, 2010 by Ben Crystal
The precincts are dark. The campaign signs are already fading. The absentee ballots have submerged beneath the Chicago River. ACORN has returned to teaching “girls” how to conduct “business.”
The rough beast is reborn. The GOP is back.
All right Republicans, you shrugged off the vituperative venom, the mendacious mudslinging and duplicitous defamation to exile the liberals to the nosebleed section of the Congressbowl. Two years of Barack Obama’s Alinsky-ite babble and four years of Nancy Pelosi’s bug-eyed cacophony led to the immolation of the Democrat Party’s ambitions on a bonfire of political inanities. Good for you? Of course. Good for us? It had better be; or you’ll be joining your erstwhile opponents on the electoral unemployment line.
If you, the freshly minted Republican House majority, can’t engineer significant reversal of the runaway economic disaster the Democrats have foisted upon us, expect 2012 to resemble 2006 instead of 1980.
Being a charitable fellow, I thought I would offer a few suggestions as to how you might ensure that your time in the political limelight lasts longer than a sparring session between Roy Jones, Jr. and Harry Reid.
- Cut spending. Check that — axe-murder spending. Don’t “rein in wasteful outlays.” Do “relate to runaway budget deficits the way Jason Voorhees related to scantily-clad teenagers.” Start with something worthwhile and visible, such as taxpayer funding for National Public Radio. It is not lost on me that the same liberals who say NPR shows no discernable bias are the ones crying for soulless conservatives to spare it from the legislative guillotine. If their programming is so marvelous (to be fair: some of it is), let them sell sponsorships like the saps operating above 92.1 on the FM band. Let’s see how many people are willing to snatch scratch from their own registers so Nina Totenberg can wish West African Death Virus on some Republican’s grandchildren.
- Cut taxes. I know — groundbreaking stuff. But I’m not merely referencing extending the Bush tax cuts for the leisure class — I don’t particularly care if Paris Hilton has to wait a month before buying her next pink-hued… thing. I’m talking about burying the entire dimwitted concept of the “rich paying their fair share.” The rich already pay their fair share, along with quite a few others’ fair shares, as well. What the Democrats want to do is send the American economic football team onto the field without the varsity offense. Enough badly mixed sports metaphors. Give the Bush-era tax relief another decade.
- Drive a stake through Obamacare’s undead heart. Tell the liberals that it “fails means-testing for long term viability.” Meanwhile, perhaps one of the left-wing jacklegs would like to enlighten the class about the new 3.8 percent real estate surtax slipped into the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to pay for all of us to have our tests evaluated by a guy whose medical experience was gleaned from watching “Marcus Welby, M.D.” reruns. You Republicans will stand behind every state which sues to throw Obamacare overboard. Otherwise, in 2012, it will be ye who walk the plank, maties.
- Kill the bailouts, dismember them and bury them in deep holes miles apart. General Motors pocketed more than $50 billion in taxpayer swag and it’s increasingly unlikely they will make enough from their upcoming initial public offering to pay back more than one-fifth of that. The same vehicular virtuosos who gave us mind-numbing Chevy rent-a-boxes and the Dali-esque (nothing else would do it justice) Pontiac Aztek can go pound tire dust. Ford didn’t take a nickel, and they’re doing just fine.
- Nail the pork barrel lid shut. Two words: West Virginia. Everything in that state which stops moving for more than a few moments ends up with a sign commemorating a dead Klansman-turned-legislator. Congress stuck nearly $17 billion in earmarks to legislation this year. We’re a trillion in the hole, and these clowns want to keep building proverbial bridges to nowhere. Yes, I mean you, Thad Cochran (R-Miss.)! Don’t think that R spares you from responsibility, pal.
Since the polls indicated the economy was foremost on the voters’ minds when they activated the ejector seat in the American Batmobile, I have focused primarily on economic issues. The Democrats will accuse you of causing gridlock, of distracting Obama from the business of governing. I would retort that distracting Obama from the business of governing is like distracting a wolf from gnawing on your wallet — or your kids. But the lesson remains immutable: Republicans, the nation has granted you an electoral reprieve.
Don’t screw this up, or more than mere anarchy will be let loose upon your world.
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