Things we'd like to see


How to tell if the Democrats are serious about their promises
Radley Balko has a great idea.

Here's the challenge:  Mollahan is, to say the least, "ethically challenged."  There's no sensible reason for him to retain his seat on the most powerful committee in the House of Representatives.  If Nancy Pelosi is serious about "draining the swamp," she'll kick Mollohan off the appropriations committee before she pounds her first gavel.

As for Byrd, his history of earmarking excesses makes Ted Stevens look like Ron Paul.  Earmarking is little more than legalized corruption.  It's buying votes.  Not only did Robert Byrd perfect the practice, he's the one who put a "secret hold" on a bill that wouldn't have even eliminated the practice, but would merely have added a bit of transparency to it.  Democrats who rightly railed against the "Bridge to Nowhere" can't be taken seriously if they sit back and let Byrd resume diverting millions of taxpayer dollars to wasteful pork projects in West Virginia.  Harry Reid should remove him from the Senate Appropriations Committee.

It won't be easy -- Byrd in particular is likely to raise holy hell.  But if you're going to change the culture of corruption in Washington, you'd go a long way toward demonstrating your seriousness by starting with your own party. 

This helps illustrate why I said the election was about honor. It wasn't about people buying into the Democrat agenda, I think you would be hard pressed to find people who could tell you what the Democrat agenda was. The Republicans fell down on their promises on everything from smaller government to containing corruption. That is why the Democrats won, but their history says that they won't be substantially different.

So here is the chance for Democrats to actually stand for something besides higher taxes and bigger government. Here's the opportunity for real reform.

If they don't take it, how is it different from Tom Delay or a hundred other scandals? Abramhoff gave more money to Democrats, yet that has been sold as a Republican scandal. Hurricane Kartrina revealed not only FEMA incompetence, but the incompetence of a host of government agencies going back decades. Social Security was going broke in 1990, long before the "Republican Revolution."

Without real reform, all we are doing is changing the the letters of who gets to stand in the front of the spoils line.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Sun - November 12, 2006 at 01:10 PM  Tag


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