THE FEDERAL PAGE
When President Obama was elected the first time, I had an image of a riverboat along the Niagara River with all the American people aboard. Some of us were screaming at the top of our lungs that this boat is heading dangerously close to the falls. Others aboard made up of guilty, white liberals; a majority of blacks; and official Washington types were marveling at how dashing Obama looked in his captain's uniform consisting of a white jacket, gold epaulets and buttons, and a jaunty hat. This group charged racism at those of us yelling about the danger ahead. "You just don't like having a black man as your captain," they claimed. Since taking office, our "captain" has added 6.1 trillion dollars to the national debt. That is a 57 percent increase in the national debt in a little over four years. And now adding to the financial misery is the nightmare of ObamaCare.
With the looming implementation of ObamaCare, Senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Mike Lee of Utah decided it was time for rebellion. On September 25 and 26th, they were joined by Senators Rand Paul of Kentucky and Marco Rubio of Florida for a 21-hour filibuster to deny passage of a continuing resolution (CR) that included funding for ObamaCare. A CR is a funding mechanism for the federal government without a formal appropriations bill for the fiscal year. After the filibuster ended, Senator Tom Coburn voted with the Democrats to invoke cloture on September 27th to send the budget bill that lacked the ObamaCare funding back to the House so that the House would be forced to include ObamaCare funding or face a partial government shutdown. The vote for cloture was 79 to 19. Tom Coburn was helping the Democrats and Obama with that vote. Senator Jim Inhofe voted not to send the CR back to the House. The House then offered a funding bill with a one-year delay of the individual mandate for ObamaCare, like the one Obama had unilaterally given to businesses. The Senate would not take up the House counter offer. The partial government shutdown was the result.
On October 16th, during the shutdown, the Republican-controlled House voted to give in to President Obama by passing a CR including funding of ObamaCare and ending the partial shutdown. A minority of House Republicans (87) were joined by 198 Democrats in passing this CR to raise the debt ceiling, allowing the country to borrow more money from China. Does this sound like a healthy government to you? A majority of Republicans (144) voted against giving in to Obama and raising the debt ceiling. Congressman Tom Cole was the only member of the Oklahoma delegation to vote in favor of giving in to Obama.
That day, October 16th, the Senate voted 81 to 18 to pass a CR. Thankfully, Senator Coburn voted no. He is on record opposing the shutdown, but he is opposed to any continuing resolution. Senator Jim Inhofe, who had quadruple heart bypass surgery, was recuperating and could not be there for the vote. Congressman Tom Cole and others like him are interested only in the next election and know the voting public is averse to pain. A default on our debt would bring much pain to this country, and they might lose votes for their re-election. But guess what -- we are going to default on our debt eventually. There is no avoiding this because we owe too much money already, and we cannot pay it back. Tom Cole is a smart man, but his position on the debt is nonetheless to "kick the can" down the road, which only increases the pain to come. Tom Cole's got to go.
Syrian Charade
In the classic 1963 film Charade, starring Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn, about a group of American soldiers who stole a fortune at the end of World War II. One of their goup then stole the fortune from the others and almost twenty years later has just died, and the remaining veterans are looking for the loot among his personal effects. One of them, "Tex," played by James Coburn, is walking along a Paris street market and sees something he has seen before but didn't realize until this time is the fortune for which he and the others had been searching.
About five o'clock one morning in mid September, I awoke with the realization that we were not going into Syria and never would. This was for me like the revelation Tex had in that Paris market. "Never let a good crisis go to waste," Rahm Emanuel, Obama's erstwhile chief of staff, infamously said. All that talk in early September over whether we were going to intervene in the Syrian civil war was a ruse. Implementation of ObamaCare was set to raise its hideous head on October 1st. And it wasn't just the administration that had much to gain from this distraction. Congress was planning a major overhaul of our immigration policy.
An amusing side-note came from Scott Roberts, a Claremore man whose parents were involved with me in taking control of the Rogers County Republican Party a quarter century ago. Scott recently coined an epithet regarding Russian negotiations over Syria: "The Putin Solution; with the Putin Solution there's no shootin'."
Americans for Tax Reform ATR - All AbouT GroveR
I have for a long time been leery of Grover Norquist, founder of Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), because I have believed him to be merely a self promoter within the Republican Party. Recently, he accused Texas Senator Ted Cruz of abandoning House Republicans during the government shutdown. In July, Grover Norquist told ABC News that opponents of immigration reform were "anti-people," and he told Reason magazine: "Historically, opposition to immigration in the United States has been racially and religiously motivated in the ugliest, nastiest way possible." Grover, what does any of this have to do with taxes and spending? Throughout my 13 years of writing for this paper I have cited National Taxpayers Union (NTU) regarding matters pertaining to taxes and spending. NTU has been around since the 1960s and is mission-focused. I do not always agree with NTU; it tends to support trade agreements that I believe harm American interests, but it's a reliable source without a personal agenda unlike ATR's agenda, which is really Grover Norquist's.
National Security Agency tracking our phone calls
On July 24th, the House voted on an amendment offered by Michigan Republican/Libertarian Justin Amash which, had it passed, would have barred the National Security Agency (NSA) from keeping records of all our phone calls. The government would still be able to track some phone calls if given permission from the courts. The amendment narrowly failed 205 to 217. Oklahoma Freshmen Congressmen Jim Bridenstine of the First District and Markwayne Mullin of the Second District voted to defund this particular program, while Congressmen Frank Lucas of the Third District, Tom Cole of the Fourth District, and James Lankford of the Fifth District decided to vote for tracking our phone records. So the NSA will continue to track phone records like calling Aunt Betty in Tucson to wish her a happy birthday because she may be a potential terrorist. Of course, Aunt Betty has had only a few parking tickets in her 70 plus years, but you never know.
The NSA did not save the three that died and the 264 injured during the Boston Marathon last April even though the Russians warned our government about the two brothers who came here from Russia and were allegedly involved in setting the bombs. The NSA did not protect the 12 killed at the Navy Yard in Washington last September even though the government knew the shooter who had worked for the Navy Yard had a history of mental illness. But that same government can monitor our phone calls. No thanks go to Congressmen Cole, Lankford, and Lucas for voting to keep an eye on us and their own family members.
"If you think healthcare is expensive now, wait until it's free!"
Comedian Mort Sahl on MSNBC in 2008
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