Reply #7: Behave responsibly and just say "no" to extending this holiday.

[ieoeja]

I remember when the comeback to "tax and spend Democrats" was "at least we behave responsibly unlike the borrow and spend Republicans".

We didn't always win this argument. But, then, we didn't always lose either. And win or lose, we could at least hold our heads high and claim responsibility. Republicans could *never* make that claim and quickly changed the subject when it came up.

No more. We now have a litany of irresponsible, borrow and spend Democrats. Living in Chicago I've had the misfortune to have a front row to probably the worst of the bunch.


Mayor Daley was the first elected official in the United States to privatize an interstate. That shit has been repeated many times since. When he privatized the city streets, the people finally turned on him and a lot of his quislings in the city council. Chicago had it's biggest turnover in city council in more than a quarter century last election primarily because of the city street privatization.

Inmate Blagojevich, forced Metra to let seniors ride free, blocked Metra from raising rates to make up for the loss, initiated massive new spending programs and paid it for by illegally not funding state pensions. Those state pensions are now in a big hole with the Right predictably attacking state employees for it and useful idiots believing them. Fortunately, Illinois doesn't pay much attention to Lieutenant Governor primaries, so a good-government activist snuck into that position before Inmate Blagojevich decided to borrow the other time-honored Republican practice of stealing taxpayer money for himself. So when the neo-lib was impeached, the politicians were embarassed to find a guy they hated taking his place. And the activist did the most "unrealistic" thing he possibly could: he raised state income taxes. He is taking a beating for it, even though we are still slightly below the national average.

But it was the right. Thing. To do.

Someone asking about Chris Christie's popularity (maybe because he is a Republican governor in the northeast?) made me look into his opponent whom I knew had been thoroughly hated. Sure enough, Jon Corzine was a neo-lib who privatized an interstate highway and other typically rightist bullshit.

Most rank-and-file Republicans don't really like rightist policy. They just like rightist politicians. When a Democrat enacts rightist policy the Republican rank-and-file actually pay attention and express their disgust with the policy. I am always surprising this one "I'm an Independant But {insert rightist talking point de jour}" by agreeing with him almost every time he says something negative about a Democrat. Because almost every time he says something negative, it is when the Democrat is implementing rightist policy. Then I go on to piss off the "I'm an Independant But" by bringing up all the times Republicans tried implementing said policy, but were blocked by paleo-lib Democrats before the neo-libs came along and fucked us all.