Daily Dose of Depression--Cracks in the Edifice?

New York Times, July 19, 2011
Cost-Cutters, Except When the Spending Is Back Home
By RON NIXON

WASHINGTON — Freshman House Republicans who rode a wave of voter discontent into office last year vowed to stop out-of-control spending, but that has not stopped several of them from quietly trying to funnel millions of federal dollars into projects back home.

They have pushed for dozens of projects in their districts, including military programs opposed by the president, replenishing beach sand lost to erosion, a $700 million bridge in Minnesota and a harbor dredging project in Charleston, S.C. Some of their projects were once earmarks, political shorthand for pet projects penciled into spending bills, which Republicans banned when they took over the House. . . .

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This story isn’t so much evidence of a crack in the radical right wing edifice as it is a result of creating edifices that were cracked from the beginning.  No one applauds wasteful spending. In Congress it’s always a case of sorting out what is needed locally and has a positive impact nationally and, most importantly, what the times call for.  Dems and Redubs both succeed and fail at this task.  It, however, is only the Redubs who of late have taken a holier than thou stance on budgets, spending, taxation.  The pristine statues they erected  to themselves end up with feet of clay and hearts of stone.  People are coming to realize this and will act accordingly.

The temporary ascendance of these self-styled saints was assured by two things. They, 1. had  national media outlets (FOX and right wing talk radio) to hum and drum their hum drum ideas incessantly and 2. large boodles of cash from the Kochs and corporations, political naifs and political nihilists were made available to them at crucial points in their rise.  Again, people are being made aware of these tawdry, interest driven puppet masters manipulating their creations.  The interests of the Rich, the soulless corporation, the extremists without fellow-feeling are being unmasked, denounced and deserted. 

Damage is being done but our democratic republic will survive.  Perhaps someday even Glen and Rush and the Radical Right will read the history of the Progressive Era, the New Deal, the Fair Deal, the New Frontier, the Great Society and realize the truths they so willfully evade.  -- Nah.  Won't happen.