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The Ralph Rant
Alan Grayson, the ultra-liberal freshman Congressman from Florida lost his re-election bid a few weeks ago, so he has to leave his gig in Washington, but he's not leaving without first picking some big, last fights.
Grayson used more than 5 minutes on the House floor during the â??chicken crapâ? debate (that's what soon-to-be Speaker John Boehner called the Democrat bill to raise taxes on the rich) to pick fights with Fox News, its superstars (Beck, Hannity and O'Reilly), plus Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich and former President Bush.
The guy does know how to get attention, doesn't he?
He used posters with reported annual earnings and some assumed tax figures from all of the aforementioned to illustrate how the Republican proposal (to leave all tax rates the same as they are now) represents big savings for each of them. He even tried to calculate the savings â?? from more than $2 million for Limbaugh to about $160,000 for Bush.
He presented all of that as huge government gifts to his enemies â?? rich, influential conservatives â?? rather than as what it would be â?? the decision not to transfer even that much more of their earnings to the government.
He wants people to be angry that the government would not increase Rush Limbaugh's taxes by another $2 million dollars and use that money to create government jobs. He even recited how many $30-thousand a year government jobs could be created with all of the extra money he wants to take from the rich.
Grayson sees government in competition with the private sector. He's solidly on the side of government in that competition, and he's not shy about using the power of the government to rig the game. When the government is the referee in a competition between the government and the private sector, if Grayson is the government, the government is going to win every time.
That's why it's good that Grayson is no longer going to be part of the government â?? at least not the legislative branch of the federal government â?? at least for another two years after his lame duck dance is over in a couple of weeks.
This is why it is important to elect the right people to government. As long as the liberals see the government as the competition to the private sector, they cannot be trusted with the reins of government power that can rig the game with the snap of its finger.
Grayson is not unique. Obama, Reid, Pelosi and most of those who put them in power also believe that the country is better off if the government has more power and control over the decisions by both businesses and individuals. The more money you transfer from the businesses or individuals to the government â?? which is what the chicken crap bill would do â?? the less power you have in the hands of the people and more power in the hands of the government. It's as simple as that.
Grayson wants to transfer another $3.5 million worth of economic power from Limbaugh, Palin and O'Reilly to Obama, Reid and Pelosi. He thinks it is greedy for them, and others like them, to want to keep it and use it the way they see fit. He believes it's outrageous that Glen Beck resists having an additional $1.5 million taken from him, using the force of government, to fund the opposition's team.
Sen. Tom Coburn got it exactly right when he gave an impassioned speech to the President's debt commission, on which he served as a member. Coburn, who voted for the commission report even though he disagreed with half of it, said â??the real disease is we'd abandoned the concepts of our Founders. We've created reliance instead of depending on self-reliance. We've created government programs that are unaffordable. We've abandoned limited government. And now we're in trouble and no one's looking to see what the real problem is.â?
Alan Grayson represents the disease. Grayson wants to spread the disease by adding to what Coburn accurately described as the real problem â?? too much dependency on government â?? and I would add to that - too many in government who believe even more government is the solution.
At least most of the members of the debt commission recognize that the best solution to the country's debt crisis is to reduce, not increase, government spending. They disagree on whether taxes should simultaneously rise in order to try to shrink the deficit faster, but they are to be commended for their recognition that the main problem is that the government is trying to do too much.
Kicking Grayson, and people like him, out of Congress is one of the best things that American voters could have done to prove they too recognize that the government should not be in competition with the private sector for consumption of the nation's wealth.
Government should consume as little of that wealth as it can and efficiently fulfill its constitutional role. Grayson's defeat was a public acknowledgement of the truth and power of that simple statement.
The people are ready to do their part â?? to make the necessary sacrifices â?? to solve the debt problem we have created together â?? but it must involve shrinking, not expanding, the size, power and role of government.
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