7 Billion for Missiles That Don't Work, None For You

When was the last time I heard a Republican complain about how the government needs to curb in wasteful spending and give the American people the money they need in tax cuts? That would be today on C-Span, where a Republican majority in the house defeated Mel Watt's CBC Budget amendment that out of the 8.8 billion allocated for homeland security and national guard defense would have taken 7 billion and put it to good use in port security and border controls, instead of spending it on a missile system that won't even launch.

You want to talk about reckless spending? Look no further than your GOP. And one of the GOP reps on the floor had the balls to get up and say that Bush's tax cuts needed to be kept in the budgets because they give people more freedom and are helping the transition to an ownership society. Am I the only one who reads the word slave into that? Let's stop and think for a second. People have more money in their pockets, but the rich people have more so prices move up accordingly and your average American gets screwed. On the flip side by cutting taxes he increases the deficit which raises interest rates and slows down job growth and creation. Ownership society? In a sense more Americans own houses and the like, but that's nothing more than an illusion considering that more Americans are in neck-high debt (which they will find impossible to get out of thanks to the new bankruptcy bill) so they don't really own their houses, the banks do.

What really annoyed me about the vote was that about 1/3rd of the voting Democratic reps voted against the amendment. Why do they hate their party? Even if you know it's going to fail that doesn't mean you should not stand by your party and what it stands for as opposed to scoring brownie points with the GOP. Which, by the by, they will punish you for moving to the right and swallowing their ideas about 'tough on defense' by running a real Republican against you (for reference see Max Cleland). The GOP votes in lockstep. I'm not saying that's necessarily a good thing, but if you're the opposition party you need to oppose, not run around like chickens with your heads cut off.