She Calls Herself Fiscally Responsible

Again with politicians making up language that fits their needs.

I once had an English teacher in high school.  We were reading “The Merchant of Venice”.  In the story, Shylock loses his estate due to a quirk of law.  On one of our tests, the English teachers asks the True or False question:

Shylock lost half of his estate due to his legal dealings with Antonio.

I answered, “False”.  After all, he lost the whole of the estate.

She marked it wrong, saying that if he lost ALL of his estate, certainly he lost half of it as well.

Words have meanings.

Kay Hagan is one of the Senators from North Carolina.  She’s a Freshman Senator having defeated Elizabeth Dole in the 2008 election.  She is a Democrat.

In an interesting turn of events this past week, the Democrat Senator from North Carolina voted AGAINST the Tax Compromise while the Republican Senator from North Carolina, Richard Burr, voted FOR it.

Weird.

Anyway, her rational for voting “Nay”?

the freshman lawmaker said she can’t approve tax cuts for the wealthy, part of the current compromise between President Barack Obama and Senate Republicans, because of the cost.

Umm, okay, but was there anything in the bill she she COULD support?

She supports … the extension of tax cuts for everyone making up to $1 million per year.

Now, to be sure, she has some kind of  point.  Not the one I suspect she WANTS to make, but she makes it nonetheless.  And that point is that:

the top 1% of wage earners in America pay 38.02% of the taxes.

And the bottom 50%?  What do THEY pay?

The bottom 50% pay 2.7% of the taxes.

So, it’s political math.  Ms Hagan is trading 1% of the vote for 50% of the vote.  That’s her point.

Anyway, anything else about the bill that this fiscal moderate supports in her never ending quesst for fiscal responsibility?

She supports the bill’s extension of unemployment benefits…

Nice.  See, now THAT is an interesting juxtaposition of  values.  I find it hard to be, at the same time, in FAVOR of extending unemployment benefits and claiming to be a fiscally conservative member of the Senate.

She is NOT in favor of doing the fiscally responsible thing of reducing costs.  She is only too willing to spend more money.  But what she opposes is the idea of letting people keep more of their own property.  Somehow, by allowing those people to keep the fruits of their own labor, she would be crossing into the territory of “fiscally IRresponsible”.

Words have meaning people, words have meaning.

 

 

 

One response to “She Calls Herself Fiscally Responsible

  1. Can you think of a time where there’s ever been a more “across the board” test of American ideologies vs. economic, political, and social realities? It’s like a bunch of smaller “civil wars” without the guns.

    As for the tax bill, I really wish they would have done more to try and raise the $250k threshold, for starters. I think that should have been the fluid negotiating point that would have been more effective (but agreeable?)

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