You Don’t Say …
LET THE S.C. LEGISLATIVE PANDERING BEGIN, PEOPLE
FITSNews – January 4, 2008 – Just as we predicted last month, the first issues-based shot out of the box from South Carolina’s Democratic … errr, Republican leadership this year is about illegal immigration, specifically Speaker Bobby Harrell’s announcement today that the House GOP caucus will unveil a “comprehensive immigration reform package” this coming Monday on the State House steps.
Eager to deflect attention from their abysmal economic, education, health care and spending record, South Carolina’s GOP leaders are wasting no time kicking off the smoke-and-mirrors campaign, hoping you’ll “pay no attention” to the multiple disasters behind the curtain.
We don’t want to be too hard on Speaker Harrell, because let’s face it, he’s not in control. After all, if a real Republican majority existed in South Carolina, we wouldn’t have elected a Democrat to the Supreme Court or appointed another one to head up our most influential agency (and given him a pay raise, to boot). But that’s just the tip of the iceberg …
If a real Republican majority existed in South Carolina, we wouldn’t have grown government by 41% over the last three years, or passed some bogus tax shift that doesn’t create one new job and then tried to pass it off as real tax relief.
If a real Republican majority existed in South Carolina, our top two budget-writers (this guy and this guy) probably wouldn’t have earned such shitty ratings on a pro-business government report card. Or doled out millions in pork under the ruse of a “competitive grants” program.
If a real Republican majority existed in South Carolina, we probably wouldn’t have preserved an overtly-racist, totally-inefficient 1895 structure of government, or for that matter left thousands of our neediest children trapped in the worst public school system in America.
In fact, if a real Republican majority existed in South Carolina, legislators might actually demand something beyond smoothly-worded failure from our media whore Superintendent of Education before deciding to jump on his monopolistic preservation bandwagon. We might also take the time to investigate a legitimate scandal in his backyard as opposed to inventing a non-scandal just because we don’t like the governor.
If a real Republican majority existed in South Carolina, we might actually start leveraging our most important competitive asset instead of continuing to get our asses handed to us by the competition (we’re actually talking about you on this one, Governor Sanford).
If a real Republican majority existed in South Carolina, maybe somebody would’ve had the balls to investigate our State Supreme Court for its brazenly-political bar exam shenanigans instead of merely slapping them on the wrist via some new deck chair reshuffling legislation.
If a real Republican majority existed in South Carolina, maybe we wouldn’t allow legislators to make millions of dollars off of the flawed workers’ comp system that they helped create, or afford them the opportunity to make millions more by letting them file class action lawsuits against an industry they simultaneously want to regulate.
If a real Republican majority existed in South Carolina, maybe our state’s workers would be skilled at something other than stacking boxes for minimum wage. Which means maybe we’d have some fast-growing companies or high-paying jobs, for a change, so that perhaps people’s paychecks could start keeping up with government growth.
Maybe then more people would have health insurance. Maybe then we wouldn’t lead the nation in violent crime. Maybe then we wouldn’t have to continue being the nation’s dumping ground for nuclear waste.
This stuff isn’t rocket science, people – if you cut taxes, the economy grows. Which means state revenues grow. If you give parents real choices, public education improves. And if you stop tolerating a scandal-plagued, 19th-Century government, it might actually start working for you instead of sucking you dry every chance it gets.
Of course our Republican leaders have said for the last decade-and-a-half that they’re “pro-business,” “against wasteful spending,” “for the children” and “in favor of bringing efficiency and accountability to government.”
Unfortunately, their record on all fronts is a direct contradiction of each one of those principles.
Shucks, though, let’s just forget about it and talk about immigration …
Comments
By Harden Gervais on January 4th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
And the governor will get absolutely nothing accomplished, again.
Only in South Carolina could one political party be so hopelessly fucked up that it could control the entire government apparatus and still get nothing done.
By Gal Leo on January 4th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
“This stuff isn’t rocket science, people – if you cut taxes, the economy grows. Which means state revenues grow.”
Ah, and therein, ladies and gentlemen, lies the death-by-supply-side-economics of the real conservative movement. When you have to argue FOR cutting taxes because it means MORE money for government, you have lost.
So, Democrats want to raise taxes because they think it will generate more money. And Republicans want to cut taxes because they think that will generate more money.
At the end of the day, they both want to spend more of your money.
By piepton on January 4th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
I’m confused. I see Republicans showing this same level of incompetence all across the country. Perhaps we need a new party that actually espouses these ideals instead of continuing to support Republicans and then whining when they continue down the path they have been following for the last 30 years.
By Gillon on January 4th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
If, by your exhaustive accounting of their many failures, there is no “real Republican majority” to be found anywhere in our benighted state government, please tell me where these “real Re[publicans” can be found. Certainly not in our national government, where Republicans until last year controlled the Presidency and both houses of Congress with results that can only be described as dismal. I don’t think the species exists, at least not in practice. Maybe this is all “just a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, and signifying nothing.”
By Crash Davis on January 4th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
The government that governs best governs least. Our founding fathers were brilliant.
By Believe It Not on January 4th, 2008 at 9:58 pm
sic(k) willie’s pumping up his posts with his own anonymous drizzle again. willie, at least try to hide your writing style. It sticks out like the sore warts you’ve been trying to handle with over-the-counter drugs.
Get some penisillian while there’s time. You may be able stop it before it takes more of your brain.
By Believe It Not on January 4th, 2008 at 9:59 pm
And make your posts shorter. We only read your stuff in the john, and our time is limited in there. Your long winded posts are boring.
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