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Politics : Bill Clinton Scandal - SANITY CHECK -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neocon who wrote (31548)	2/2/1999 7:15:00 AM
From: Pat W.	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 67261

Charley Reese from a few days ago: STATE OF THE UNION IS NOT GOOD The first thing to keep in mind when assessing Bill Clinton's laundry list of promises, made in his State of the Union speech, is that Clinton is a proven liar. As any misled wife can tell you, the practical problem in dealing with liars is deciding when, if ever, they are telling the truth and when they are lying. Lying is far more serious than liars would have you believe. Two main lies underlie his speech. One is the lie that Social Security needs saving. Well, only from politicians. The present tax brings in more than enough money to keep the Social Security Trust Fund solvent, but Congress and presidents use the surplus to offset deficits in other places in order to promulgate the second lie — that the budget has a surplus. Both Republicans and Democrats are co-conspirators in this con job. So starting with two lies, Clinton then proceeds to spend a nonexistent surplus stretching 15 years into the future. Even if this year's surplus were real, there is no way to predict that the surpluses will continue for 15 years into the future. That is pure fantasy. Clinton's promising this and promising that, all financed by a nonexistent future surplus, is a perfect example of demagoguery. Furthermore, everything Clinton proposed, except spending more on defense (again with the mythical surplus money) is unconstitu-tional. Yes, I know that nobody pays any attention to the Constitution except lawyers trying to get around the democratic process, but neverthe-less, if you will just read the document, you will notice that nowhere is the federal government authorized to get involved in local land planning, health care (long or short term), child care urban sprawl, education or discouraging kids from smoking tobacco. (God knows they've done a poor job of discouraging them from smoking dope.) It's dismaying that more people can't see through this thinly disguised con game Washington politicians are playing. They do polls. They find out what folks are worrying about. They promise to fix it. They pretend they can fix it, despite a deplorable record of failure ($5 trillion and the feds lost the war on poverty, $40 brnlon and they lost the war on drugs). They pretend they can do it at no cost This year, they will all be spending the mythical surpluses which, like psychics, they know will come in the future. All this amounts to is blatant vote buying, as corrupt as if they were stand-ing outside the voting booths stuffing $20 bills into people's pockets. It amounts to robbing Jane to buy the vote of Betsy. Why should one working mother, who pays for her own child care, be taxed to provide free child care to some-one else. The low-life, unprincipled politicians have turned government in America largely into a racket, and it appears many Americans have become so corrupt themselves that they don't care as long as they get a piece of the booty. Well, from the point of view of a paid observer, watching a society collapse is probably more interesting than watching one that is running smoothly, but, nevertheless, I don't recommend it. I don't, know of any greater civic sin a people could commit than taking this great country, created and preserved at such a great price in blood, sweat and tears, and tossing it away just because Americans have become too darn lazy, timid, greedy and irresponsible to preserve it for posterity. Despite what you hear, the state of this union isn't very good. Charley Reese's e-mail address is OSOreese@aol.com. © 1999, KING FEATURES SYNDICATE