Thursday, August 11, 2011

Chaffetz and Lee- Specifics Please

There continues to be press about teabagger darlings Chaffetz and Lee getting accolades for opposing the debt ceiling legislation as not being aggressive enough on spending. That being the case, I have one simple request for these guys, detail what you would like to cut and how much those savings will accrue through time. Certainly they wouldn't just make blanket political statements without having something specific in mind to cut. Is it social security? Is it medicare? What is it? People have a right to know your intentions.

Or is your intention purely political demagoguery? If I am not making it financially, I would look at a breakdown of my expenditures. I would weigh my options. I might consider working a second job to bring in additional revenue. This is how grownups deal with the real world. Nothing so far has shown me that Mike Lee and Chason Chaffetz are grownups. They live in a magical world of pure ideology. If we just do this magical thing (cut taxes and reduce spending(whatever that is)), there will be prosperity in the land and all will be well in Zion, errr, America.

Magical thinking and public policy are bad combinations. Perhaps Rep. Chaffetz and Sen. Lee have some concrete cost savings they aren't telling us. Until they provide their own realistic solution, I can only conclude that they are merely second rate demagogues living detached from reality. I hope they prove me wrong.

1 comment:

Karen Findlay said...

Yeah. I frequently feel overwhelmed with this detachment-from-reality feeling I get from the tea party. Chaffetz did that for me few years ago, before the phrase "tea-bagger" was even coined. I think it was 2008--he had this brilliant idea for fixing immigration: Deportation takes a lot of paper work and time, he reasoned, so to get them out of our hair while we're waiting, let's keep all the immigrants that look illegal in camps by the border, until we get things processed.