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11/30/2003: Criminally Absurd

billc (5k image)

Here is an article that got passed my way from blkdrgn from MSNBC called
"GOP spending bills grow".

Clinton Reconsidered
Speaking of abdicating responsibility, remember the Revolution of '94, when the GOP took over the House and Newt Gingrich rose to power? Clinton had been elected in a throw-the-bums out bumrush of the Executive Branch 2 years earlier, and the Republicans ended 40 years of Democratic rule of the Legislative. After the 1980s, the people wanted the government to face its debt and start paying it off, no more deficit spending. Clinton couldn't have had a better foil in his first term than Newt. They looked like evil hillbilly twins. Clinton was thrown into the heroic role of being for cutting government spending, but willing to shut down the government in order to save Elmo from the Contract With America.
Clinton, in the middle of his impeachment, announced that they had balanced the budget, and that is probably what saved his ass. What he could have been...
Anyway, so now the GOP has controlled the Legislative Branch for almost 10 years, and without the Newtster to enforce his mind- boggling reforms (have any of this man's detractors read "To Renew America?") on the rank and file, these once- evangelical Newtian conservatives are handing out the hunks of pork just like good ol' Tip O'Neill in the 1980s. Look at current Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert. If I put Tip and Denny side by side, who could tell the difference?
Is the natural state of any legislature corruption?