Senator Jim Risch is speaking to us now about his experience in Washington DC. He is spending a very long time talking about his seniority. I suspect after so long in the executive branch here in Idaho, he is less accustomed to being somewhere near the bottom of a pecking order. His words suggest some tension with his more senior Senator Mike Crapo with whom he says votes on every bill and amendment.
Risch and Crapo both in speaking to this body, sternly remind us that the current borrowing is mortgaging our childrens' future and sending American dollars to China. Senator Crapo certainly has done a bit of that borrowing in his ten years in the Senate... let's say ten trillion in borrowing? But according to Senator Risch, this borrowing is different because a Democratic President is borrowing to help people afford health care, to make us less reliant on high cost oil and to keep states from raising taxes and or going bankrupt.
The real irony is in Risch's statement about how freeing up credit will fix our economic crisis.
Is not our problem in part that families and small businesses are too deep in debt already? Wages are so low and the cost of fuel, housing, daycare and insurance so high that people can not meet basic needs with out borrowing to fix the broken refrigerator, the car or to buy groceries or pay a doctor bill.
More lending good Senators? To really fix our economy, I think we have more fundamental issues to address.
Oh thank you for posting! It's easy to feel alone in Idaho. I get blank stares or republican talking points when I point out ironies or facts. It's so frustrating. Sometimes living in Idaho (I've been here 6 years) is like being perpetually in that one moment in the cartoon "Sponge Bob Square Pants" when all of the characters are acting particularly strange and one of them asks "is there a gas leak in here?!" That's what I think of when I listen to Republican "logic." Sorry for the cartoon reference, my son is three and it's his favorite show. Anyway, thanks for being there and fighting the good fight for all of us immune to the gas, if not the policies.
Posted by: Amylouise Adira | February 25, 2009 at 02:00 AM