{"id":17934,"date":"2011-02-09T06:00:27","date_gmt":"2011-02-09T12:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=17934"},"modified":"2020-09-20T21:38:33","modified_gmt":"2020-09-21T02:38:33","slug":"chanting-points-memo-how-to-eat-a-hippo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=17934","title":{"rendered":"Chanting Points Memo: The DFL And The Black Knight"},"content":{"rendered":"

Remember the movie Monty Python And The Holy Grail<\/em>?\u00a0 The part where King Arthur (Graham Chapman) battles the Black Knight (the voice of John Cleese) for the right to pass through the Knight’s land?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The solemn lesson; taunting is no substitute for action.<\/p>\n

The DFL is hoping Minnesota’s voters haven’t learned that lesson.\u00a0 On three issues this past week, the DFL has donned a red shirt to cover the bleeding and asked the GOP why they’re such a bunch of pansies about completely re-engineering government and turning the dominant taxpayer\/government paradigm upside down.<\/p>\n

Jobs<\/strong>: One reads more than a few leftybloggers who are chanting “The GOP said they were going to create jobs!\u00a0 And yet it’s four weeks into the session, and they haven’t had a jobs bill yet!\u00a0 Why’s that?\u00a0 Huh?\u00a0 Huh? Huh?\u00a0 Huh? Huh?\u00a0 Huh? Huh?\u00a0 Huh? Huh?\u00a0 Huh? Huh?\u00a0 Huh?Huh?\u00a0 Huh? Huh?\u00a0 Huh? Huh?\u00a0 Huh? Huh?\u00a0 Huh? Huh?\u00a0 Huh? Huh?\u00a0 Huh? Huh?\u00a0 Huh? Huh?\u00a0 Huh? Huh?\u00a0 Huh? Huh?\u00a0 Huh? Huh?\u00a0 Huh? Huh?\u00a0 Huh?”<\/p>\n

Being DFLers, they may not be clear on the concept that the GOP is not going to write a bill – call it “House File 666”, just for our purposes here – saying “Employers must create jobs and\u00a0 hire people, or the State Patrol will arrest them and a judge will give them an eleventy-billion dollar fine and take their business away from them”.<\/p>\n

Silly?\u00a0 Sure – but no dumber than what the Dems really <\/em>think a job bill is:\u00a0 government construction or entitlement projects hiring lots of (union) labor (to pay off the\u00a0 markers the DFL owes them).<\/p>\n

The GOP will cut spending and its attendant taxe and, as Tom Emmer proposed during his campaign, greatly streamline regulations.\u00a0 The market will respond by starting new projects, hiring new labor.\u00a0 That’s how it works in the real world.<\/p>\n

The DFL is betting the typical voter doesn’t know that.<\/p>\n

The Budget<\/strong>: Representative Ryan “Eddie<\/a>” Winkler tweeted<\/a>:<\/p>\n

GOP so far has not passed a job bill, and are wimping out on their big budget cuts bill. But, they’ll deliver voter ID, guns and abortion.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Jeff Rosenberg of MNPublius – which is basically the same as Ryan Winkler, without the snazzy office – writes:<\/p>\n

…this bill doesn\u2019t solve our budget deficit. In fact, it barely even makes a dent, despite committing us to painful cuts.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Winkler’s idea of “wimping out” is tackling the behemoth $32 Billion budget, and its potemkin “$6.2 Billion deficit”, is filing one big honkin’ bill that does everything, in one, huge, conveniently veto-able package.<\/p>\n

The Democrats are given to these sorts of things, of course – 2,300 page health care bills that nobody can possibly read in time and the like.\u00a0 And such an omnibus spending-cut proposal\u00a0 would make things really easy for the Governor and the DFL, which means it’d be pretty stupid.<\/p>\n

Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch, speaking at a blogger conference call last night, said “that’s just absurd”.<\/p>\n

The GOP majority (aaaaah) is doing this the right way; exposing every single piece of budgetary lard; making the DFL work to justify it in the harsh glare of public scrutiny.<\/p>\n

It may make the DFL’s kept talking heads, Winkler and the various bloggers, itchy and nervous at the death of a thousand cuts t hey’re suffereing.\u00a0 But that’s their problem. Their only priority is to keep government fat and happy, on the backs of the taxpayer.<\/p>\n

\n

Koch notes the madness of the approach: “If we hold taxes harmless, we become less competitive. \u00a0Other states – like Wisconsin- are working to be\u00a0more <\/em>competitive – cutting spending”, she said.<\/p>\n

Exactly how <\/em>we get more competitive – one huge unwieldy bill, or many smaller ones – is irrelevant, as long as we actually do.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"\"Voter ID<\/strong>:\u00a0 It’s pretty much been reduced to a chant; “Republicans want to keep people from the polls”.<\/p>\n

The response, of course, is rubbish; the GOP wants to provide our dismal election system the tools it needs to ensure people only vote once, where they’re supposed to.\u00a0 The GOP slso <\/em>wants to provide voters the ID they need to be able to vote.\u00a0 For free.\u00a0 On us.\u00a0 Gratis.<\/p>\n

The DFL’s response is “It’s more complicated than that – what about the homeless?”\u00a0 To which the GOP responds “we’ll have to figure something out; in the meantime, for the other 99.99% of the voting population, let us press ahead”.<\/p>\n

To which the DFL’s\u00a0 chanting heads respond…well, who knows?\u00a0 The bottom line is, the DFL is fighting to keep voting anonymous and un-controlled, to their benefit.\u00a0 They are not fighting to ensure the right of every Minnesotan to vote; they are fighting to keep the rules opaque enough to hide more abuses that benefit the DFL<\/em>.\u00a0 They should be ashamed.<\/p>\n

But that’s never been their long suit, now, has it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Remember the movie Monty Python And The Holy Grail?\u00a0 The part where King Arthur (Graham Chapman) battles the Black Knight (the voice of John Cleese) for the right to pass through the Knight’s land? The solemn lesson; taunting is no substitute for action. The DFL is hoping Minnesota’s voters haven’t learned that lesson.\u00a0 On three […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108,69,123],"tags":[213],"class_list":["post-17934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chanting-points-memo","category-socialism","category-taxes","tag-winkler"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17934"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17934\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":75389,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17934\/revisions\/75389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}