"And to the Right, You Will Hear Pandering"

Okay. Utah's turn.

This being such a deeply, deeply RED state (despite the fact that my own Congressman is a blue dog Dem) one of two people will most assuredly be Utah's newest Senator: Tim Bridgewater or Mike Lee.

Putting aside for the moment that I disagree with them both on just about every issue, I want to take issue with the total lack of depth and actual thought that went into their positions.

Tim is in favor of major medical tort reform and also wants to speed up the FDA drug approval procedures. Great idea, Tim. Now pharm companies can kills millions of people and NOT be held responsible. Brilliant. As it currently stands, pharm companies make billions of dollars on drugs that sometimes have unanticipated ill effects. If they are not responsible for that, then who is? Hmmm? IMO, if they are going to take the risk of selling a drug before they know the answers to all the questions, they should assume the risk, especially in light of all the profits they make.

Tim also wants to let states take over Medicare and Medicaid. (News flash, Tim. States already run Medicaid.) But he also want to impose stiffer penalties for MediCare fraud. How are you gonna do that if states run it? (I am going to assume he means "administer" and not "determine whether or not to have MediCare." If he means the latter, then he has clearly lost his marbles.)

And Mike wants to "end deficit spending." Hmm. Interesting. Did you pay cash for your house, Mike? I bet you got a loan for that. And did you know that our country would still be part of the British Empire if Ben Franklin and John Adams hadn't convinced all of Europe to loan us the money to fund the American Revolution? I'm thinking not. Debt is a tool that, if used correctly, can finance growth and expansion of our economy to meet our needs. Debt is not evil or bad or wrong. But it does need to be used correctly. That is precisely what our Senators and Congressman fight about. (Also, Mike, I'd be interested in knowing how many speeches and letters to the editor you wrote railing against the two unfunded wars W started.)

It's just so much pandering BS! I cannot stand it! Check out their sites to see what I mean: "Improve the quality of education by giving more control to states." Yeah, Texas is doing a great job with that.

And term limits! The reddest of all red herrings! We already have term limits. They're called ELECTIONS! If you don't like the incumbent, vote for someone else. But here's the thing. We all like OUR incumbents. It's that other state's or district's incumbent we are tired of, right? Too bad! They get to choose their insider just like we do.

This is my absolute favorite: This is from Mike's site.

"REFORM THE TAX SYSTEM
With 50% of wage earners paying little or no taxes, too many voters have no “skin in the game”—and no reason to question new government programs that are funded by the real taxpayers."

Yeah, that's because they are too poor to pay taxes you dumb-ass! With 85% of American wealth in the top 20% of the population, (leaving 80% of the nation's population to share the other 15% of the wealth) you can understand why a large number of American's have too little wealth and income to pay federal taxes. But apparently Mike doesn't get this. What's really the stunner, though, is the large percentage of those poor people who vote for folks just like Mike because of social issues, ignoring that he wants to take a piece of their teeny, tiny, hamburger-helper pie. Nice, Mike. I'm sure you can solve all of our problems by sticking it to the poor people.

This one comes in a close second. Also from Mike's site.

"REDUCE GOVERNMENT REGULATIONS
The answer to an economic downturn is not a government stimulus, but a reduction in government regulation and bureaucracy to allow the natural forces of our private enterprise system to rebound without undue interference."

What do you call someone who continues to advocate some idea or theory that has been shown to be utterly ineffective, and even harmful? I call him Mike Lee.

Reduction in government regulation, you say? Well, reduced regulation got us a financial crisis (almost collapse) and an oil spill in the Gulf that we cannot even begin to measure yet, it's so big and bad.

The GOP and Bill Clinton repealed a number of financial regulations, including parts of the Glass-Stegall Act, which led directly to the flim-flamming that inflated and popped the financial bubble.

And the complete lack of regulation and enforcement that went on with BP is just mind boggling.

Everything has rules. Your religion has rules. You make rules for your kids. And we have laws and regulations that establish rules for doing business. And why do we have rules? To keep the exchange fair and so that everyone will know what to expect. Rules bring about predictability, and in business, predictability is good.

(BTW, Mike, if the free market is the solution to all these problems, then the Feds should just go back to ordinary business and trust BP to clean up, right? Is that your position?)

Do you think it's funny (not funny "ha ha" but funny "wow") how these guys are so devoutly religious when it comes to regulating private, personal behaviors, and yet so ruthlessly greedy when it comes to money? If you were to reverse the positions, the equivalent would be to advocate legalizing and promoting prostitution, drugs, and condom-free orgies.

I just want to know, where are the serious, pragmatic people who actually want to move our country forward? 'Cause they're not running for office this time around.

(Afterword: Yes, I called Mike Lee a dumb-ass. But he's really not. He just assumes the voters are.)