Losing politicians try one last trick before they leave

I hope you're as infuriated as I am by the shenanigans of the present Congress in trying to ram through a pork-filled spending bill during their lame-duck session, just before the newly-elected Congress takes office in a few days time. The Wall Street Journal called it 'The 111th Congress's Final Insult' - a very suitable phrase, if you ask me. Given that the American people overwhelmingly rejected excessive Government spending at the mid-term elections last month, this was a deliberate raising of the finger by Democrats to those who had rejected them. (Mind you, I'm not saying Republicans wouldn't have done precisely the same thing, if they'd been in that position . . . both major parties are completely untrustworthy, in my opinion.) Fortunately, the measure's been blocked in the Senate . . . but only after massive pressure from conservative voters changed the position of a few recalcitrant Republican senators who looked as if they'd go along with it.

It seems that the Wisconsin State Legislature tried to do something similar - in this case, by actually bailing one of their members out of jail so that he could cast the deciding vote for several controversial spending measures! It seems that the outgoing Democrat administration wanted to pass several union-friendly measures that would have added to the State's deficit and posed serious problems for the incoming Republican administration. They succeeded in ramming them through the State Assembly (by one vote - that of the aforementioned imprisoned legislator!), but the former Democratic Senate Majority Leader wasn't on board. He and a colleague registered negative votes, which meant that all the measures were tied at 16-16 (meaning they did not pass). Needless to say, Mr. Decker is not the favorite politician of the Wisconsin Democratic Party right now . . . but I admire his guts, and his willingness to accept the verdict of the electorate and give the incoming administration a chance to tackle the State's problems in their own way.

With the exception (for now) of Mr. Decker . . . Politicians! Grrr!





Peter