I’m really trying. But I just can’t keep up with dumb ideas from the other party.
On the campaign trail, I’ve told the story of a meeting last year with some plaintiffs’ lawyers who specialize in employment law. I mentioned the idiotic and counterproductive Labor Code requirement that bars ten hour work days, even if the employee wants them. In a flight of what I thought was hyperbole, I added that Democrats act as if, without that law, “there would be 12 year old urchins in basements sewing garments again.”
“Oh, no, Mr. Wagner,” one of the lawyers earnestly replied, “that’s exactly what would happen.”
What I took as an obvious exaggeration, she took as a very good argument for a very bad law.
A couple of weeks ago, Democrats on the Assembly Education Committee complained about the narrow scope of a bill by State Senator Bob Huff. They objected to it because it didn’t completely fix a big problem (ironically, a big problem of Democrats’ own making with faulty legislation they passed a few years ago – but I digress). Instead, the bill dealt only with a small piece of the larger problem, and supposedly was objectionable for that reason.
In the committee hearing, I acknowledged that the bill doesn’t fix the whole problem. There are limits to what the bill attempts to do. Is a partial fix no good because it is only a partial fix? What the bill doesn’t do was no reason to oppose it. In fact, there is a lot Sen. Huff’s bill didn’t do. For example, I commented that it doesn’t balance the budget, or fund high speed rail, among other things. In conversations about the bill and other bills that are deemed objectionable by Democrats because they are limited, I’ve added, again flippantly, that the bills “also don’t give away puppies to deserving people.”
That’s a joke, folks. But no. Someone took it for a good idea because we now learn that the Democrats who run San Francisco are giving away puppies to the homeless!
I’ve got to stop joking with these people.
Here on the Flash Report, I wrote an article about the president’s immigration policy. The president talked about not being able to unilaterally change the law. I said in my article that the president wasn’t addressing the real issue because no one was accusing him of unilaterally changing immigration law. So what did he do this week? Yep. Unilaterally change the law.
I just can’t keep up with them. Make a joke, exaggerate, and soon you find that that’s now Democratic policy. Even give them credit for not violating the Constitutional separation of powers, and all you do is remind them that they missed a golden opportunity.
Last year’s Budget Committee hearing offers yet another example. I noted in this space the absurdity of the hearings, and in particular that Republicans were interrupted mid-questioning on the details of the $86 billion dollar General Fund budget after only 45 minutes, so that a vote could be taken and Democrat committee members excused “to catch airplanes.”
That absurdity was nothing. This year, the ruling party in Sacramento outdid itself. There was absolutely no vote, and the Democrats didn’t even bother to give the committee the underlying budget numbers. I actually had to ask how much the state was planning to spend this fiscal year.
Just when I think I have seen it all I find out that I’m not keeping up.
In an Assembly floor debate a few weeks ago, my Republican colleague Tim Donnelly made an outrageous suggestion about a new legislative idea. (I’m not going to repeat the idea lest a Democrat stumble on this site and run with it.) Tim didn’t really mean what he suggested. He was joking. But I worried. I rose to speak because I felt the need to warn him publically. “Don’t give them any ideas!”
Now we learn that the Democrats plan to penalize some people who overpay their taxes. Of course, there is already a penalty for underpaying taxes. Is it really a problem that too many people are paying too much? This new tax policy is just a Democratic joke, right?
You might have thought so last year but not today. Try to keep up.
June 25th, 2012 at 1:18 pm
One constant in communist countries….no one knows what is right or what possibly could be wrong….so……to the gulag either way!!!