Mountain Views News          Saturday, February 12, 2011

12

LEFT TURN/RIGHT TURN

 Mountain Views News Saturday, January 22, 2011 

GREG Welborn

LIES, DAMNED LIES & 
BUDGET PROMISES

 It’s been awhile (at least a 
week) since I’ve mentioned 
our congressman, Rep. David 
Dreier, so before moving on 
I want to note his vote on 
our behalf last December 
in refusing to oppose child 
marriage.

 Senate Bill 987, The International Protecting 
Girls by Preventing Child Marriage Act, passed 
by unanimous consent in the Senate and received 
majority support in the House, but fell short of 
the 2/3 needed to pass under rules then in effect.

 Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) commented, “The 
action on the House floor stopping the Child 
Marriage bill tonight will endanger the lives of 
millions of women and girls around the world. 
These young girls, enslaved in marriage, will be 
brutalized and many will die when their young 
bodies are torn apart while giving birth. Those 
who voted to continue this barbaric practice 
brought shame to Capitol Hill.”

 The bill would’ve made child marriage a 
factor in foreign aid and, as stated in its official 
summary, authorized the president to provide 
assistance to “promote the educational, health, 
economic, social and legal empowerment of girls 
and women”. The CBO estimated a “potential” 
cost of $67 million over four years. According 
to Rep. Steve LaTourette (R-OH), “societies that 
are coercing young girls into marriage, we could 
build them latrines so they could go to school. 
Or we could make sure that they stay in school 
so they’re not forced into marriage ... Look, this 
is a partisan place. I’m a Republican. I’m glad we 
beat their butt in the election; we’re going to be 
in the majority next year. But there comes a time 
when enough is enough ... We should stop the 
nonsense, approve the bill and move on.”

 Rep. Dreier declined to “stop the nonsense” and 
voted against alleviating a situation where, noted 
Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA), “ ... more than 
60 million girls under the age of 18, many only 
12 or 13, are married, usually to men more than 
twice or three times their age. Between one half 
and three-fourths of all girls are married before 
the age of 18 in countries such as Chad, Mali, 
Bangladesh and Nepal.” As Rep. Betty McCollum 
(D-MN) put it, “a handful of Republicans chose 
partisan politics over the basic human rights of 
young girls.”

 Rep. Dreier couldn’t support a possible $67 
million for the Child Marriage Act, but dutifully 
voted to add $858 billion to America’s debt to 
extend tax breaks for multi-millionaires.

 This all came to mind as I heard concerns 
expressed that the outcome in Egypt might be 
Muslim domination endangering human rights. 
Much of this concern no doubt comes from those 
who couldn’t bring themselves to support the 
Child Marriage Act.

 Of all the images coming out of Egypt 
(and Tunisia), I haven’t seen the burning of 
American flags or those once-ubiquitous “Death 
to Amerika” placards. Perhaps one reason is the 
Obama Administration’s recognizing that among 
the most important rights is the right of a people 
to make their own history. Another is avoiding 
sanctimonious lecturing, where words are used 
for political effect while belied by actions. We’ve 
espoused human rights while failing to take 
action against child marriage. We’ve trashed the 
word “freedom”, using it as a cover for military 
incursions and economic subjugation.

 To the Reagan Administration, supporting 
“freedom” meant supporting dictators who 
accepted our aid in suppressing populist 
movements. Thugs, allied with the Somoza 
dictatorship of Nicaragua and who, according 
to the Catholic charity Progressio, had a record 
of “murder, torture, mutilation, rape, arson, 
destruction and kidnapping”, were labeled 
“Freedom Fighters” by President Reagan (not to 
mention “the moral equivalent of our Founding 
Fathers”).

 George W. Bush’s proclamation that “Freedom 
is on the march” accompanied invasions and 
occupations of sovereign states, hundreds of 
thousands of civilian casualties, and imposed 
governments having more in common with the 
City of Bell than any ideals of democratic rule we 
preached about. 

 In Egypt, the “freedom” Bush seemed to envy was 
their freedom to torture, as the torture chambers 
of that country became favored destinations in 
the CIA’s program of “extraordinary renditions”. 
(Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, the 
newly-appointed Vice President engaged in talks 
with the opposition, was the overseer of torture 
under President Mubarak, and in at least one 
instance directly participated.)

 We also have a lousy record over the past 
century in dispensing economic advice. In Egypt, 
as in other developing countries, the advice 
came through the World Bank and International 
Monetary Fund.

 Financial regulations were eased and 
privatization accelerated. Corporate tax rates 
were dropped and public investments cut. Profits 
and incomes soared, while Moody’s and other 
investment firms predicted a strong future ahead.

 All the while, corruption grew as policymakers 
became beholden to corporate interests. Media 
became more concentrated and adapted a more 
controlled message. Prices were artificially 
inflated through manipulation by banks and 
other firms. Job creation couldn’t keep pace 
with job seekers. Wealth became concentrated 
at the top while child poverty increased. Income 
disparity grew towards a breaking point.

 

 The same thing happened in Egypt.

 (One difference: The average U.S. Senator 
has a net worth of $1.7 million, while Mubarak’s 
wealth is estimated in the tens of billions.)

 

 Many are inspired by the trade unions of the 
textile mills in northern Egypt which ignited 
protests against the government two years ago. 
And many of those so inspired will at the same 
time work to weaken collective bargaining in our 
own country.

 

 With growing accessibility in global 
communication, hypocrisy is more easily laid 
bare, whether in professed support of human 
rights or a march of “freedom”. At the same 
time, sincerity is more apparent and valued, as in 
the words of an American for whom the words 
“rights” and “freedom” were not mere metaphors: 

 

 “Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet 
depreciate agitation, are men who want crops 
without plowing up the ground.” 

Frederick Douglass


HOWARD Hays

 As I See It

 
Used to be when I grew up that there 
were only lies, damn lies and then statistics. 
Looks like we have to add in Republican 
budget promises. Hal Rogers, the new House 
Appropriations Chairman, just took to the 
podium to announce with great enthusiasm 
that the new Republican Congress will 
cut $100 billion from President Obama’s 
2011 proposed budget, which is what the 
voters in this fine land had sent him and 
his fellow Republicans to Washington to do. 
Unfortunately, that is NOT what voters sent 
the politicians to do. That is NOT what the 
Republican Pledge for America promised. 
Here is what we sent them to do; here is what 
the Pledge actually says:

 Cut Government Spending to Pre-Stimulus, 
Pre-Bailout Levels: “With common-sense 
exceptions for seniors, veterans, and our 
troops, we will roll back government 
spending to pre-stimulus, pre-bailout 
levels, saving us at least $100 billion in the 
first year alone and putting us on a path to 
begin paying down the debt, balancing the 
budget, and ending the spending spree in 
Washington that threatens our children’s 
future.”

 What that means is Republicans promised 
to use the 2008 budget as the baseline to 
which they were going to reduce spending. 
The problem with their actions today is 
that by using Obama’s 2011 budget, they’re 
looking at a budget which is already a trillion 
dollars larger. To cut $100 billion from that 
inflated budget and pass it off as a promise 
kept is simply a lie.

 The vast majority of Republicans running 
for House seats in 2010 told voters that they 
had learned their lessons from the “thumpin” 
they took in 2006 and in 2008. They admitted 
they had “lost their way” and had learned 
their lesson. They pleaded with voters to give 
them another chance. Everything would be 
different if only we would return them to 
D.C. in November of 2010.

 Well, that’s what we did. Republicans, 
Tea Party volunteers and independent voters 
combined to express their collective outrage 
at the fiscal irresponsibility of Obama and 
the Democrats and sent a tsunami GOP wave 
to Washington. With Chairman Rogers’ 
announcement, we’re all feeling like Charlie 
Brown flying through the air after Lucy has 
once again pulled it away. Our trust has 
been misplaced.

 We, the voters, are not the only ones who 
will be burned by this. The Republican Party 
is in the process of throwing their credibility 
into the biggest bonfire they’re ever going to 
see. If they think they got burned by voter 
anger at the townhall meetings held over the 
last two years, they’re going to think they’ve 
been doused in napalm and spontaneously 
combusted by the time voters deal with this 
betrayal. 

 Even more insulting 
than the betrayal is the 
insinuation that we are 
stupid enough to be 
hoodwinked about it. 
How else can you explain 
Republican efforts, heard 
today on the radio as I write this article, to 
pass off a measly $40 billion in spending 
reductions, today with an estimate that $60 
billion will come tomorrow (that’s the $100 
billion), as the same as returning spending 
to the 2008 budget baseline, which was last 
seen $1 trillion ago? 

 Leading Republicans (not conservatives 
mind you) are now adopting the scare 
tactics Democrats have used for decades to 
avoid making wise financial decisions on 
our behalf. Chairman Rogers, for one, told 
Republicans that cutting more now risked 
forcing layoffs of federal employees at a time 
when employment rates were already too 
high. 

 This is the same sort of twisted equality 
Democrats use – arguing that a growing 
government employs more people (which 
is good) and thus shrinking government 
employs fewer people (which is bad). This 
is complete and utter nonsense. Americans 
don’t equate employment of some bureaucrat 
with employment in the private sector. We 
don’t think it’s a good idea to take our money 
away from us in order to give it to some 
bureaucrat whose job is to further intrude 
in our lives and restrict our freedoms. The 
whole point of the Pledge was to shrink the 
government, reduce the spending, send our 
money back to us and put bureaucrats on 
some sort of 12-step program where they 
could learn how to be productive actually 
making something in the private sector.

 Perhaps we need another party after 
all. Thus far, the Tea Party has not run 
candidates as a separate party. They have 
chosen to support candidates – Republican 
or Democrat – who agree to honor the Tea 
Party philosophy of limited government, 
balanced budgets and individual freedom. 
If the Republican leadership doesn’t pull 
away from their suicide course, they may 
just see conservatives and independents 
throwing their support to the Tea Party as a 
real third party, running its own candidates. 
I wouldn’t have thought that possible, but I 
live and learn.

About the author: Gregory J. Welborn is a 
freelance writer and has spoken to several 
civic and religious organizations on cultural 
and moral issues. He lives in the Los Angeles 
area with his wife and 3 children and is active 
in the community. He can be reached at 
gregwelborn@earthlink.net.