Mercy Me Miss Martha!

I know Rep. Roby just arrived in D.C. yet she’s shilling the same slop in her Dothan Eagle column of 21 March 2011 that Conservatives (hereinafter Cons) always do. Over the past three decades, we’ve seen debt spiral out of control except for one brief period when the Centrist Clinton occupied the White House.  Predictions of gloom and doom from modest tax increases and frankly rather limited investments in our citizenry of course proved false.

Our current mess was caused by Wall Street financiers being allowed to run wild in a deregulated climate where bizarre derivatives and such made some folks obscenely wealthy. Main Street bailed Wall Street out, a rather bipartisan decision as Corporatists in “my” party went along with the deal, and even now the Cons are beating back ever so trivial reforms to reel in the banksters. Following Bu$hCo’s two wars largely off the books, tax cuts geared toward the economic elite, and a global economic meltdown I’d suppose we do have a load of debt Rep. Roby.

Please notice the partisan tone of Rep. Roby’s submission. “... all the damage done in the last two years.”  Are you kidding me?  Do you wish to insult your constituents’ intelligence? For example, didn’t the GOP pass Medicare Part D with it being absolutely unfunded and clearly a give away to Big Pharma? I understand Rep. Roby wasn’t there but she’s plenty smart enough to know its history.

The issue now is whether the austerity state is the proper course. Keynesian theory is that government spending can help settle the storm.  The dreadfully inadequate stimulus perhaps helped some. Further, all but the most obtuse know it helped prop up Alabama for a couple of years. Rep. Roby offered, “The threat of new taxes and regulations is keeping small businesses from investing and creating jobs.” The record of job creation in the prior administration was the poorest in our history wasn’t it?  There were “tax cuts” (especially for the swells) and Lord knows Bu$hCo wasn’t into enforcing regulation. So wouldn’t it stand to reason that there should have been a boom if Rep. Roby’s logic is applied? 

Whoa!  Huh? Rep. Roby truly want to STOP regulating small business and farmers?  Seems like a rather dangerous step to me as to safety for consumers, workers, the environment, etc.  I also wonder if her audience with the Alabama Farmers Federation covered the issue of agricultural subsidies.  The Environmental Working Group reveals Rep. Roby’s district has received $984,083,606 in subsidies from 1995-2009.  Might this be where we could start cutting?

I don’t know what “conservative values” means to Rep. Roby.  Having the government intruding by imposing pesky regulations where we could be harmed absent the same is bad but having it meddle in a person’s private sexual life and relationship choices that do us no harm is good? DOMA is so old that it was passed under the leadership of serial adulterer Newt Gingrich!  And the courts have often ruled on issues relating to equal protection under the law as relates to same-sex couples ever since. The actual decision of DOJ to stop defending DOMA was a reasoned one given the current law and the move toward equality.  I trust then Ms. Roby was just as offended when Bu$hCo ignored FISA and our 4th Amendment in intercepting communications of ordinary citizens.  That he and his lied about this gross violation of our civil liberties until caught I would hope would be a problem even for the 2nd CD’s new occupant.  Then again, the new administration isn’t much better on these sorts of privacy issues.

In closing, Rep. Roby wrote, “It is my honor to represent the many military men and women serving and stationed throughout our Second Congressional District.”  I trust she is aware that these folks won’t get paid if the ideologues in her party manage to shut down the government. 

Just my thoughts as an individual appear above. Respectfully, John Gunn