Tom DeLay’s declaration that there is no fat left in the federal budget was merely risible. Taken on its own, one can dismiss it as a botched attempt to praise the good work of the Republican-controlled Congress. What appalls me is the House Majority Leader’s rationale for keeping all the lard in the recent highway porkfest despite the looming expense of post-Katrina reconstruction. The Washington Times reports,
Mr. DeLay said those projects are “important infrastructure” and eliminating them could undermine the economy as Congress tries to offer hurricane relief.
“It is right to borrow to pay for it,” he said. “But it is not right to attack the very economy that will pay for it.”
Is that Bernie Sanders speaking? Dick Armey, Rep. DeLay’s predecessor, was a dour fellow with the charisma of a porcupine, but he was also a former economics professor who knew that wealth isn’t created by putting the government in charge of allocating more and more resources. The idea that “public works” spur the economy more than private decision making is naked socialism, in this instance the product of slothful thinking rather than ideology but no better for that.
This, alas, is what happens when the Loyal Opposition consists of lunatics, time servers and cranks. Leaders of the government have no incentive to sharpen their intellectual tools, because any battle of wits is waged against unarmed opponents. Instead, the demand is for tacticians, who generally regard ideas as an encumbrance. Rep. DeLay is an exemplar. Why should he think about how the economy works, when his Democratic opposite number is an Angry Left know-nothing?
The reason, of course, is that his job isn’t just to outshine Nancy Pelosi. It is to govern wisely, lighten burdens on the citizenry and strengthen our Nation against its enemies. Ignorance born of laziness is a greater danger to those objectives than all the shrieks and shibboleths that House Democrats can muster.
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