Sunday, January 18, 2009

Cantor: Greedy states like "bears sniffing out food"

In an exclusive commentary for CNN, Virginia Whip Eric Cantor warns against rampant greed provoked by a Democratic stimulus package:

Like bears sniffing out food at a campfire pit, those looking for a piece of the multi-billion dollar pie have flooded Washington with a cascade of requests, some capable of spurring immediate and lasting growth, others falling hopelessly short.

Cantor argues that any good stimulus bill must have three components:

1. time. don't rush a plan through. hearings are necessary; the time to comb the bill for waste, mandatory.

2. transparency. put all the contents of the bill online for citizens to read.

His third point is perhaps most important, so let's verbatim it (ea):

any new spending must be introduced with the clear understanding that it is temporary rather than permanent. It is not always easy to terminate spending programs once they have been funded, but our bleak long-term budget outlook requires significant sacrifices over the coming years.

#3 will be difficult - very difficult. It's like getting sex from Heidi Klum for a month; then watching her sail across the ocean with Seal.

You don't just sit back and content yourself that you had her for a month. You call your Congressman, you write letters to your Senator, you picket, you engage in civil disobedience, you become a one-issue voter: "Yes" on Heidi Klum back in your bed.

Milton Friedman's written about it; now Eric Cantor's warning about it.

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