Let the Pork Wars begin

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Mon, 28 May 2001 10:03:28 GMT

FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED MAY 18, 2001
THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz
Let the Pork Wars begin

Leave it to U.S. Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va. ... Washington's reigning king of pork.

The senior senator was some upset when a number of his Democratic colleagues expressed support for President Bush's tax cut last week. Sen. Byrd responded by warning them -- first in private, then in public -- that if they voted to let their constituents keep a little more of what they earn, Sen. Byrd would see to it that their own pork spending was blocked, potentially leading to Republican gains in the 2002 off-year elections.

"At a closed-door meeting of Senate Democrats last Tuesday," reported Roll Call, the Capitol Hill newspaper, on May 14, "Sen. Robert Byrd (W.Va.) threatened to slash the spending projects of lawmakers who broke ranks to support President Bush's $1.35 trillion tax-cut plan.

"After delivering the threat on Tuesday, Byrd backed it up with a pointed floor speech just before the Senate passed the budget resolution.

" 'Let me say to my colleagues, if you vote for this budget conference report, don't come to the watering hole,' Byrd warned in the floor speech. ...

"But five Democratic Senators ignored the advice of the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, setting up an explosive showdown as the chamber gets down to brass tacks on the 13 spending bills," Roll Call continued.

Two Democrats in particular, Sens. Max Baucus, D-Mont., and Max Cleland, D-Ga., are seen as facing serious repercussions should Byrd follow through on his threat, with the result that they "fail to bring home the bacon" to their respective states. Both Senators are up for re-election in 2002 and the GOP is expected to target them by providing money and resources to their respective Republican opponents.

(The three other Democrats who could face Byrd's wrath are Sens. John Breaux, D-La., Ben Nelson, D-Neb., and Zell Miller, D-Ga.)

Sen. Byrd at least does all parties the favor of stripping away any remaining veils of modesty from the true Democratic agenda, which seems to size up as follows:

Tax cuts are to be opposed because they could somewhat limit the ability of senior senators to waste hundreds of millions on "pork" projects never envisioned or authorized by those who penned the Constitution. Such pork projects, in turn, are vital not so much because the barefoot citizens of Gandeeville, W.Va., really need an eight-lane federal highway "demonstration project" to better link them to the vital parsnip and possum patches of Elmira and Gassaway.

No, the purpose of these allocations is forthrightly to guarantee the re-election of senators who need to brag on the campaign stump that they've "brought home the bacon" to their local jurisdiction ... regardless of how useless and inefficient the spending, regardless of the resultant general reduction in financial independence and well-being of taxpayers nationwide.

After all, the more we're overburdened and (in relative terms) impoverished, the less able American families will be to pay for their own food, clothing, and education -- heck, even to stay home and rear their own kids -- and the more "need" will thus be expressed for further handouts from Uncle Sam ... in turn generating demand for additional federal "programs."

Ah, what fearful symmetry. Government reduced to a set of intricate and expensive "solutions" to problems of its own making.

(What, my use of "impoverished" is inappropriate? Many of our American fathers and grandfathers supported their families in free-standing homes on a single salary, and paid cash for a new car every four years. Can you?)

For the record, President Bush's tiny tax cuts would not have the effect of reducing federal spending -- in fact, federal largesse will continue to grow at a record pace, even if American wage-earners are allowed to hang onto the tiny additional stipend now proposed.

The correct answer to Sen. Byrd is that we hope he indeed follows through on starting to trim his colleagues' "pork." Let's watch the percentage by which he determines their spending requests can be trimmed, while still meeting the quite limited, legitimate spending obligations of the Congress under Article I, Section 8.

Then, those same rates of reduction should be applied to him and all his colleagues ... after the GOP gains the five additional seats which Sen. Byrd now appears so willing to render vulnerable in 2002.

A $1.35 trillion tax-cut? They ain't seen nothin' yet.

Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Subscribe to his monthly newsletter by sending $72 to Privacy Alert, 1475 Terminal Way, Suite E for Easy, Reno, NV 89502. His book, "Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the Freedom Movement, 1993-1998," is available at 1-800-244-2224, or via web site www.thespiritof76.com/wacokillers.html.

Vin Suprynowicz, vin@lvrj.com

"When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong. The minority are right." -- Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926)

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and thus clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H.L. Mencken

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Quotes

Government doesn't work. Never did. Never will. Can't. But there are lots of good people. Love them.

-- Bill St. Clair

The Atlanta Declaration

Every man, woman, and responsible child has an unalienable individual, civil, Constitutional, and human right to obtain, own, and carry, openly or concealed, any weapon -- rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- any time, any place, without asking anyone's permission.

-- L. Neil Smith

Reread that pesky first clause of the Second Amendment. It doesn't say what any of us thought it said. What it says is that infringing the right of the people to keep and bear arms is treason. What else do you call an act that endangers "the security of a free state"? And if it's treason, then it's punishable by death. I suggest due process, speedy trials, and public hangings.

-- L. Neil Smith

A Penalty Clause for the Bill of Rights

Any official, appointed or elected, at any level of government, who attempts, through legislative act or other means, to nullify, evade, or avoid the provisions of the first ten amendments to this Constitution, or of the Thirteenth Amendment, shall be summarily removed from office, and, upon conviction, deprived of all pay and benefits including pension, and sentenced to imprisonment for life.

-- L. Neil Smith

Based on 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and some of its own empirical work, the panel couldn't identify a single gun control regulation that reduced violent crime, suicide or accidents.

-- John Lott, commenting on the National Academy of Sciences report on gun control laws.

Who is a libertarian?

Zero Aggression Principle ("Zap")

"A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being, or to advocate or delegate its initiation. Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim."

-- L. Neil Smith

(Formerly called the "Non-Aggression Principle", or "NAP")

Why Did It Have to be... Guns?

Make no mistake: all politicians -- even those ostensibly on the side of guns and gun ownership -- hate the issue and anyone, like me, who insists on bringing it up. They hate it because it's an X-ray machine. It's a Vulcan mind-meld. It's the ultimate test to which any politician -- or political philosophy -- can be put.

If a politician isn't perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware store and paying cash -- for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn't your friend no matter what he tells you.

If he isn't genuinely enthusiastic about his average constituent stuffing that weapon into a purse or pocket or tucking it under a coat and walking home without asking anybody's permission, he's a four-flusher, no matter what he claims.

What his attitude -- toward your ownership and use of weapons -- conveys is his real attitude about you. And if he doesn't trust you, then why in the name of John Moses Browning should you trust him?

-- L. Neil Smith

Concise

"Tell me," I was once asked, "What do you think about gun control? Give me the short answer." To which I replied, "If you try to take our firearms we will kill you."

-- Mike Vanderboegh

Also from The Atlanta Declaration:

... like going to the bathroom, breathing, eating, sleeping, or making love, it turns out that self-defense is a bodily function one cannot safely or effectively delegate to a second party.

-- L. Neil Smith

This does not mean that "Marijuana should be available by prescription." It means that morphine sulfate should be available in five pound bags at the supermarket for a couple of bucks, like sugar... but probably in a different aisle, to avoid confusion.

-- Vin Suprynowicz

If you refuse to pay unjust taxes, your property will be confiscated. If you attempt to defend your property, you will be arrested. If you resist arrest, you will be clubbed. If you defend yourself against clubbing, you will be shot dead. These procedures are known as the Rule of Law.

-- Edward Abbey

The state can only survive as long as a majority is programmed to believe that theft isn't wrong if it's called taxation or asset forfeiture or eminent domain, that assault and kidnapping isn't wrong if it's called arrest, that mass murder isn't wrong if it's called war.

-- Bill St. Clair