This Is Not JFK's Democratic Party!

[guyman1966]

Democrats' legacy of wasteful plundering

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Posted: December 20, 2002

1:00 a.m. Eastern

By Jon Dougherty

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© 2002 WorldNetDaily.com

Life in America under the permanent rule of the socialists who now control the Democratic Party would cease to exist as we know it, and there are a couple modern case studies to prove this point.

Earlier this month, reports said that California was on the "fiscal brink" of disaster, its budget so far in deficit that red ink could total something like $25 billion over the next year-and-a-half.

"When times were good and billions of dollars in income tax payments were pouring in from high-tech millionaires, California lavished raises on state employees, expanded health-care benefits for the poor, cut taxes on car licenses and invested heavily in education and transportation," the New York Times reported.

"With its huge economy stalled and state revenues plunging, California has descended into its worst budget crisis in a decade and is now facing an excruciating round of budget cuts and possible tax increases," the paper continued.

Tax increases … tax increases… Oh yes, now I remember. New York City's Mayor Michael Bloomberg – a lifelong liberal on social issues – has just signed a bill hiking property taxes in The Big Apple nearly 19 percent, a move that one analysis says will cost 62,000 jobs citywide. All the little Napoleons on the Democrat-dominated city council supported the hike, but give them some credit: Bloomberg initially sought a 25-percent increase.

NYC's property-tax increase came on the heels of a cigarette-tax increase in June, and Bloomberg is also asking state leaders in Albany if he can increase the commuter tax as well.

California and New York City represent two of the most populous regions in the country. Both are bastions of abject liberal socialism. Both, obviously, are spending themselves into oblivion – the people can only afford to vote themselves so much largess.

Meanwhile St. Louis, Mo. – another Democrat-controlled enclave – was given the wonderful distinction of becoming the most dangerous city in the U.S. this past year. Democrats have ensured that Missouri remains one of only a handful of states that still doesn't trust its residents enough to "allow" them to have concealed firearms. Gun control in St. Louis is some of the most strict in the nation – but only for law-abiding people. Is it any wonder why, in a large city filled with unarmed victims, gun crime is up?

Speaking of Missouri, under a decade of Democratic leadership, the state's budget ballooned more than 300 percent so that now, like California and other states burdened by socialists, lawmakers are struggling to figure out how to pay for all the largess as revenues drop in a struggling economy.

Over in the nation's capital, the Democrat-dominated city council – hooked on "traffic" surveillance technology – now wants to put video cameras in all neighborhoods. Naturally the plan is being sold as a crime-prevention adjunct, but in essence what it will do is create a privacy-free zone in all of D.C., when you count all the local police and federal surveillance equipment.

Besides hiking taxes, how else are Democrats dealing with self-made fiscal problems? Trickery and theft.

Democrats, you may remember, carried the water for their allies in the trial-lawyer industry, who sued tobacco companies for hundreds of billions of dollars. States jumped on this bandwagon and for their effort were rewarded with record settlements that amounted to little more than legalized extortion of the tobacco industry – money that was supposed to be used, in large part, for anti-smoking campaigns.

What happened? Many states with the highest lung-cancer rates are squandering tobacco-settlement money intended for disease prevention on unrelated programs, according to a study of health and fiscal data released by the non-profit Cancer Care and The Chest Foundation.

Higher taxes. Fewer freedoms. Distrust of common folk. Less liberty. Trickery. Theft. That is the legacy of Democrat-controlled politics and their allies in the RINO – "Republican In Name Only" party. It obviously is no longer the party of grandma and granddad, where "the little guy" takes precedence.

With such a dismal record of defending American ideals of liberty and freedom, it's a wonder why the Democratic Party still exists.