The hammer dropped itself

Lead story across pretty much all the major newspapers, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) announced that he was stepping down. Like most every blog out there, I'm not here to break any news or do any original reporting, but I do have a comment.

The Los Angeles Times had this quoted statement from U.S. Rep. John Boehner (pronounced BAY-ner), DeLay's successor as majority leader:

"The country owes Tom a great debt of gratitude for helping lead America in a new direction--a direction outlined in the Contract with America that saw balanced budgets, historic welfare reforms, lower taxes, regulatory relief, and a renewed respect for the sanctity of life."

Let's get a few things straight Majority Leader Boner ...

The only balanced budgets passed in the last 20-plus years happened with a Democratic President. Since Tommy "the Hammer" got his own party's president into office, we devoured the largest surplus ever and magically transformed it into one of the worst deficits ever (adjusted for inflation. without inflation it's the worst ever).

Welfare reform, Democratic president ... check. With both houses of Congress, the Presidency, more governorships and perhaps, I think, more state legislatures under your control, you couldn't manage to reform Social Security b/c your plan was such an unmitigated cosmic-sized clusterfuck.

Lower taxes, yeah, Clinton managed to do some of that and not plunge us into a blackhole deficit because he realized that the billionaires running multi-billion dollar corporations could live without.

Regulatory relief ... yeah, that's been great. We've had the worst corporate scandals in U.S. history happen under the watch of Tom DeLay and the Contract with America, at least once they got an enabling President. Oh yeah, and the type of stuff that might help me (a lower cable bill, lower phone rates, lower prices at the pump ... nada.) Oh yeah, our air is gonna be dirtier than ever and so is our water. That's awesome! And schools are more federally regulated than they've ever been. That's even awesomer!

Respect for the sanctity of life? Executions at an all-time high. Sentient adults being told that they don't have control of their bodies or their decisions. Wait, that's regulatory relief, right? wrong? bueller? Oh wait, we're defending the rights of the unborn by allowing them to be brought into the world unwanted and unloved and also really, really poor. And in South Dakota hopefully with mothers who cannot provide for them because carrying the pregnancy to term will result in a permanently debilitating condition, but not death.