Washblog

State Budget Shortfall Wouldn't Have Happened In A Rossi Administration?

Let me get this straight about Dino Rossi's campaign ads, public declarations, debating and talking points...

Dino wants me to believe that the state's budget shortfall is Christine Gregoire's fault and due to totally inept financial management and governing priorities?

Dino may deny having ever made such a declaration, but the the strongest, most direct and most deliberate implication of his campaign strategy is precisely that notion.

As an independent voter, I find that extremely insulting. I find in his statements the presumption that I and my neighbors are too stupid and gullible to challenge his declarations. It is apparent that Rossi is trying to drive home a message he somehow believes he can totally control.

I remember a long time ago when my brother-in-law drove over to Vancouver from Portland for a barbecue at my place and got pulled over by the police for a traffic violation. When asked by the policeman for my address, not trusting the cop, my brother-in-law (who's native tongue is not English) responded,

"I don't know the address. All I know is that I drive down this road and turn right at the big rock."

Is that not what candidate Rossi is asking of Washington Voters?

Isn't he asking us to move on down this election road but also to turn Right at the big rock of misinformation and deception Rossi considers fair and honest campaigning?

Case in point is the idea that the state is in budget trouble because of Christine Gregoire's failings and not because of economic breakdown on the state and national  level driven by 8 years of unwise Republican governance.

Why am I repeatedly assaulted by misleading statements and false promises from Rossi - whose party is indisputably responsible for this most massive economic crash since the Great Depression?

Dino Rossi may not admit it but he - not just his party - is on the wrong side of the change discussion. Rossi confirmed it by hypocritically trying to coat-tail Obama's acceptance speech in Denver immediately afterward because there was no other way for him to encounter a large group of interested voters.

"I - like Barack Obama - represent change," Rossi implied.

Railing against a sitting state governor for whose job he and his party lack justifiable credentials, Rossi tried to snake oil voters with totally transparent hypocrisy.

I am insulted because Rossi thinks that I and my neighbors are completely oblivious to the realities and causes of our own economic plight.

I am insulted because Rossi thinks that I and my neighbors are unaware of where things were 8 years ago when we bought houses, employment was better and small businesses on Willapa Bay were much better off.

I and my neighbors know this is so because of Rossi's desperate attempt to not only try to blame Democrats, but even to go so far as to appear somehow distanced or even disconnected from his own party, it's presidential incumbent and current presidential candidate.

I wonder if candidate Rossi personally knows any specific poor people or unemployed workers in this state. If so, why does he not speak in specifics about the plight of the poor and sprinkle his speaking with annectdotal references?

Certainly his principal unprincipled financial base, the BIAW does not know or care about unemployed workers or poor families.

If Rossi and the BIAW really cared about the poor and the unemployed would their economic policies be so rigidly founded on cheap labor, opposition to higher wages and employer-sponsored health coverage improvements?

This absence of personal connection to individual families, workers, the elderly, the poor, to those without health coverage, as well as those with incomes restricted by disability is both glaring and tragic.

The economic philosophy of Rossi, the BIAW and so-called "conservative" Republican party stands abjectly and nakedly as highly inappropriate in a society based on personal income and  consumption.

These people talk about supply and demand; about how "an unfettered and totally capitalistically free  market in and of itself will solve a society's social problems." They speak of a political economic viewpoint that has revealed itself in headline news all over the world as totally discredited.

Rossi, the BIAW and his party today ask Americans to agree to total welfare bail out of irresponsible big business ...

 - not families
- not individuals
not small business persons,
not states, counties or smaller municipalities

... but corporations who bear totally responsibility and accountability for their own deregulated economic policies and decisions.

Regardless of whether or not this candidate is actually acquianted on an intimate basis with any poor person,
any poor family,
any unemployed individual,
any uninsured,
elderly or low-income voter in this state,
Dino Rossi has already demonstrated and proven that he is the least qualified, most out of touch and ideologically misguided candidate to govern in Washington State in this election.

Cross Posted on my Daily Kos Diary.

< Alaskans Rally Against Palin - photos | The $700,000,000,000 plan IS the Fulcrum of the Failure of Privatisation >
Display: Sort:
When Dino Rossi, that most prominent Washington State representative of the Republican Party, talks about spending priorities and compassionate reform, he's not talking about individual Washington citizens or families. He's talking about the friends of George Bush who of course are also the best of friends with the BIAW out here in the Great Northwest.

Reference the Wall Street Journal article, Lawmakers Battle Over Rescue Plan

As anti-Iraq Invasion activists in support of military families, Lietta and I always found it difficult to motivate individuals and families who had no warrior close to or connected to them  to get involved.

They did not have - as has been described many times - "skin in the game."

Hmmm ... now that we all have skin in the American Economic Politics game, I hope more people are willing to lay down their clickers, toss their bottles, golf clubs, American idols and dancing darlings and get involved. In more of the past 8 years, the Bush Republican Bureaucrats are wanting to address this economic meltdown in their own time-proven-failure, the "Halliburton" formula.

The Wall Street Journal describes bureaucrat Paulson as being ready to insist that there is only one true way the Bushco folks will have it:


Mr. Paulson is resisting efforts to limit the pay of executives whose firms participate in the program and plans to fight it "hard," according to a person familiar with the matter. He fears that provision would render the program moot, since many firms might choose not to participate."



Oh, and just like the sales pros do when they don't want you to have time to think it over, Paulson and Associates insist the the decision be as rapid as possible.

There's more,


"The debate could expose a peculiar irony in the government's rescue planning, because taxpayers are now both creditors and debtors in the housing mess. While some taxpayers would benefit from attempts to aid homeowners by modifying mortgages or easing the bankruptcy process, others could be hurt if those moves increase the overall cost of the bailout."



And of course the ultimate irony for all those of the Grover Norquist school of erroneous assumptions is that this action is essentially socialistic in the extreme.

Corporate Welfare is now Official Government Policy.

More money by far is spent on Public Welfare Programs than ever before in the history of this nation and the recipients are not human beings.

Newt Gingrich and Phil Gramm owe us a new Promise to America. And somebody needs to explain it to John
McCain before his bootlaces get so tangled in his vocal chords that he'll have two permanent tongues.

Arthur
What they inwardly imagine is the only thing they'll accept.

by Arthur Ruger on Mon Sep 22, 2008 at 11:58:10 AM PST

* 1 none 0 *


Display: Sort:

 

 

 

PNW TOPIC HOTLIST

Login

Make a new account
Username:
Password:

 HELP

Recommended Diaries

Washblog RSS Feeds

Political Contacts

Local Media

Coastal/Grays Harbor
Aberdeen Daily World
Chinook Observer
Montesano Vidette
Pacific County Press
Willapa Harbor Herald
KXRO 1320 AM

Olympic Peninsula
Peninsula Daily News
Bremerton Sun
Bremerton Chronicle
Gig Harbor Gateway
Port Orchard Independent
Port Townsend Leader
North Kitsap Herald
Squim Gazette
Central Kitsap Reporter
Business Examiner
KONP 1450 AM

Sound and Islands
Anacortes American
Bainbridge Review
Voice Of Bainbridge
San Juan Journal
The Islands' Sounder
Whidbey NewsTimes
South Whidbey Record
Stanwood/Camano News
Vashon Beachcomber
Voice Of Vashon
KLKI 1340 AM

North Puget Sound
Bellingham Herald
The Northern Light
Everett Herald
Skagit Valley Herald
Lynden Tribune
The Enterprise
Snohomish County Tribune
Snohomish County Business Journal
The Monroe Monitor
The Edmonds Beacon
KGMI 790 AM
KELA 1470 AM
KRKO 1380 AM

Central Puget Sound
King County Journal
Issaquah Press
Mukilteo Beacon
Voice of the Valley
Federal Way Mirror
Bothell/Kenmore Reporter
Kirkland courier
Mercer Island Reporter
Woodinville Weekly

Greater Seattle
Seattle PI
Seattle Times
KOMO TV 4
KIRO TV 7
KING 5 TV
KTBW TV 22
KCTS 9
UW Daily
The Stranger
Seattle Weekly
Capitol Hill Times
Madison Park Times
Seattle Journal of Commerce
NW Asian Weekly
West Seattle Herald
North Seattle Herald-Outlook
South Seattle Star
Magnolia News
Beacon Hill News
KIRO 710 AM
KOMO AM 1000
KEXP 90.3 FM
KUOW 94.9 FM
KVI 570 AM

South Puget Sound
The Columbian
Longview Daily News
Nisqually Valley News
Lewis County News
The Reflector
Eatonville Dispatch
Tacoma News Tribune
Tacoma Weekly
Puyallup Herald
Enumclaw Courier-Herald
The Olympian
KAOS 89.3 FM
KCPQ 13
KOWA FM 106.5
UPN 11

Cascade/Okanogan
Ellensburg Daily Record
Levenworth Echo
Cle Elum Tribune
Snoqualmie Valley Record
Methow Valley News
Lake Chelan Mirror
Omak chronicle
The Newport Miner

Spokane/Palouse
The Spokesman-Review
KREM 2 TV Spokane
KXLY News 4 Spokane
KHQ 6 Spokane
KSPS Spokane
Statesman-Examiner
Othello Outlook
Cheney Free Press
Camas PostRecord
The South County sun
White Salmon Enterprise
Palouse Boomerang
Columbia Basin Herald
Grand Coulee Star
Walla Walla Union-Bulletin
Yakima Herald-Republic
KIMA 29 Yakima
KAPP TV 35 Yakima
KYVE Yakima
Wenatchee World
Tri-City Herald
TVEW TV 42 Tri-cities
KTNW Richland
KEPR 19 Pasco
Daily Sun News
Prosser Record-Bulletin
KTCR 1340 AM
KWSU Pullman
Moscow-Pullman Daily News