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09/23/2005: About that Lap-dance...
Today's GEM is from Gerard Baker (Times of London):
Vote Republican for free lap dancing: “Suddenly the party known for fiscal prudence is throwing money about with abandon.
“… I can’t think of a more compassionate conservatism than one that pays for a Budweiser and a lap dance with somebody else’s money.
One of the more puzzling myths about the US in the wake of the Katrina disaster is the notion that heartless, penny-pinching Republicans have bled the Government so dry that the very idea of public spending, even on disasters, has become impossible. In fact, the Fema sponsor-a-stripper exercise was entirely of a piece with an outburst of fiscal incontinence proudly presided over by government-hating Republicans in the last decade.
When President Bush promised last week that the US would spend hundreds of billions of dollars to rebuild the Gulf Coast it was the latest step in the remarkable conversion of the Republican Party from the party of fiscal prudence into the progenitors of the next New Deal and Great Society combined. The rhetoric, it is true, has been all about the virtues of small government. But since 2000 the Republican controlled Congress and White House have been on a spending binge that would make any self-respecting banana republic blush.
...I can even think of a slogan to promote them: Mortgaging America to the hilt? $300 billion. US dependency on China? $600 billion. A beer and a lap dance at Baby Dolls? Priceless.”
Karen on 09.23.05 @ 09:14 AM CST
