This page was last updated on May 27, 2012.
Blame should be on Congress; Thomas Finch; Beaver County Times; May 24, 2012. Along with others, this letter appeared on the BCT website on May 24, 2012, but did not appear in the print edition until May 30, 2012.
The BCT has published at least 36 letters from Mr. Finch since December 2004. At least 28 of these letters were anti-Bush and/or anti-Republican and they never disappoint. Here is one example. You can find the remaining Finch letters I critiqued in the critique archives. As usual, this letter is little more than a string of leftist talking points. I wish he could get a regular column in the BCT. I also wish he could get at least five minutes per day on a local radio and/or TV station.
Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.
“It is ironic that Joseph Zanella’s May 13 letter speaks of ‘hypocrisy,’ then erroneously places the blame for our economy on President Obama.”
[RWC] This is the fourth back-and-forth letter between Messrs. Finch and Zanella. I critiqued Mr. Finch’s letter entitled “Verify your facts.”
Here’s the relevant portion of Mr. Zanella’s letter: “I ask again, just what has the current administration done to improve our economy, global position, and most importantly for the poor and hard-working tax-paying U.S. citizens? Reality is record deficits, government expanded, regulations added that hinder growth, gas prices have doubled, higher unemployment rate, fewer opportunities for the under-privileged to advance, etc.”
“Our economic problems go far beyond what any one man can rectify. I blame an uncooperative Congress, which would rather discredit and counter any Democratic overture than make bipartisan improvements.”
[RWC] As for “Our economic problems go far beyond what any one man can rectify,” this appears to be a new position for Mr. Finch. Even when our economy was growing and we had low unemployment, Mr. Finch tried to convince us otherwise and blamed President Bush for Mr. Finch’s imagined bad economy. You can find examples in the critique archives.
It appears Mr. Finch would like us to forget Democrats were the majority party in both houses of Congress for four years (including a short time with a filibuster-proof Senate) until January 2011 and Mr. Obama was President for the last two of those years. Democrats are still the majority in the Senate.
President Obama’s most recent budget proposal was voted down in the Democrat-majority Senate 99-0. It was 97-0 last year. The Republican-majority House voted down Mr. Obama’s budget 414-0 in March. Until Democrats support Mr. Obama’s budget proposals, it’s hard to blame Republicans.
“Everything these Tea Party Republicans believe in is based on lies: ‘Big government (taxes) are bad’ (Until you need health care, a student loan, police/fire protection, or infrastructure repairs); ‘Corporations and Wall Street need no government controls’ (Heard about the JP Morgan Chase fiasco?); ‘Government needs to be run like a business -- hurrah for Mitt!’ (The government exists to serve the people -- not to make money.).”
[RWC] This paragraph is about limited government. Though Mr. Finch likely knows what limited government means, he’d rather argue against “no government” because that’s pretty easy. My definition of limited government is the level that coincides with maximum effective individual liberty. Limited government does not mean no government/regulations as Mr. Finch would like readers to believe. Government should provide a civil and criminal legal environment, law enforcement, national security, some elements of infrastructure like roads, et cetera. The original Constitution plus the Bill of Rights scream limited government, at least at the federal level.
On the other hand, government has no business confiscating the fruits of one family’s or municipality’s labor and giving them to another. Programs like Medicaid, Medicare, Socialist Security, Obamacare, farm welfare, subsidies, et cetera, fall into this category. In an 1816 letter to Joseph Milligan, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “To take from one, because it is thought that his own industry and that of his fathers [sic] has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, ‘the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry, and the fruits acquired by it.’” Democrats like to brag Mr. Jefferson was a founder of their party, but can you imagine how they would treat him today if he were alive and expressed the same position?
“It is true the rich 1 percent who pay for this insane propaganda -- like Karl Rove and the Koch brothers -- don’t need the government, but the other 99 percent of us do.”
[RWC] This is more of Mr. Finch’s “limited government = no government” BS and his envy of “the rich 1 percent.” Based on 2009 income tax data, the “rich 1 percent” begins at an AGI of $344,000 and they paid 37% of the total federal income tax revenue. The top 5% (AGI greater than $155,000) paid 59%. How much more is the top one percent’s “fair share” in Mr. Finch’s opinion? The bottom 50% (AGI less than $33,000) paid 2.3% of the total.
Mr. Rove has been a boogeyman to Mr. Finch since at least 2005. As for the Koch (pronounced “coke”) brothers, they are the latest lefty boogeymen because they are wealthy and contribute primarily to conservative candidates and causes. If the Koch brothers contributed primarily to lefty candidates and causes, as do wealthy lefties like Peter Lewis (Progressive Insurance), George Soros (Wall Street hedge-fund manager), et al, they would be lefty heroes. For example, USW CEO Leo Gerard recently wrote of “Democratic benefactor George Soros.” I wonder if Mr. Finch considers Messrs. Lewis and Soros “true one-percenters.”
“Democrats don’t have all the answers, but they will represent ‘we the people’ better than any obstructionist Republican or Tea Party lunatic will.”
[RWC] Sure. Note Mr. Finch didn’t give us even one of the “answers.”
“They are our last line of defense for living in a representative democracy rather than a corporate plutocracy.”
[RWC] By the way, lefties tend to treat business and corporation as synonyms. That is, when Mr. Finch wrote “Corporations” and “corporate,” he really meant all businesses, from the local “mom and pop” store all the way up to the largest multinational businesses.
© 2004-2012 Robert W. Cox, all rights reserved.