Even the Joker in his Deck is a Race Card
It’s been a while since we have heard from Democrat South Carolina Congressman James Clyburn. He’s the one who said that blacks are more likely to be hurt by global warming than other Americans. As inane as that comment may be, it is nowhere near as dangerous as his latest. James Clyburn says, “We’re not going to save our way out of this recession … We’ve got to spend our way out of this recession, and I think most economists know that.” Isn’t it wonderful that the same man, who thinks that global warming is going to affect blacks the most, knows what most economists think? What a valuable man to have in the Congress of the United States!
This is the third ranking Democrat in the House, folks. Man is he absolutely dead wrong. Perhaps Clyburn would like to read a report from The Heritage Foundation: Why Government Spending Does Not Stimulate Economic Growth: Answering the Critics. http://www.heritage.org/research/economy/bg2354.cfm
The above paragraphs were written by Neal Boortz on February 10, 2010, and gave me the impetus to honor the Congressman as one of our Poster Children. His thinking as expressed there is so childlike, so immature. But he has only been in congress for 20 years and given his gerrymandered district, he will be there until he joins Jack Murtha and Teddy Kennedy, two of our poster boys who have gone on to their rewards.
What can you expect from a man who has spent his entire life, as have all of our Poster Children so far, on the public payroll? This doesn’t make him a bad person, it just deprives the people of the U.S. the kind of experience that might be applied to the difficult decisions that the office demands. Or, should demand, but clearly doesn’t.
Rep. Clyburn taught history and was active in all the various civil rights activities of his time. Being Black and living in the South, that is natural and commendable. He and Emily have three daughters and two grandchildren.
His voting record is down-the-line Dem. The Club for Growth says that last year he voted against all 68 amendments to limit pork spending. He hasn’t seen fit to oppose any spending measure as the non-partisan national Taxpayers Union reports. He is consistently in the “Big Spender” category on NTU’s annual rankings. Most career politicians who have spent their entire lives on the public payroll have no concern where the money comes from or if it has to be borrowed from future generations. They just don’t understand economics and generally care little about how wealth is created –they just want to reallocate it –and get reelected.
Clyburn won the dubious honor of “Porker of the Month” November 2007 for trying to attach an earmark for a golf program to the Defense Appropriations Bill. He got $7.5 million in earmarks for golf programs since 2003 and in 2004 he got “The Taxpayers Get Teed Off” Oinker Award from Citizens Against Government Waste(CAGW) in 2004 for receiving $3 million in two separate appropriations bills that year. One earmark was for $1 million from the Department of Education’s Fund for the Improvement of Education and its Character Education Program, added in conference. These funds are intended solely for state and local education agencies, but so what? They even put up a statue of Clyburn at a golf center in Columbia with taxpayers’ money. CAGW is the nation’s largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.
In 1961 after losing campaigns for the S.C. legislature, then Gov. John Carl West asked Clyburn to join the administration as an “advisor.” After four years, he was appointed Human Affairs Commissioner, a position he held for 18 years during which time he twice ran losing campaigns for Secretary of State (in 1978 and 1986). When the House districts were redrawn (gerrymandered) following the 1990 census, the state’s 6th district became a majority-black district, and then-incumbent who was white, decided not to run. Clyburn won the five-way primary with 56 percent of the vote. Gerrymandering is where the candidate picks the voters instead of voters picking the candidate.
“You always look at black members of Congress from the civil rights aspect,” Clyburn told the National Journal in September 2006. “You never give us credit for developing legislative experience and congressional know-how and government background. I came here after running government agencies for 25 years. I didn’t come here after marching in the street.” It never occurs to members of congress that some private sector experience like creating jobs, making payrolls and living in the private sector under the laws they promulgate might be a more useful experience.
Once in the House, he was unanimously chosen to chair the Congressional Black Caucus. When the Democrats won control of the House in 2006, Clyburn was unanimously elected Majority Whip. As Majority Whip, he was tasked with rounding up Democrats to support the Oct. 2008 $700 billion Wall Street bailout package. “Bailout is an inaccurate way to describe this package,” Clyburn said after House passage. “I think we have come up with an incredible piece of legislation that addresses not just Wall Street, but also Broad Street in my home town and Walker Street, where I grew up.” When is a bailout not a bailout? There you have the answer.
Rep. Clyburn is part of the majority in Congress (which includes both political parties) that is completely ignoring the US Constitution they have given their oath to “support and defend.” These professional politicians are in there to pursue their own careers by insuring that they get reelected and that means buying votes with money, earmarks, exclusions from regulations, tax advantages and whatever it takes. We need to return to the citizen-legislators from our Founding through the early 20th Century. These were accomplished citizens who willingly would give a few years to “serve,” as in “public service” applying their training, experience and commitment to carrying out their Constitutional duties. Then going home to live under their laws.
