Politics

If Washingtonian magazing thought people in Washington were stealing money hand over fist in 2006, imagine how much worse it is today.

"In a hilarious understatement, the Washingtonian soberly announces that "jobs with the federal government have paid relatively well" for a long, long time. Yes, but "in recent years, big money wealth has become so commonplace" in Washington that "it's no longer special." There are more than 55,000 homes in the D.C. area, for example, that are worth more than $1 million, including Republican Party honcho Senator Bill Frist's $20 million mansion that is featured in the article. It pays to be a "public servant." Average house prices in much of "sleepy" Howard County, Maryland, near D.C., are in the $900,000 range.
All of this wealth is generated by what economists call "rent seeking." Plunder seeking is a better term. Among the administrators/perpetrators of Washington's gargantuan wealth redistribution machine are 183,900 "everyday millionaires" whose net worth is between $2 million and $10 million; 24,887 "Rich But Don't Know It" types who are worth between ten and fifty million; 7,200 "really rich" who are worth between a hundred and five-hundred million annually; and about 500 "tycoon rich" lobbyists, lawyers and rent seekers whose net worth is nearing a billion.
"How did Washington get so rich?, the Washingtonian innocently asks. Well, "federal spending continues to set new records, with Washington getting a greater share of the new dollars." Between 1980 and today, the government's spending in Washington has escalated from $4 billion to $52 billion. "This gusher of government money is the chief catalyst for Washington's increasing prosperity." Aha! Mystery solved!"

I hate to think about how much more money there is in Washington now.

"Not all plunderers live in the D.C. area, of course. Economists Richard Vedder and Lowell Galloway once documented that there is a substantial (20—40 percent) "income premium" in every state capitol compared to the average income in the rest of the state. "

That's a good stat. 

Liberals, fearing Bobby Jindal might become the next Republican presidential candidate, are twisting his words in an attempt to slime him four years in advance.

" “We cannot be, we must not be, the party that simply protects the rich so they get to keep their toys.” He also said the party shouldn’t tolerate “bizarre, offensive comments” or “dumbed-down conservatism.”"

Upon parsing these words, I recognize they are meaningless. If you wanted a reason to reject Jindal. the meaningless of his jargon, like the meaningless of Romney's jargon, is a good reason.  The Republicans don't want to learn the lessons of the failures of McCain and Romney. We can pretty sure that in 2016, they will nominate a candidate with all the same big-government, vague rhetoric failures as ever, but he won't be a white male.

Republican postmortem:

 "A week's worth of soul-searching among Republicans has yielded no shortage of explanations for the party's failure to win the White House. They point to the Obama campaign's early and aggressive effort to disparage Mitt Romney. They admit Democrats had a superior voter-turnout operation. Some point to Superstorm Sandy, saying it robbed Romney of momentum."

I don't see anything here about Obama losing 9 million votes since 2008 nor Romney losing 2 million votes compared to McCain 2008.

"What they won't say is that President Obama won a mandate for his vision, or that the GOP has veered too far right in its outlook."

Because that would be a lie and stupid given how the exit polls, normal polls, and the voting results. I ripped Speaker Boehner for per-emptively surrendering after Obama's election. Since then he has backtracked. Apparently somebody who was less of sellout that him got to him, thank goodness. If I was Boehner, here's what I would say:

"President Obama lost nine million votes over the last four years. That's an unprecedented rejection of his agenda. Voters overwhelmingly rejected Obama's big spending, big taxing, big Obamacare agenda. Since all spending bills must originate in the House and voters gave Republicans a strong majority in the House, we will obey their mandate and reject all new spending, all new taxes, and we will not fund Obamacare. Mitt Romney also lost two million votes compared to John McCain. In 20/20 hindsight, Mitt Romney was the worst possible candidate we could have run for president. Romney's record was one of big spending, big taxing and big Romneycare, and the American people didn't believe he was suddenly going to change his stripes and cut spending, cut taxes and repeal Obamacare. Our mistake, but we get it now. Based on this, we welcome all the spending and tax cuts President Obama offers,  but we will not raise taxes or spending or fund Obamacare under any circumstances."

But that will never happen. Boehner was eager to sell our conservatives and increase spending. That's how he gets rich, and that isn't going to change. Bend over, grab your butt cheeks, then close your eyes as Boehner and Obama team up to cornhole you and empty your wallet.