John Sinrud, the GOP, and government budgets

September 21, 2006 in John Sinrud, Jon Tester, Montana Democrats, Montana Republicans

So what got me started on Sinrud, you may ask? It wasn’t much. Just a drive-by comment left on a post with published newspaper letters in praise of Jon Tester.

But, you see, the comment was so irritating…

Okay, before I break into a patented rant, I’ll let you read the comment:

Jon Tester has raised taxes by the tune of $60 million per year on small business. The bi-partisan removal trigger on business equipment had been meet in 2002 according to the Department of Revenue (researched in July of 2006). With the passage of SB48 the one Tester voted for, it removed the trigger clause and kept business equipment tax at 3% with the knowledge that no other state around Montana has a business equipment tax. This is the tax policy of Tester just another tax and spend liberal.

Um, huh? Okay, I don’t want to get into the specifics of this particular tax…or non-tax…or tax trigger. That can wait for some other post. What I want to talk about is the bald rhetoric Sinrud used to smear Tester: “just another tax and spend liberal.”

First. This year’s state budget – of which Tester played an integral part – produced a $500 million surplus. Compare that to this year’s federal deficit, which the administration predicted would be $295.8 billion. As a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Conrad Burns played an integral part in that budget.

Which lawmaker has a better fiscal record?

Allow David Crisp to ask a very pertinent question to John Sinrud and the Republican party:

What I’m waiting for is some genuine conservative to explain to me how it is fiscally responsible for a senator to support, say, a war that costs a billion or so bucks a day and then not only refuse to levy the taxes to pay for it but actually support tax cuts that dig the hole even deeper. Any takers?

What you will hear is some “voo-doo economics” theories, where money given in tax breaks and subsidies to the wealthiest Americans will trickle down on our heads – the bread crumbs off the banquet table of the filthy rich – and make us all happy.

Meanwhile we – middle- and working-class Americans – shoulder an increasing burden of taxation and federal debt.

No, Sinrud’s rhetoric and budget philosophy is harmful not only to our state’s capacity to govern effectively, it hurts us, everyday Montanans. But it also plays on your fears, the specter of a large and out-of-control government. The government is out of control. It spies on its own citizens, it kidnaps and tortures, it wages quixotic wars for no apparent reason, it skimps on security while doling out lucrative war contracts to good-ol-boy business pals, all the while dismantling through cronyism and neglect federal bodies that are — were — useful. Like FEMA. Like the FCC. Like the FDA.

Spending goes up. The return on our tax dollar goes down.

That’s the Republican budget policy. And that’s why we shouldn’t tolerate a Republican majority in this state’s legislature as long as they tout rhetoric over reality, cronies over constituents, and power over people.