I may have misspoken when I brought out the comparison between 1994 and the upcoming wholesale political slaughter that will be taking place in 2010.
Clearly, the inaction from Olympia is a result of the political paralysis currently suffered as a result of the institutional memory of the Massacre of 1994.
For those who don't know, here, locally, the makeup of the Clark County delegation switched from 8 democrats and 1 Republican to 6 Republicans and 3 democrats.
In one election.
Republicans took control not unlike democrats have it now... but the switch wasn't gradual... it was catastrophic for the democrats with Republicans taking roughly 63 seats in the House and around 28 seats in the Senate.
There are clearly enough democrats still around in the House and Senate from those days that they haven't completely forgotten what that was like... and their inaction goes to the appearance that the institutional knowledge of the caucus shows terror on the part of the left as they struggle with an $8.3 billion deficit brought about by their fiscal mismanagement.
Well, imagine my surprise when a member of the MSM, Joe Turner of the Tacoma News Tribune just FLAYED the democrats for their inaction... and their idea of using the MSM as extensions of the caucuses to help the left ram though massive tax increases; sheer idiocy any time but off the chart stupidity when executed during a massive recession.
I have mentioned in the past that the MSM has been totally in the tank for the left. Many of them make no bones about it. But Turner's blown his cork on this, and it's a thing of beauty.
Friday, February 27th, 2009
Almost every week, House Speaker Frank Chopp, D-Seattle, and Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, D-Spokane, meet with statehouse reporters for about 45 minutes on Thursdays. Chopp at 2 p.m.; Brown, in a separate meeting, at 3:30 p.m.
This week, Chopp was mildly complaining that we in the Press Corps have not given House Democrats enough credit for what they've accomplished so far this session. And I respectfully disagreed. We have given them way too much credit. In fact, in hindsight, I can't believe how much "ink" they got for doing so little on the budget front. They passed a couple bills that cut state spending by about $300 million and spend about $330 million of federal money (instead of state money) from the economic stimulus money they're getting from Congress.
That doesn't address even 1/10th of the $8 billion budget deficit they are facing. And Monday will be Day 50, almost halfway through the scheduled 105-day session. (Yes, it may run longer, Chopp's protestations notwithstanding.)
More noteworthy, the Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate told state agencies, basically, to ignore the cuts that Gov. Chris Gregoire proposed in her budget in mid-December and keep on spending money in many areas.
By my count they've done 3 substantive things that address our deepening recession, so far:
I just hope that it's not just Olympia; that Washington is trying to get as much left-wing legislation passed as possible because they know they're gonna get tossed in 2 years.
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