Why voters are cynical

By Tom Quiner

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_foalavjaA]

Voters hate to be manipulated.

The faux commercial above is funny because it smacks of some truth.  Take the current budget debate. Nine days ago, the Congressional Budget Office made a dire prediction:  America is going to experience long term red ink like we haven’t seen since World War II.  We have a growing crisis.  So what is our leadership in Congress doing about it?

Nothing.  They refuse to pass a budget.  Rather than presenting the usual five year fiscal blueprint, the House passed a non-binding one year budget “resolution.”

Even Pulitzer prize-winning journalist, David Broder, who is no conservative, is stunned by the depth of the Democrats’ chutzpa.  He describe it this way:

For all the publicity that goes to earmarks and other spending gimmicks, this was a far worst dereliction of duty. And the cynicism of the maneuver just made it worse.

Speaker Pelosi, no stranger to chutzpa, said Democrat’s dereliction of duty was “another step in restoring fiscal responsiblity.”

Do you remember how these same people railed (with justification) against President’s Bush’s profligacy?  Now they are not only spending us into an abyss from which we may never extricate ourselves, they are refusing to step up to the plate and present a responsible budget.

Republican Paul Ryan is one politician who has stepped up to the plate and presented a responsible budget proposal (ignored by Democrats).  Here is what he said of Democrats’ budget resolution:

“This is not a budget. The measure fails to meet the most basic, commonly understood objectives of any budget. It does not set congressional priorities; it does not align overall spending, tax, deficit and debt levels; and it does nothing to address the runaway spending of federal entitlement programs.”

Honest differences of opinions exist between the two parties on various issues. Nothing wrong with that. That’s politics.  That’s America.  But Democrat’s refusal to present a budget isn’t honorable.  It’s called political cowardice.  And it breeds nothing but cynicism.