Comments (39) | Add a comment
John L. Smith
Angle's soft-lens tactics do little to obscure past pronouncements
Tools
More Columns
More Blogs
Updated: Aug. 18, 2010 | 6:42 a.m.
Maybe the showdown between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and firebrand Republican Sharron Angle was inevitable.
You would certainly think so after reading the angry letter Angle wrote to Reid on Nov. 20, 1993, decrying his support for President Bill Clinton's broad-based budget bill, which included a large tax increase on the wealthiest 1.2 percent of Americans while delivering tax cut incentives to 90 percent of the nation's small businesses. Though controversial at the time, Clinton's fiscal policies helped lead to unprecedented job growth.
Angle let Reid have it with both barrels. She also bluntly revealed her belief that the only way to save America was to end "social and entitlement programs."
As a Senate candidate this year, Angle and her campaign mechanics have worked hard to soften her rhetoric about "eliminating" Social Security in favor of "privatizing" and "personalizing" individual accounts. She's also suffered self-inflicted wounds on federal unemployment insurance extensions and other "entitlement" programs.
Her language is warmer and fuzzier now, but there was a time she pulled no punches:
"I and the majority of my fellow Nevadans are sickened by the passage of the recent huge tax increase bill. With YOUR help the quality of life in America has taken another step into the pit of economic collapse. Clinton's mother-of-all tax packages is the world's biggest tax increase ever. It increases government spending by $300 billion, increases the national debt by $1 trillion, it is retroactive to January 1, and probably the most offensive, it schedules 80 percent of the promised spending cuts to take place after the next Presidential election. What a joke, and not a very funny one at that!
"Under your new bill, I and the rest of us (including my children and yours) will work from January 1 until July 31 to cover our tax liability. How much more can you suck out of the taxpayers before everything collapses? It is evident that you have caved in with our President and the rest of those tax-and-spenders in Washington that voted for this disgrace.
"The answer to this mess is clear. STOP FUNDING THE WASTEFUL SOCIAL AND ENTITLEMENT PROGRAMS. MAKE THE DIFFICULT CHOICES THAT WILL KEEP OUR COUNTRY STRONG. THAT'S WHAT YOU WERE ELECTED TO DO! I beg you not to support taxpayer funded national health care which is the next hit we are in line for. I also request that you end the spending (of) tax dollars to support pornography and perversion through continuing grants from the National Emdowment for the Arts.
"In closing, I want to reaffirm my total dissatisfaction with your support for the tax bill. I will be expressing my dissatisfaction in the voting booth in the next election.
"Please take the following words of Professor Alexander Tyler to heart. He said, 'A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves a largess from the treasury. From that moment on, the majority will always vote for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy.' ...
"I hope you receive thousands of letters like mine. Maybe then you will understand the impact of your tax bill on America, and the outrage of its citizens."
In 1993, Angle was a member of Nevada's far-right Independent American Party and sat on the Nye County School District board. Her rhetoric changed only after she prevailed in the 2010 Republican primary.
Ending Social Security and other entitlement programs? No sweeping national health care reform? Pornography and perversion aplenty in the National Endowment for the Arts? Alexander Tyler?
That's the Angle I know.
Her recent soft-lens campaign style notwithstanding, I suspect Sharron Angle is the same as she ever was.
John L. Smith's column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. E-mail him at Smith@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0295. He also blogs at lvrj.com/blogs/smith.
Comments
Terms & Conditions
The following comments are provided by readers and are the sole responsiblity of the authors. The Review-Journal does not review comments before publication nor guarantee their accuracy. By publishing a comment here you agree to abide by the comment policy. If you see a comment that violates the policy, please use the Report Abuse button.
Some comments may not display immediately due to an automatic filter. These comments will be reviewed within 24 hours. Please do not submit a comment more than once.
Note: Comments made by reporters and editors of the Las Vegas Review-Journal are presented with a yellow background.
RSS
Twitter
Facebook
Oh I forgot to mention Justin, we (R) overwhelmingly voted Gibbons out in the primary. We will do the same when Ensign is up for re-election, we (R) tend to hold our own responsible for their actions.
Justin.in.NLV--Sorry for the unexplained post--Lester is correct. Harry Reid has about 30 paid lurkers posting anti Angle stuff all day and all night. I hate Reid's stances and dislike him personally and decided to work for the remained of the election cycle to counter their paid work with as much of my own posting as possible. I will be all over ANY Reid story, placing my $.02 against theirs.
Justin - his list was in response to Jack.Webb DAILY Ensign,Gibbons, Angle list.
@Alvinjh.. are you paid by the post or something? I noticed your list of politicians with legal/moral troubles didn't include ANY Republicans... Either you are hypocritical in your disdain for bad politicians or have not looked at "your" party. You should start with Ensign and Gibbons. It should not be too hard to add them to your "list"
'A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves a largess from the treasury. From that moment on, the majority will always vote for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy.'
Crazy huh? Has anyone ever seen a public union, whether, teacher, firemen, police, or administrative--do they exercise ANY restraint when demanding their share of the public funding? Does job reduction EVER become part of the bargaining formula no matter what the circumstance? NO. The union's put GM out of business. We rescued them.
That's right, taxpayers are on the hook for the unions work rules that put GM under. Now that GM has been freed from the yoke of those contracts, its doing fine. But who is spposed to pay for those promises now?
Dems Pushing $165 Billion Dollar Pension Bailout
http://biggovernment.com/laborunionreport/2010/07/30/why-democrats-are-pushing-the-165-billion-union-pension-bailout/
http://biggovernment.com/laborunionreport/2010/07/30/why-democrats-are-pushing-the-165-billion-union-pension-bailout/
Unemployment Extension Fight Is Just Beginning
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2010/07/20/unemployment-extension-fight-is-just-beginning/
Americans' Food Stamp Use Nears All-Time High
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/25/AR2008112502553.html
Summer of recovery update: Riot cops called in to deal with thousands waiting for federal housing vouchers
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/summer-of-recovery-update-riot-cops-called-in-to-deal-with-thousands-waiting-for-federal-housing-vouchers-100457914.html#ixzz0x6UokNYR
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/summer-of-recovery-update-riot-cops-called-in-to-deal-with-thousands-waiting-for-federal-housing-vouchers-100457914.html
Cuts in Social Security Weighed by Fiscal Panel
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704476104575439792287255372.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories
Sharon Angle's remarks that social security needs reform are correct.
16 people used to support 1 retiree in 1950. 3 people are expected to do so now.
All the "crazy" talk should be directed at those that spent the chain letter's money.
That's right--social security is chain letter. It always has been, but no one wants to say so--for the same reason no one will point out that the funding that was used for the Yucca Mountain Project was handled in EXACTLY the same manner.
They charged rate payers for using nuclear power, promising to hold that money in trust and use it for a solution to solve nuclear waste.
Then--they put the money in the general fund and spent it. Now the rate payers say give it back if you are not going to build Yucca.
Congress under Reid says NO WAY. Meanwhile utilities sue the government for violating the contracts the DOE entered into promising to take over the waste, and since they didn't, we, the taxpayers are paying hundreds of millions in fines.
Sharon Angle says abolish the DOE. "Crazy!" they say.
We did fine with smaller agencies like the AEC earlier, but there aren't enough patronage jobs for the dems to pass out in that scenario. People like Bill Richardson the would be VP, former head of the DOE and Yucca Mtn Project--"I was never for it" he says come election time.
No wonder people are sick to death of these "can't do" pols. Abolish the agencies and return to smaller, nimbler, more effective organizations that don't live on forever feeding at the federal trough and producing nothing but democratic VP hopefuls.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704476104575439792287255372.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories