The Quorum Report reported yesterday the 20/20 PAC, consisting of 10 self-styled “moderate” Democrat members, hired Billy Hamilton for fiscal policy advice. This of average interest by itself but raises an interesting issue: the “centrist” scam, the “moderate” myth.
The liberal media has two types of darlings in government.
The first is liberals. The narrative shaped for them is they’re courageous warriors for the poor and protectors of the Earth. [The other interpretation is that liberals build a constituency through a) bribery (welfare in all forms from bailouts to food stamps) and b) by claiming to speak for the speechless: rocks and trees. Rocks and trees, being inanimate, will say anything that furthers the liberal agenda. Getting people to believe you’re their spokesman is power pudding.]
In fact, quite liberal legislators can find themselves in the media crosshairs come election time if the media thinks they can be replaced with a more radical candidate but not a more conservative one. It all depends on the voting habits of the particular legislator’s constituency.
The other type of liberal media darlings are so-called “moderates” or “centrists”. Be they Republicans or Democrats, rest assured that legislators nobly described using these terms have one thing in common: the liberal media thinks they can be beaten in the next election by more conservative candidates, plain and simple. The media knows that “liberal” is the least popular political tag in America so they preemptively name these vulnerable liberals “moderates” and “centrists” to protect what they view as “the best they can do” in that particular district. Believe it.
Of crucial importance to understand: there’s no such thing as “centrist” Democrats and there is such thing as “liberal” Republicans.
This is simple: Conservatives understand government does everything it does badly and expensively – consider the DMV or Driver’s License Office. Additionally, the government produces no money and funds its wildly expensive operations by taxing job and wealth creators in the private sector. Mind you, that wealth is made possible through our freedom to attempt to make money filling any perceived need. In this way 300 million Americans become one mega-massive need-meeting, innovation-making supercomputer. It so happens we’ve been providing innovation for the world for some time now, but I digress. Taking money from this sector results in fewer jobs, less wealth created, less production, and less innovation. You get less of what you penalize and more of what you subsidize. Very simple.
For this reason, conservatives think government should only do necessary things no other entity can do. A standing military makes sense because, though the private sector generally outperforms government by a factor of 1000, a standing military is a logistical puzzle for the private sector that hasn’t yet been solved.
However, liberal politicians always ignore or camouflage the inefficiency of government and constantly propose to do things the private sector can do better. They do this for many reasons. To gullible people it makes them look caring (what could be less caring than damaging our job opportunities for another resume-building legislative boondoggle?). Also, responsibility and power go hand-in-glove. Government authority and personal liberty are a zero-sum game. Liberals daydream about controlling everyone from the top.
This brings us to the 20/20 PAC and its 10 Texas House “centrist” Democrat members.
Empower Texans charts every legislator based on how they voted each time. Each vote attempts to create another governmental boondoggle, prevents or hampers future governmental boondoggles, or reforms or rolls back current governmental boondoggles. Empower Texans believes voting with the taxpayers and the economy is something that should be done 100% of the time. Empower Texans grades legislators with percentages. Many legislators get high As, even 100%.
These “moderate”, “centrist” Texas House Democrats in the 20/20 PAC ranged in grade from 22% to 50% and averaged a 34.9%.
Their names are: Kirk England, David Farabee, Stephen Frost, Mark Homer, Veronica Gonzales, Jim McReynolds, José Menéndez, Allan Ritter, Allen Vaught and Donna Howard.
