Ideologue Revealed!

Someone or something has forced Reinhard into a reluctant, grudging admission of reality.

Read his latest article here

Thursday’s article, a full eleven days since his latest spew on the Oregonian’s editorial pages, discards the traditional Reinhardian tactics of ignoring reality in favor of talking points. The time off has apparently given him perspective on more than his RNC fax machine.

“This has never happened here before, and it has taken some getting used to on the part of your scribe. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has actually done something that makes sense, while President Bush has taken a position that's disappointing in the extreme. There, I said it.”

There, I said it? What is so difficult about agreeing with one person and disagreeing with another? Did he once swear an oath to continually disagree with any and all Democrats, no matter what they said? Did his oath include forever agreeing with every offhand utterance from Bush's mouth?

Probably.

This reminder permeates the article--Reinhard agrees with Pelosi's deduction of $70 million from her district's projects in the transportation bill to help pay for Katrina, and he disagrees that Bush doesn't want to raise taxes. But don't forget, he doesn't like doing it. As much as logic and fact may force Reinhard into taking a certain position, his basic Republican ideology still makes him dislike dealing with facts and reality.

He doesn't mind facts that suit his purposes, though. He brings up the $4 million in the bloated Transportation Bill for the Portland Streetcar, and goes on to say, "Surely, those who say they're worried about the Gulf Coast cleanup's impact on the deficit can bring themselves to delay such projects until the next transportation bill." Who needs a streetcar anyway, right, Reinhard? Way to bat for your home team.

According to the Citizens for Government Waste, Orgeon ranked 49th in pork out of the 50 states and DC. (a link) But Reinhard thinks we should probably give up our streetcar line, because Hawaii, with half a billion dollars in projects in the bill, needs more money for transportation than we do. Hawaii takes in 30 times as much per capita as Oregon...but Reinhard advocates taking our streetcar down? What gives?

Is Reinhard just bringing up the anti-pork argument as a way to cut our funding for "The City That Works?" Public transportation is nearly communism, I guess.

But why is Reinhard, a selfish Republican, advocating that Oregon give up its already paltry transportation winnings? It must be to form the base of his argument, that giving up pork is good. That's fine as an argument, but do a little investigative legwork, and find out who is actually abusing the bill. Excoriating your own state for getting funding for transportation projects in the transportation bill is not the corruption that people are decrying in the transportation bill; it does have legitimate uses, like expanding light rail to conserve energy. Reinhard is incapable of even finding decent points to make his arguments with.

Back to his grudging admission of reality: at the end of the article, Reinhard comes to the conclusion of a "temporary" tax increase. Did you hear that, everybody? He doesn't want to raise taxes! He's not a commie! It's only temporary!

He stated first at the outset of the article, "I yield to no one in my zest for tax cuts." Okay, to what extent?

How long should we cut taxes? If Reinhard's zest were allowed to run unchecked (as simlar zests have done in the last five years), how much is too much in tax cuts?

Reinhard does not advocate a sound tax policy. He advocates a perpetual cutting of taxes, regardless of how the government works with or without taxes. He reveals himself as an ideologue, and not someone who wishes to see govenment function properly.

Do we really want an ideologue spewing partisan slogans on editorial pages? Why can't we have people with solutions, instead of agendas, disseminating their ideas?