Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Real Importance Of Special Session Lawsuit Was Possible Conspiracy

A Capital letter writer missed the boat in his disappointment with the Republican-led lawsuit to invalidate key results of the special session. I have not had any interactions with letter writers recently, so to remind everyone, the original text is published in bold, with my insightful and accurate commentary printed in plain text.

The Maryland Republican Party is, sadly, becoming indistinguishable from its liberal counterparts. Republicans have now resorted to filing lawsuits to invalidate the $1.3 billion tax incrase imposed on Marylanders by the secretive special sessions of the Democrat-controlled General Assembly.

So far, bold challenger, you have 1 point for and 1 against. You immediately dig yourself into a hole by taking a dig at the MD GOP, but the intellectual athleticism you display by emphasizing the Democrat roots of the special session's sleazy secrecy has vaulted you back to ground level. You almost earned another point for using 3 consectutive words that began with "S", but I just used 4 in a row, so back off.

Since liberals can't get any of their socialist agenda enacted into law, they look to the courts. Be it prayer in our schools, any mention of Christmas in the public square, abortion "rights" or privacy, liberals look to our willing judicial system to read the tea leaves that our Founding Fathers missed when crafting the Constitution.

Excellent! 4 more points for you. So the score is you: 5, me: 1 (I took the point against you and added it to my score). Extra credit for using quotation marks to make a non-verbal argument.

It's disappointing that Maryland Republicans have pulled out the liberal lawsuit playbook to deal with the massive tax redistribution plan of Gov. Martin O'Malley, House Speaker Michael E. Busch, D-Annapolis, and Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr., D-Calvert.

Be careful here, friend. You detailed examples of liberals using the courts to do things, rather than to revoke things that have already been done. Also, what is the fascination with using middle intials, and "Jr." for that matter? Does The Capital's editorial staff edit this into the letters? Just say "Mike Busch", "Mike Miller", etc. We don't need the whole bio.

Instead, Republicans should have remained silent and let the tax increases devastate every man, woman, child and small business throughout Maryland. then they should beat Mr. O'Malley, Mr. Busch, Mr. Miller and their Annapolis accomplices over the head with their tax-grab boondoggle every day until the next election.

To me, and I suspect to many people, it sounds like the writer is asking us to give up--to bend over and take what we are given, forking over more than a thousand dollars per year above what we otherwise would have. Sadly, it was clear that this was the will of the legislature, so in the sense that we should not hope to reverse the statuatory process via the legal process, the writer is right.

However, the main point of the lawsuit is more far-reaching. I fully support the lawsuit because I want to know the extent of the involvement of the Democrat leadership. They should know Constitutional requirements, but even if they didn't, they must not knowingly defraud those requirements. That is what the lawsuit is about, at least to me. Did Busch or Miller knowingly falsify documents to meet Constitutional requirements? If so, they should be impeached. If not, we should do what the writer suggests: remember on Election Day how the Democrats gave us the business.

I wrote about how Maryland's structural deficit "problem" mirrors what has been happening in Michigan. The Maryland legislature did not disappoint, enacting tax increases that will not make a difference, given this state's spending fetish.

I recently took Mrs. Politics to Detroit, and upon arrival, we immediately renamed our vacation "The Trip To Michigan" because Detroit is the worst city ever. The best part about Detroit is looking at Canada. But we ate dinner HERE, which was nice, and we stayed outside of Detroit one night, which was also nice.

Michigan recently approved an additional $1.6 billion of new taxes. Michigan voters are so fed up that they will attempt to recall 10 politicians who voted for their latest tax increase.

The difference is: we don't have recalls in Maryland!!

If Maryland Republicans insist on using the courts, maybe they should push for a constitutional amendment allowing for recalls.

Oh.

That might slow down the liberals.
TOM PRENDKI, Annapolis

Final Score: You--5. Me--25,454. I get unlimited points; you were never going to win.

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