Letter February 10, 2010

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

By JH Weekly User

Who’s spending, now?
  “Why force feed this to the only municipality in the state that runs a responsible budget?” Thinking our mayor must have gotten Ground Hog’s Day mixed up with that other non-holiday April Fool’s Day I laughed at his little joke until I read on and realized he was serious.  This, after just okaying $75,000 for a bouldering park for Jackson, not Jackson, Mississippi, but Jackson, Wyoming at the same time cuts in services are being considered.

Then, I recalled this is the same town government that after much public loathing finally tabled a multi-million dollar monstrosity planned for the Home Ranch parking lot, but then went ahead and allocated over $50,000 to draw up the plans for it anyway. To most Wyoming communities the size of Jackson, $125,000 is still is quite a bit of money and picks up quite a bit of garbage and removes quite a bit of snow. Then there is that multi-million dollar white elephant disguised as a three quarters empty parking garage but enough has been said about that. Mayor Barron is outraged at state representative Jorgensen’s embarrassment at asking the state for more money for local projects when the city isn’t using all of its taxing powers.

Outside of the Hole there is little sympathy around Wyoming for elitist Jackson. Though Mayor Barron is an Independent his donating heavily favors Republicans so I think this outrage is only party deep. It makes for good election campaign posturing but little sense. Republicans aren’t really as opposed to pork barrel spending as they let on; it’s only when they’re not rolling that barrel is when they get upset. It’s all politics, locally or nationally, it’s about taking credit and shirking blame.

The Republicans are desperately trying to pin this economic collapse on the Democrats denouncing their tax and spend policies as opposed to the Republicans’ spend, cut taxes for the rich and spend some more under the eight years of our boy president George Bush with six of those years under total Republican control who ran up bills that made all those liberal Democrats look like pikers, borrowing more money than all of his predecessors combined.

True Obama has even topped that but Bush was handed a Ferrari and totaled it and now Obama is trying to rebuild it with a pitcrew of chimps. Trillions of dollars gone just like that and $13 billion, 363 tons of one hundred dollar bills sent to the warzone of Iraq. POOF gone, did a J. Giels and got lost somewhere down the line. This phony staged outrage is especially galling when you consider that Clinton, who I was no great fan of, handed Bush a balanced budget and a surplus. As a staunch Independent I was a little suspicious of that surplus but it looked good on paper anyway.

Congresswoman Lummis and ex-governor Palin are both up in arms about Obama and the Democrats stealing from this nation’s grandchildren. I guess they don’t like anybody working their side of the street since neither of them voiced any concerns about Bush financing his unnecessary and immoral wars that those grandkids may well be still fighting the same way. But God forbid that those grandkids will have affordable health care.

That Republican lie about death panels was actually somewhat true but it isn’t Obama pulling the plug on granny, it’s the insurance companies pulling the plug on grandkids who have policies canceled for pre-existing conditions like acne or can’t afford their outrageous premiums to begin with. Not that I’m defending the Democrats, they’re just neutered and house-broken Republicans but from the local level on up I would find all this Republican hypocrisy funny if it wasn’t so nauseous.
– Mike Craig, Jackson

Correction
JH Weekly regrets a couple errors in a News Brief, last week [“Nods to flicks and folks of Jackson Hole,” Feb. 3]. The byline should have been Brigid Mander, and Swift. Silent. Deep. won Best Soul, though the film was edited out.
Also, in last week’s cover story, “Is Big Brother watching?” we incorrectly spelled the name of Cpl. Russ Ruschill.
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Letter February 10, 2010 | Planet JH News Article: Letters To Editor

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