FORA-TV: PJ O'Rourke: 'Conservatives & Fiscal Responsibility'

Source:FORA-TV- Political satirist P.J. O'Rourke, at the National Press Club in Washington, talking about the lack of fiscal responsibility in the Republican Party.

"Political satirist P.J. O'Rourke criticizes the fiscal irresponsibility of recent conservative legislators. He says the poorest and least advantaged always suffer the most from any of the "three ways to pay for the electorates' fiscal irresponsibility.

Deliberately offensive, determinedly provocative and extremely funny, PJ O'Rourke is the conservative journalist and satirist that makes even lefties laugh.

In Australia recently as a guest of the Centre for Independent Studies, he used this talk at the National Press club to deliver a scattergun critique of conservatism.

During the Q&A session he answers questions about gun control, the GFC and his personal drug use. - Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Patrick Jake O'Rourke is an American political satirist, journalist, and writer. Born in Toledo, Ohio, he was educated at Miami University (Ohio) and Johns Hopkins University."

From FORA-TV

What is fiscal responsibility, well to me that means spending what you have and can afford and nothing else. You don't have to be a Conservative to believe in that, just have common sense. Just like you don't have to be an American to like apple pie, but if you are an American you probably have more access to apple pie than let's say if you're a Chinese living in, I don't know let's say China. ( Just to use as an example)

But you would think Conservatives would believe in fiscal responsibility, because how often they preach about responsibility. But of course New Gingrich has preached about family values in the past, haven't heard one of his sermons lately, no idea why. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact he had an affair with one of his staffers when he was Speaker of the House.

Well, the right-wing will say that President Bill Clinton had an affair with a White House intern. But Bill Clinton doesn't preach about family values, kinda the way Fidel Castro doesn't preach about the need for democracy in Russia. His consistency would be severely lacking there for obvious reasons. Which gets me to the point about the current Republican Party, the Party of Reagan. Low taxes, economic liberty, individual responsibility, they use to be the party of fiscal responsibility. Until they woke up and realized they had a Republican President and Congress back in 2003.

In 2003 when the Republican Party had just won back the Senate, to go along with the House that they already had and President George W. Bush, decided who needs fiscal responsibility, Congress has the authority to borrow at will. "If it's legal, then it must be the right thing to do". Kinda like someone using the logic: "everyone else is doing it, (fill in the blank) it must be all right". Well if all these people (not everyone literally, I hope) stuck knives up their noses until they were massively bleeding, would you do that to. Sometimes you have to use your own judgement and not play follow the leader like a six-year old.

By the way, the Republican Party woke up again in 2009 and noticed that there was a Democratic President and a Democratic Congress with a 10T$ federal debt and a 1T$ deficit and decided: "oh boy (or something to that affect) now we'll be the party of fiscal responsibility and blame Democrats for the problems we created! Thats our ticket back to power!' Or at least some power and it worked. The GOP won back the House of Representatives in 2010. In case you've been in a coma for a few years, or vacationing in a cave in Afghanistan, if you were doing those things, I hope you have some pictures or brought back some kabob. Or even survived the experience, I heard there's a war going on over there or something.

I'm not saying the Democratic Party is innocent here, even though I'm a Democrat we have what's called the Progressive Caucus made up of a bunch of 21st Century Socialists and want to move America to Sweden. Well, actually design our Federal Government around the Swedish Government and double the size of our Federal Government. And if you think you pay too much in taxes right now, move to Sweden because your taxes would be lower there if the so-called Progressive Caucus/Party ever came to power in America.

What was great about America back in the day lets says 1980s and 90s, is you had a real Conservative Republican Party in the classical sense and a real Liberal Democratic Party again in the classical sense. And of course you had your whack jobs, that would escape from the mental institution or get released by a drunk doctor and run and get elected to Congress. But those people weren't in charge, the adults in both parties were. Today the whack jobs in both parties have enough power, that if you don't do exactly what they want, you may get fired.

Democrats and Republicans today who are not to sound crazy, may face a primary challenge which is why almost nothing gets done anymore because the adults in both parties don't have enough power to do what they want to do. And are afraid to work with the other side and if you're a believer in limited government like myself thats not always a bad thing. The least the Federal Government does, the more power the people have. 

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