You Too, Congress!

This morning on my radio/TV show our guest was Rep Todd Smola, who represents 1st Hamden County in Massachusetts. We were discussing the Casino bill crawling its way through the state legislature. There is a fight (of course) about where the government will allow the casino to be built.

My comment was “get the government out of the way. If casinos are allowed in MA let anyone who wants to build one.” Representative Smola raised all the issues of infrastructure, and Dick questioned whether one might put another out of business.

My point was, let the market decide. What better way to come up with new marketing plans, new jobs, innovation and all the things that grow an economy than letting the free market fight it out.

This afternoon, while Amy is packing to move from her tornado ravaged house, I took her kids, 6 and 9 to lunch. Megan told me she had heard part of my show and asked why we were “fighting”. I explained that we were debating government v free enterprise and tried to explain the importance of letting people build a better mousetrap. I tried to explain that people had lots of great ideas and government was very good at slowing those people down. When that happened it was far less likely that a better mousetrap would ever get built.

Without skipping a beat, Hailey (age 6) piped up that she would build a better mouse trap by “making it look and smell like cheese”. Now why didn’t I think of that?

That kid is going to be a millionaire before she reaches age 10 – unless the government gets in her way.

Last week Maxine Waters took a shot at me:

“I’m not afraid of anybody,” said Waters. “This is a tough game. You can’t be intimidated. You can’t be frightened. And as far as I’m concerned, the ‘tea party’ can go straight to hell.”

At least that was in California, not right here on the Sturbridge Common where Saturday, a woman I’ve never seen before game up to me and told me I was the “whole problem”. (She didn’t identify what the problem was, but was clear I was all of it.) We were raising money for Operation Tree Party, and it was clear we were from the Sturbridge Tea Party.

I have to admit I get a kick out the hundreds of people I hear every day telling me, as a tea partier, what I believe. They tell me my motivations (all bad) and my intent (racism) and the source of my funds (The Koch Brothers). They blame me for the debt, the dearth of jobs and the fact that Obama’s Keynesian catastrophe hasn’t worked.

Constitutional values, fiscal conservatism and smaller government never seem to make it into the things they say I want.

Now I know how celebrities feel when people make stuff up about them. It would be funnier if it wasn’t so sad.