“Profiles in Courage: Raising Taxes”

I just love the political establishment in this country. It is hard for most of us to fathom the bi-partisan self-congratulatory nature of these people. Take this news story about the folks at the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation giving former President George H. W. Bush it’s 2014 “Profile in Courage” award for breaking his “no new taxes pledge” to raise taxes.

Set aside the fact that presidential libraries are operated at taxpayers’ expense and the fact that JFK was one of America’s great tax-cutting presidents, are America’s political leaders really so devoid of leadership that raising taxes is the most courageous thing they do?

After all, the establishment and media can always be counted on to support tax hikes and oppose even modest fiscal restraint. Agriculture subsidies are just one of many spending programs that could have been cut and Bush didn’t do anything about entitlements (reforming Social Security or Medicare, now that would be courageous). Even Clinton’s welfare reform was far more courageous than raising taxes.

And thus it goes in a nation where true heroes who stand up for limited government and the Constitution are trashed while people who take the easy way out by stealing more of your hard-earned money are lauded as “heroes.” 1984 anyone?