Cathcart Wants It Both Ways
Dick Cathcart is really pissing me off. Today, he published an opinion piece in The News Journal that tries to rewrite recent history.
He [Bryon Short] and just about 100 percent of his Democratic colleagues voted in favor of the package, whereas just about every member of the House Republicans voted against the tax and fee hikes.
Guess what? The Republicans could have scuttled every one of the tax and fee hikes. Every. Single. One.
Instead, they did a wink and a nod and withheld their votes, except the one vote necessary to actually keep the state running. So they are trying to play this as if they were somehow railroaded into these taxes. The truth is that they knew that these were the best solutions for the state, but they wanted to put Oberle on the hook (perhaps he is so ready to retire that even if he loses, he’ll be happy).
But instead of standing up and saying that the Republicans supported the tough decisions necessary to keep us solvent, Dick wants to say that they had nothing to do with it and that it was just the evil Democrats that raised your taxes. Dick, you insult the intelligence of Delawareans with this kind of posturing and it is unbecoming. I had thought you were better than that.
Tags: Delaware Budget, Dick Cathcart, Republican Bamboozlement
The Republicans played an irresponsible game on the budget. Petulent, childish, and irresponsible. But why should the Delaware State Budget be different from anything else. If they don’t control it they take their marbles and go home. Sheesh.
Not only that, it was an obvious screed against Byron Short, whose name was mentioned in every other sentence. Very weak.
Btw, is there any relation between Byron and Daniel, the coauthor with Cathcart?
Does anyone doubt that Cathcart is going for Castle’s seat in the House?
So he is beginning to rally his base, in my view.
No relation. Danny Short’s from Seaford, lifelong resident, former mayor, ex-fire chief.
Cathcart’s not running for Castle’s seat. He’s trying to lead the Rethugs back to the majority in the House. He’s doing it by playing politics, claiming the D’s voted for tax increases.
If Cathcart is to be taken at face value, then he is proud that his Caucus didn’t do a bleeping thing to close an $180 million deficit.
Except, as LG pointed out, Cathcart made sure that there were just enough Rethug votes to pass every single bill, as long as all D’s went along. So, he’s really hoodwinking everybody since he had the power to basically grind government to a halt, but he chose not to use it. He KNOWS that he had to do the responsible thing, but he’s trying to score political points by completely distorting what happened. Unlike LG (and the smitten Smitty), I know that Del. State University’s bagman is NOT better than that.
Now, why he’s wasting time with Bryon Short is beyond me. Short is now firmly entrenched in what used to be Wayne ‘Newt’ Smith’s seat. The registration has flipped, and Short is no longer an endangered species.
All that Cathcart’s article proves is that he and his cohorts are unfit to serve. They’re trying to score political points, not trying to actually help address the state’s fiscal problems. Frankly, they’re pathetic.
The Delaware Democratic party released a statement:
If Cathcart bugs all of you, he’s got my vote…maybe we should get Russell Peterson back and really bankrupt the state as he did before.
The fact is that Rebecca can’t say that they were being irresponsible, petulant, childish to let the majority have its direction. What they did is force more responsible spending, fewer tax increases, and force sunsets on the tax increases so the voters would have another chance to decide. The Republican party is now bad for not shutting the government down instead of affecting change. It is now free to take its case to the people for the future direction.
Your retorts have no relation to reality which is where the Democrats seem to be heading as a whole.
Its pretty rich that Delusional David here would accuse anyone of being unmoored from reality — especially since the repubs are doing their usual three-card monte here. Which is to try to convince people that they can have all the government they want for free. Because at no time did the repub caucus propose an alternate balanced budget that would not have needed taxes, but would have meant they would have to tell people what they could no longer have.
You never want to listen to a conservative talk about numbers or money — they can’t do the math unless it is to count what it is that they’ll get out of it.
I’ll say this again – each and every legislator is responsible for the budget. It doesn’t matter if they voted for or against it, they still have culpability. As the Democratic party press release says – the Republicans want to have it both ways. They don’t want to shut down government or tell people that they are going to cut their favorite programs. So they went along with the tax increases by letting at least on Republican vote for them and then try to say they’re against taxes. I’m sorry but it doesn’t work that way.
If Republicans say they oppose the tax increases – they need to tell us what they would do instead. I’m not talking about some one page document stating principles. They need to release a budget plan. John Kowalko did, and it changed the conversation.
“maybe we should get Russell Peterson back and really bankrupt the state as he did before.”
Maybe you should get your history straight. It was on Tribbitt’s watch that Farmer’s Bank almost took down the state.
Tom is preparing for a year from now, when he will be emphatically stating that Barack Obama wrecked the economy in 2008.
Geek and I spoke over the phone on this and hashed out a lot there, in case anyone was wondering where my blowback was.
I don’t have much, honestly, other than he (Cathcart) told the truth and I am satisfied to see that no one had claimed otherwise. Motives are questioned, but not fact. How anyone from any side wants to paint the truth is a different story and one I won’t meddle in, as all of that is one’s own opinion. In other words, a Granny Smith apple is green and we all know that and can’t honestly deny it. If you want to say it’s a large, green apple, but someone else wants to argue that it’s a small, green apple, that’s up to you and I am not touching it. No one is lying and everyone is telling the truth; that other description all depends on the perspective each side has in making the conclusion. Applying it here, differing sides hold differing perspectives on the motivations each took. Interestingly, no one actually has different facts…seriously, look at the varying “Delaware Voice” columns that cover this and see. What differs is the surrounding perspectives that contain those facts. Opposing sides will not likely convince the others to change their mind, as it’s all rooted in opinion/perspective.
On a different note, I don’t think any legislator should take credit for much on this budget as there really is nothing feel-good about it. It was a difficult session that really had undesirable solutions all around, but solutions that were necessary and nothing else. It sucked, no one “won” anything, but we have what we have out of necessity.
he (Cathcart) told the truth
Truthiness.
A lie by omission is still a lie.
Indeed — and republicans who refuse to have any skin in the game for the difficult solutions shouldn’t call themselves legislators, either. I don’t know why it is a point of pride to have not done much to help and then point fingers at the people who did. If you had better options then they should have been on the table, yes?