Arlen Specter - Spin Master

Arlen Specter has a lot of nerve. His op-ed piece in the Philadelphia Inquirer (Rising above partisanship 3/10/09) makes him sound like the last fiscal conservative in Washington. He makes statements such as:

"The challenges we face are not subject to rigid formulaic solutions, whether defined as fiscal conservatism or Keynesian economics. Nor should they be subject to hasty and ill-defined solutions, as happened with the TARP bailout, passed under duress and the threat of an imminent banking collapse. The December auto bailout faced similar pressures for haste."

'Passed under duress'? I'm sorry Senator, but no one held a gun to your head, and had you actually listened to your constituents, you would have known that the majority of people you claim to represent were against the TARP bailout.

If you read the entire piece, you might come away thinking that Senator Specter voted against the TARP Act. Of course, you would be wrong. He not only voted for the TARP bill, but provided this response on 10/02/08 as his justification.

"I reluctantly supported this package because the failure of Congress to act would run the risk of dire consequences, including an economic downturn which could cause more foreclosures, jeopardize retirement accounts, and further restrict credit which is necessary for small businesses to operate. I am philosophically opposed to bailouts. I think that when you have Wall Street entrepreneurs who take big risks to make big profits and they go sour, they ought to sustain the loss themselves and not look to the government for a bailout which ends up in the laps of the taxpayers. However, I supported the plan to avoid economic disaster that would extend well beyond Wall Street."

Then after voting for the Economic Stimulus Package, Senator Specter wrote this as an opinion piece for the Washington Post (Why I Support the Stimulus 02/09/09):

"I am supporting the economic stimulus package for one simple reason: The country cannot afford not to take action.

The unemployment figures announced Friday, the latest earnings reports and the continuing crisis in banking make it clear that failure to act will leave the United States facing a far deeper crisis in three or six months. By then the cost of action will be much greater -- or it may be too late."

It seems as though when the Senator is voting for the bailouts, he doesn't have time to think about his vote; he just acts from his gut to prevent any further economic damage, because as he puts it so succinctly, failure to act would be worse than the alternative.

Now that the Senator has seen the error of his ways, he decides to use his political power to write a letter in the Inquirer criticizing the current Administration for its lack of partisanship. I'm sorry Senator, but deflecting your culpability isn't acceptable, nor is it very becoming. Taking personal responsibility is something that everyone in Washington seems to have forgotten, but I can assure you that many people in Pennsylvania, myself included, will not forget your role in the economic catastrophe that we now are burdened with.

I've already apologized to my children for your lack of forethought when it comes to the future of our economy and our country for that matter; I just hope that someday soon I can tell my children that you are no longer representing this great state of Pennsylvania, and that we are on our way to economic recovery.