Boehner Tells House G.O.P. to Fall in Line

NYT ^ | 11-10-12 | JONATHAN WEISMAN and JENNIFER STEINHAUER

[left that other site]

THANKS (Will Do!)...but I think the gubmint offices will be closed tomorrow for Veterans Day. Probably be more effective on Tuesday.

I might be wrong...will Congress ignore Veterans Day this year?

[wrencher]

“Waste, fraud, & abuse” is a product of the government. How is citizens demanding increased services defined in that way? Also I’m not sure what you mean by attracting voters, do you understand the term civil disobedience?

[Tau Food]

I understood you to be promoting in post 77 a movement designed to sabotage the operations of government agencies and the postal service by making their operations more expensive to the taxpayers. You suggest, for example, that folks pointlessly seek extensions on paperwork so as to complicate processing, pointlessly amend returns that were already by your description accurate, and all the while do as sloppy a job as possible in order to increase the cost of processing the paperwork. I think in the minds of ordinary people that would qualify as promoting waste, fraud and abuse. Pointlessly mailing junk mail to yourself and purposely using insufficient postage in order to "snarl" the USPS would also qualify as waste, fraud and abuse of taxpayer-funded government resources.

If there is a line to be drawn between engaging in civil disobedience and just being a public menace, it is that civil disobedience implies the willingness to make a personal sacrifice, like being arrested or paying a fine. Your proposal to just "jam up the systems" doesn't seem to involve any significant personal sacrifice on your part to compensate for the additional costs you hope to impose on taxpayers.

By the way, I'm a fan of the postal service, which performs one of the few federal functions specifically authorized by our Constitution. And, I think I'm getting a pretty good deal when I can have them deliver a letter to an address on the other side of the country for less than fifty cents. What do you think FedEx or UPS would charge me to do that?

Finally, I think that there may be less of a distinction than you probably think between the disruptive behavior that you propose and more obviously criminal acts like making false bomb threats to a courthouse or pouring sugar into the gas tanks of military jeeps. The biggest difference, I guess, is that there is a risk of personal sacrifice associated with the latter acts. In all these cases, though, the result for the taxpayer is pretty much the same - more expense.

[sheik yerbouty]

He should be made to run weeping out of the Capitol building..

[wrencher]

My, how do you get from filing extra paperwork by hand to equating that with bomb threats? You seem a rather hysterical poster.

If people dislike their tax burden, how better to protest than to demand more services of the tax agency? I guess that is a little too complicated for you today, feel free to go back to your pipe dreams of third parties and getting the Republicans working for you. Maybe you should write a letter to the editor or some other worthless gesture.

So far as the USPS, they are a FAIL that misdelivers and otherwise loses mail, damages items, and is slow. You get the (dis)service you deserve.

[sheik yerbouty]

Maybe he’ll have a vacation in Elba,

[Tau Food]

If people dislike their tax burden, how better to protest than to demand more services of the tax agency?

The obvious answer is to work within the political system by attempting to nominate and elect people who will give you the tax burden you think is more appropriate. In addition to that, I try to arrange my affairs so as to minimize my tax burden. There are things that nearly every taxpayer can do to lower their tax liabilities.

If a taxpayer wants to take it a step further and engage in civil disobedience, he can in an open and forthright way notify the government that, for principled reasons that he should describe, he will not pay a tax that he knows to have been imposed upon him, and that he believes the principle being raised is sufficiently important that he is willing to endure the personal consequences that are associated with his disobedience.

[NoLibZone]

Prolong it or reset it?

[Some Fat Guy in L.A.]

I for one welcome our new commie overlords.......

[wrencher]

Let me know how your prayers to your Republican overlords work out. I am well within my rights to submit required paperwork in any way I like. Or maybe you think only left wing nuts are entitled to that. Keep standing on the side and fighting anyone who dares to resist like the good Californian communist you appear to be.

[Shugee]

I can’t stand Boehner, but I don’t think even the Conservative House members see him the way we Freepers do. I think they like him and think he’s doing a decent job. I got this impression from hearing a local radio interview with Conservative Congressman Ted Poe who said essentially the same thing. The conservative talk show host said “Really?” but Poe said nary a bad word about Boehner and anticipated as well as hoped he would be reelected Speaker.