The following is an excerpt from OpinionJournal.com’s “Best of the Web” written by the editor, James Taranto.
Austerity for Thee, but Not for ‘D’
The so-called stimulus bill passed the Senate last week, but it wasn’t easy to get the crucial 60 votes. Sixty-one senators were on record as favoring the bill, but Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts was too ill to make it to the Capitol, and Sherrod Brown of Ohio was back home for his mother’s funeral. But as Cleveland’s Plain Dealer reports, there was a solution:
Brown attended calling hours in Mansfield on Friday afternoon and evening for his mother, Emily Campbell Brown, 88, who died Feb. 2. Her funeral is this morning, leaving Brown little time and no commercial flight options to get to Washington and back so quickly.
The White House provided a government plane so Brown could return to the Capitol for the vote and then get back to Mansfield to be with his family and honor his mother, officials said. The trip is considered official business.
Today President Obama signed the bill–not in his office in Washington, but in Denver, whither he flew on Air Force One.
What is the difference between these flights and, say, the auto company executives’ taking corporate jets to Washington a few months back to testify before Congress? If the times demand austerity, shouldn’t our public servants set a good example?
One may make a distinction between Obama’s jetting to Denver, which seems totally unnecessary, and Brown’s returning to Washington, which was necessary in order to pass the bill. And after all, passing this stimulus was a matter of absolute urgency–the alternative, as the president made clear, was economic catastrophe.
Or was it so urgent? Reuters reports that “Obama’s aides warned Americans on Sunday not to expect instant miracles from the $787 billion economic stimulus bill he will sign this week, but said it would help eventually.”
This seems like a bit of a bait and switch. We need to pass the bill now! It’s the only way to avert catastrophe! Well, eventually . . .
For more “Best of the Web” click here and look for the “Best of the Web Today” link in the middle column below “Today’s Columnists.”
