Confessions of A Liberal: Fields Says Feds Are Broke
BY SAM FIELDS
Guest Columnist
It seems hard to believe that a $1.5 million cut in federal funds for Port Everglades security will bring Broward County to its economic knees.
Nevertheless, Sheriff Al Lamberti, joined by Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, held a press conference on March 7 where he stated that, “if the port fails, the county fails.
Note to Lamberti and Wasserman Schultz: The federal government is broke!
For the last decade, the feds have borrowed trillions to pay its own bills.
Surely you’ve heard about this? It’s been in all the papers.
Annually, over four million tourists cruise through Port Everglades. The announced cut amounts to about 30 cents apiece. I am pretty sure not one of the four million will find a 30-cent charge a make-or-break factor on whether to cruise.
But if that is too much, I am sure a couple of cents from shipping companies will help offset that onerous 30-cent tax. (OOPS! In deference to Republican Lamberti, mean user fee.)
Along with a federal government drowning in red ink, the bottom line is this: Having the feds pay for local port security distorts local economies.
If Port Everglades, and for that matter any other port or airport around the country, cannot figure how to raise the money for security, then let them close down.
Andy Hardy Goes to Washington
Growing up it was common to hear someone express exasperation by proclaiming: “Don’t make a federal case out of it.
These days Congress has expanded criminal and civil law to the point that just about everything is a “Federal Case”.
Twenty years ago, wife beating, aka “domestic violence, was made a federal crime.
If ninety-year-old Mickey Rooney has his way, “elder abuse will now become a federal crime.
Rooney is the Oscar winning Hollywood legend who could sing, dance and act with the best of them. With seven ex-wives, including Ava Gardner in her prime, his personal life is also a legend.
Now because of his own experience with an abusive stepson, this super conservative Republican has abandoned his GOP principles of state and local sovereignty. He recently testified before the Senate that the federal government should takeover protecting Granny and Gramps from the evildoers.
Where if the money going to come from, Mickey?
The feds are bust. Washington has no dinero. This is the not the time to dump unnecessary, costly new crimes on the federal authorities.
It does not seem to matter that just about every state already has laws and agencies protecting the elderly from physical and financial exploitation.
His principles end where his personal issues start.
Morales Si. DEA No.
Rene Sanabria, Bolivia’s recently retired chief of drug enforcement, was arrested in the U.S. and is now awaiting trial for smuggling a 100 kilo of cocaine in to the U.S.
Bolivian President Evo Morales has responded by kicking out the remaining DEA agents stationed in Bolivia.
He is doing the right thing…even if it’s for the wrong reasons.
Drugs are a demand problem, not a supply problem.
It’s us, not them.
To paraphrase Marc Antony in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: The fault, my dear DEA, lies not in their plants, but in our noses.
The history of regulating personal conduct is the history of failure. Cocaine, heroin, marijuana enforcement prove we have learned nothing from Prohibition, except how to build bloated bureaucracies whose main mission is keeping their phony baloney jobs and waste the money that the government doesn’t have.
March 9th, 2011 at 9:59 am
sam u are right on, on both issues, spent over 30 years as a prosecutor and it took 20 to realize one we lost the war on drugs and two how useless it was from the start. do we really need all these security guards at the port. its empire building on feet of sand. how many construction cranes do you see, zilch, have to go to china to see them all over. open your eyes folks we are on the slide.
March 9th, 2011 at 10:04 am
to continue, we make fake grass a crime because some idiot wants to smoke it,, cant get high but u can die, hey its their choice, same with the pill mills, this lady leading the charge against them has had 2 kids hooked, why, i guess to cure her kids from this ruin we have to stop everyone, hell the prisons are full now, where will we put them, maybe hati when they are all here it will be empty. enough irrational rambling, need my meds…….
March 9th, 2011 at 11:14 am
Fields has finally come to his senses. I would say, Holy Jesus or Oh God. But Sam doesn’t believe in either.
March 9th, 2011 at 3:59 pm
The way to solve all budget problems is to put a means test for Social Security and raise the age.
In light of this article and an earlier one that Fields wrote concerning his taking Social Security, would he be willing to give it up for the good of the country?
March 10th, 2011 at 12:29 am
I can’t believe I agree with this idiot on something.
BTW, stop picking on a poor 90 year old.
March 11th, 2011 at 1:31 pm
Like “It’s A Miracle,” I’m amazed that I agree with this a…hole.
He really needs to stop sitting around in his underwear pontificating. Fields is the classic loser who replaces his lack of sex with a lot of opinions on everything.
Get laid, Sam.