So Barney Frank gets re-elected. Barney Frank, “the colonoscopy gone bad. The proctological carbuncle that refuses to subside.” In spite of the fact that he, as much as anyone, is responsible for causing us all to implode inside the housing bubble. People do know that, don’t they? That he led the brigade that forced banks to make loans that were destined to default that caused the housing bubble that encouraged banks to find ways to make money anyway because that’s their job, that undermined the entire financial system.
And Jerry Brown? Californians do remember don’t they that Jerry and his father Pat, for 16 years, led California down the entitlement path that has destroyed the state? I liked him. I remember how noble he was, refusing to be chauffeured, declining the governors mansion in favor of a third story walk up (or something like that). Now here was a governor with the welfare of the people at heart. However, the Brown governorships could be the poster child for Thomas Sowell’s Unintended Consequences. Their attempts to cure all of California’s social ills resulted in a social ills boom. You get what you pay for.
Meg Whitman was blasted for suggesting that Jerry Brown was responsible for California’s failed school system, but it was Brown who, when Proposition 13 passed opted to start supporting schools with state funds which eventually undermined the constitutional mandate for local control of schools.
Even the Terminator could not blast through the stronghold of excesses at Sacramento, moderate their lack of fiscal discipline, mitigate their indenture to union bosses, restrain their unsustainable entitlement programs that the Browns set in motion.
Maybe salt sea zephyrs cripple the judgment, soften the brain. But why, then, is Florida not affected? Perhaps warm salt sea zephyrs are less noxious. Hmm. I think I’ll apply for a $4,000,000 federal grant to study the issue.