Here’s a fun a flashback, amidst all the current talk from Nevada Republican Senate nominee Sharron Angle that she doesn’t want to “phase out” Social Security — as she used to say — but wants to protect it. Seventeen years ago, she wrote an angry letter to Harry Reid in which she called upon Congress to “STOP FUNDING THE WASTEFUL SOCIAL AND ENTITLEMENT PROGRAMS.” (All-caps in the original.)
Las Vegas Review Journal columnist John L. Smith has published a letter that Angle wrote to Reid in November 1993, when she was an activist for the far-right Independent American Party, slamming Reid’s vote for the Clinton tax increase (which later went on to balance the federal budget for the first time in decades). Angle wrote:
“The answer to this mess is clear. STOP FUNDING THE WASTEFUL SOCIAL AND ENTITLEMENT PROGRAMS. MAKE THE DIFFICULT CHOICES THAT WILL KEEP OUR COUNTRY STRONG. THAT’S WHAT YOU WERE ELECTED TO DO! I beg you not to support taxpayer funded national health care which is the next hit we are in line for.
…
“Please take the following words of Professor Alexander Tyler to heart. He said, ‘A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves a largess from the treasury. From that moment on, the majority will always vote for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy.’ …
The TPM Poll Average currently puts Reid ahead by 46.4%-43.8%.
Eric Kleefeld
Eric Kleefeld joined TPM as an intern for the final months of the 2006 midterm elections, and then kept showing up for work. His other interests include guitars, old comic books and the politics of various English-speaking countries.
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