On 'Moderate Republicans' & Other Pigwash

You have no idea how much I love to read news reports of "moderate" Republicans wanting to raise my taxes. Or of "moderate" Republicans who want to keep Roe v Wade undisturbed. Environmentalists. Champions of the AFL-CIO. "Moderates" who are willing to moderate the meaning and application of the Bill of Rights as it relates to gun control, prayer in the public square, campaign finance reform, and on and on.

Here is today's cheery news from the Richmond Times-Dispatch:

Senate Republicans stop rollback
By Michael Hardy and Jeff E. Schapiro, Times-Dispatch Staff Writers

House-passed legislation jump-starting the rollback of the local tax on personal motor vehicles was, in effect, defeated for the year in the Senate Finance Committee.

The committee, dominated by moderate Republicans [my emphasis] who consider the car-tax phaseout a budget-buster, refused to even vote on the bill, sponsored by Del. L. Scott Lingamfelter, R-Prince William.

Lingamfelter, in a speech a short time later to the House of Delegates, complained that the finance committee's inaction represented a "sad day [for] the commonwealth."

He continued, "We have added to the cynicism of the voters of the state who expect us to keep our promises." (link)

These "Republicans" are no more moderate than is the contempt in which I hold each of them.

1. They are cowards for having chosen not to participate in the vote.

2. There is nothing moderate about their desire to confiscate that portion of my income that I set aside for my gandchildrens' birthday gifts. They are liberals by any normal person's standards. They raised my taxes. And they block, in their own cowardly way, an attempt to provide the people of the state of Virginia much-needed tax relief.

So why are they Republicans? And what is the state GOP going to do about these renegades?

I have to hand it to both my elected representatives for one thing. Delegate Benny Keister and Senator Phil Puckett have both voted routinely to raise my taxes - but they proudly proclaim their membership in the Democratic Party. The party of wealth confiscation. They don't run from it. They wear it on their chests as a badge of ... honor. And I may consider them to be contemptible, vile, deceitful politicians, but they are faithful to their party. They are Democrats (and former elected representatives of the people of Southwest Virginia if I have any say in the matter).

They don't hide. They are not cowards. Not like these "moderate" Republicans.