What I’m Laughing At: Sen. John Thune (again)
Sen. Thune, could we just have a chat about last October?
While checking up on the SoDak Republicans over on SDWC, I saw a banner ad that made me choke on my afternoon coffee: Sen. John Thune wants to stop the government bailouts. I’d heard mention of Sen. Thune speaking about this before, but I am suprised to discover that he now wishes to make this a campaign issue of his own.
Clicking on the banner directed me to a Friends of John website and his statements about an exit plan for government ownership. I agree with most of the statements, but Sen. Thune leaves out some very relevant history.
Here’s one of the statements:
The government has taken unprecedented actions over the past 15 months to stabilize the economy, including taking direct ownership stakes in private companies. This creates a dangerous conflict of interest between the federal government and the private sector. The government shouldn’t be an owner of companies it regulates in the private marketplace.
What’s the relevant history? Sen. Thune voted for the original bailout that got all this “conflict of interest” started.
Call me gun-shy, here, but I wonder just how much these conservative principles mean to Sen. Thune. Just last October, he was able to suspend his better judgment and conservative principles to vote for the first bailout.
I would at least have a bit more respect for him if he’d admit that he screwed up big time and his new agenda is an attempt to remedy his errors.
(BTW, I ran a few Google searches for “Sen. John Thune October Bailout 2008 Mistake” and substituted the word “error” for mistake once. Didn’t find anything. Please do correct me, though, if Sen. Thune has publicly apologized for his silly vote.)
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excellent point, fastidious.
Hiya Lexrex,
Thanks! Stop by more often and tell me how awesome my posts are!
Seriously, though, how about you? What do you think of Sen. Thune’s plan? How does it square with his previous voting record?
Fastidious
I’m hoping he’s seen the light on this one–either through the outrage of the people, or in seeing how far the whole thing has been taken.
A simple, “Sorry, I was wrong on that one–won’t happen again” would be nice, though.
I’m with you… at least some kind of acknowledgment of his mistake would go a long way.
I wrote briefly about this after reading the article at http://www.kotatv.com/global/story.asp?s=9643511, which boiled down to the Senator being “leery” about the bailouts/stimulus and “not sure its working.”
As you note, it is almost certain that a clear “I’m sorry, I screwed up” from Senator Thune would go far. Unfortunately, he is probably being advised to stay positive (which tends to include not admitting error in public). At the same time, whoever will be running against him next year will be pushing this hard, saying that Thune was fine with spending money hand over fist as long as a Republican was President, but now he’s against it. PARTISAN!
Oh well, one keeps hoping.
LOL! It will make a great campaign issue, and whoever runs against him will have a legitimate case. Because, well, you’re correct in your assessment: seems as though Sen. Thune was cowed into making a bad decision when his leadership was too.
I’m not sure exactly what I’m looking for from him either… I’m not sure what excuse he could give that would justify the amount of money that he voted to spend last October.
“Error in judgment” reads as cold and bureaucratic.
“I f$%*ed up” would be reassuring, though.
Fastidious
Michael,
I do appreciate your thoughts on the Senator and as has been said, hind-sight is 20-20….we all try to do what is best for the issue at hand, as Senator Thune did, but now he is trying to aide in correcting some of the problems with the bailout. Nothing wrong with trying to correct a problem, isn’t that what leaders do? We can never know know exactly how something will turn out until we try, then we monitor, correct and change to fit the situation. We all do it…I do appreciate your comments and look forward to responses
BTW, I just like to play devil’s advocate a little. I see great potential for Thune unlike some of the other wishy-washy politicians. ;o)
If you recall the dire financial circumstances at the time, it probably did prevent a total meltdown of the banking system. It’s tough to defend a persons vote on what MIGHT have happened had the bill not passed, but odds are more banks would have failed, payrolls would not have been met, etc. But the fact that some of the money was then diverted to auto companies ultimately lost all conservatives when it came around to vote for the second half of the money. Also, it was sold as a loan, not a give-away. I can totally understand a yes vote on the first vote. Even with 20-20 hindsight, it may have been the right vote, thought I’m probably not an expert on the worldwide banking system that you may be.
You might want to put a little more thought into things than just be against something because Rush or Hannity are. In fact, while I’m pretty iffy on the vote, I tend to give Thune the benefit of the doubt, considering he has voted correctly (my way) on 99 out of 100 other votes and figure he probably had access to more info than I do. I’m certainly not going to laugh at one of the few good guys who is actually representing my views pretty damn well in DC.
Hi Jo,
Thanks for stopping in, commenting, and contributing to the conversation.
First, let me lay my cards on the table. The “what I’m laughing at” is kinda tongue and cheek. You’ll see in the categories that all my posts are categorized under a “what I’m _____ing.” However, in this case, I AM laughing very much at Sen. Thune. Second, I don’t watch/listen to Sean Hannity. His analysis on events tends to be reactionary and superficial. I do listen to Rush Limbaugh on a daily basis because his analysis is the antithesis of Hannity’s. Thomas Sowell, however, informs my opinions about economic issues – not Limbaugh.
Anyway, on to your comments.
I can’t support a politician who thinks that government intervention in the economy is somehow going to improve the economy.
I can, however, support a politician who votes on conservative/libertarian economic principles. Sen. Thune, as far as I knew since I’ve been in this state, was such a principled politician. Last October, though, he was comfortable abandoning his conservative principles because of political pressure from moderate leadership in the Republican Party. Now, he’s out using the awful legislation that he helped birth into existence as a campaign issue. That seems to again put a mark in the “I have no principles column.”
I’m with him on a lot of other issues – most especially his defense of the Second Amendment. I’m not with him when he pulls stunts like this.
As a potential voter, I’d be happy if he’d clearly articulate his position now versus his position then. But to campaign on it without making mention of the past vote? What?
Fastidious
I appreciate your cordial response, probably more cordial than my initial one. But I get irritated at the 100-percenters among us who quickly throw one of our own under the bus. You consider his vote as showing no principles, when perhaps his guiding principle in the matter was to not have the entire financial system collapse, which many people predicted would happen if the bill hadn’t passed. As for government intervention in the economy, that’s the one constant in our economy. It’s called the tax code, budgets, the federal reserve, banking, insurance, rules, regs, etc. Every politician votes on those matters; that’s what government does. One can argue whether those government “interventions” or bills are good or bad for the economy, but I would say that in most cases (and especially in Thune’s case) those votes are cast in hopes that it will help the economy. Some could accuse some politicians in having an interest in not improving the economy, but I don’t think Thune is one of them.
The important thing to me, is that Thune apparently corrected sail on what you consider to be a bad policy decision and has voted against every monstrosity that has come since then and most importantly is opposing the health care legislative fiasco and opposes cap and trade. We should be thanking him every day for that. How about a “What I’m cheering at” someday for Thune fighting the previously mentioned topics, for opposing lib judges, for fighting for gun rights, etc. I’d like to cheer him on for hosting the town halls. If you had the chance to attend one I’m guessing your doubts about his principles may have been appeased. I attended the one in Rapid City and he made me proud to be one of his supporters. We need more like him.
Hi Jo!
No worries. I’ve been called worse on this blog! And I’m not going to take offense if a reader is impassioned in his/her comments – that excitement about politics and political discourse warms my heart.
I would direct your attention to one of the quotations we’ve got on the right side of the blog: “Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice.”
That he did vote for the bailout speaks volumes about Sen. Thune. Anyone with a basic understanding of economics knows that government intervention in the economy is not good for the economy (generally, we label those people as conservatives or libertarians). No volume of cries about “EMERGENCY!” or “FAILURE!” can justify what those politicians set into play last October. By voting for that legislation, Sen. Thune showed me that he (1) might not have understood exactly what he was voting for, (2) he can be cowed by Republican leadership to vote with the herd, or (3) he actually believed what he was doing would “save the economy.” Regardless of the specifics, his vote does demonstrate he’s not as conservative as I once thought he was.
Yes. It is one constant in our economy. I don’t think that we’d say, “Well, that gentleman’s raping of the girl *was* wrong, but that’s just one constant in our culture!” I would be thrilled if we could get the federal government out of the way of businesses and citizens.
And I would wholeheartedly agree with you: Sen. Thune did cast his vote in earnest… He did believe that what he was doing would help the American economy.
Maybe I’m being a stickler, but I would just like an exegesis about why he went from government intervention is great! to stop it completely!
And you’re correct, too, maybe I should be a bit kinder toward him and focus on the good stuff that he’s doing. Like you, I was pleased with his response to the president’s health care plan. For the most part, I do think that he represents South Dakota well.
BTW… Recently, I wrote about him in a positive, roundabout sort of way here and Dear Husband wrote about that townhall meeting here and here.
Do hope to see you back around here!
Fastidious
I would have to say that yes, Thune did originally vote for TARP and the bailout, but as he stated recently in an article – http://www.mitchellrepublic.com/event/article/id/37189/ – “the funds have not been used according to the original plan.” In theory everything looks great, once implemented is where we see the problems arise. No one is being made responsible for the misuse of bailout funds. When are we going to see the real issues here….who’s paying for the bailout? At 133,000 per family, I am more concerned with why we can not use repaid funds and leftover TARP monies to reduce the debt that my family and I are faced at paying for centuries!
Thank you for your time!
Dear Living in SD,
In theory TARP was an absolutely terrible idea which, if executed as it was proposed, would increase the period of time for economic correction. In actuality TARP was a pay day for banksters.