Nancy Pelosi's net worth increased significantly during the Great Recession.
This tends to debunk the Left's assertion that big government (irrespective of whether it is right, center, or left) serves the people instead of itself.
Source:
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/12/as-americans-get-poorer-members-of-congress-get-richer/
Comments
Nobody ever said that Pelosi was poor. We are aware that Congress has become another gated community, but there are those, like Mrs. Pelosi, who advocate for the interests of others beyond her social and economic class. It is hard for people with money to avoid getting richer in the current system, and the indictment ought to be about how dedicated to the protection of this status they are compared to how dedicated they are to helping the poor. I am not talking about Romney rhetoric or Paul Ryan ideological claims to that effect. I am talking about really dealing with the stacked deck.
As always, you speak power to truth and attack those who would change things, not those responsible for this illness. It is ugly and tiresome.
indeed, it is government tax and regulatory policy that stacks the deck.
No rational, independent thinking, and objective citizen would ever presume that government actors who control vast sums of wealth via tax and regulatory policy are not corrupt. Indeed, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
In contrast, within a voluntary, free, and competitive marketplace corrupt actors fail since they are not insulated and protected from bad decision by their cronies in government.
Case in point, the wall street bailouts by the LEft.
Checkmate.
However, when has the faith-based Left ever been swayed the glaring and obvious factual, logical and empirical evidence in plain view ?
The wall st.bailouts were under Bush. Obama loaned the car companies enough to get back into business. If you cannot keep these two things separated, you are just another shill for power with a terrible handle.
Is the answer to bad refs in a basketball game to fire them and not hire any others? Do you think it would work in college or pro ball, or do we all have to go back to the Y and pickup games?
The fact that the state has the responsibility for the regulation of commerce and the fairness of a free market does not make it the problem. Who controls the state is the problem. If you cannot distinguish between the representatives and senators who vote for progressive and fair tax policies and those who serve their rich masters, and insist that their personal finances are the only thing that ever matters, you simply ignore what happens and smear democracy. This serves the privateers who can rule without government if we let them. They can corrupt government if we let them too.
The answer is to be a political community committed to governing ourselves as democrats instead of being ruled over by tyrants. There is no magic solution here, just the messy business of doing democracy instead of trashing it.
Checkmate yourself.
Politicians line their pockets with money from corporations and rich individuals, not through the government. The same way that corrupt individuals in the private sector pocket money from corporations and rich individuals. If a bank president gets rich due to his high position from rich corporations or individuals who want to "buy" favor on certain loans they don't close down the banks.
You are talking about corrupt individuals and corporations who game the system. You prosecute the violators, not the system. So if the "government" is corrupt and must be shut down then so should banks, corporations, unions, the boy scouts, etc.
I only needed to read this first comment from DRC to ascertain that DRC is really parroting himself, for example:
Did senator obama vote in lockstep with bush for the bailouts ???
Did virtually every single democrat/progressive in Congress vote in lockstep with bush for the bailouts ???
How many wall street types occupy the obama administration ???
Guess which politician in the last presidential election was the beneficiary of the most BP, AIG, big pharma, big oil, et al campaign largesse ???
Indeed, who is the shill ?
@ Bush_Wacker.
Within the voluntary, free and competitive market -- corporations that are corrupt, wasteful, inefficient,et al go out of business.
In contrast, governments that are corrupt, wasteful, inefficient, et al raise taxes, over regulated, start wars, engage in protectionism, et al.
IN sum, within a free market 99.9% of corporations ultimately go out of business because they do not respond to consumer preferences -- in contrast, bad government is enduring because they gain and hold power by coercive means and they are the "Mother of all monopolies"
You eliminate the ability of government to pick winners and losers -- you will then decentralize and turn this power over to the masses acting as free, voluntary self-interested consumers in a competitive marketplace.