Harry Reid Tells Kent Conrad’s “Gang Of Six” To Put Up Or Shut Up
If there’s one thing any honest observer of Senator Kent Conrad’s time in office can conclude, it’s that the self-styled “deficit hawk” likes to talk a good game about deficit reduction. When it comes to action though he’s, well, all talk.
It’s not often I find myself agreeing with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, but his calling out Senator Conrad and his fellow “gang of six” cronies is like a breath of fresh air.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Tuesday dismissed the work of the Gang of Six as “happy talk,” dousing expectations that the group’s deficit-reduction plan will amount to much.
Reid has never been a fan of the ad hoc bipartisan group, which has tried to create a deficit proposal outside the sanction of committee chairmen and party leaders.
It has never had a legislative success, and Reid could no longer contain his impatience with chatter over the Gang of Six’s deficit proposal.
“If someone has a proposal about reducing the deficit, the debt, here’s my suggestion: Put it in bill form, in writing, not all these happy statements about what people think can be done,” Reid told reporters. “I’m stunned by the Gang of Six that we hear so much about.”
Conrad has gotten away with his “deficit hawk” nonsense for far too long. So long, in fact, it seems that it’s wearing thin even on members of his own party. Conrad’s budget committee hasn’t actually produced a budget since 2009, and that’s not something that is anyone’s fault but Kent Conrad’s. He’s the chairman of the committee. He doesn’t need a vote of the full Senate to produce a budget. He simply hasn’t done it because, for all his posturing as a preening deficit peacock, he’s as bad as the rest of them.
Kent Conrad could do the whole nation a favor if he could locate a little humility, come to terms with his irrelevance, and shuffle off into his ignominious retirement.
Tags: Asshats, deficits, gang of six, harry reid, Kent Conrad, national debt, North Dakota News
