posted August 18, 2006 12:56 PM            

Are you old enough to remember Jimmy Stewart in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington"? If so, like me, you'll recall the honest small-town citizen who is elected locally to go to Congress, and who takes it very seriously. He knows he's been selected by his neighbors to represent them and their interests in Washington, and he goes there to do just that.

Before long, he encounters the seamy, corrupt aspects of the government processes, the deals, the sellouts, the self-serving squandering of tax money, the pork-barrel excesses, and the insistent advice, "If you go along, you'll get along."

The movie climaxes with Jimmy Stewart, as the rookie congressman, talking himself hoarse and exhausted in a heroic filibuster, eventually drawing cheers and hurrahs from an enthusiastic gallery of fellow citizens in the balcony of the House. The audience always gets goose bumps, and maybe tears, watching an earnest and dedicated young American giving his every fiber to be, and do, what he was elected to do.

To be a genuine public servant.

Isn't that what all our elected representatives do today? Are you serious?

No, sadly, while there are still those idealistic, dedicated citizens who step forward, run arduous campaigns, win elections and go to Washington intending to be exactly what Jimmy Stewart depicted in the movie, the "game" calls for them to get in step, learn and conform to the established "system," and not make waves.

Before long, the "promises" they made their constituents are swept aside as impractical, and trades and compromises become their currency. If they're good at it, they build credits and clout and even debts from their fellows, and move up the ladder to influential committees and positions. If they're not good at the game, or if they naively try to really accomplish the worthy things the voters expected of them, they generally get squeezed out and neutralized.

And those who are really good at it get a lot of public attention, win some favors for "the folks back home," become entrenched incumbents, and keep making "promises" to get re-elected. Mysteriously, quite a few, though they aren't paid exorbitant salaries and have to maintain two residences just to stay in office, retire wealthy. Curious, isn't it?

I really hate to be cynical about all this. But we see it enacted over and over again, until it eventually seems "just the way it is." And while all valid polls reveal the wishes of the great majority of Americans, the ones they elected don't seem to read the polls. At least not till the next election time. And then they become very interested in the polls, so they can say the "right" things, trying to convince the voters they've been fighting for their interests all along and will do even more if they're sent back to Washington.

And they usually are.

Voluntary prayer in school? Americans want it. A Flag Protection Amendment? Americans want it. Marriage protection legislation? Lower taxes, a balanced budget? A raised minimum wage level? Americans overwhelmingly prefer these things.

And what do their "public servants" do? They thumb their noses at the dumb voters, who probably won't care enough to even check on who votes how in Congress. They generally vote along strict party lines, currying favor with other politicians and special interest groups rather than the people who elected them.

We've got to wake up, folks. The Senate just failed – again – to abolish the "death tax," the so-called estate tax. The House of Representatives, our representatives, voted 272 to 162 kill it, obviously hearing the wishes of the people.

This is, as you must know, the confiscatory tax initiated during World War I for that immediate emergency (when taxes were almost nonexistent); this is the robbery that occurs when a dutiful taxpayer has the poor judgment to die, and the government steps in to take half of the dead person's assets, calling it – preposterously, conveniently and, some would say, erroneously – a "tax." Small family businesses and farms and homes often have to be sold just to satisfy the insatiable appetite of big-spending politicians.

***NoteThe Inheritance Tax/Estate Tax/Death Tax was instituted during the Administration of Woodrow Wilson..who also gave us..and bragged about doing so...the Federal Reserve Act..and the Federal Income Tax. Note further, the Inheritance Tax, Federal Income Tax and absolute control over a nations economy..Federal Reserve Act are all planks of the Communist Manifesto..the blueprint for overthrowing representative governments.

http://www.libertyzone.com/Communist-Manifesto-Planks.html

As Jim Martin of the 60 Plus Association has said repeatedly, "Death shouldn't be a taxable event." Still, it is!

The president and the people, including some responsible senators, have been actively campaigning to stomp this "tax" on death to its own overdue death. In early June, a majority of the Senate voted for the people and their expressed desire to end the death tax. But cloture failed by 57 to 41, just short of the 60 votes needed to advance the bill to the Senate floor, where final passage would have been certain.

Forty-one senators voted against the people who elected them. They think you should still have to surrender half of your already-taxed assets to the IRS when you die. For your reference the next time they seek re-election, the following senators were the "nay" voters:

Akaka, D-Hawaii
Bayh, D-Ind.***
Biden, D-Del.***
Bingaman, D-N.M.
Boxer, D-Calif.
Byrd, D-W.Va.
Cantwell, D-Wash.
Carper, D-Del.
Chafee, R-R.I.
Clinton, D-N.Y.***
Conrad, D-N.D.
Dayton, D-Minn.
Dodd, D-Conn.***
Dorgan, D-N.D.
Durbin, D-Ill.
Feingold, D-Wis.***
Feinstein, D-Calif.
Harkin, D-Iowa
Inouye, D-Hawaii
Jeffords, I-Vt.
Johnson, D-S.D.
Kennedy, D-Mass.
Kerry, D-Mass.***
Kohl, D-Wis.
Landrieu, D-La.
Lautenberg, D-N.J.
Leahy, D-Vt.
Levin, D-Mich.
Lieberman, D-Conn.
Menendez, D-N.J.
Mikulski, D-Md.
Murray, D-Wash.
Obama, D-Ill.
Pryor, D-Ark.
Reed, D-R.I.
Reid, D-Nev.
Salazar, D-Colo.
Sarbanes, D-Md.
Stabenow, D-Mich.
Voinovich, R-Ohio
Wyden, D-Ore.

***Note: Gee, they're all democrats..except for 3 RINOS, Republicans in Name Only...Jim Jeffords, Voinovich and Lincoln Chafee. Well, I'm really shocked to see democrats and RINOS supporting a Marxist inspired death tax..Right! The Senators with *** are far left president wannabees

Then on Thursday, August 3, the exact same 41 senators again voted against cloture to allow a final vote even on reduced – not repealed – estate taxes, which this time were combined with the minimum wage increase and the long-promised continuation of certain expiring tax cuts, including deductions for college tuitions and state sales taxes.

The hope had been that adding the minimum wage, along with a package of popular tax cuts, could carry death tax repeal to passage, but Reuters put it dryly: "Democratic senators blocked their own goal on Thursday of raising the U.S. minimum wage for the first time since 1997, after Republicans added a huge tax break for the rich to the legislation."

Thus, the same left-leaning Reuters News Service that prohibits the term "terrorist" but easily labels repeal of a World War I emergency measure a "huge tax break for the rich," actually tips us off: Senators accustomed to following strict party lines voted en masse to spite over-achievers in preference to helping under-achievers!

Majority Leader Bill Frist changed his vote from "yea" to "nay" at the last minute, a parliamentary procedural method to allow reconsideration of the issue, most likely this September. This brought the tally to 42 nays, with Frist telling senators who voted against the bill to "rethink long and hard" during the four-week recess.