What's Really Wrong with Keith Fimian

Experience has taught us that when the government cuts tax rates, far more tax revenue flows into its coffers than even the rosiest estimates. In fact, the Kennedy and Reagan tax cuts helped create economic booms that poured billlions into the treasury.

The Democrat Congress is trying to raise taxes on working Americans and that is a sure recipe for economic collapse. Higher taxes punish the working families in Fairfax and Prince William Counties.

American families ought to enjoy more of the fruits of their labor-not less-and the tax cuts passed by Congress 6 years ago, which stimulated the economy, must be made permanent.

This is utterly ridiculous. First, Fimian adheres to the tired old supply-side, "trickle-down" conservative nonsense that has brought us $400 billion deficits and a country in which - as Jim Webb says - the "rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, and the middle class is getting squeezed."  No thank you.

Second, the phrase "Democrat Congress" - as opposed to the grammatically correct "Democratic Congress" - is unprofessional and needlessly provocative language on a candidate's website.  I mean, it's one thing if bloggers talk like this, but can you imagine if a Democratic candidate's official website referred to Republicans as "Rethugs" or whatever?  More broadly, Fimian's use of this in-your-face phrasing is a sign that he is not someone who would be inclined to reach across the aisle. Instead, Fimian appears to be the type who goes out of his way to gratuitously insult Democrats (note: I'm surprised, actually, as I thought Fimian was a nice guy when I met him). Aside from being obnoxious, this is simply not very smart politics in a county that's trending strongly Democratic. What's Fimian thinking by resorting to this Karl Rove style taunting?

Finally, I strongly disagree with his prescription that making the Bush tax cuts for the top 1% permanent will, in any way, help our country.  To the contrary, all this will do is keep racking up huge budget deficits, while continuing to wage class warfare against anyone who's not super-rich. That's completely unacceptable; at a time of war and great national challenges, the wealthiest among us should be sacrificing - in fact, we all should be - not racking up tax breaks that the country can't afford.

In short, Keith Fimian may have some good ideas and be a nice guy, but unfortunately, all he's offering the 11th CD is the same old conservative, Bush/Cheney/McSame mantras on economics and tax policy that have been completely discredited over the past 8 years. Why would anyone want that, keeping in mind the saying that "one definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results?"

P.S. Minor point, but spell check is your friend Mr. Fimian - "billions" is not spelled with three "l"'s.

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