Word: gramm
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...list of complaints of over-reaching federal intervention. Note the decision of Governor William F. Weld '66 not to campaign for his party's nomination. Republicanism today is dominated by an insular morality which would override any such notion as economic libertarianism, just as the rhetoric of Gingrich and Gramm dominates that of Weld and Wilson...
...Gramm's appeal is about self-righteous selfishness; those who can't afford their rights are left out in the cold. But at the head of the revolution, Gramm thinks his message will strike a nerve--and he may be right. A recent New York Times/CBS poll showed that an overwhelming majority of Americans support a balanced-budget amendment; that percentage dropped by more than half when it was pointed out that Social Security--one of those ways, invisible in Gramm's rhetoric, that government benefits all those who pay for it--might have to be cut to balance...
...Gramm's rhetoric, the government is a machine that siphons off the earnings of working people and distributes it to those on welfare; he seems to believe both that taxpayers gain no benefit from government and that the poor, who "benefit" from government, should not be represented in the decisions of that government. For Gramm, the U.S. government and all the rights it is charged with defending should be accessible only to those who can pay for it; it's a free country, he seems to say, but free yourself with your own money...
This early skirmish in the Republican revolution shows that Phil Gramm's America is a nation of people who think that only they pay for government, and who resent the fact that their money benefits anyone else. It was that America Gramm addressed when he declared--at his $4.1 million fundraiser--"We are one victory away from getting our money back...
...else would Gramm save your money? In his speech, he said he would "stop building prisons like Holiday Inns" and instead, push for vigorous use of the death penalty. In the final analysis, that's Phil Gramm's answer to the spirit of the moment: we'll get our money back, no matter how may people we have to kill...