Getting the message

At the risk of sounding like Edgar Allan Poe, the pendulum always swings toward a day of reckoning — especially when politics are involved.

And for the liberty-robbing, big spending wheeler-dealers in Washington, D.C., there are definite signs that the chickens are coming home to roost.

That’s welcome news for the individuals who fear for their future and that of their children and grandchildren. It gives hope that there is power in the collective voices of those who watched in horror as spendthrifts ran amok in our nation’s capital.

Here are the latest reasons to take heart if you’re against more of your money being pried out of your pocketbook to support the “marvels” that big government wants to initiate.

First of all, supporters of the American Power Act, which is an insidious idea wrapped an innocent sounding package, have decided to abandon efforts to get that energy legislation through the U.S. Senate — at least for now.

This was supposed to be a last-gasp try at something that infamously had been labeled “cap and trade.” It was marketed as the perfect way to save the planet by reducing greenhouse gases. 

If lawmakers had somehow managed to ram it through Congress as they did with our grand new health care plan, it would have only cost each and every one of us a 27-cent “fuels fee” for every gallon of gasoline we pumped in our vehicles.

Plus nobody in the “green” crowd wanted to acknowledge that the legislation would have had a devastating effect on the entire economy. That 27-cent tax would have run up the cost of shipping all sorts of essential items such as food and clothes, which would have been passed down to the consumers. And the ripple effect would have made our utility bills soar by creating higher prices for electricity and natural gas.

But good riddance to that nonsense, at least for now, thanks to an election year surrender. Whether they would admit it or not, the proponents — mostly Democrats, of course — looked onto the horizon and saw elections approaching at a rapid rate, followed by an angry mob of voters who haven’t been sold, after the fact, on that mess known as Obamacare.

Speaking of which, here’s another indicator that public opinion can be a powerful motivating influence.

Seems there’s a provision in that massive new health care law that would create a paperwork nightmare for 38 million

U.S. businesses. It requires the filing of tax forms by all businesses for every vendor that sells them more than $600 in goods. It was supposed to eliminate under-reporting of profits by the vendors and raise more tax revenue.

But now, with the enormity of the problems it would cause business owners becoming public knowledge, lawmakers in all camps want to repeal it. But they differ as to how to make up for the lost tax revenue.

Anyway, that’s just two recent examples of how public opinion has caused previously arrogant politicians to backtrack.

So while they’re busy dealing with those roosting chickens, it encourages all those in favor of common sense government to keep applying pressure — one powerful voice at a time.