The middle class has never been worse off since.
Winning office in the early 1990’s as just a “Mom in tennis shoes,” the now 62 year-old has shown herself to be more of a “Mom in muddy shoes,” sparing no effort to retain her cushioned seat of authority, promoting a Progressive agenda on the backs of the middle class while catering to big labor and selected corporate special interests.
Deflecting any and blame, Murray and other Democrats ignore that unemployment among the middle class quickly doubled after they assumed control of congress and the entire government with the election of Barack Obama in 2008.
Murray first came to office in 1993 along with President B.J. Clinton, giving them full control of the government. Unemployment was sitting at 7.3% still reeling from the disastrous luxury tax Democrats drew up and convinced President George H.W. Bush to sign into law in violation of his famous “read my lips, no new taxes” pledge. The promptly made their tax a campaign issue against him and used it to oust him from office and elect B.J. Clinton.
As history shows, the luxury tax against the wealthy decimated the middle class as the wealthy either stopped buying the items with the higher taxes of bought elsewhere, putting companies that employed the middle class to manufacture luxury items out of business.
The 1994 elections saw Murray relegated to minority party status as Republicans led by Newt Gingrich won control of both houses of congress based upon their “Contract with America.” By 2000 unemployment had dropped as low as 3.8%.
In the years leading up to the 2006 elections, unemployment went up and down with the economic recession of the early 2000’s, the most devastating terrorist attack in history and going to war to fight terrorism. Yet unemployment never exceeded 6.2% and averaged 5.1% for the years 2000 through 2006.
When Murray and the Democrats assumed control of congress in January 2007, unemployment sat at 4.6% as the wailed how bad the economy was and such a number of unemployed was “unbearable.”
By the time Barack Obama was inaugurated unemployment was 7.8%, quickly exceeding 10% and only dipped slightly under 8% for a very short period leading up to the 2012 election.
As boring as this may be to read, it is to give you some back ground on just how well these so-called “champions of the middle class” have benefited the middle class in America. The relevance is in that Patty Murray graced Clark County with her presence recently stumping for the largest and most expensive project ever to hit our region, the Columbia River Crossing that will replace both spans of the Interstate Bridge linking Clark County to Portland, Oregon and that is primarily designed to force Clark County’s middle class to not only accept Portland’s financially ailing light rail that we have voted down in the past, but to pay for it as well.
In promoting the boondoggle heavily opposed by the middle class taxpayers in Clark County, Murray, taking aim at the County Commissioners the middle class turned out in droves to support and elect to oppose the CRC, labeled their recent effort in passing a resolution opposing the CRC by a 2 to 1 margin as ‘turning their backs on the region’s economic development.’
Speaking before a select group of special interest business owners in the Columbia River Economic Development Council (CREDC), Murray took aim at the selection of the middle class she boldly claims to “champion” condemning the recent actions of County Commission to end tax dollars paid to CREDC since they support the CRC and light rail when voters have clearly rejected it, most recently by proxy vote defeating the proposed sales tax increase intended to fund light rail operations & maintenance.
Apparently clueless, Murray lied with, “A light rail component is absolutely necessary to secure federal funding for this project.”
Although claimed for many years, it was revealed that the federal government has no such requirement for light rail in their mandate of some form of rapid transit being part of such projects. Less expensive buses or even a bus rapid transit would fulfill the need and still qualify for the federal funding.
Oblivious to such an ambitious project being a burden on the middle class that has seen over 4 years of double digit unemployment in Clark County, Murray calls for “local revenues and tolling” to pay for the monstrosity that would be more affordable if not for forcing light rail to be part of it.
Those so-called “local revenues” currently being discussed amount to an additional 10 cent per gallon gas tax that would return Washington State to the highest gas tax in the nation, a $20 additional fee for yearly licensing your car, the possibility of an increase in the employer tax, the fee of $25 added to bicycles that cost at least $500 and whatever else our Democrat controlled legislature can dre4am up to stick it to the middle class.
Addressing the numerous design flaws uncovered in the project, such as inadequate clearance for river commerce traffic that would put businesses upriver out of business or cause them to lay off middle class workers to cut back on their services as well as several downtown businesses being displaced and torn down to accommodate the eyesore bridge, Murray says, “any further attempt to change the current bridge design will cause years, if not decades of delay.”
In other words, we are crossing a bridge in the dark at high speed and seen in the headlights ahead that the bridge is washed out. But, we have gone too far now so just keep going over the edge, even though we know it is going to kill us.
Ignoring the concerns of the struggling middle class in both states of Oregon and Washington, Murray flippantly states “no plan is perfect” and adding, “the CRC plan has been agreed upon and studied time and time again.”
Who agreed upon it? Surely not the middle class that has been denied promised votes time and again since we first defeated the notion in 1995.
And what studies? The glossed over reports that ignored the many design flaws associated with the current design?
Moving ahead with this boondoggle promises to add about $2,000 a year to the average Clark County middle class citizen who must travel to Portland for a job, since neither Murray or her party will do much to attract jobs to our county. Oh, she claims they work hard to “create jobs” on this side of the river, but where are they? Why have we been burdened with over 4 years of double digit unemployment?
And if they are about “creating jobs,” why do they continue to block expansion of our ports to accommodate shipping coal to Asia who is going to buy and use coal no matter what we may think. Why do they continue to deny recovering our own energy sources resting beneath our own land and within our borders? Or even the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline from Alberta, Canada to the Gulf of Mexico where a refined product would be shipped to foreign lands?
These are all middle class jobs denied due to restrictions placed on the backs of job creators prepared to hire middle class workers.
But for Patty Murray to portray herself as a “Champion of the middle class” and then condemn the actions the middle class elected two County Commissioners to take is completely hypocritical, as is expecting the middle class to be forced to accept and pay for a project that instead of being a benefit to us, will bankrupt us.
It’s as if Murray and the Democrats stand before us saying, “we have to destroy the middle class in order to save it.”
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