A Day in the Life of Tom McClintock Published: June 20, 2009 June Print Edition by Beth Ingalls To say Congressman Tom McClintock is pessimistic about California is a vast understatement. Here’s an excerpt from a piece, titled “Warnings from the Left Coast.” he posted May 21 on his congressional website.” “A generation ago, California exemplified its nickname, “The Golden State.” State spending was less than half per capita, inflation adjusted, what it is today. Its debt-service ration was less than a third. Yet Californians enjoyed one of the finest highway systems in the world and one of the finest public educations systems in the country. Water and electricity were so cheap that many communities didn’t bother to meter consumption.” He doesn’t mince words in the next paragraph: “One thing – and one thing only – has changed in those years: public policy. The political Left gradually gained dominance over California’s government and imposed a disastrous agenda of policy changes that are now being replicated at the federal level.” That’s Left with a capital “L.” Republican Tom McClintock was sworn in to the California 4th District seat previously held by John Doolittle on January 6, three days after the 111th United States Congress officially began its new term. Democratic challenger Charlie Brown conceded the election on December 3, 2008, after weeks of hand re-counts and haggling, which eventually ended in a 1,600-vote margin of victory for McClintock. McClintock returns from Washington about once each month for district work periods and on May 29 he spent the day in South Lake Tahoe, where he made a speech to an eighth grade class at a private Catholic school, gave an interview to the Tahoe Tribune, spoke to Rotary Club members at the Montbleu and met with the City Council. On his way back down the mountain he handed out awards to art competition winners in Placerville. During his luncheon speech at the Rotary Club meeting, he reiterated his doom and gloom message about California, even managing to squeeze in a little sarcastic humor. “California is still one of the best places to build a successful small business – you just have to start with a successful large one. California is an economic basket case,” he declared, as the Rotarians hacked away at their rubbery chicken. The fact that California is in dire financial straits isn’t news and McClintock’s insistent harping cast a pall over the sterile conference room. With that horse dead, he moved on to his next target, the Obama administration, where he has an even bigger axe to grind.
After regretfully acknowledging that the Bush administration managed to rack up a $450 billion deficit, he was quick to point out that thanks to Obama, the number has grown to $1.8 trillion virtually overnight. He calls the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (the stimulus package) which he voted against, the “Obama spending bill” and sums it up this way: “When you take a dollar from Peter to give to Paul, Peter has one less dollar.” I wonder about Mary and notice McClintock has lots of trouble pronouncing the name “Barack.” McClintock stated, “rewarding friends doesn’t work,” noting that the recent Chrysler bankruptcy deal has been structured so that dealerships owned by Democrats will remain open, but those owned by Republicans are slated to be shut down. He then moved on to another really sore subject, global warming. Not only does global warming not exist, but the legislation enacted to curb it is the most dangerous and sinister of all. McClintock asserts that California’s own AB 32 is the worst and quite possibly responsible for destroying the state’s economy, and that Cap and Tax measures (or Cap and Trade as it is commonly known) will kill small business and jobs. People seemed to be taking second trips to the buffet line and looking around for more chocolate cake. McClintock ended his remarks by reinforcing the fact that while we’re screwed, it will be “good again in America…it’s in our hands at the voting box.” The floor opened up for audience questions and a gentleman rose and stated that speaking from his experience as a trained economist, it is his belief that the problems we are facing as a nation have nothing to do with Obama. The new president is merely attempting to correct a host of very poor economic decisions made by George Bush and Ben Bernanke. The economist went on for quite a while rattling off numbers and names, eliciting occasional cheers from the audience with his diatribe as well as some obvious disdain. When McClintock finally got the chance to respond, he disagreed vehemently and attributes the man’s conclusions to “bad history and bad math.” He threw in a reminder that Obama supported the bank bailout. That comment elicited a cry from the audience: “Should we have let the banks fail?” McClintock responded by talking about the overwhelming success of the recent Tea Party demonstrations and how disgruntled the majority of Americans are with the tax and spend policies of the current administration. As the fervor subsides, the Rotary president announced that there’s time for just one more question before the Congressman must leave for his next engagement.
A gentleman rose and grabbed the microphone. “Congressman McClintock, as you know, South Lake Tahoe’s economy is based on tourism. We need to be proactive to create business in our community in this bad economic climate. What is the government doing to help us bring more tourism to our community?” “It was not that long ago that the Chambers of Commerce did that. Why aren’t Chambers of Commerce doing that now? It’s not a federal responsibility,” McClintock said. No suggestions, no sympathy. And that was it. Lunch was over. McClintock is a career politician, first elected to the California State Assembly in 1982 at the tender age of 26. He was re-elected there five times, serving until 1992, when he ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. House of Representatives in the 24th District. He came in a close second to Kathleen Connell when he ran for California State Controller in 1994, and voters returned him to the State Assembly (District 38) in 1996 where he served until 2000. He ran unsuccessfully for Governor in 2003 and has been a State Senator in District 19 (Thousand Oaks) since 2000. He finally won a national race without the ability to vote for himself in the 4th District. With over a quarter century in state government, his relentless criticism of California is hard to take. After all, he’s been around as long as anyone else in the halls of Sacramento. Why isn’t he taking some of the blame himself? If anything, he’s more culpable than most of the politicians he finds fault with. Now that he’s finally arrived on the national stage, it looks like his strategy of serving up ideological rants and critiques as opposed to offering constructive solutions may continue to be his modus operandi. There’s a saying that goes something like this: when you point a finger in blame at another person, you have three fingers pointing back at yourself.