Corzine - Counting The Words And Sacrifices

From Corzine’s statement on President Bush’s State of the Union Speech:

“I had hoped the President tonight would be straight with the American people about the costs, risks and sacrifices associated with his proposals, unfortunatley he was not. In a speech that ran more than 5,000 words, the President uttered the word sacrifice but once – a sad state of denial when so many in our society, from working families in New Jersey to our troops serving in Iraq, are sacrfcing so much as a result of the President’s misguided policies.

From Corzine’s statement on President Bush’s Inaugural Address

“In fact, in a seventeen minute address that ran more than 2,000 words, the President used the word sacrifice but once.”

“After the loss of almost 1,400 soldiers in Iraq and with the cost of war soon to exceed $200 billion, the people of New Jersey and the nation want to know what more is expected of them and what sacrifices they will have to make. The families of New Jersey’s active duty service members, National Guard and Reserves want to know how much more sacrifice is expected of them and their loved ones serving overseas. The brave men and women defending our freedoms are serving selflessly and are owed our highest admiration and support. They are also owed a realistic assessment from the President of the road and sacrifices ahead.”

Notice anything about Jon Corzine’s press statement about the President’s two most recent addresses? We mean other than the two misspellings in the first paragraph (unfortunatley and sacrfcing) of Corzine’s most recent statement. And what’s up with Corzine making sure we know how many words the President’s speeches “ran’?

Beyond word count, Senator Corzine also seems obsessed with sacrifice. Certainly our soldiers and their families have made great sacrifices, for which we are ever grateful. We know more than three thousand lives were lost and great sacrifices were made here at home in the wake of 9/11. These sacrifices were a direct result of the government’s failure, in the preceding decade, to form policies and take action that may have averted this tragedy.

Diplomacy, embargos, law enforcement and sanctions, by themselves, proved ineffective against the islamo-terrorists networks and the world’s rogue states. President Bush learned from the country’s past mistakes and took action. His actions included, but were not limited, to a military response. What would Corzine have done in the President’s shoes? Continue with the old policies and hope for the best? Events have shown us the old polices did not work. History will judge those of President Bush.

But beyond these brave men and women, performing job one of the federal government, defending and protecting our country, exactly who else in the Senator’s mind is sacrificing under President’s Bush’s policies?

Sacrifice means the act of losing or surrendering something of value for the sake of one considered to have a greater value or claim. Sacrifice can also be defined as the loss entailed by giving up something at less than its value. In any definition, sacrifice always implies that something possessed by one person or group, is given to another for a specific reason or cause. It is impossible to give, trade or sacrifice something you don’t have.

The federal government is spending more taxpayer money than ever before and more on non-defense related programs than any time in our country’s history. Our sacrifice comes in the form of paying taxes – federal, state and local. So from this standpoint, Corzine is right, the people of New Jersey sacrifice more than others.

However, the President has specifically worked to ease the burden of taxes in his first term with a tax reduction seen by every American that pays income tax and Bush has called for making the tax cuts permanent. Last night the President called for reform of the federal tax code to make it easy to understand and fair to all Americans. The President is working to alleviate the amount of sacrifice required of the American people.

So what are we to make of Corzine’s comments? We have read the Senator’s press releases that ran – never mind, we won’t bother to count the words – and have yet to see a single action he has taken, an idea he might have, or a plan he has formulated to lessen the sacrifices required by the citizens of New Jersey.

In the world of Senator Corzine, apparently inaction is his definition of success and sacrifice is when the government has to give money back to the people that earned it.