Fitzsimon File

Displays of hypocrisy in politics are not exactly new, but the practice has reached new lows in recent days in Washington in the reaction to the State of the Union Address and the shrill opposition to proposals for health care reform and economic recovery.

Several members of North Carolina’s congressional delegation are among the most blatant offenders, saying one thing and doing another, proclaiming an allegiance to an ideology that their actions reveal they know is deeply flawed, blasting another member of Congress for action they have also taken.

Congressman Patrick McHenry appeared recently at a Free Enterprise Town Hall in Hickory sponsored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its local affiliate. The Catawba Valley Citizen reported that McHenry used the occasion to call decisions made the Obama Administration policies dumb and stupid. It makes you wonder if he also stuck his tongue out.

After the event that McHenry moved from juvenile to absurd then hypocritical when he was asked how he is helping people who are unemployed. He listed three ways, fighting health care reform, opposing tax increases and working to extend unemployment benefits.

Making sure someone who lost their job can’t afford health care is an odd definition of help. And if lower taxes and the free market are the answer to our problems, why does McHenry want to extend unemployment, a government program paid for by a tax on corporations?

North Carolina Senator Richard Burr is one of as many as 65 members of Congress who voted against the federal stimulus package but posed in front of cameras when stimulus money was delivered to their districts.

Burr helped present a $2 million stimulus check to the local fire department in Bethlehem in Alexander County in October. Burr is unapologetic about it, telling Politico that “just because I voted against the stimulus doesn’t mean I shouldn’t recognize the merit achievement of an entity.”

Maybe it’s just recognizing the merit of achievement of entities in other states that gives Burr pause. The practice of voting against the stimulus bill and then posing for pictures when a stimulus check is delivered has been dubbed the “cash and trash” strategy in Washington.

That’s a catchy way of saying shameless hypocrisy.

Then there is Congresswoman Virginia Foxx, who has already warned us that health care reform is a bigger threat than “any terrorist right now in the country.” Foxx’s reaction to Obama’s State of the Union Address was that “talk is cheap and we need more than rhetoric.”

In other words, Obama and Congress need to get things done, like health care reform, which requires the cooperation of members of Congress who think reasonable reform is more dangerous than terrorism.

Foxx is right. Talk is cheap. And in some cases ridiculous.

And Foxx is no stranger to the world of hypocrisy. Two years ago she called on Congress to “end its addiction to pork,’ and abolish earmarks for local projects. Yet Foxx sought federal funding for the much-maligned Teapot Museum planned for her district, a project that her fellow Republicans in Raleigh and Washington frequently ridiculed as an example of wasteful, pork barrel spending.

Senator Burr joined Foxx in seeking the federal money for the museum that was never built, though it is a pretty safe bet that Burr would have been there for the groundbreaking if it had been.

It is already tough for voters to figure out what’s really going on in Congress. With this new level of hypocrisy, some lawmakers appear more determined than ever to make sure it stays that way.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, January 28th, 2010 at 6:34 pm and is filed under Fitzsimon File. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.