October 12, 2010
Things have changed since the days of Christopher Columbus, whose 1492 discovery of America we celebrate today.
Columbus represented a type of initiative today's American government discourages. He believed the world was round, not flat as some thought, and that there must be something on the other side of the curve. Ok, so he was looking for a new trade route and wound up in the Caribbean instead. So what? He found what he found and we are the better for it.
Today what passes for initiative and leadership is Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who said this week that food stamps and unemployment checks are good because they produce "more bang for the buck." By that logic, the employed should quit their jobs and start receiving government checks.
What produces more bang and more bucks are real jobs, not government jobs or government checks. Real jobs that produce goods and services people want to buy and companies want to make. In three weeks, voters will be able to show Washington politicians what a real bang looks like, because they are tired of them misspending our bucks. Chris Columbus would understand.
Cal Thomas is a nationally syndicated columnist based in Washington, D.C.
