Maybe he was such a shoe-in he didn’t have to worry about it. But still, you’ve got to admire a cabinet nominee who’s willing to tell Congress: clean up your act! . . . even as that body is still considering his fate. But that’s Colin Powell for you.
Not quite your typical career politician, he’s able to look objectively at the doings of the careerists and say: Hey! Slow down! Take a chill pill, guys! Powell’s advice had to do with how frequently Congress interferes with peaceful market transactions between buyers and sellers, when one party to the transaction happens to live in the United States, and the other party happens to live in another country.
During his Senate confirmation hearing, General Powell said he was shocked by the number of countries subject to partial or total economic trading bans. Powell marveled that, “There was just tab after tab in the briefing books.” He said that before imposing any new sanctions, Congress should “step back for a while, count to ten, and call me.”
The State Department is now compiling a list of all the trade sanctions on the books, some of them going back decades, imposed in retaliation for who-knows-what real or imagined offenses. Our careerist congressmen are an arrogant crew that impose their will about anything and everything, from international trade to how much water we’re allowed to flush down our toilets, and then they’re off to the next problem and the next dictate.
Count to ten before passing another busybody law. I love it!
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.