Thank You Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky

Robert Waldmann

Let me join Brad DeLong in Saying

Let Me Join Pete Davis in Saying: “Thank You Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky”
Pete Davis expresses the sentiment very well:

Thank You Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky: I’ve always wanted to thank Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky (D-PA) for her courageous deciding vote for President Clinton’s 1993 deficit reduction bill. Her Republican colleagues jeered her as she walked down the aisle to cast her vote with shouts of “Bye, Bye Marjorie!” Her crime — voting for the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 that reduced the FY94-FY98 deficits by an estimated $496 b., with $241 b. of tax increases and $255 b. of spending cuts. The bill capped a 12-year deficit reduction effort, leading to the budget surpluses of FY98-FY01. She paid the political price, losing her seat in suburban Philadelphia after her first term in office, but she set the U.S. economy on course for its strongest decade since the 1960s.

Unhappy is the country which needs heroines.

So she lost her seat, but who else’s service in Congress do I remember with such gratitude ? Answer, Senator George [ed] Mitchell*.

It is important that Marjorie Margolies-Mexvinsky’s political heroism is not forgotten. The fact that it is remembered might help some current Representatives find some courage.

* He turned down a seat on The Supreme Court and didn’t run for re-election so that he could concentrate on passing Clintoncare. No good deed goes unpunished. For his virtue he was sent to try to solve the damnable question of Northern Ireland. He succeeded. No great deed goes unpunished either and he is now in charge of mideast negotiations. In a just world, Newt Gingrich would be trying to get Israel and Hamas to make peace, and Mitchell would be cashing in** and appearing on TV to pontificate. But, in a just world we wouldn’t need Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky or George Mitchell.

** Of course he has cashed in, but that was long ago, and in another country (the USA).