Mike Lee wants conservatives to stop calling poor people moochers
That’s not all he said, but the Utah senator’s speech at the Heritage Foundation has been heralded by many on the right and hardly noticed on the left. “I hope other Tea Party conservatives follow Lee’s lead,” says Reihan Salam. “Can’t all reasonable people agree to ignore Mike Lee completely until he says he was wrong about the shutdown?” asks Marc Tracy.
Eh, Salam is closer to the point. The media prefers bluster to wonkery, which often makes sense (it’s easier to bluster than to pass a bill!), but Lee’s always been a careful thinker. As Salam notes, Lee does not talk about ending energy taxes, but about distributing them to the states. You live in a state with low gas taxes? It gets less federal money as the federal gas tax dwindles.
