Sen.
Charles
Schumer's craving for publicity is well-known to his constituents.
The
scheduling of a press conference every Sunday is a
long-standing Schumer
tactic designed to force the influential New
York media, particularly TV stations, to cover his generally
insignificant pronouncements (from
cell-phone portability to gift-card fees --
and less)
on what is usually their slowest day of the
week. This sets Schumer up
for the dissemination of those whiny sound bites and
videos that you see and hear on Monday.
Many
jokes have
been told about Schumer's egotism and camera hogging by
pundits and fellow politicians, but the First Lady of Pants
Suits, who served alongside Schumer as New York's junior
senator, once cracked this gem as she introduced Schumer at
a gathering:
“What can I
say about Senator Schumer that he hasn’t already said?”
Hillary Clinton asked. “You know, on the seventh day,
the Lord rested and Chuck had a press conference.”
Unfortunately, even those of us who are well aware of Schumer's blatant
egotism occasionally fall into his media trap. At this
week's Sunday lens and microphone-hogging session
the
Democrat senator from New York made a "personal plea" to the
Treasury Department to rule that carry-on bags are a
necessity for travel, which would make them exempt from a
separate fee outside the ticket price.
"Airline passengers have always had the right to bring a
carry-on bag without having to worry about getting nickeled
and dimed by an airline company," Schumer whined. "This latest
fee is a slap in the face to travelers."
Sure, we'd all like to see the cost of travel stabilize, if
not decrease. But fees like these are completely legal. Spirit
Airlines, the first company to institute them, announced last week
it would charge up to $45 for a carry-on but minimized the
effect of that move reducing the cost of most
tickets by $40.
Regardless, the larger point about the future cost of travel
-- and nearly everything else -- is that the prices of most
goods and services will increase significantly
if the remaining major Obama agenda items are foisted upon
us by Democrats like the self-proclaimed defender of middle class
consumers, Chuck
Schumer.
Specifically, if Cap and Tax becomes law, the cost
to airline companies for petroleum
products will skyrocket, forcing higher fares whether
or not they choose to "nickel-and-dime" us
additionally for our carry-on
baggage.
Carrying on is what
Chuck Schumer does best.
Perhaps you
remember the last time Schumer had an airline-oriented hissy
fit (discussed
here last December)
when he used the B-word to describe a flight attendant on
the Newark-DC Continental Airlines shuttle. The
attendant claimed that she was looking out for the safety of
her passengers while Sen. Schumer was delaying the plane's
take-off by refusing to turn off his cell phone as requested.
In the end, who
is really nickel-and-diming American consumers? Of
course, it is the government -- more and more each day -- as
a result of progressives' eagerness to spend and tax us into
oblivion.
The shocker is that everyone isn't carrying
on about the Obama agenda and the lock-step enablement he
receives from similarly-egotistical politicians like Chuck Schumer.