Today’s Gatewood goes to . . . Eric Cantor

by David Safier

[NOTE: I created The Gatewood in honor of Henry Gatewood, the banker in John Ford's 1939 "Stagecoach" who ran off with $50,000 in payroll money and said, while clutching the satchel full of stolen money,

"'America for Americans! The government must not interfere with business! Reduce taxes! Our national debt is something shocking!"

Video at the end of the post.]

Eric Cantor swept the field in 3 out of 4 categories, easily winning today's Gatewood with his oped in the Washington Post. Watch how neatly Cantor works the national debt, high taxes and government interference in business into his opening.

Our country is facing two related but separate crises. The first is the federal government’s debt crisis, the result of decades of fiscal mismanagement by both political parties as well as unsustainable entitlement commitments. The second is the jobs crisis, which has resulted in painful levels of unemployment and underemployment. President Obama is wrong to think that the answer is to increase spending or raise taxes when so many millions of Americans are out of work.

In fact, the Obama administration’s anti-business, hyper-regulatory, pro-tax agenda has fueled economic uncertainty and sent the message from the administration that “we want to make it harder to create jobs.” [Boldface added]

Cantor did the old embezzler proud. It's going to be a hard performance to top. But I have faith in the Republicans. They're more than capable of jumping over the high bar Cantor has set.

Here's Henry Gatewood, in his own words.