Loading ...And Those Were Just The Good Cuts…
First, let’s briefly discuss the “good” cuts being discussed in the Senate at this time (H/T to Greg Sargent of The Plum Line who claims to have received an official memo from the Senate updating him to their latest “progress”) — those cuts mentioned in the title of this column. Frankly, we really do not need nearly as many prisons as we have now, nor do we need as many cops (especially feds) on the streets and it’s a good thing we’re cutting some Nanny State (The “Utopia” of the Democrats) -slash- Police State (The “Utopia” of the Republicans) funds from this otherwise, ill-advised, so-called “stimulus” package most of our politicians, despite what they SAY when the mics are hot, are head over heels in love with. How can I say such a thing? Quite easily and with confidence.
The Transportation Security Administration? PLEASE. Private companies did a MUCH better job than the beaurocracy that replaced them. I don’t think there are too many of us who thing the so-called “new and improved” government version of airline baggage checking is working worth a damn, are there? And just when I thought it was the Republicans who favored private business over big gub’mint, George Bush and his G.O.P. cronies’ first thought in the wake of the Twin Towers bombing was to establish the TSA, Homeland Security, and expand gub’mint to a larger level than ever seen before by ANY administration; “Left” OR “Right”. So, those were the “good” cuts to the package the Senate is supposedly working on right now. Even better cuts would be to pretty much slice the size of all of the above threefold, much less cutting them loose from any handouts. Now, let’s talk about the “bad” cuts, or at least the most controversial…
Education for the Disadvantaged — Oh, sure; pick on the meekest and weakest amongst us. Real smart and real compassionate of them.
School Improvement & School Construction — Yeah, our schools are in tremendous shape, aren’t they? That’s why we’re so competetive amongst our peers in the West.
Child Nutrition — Let ‘em eat cake, they say.
Firefighters — What? Are they nuts? Oh, never mind — we already know the answer to that one.
Violence Against Women — See “Firefighters” above.
CDC — So long as the G.O.P. wishes to inflict their Darwinian “ignore the problem completely” (i.e., Hurricane Katrina) approach to ignoring the spread of disease and poisions in our ecosphere, we need an extremely healthy Center of Disease Control. These people are buffoons, of course.
Food Stamps — ??? FOOD Stamps. What are they thinking? Again — Darwin speaks. Want more violent (as in “actual”) crime on the grow? All you have to do is start starving these hundreds of thousands of desparate, newly-unemployed people with hungry children. THINK.
Public Transit — Great. Just when people are starting to help wean this nation from the perilous position of depending upon the Middle East for our energy by flocking to public transportation as an alternative, our Senators make the assanine assumption it’s a “good idea” to halt and/or slow its growth.
National Science Foundation — Must be the Republicans behind this one. After all, imagine how badly it would impact them if even science were to prove to those on the “Right” were to be hit with indisputable truth that evolution might just be behind that little stump of a tail each one of them have. Science is “evil” and “wicked”; a “tewell of the debil“, of course. Stem cell research? There again — see the last sentence. As if… as IF — God isn’t powerful and mighty enough to invent and utilize evolution to create the scientific minds with bodies who look an awful lot like highly-developed apes? Please.
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The dat burn GOP done it! Don’t really matter none that the Senate is run by democrats and only 3 o’ ‘dem ‘publicans voted for the bill. Musta’ been ‘dem ‘publicans agin.
This is rich! The democrats are in control of everything and the lefties are still blaming them for everything. So much for ‘change’ and ‘hope’. But can we at least have a little ‘personal responsibility’??? Oh, yeah, I forgot, Personal Responsibility does not compute with liberals.
Can’t fault your logic on the “bad” cuts, especially education (are you sure about that spelling of “beaurocracies”?), but I think you’ll regret the law enforcement cuts when things start getting out of hand during the upcoming depression. Oh wait, you’re “toting.” Never mind.
Why not just mail every man, woman, and child in the country a check for $3,000? It will cost the same, will avert a depression, will make everybody happy, will ‘trickle up’ to all the banks and corporations that need it,… I don’t see a downside.
Except that we (the taxpayers) will have to pay back about $10,000 in taxes for every $3,000 we receive (because only about a third of us pay taxes). But what the heck, the other two-thirds will be so happy they’ll keep electing democrats for years. And this gimmick will keep working until there are no taxpayers left.
You give everything you have to the government, and the government gives back what it thinks you need. A perfect system. Who said socialism is a bad idea? The perfect utopian society, created by liberals and for liberals. Truly ‘Change’ we can believe in!
With liberty and justice for none.
“Oh wait, you’re “toting.” Never mind.
INDEED — Even as I write this response
In case you’re wondering — Colt PocketLite .380 with corbons. It don’t print
If all else fails we can always ask the Chinese if we can keep English as our second language.
Seriously, food stamps are right up there with extension of unemployment benefits. Food banks all over the country started going empty last Oct. At the very least food stamps keep the grocers, the truckers and some of the farmers going.
It seems like no one really knows what will help and what won’t. But we should at the very least keep a safty net for the 3,900,000 who have already been laid off and the many more thousands who will be laid off. The vast majority of these people want to work and it is not their fault that Wall Street and the major banks went for the greed instead of fiscal responsibility. Sure a lot of people should not have bought houses that they couldn’t really afford but the mortage companies should not have made loans that they knew right up front were bad. But hey, those loans made them a lot of profit for a few years, especially after they started bundling the loans and selling them.
Gaia – I agree with all you said except “but the mortage companies should not have made loans that they knew right up front were bad” – the problem with this is that the banks that did not make their quota of low income loans were often sued by various “community groups” such as ACORN. Our new president Obama was one of the lawyers in Chicago who brought a number of these lawsuits.
FANDB, You’re right on the low income loans but the loans that I’m talking about happened mainly in areas such as California with the runaway home prices. Even people with respectable incomes couldn’t afford the inflated prices so the loan companies helped them afford the mortages by giving unrealistic short term interest rates. According to several articles that I’ve read recently, borrowers would be told what income to put down in order to qualify. In other words mortage company officials purposedly falisified loan applications. All was great until the bubble burst and property prices fell to what the property was actually worth and the short term interest rates ended. Then even people with respectable incomes started losing their homes when their monthly payments suddenly went up hundreds a month and they couldn’t sell because they owed more than the house was worth.
The winners in this boondoggle: Builders, realtors and appraisers. The losers: Home buyers, mortage companies and us, the Taxpayer.
But a lot of people made a lot of money in a short time with this ponzi scheme.
My range of emotions regarding this goes from violently angry to emotionally crushed and sad. Obama needs to be in a bullet proof bubble all the time.