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As the hours tick by the likelihood of a federal budget impasse shutting down the government increases. If a new budget is not approved approximately 4,400,000 federal employees will have no pay, social security checks will stop rolling out, medicare and medicaid payments will stop along with a long list of other services that will be suspended. Why is this happening?
I find most interesting that this budget was due in OCTOBER, 2010. I am not sure (actually I am) but at the time this budget was due weren’t BOTH houses of congress and the White House in the hands of strong Democrat majorities? If the Democrats controlled the entire decision making process, why couldn’t they adopt an acceptable budget? Simple answer – Democrats know how to spend, not how to cut. It was simple to see in October that the American people were not going to tolerate “business as usual” and the Democrats did not want to pass a budget with wild spending just before the election. Also, it allows the Democrats to try and blame the Republicans for any budget impasse.
Ok, now we understand the timing, what are the two parties fighting about? The Republicans have put forth a proposal that would reduce spending by $61 billion. That sounds like a lot doesn’t it? Well, when you take into consideration that the spending under the current budget is $14 TRILLION, the $61 billion doesn’t sound like that much and in fact represents only about .04% of the total budget. Since the parties have “agreed” to about $30 billion in cuts, that means this impasse and potential government shut down is over about .02% of yearly federal government spending.
“Oh,” howl Democrats, “it is WHAT you are cutting that gets us up in arms. ” According to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “six million elderly will starve to death.” Other Democrats have indicated that the proposal will “end health care as we know it.” First, both of those claims are ridiculous and the Democrats know it. Second, every time ANY program is going to be cut the Democrats howl to the moon and frankly Republicans haven’t been much better recently. Approving spending buys friends. Approve a big public union contract and you have the support of the public unions. Increase benefits to the elderly and AARP is on your side. Expand the federal government payroll to 4,400,000 employees and you create a captured group of voters.
Cutting spending has the opposite impact – you anger people that will take it out on electeds. Because of this dynamic, neither party has had the political will to stand up and say “Enough!” The tea party has now sent a group to Washington that has heard this message loud and clear. Even now the proposal is for an incredibly modest .04% cut in spending. The funny thing is that most Americans really do understand the dilemma. Spend money on a new washer and dryer or figure out a way to make it another month so that we can pay the mortgage. Choices like that are made every day. Yet when it comes to federal spending, people seem to lose track of the fact that there are limited resources.
Of course it is a great idea to require all buildings to have handicapped access. That isn’t the question. Is handicapped access more important that school lunches for impoverished kids, or higher quality health care for the elderly or prenatal care for mothers? Those are hard questions with no clear answers but we keep acting as if we can buy the washer and dryer AND pay the mortgage.
The real problem here is that we are putting all of our excesses on one huge credit card. The bank holding this credit card is China and Saudi Arabia and other foreign powers that control large portions of our debt. Sadly, I will probably not have to pay much of the “credit card debt” that has been racked up during my lifetime. The obligation to pay for this debt is going to fall onto my children and grandchildren. I know that this problem took years to create and will take years to correct – I would at least like to be able to look back and say I was there when America finally had the courage to start paying off the credit card.
The Republicans are focused on ideological targets, like Planned Parenthood and NPR, that have little to dow ith the budget. They seem to have little focus on revenue and real cutbacks, such as with major corporate subsidies and military spending.
You know what’s really cowardly? Screwing the poor and the sick, and working towards eliminating environmental and consumer protection, all so that the richest can continue to suck the country dry. That’s a venality that’s defies comprehension.
Way to channel your inner Pelosi Rapscalion – no substance, no form.
It’s unbelieveable how liberals can’t see the truth. They are the ones screwing the poor and the sick by giving them more and more programs that are suppose to help them get out of their situations but do the opposite, and in entitlements that help them to continue to live on handouts, like animals, I might add, because they do nothing more than exist. This rhetoric of screwing the poor and the sick is giving them all the ammunition they need to confirm to their “righteous” greed that they aren’t responsible for themselves but the working people are, angering them into rebellion when they can’t get more or someone again tells them what they should have instead of what they can work for. Evidence of this? Look at all the large cities in America where there are huge innercity problems. Liberals have been in charge for many years, programs to “help” and entitlements are in the billions of dollars and nothing improves. And, if you aren’t a communist or socialist, open your eyes to the fact that consumer and environmental protection have crossed the line and are now friends to tyranny when the law does not require them to consider the human destruction or chaos their protection laws create. You’re a “raptile” all right. Laying low until you snap.
Liberty, how dare you try to make a cogent argument against liberal rhetoric! Facts don’t matter to liberals.
Yes, LIberty, let’s let the poor and underprivileged sleep in boxes, starve, and die of natural causes. Because they all have the same opportunities that the established classes have, right? Sure they do.
Get off your Ayn Rand delusions, ’cause it ain’t how the real world works. Unless you’re so worried about the suffering of the uber wealthy. I weep for them.
Consumer protection and environmental laws are tyrannical? I guess so if you’re a Koch brothers sycophant.
You’re so wrong! If America and her people have no money as a result of fiscal irresponsibility and tyrannical regulations, those people you purport to care about living in boxes will only increase and more will die. Do you care? That’s what’s happening in innercities. It will be here in OC if we keep it up. (Actually the telltale signs are creeping up in our schools.) Have you noticed all the empty store fronts? You don’t have a heart for the poor (or the middle class), not really. What you actually have is a hatred for people and especially those that do better than you. It’s your pride for yourself that motivates you, unless of course your a communist or socialist. Oh, I guess you are, you made fun of Ayn Rand. Perhaps its not greed then, but simple stupidity. History has shown time and time again that communism or socialism doen’t work. Redistribution of wealth doesn’t work. It only makes the divide between the rich and poor even greater and obliterates the middle class. The health and wealth of a nation depends on the size of its middle class and ours is shrinking.
Following your train of thought, we’ll all be better off when the top 1% have 80% of the nation’s assets, and that’s where we’re headed. How is that better than socialism?
Hey Vern – I’m answering your blog on Geoff’s because he has more sense than you and if you weren’t motivated by the need to be in the limelight, you would have blogged on his. Is it boring Vern or is it that you have a need to be King on the Hill? Your elitist thinking shows when you say things like that. Or, is it that you actually do know that we are in an extreme fiscal crisis where the only solutions are to take fiscally responsible steps but you don’t want to face that? You would then have to admit that all the spending, all the entitlements, all the regulations and taxes restricting and prohibiting businesses were a mistake and have only served to get us further into fiscal crisis. But no, you’ll continue to strike and eat up all the white blood cells until your host is also dead. You’ll isolate, denigrate the tea party, instead, and call it politics only, and happily continue on – oh excuse me, drearily continue on – till death do you part. Your attitude is irresponsible and when you criticize people trying to be responsible you are only adding to the chaos and crisis. The spending cuts proposed are still miniscule when compared to common sense fiscal responsibility, you know, the kind middle class working families are forced to reckon with when faced with a financial crisis . . . unless of course they decide to just give in to the entitlements and do with less, or they realize they can either work hard and live with less, or work less and live with less. You sound to me like you just don’t care about people, but you do care about your ego, your facade of intelligence.
Liberty33,kudos to you. I love that bumper sticker that says “Annoy a Liberal, use Logic and Facts”. Liberals claim to have compassion but after working for four years for a non profit, I can assure you that conservatives put liberals to shame when it comes to real compassion. It reminds me of the biblical story of the good samaritan. The liberals all walk by the injured man, say that the wealthy or the government should help but the conservative samaritan rolls up his sleeves, gets his hands dirty and actually helps the person in need.
Many of my relatives are liberal but when they get in trouble, whom do they come to for help? Yep, me! They know that their liberal friends will not help! How ironic! Liberals talk, conservatives do!
Odd little rant there, Mike, and an amusing little parable. Bullshit, of course, but amusing nonetheless.
Let’s annoy you with a fact — just one for now. Rememebr the president who lowered taxes, raised military spending, and cut help for the mentally ill — setting them forth mostly into the streets, where they had to fend for themselves? It was the great compassionate conservative (an oxymoron) Reagan. That’s your boy, right?
“the mentally ill–setting them forth mostly into the streets”……… Hmmm
Although it may happened during Reagan it was Liberals and Kennedys who pushed for it because the half of their family were lobotomized retards and believed that retards should be integrated into the society and schools even though that they are incapable to benefit from it.
It was Kennedy who made special Olympics too.
That may be, possibly, one of the most ridiculous opinions I’ve ever read. If you can’t put up something in good faith, and that’s coherent, why bother?
“That may be, possibly, one of the most ridiculous opinions I’ve ever read.”…….. Hmmmm
Thanks, I needed that!
Read this Pisscallion!
I think that you are the one moron mongoloid release by Reagan.
President Kennedy’s Support of Policy Change
In 1955 the Joint Commission on Mental Health and Health was authorised to investigate problems related to the mentally ill. After winning the 1960 election President John F. Kennedy took a special interest in the issue of mental health because his sister Rosemary was mentally disabled.[1] Shortly after his inauguration, Kennedy appointed a special “President’s Panel of Mental Retardation”.[1] The panel included professional and leaders of the organization. In 1962, the panel published a report with 112 recommendations to better serve the mentally ill. In conjunction with the Joint Commission on Mental Health and Health, The Presidential Panel of Mental Retardation and Kennedy’s influence, two important pieces of legislation were passed in 1963: The Maternal and Child Health and Mental Retardation Planning Amendments and the Mental Retardation Facilities and Community Mental Health Centers Act.[1] The first piece of legislation increased funding for research that focused on prevention methods of retardation. The second piece of legislation provided funding for community facilities that serve people with mental disabilities. Both of these Acts furthered the process of deinstitutionalisation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinstitutionalisation
While most know that Pelosi is a liar, she’s also mathematically challenged. Per Geoff’s comment about Pelosi’s claim that 6 million elderly will starve if the cuts are passed, it turns out that only 2.6 million seniors receive meals from the HHS. Also interesting is that Obama already has cut $150 million from HHS’s budget, more than twice what the Republicans have proposed. That includes 36 million meals for seniors. I can’t wait for Pelosi’s news conference accusing Obama of starving senior citizens.
Do you really believe that the Republicans have greate concern for the poor than Obama? Really? Do you really want to try to sell that crap? Do you have no shame?
Absolutely Rap, Dems want to give the poor a fish while the Repubs want to teach them how to fish. Want proof? Who build more Hospitals, Universities, Schools, soup kitchens, orphanages, etcccc, Conservative religious groups or liberal aetheist groups? I rest my case.
You posed an incomplete question and then rested your case. I have no idea what your case is. However, if you want to talk about small churches helping the poor, I assure you that you’ll find many of them far more liberal than you’d like. But then you’d actually have to know what you’re talking about.
Haven’t seen any Republican fishing lessons going on lately, although they are sure happy to gut programs for the poor. maybe you can have a complete thought there, too.