Brother, Can You Spare an Investment?
Count me confused. The president has just unveiled his proposed budget and it’s huge, even bigger than expected.The centerpiece of this new budget seems to be an urgent call for gargantuan federal investments in public education and high-speed rail.
And I’m staring dumbstruck at my television screen, counting my remaining pennies and worrying over the inflation that hits more items every time I go to the grocery store. I can’t help but wonder whether the president has lost his bearings.
Did President Obama just ask out-of-work, given-up-looking-for-work, under mortgage-water, penny-pinching Americans: “Brother, can you spare an investment”?
Because that’s sure what his new boondoggle budget sounds like to me.
Aren’t investments those things that people make after they’ve paid all their necessary expenses in the present and paid off all their debts for past purchases? That’s how we define investments in our family. There have been times when either my husband or I have taken an extra odd job just to have a bit to add to an investment fund. But for the life of me, I can’t remember a single time when we used bread money or bill money to invest in anything extra.
So President Barack Obama has either lost his bearings completely or else he fully intends — as long as he’s in the driver’s seat — to drive our little economic dune buggy off the cliff to the place where civilizations go to die.
Are we still on the car-in-the-ditch metaphor? It’s hard to keep track.
In ’08, when Barack Obama sent tingles down the legs of media big-shots with his salesmanship, his favorite shtick was the economic pie metaphor. Obama delivered his “I’m gonna get you have-nots your rightful piece of the pie” metaphor gig on stage after stage, in town after town, and it was a huge hit. One woman gushed that she couldn’t wait for him to be president so she would no longer have to worry about putting gas in her car or paying her mortgage.
But it didn’t take even a Pulitzer-winning investigative journalist to find out that Obama’s community organizing in Chicago had left people no better off, and sometimes worse off, than before he had brought his silver tongue into town. As an Illinois state senator, Obama had managed to wrangle millions of housing money for a poor Chicago neighborhood. Then he jumped into bed with slumlord (and now convicted felon) Tony Rezko, and within a few short years, those once-glowing housing units were being condemned as uninhabitable — without working lights and water.
That piece of the pie turned into nothing more tangible than pie in the sky for thousands of naïve people.
Now that our community organizer in chief has given away all our pie and handed out IOUs for more pies than the country can ever hope to bake, he stands around dumbstruck because, ladies and gentlemen, he never had the slightest clue how those ingredients got from farm and factory to the grocery stores to the pantry to the hardworking hands that made them. He’s now become baker in chief, and he doesn’t have a single recipe for more pie, much less the skills to make one.
Kyle-Anne,
I asked a question yesterday in a comment to an Ed Driscoll post.
If Frances Fox Piven had created a budget with the intent to be the straw that broke the camel’s back, would it look much different from this one?
Her intention would be to collapse the free market enterprise system of government and to replace it with hard line socialism or soft communism. So would Bill Ayers. And the Midwest Academy group, so would Van Jones, Carl Davidson, Danny Davis, Alice Palmer, Jeremiah Wright, Michael Pfleger. So would Frank Marshall Davis. So would Barack Obama, Sr. So would Harry Boyte. So would George Soros.
In fact, so would virtually everyone who held sway the whole of his life, prior to assuming the mantle as the chief executive officer of this corporation we call the United States of America.
We are to believe instead, that he is “moving to the center”.
The center of what?
We are to believe that after a life seeking out the most radical professors in college, attending socialist functions at Cooper Union, community organizing and working behind the scenes with Heather Booth, Harry Boyte, tickling toes with UNO, becoming dear friends with Michael Pfleger and Bill Ayers, worshiping at the professional and personal altars of Jeremiah Wright for 20 years…that a mere mid-term election that brought ONE branch of government back to Republicans …gave rise to a sea change in attitude and direction?
Are we that easily duped?
George Soros wishes to collapse capitalism. He has stated so openly. Frances Fox Piven has mapped out an outline for doing so. Bill Ayers has explored in his mind all the ways it can happen, including the murder of innocents. Harry Boyte has devised mechanisms for this very thing.
The Cooper Union meeting halls and the Midwest Academy have devised plans and argued over whether direct confrontation or stealth methods were better.
Yet, we are to believe that one is a “conspiracy theorist” for pointing at there open words, deeds, acts in furtherance.
The community “organizers”, teamed up with unions to bloat the roles of pensioners, stuff the goody bags of federal workers, clog the system with entitlements…and let it die of the suffocation brought on by the rags of “do-gooders” stuffed down the throat of the slumbering taxpayer.
And, to top it off…the sneering arrogance and slander hurled at anyone who dares to protest. Shouts of “racist”, “warmonger”, …anything to throw the protest back on its heels.
But, no…Kyle-Anne…we are to believe that it is not intentional, this rather insane budget, that seeks to “freeze” spending at a level of a drunk gambler, steaming at the tables, calling for more markers and making wild, ridiculous bets with money he doesn’t have…tomorrow’s paycheck, next month’s mortgage, the kids’ tuition, grocery money, all of it.
If Frances Fox Piven, Frank Marshall Davis, the radical professors at Columbia, the Cooper Union crowd, Bill Ayers, Harry Boyte, George Soros…all want to cave in capitalism…and have said so out loud…please tell me Kyle-Anne…how this budget would look any different if they drew it up.
And, please tell me Kyle-Anne, why I should believe that a man who spent his entire life seeking out these people, many of whom have been to the White House on multiple occasions, now does not allow any of their ideologies to hold sway with him.
And finally, Kyle-Anne, please tell me what they call a conspiracy theorist…who points at words, acts and deeds and accurately portrays them for what they are.
Moved to the center, my ass. This budget was in one fell swoop a crass political ploy to give the Republicans a Hobson’s Choice, it used a crisis to advance leftist goals, and it slapped the faces of our children and grandchildren in the process.
There should be a line across which politics may not cross, when the country is on the brink of disaster, calamity, ruin, or destruction. When party politics must take a back seat to the good of the country and its existence. We are on an unsustainable course toward ruin.
And the leftists just went all in.
Dear Mr. Bleachers:
As far as my own research indicates, you are absolutely correct in everything you have said here. A conspiracy? Does one need to be implicitly acting as a self-acknowledged part of a true, organized conspiracy to be a participant in an overall desire to bring down a country?
I think not.
Whether by design or by acceptance or even by a general agreement in philosophy, many people participate in destruction of the good. And this participation, whether wittingly or unwittingly, serves the same end.
What every good citizen must now ask himself is this, in my humble opinion:
Do you desire the destruction of America? Do you believe that bringing down America will bring peace and prosperity to the rest of the world?
If so, then you are with Obama and every supporting minion in this fight.
If not, then you are a tea party citizen.
It’s a time for deciding. Fence-sitters invariably fall to the side of destruction. Such has always been the case.
That’s my opinion. And no evidence has thus far been presented to dissuade me from this belief.
Either we stand now and fight to save America from bankruptcy and ruin, weakness and appeasement, or we fight to tear ourselves apart and see our children return to the bondage of serfdom, most likely under the Islamist boot.
Utopian socialists may suffer the delusion of fools who join hands with a far more determined enemy, the Islamists, but I will not count myself among them. The Utopians will be devoured the minute the Islamists gain a foothold powerful enough to turn the tide.
I choose to either win for America — and the good — or go down fighting to my last word and breath.
I’ll take Patrick Henry and Winston Churchill over a Fox-Piven or a Soros or an Obama or a Chamberlain any day of the week.
Of course, we agree on most everything, Kyle-Anne.
The most mystifying piece of this “tear down the system” puzzle, is the game of Blind Man’s Bluff that the left and their flying monkey media plays with the truth of their intent, stance and position.
The Socialist/small “c” Communist crowd alternately hides their identity and then flashes the public like a pervert in a trench coat on a Central Park bench.
The anti-capitalism, “tear down the free market” types will not admit that who they are and what they are up to…all the better to lull the dim-witted, slow on the uptake, easily duped pigeons.
However, don’t think for a moment that the GDI’s are the ones who fall for this alone. Where is the hue and cry from the Republican power structure? Where is the step by step expose’?
This is a center right country that is being manhandled by the left and their trained gargoyles in the media. Why is that such a difficult message to point by point deliver?
What fool believes that a lifetime swimming in the traitorous cesspool of hard leftism, is evaporated by one mid-term election outcome? Such that the entirety of that life is rendered meaningless and now everything is sweetness and light? Not even Pollyanna on PCP would render such a verdict.
We are being torn apart from the inside.
The gravest danger this land of ours faces is not the murderous hallucinations of 3rd century barbarians, but the plottings of new millennium sedition. Shrouded in “do-gooder” masks and armed with weapons of mass distortion.
The first step, Kyle-Anne…is to stand together and say…”I see what you are, who you are and what you are trying to do. You no longer fool me with your phony sanctimony and your reckless false accusations. You wish to tear down my country and disenfranchise my countrymen. To do so…you have to go through me.”
CF, “If Frances Fox Piven, Frank Marshall Davis, the radical professors at Columbia, the Cooper Union crowd, Bill Ayers, Harry Boyte, George Soros…all want to cave in capitalism…”
Don’t forget Cloward or Marx. etc. the list is long.
Piven and Ayers and the rest believe in their fuzzy little world that if they can bring down capitalism that it is then a forgone conclusion that they have won and the New World Utopian World can commence.
I would suggest that their belief is false and not a given outcome. I do not believe that an economic implosion will automatically hand them the reins of power. Perhaps in certain EU countries, but not in the U.S. Not saying it would be easy for the opposition or that it would be pleasant, but it would NOT be the easy high five event that the left believes it will be.
I and many Americans will stand up against them. If the armed forces are willing to be sucked into their New World Utopian Order then fine, but first they will have to take out a large number of their fellow Americans. I don’t believe that the military will willfully side with the likes of Ayers, Piven or,,,, Obama, for that matter, albeit I also don’t think that Obama generally has any clue what he is doing other than as a parrot for the left. It is in fact all he knows. More or less like Chance the Gardner, only more WORDS, just Words.
We need to stand up against these people like we never have before, they are patient, idealogical in the extreme and intent on bringing about our countries demise by any means possible, we need to learn from them and use their methods and if that fails then I for one and many of my friends are ready for the end game. Thanks.
cfb….The socialist progressives have NOT failed in their strategies and initiatives one time in over 80 years. Their successes are now mainstream America regardless of any denial. The everyday lives of ALL citizens are ‘deeply’ surrounded and dependent upon their accomplishments and now taken for granted.
America is in a catch-22! To intervene by retarding their forward march or reversing their achievements through their revolution, would require more sacrifice and suffering than todays generations are willing or capable of enduring.
America WILL be Democratic socialists or democratic capitalist socialists in only the next couple of generations or less! The “Greatest Generation” spawned what history will certainly record as the ‘Worst Generation’ who gave finality to the socialist revolution, surrendering Traditional America to the enemy.
“Her intention would be to collapse the free market enterprise system of government and to replace it with hard line socialism or soft communism . . . So would Frank Marshall Davis.”
RESPONSE: Entirely untrue. You may have been misinformed regarding Frank Marshall Davis. If you examine primary source evidence (e.g. Davis’s own writings), you will find that he has been severely misrepresented by Dr. Kengor and others, such as AIM’s Cliff Kincaid, in their revisionist “opposition research” reports. Davis NEVER advocated socialism, communism, Marxism, or collectivism. There is no evidence that Davis EVER discussed these topics with Obama, or that Obama was even aware of Davis’s CPUSA connection. Misrepresenting Davis was collateral damage that enabled critics to more easily smear Barack Obama.
Contrary to Davis’s actual 1950 “Frank-ly Speaking” column, which has been posted online for years (http://www.hawaii.edu/uhwo/clear/HonoluluRecord1/frankblog1950.html), critics claim that Davis SUPPORTED socialism, when in fact Davis REJECTED socialism (i.e., letting “the government own and operate our major industries”). Davis said socialism was a “HORROR”!
Davis said that we didn’t have free enterprise any more. Davis supported small businessmen, which he considered a “casualty” of monopolies. He said they are the BACKBONE of free enterprise.” He said we had to decide to OUST the monopolies, which were driving us down the road to ruin, and restore a competing system of free enterprise. In the ACTUAL ”Free Enterprise or Socialism” column, Davis wrote:
“As for free enterprise, it doesn’t live here any more. At the same time we have manufactured a national horror of socialism. Meanwhile, the dictatorship of the monopolies is driving us down the road to ruin. And so, with still rising unemployment and a mounting depression, the time draws nearer when we will have to decide to oust the monopolies and restore a competing system of free enterprise, or let the government own and operate our major industries.”
“Backbone of Free Enterprise Broken: In this control by monopoly, the small businessman, the backbone of free enterprise, has been a casualty. He cannot compete against the tremendous financial reserves of the huge monopolies, and thus we find more and more forced into bankruptcy or absorbed by the monopolies. Those small businessmen who supported the Marshall Plan have been unable to get but a pittance of orders, for here it’s the Big Boys Who, through their contacts with official Washington, walk off with the fat contracts.”
K
I respect the defense of your dad. I believe the CPUSA, however, with which he had strong ties, does indeed and always did…have an intent to bring down capitalism.
Thanks for your kind words.
My father claimed that he would work with the Devil himself if it helped end Jim Crow (see http://kaleokualoha2878577.newsvine.com/_news/2011/01/23/5904811-frank-marshall-davis-and-jim-crow)
Leaked e-mail reveals Obama’s ultimatum to Speaker Boehner on budget:
From the desk of President B. Hussein Obama
To: Speaker of the House John Boehner
Dear Johnny,
So, you guys got control of the House (for the time being) and you think you’re going to tell Me how things are done? Well, let’s have a little talk. I’m here to make you an offer you can’t refuse. Specifically, you are going to approve my budget for $3.7 trillion, and you are going to like it, or else there will be consequences. Not a threat, just a statement of fact. Let Me point the facts out for you.
Fact one, I’m the President. I got elected fair and square. I set the budget because I am The Man. Now you can whine, whimper and complain all you want, but at the end of the day I AM THE MAN! Let’s say, for example, you try to cut some of My budget. Do you remember what happened in 1995? You Republicans thought you were all that and a bag of chips back then, didn’t you? You even had control of the Senate back then. Well, what good did it do you? All Clinton had to do was keep vetoing the budget and even Gingrich had to cave. Face it, if the government gets shut down, nobody is going to blame Me. Nobody blamed Clinton in ’95, nobody will blame Me in ’11. The amerikkkan people will fall for the same old trick every time. Like the saying goes, there’s a sucker born every minute, and if they don’t get their monthly checks they’ll be blaming you, not Me… read the rest here…. http://beautifulletters-bls.blogspot.com/2011/02/obama-offers-new-budget-proposal.html
“I can’t help but wonder whether the president has lost his bearings.”
Kyle-Anne,that statement implies that he ever had the country’s best interests at heart. I am certain you know better than that.
Well I Obamalini, am the top dog and you Demons get in the back seat. I’ll set the tone, the rules, and the budget. You get to complain and carp, but in the end I am betting that you will capitulate. You always have. You can’t stand the heat, so get the H–L out of the way.
I’m sickened by the official spin dutifully broadcast by the state propaganda media outlets. Republicans want “more” budget cuts than Obama wants. No. Republicans want to cut the budget (not even nearly enough, but some), while Obama wants to INCREASE spending in the budget. Taking some funds from some programs and adding those funds plus more to other programs is not cutting the budget. They are shameless. But we knew that already.
Nobody should waste time or ink wondering whether one of little lenin’s actions are well-intended, whether he’s incompetant, or stupid, or whether or not he is trying to destroy the US.
He is.
Whenever he speaks or acts, every pundit and analyst should immediately begin studying what the con is this time. There is always a trick or a scheme. Always. That’s what is worth focusing on.
So he proposed a budget with miniscule reductions, but adds them over 10 years so they look big and then assumes growth of 5% which has never happened for 10 years, no matter under his regime. But there are certainly many many more poison pills in the package.
What republicans should do is quickly find them and be extremely frank and LOUD about publicizing them. First, the big obvious one. Then every day, reveal more, until they are down to the NPR thing and ones like that. Graphs will help as well.
They should also say what this spending splurge means to individual Americans. For example, a taxpayer making 75K will pay an additional 2K every year for this budget. There is not need to lie or exagerate. Just say the truth.
Kyle-Ann >Or this little piggy…cried all the way home.
Second guessing BHO’s motives are a waste of time or, an investment into his unshakeable delusions. The graph that shows 60 years of debt to GDP cleary shows an accelerated increase in 2008. While the spin and dreams go everywhere else, the near trillion dollars that was wasted on the Porkulus is hard evidence of near criminal incompetence. For that spending spree alone, the blue congress and the president should lose office.
“Investment” is merely a euphemism for spending. Americans see through this deception immediately.
The founders’ calculus is working for us still. They designed the House of Rresentatives to be the branch of government closest to the people, and therefore gave it the greater power of defunding. If the freshmen representatives don’t get co- opted and do what they were sent to do, this suicidal budget will be stopped in its tracks.
Don’t forget that the conservatives will still gain many seats in the next state-level elections, and they will take over the majority in the Senate, I am sure, as long as we maintain our resolve. We are in the fight of our lives, and the Left will pull out all the stops because they sense their window of opportunity is fast closing.
libs are a joke, a dangerous joke,but a joke nonetheless
All the intelligent comments above notwithstanding, I don’t think it matters much WHY His Obamaness is working hard to destroy this nation, or whether it’s deliberate or accidental… what matters is stopping him before he does it.
As a famous book series said several times, the main thing is to keep the main thing THE MAIN THING. Stop him first, then analyze motives.
Surprise surprise a man brought up in and educated in the Marxist disposition by his mother and father is leading the USA into a economic meltdown. Marxists flourish in economic meltdowns and believe that by destroying prosperity they are making the world a better place. videlicet Soviet Union, North Korean, Communist China, Cuba etc etc. But the Americans with college educations voted for him thereby proving the malefeance of the Americanized education system.
I’m a good Christian woman but WTF were my relatives thinking when they voted for this man! LORD HAVE MERCY! God forgive us.
In 1935 because South Carolina did not have appropriate funds to fund education a bill was passed by the federal government at the recommendation of the National Survey of School Finance, the U.S. Office of Education financed foundation grants equaling $15 per student. From the 30′s through the mid 50′s the government spent around 1% of budgets for education. LBJ opened the doors to greater federal education spending and when the present Department of Education was instituted in 1979 and eventually became a cabinet agency in 1981. Since the mid 60′s the federal government has perpetuated education experimentation and thrown increasingly more billions of dollars into it. Year by year, decade by decade, since then education outcomes have decreased to where it is today.
The generations who raised America to its greatest pinnacle were educated with virtually little federal funding beyond 1%. Lack of funding is NOT the problem with todays education failures, nor is poor classroom teachers. Government and educator support bureaucrats and social irresponsibility (parents/communities values) are the problem with educations failures. The 200 or so metropolitan cancer centers of America including the poorest rural communities represent over 50% of America’s dropout rate in over 27,000 schools.
Obama’s continuing policy of throwing billions more federal funding at education is a statistical FRAUD! Add to that that one State receiving $400 million in RttT will be spending nearly two thirds of the funds OUTSIDE the classroom in other area’s of education supports such as buss’s, new buildings, remodels, more experimentation development, etc.
Obama’s “Investments” are a SHAM! Let’s stop propping up Countries who hate us! Let’s get rid of the Department of Education! Let’s get rid/cut entitlements! Let’s stop funding non-existent “Green Jobs”! Let’s stop propping up “Education” (Teachers) who aren’t performing and haven’t for 40 years! Let’s stop with all the nonsense “Pet Projects”! The Bail Outs! the BS!!! THE SPENDING!!!!!!
Obama will “Tackle” Entitlements if the Democrats and Republicans will ‘jump’ in it together – I say to both GO FOR IT!
The Government, Federal and State “just dropped” people off the “dole’ (unemployment) who, through no fault of their own, lost their Jobs due to the irresponsibility of others. Many who have worked for many years, who have degrees, are “responsible” Americans. This is ‘just’? This is ‘right’? This is how you treat “upstanding citizens” – the “Producers” of America? 99 weeks? Done, now you are on your own? While others gets years and years of the Government ‘dole’? Its just not right… ESPECIALLY with such a dreadful economy…
Then we have the Moochers, the truly lazy, the entitlement ‘crowd’,the dregs of society, the nanny state – those who have sucked the taxpayers via the Government dry because ‘why not’ – ‘I’ deserve it – “the world owes me”. Well, its HIGH TIME to cut these people loose and save us all some money… How will it get done? Well, the Government figured a way to get them on it – they can figure a way to get them off it. Time to ‘earn your way’ in America – we are Broke and Broken! No-More Bird Feed – No More Bird Feeder!
Social Change Guru-
I am all for upping the retirement age a few years, as SOMETHING CONSTRUCTIVE MUST be done before this POTUS and his DELUSIONAL Pelosi and others, who THINK they are still driving the bus DESTROY ALL OF US!!! Unfortunately, Harry Reid was able to beat a weak candidate, but barely. This still shows him NOTHING, as he is as DELUSIONAL and incompetent as the rest of the Democrats, including Joe Biden. Enough said for now!