Think back: A couple of years ago Obama said: “I need $800 billion right now, today — or else! (Sotto voce: The unions are waiting! Hurry up!”) We believed him, saps that we were, and we shoveled over the dough. Where did it go? Where?
Take your time.
It was $800 billion then. Now it’s $2.4 trillion. Where does it end?
“Ok,” you say, “If you’re so smart, what would you do?” First, let me quote Rick Santelli again: “Stop spending, stop spending, stop spending!”
Then I’d dismantle the EPA, HUD, the Department of Education, the Department of Energy, get rid of the regiments of people fondling children and grannies in airport security lines, raise the eligibility age for Social Security, and introduce something like Paul Ryan’s voucher plan for Medicare.
That would be on Monday. I’m still filling in the rest of the week.
I know now, though, that it won’t happen — at least not until the next election, and who knows how that will go.
But here’s a question: What are these people we elected to serve us doing? Why are they laughing?
It’s like that old Sondheim musical. A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum got an anemic reception when it first appeared. Then they added the opening number, sung at the beginning by Pseudolus, a name that seems brutally appropriate today: “Tragedy Tomorrow/ Comedy Tonight!” Ha, ha, ha.
precisely–
“Then I’d dismantle the EPA, HUD, the Department of Education, the Department of Energy, get rid of the regiments of people fondling children and grannies in airport security lines, raise the eligibility age for social security, and introduce something like Paul Ryan’s voucher plan for Medicare.
That would be on Monday. I’m still filling in the rest of the week.”
many would suggest this proposal would get shot down and give obama the upper hand blah blah blah– “so what?” is my answer
maybe, just maybe, in the “negotiations” there might be a way to eliminate the budgeting chicanery (aka baseline budgeting) as a condition in the “compromise”
my only reaction to this debt-ceiling manipulated fiasco is the crystallization that the democratic party and most of the republican party’s congressional members are, in fact, unabashedly ruling as our bettors…
Oh, you must be talking about the Tea Party purists:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/02/opinion/pork-earmarks-what-do-you-mean.html?_r=1&hp
Nice try, but that’s a feeble list of alleged hypocrisy. Don’t try to excuse the mountain of felonies by Democrats by pointing out a handful of misdemeanors from the other side. And by the way, national defense spending is a legitimate function of government. As much as you may like to believe otherwise, the constitution does not grant the federal government authority to spend taxpayer dollars to study menstruating, crack-smoking monkeys.
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/feds-spent-36-million-research-studies-d
Two things happened:
1) Obama controlled the narrative (mostly fear mongering lies)throughout this debate; agitating all the way.
2) Like Stalin said and I paraphrase: “One death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.” Meaning glib talk about a 2.4 TRILLION is unfathomable to a human being in that it’s an inconceivable amount.
Simple – this is pure Alinsky tactics; downright dirty radical activism.
Isn’t this being rationalized as a first step in a long process of undoing the incremental increases in taxes and spending? There is no getting around entitlement reform in the near future.
Looking back at John Boehner’s inability to contain his emotions in the aftermath of the 2010 landslide, I see now that it was a warning to us, a warning of the weakness of this man who would be Speaker. The GOP leadership had a platinum opportunity to hold Obama/Reid (Pelosi is irrelevant now) to the fire and MAKE them commit themselves to a vote on Cut, Cap & Balance. All they had to do was say: we will renegotiate the debt ceiling thing AFTER the Senate votes on CCB. Reid & Co. have spent the last two years running away from votes and budgets. We had them. But McConnell & Boehner made a dog’s supper of it. CCB represents not only the will of the GOP base, but that of the American voters. Now we have lost all clarity on the issue. Now we have a congealed lump of backroom deal-making sausage rotting in our laps. I could just spit!
They’re laughing at us, they duped us again !!
Tuesday, 745 am, open a fresh box of red pens and …
Halt all federal funding for NPR, PBS, NEA, every ACORN program and Planned Parenthood. Grab a cup of coffee.
Cancel all federally funded ads, no exceptions, effective immediately.
Tuesday, 830 am, sip your still-steaming coffee, roll up your sleeves, and get ready to tackle the really tough decisions.
“Take a minute to visualize it. You can’t, you know: it’s simply too big a number. But take a minute to try.”
On a good clear dark night, someone with excellent vision can see up to about 6,000 stars.
So, if you had 400 million dollars for each star you saw, you would have roughly the amount that the government is about to borrow.
Considering the number of stars in Obama’s eyes, that still won’t be enough to satisfy him.
I hope they beam him up soon.
“Take a minute to visualize it. You can’t, you know: it’s simply too big a number. But take a minute to try.”
On a good clear dark night, someone with excellent vision can see up to about 6,000 stars.
So, if you had 400 million dollars for each star you saw, you would have roughly the amount that the government is about to borrow.
Put another way, if you went back 6,571 years to roughly the start of recorded history and started spending a million dollars a day, you’d just now be getting to the $2.4 trillion mark.
Or, if you went back 65.7 million years ago (around when the dinosaurs died) and started spending $100 a day, you’d just now be getting to the $2.4 trillion mark.
“Or, if you went back 65.7 million years ago….”
Or – if you just go back to Jan. 20, 2009 and spent 150 Billion a month more than you took in, you still wouldn’t have a deficit as high as his, but I’m betting that you would have a lot more to show for it.
You could have given the approximately 15 Million unemployed $150,000 each to start their own businesses, given NASA 200 Billion to maintain our manned space program, and still have had about 76 Billion left to tickle the unions with.
You would have 0% unemployment, 15 million new small businesses (until they failed due to obamanomic malaise), and Richard Trumka would still be Barry’s paid buddy.
And all of that cash would have actually gone into the economy as stimulus instead the government’s waistline.
Trite? Yes, but what have we gotten with it now?
An inspired analogy. Yowza!
I am wondering if Obama can get that 2.7 trillion in $1 bills. Laid end to end, double thickness, this would be sufficient to connect the Earth to the Sun – with enough left over to connect the Earth to Mars (at its closest point). Of course the sun would burn up the bills – although probably not as fast as the government.
You’re a bit too focused on the here and now, Mr. Kimball. Of course you are right that the “deal” is a joke. They always are.
But the good news is that the Tea Party wasn’t taken down, even though that was the primary goal of the statists, including Boner.
This was a skirmish, and one that the Tea Party emerges from without a scratch.
2012 is the battle. What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.
Marco Rubio and Rand Paul have joined the ranks of the re-Founding Fathers. Compare them to Shumer and Wasserman. The contrast is nothing short of startling. Too bad neither will run in 2012.
The Romans used to do this to determine who held who’s loyalty. Floating a test balloon that really had no actual overall impact but was sufficiently emotionally charged to see who was on which side and who would fight.
We have just witnessed this and the Tea Party faithful have demonstrated they aren’t about to cave. This has a couple of negative attributes to it. The democrats know who to fear the most, which isn’t especially bad but will result in the typical excoriation of them over the years to come. And, it tells the ruling RINO elite who to ignore, not allow on committees; Who to shut the door on. Childish yes, but that’s how they operate in DC. Remember the position that nobody ever real leaves high school and the people in government power largely are more concerned with looking cool, appearing smooth and being accepted by whoever is in the cool clubs than anything else.
Therefore, they have self-tailored their mannerisms, verbal expressions, style of dress and so many other things to suit the “cool” template. Weiner is a perfect example of “trying too hard” in that world and that’s part of the skill set of an elected official; To act the right way and say the right things so as not to “alienate” (translated, “appear geeky/dorky”) the powermasters in government.
The longer they stay in government, the more important this becomes. McLame is the perfect example. People criticize him for being such a RINO but in reality, his survival in a POW camp and his military training had next to nothing to do with each other. He showed great strength of character by surviving such an ordeal and I would NEVER belittle that. However, he parlayed that to his political success and then replaced it with what made him a successful officer to begin with. Not outside-the-box thinking. Not by being principled, not by being strong in conviction. No.
But by being able to look around the room and see which way the wind was blowing. It’s the oldest political tool in the book and it rarely ever fails. Why? Because people become popular by going along to get along. And belonging is more important to most elected officials than almost anything else.
As far as it concerns me, I consider it a personality disorder. The inability to think through the crap, see where things can go wrong and why any idea might be a bad one. In officer training, that’s considered “being negative”. But more often than not, it’s the most politically astute officers that move up in the military. People have the ancient notion that the military is full of firebrands and mavericks. Truth is, both enlisted and officer ranks despise individual thought, no matter how brilliant it might be because they see it as a criticism of conformity as well as a subtle undermining of authority. Sure, movies capitalize on it to tell a story. But it’s been my experience that the higher the rank, the less innovative and clever the officer or enlisted member. I know it’s a very cynical viewpoint but it’s not just “sour grapes” or anti-military sentiment.
If you took Patton today, one of the most aggressive generals ever, who was driven and some say a brilliant tactician, well, he would never make it past captain in today’s military. But I have gone on too long.
My point is that McCain is an example of wanting to fit in and being able to shake hands at dinner parties than anything else. Only 1% of elected officials seems to not care about being liked so much as doing what is necessary.
Excellent post.
“Nobody ever leaves High School.” I loved that. I was a total flop in High School, because I just felt no need to ape my peers in order to fit in. And so it went throughout my life, totally resistant to BS.
“Truth is, both enlisted and officer ranks despise individual thought, no matter how brilliant it might be because they see it as a criticism of conformity as well as a subtle undermining of authority.” I struggled in the military for this very reason. They hated me. But it was my First Sergeant who ended up making big rocks into little rocks in Leavenworth. Who was the problem again?
Patton knew how to get along most times. He was charming and engaging. He was actually a pretty good diplomat, until it came to the subject of fighting. Then he got all medieval. (Marshall wanted to sack him, along with all the other aging Generals. He really despised Patton, but others interceded to keep him, because they knew they would need a warrior-General at some point.) It would be no harder for him to rise today than it was back then. Nothing has changed, really.
And yes, they love the wonderfulness of being them in DC. Those parties are just the best, and only the cool kids get invited. They get to bask in each others’ wonderfulness.
“Asinus asinum fricat.” Latin for, the ass rubs the ass. (Two asses yoked together polish each others hindquarters where they rub one another.)
Interesting post. I also salute McCain for his service & perseverence as a POW, & wince whenever I see him move his arms as little as he can. That said, I haven’t been as impressed with McCain as senator, & even less so with McCain the candidate for president. He is a darling of the MSM when he is the ‘maverick’, & he knows it & plays up to it. The MSM returned the favour. The NYT endorsed him . . . as the Republican, then turned on him viciously once he was the nominee. It was the same play they did with Sharron Angel & Christine O’Donnell – pumping them up as the major factor in the primaries, allowing the Democrat to take on the opponent of his choosing.
You paint the officer (& senior enlisted) profile with too broad a brush though. Yes indeed, there are those types, & I saw plenty of them in my career, both in the US military & abroad. The military is a huge collection of people, which becomes a bureaucracy by default. So those types you describe can be successful if they are careful & play their cards right. There are plenty of other types, mostly crammed into the lower ranks, yes, but they are cultivated for their creativity. The bureaucrats know that they have to use them, but the fight I had to wage against them to gain some success for ‘out of the box’ ops (& sometimes, you must be careful to not build a different box) is hopefully becoming easier with the enormous amount of experience we’ve had in the past ten years. We have to be careful that this inevitable draw-down doesn’t turn into a feeding frenzy against the military, & within the military, as the bureaucrats try to rid themselves of the warriors who are so effective. I’ve seen it before many times, & I’m sure to see it again, but I’m retired now, & the fight will now have to be borne by my two sons.
Good post all around. It’s high time that McCain got called out not for being a hero, but for being a light weight get-alonger. He was fourth from the bottom in his Annapolis class — that’s in an institution noted for large scale cheating, and where one really has to be dumb to land at the bottom of the list. He is remembered by his classmates for being the freshman gopher they could send over the wall to fetch some booze after lights out. What a guy!
Hero? There are 58,000 heros from Vietnam, all dead, all just boys. But this guy lost several planes, and finally got injured in a crash, got captured. Like so many others, McCain got tortured. That makes him a piteous, tragic man to whom all of our hearts should go out. But a hero?
Then this son of an admiral who also was a son of an admiral, which lineage guaranteed he could stay in at Annapolis while better men stayed out, then went on to marry a millionaire heiress while gadding about with daddy.
McCain? More to say than that he never left high school, like so many in D.C., he never had a job.
Hey Pelaut, That’s pretty harsh treatment of Sen. McCain. I may disagree with him on some issues, but I have great respect for his patriotism and heroic flights over North Vietnam in the face of sophisticated Soviet made missals. He was shot down, and didn’t simply crash as you put it. He could have come home years earlier, but loyalty to his fellow American prisoners and his country made him refuse an early release from hell. And the US Naval Academy was not a hotbed of cheating. By the way, what did you do in the war?
The GOP Debt Limit Success Charade
The political dust hadn’t even settled when all the principals were grinning and back-slapping over the snarky, bi-partisan debt suckering of the American people by those same national leaders.
Barack Obama was elated, almost tearfully happy he had averted not the imminent default but at avoiding being labeled as The Default President.
Harry Reid was overjoyed, overjoyed for the funereal Harry Reid, at his coup. John Boehner and Mitch McConnell basked in what they erroneously called a Republican victory, of sorts.
Wisely kept out of the negotiating loop, Nancy Pelosi sulked and concurred that the deal was a “Satan sandwich” yet caved and voted to eat that delicacy rather than have to manufacture an original thought. With the triumphal Gabby Giffords in the House and in favor of the bill, Aunt Nancy couldn’t very well vote against her.
Actually, in a great and confused rhetorical leap, Democrat Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (MO) had termed the engineered debt agreement a “sugar coated Satan sandwich,” although it’s difficult for conservatives and anyone else interested in fiscal sanity to taste its sweetness.
Perhaps Cleaver had in mind the Urban Dictionary’s definition of a Satan sandwich as “The chiefest of hell’s dark delights, it is said that just one bite of it arouses an unspeakable lust of terrific potency,” although that’s unlikely since Cleaver is a minister and ministers aren’t supposed to think that way.
Whatever you choose to call the bill raising the nation’s debt limit, to term it a successful agreement would be subverting the meaning of success.
Can it be characterized as a success when the nation’s debt ceiling is raised by as much as $2.4 trillion, the largest increase by far in our history, second only to the 2010 increase of $1.9 trillion, both of which major gradations occurred under the careful watch of President Obama and his accomplished tax cheat Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner?
Can it be characterized a success . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=5154)
So who shall we replace first? Wait I have it, and so do my liberal friends (I have at least two?) Just one question, do we have enough paper to print all the recall forms? Since its all “About Them” Recall them all!
Now all we need is a “LOONEY TUNES” ending to this week would be the simultaneous announcements from Palin, Trump and Perry that they are getting into the race and coincidentally Bernie Sanders Announces he will challenge “O.”
Oh yes lets not forget its Football Season, so let me try to work this analogy. Aah a little respite from the MSM PARROTS. In very short order our overly burned political ears will get some rest when we will be listening to those time honored cliches. Such as — He’s at the 50, the 40, or “He could go all the way” or “I don’t believe what I just saw” or “there is no way he caught that ball,” or “that has got to be one of the dumbest plays I have even seen” and for you folks over 55, “Abner Haynes “We’ll Kick To The Clock” then later Hank Stram “Abner got confused” I’ll say! Well now that I think of it all those apply to what we just saw, and I don’t believe what I just saw” As a former Texan I have seen a lot of manure piles in my time, I did not think you could pile it that high, but apparently in that 3 ring circus off highway 95 you can!
Roge old buddy you need a really strong whisky sour about now-to early in Phoenix but I’ll be there in about 5 hours.
Cheers and Check your “6″
— Now all we need is a “LOONEY TUNES” ending to this week would be the simultaneous announcements from Palin, Trump and Perry that they are getting into the race and coincidentally Bernie Sanders Announces he will challenge “O.”
Ha!
I love that. Buh-dee-uh-buh-dee-uh-buh-dee-uh that’s all folks! Come on, Sarah, take the plunge. You are twelve times the “man” B. Hussein Obama will ever be — not to mention your consistent truthfulness. And most of us know it — regardless of all the smears and SNL-skits and trembling-leftist write-offs of your candidacy.
How possibly can this end up well? It can’t….we have to sink under the weight of this criminal theft and perfidy in DC. The real question is what will happen when it comes crashing down? Will we lynch the political carnival of fools? Will the “razor boy come and take our fancy things away” like the old Steely Dan song said? Will we suffer an external invasion from our emboldened enemies, smelling blood in the water? Hang on tight, homies, there are dark clouds on the horizon.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qg1TSJ4JiH8
Roger,
Thanks for some truth. I just got out of the car and even Fox News is spreading the same propaganda the rest of the media is vomiting at us regarding this disaster.
I know I shouldn’t be, but I’m SHOCKED at how stupid the country can be. The word “ceiling” is used as another way of saying “Cap”, yet we were supposed to agree to remove a cap in order to get a cap?
Worse, the “cuts” aren’t cuts. It’s a reduction in future spending increases! No current spending on a single current program is touched.
Heck, it’s not even immediate. They voted to promise to do something in the future. You can’t legislate spending responsbility onto future Congresses!
Oh, the shear ignorance and oblivion. I can only hope fellow Tea Partiers are paying attention and have the desire and WILL to stomp through the Republican Party during the next election. If Republicans thought it was ugly last season, next season is going to be much worse. If we have our way, there won’t be a single establishment Republican left in the Party.
Let them go home and study their Constitutions.
I’m still trying to stop laughing over democrats calling republicans and independents “terrorists,” a word democrats banned for denoting people flying while Muslim with exploding shoe bombs.
“But John Boehner? He’s a smart guy.”
Between the CR and This I have seen NO evidence what-so-ever of this!
Mr. Kimball:
Yes, yes government bureaucracy is wasteful. Except 60% of Obama’s spending has been for the recession (unemployment, food stamps, etc.). And the American economy has NOT GROWN IN 10 YEARS according to Calulated Risk when you subtract the spending that occurred by people taking equity out of their homes. THE ONLY GROWTH FOR 10 YEARS IS BUILT ON PRIVATE DEBT. The same 10 years when Capitalists decided to sell America to Communist China for profit in the name of free trade, even though nothing is being traded. It took capitalism 10 years to reverse the victory in the Cold War that took 50 years to win.
Please, Please, please step out from behind the standard conservative economic doggerel and face reality.
I am with you until you wrote, “The same 10 years when Capitalists decided to sell America to Communist China for profit in the name of free trade, even though nothing is being traded.”
For the most part that was Dems pushing NAFTA, and the Dems and their minions in government forcing industry overseas through regulation, litigation, taxation and unionization. So of course we went from a nation of producers to a nation of consumers and a service oriented economy.
Our side has always sought , with Bush the idiot as the exception, to cut government spending which is the primary driver of out debt i.e. Medicare and SS and other entitlements. But votes were more important and expedient to Dems (and our mushy pols) than our fiscal future not to mention that your side is ideologically consistent with socialism/marxism.
“Then I’d dismantle the EPA, HUD, the Department of Education, the Department of Energy, get rid of the regiments of people fondling children and grannies in airport security lines, raise the eligibility age for Social Security, and introduce something like Paul Ryan’s voucher plan for Medicare.”
There is a special place in hell for the man (Jimmy Carter) who created the Department of Energy and the Department of Education, both gigantic black holes that suck up funds and do absolutely nothing for the American public. Someone still has to explain to me what the Department of Energy does. It certainly isn’t finding alternate forms of energy, that’s for sure. And the Department of Education? How about letting the individual states handle that. And if the states need some money for capital expenditures for public schools around the country, why can’t that be done through the Department of the Treasury? All I know is, we have sunk billions and billions of dollars into the Department of Education since the 1970s and the quality of public school education has actually gone DOWN in this country. Now THAT is progress for you.
We need a smaller government. Everybody, say it with me: “WE NEED A SMALLER GOVERNMENT.” I think if we got rid of the Department of Energy tomorrow, nobody would miss it. And if the Department of Energy has any military jobs it does, send those jobs and responsibilities back to the Pentagon where they belong.
There is so very, very, much that can just be eliminated from the Federal budget, if someone just had the courage to do it. Perhaps what we need is a President who cares less about being re-elected and more about cutting the size of this big, bloated, government we’re all paying for. Have a president who just says, “I’m cutting all of these departments and I want your help doing it. And if you like it, fine. If you don’t, I really don’t care.” After all, you really can’t go wrong saving trillions of dollars of other people’s money, right?
You might have to amend the Constitutions General Welfare Clause. In the meantime do what is easiest to start with. Repeal ALL….ALL the 1,700 + government subsidies.
In fact, let me tell you how easy it would be to get the ball rolling. EVERY states government, effective Sepetember 1, 2011, REFUSE ALL federal government handouts!
Come on Tea Party! You’re the nations ardent supporters and protectors of the constitution and governments new fascal hawks! Advocate something REAL rather than shallow and empty ‘politcal rhetoric! According to what you purport, you have the majority of the nation on your side…so get marching!
Hic!
Apparently you don’t stand for anything other than empty ‘political’ rhetoric online to your own choir! I’m pretty sure you’ve not contributed to any problem solving with your legislator(s) of your district. I’m pretty certain that if you’ve even communicated to your legislators its been childish whinning. But yet, you come online whinning to your choir ‘pretending’ to be some expert a something or another…..all the while sucking on the governments teats. Now, it’s your turn to retort with a “I don’t suck on the governments teats.”
when Obama took office he had a perfect opportunity to look like a smart person just by letting the market right itself. but no he acts like he is still in the opposition and everything must be destroyed.
interesting how marxist don’t know when they won. destroying something great is not winning.
there hasn’t been anything that was going well that obama and circus clowns didn’t meddle with …with the intention of damage.
at some point you need to ask yourself …”how can anyone be a marxist today?”
a thoughly discredited system of governance. so that leaves only one possibility for why obama does what he does. HATE and ENVY. going to make whitey pay and pay and pay.
HATE and Envy the official obama campaign slogan.
I’m going to repeat what I’ve said elsewhere: This crisis wasn’t about the debt ceiling or the budget or fiscal responsibility or entitlements or… All of these still have to be dealt with. STILL have to be dealt with.
This crisis was manufactured by Obama and his Gang to destroy the Tea Party wing of the GOP. This crisis was a cynical, malicious and mendacious abuse of America by Obama…with one agenda only – destroy the Tea Party because it is harming his re-election chances.
Think.
The debt ceiling could have been dealt with a year ago, when the Democrats held all three branches of govt; they could have passed it without blinking. Why didn’t they? They were worried about even suggesting such an event existed..because of the 2010 November elections. Obama lost the House anyway…and attempted, ON THE SURFACE, to ignore his massive losses. But it scared him.
The Obama gang could have passed the debt limit bill in the Lame Duck Nov-Dec phase. They didn’t. Why not? I’m claiming that they instead set up a deliberate manipulative strategy to destroy what Obama sees as his greatest threat to re-election – The Tea Party..and its commonsense principles.
Obama is pathological; he has only one focus and one interest. Himself. He has no love for, no commitment to, no interest in America or Americans. His focus is on Himself. And his Power. Period.
Obama ‘rules’ by misinformation, emotional manipulation, the use of apocalyptic threats (pass the stimulus or the economic will collapse; pass the health bill or doctors will cut off your limbs)…and threats.
So – I claim that the agenda was to filibuster, delay and sideline the GOP and Tea Party efforts to develop a responsible fiscal approach..and then set up an apocalyptic scenario and blame it all, all, on the GOP and Tea Party.
Notice the steps. Obama himself provided no budget. Nothing was done by him or the Senate about the looming debt ceiling. Ryan developed a budget; Obama openly mocked it! Openly insulted Ryan sitting in front of him! Hmmm. Why? Why didn’t the Dems and Obama COLLABORATE (that’s Obama’s words, heh heh) and work to develop, with Ryan..a budget. Hmmm?
Obama sidelined such talk with a debt and fiscal commission; he ignored, totally, all their recommendations. It was obviously a time-delay tactic..
Then, as ‘the date’ came closer..still, nothing from Obama or the Dems. The GOP passed Cut, Cap and Balance. Shock to Obama and the Gang! Obama’s response – he HAD to stop it…so, he, from his high perch, threatened to veto it. So Harry Reid, sycophant, didn’t dare to challenge The Great Messiah, and wouldn’t even allow a debate or vote on it in Senate.
Boehner passed his bill. Same thing; Obama threatened to veto it; Reid bent down in the same way.
The date loomed…Obama began talking about ‘people won’t get their social security, won’t get their medicaid’..wont’… All untrue. All open blatant apocalyptic manipulation. And, his sycophants and followers began the rhetoric of Blame the Tea Party ,Blame the Tea Party. Biden and others: Blame the Tea Party terrorists.
But..did the Dems have a plan? Nope. Reid kept, heh, promising one, day after day after day…heh..gosh it was hard…day after delaying after delaying day. And the rhetoric against the Terrorist Tea Party…continued. Did Obama have a plan? Did the Dems have a plan?
The GOP had passed THREE budget plans…and Obama had prevented all three from even a Senate vote.
Yes, Obama wanted several things:
-First, he wanted MONEY to support him until AFTER his re-election. He got that with the debt raised until 2013. And make no mistake, we’ll now seeing Obama offering special deals to his waning identity groups who he relies on for support and who have been leaving him: blacks, hispanics, low income. He’s already offering special low loans to low incomes who might not repay…
-Then, this Commission..MIGHT raise taxes! They might…and Obama needs the money. To buy votes.
- And a balanced budget? Just talk about it. And after all, Obama, who is a pathological liar, knows all about the veracity and staying power of WORDS.
So- fiscally – nothing positive was achieved by this cynical and frankly, evil, Obama strategy…
BUT – what was stopped – was Obama’s attempt to destroy the GOP and in particular, the Tea Party (that’s the commonsense party of regular Americans)..and blame ALL, and I mean ALL his economic failures over the past three years on them.
That was the strategy. Make no mistake; that was the strategy. That was why Obama and his Gang deliberately didn’t deal with the debt last year when they could have, why they delayed and delayed and dead-ended all the GOP repeated efforts to deal with it this year..why they instead, deliberately set up an apocalyptic situation, deliberately made public threats that the most needy would be without funds..because of the Tea Party terrorists…The whole situation..was deliberate and had ONE agenda.
Destroy the Tea Party, blame ALL of Obama’s total three-year economic problems on them..so that Obama would win his re-election.
This was stopped. Given the sheer evil of this Obama administration and his pathological focus on his own power, this was a significant accomplishment. It means that the GOP and Tea Party can continue to fight this monster for the 2012 election. Don’t think it’s over; Obama is pathological.
Obama will, now, come up with new tactics to smear the Tea Party, to try to pin all his economic failures on them. BUT…it won’t be easy.
Why not? Because the economy, the budget, the statistics about GDP, jobs, debt ceilings..are now in the public eye in a way never before seen. The public is watching ..and it wasn’t doing so before. Obama can’t hide statistics and hard data; the GDP, the jobless figures, the possible loss of the Triple A rating; he can’t hide them. And now, that he’s got his debt ceiling, he can’t really blame the GOP/Tea Party. He’ll try…but he can’t hide these figures; people are now aware of them.
This 2012 election is a vital battle for the future of America, between a pathological demagogue, focused only on his own power, surrounded by sycophant socialists cocooned from reality…and reality, the reality of basic commonsense Americans, private businesses, individual responsibility and self-reliance. Obama and his Gang will use every malicious mendacious manipulative tactic to win; don’t let your guard down for a minute.
Imagine – Obama was prepared to allow the country to go into default, so that he could bash the political party of commonsense, the Tea Party, because he wants to blame them for HIS economic failures and prevent Americans from taking back their own country. Imagine…
In the ’30′s Franklin the Great allowed (caused) federal employees to take a 10% pay cut. They all survived. (Only this time we need to include the perks and benefits as well!).
When you are struggling to pay the rent you do not buy new art for the living room, buy friends by giving them money, support elite radio etc. etc. etc.
We can also ‘reset’ social security, federal retirements (all), by the same 10%. (Disclaimer; about 80% of my income is federal retirement/ SS). Please do not bore me with tales of the little old lady living on only $800 per month social security. Can’t happen. She is getting something from somewhere else. Besides, aren’t there enough children, grandchildren, churches, and people who donate money to save the cats around to pony up the lost 80 bucks?
Daffy: “Say is a job for”Duck Dogers In The 21st Century”! , Bugs; “What a bunch of Maroons!”
Great piece, Roger! It should be required reading for every Tea Party patriot in the largest unorganized political movement in U.S. history. We can’t afford to wait until the 2012 election to do anything about this latest Ruling Class betrayal; it will be too late by then.
Don’t get mad; get even!!
The majority of this nations wealth/assets is held in the private sector (individuals and commerce) as is most of the nations debt held by the private sector of individuals and commerce.
NO tax rates or adjusted rates, not even government policies are stopping the private sector wealth holders from doing what what is claimed to be ‘natural’ in their capitalist functioning.
More seriously, what is stopping the private sector commerce from doing that “natural” thing, is they’re not sure (fearful) how much government subsidies they may lose if government starts slashing. On the individual side, the consurmers, are also fearful of the economy, the commerce folks, continuing slashing with increased job losses. Likewise, for the consumer sides credit lenders have ‘tightened’ lending practices.
Looks like that “natural” thing from the private sector is doesn’t function so well independent of government handouts. Afterall, look who the private sector commerce and individuals go running to for solutions! Yep! The government!
Attempting to blame the government and one party or another, is pure ‘political’ silliness! AGAIN, all components of the private sector goes running to the government to solve [their] problems. The ‘peoples’ massive numbers of special interest groups reside in the government seeking special favor…special favor in treatment and ALWAYS monetary special favor FROM THE GOVERNMENT!
T.T.Thomas 2 – everybody else 0
#1 daxypoo: “Then I’d dismantle the EPA, HUD, the Department of Education……… (repeated by Libertyship46 in #17).
Too bad you boys didn’t do some basic research, instead of listening to the mindless mouthings from the likes of Bachmann, Limbaugh and Hannity. If you had, you’d learn that the Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA) is part of the Dept. of Education. It provides grant money to state vocational rehabilitation programs to help disabled workers get back to school, learn new skills, and get job placement services to leave the “welfare” rolls and become productive citizens again. Meaning they’re again paying taxes.
Of course, as long as billionaires can keep their tax breaks and corporations can keep their taxpayer subsidies, who cares about people confined to wheelchairs?
#7 GDI “cut all federal funding for NPR, PBS……..” Here’s a better idea. According to the Economist (July 16-22), the F-35 fighter plane is now costing $380 billion for 2,400 planes; and overall costs will be over $1 trillion. Do some math. Tell you guys what, let’s order 2,390 planes instead and use the savings for PBS and NPR.
On second thought, let’s order maybe just 1,000 of this plane that may already be obsolete when it enters service in 2016 and apply the savings to paying down the deficit. Funny that few Tea Partiers; Rep. Mike Coffman, a decorated Iraq vet, from Colorado is an exception; pay any attention to Pentagon bloat and pork.
Just call me a “thinking conservative” who realizes there are no easy answers.
your’s is the thinking that got the country into the mess it presently finds itself.
you may call yourself a conservative but your words scream liberal/progressive.
it is not the governments job to hold everyone’s hand and kiss the booboos. ..that is the same for the T.T. Thomas, another pseudo conservative.
So Cabeza, by your thinking, conservatives aren’t supposed to like PBS or NPR? And we’re supposed to slobber like Pavlov’s dogs for every proposal made by a defense contractor, or a purchasing agent in the Pentagon?
And you insult people who are paraplegics or quadriplegics when you call their medical problems a “boo-boo.” I’m not sure you could recognize a true conservative if Barry Goldwater came back to life and was sitting in your kitchen drinking coffee. Bachmann isn’t one; she had her nose in the hog trough at Obama stimulus time along with almost every other Congress critter.
If you want to read another real thinker, check out David Nicholas in reply #26.
Since you obviously didn’t read one post below…let me reprint it for your benefit! It is you and millions like you pretending to be some righteous ‘conservatives’ when in fact you are socialists sucking the governments teats!
["One can blame government all they want to satisfy their own political bias. However, who does private sector commerce run to with their hands out to solve problems for them? Yep! The government! Count the numbers of private sector special interest groups who survive quite well sucking on the government teats. These are the ‘peoples’ special interest groups and the people paying them to go suck the government teats dry. Commerce or individuals they all go running to the government with their hand out and demand the government solve all their problems.
There are NO political party lines for demanding the government fix their problems and certainly no political party lines for succking the government teats dry!"]
THAT’s exactly the problem.
One can blame government all they want to satisfy their own political bias. However, who does private sector commerce run to with their hands out to solve problems for them? Yep! The government! Count the numbers of private sector special interest groups who survive quite well sucking on the government teats. These are the ‘peoples’ special interest groups and the people paying them to go suck the government teats dry. Commerce or individuals they all go running to the government with their hand out and demand the government solve all their problems.
There are NO political party lines for demanding the government fix their problems and certainly no political party lines for succking the government teats dry!
The goal of capitalists is to profit, not make moral judgemebts. It’s entirely logical that they view the government as one of their sources of plenty.
The nazi capitalists were willing allies of Hitler.
The evil party is government, not business.
And that doesn’t mean that businesses are saints either. Like people, there are good ones and bad ones.
And like people, businesses can do enormous good for society, but also enormous damage. Over the last 300 years, which is really the entire history of capitalism, the good has outweighed the bad by orders of magnitude.
By the same token, throughout the history of governments, evil outweighs the good by many many orders of magnitude.
The evil nature of government and natural value-add of free enterprise are both built-in functions. The Founding Fathers understood both. But government is so evil, so insidious and so powerful that the corruptocrats are universally able to get their way by treachery or violence. The only exception, so far, has been the United States and the other republics its success created in the 19th century, most of which have already been throroughly subverted by political criminals.
as Ayn Rand said, keep the Government separated from Economy, in the same way and for the same reasons as between Government and Church
Proreason….what everybody conveniently ignores in America. The government, the private sector capitalists…they both are of the people…by the people…for the people. To reject such a notion is to reject in full scope and force, the constitution.
Scapegoating ‘government’ or ‘capitalism’ by the people denotes the most arrogant and ignorant failings of our society. Morality is the ‘common’ fabric of a society…the people! A business or a government is void of any morality but throught the people.
To infer that business or even government (people) haven’t a responsibilty to a common morality is wrong. But I do know the realities of American morality today. While the Suzies of America running hotdog stands struggling to carve out a few dollars each day to feed their families, the porno folks struggle not, to make millions of dollars a day.
While the people spend billions upon billions to feed their immoral habits, they raise hell about paying more taxes to bail the nation out of the unsustainable debt they, the people created and benefited from.
Budget deficits and national debt are not the core problems of America today. Moral hypocracy of our society is the core problem as much of the world now see’s and understands…but not Americans of todays generations.
But where can morality begin with one entity of the people consuming the other? One is acknowledged by the constitution as acceptable and the other strictly limited by it. Government demanding more for its own expansion can only be justified by military growth for national security. All others demands remain doubtfully questionable. The same lack of morality that you recognize as the common thread of today’s society readily accepts usury formerly considered immoral. Consider that all threads connected to usury may likewise suffer condemnation.
A war was initiated 150 years ago over cotton tariffs imposed on exports from just two states composing 80% of the federal budget. With 34 states writing legislation now clearing the way for succession due to federal encroachment, what can you suggest other than similar presidential reconstruction edicts illegally imposed by a congress missing guaranteed representation from 10 southern states. Over taxation initiated the American revolutionand and the War For Succession. Will you want more?
Top level parasites learned early in USA history to stay ahead of the herd in the “running of the bills” by “investing” in insider information as to where to stand when any borrowed money was allocated for projects with misnamed publicly acceptable titles grouped under promoting the general welfare clause of the preamble and amendments added through illegal presidential proclamation amendments without legitimate state ratification. How can anyone expect political party leaders to protect and obey a constitution that has been trampled at opportune events since 1861. Creating a convenient event through TV media sewer gas has become the norm.
Pyramid federal reserve credit only attracts bigger hogs to the socialist trough with many added government agencies for distribution of funds, insuring voter allegiance and continued growth of entitled consumer level parasites. The only iron clad rule is that those at the bottom eventually pay the dues of all others.
All media luminaries speak of their own investments as being the blocks from which all chips of economic growth fall. But it ain’t so, Clyde. Few can reveal any substantial difference from Obama’s claim to fame rise from a token Basken-Robins summer job with none revealing real sweat equity in anything other than a game of handball, except that they may have missed out on foreign student grants for a more concentrated attitude correction with accompanying foreign agenda.
They all ignore the 15-20 % at the bottom of any economic base either creating, improving, or distributing a consumer product except in campaign speech. The train of parasites begins with distribution due to corporate greed
with encroachment into any potential consumer market placing smaller production businesses in unfair competition by controlling every step of production from raw materials to consumer consumption.
Whether saved or borrowed, moral or not, whatever is wasted to the parasites of entertainment are voluntary while only constitutionally just taxation can be condoned without expected mass resistance.
Be they of the commerce (consuming) sector or the common folks the consumer sector, they are all part and parcel of the same lot. Greedy and seeking (demanding) from their government something for ‘free’ as they view it in their minds. Oooops! Then the freebie bill comes and now we’re where we are today as a nation. Everybody denying that any of the government spending and debt was of any benefit to them and by God lets crucify the bastards in government and those folks receiving to much ‘free’ stuff that was ‘forced’ upon them….everybody elses sacred cows but blind to their own.
Thats the moronic debate of today. Don’t need any fancy drug store vocabulary to explain the facts.
I’ve said repeatedly that this problem is more complex than people want to admit. As a for instance, if the Federal government suddenly grew the testicular fortitude to do what you say, and abolished all of those Federal agencies (none of which really needs to exist) can you imagine the lines they’d have the next days and weeks at the Unemployment Offices? Payments through those agencies, and through other government charities, would skyrocket. Businesses near government office buildings (restaurants and coffee places, convenience and office supply stores, etc., would probably either take a big hit or flat go out of business. Hotels that serviced these people when they went on their junkets, “sensitivity training” specialists, airlines that fly these people to their seminars, all would be hit badly. And we all know that the supervisors in the departments would have friends who would get them work someplace else; their subordinates would be the ones to take the hits, and we’d be to blame for it.
I don’t know whether any of you folk are familiar with the issue of the F-35 fighter jet the Air Force is going to build. Pretty much everyone outside the Pentagon will concede that the need for such a thing is tenuous at best. Our current fighters are so sophisticated and advanced compared to anyone else’s planes that it’s ridiculous, and we’ve already got a new plane (the F-22) coming online. But the F-35 has several things going for it, and those things will make certain that it’s built. First, it’s tremendously expensive, much more expensive than it needs to be, but one of the reasons it’s so expensive is that the components are going to come from every corner of this country, pretty much. 43 states will contribute to the construction of the planes, so any plans to trim its appropriation will be met with the opposition of *some* of the constituents of 86 senators. Anyone want to guess how that’s going to come out?
It’s unneccessary, probably will be semi-obsolete by the time we’ve built it (drones will be able to do everything more cheaply, without risking pilots) and there’s no enemy plane that we’re trying to keep up with (I know the Chinese have a new fighter; I think the Air Force paid them off under the table to fly the thing around; it’s Chinese, and their technology won’t keep up with ours for decades, anyway) so the only reason to build the thing is to keep those people working, building it!
Now translate that to the rest of the government. In *every* state capitol in the Union, and all of the large cities, there are Federal office buildings full of workers who shuffle paper and buy coffee and earn way more than they need, or could in the private sector. If they perform vital services that are actually neccessary, they’re balanced by departments that do nothing useful and soak up the budget. There is no way that these “services” can be cut anywhere near as drastically as we’d like; if somehow it happened, the cities in question would probably die a quick death, from the lack of cash. The Federal Bureaucracy (and I mean the useless meddling part) has become “too big to fail” and we’re stuck with it, like it or not. Sad to say, I think we passed the tipping point about 15-20 years ago, and no one noticed.
Nice strawman, David. The Federal and State governments don’t have to close all their departments immediately. They can freeze hiring, and not replace employees that retire. They can eliminate jobs when people leave, or fill them with transfers from other jobs which can be eliminated. They can transfer the responsibility for regulation and oversight from the Federal government bureaucracies to the states and/or local governments, where the voters can provide oversight to their effectiveness. They can start to streamline benefit programs by eliminating duplication of government programs in multiple bureaucracies. They don’t have to stop providing a safety net to parapalegics in order to begin reducing the excessive size and scope of the Federal government, and allow the money being taxed out of the private sector to return to providing opportunities for permanent jobs paid for by consumers who want the output of those workers enough to pay for it!
Let’s not pretend that eliminating a fighter plane program will solve an annual deficit that is approaching $1.75 TRILLION every year as far as the eye can see. National defense is one of the legitimate constitutional responsibilities of the Federal government. If people like NPR and PBS, they can subscribe to it and support businesses that will support them – not expect our children and grandchildren to provide it for them gratis. The message of the 2010 election is that the majority of American voters feel that the Federal government is out of control and needs to be reduced in size and scope to provide the essential services that were mandated in the Constitution, with the responsibility for other government functions to be reserved for the states, the laboratories of effective government in our constitutional republic.
2.4 trillion.
Why wasn’t the debt ceiling raised 11 trillion to an even 25 trillion?
If some is good, then more must be better.
I would like to challenge someone (smarter than me and who supports the debt increase) to explain why an increase to 25 trillion isn’t a good idea. Explain to me how much debt becomes too much debt.
It would be wonderful to find that the current/recent budget crisis had finally ended the notion that governments could live beyond their means and spend without accountability. I don’t see that as a reality though. The Democrats are surely going to see this as another opportunity to spend, spend, spend and leave it to future taxpayers to pay, pay, pay.
I thought you might be interested in comparing America’s troubles with Britain’s. The incomparable Theodore Dalrymple describes the realities in Britain in this article: http://www.city-journal.org/2011/21_3_otbie-uk-govt-spending.html. I think you’re going to get a strong feeling of deja vu….
Voyager 1, launched in 1977, the fastest man-made object ever, is just 10.5 billion miles from earth. That is, if you got a dollar for each mile Voyager 1 has traveled in 33 years, you would only have a tiny fraction of the HIKE in the debt.
If you were given a billion dollars for each day since the birth of Christ, you still wouldn’t have the hike in the debt.
As Mark Steyn points out, in 20 years US interest payments to China will finance the whole of that country’s military budget at today’s level.
Madness.
What does $1 Trillion look like?
A Trillion Dollars On Display
Just visualize five and one half football fields covered including the endzones with double stacked pallets of money. You know just like the ones they flew over to Iraq and then lost…
But like Hippy chick says it really doesn’t matter at this point. Now that the rest of the world sees us trying to put the screws to them it will only be a matter of moments before we see a credit crisis unlike any that has come before and then we will see the shooting start. Not some mamby pamby Libyan freedom fighter nonsense but honest to GOD soldiers shooting because the govts of the world will come to quickly realize that to keep their necks the same length they had better distract the lumpenprols and nothing does that better than a shooting wha-uh.
Me, I am prepared. Are YOU?
All that which you lament has already taken place a long while ago, but it’s only now apparent that everyone is broke for real, about 5 years too late, maybe even more than that.
This is why the EU doesn’t mind throwing large amounts of money at the problem: it’s a free round of Monopoly that buys some more time.
So don’t worry about the $2.4 Trillion, and even if it doubles or even triples it’s of no consequence — it can’t be (and so won’t be) paid back in real terms, there is no realistic way in which this could happen, even if you’re extremely generous in your imagination.
Promoters of usury never want to see payment on the principal thereby maintaining eternal interest payments with which to delve into other market parasite opportunities while the borrower pays the ticket. If you should default, loan collateral and compound interest are as dependable as gravity, unless a particular market is being controlled by heavy movers for a jackpot merger with CEO golden parachutes accompanying the risk.
Just remember that they have more than enough liquid assets to survive in luxury. Do you?? If not, consider your options before they pull the ripcord. There was a time when home was more than a risky investment before consumer paid TV advertising and you only had to worry about a local banker whose neck was never far from your grip. Then government got in involved using “race card” pressure. Guess who lost the most. AGAIN. Maybe they can recover by claiming to be farmers if that $2 billion sham hasn’t yet been exorcised from the budget.
According to a report in Politico, Rep. Doyle of Pennsylvania is reported to have said at the recent, and now celebrated “terrorist” meeting with the VP:
“We have negotiated with terrorists,” an angry Doyle said, according to sources in the room. “This small group of terrorists have made it impossible to spend any money.”
Consider it: “. . . impossible to spend any money.” It’s a truly remarkable comment. The Congress will spend some $3.7 trillion in 2011, or, about $308 billion each month!
Not enough? Pray tell, Mr. Doyle, how much would be enough?
Factbox: How senators voted on debt ceiling deal
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/02/us-usa-…
“Happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected.” George Washington
Right on Roger, keep it up. The only leverage available was holding the debt from increasing. And as you point out the only bad thing that would have happened if it was held, would have been to the Democrats who would have to ration the provisions to their civilian army.
“(forget the ceiling metaphor: it’s a big, black hole we’re talking about here),”
Careful, Roger. The term “black hole” is racist and banned. Didn’t you get the memo?