President Obama responded by apologizing, and then he answered an economic question:
"We've still got a long way to go before we hit bottom. I ain't done changin' it yet. A powerful country like the United States, you can't flush it down the toilet overnight. It takes time... Be patient!"
Hold the Champagne
I know, I was kicking up my heels yesterday at our glorious small government victory (small though it was), but there’s a long road ahead. We have just begun to fight, and the specter of hubristic overreach stalks conservative plans.
GOP lawmakers need to proceed with caution. The press is the maidservant of Obama, and they know how to churn out the propaganda. WaPo writer Ruth Marcus would have thrived in Stalin's Soviet Union. See how she artfully employs the republicans as carjacker trope:
One side wanted the car, had a gun and wasn’t afraid — certainly not afraid enough — to use it. The other had a child in the back seat. (WaPo - Ruth Marcus)That's what we're up against, and it's powerful stuff. There really are softheaded people in this country susceptible to such emotional fripperies
Cut too much too fast, and the backlash will be horrific, and rightly so. Even before this deep recession, we had millions of souls dependent on government assistance, more so now. Single mothers struggling to feed their kids, people on medicaid going through cancer treatment, older workers broke and on the cusp of mandatory retirement… Our government has made promises to all of them. We cannot suddenly yank the rug out from under them, or even appear to.
Also, how can you morally justify slashing the federal workforce when the anemic economy holds no employment alternatives for those thrown out of work?
Whoever would destroy the progressive state and remake it for the 21st century must first present a clearly-defined plan and be able to explain it well. It will need to be phased in over time. People have invested money based upon the creaky statist model, and slashing too deep too quickly creates uncertainty that inevitably leads to a bad business climate, which means more unemployment.
It’s like a spider web, all sticky and interconnected. You can’t just rip out one piece without endangering the entire fabric. George Will explains...
During various liberal ascendancies, the federal spider has woven a web of dependencies. The political purpose has been to produce growing constituencies of voters disposed to vote Democratic. This disposition, a.k.a. the entitlement mentality, is triggered by making the constituencies constantly apprehensive about the security of their status as wards of government. (George Will – WaPo)The truth is, we are a long way from a libertarian nation
The nanny state has destroyed self-sufficiency and initiative. What would you cut and how would you do it without hurting the truly vulnerable? Progressive statists will be asking this question, and rightly so. We had better have viable answers.
42 comments:
Good article, Silver. You did a good job at pointing out the rampant sensationalism that's happening in the media, and I applaud your gradual approach to how we can solve our long-term problems.
I've always believed that a lot of our welfare programs were designed to keep people poor and dependent on government. Well, perhaps that wasn't the original design of the plans, but that's how they've turned out.
When I was a job coach for some inner city kids here in Columbus, I could always tell which ones had parents who were welfare parasites and which ones had parents who, although they were on welfare, worked multiple jobs just to make ends meet.
The welfare parasite kids were the oens that acted like we OWED them the job we gave them, and they couldn't be bothered to do any work (the real bad ones ended up getting fired). The kids from hard working parents were, *gasp*, hard working kids. They didn't act like they were entitled to anything, and they busted their asses every day at their jobs.
The Democrats often seem to practice severe cognitive dissonance whenever this fact is brought up. One guy on C&L told me once that there's no such thing as welfare abusers anymore. I laughed and told him that he must not get out much.
Jack: Maybe at your blog you could regale us with some of your stories about your experiences helping these kids.
I think it would be interesting and a lot of us could learn from it.
I hate our federal welfare system and I want it dismantled, but I also recognize we now have millions trapped in the system and we can't just abandon them.
Getting the federal government out of it, and pushing these programs down to the state and local level would be a good start.
As you allude to, charity at the local level works best because people know who the bums are, making it harder to scam the system.
FJ: Amen to that!
I appriciate what your saying about the need to go slow. I do. But the world stock markets and bond buyers may bring about events that preclude going slow. One way to help ease the pain would be to create a better business environment by slashing corporate taxes (15% maximum) and taking an axe to job killing regulations. Paul Ryan's plan showed that it is possible to reform Social Security and Medicade without causing undue harm to current recipients. I'm also a tad less sympathetic about government bureaucrats than you are, Silver; but that's just me.
i'm hoping Paul Ryan is deeply involved in this and will come up with your question; I, too, have been worried about "What would you cut and how would you do it without hurting the truly vulnerable", as you know.
First, cut all the studies/grants we see every day; ridiculous grants like they just found out that if you drink too much soda, you belch! (okay, that's not one of them, but you've read studies paid for with millions which have prompted you to say "they needed a GRANT to tell them THAT:"?:-)
How do we start manufacturing here again? to me, that's a big key in this. When I hear Obama say JOBS JOBS JOBS, I cringe because he's usually promoting more gov't jobs; we need corporations and smaller companies to stop being insulted for being successful and to get busy producing and hiring. I'll stop now but will leave you with this.
What can we expect from a president who must be as aware as you and I are about AMTRAK's being broke and running on subsidies yet suggests that to create jobs we BUILD A NEW RAILROAD?
not much.
Perhaps we should RAISE corporate taxes to 50% and CUT small business taxes to 1%....
Heck you could take corporate taxes to 90% if you wanted to, seeing as how everyone HATES the corporate oligarch's so much.
Why should "socialist collectives" get better tax breaks than "individuals"?
Raising corporate taxes would help speed the economic transition from an industrial 2nd wave "corporate" economy back to a "boutique" family-run 3rd wave one. ;)
It would strengthen marriage, families, individuals, etc., etc. etc.
It would truely be a "family values" economic plan. Grant them "civil unions" and even GAYS could be for it. ;)
I've NEVER understood why corporations are treated better by the tax code than individual's paying the "Income Tax"... but I bet it has a LOT to do with who currently holds and controls all the country's money supply...
...and the truth shall set you free.
To quote Oscar Hammerstein II -- in a half-assed fashion:
Ya can't make a fire when the wood's all wet.
Ya can't make a butterfly strong.
Ya can't cook an egg when it ain't quite good,
And ya can't support a government gone wrong.
Ya can't put back the petals when they fall from a flower,
Or sweeten up a policy that's always been sour ...
We certainly have a duty to sustain the helpless and protect the weak. All Christians worth their salt believe that, and so do all decent people many of whom are atheists. BUT, we've got to return to a realistic understanding of what "helpless" and "weak" really mean.
Unless you are either brainless, armless, legless, deaf, dumb, blind and incontinent, you are NOT helpless.
Unless you can't eat, bathe and go to the toilet without assistance, you are NOT weak.
Yes we must continue paying Social Security to those already on it, and those fast approaching mandatory retirement age who've paid into the system. But this program must be gradually phased out over the next 15 to 20 years at the outside, and replaced with every possible encouragement and inducement for all citizens to engage in a lifetime program of savings and investment.
Since elderly people get ill more frequently and suffer from catastrophic medical problems more than any other group, we probably should continue Medicare, but how about this?
Continue Medicare on a sliding scale. Those who an afford to pay should pay. Those who honestly can't pay, should not be deprived of proper care.
It's absurd not to require mandatory sterilization of women of child-bearing age who've been on public assistance for more than two years. A tubal ligation at public expense is a lot less expensive than having to care for three, four, five, six -- God knows how many -- illegitimate children for untold decades following their illegitimate entrance into a endless cycle of misery and despair -- for the US Taxpayer.
I'm not for reducing our store of weaponry. We must be prepared to defend ourselves. This is a hostile, dangerous world. However, I am against prosecuting "busybody wars" -- military adventures were we go and shoot up somebody else's country in order to "make the world safe for democracy" or some such cant and rhetoric.
Think of the hundreds of thousands of lives that would have been saved had we not wasted our precious resources in Israel, Korea, Vietnam, Panama, Serbia-Kosovo-Bosnia, Mogadishu, Afghanistan and Iraq -- and now, apparently, Lybia.
If we accomplished anything of value in these military adventures, I'd like to know what it might be. All we've done is spill lots of blood, waste untold billions of dollars, and turned the world against us -- and why? Just so a gaggle of International war profiteers could pocket trillions for their own selfish purposes?
If we are ever to return to health and strength, we must remove those responsible for fomenting these disastrous policies from position of power and influence, and see that they are punished for their misdeeds.
Defang the serpents, and milk them of their venom.
No easy task, because first we'd have to know for sure who and where they are, and so far we've been so skillfully manipulated by these demons that all we seem able to do is fight among ourselves while they grind their heels into our necks and brush the crumbs from their laps onto our backs, and project the spittle from their foul mouths into our upturned faces.
Is it possible to unseat entrenched power without violence? How many more hundreds of million of lives must be sacrificed before we learn our lesson once and for all?
~ FreeThinke
He sure does have a LONG way to go..
Z may have a point about funding all those "Studies."
Were Aristotle, Newton, Leuwenhoeck, Semmelweiss, Eli Whitney, Cyrus McCormack, Robert Fulton, Bessemer, Joseph. P. Lister, Marconi, Alexander Graham Bell, Edison, The Wright Brothers, or Alexander Fleming the recipients of any government grants?
Was Shakespeare? Was Locke? Was Rousseau? Was Saint Simon? Was Vatel? Was Beethoven? Was Dickens?
See what I mean?
~ FreeThinke
SF, did you see the clips of the morning news yesterday? Tom Brokaw, Ann Curry, and a bunch of liberal pundits literally smirking and giggling about how some think that the young Republicans were like children and should not have been included in these debt talks? OH, Bob Schieffer, too. It was perfectly astonishing. THIS is what the average American hears before the go to work.
Picture the media if it had been Republicans smirking about the young Democrats and insulting them.
Even leftists must see this has got to stop; how do supposedly 'honorable' newsmen like Brokaw and Schieffer even allow themselves to say these things? Are they SO on the agenda, are they paid, are ........WHAT?
Z, I think stuff like that has become boilerplate. It isn't news; it's only what we've come to expect. What you've catalogued is simply SOP in the media. Most of us conservative-libertarians have been fully aware of it for years. I, myself, saw it for what it was decades ago -- back in the Sick-sties.
It would be news only if the media suddenly stopped supporting The Regime.
I think we can take media bias and corruption for granted. Ca va sans dire, as the French would say.
Instead of wringing our hands and saying "Ain't it awful!" a thousand times a day with endless variation, we need to come up with constructive alternatives to merely fretting about the admittedly deplorable status quo.
I did give a few suggestions above. I had hoped others would soon follow suit with better suggestions than mine.
It's only hopeless, if we keep saying it is. Hopelessness then become self-fulfilling prophecy.
~ FreeThinke
Yawanna hear something else that'll make you unhappy?
45.8 MILLION in U.S.A. are on FOOD STAMPS
Here's the story:
http://money.cnn.com/2011/08/04/pf/food_stamps_record_high/index.htm?iid=HP_River
Now that's REALLY something to bitch about.
~ FreeThinke
What you say about doing it overnight is true, but, doing it down the road does not work at all. We have seen these promises before, then a new congress or a new President come and decide they are not going to do it.
Well, you're unlikely to make much progress in the next election. And to an extent it's your own fault.
Bachmann, Cain, Santorum, Palin, Rick "Massive State Deficit" Perry, Newt ... going nowhere because by and large they are insane. Who does that leave?
Why yes, Mitt Romney. Why is this extremely significant? Because few people have bothered to pay much attention to the Mormon system of authoritarian capitalism ... that is except for the Chinese and they have it down, believe it.
So you have Romney or The Wall Street Tool. You are owned.
Look around the world right now and the damn Syrians seem to be the only ones with any freaking balls.
Gosh, Ducky! If we are "owned," doesn't that mean that you are owned too? You do live here in the good ol' USA, don't you?
So, why point fingers as though you were outside or above it all? As I see it, we're all in the same boat -- and it's leaking badly.
Don't you think we'd do better to work together to try to plug the leaks than to argue about who is responsible for getting us into the damned tub in the first place?
~ FreeThinke
And, Ducky, why don't you enlighten us about "the Mormon system of authoritarian Capitalism?"
I couldn't be a Mormon, I'm sure, but from all the outward and visible signs they seem to be an astonishingly successful, prosperous, productive, clean living wholly benign group. The music program at Brigham Young University is very probably second only to that at King's College Chapel, Cambridge. The last time I checked, St. Olaf's was almost on a par. All three ar far superior to The Vienna Choir Boys -- at last as that esteemed group is today.
The fruits of Mormonism appear far superior to those of Marxism, although I'll grant you that splendid work was achieved at the Moscow Conservatory and elsewhere in Russia, even under Stalin's reign of Terror. (Classical music is about the only thing that gives me hope frankly. It seems to endure even under the worst conditions -- and it has spread to Communist China with a vengeance, despite Mao's injunction against it as "decadent" and "Bourgeois." (That shows what he knew, right?)
So explain please why you think there is something inherently wrong with the way Mormon's benefit from the Capitalist system?
~ FreeThinke
PS: I'm no fan of Mitt Romney. He's a liberal. - R
Freethinker, authoritarian capitalism is a system that provides a level of economic freedom with political oppression. It's similar to state capitalism but the economic power is more wisely distributed.
So if you like oppression you'll love Mormonism. Harry Reid do anything for you? He's not as bad as Orin Hatch, a real pile of human filth. Check his statements on the budget cuts recently although it may be just your style.
As far as being owned, I men being left out of the power structure. The effort to get the powerless together is monumental. The struggle is eternal.
Oh by the way Freethinker, Utah has higher unemployment and a lower per capita income than the liberal hell hole, Massachusetts.
I concur with what Z said:
How do we start manufacturing here again? to me, that's a big key in this. When I hear Obama say JOBS JOBS JOBS, I cringe because he's usually promoting more gov't jobs; we need corporations and smaller companies to stop being insulted for being successful and to get busy producing and hiring.
Any real recovery depends on an increased GDP -- not on the hiring of more government bureaucrats.
Simple AOW, let's go back to the idea of authoritative capitalism.
Right now lare American corporations are sitting on nearly two trillion dollars and they aren't going to invest it ad they aren't going to hire UNTIL THEY GET WHAT THEY WANT.
What is that? Here's a hint: It ain't environmental activism.
Did you catch the Black Bush today? The human crap bag was making his job pitch and started in on what a tough year it's been. "The terrible weather, unemployment and the Arab Spring affecting oil prices". He kind of let his priorities slip as Chucklenuts never did.
Meanwhile he's also pushing for a "free trade"(LMFAO) agreement with South Korea. That should create jobs -- in South Korea and it will get some of that 1.75 trillion moved off shore.
But damn, don't tax them, they won't create jobs. Right?
In ends when the fringe right wakes up.
The struggle is eternal.
It's gotten to the point where cutting without hurting is not possible, thanks to crazy liberals and some republican allies. You better start slashing now before someone else will cut for you and be really mean about it.
PART TONE
Thanks, Ducky. What you meant is a little clearer now.
Again, though, it may be a matter of semantics. What constitutes "oppression" in your view may be different from my understanding of the term.
After all, every one of us has to do many things he'd rather not have to bother with in order to stay alive and keep a place in society. If we don't we become bums or outlaws -- or both. Is that "oppression" or is it just reality?
There are untold millions of jobs I wouldn't want to do and millions more I'd be incapable of doing. The world would literally fall apart if the vast majority weren't performing tasks many of us educated, executive or artistic types were ill equipped to do.
I already told you one of my grandpas was a lowly janitor. I'm sure he didn't revel in broom pushing and swabbing out toilet bowls, but he did it uncomplainingly, because he realized it was a means to an end. He had a family to feed. I knew him only as an old man. My mother was the last of his eight children, but I'm sure he was reasonably content with his lot in life. I know he was proud that all of his children did a great deal better than he and grandma economically and socially. rather than letting himself be eaten up with resentment that he didn't have equal privileges with his bosses he worked with the opportunities he had, was a steady, reliable, agreeable man who may not have gone far, but was loved and respected by all who knew him. I think he was a great success, myself.
(CONTINUED)
PART TWO
He read the Bible every day, and I know he knew that Envy was one of the Seven Deadly Sins -- and definitely not worthy of respect at any level.
He lived to be ninety, and died peacefully in his sleep in his own home after a short bout with pneumonia with his surviving children around him. It really doesn't get much better than that.
The Anger-Driven Life has always struck me as a great waste of a splendid opportunity.
Here are two quotations from Shaw that strike me as appropriate to this discussion. They're not really meant to go together, but I think they complement one another very well just the same.
"All this struggling and striving to make the world better is a great mistake; not because it isn't a good thing to improve the world, if you know how to do it, but because striving and struggling is the worst way you could set about doing anything."
"This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you're thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy."
~ G. B. Shaw (1856-1950)
The second of the two is one of my particular favorites. And yes I know Shaw was a Fabian Socialist, in favor of Eugenics and very snobbish about those he regarded as intellectual inferiors. But it doesn't matter to me. I read somewhere that Franz Schubert did of tertiary syphilis at the age of 31, and that Wagner did not admire Jews, and that Frank Lloyd Wright was a callous, selfish, egotistical old bastard who treated his family very poorly. So what?
A person is so much more than a compendium of their flaws. I wouldn't care if Mozart had been a child rapist, and Beethoven a serial killer. That wouldn't take on iota away from the importance of the sublime genius that shines through every bit of their musical output.
And so it goes ...
I prefer to take a more sanguine view and to eschew the notion that life is tragedy filled with suffering that comes from injustice, etc. I can't see how anything could be gained from that Tragic View other than increasing amounts of misery and degradation.
~ FreeThinke
PS: I've always thought Orrin Hatch a bit of an old maid in pants, myself. He's prissy and namby pamby. Seems always a little too willing to consider the opposition's point of view at the expense of what-he-claims-to-be his own. I see him as the counterpart to Gentleman Joe Whatsisname -- the Orthodox Jewish senator from Connecticut with the wife named Hadassah -- both Gentleman Joe and Hatch are very soft-spoken, very reasonable, very kind and thoughtful, but in the end they never really DO anything. No follow-though, It's all TALK. ~ FT
Ruth Marcus was absolutely right.
The GOP "Tea Party" friggin' psychos were willing to have the US FRIGGIN' GOVERNMENT DEFAULT for their INSIPID IDEOLOGY.
No better than a thug with a gun carjacking a woman with children in the car. These people who did this are scumbags.
I just don't see how any of you could think it was a good idea. It was all wel and fine to bitch about it, it was shamelessly irresponsible to get that close to doing it.
JMJ
There are untold millions of jobs I wouldn't want to do and millions more I'd be incapable of doing. The world would literally fall apart if the vast majority weren't performing tasks many of us educated, executive or artistic types were ill equipped to do.
---------------
Yup, and there is no reason we should stand for an economic system so screwed up that these people don't have a decent diet, decent housing and basic medical care.
That is a socialists goal. It is of no concern to the Libertarian. It's the primary reason that I say a Libertarian can not be a Christian.
I know, I'll get the old charity argument. And charity is a good thing. It is not an entirely good thing when it is used to soothe one's conscience while you try to keep the disgusting Calvinist structure in place.
Good bless the child who's got his own.
As opposed to the friggin liberal psychos who would have us bankrupt for their INSIPID IDEOLOGY?
No better than a mugger with a gun lifting wallets and handbags.
I don't see how you can think spending money like it's burning a hole in your pocket is a good idea. It's shamelessly irresponsible.
So, how much do your grandkids owe now?
Cheers!
"MK said...
It's gotten to the point where cutting without hurting is not possible, thanks to crazy liberals and some republican allies"
The wisest of the very wise, MK; you're so right and I think of this problem often.....anybody who'll finally cut and help get this country on its legs again won't be elected. We've let the Left create a nanny state which America never thought would happen here...except the ALinsky/Cloward-Pivin planners.
>the Mormon system of authoritarian capitalism
>So if you like oppression you'll love Mormonism.
Just a word of precaution. Before you start spouting off about things related to Mormonism that you don't really know anything about, you should be aware that there are at least a couple of us here that are, let's just say, deeply familiar with the history, doctrine, and policies of the LDS Church, and will be more than able to tear apart the falsehoods with relaxed ease.
Anyway, wouldn't want you looking silly (or rather, sillier), so just a friendly heads up. And by the way, Orrin Hatch is pretty wishy-washy from the standpoint of statesmanship, and Harry Reid is what I call a MINO (Mormon In Name Only). Just in case you were planning on standing them up as straw men.
Sorry Finntann, the useless military and the miserable non progressive tax policy is what's killing us. I support neither.
This just in from the Netwits:
Why Marxists Are Made Not Born
A local United Way office realized that the organization had never received a donation from the town's most successful lawyer. The person in charge of contributions called him to persuade him to contribute.
"Our research shows that out of a yearly income of at least $500,000, you give not a penny to charity. Wouldn't you like to give back to the community in some way?"
The lawyer mulled this over for a moment and replied, "First, did your research also show that my mother is dying after a long illness, and has medical bills that are several times her annual income?"
Embarrassed, the United Way rep mumbled, "Um ... no."
The lawyer interrupts, "or that my brother, a disabled veteran, is blind and confined to a wheelchair?"
The stricken United Way rep began to stammer out an apology, but was interrupted again.
"or that my sister's husband died in a traffic accident," the lawyer's voice rising in indignation, "leaving her penniless with three children?!"
The humiliated United Way rep, completely beaten, said simply, "I had no idea..."
On a roll, the lawyer cut him off once again, "So if I don't give any money to them, why should I give any to you?"
Submitted by FreeThinke
"For every arrogant, selfish shit who struts the face of the earth ten thousand Marxists spring up in his wake."
~ Vendetta Sanguini
with children in the car
You mean the conservative people's children that didn't get aborted? What do YOU care about them, Snooki? They're you chief future source of income...
We held the country hostage.... and the DEMOCRATS pulled the trigger!!!!
Jerey" You wanna talk irresponsible? How about the off-the-rails socialists of all parties who racked up more debt than we can ever pay off? That's irresponsible.
Ducky: Socialism has killed more people than it has pulled out of poverty. Shared misery. Your comments on that horrible system are laughable.
The "Tea Party" held a gun to the Democrats heads and said, "cut spending"!
Despite THAT warning, the Democrats FAILED TO ACT, costing the US Treasury BILLIONS in additional costs through a downgraded credit rating.
Talk about irresponsible! DESPITE the Tea Party's insistance that they act, Democrats HELD FIRM and gave NO INDICATION to the markets that THEY could behave responsibly and action to address the Debt seriously.
I've only three words for you, Jersey...
"UNFIT TO GOVERN!"
Anyone BUT Obama in 2012.
Ducky, lets see, according to Obama dot
com the figures are as follows:
FY10: 530.8B
FY11: 549.1B
FY12: 553B
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/factsheet_department_defense/
According to the CBO, the federal deficit for 2010 was 1300B dollars.
So, according to your impeccable logic, eliminating the DoD... leaves us with a 747B shortfall.
Estimates for the cost of the Bush Tax Cuts over 10 years estimate from a low of 600B to a high of around 3B. Taking the median figure of 1.8T over ten years, allowing those to expire will bring in another 180B a year. So...
You are still short 567B
And once again... No DoD, 567B Annual Deficit...
HOW MUCH ARE YOU GOING TO RAISE TAXES?
Looking at tax revenue as a percentage of GDP. The US sits at roughly 26.9% and cannot support its entitlement load, and we have not even begun to talk about the debt.
Your Answer is raise taxes.
Lets look at the failing democratic-socialist states in Europe and what their tax rate is:
France: 46.1%
Ireland: 30.8%
Germany: 40.6%
Greece: 33.5%
Spain: 37.3%
Portugal: 37%
UK: 39%
You are not only spending money you don't have, you are spending money that doesn't exist. The numbers wouldn't work even if you went back to the pre-Kennedy 91% tax rate on the wealthiest.
So, how the hell do you think you can make it work here?
Must be "New Math"...I'd be ROFLMAO if it wasn't so sad.
I know I may get in trouble for saying this but I can't help laughing when I say, to this comment of Speedy's "The "Tea Party" held a gun to the Democrats heads and said, "cut spending"!"........
"Maybe they should have pulled the trigger instead!" :-)
I know, I'm under arrest. That's fine :-)
No Finntann, we also deduct the dough we are peeing away in Iraq and Afghanistan (and other places), repeal the Bush tax cuts and we should be at a level of growth where we can deal with the budget.
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