More and more, I am forming an opinion about the Bush administration - they don't give a good goddamn about the Republicans who will come after them. If I were a Republican Senator with hopes of maybe one day sitting behind that big desk in the Oval Office, I would be asking some really hard questions about what the current incumbent thinks he is doing.
The latest item of concern (or it should be) for Republicans as well as everyone else is the new budget. 150 domestic programs are being slashed in order to leave money for the Pentagon and for Social Security reforms that even the White House admits won't solve the problem and is storing up trillions in borrowing to keep the whole scam going after 2010 according to Dick Cheney.
The budget cuts include chopping:
farm programs by 2.9 percent and squeeze $45 billion in savings from the Medicaid health program for the poor while abolishing subsidies for the Amtrak rail system and cutting community development programs by 4.5 percent
Now if I was a red state politico that first one would be worrying the hell out of me.
Don't forget to add in the famous tax cut that is meant to run out in 2010 but is almost certain to be made permanent so that Bush's rich cronies can make hay while the sun shines. Plus, the piracy of the existing Social Security Trust Fund. That money has to be offset against the main budget deficit for Bush's figures to work. If it isn't then there will be a huge leap in the deficit in 2011 instead of a small surplus, as vividly graphed by the BBC online news.
The truth is that Bush and his cronies are robbing the nation blind to feather their own nests and the nests of their rich corporate backers, with nary a thought for what comes after. When Dubya retires to his ranch at the end of this term, Republicans are going to find themselves in such a huge hole that there will be no chance of re-election for them for a generation.
Don't believe me? It has happened before. Karl Rove is on record as saying the brain behind that great act of piracy has been his inspiration for the "ownership society" and the Bush Years, but since it happened beyond the shores of the US few pay attention. If I was a Republican on the Hill I would be reading about that time with avid interest lest my career disappear with Dubya in four years time.
Yes, I know this post is short on alternative suggestions, but that's a whole different issue I will cover another day - promise.
13 comments:
This is scary for those of us on the right.
1. Bush will pretty much have made the War on Terror a non-issue- by pretty much having won it, by 2008.
2. If you're even half-right about these economics then the left takes it, for sure, since foreign affairs won't offset economics.
But what makes me scared is
1. Dean is taking the dem chairmanship. just the fact that Mccauliffe is out means the efficiency will improve
2. The dems are following the money- and the money is coming from their fringe rather than their center
3. The dem fring is at least as wacky as the Republican fringe...
scary scary scary....
Hmmm...and just what have all the do-gooder domestic programs done for us as a nation?
Tell you what it's done, it's created an attitude that says, "I don't really have to work if I don't want to. someone will feed me, clothe me, house me, and entertain me. This is America!"
This kind of mentality gives President Bush the opportunity to say that there are jobs in this country that Americans won't take. I bet they would if they were hungry enough! Why should we left workers from South of the Border take them them if they're such horrible jobs?
Oh goodie...you think that the Red States are going to turn Blue? Doubt it...these are the people that probably best represent self reliance and personal responsibility!
See you on the high ground!
MajorDad1984
Really compelling argument there, Major Dad, except... wait a tick, not really.
I personally like how you talked about jobs Americans won't take. Here's your homework assignments. Find out how much minimum wage is, then go and find out where the lowest cost of living in the nation is. Once you've done those two things, you go ahead and calculate out and see if minimum wage will pay for someone to support themselves. Now, take that, and compare it to all the places in this country that have significantly higher costs of living, and tell me again that the problem is that people are just lazy.
Your assignment's due two weeks from today, MLA format, double spaced.
Mr. M
Left of Center
In every society there are people who, for whatever reason cannot work.
A society that cares about its citizens realises this and makes other opportunities for them.
Saying that people don't want to work when the jobs offered to them are ridulously low paid and demeaning or beyond their capacity,is finding easy solutions for hard problems.
The share holders are wanting bigger and bigger returns and the workers have to see that they get them.
I know of situations where a single mother is working 3 jobs to try and survive and cannot manage the rent on her apartment.
The children have to be placed in care because she is obliged to go to work to support them.
As a result the children are having no home care and get into trouble.How does this benifit the country?
Raise wages,allow unions to form demarcations, and have the government tell the robber barons that they should not expect such huge returns on investments.After all, the poor people do not get such huge returns for their investment of labour.
Stop privatising everything where profit becomes the only criterion for success.
For the truly capitalist society money is all.
America now has private jails and private armies, private catering for armies in regard to everything including weapons.
When a government stops supplying the basic necessities, health,transport, utilities,education, welfare, protection for its country,what else is there for it to do?
Oh yes, wage war.
shadows
I agree Shadow! From each what they can, to each what they need. And we will trust people... those who say they need more will get more, those who say they can't give more, because they can't be demeaned, for example, will be asked to give less.
Hark.
You sound just like my friend Chad before his accident.
A drunk driver put him in a wheelchair for life. He couldn't go back to work in the factory because the machines could not be adapted to accommodate his "disability" as specified by ADA. He didn't have any other skills at that time. With the help of a government funded job training program he is now a CPA. He is paying more taxes now than he ever would have as a non-union hourly worker.
No. We can't trust people to want to work.
However for people who do, and are limited, shouldn't the government invest in them and reap the rewards? There are over 10,000 wounded vets from Iraq who are probably contemplating the same question.
Another example from my experience is the need for child care subsidies. I once knew a family who went through a divorce. Mom had graduated High School, got married, had kids, and worked cleaning houses because Dad was the primary bread winner. When they split Mom got the three kids because some judges still believe women are better at raising children. These are the same judges that still believe child support checks come on time every month. Needless to say the situation quickly became one of desperation for the Mom and kids. (People can not be trusted.) Mom got another job so she was working about 48 hours a week barely above minimum wage. She wanted to take classes at night to get a better paying job. However there is no child care program available in the evening. Not even at the local community college. Her friends and relatives were already helping out every day to keep the kids while she was at work. She was pretty much trapped. She could hire a babysitter if she had the money, but she didn't.
I don't think these stories represent everyone, just as I don't think your oversimplifications represent everyone.
So why don't we agree that there are people who need help.
I think the government benefits from helping them. (think GI bill after WWII) Therefore it behooves the government to do so.
GWB thinks churches can be trusted to help out the poor and downtrodden.
There are so many problems with that I won't even start.
Kirkrrt
I don't think people are lazy, I think they are depressed.When I was in North America I was amazed to see how unhappy the people are.
People serving in Walwart are so anxious about their jobs that they cannot even have a joke with you.
It disheartened me terribly to see how seriously everyone takes life.In Australia the ordinary people have a totally different attitude to life.
No matter what shop you go into you can have a joke and a laugh with the shop assistants.
Part of this problem is the appalling low wages, where people in ordinary jobs are being paid minimum wages.
Minimum wages being $1 per hour I don't know how they live.OTOH there is no minimum wage in Canada.
Utilities and gas were always cheap in north America.I remember my daughter in Canada paying less to heat a 3 storey home than it cost me to cool a tiny little house.
Now that private utility companies have upped the prices by double and even triple, minimum wage earners cannot afford these hikes.
The greenback has also taken a hiding since the war in Iraq.
The euro on the other hand has gained immensely.
People no longer want to do business in greenbacks, they want to do it in euros.Look at China.
With Bush intent on wiping out "terror" wherever he deems it exists in the world, Americans had better tighten their belts, because the money has to come from somewhere, and Bush said at his election in 2004 that it would come from social security.
Europeans have a better future to look forward to, wealth and better conditions brought about by contributing to a united Europe.
I am not alone in thinking that Americans have a different perspective now than they had after the second world war.
Friends who have returned from America all say the same thing.There is a lot of depression in America.
Can you wonder at it, when minimum wage earners who work 50 and more hours a week to exist, see others making lots of money, paying less tax and achieving something.
On minimum wage there is no where to go.If you are lucky you can stay where you are.
I notice also that house and apartment rentals have skyrocketed in price.There is no protection for renters and the biggest proportion is renters.
Unlike in Australia where the biggest proportion is home owners.
You cannot expect people to be happy when their work consumes their entire lives.
Unhappiness leads to illness.Illness leads to more poverty.
What is wrong with some people being unable to work?
A society is judged by how it treats its elderly and its poor.
How are they treated in America?
shadows
Shadows,
Interesting observations on you visit to North America. It is good to look through others eyes occasionally.
A couple of small observations on your post.
For the most part you are correct and most of your statements are generally true.
The minimum wage in the US is currently $5.15 an hour. At best, a person working for that amount earns about 1/3 of the average cost of living in a metropolitan area.
Very few jobs pay only minimum wage.
However more than half of the jobs in America pay less than $9.00 an hour.
I don't believe work consumes our entire lives.
I do believe that worrying about money consumes a lot of the lives of a lot of people.
Kirkrrt
Shadow,
just fyi
-the overall U.S. homeownership rate in the second quarter of 2004 was at an all time high of 69.2 percent-
-Seven out of every 10 of Australia's 7 million households were living in homes they either owned outright or were paying off in 1997-98, according to figures on housing occupancy and costs released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS)-
I don't know what made u think we have more renters than owners here...
as for the fact that Australians are happier than Americans... hell you guys are happier than everybody!
Where'd Major Dad go?
See, that's why I like you Harky, you'll stay and fight. You may be wrong all the time (just kiddin'... sort of), but you stick to your guns.
Mr. M
OK, so i was wrong.I can't be expected to be perfect in everything I do.
So I'm going down with my ship.
The rest of what I wrote is true, that is how Australians find Americans and Canadians these days.The other thing is the lack of ability to laugh at themselves, which is getting better I will admit but geez why do you people take yourselves so seriously?
seriously,
shadows
u think Americans take themselves so seriously because u hang out with American liberals... we conservatives say the same exact thing about our liberal peers... I don't know why they are like that.
personally, i laugh at myself all the time... but then again I am unusually funny looking.
I laugh at you too.
You're OK.
Americans are developing a sense of irony these days which is good.
After all with an alien in the whitehouse you would need to be ironic.
No I don't hang out with American liberals.....oh you mean lefties?
I can never get the hang of that liberal thingy.
No I don't hang out with anyone much, left or right.I am so far left that normal lefties look like right-wing to me.
After all look what the Labour Party has done to England with Blair.
shadows
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