Mr. Obama goes to Washington
By Randall Rasmussen
President Barack Obama held his first Cabinet meeting Monday.
Fresh from his trip to the Summit of the Americas, where he apologized for the United States being the terrible country that Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega claim it is, Obama told Cabinet officials to trim $100 million from the budget and report back to him with recommended cuts in 90 days.
The $100 million in cuts represents 0.00278 percent of the president’s own $3.6 trillion budget plan.
Republicans pointed out that interest alone on the just-passed stimulus plan amounts to $100 million a day. Which means that by the time the Cabinet comes up with $100 million in budget cuts, $9 billion in interest on the stimulus will have been spent.
Obama said, “None of these things alone are going to make a difference, but cumulatively, they would make an extraordinary difference because they start setting a tone.”
“Setting a tone” is what it’s all about. Nothing less, and certainly nothing more.
April 20th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
Change we can believe in - small change.
April 20th, 2009 at 5:09 pm
Why wasn’t the budget a big deal when Bush turned a surplus into a record deficit so that he could give tax breaks to millionaires and corporations? Where were the tea parties when that happened? What about when Bush doubled in 8 years a debt that took over 200 years to accumulate? What about when he (Bush) and his congress changed the law governing the debt ceiling so that it was higher and his budget could fit under it, several times (to the tune of 3 trillion)? If this is not about partisan politics, than why it it just now becoming such an issue after 8 years of total irresponsibility?
Never fear, Randy. The Democrats were able to turn the Reagan/Bush Senior budget nightmare back into a surplus, and they can do it again. The hole just happens to be a little deeper this time. I can’t help but notice, every time I look at a graph involving government budgets/debt, the irrefutable correlation between Republican-controlled government and massive, massive debt. Maybe that should be the topic of discussion here, rather than a $100 million budget cut which really amounts to nothing.
While we’re at it, let’s talk about the continued support of failed economic theory born from the desire for rich people to pay less taxes. Let’s talk about a propaganda machine with so much influence and money that it convinced middle America to support policies destructive to their own best interests (tax cuts for the rich) under the premise that it would all somehow “trickle down” to them someday. Let’s talk about the working class supporting legislation which shifts the tax burden onto themselves and away from the wealthy, because they’ve been fooled. Let’s talk about how we got here so that we can learn to never return. We gave huge tax cuts to the wealthy 8 years ago. Where’s the trickle-down?
http://zfacts.com/p/318.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/411973.stm
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/faq.html
http://www.marktaw.com/culture_and_media/TheNationalDebt.html
April 20th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
What’s the interest on the debt rolled up during the Reagan-Bush-Bush administrations? Let’s also list the interest costs on Bush 43’s needless Iraq war.
The debt that Obama is having to roll up is to get us out of the Bush 43-Republican created deprerssion and to fight the real terrorists that Bush 43 let expand in Afghanistan and Pakistan, so really that should be charged to Bush 43 as well.
April 20th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
Very well said BBI.
Randy obviously got his talking points from FOX news and the Village Idiot (Rush). Leave it to the right wing extremist to be critical of Obama for making budget cuts. Not once do I recall President Cheney and Puppet Bush make any attempt to stop or slow government spending. True Conservatives would be applauding President Obama’s budget cuts.
If you think Obama is cutting the budget, I’d advise you to steer clear of the Kool-Aid. — R.R.
April 20th, 2009 at 5:57 pm
“The $100 million in cuts represents 0.00278 percent of the president’s own $3.6 trillion budget plan.”
Laughable. An insult, really.
But BBI is also right. Obama may be Bush in…, uh, drag?
April 20th, 2009 at 6:25 pm
This is simply a ploy to make people think he is truly cutting anything and to try to appease the protestors at the tea parties. But we protestors are a whole lot smarter than that, O Mighty O. Cutting 0.00278% of a 3.6 trillion is a joke. Newsflash, Obama, Pelosi, and Reid. The people protesting the reckless gov’t spending can see through this slap in the face and aren’t going anywhere. In fact, such a laughable gesture makes us all the more determined.
April 20th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
Randy,
I don’t drink Kool-Aid, I’ll save that to toast the future Republican loses if they continue these vain and infintile attacks on President Obama.
April 20th, 2009 at 7:15 pm
BBI is absolutly right. We need to keep an eye on those greedy rich people and make sure they pay their tax’s.
Tom Dashael and Tim Geitner would be a great place to start.
April 20th, 2009 at 7:46 pm
Bush and the Republicans opened the door to the outrageous spending and deficits. (This was recognized at many of the Tea Parties, despite attempts by Olbermann and his bosses at government-supported GE to convince a gullible populace otherwise.)
Bawney Fwank, Chris Dodd and Obama’s zillionaire Fannie and Freddie alumni pals pushed that door even farther with sweetheart deals and colossal conflicts of interest.
And Obama slammed it shut behind generations to come, committing us to more spending and debt that all of his predecessors combined.
Plenty of blame to go around, and not enough solutions from anyone to fix it.
P.S. The Dems and liberals downplayed the earmarks controversy by saying they are only a fraction of the budget. But their fearless leader is making a big deal of an even more minute amount in “cuts.” Go figure.
April 20th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
Any defense of Obama’s actions that invokes Bush simply exposes the lack of an actual argument on the part of the commenter.
This Pelosi/Obama/Reid budget is solely the responsibility of Pelosi, Reid, and Obama. It is neither justified by nor indicted by any budgets which preceded it.
In any event, many of us who oppose this budget have felt government growth has been absurd since Reagan.
And please, neither party was responsible for the last budget surplus. That was simply the result of the Internet bubble.
Long ago we voted ourselves the key to the federal treasury. Politicians use our money to buy our votes. It’s wrong. It was wrong 20 years ago and it’s wrong now.
April 20th, 2009 at 9:15 pm
BBI apparently believes the American people are nothing more than a herd of 300 million sheep. Or maybe he’s blaming only Republicans for the national debt, so make that 150 million sheep.
April 20th, 2009 at 9:25 pm
Why should it take 90 days to make 100 million dollar decision, when Congress can make a few trillion dollar decisions in a couple of days, and they don’t even need to read anything?
April 20th, 2009 at 9:46 pm
Of course, Congressional Republicans needed to increase their operating budgets this year. Even though there are less of them. In an economy that stinks they created.
So, if the Cabinet cutting operating budgets $100 million is this awful, do you care to pass judgment on Congressional Republicans?
April 20th, 2009 at 10:44 pm
The Bush haters give him far too much credit for destroying the world economy. It’s sort of like the Mayor of Rapid City being blamed for the loss of local jobs caused by a national or worldwide recession. Can you imagine a small town Mayor in a small western state having enough power to throw millions out of work, cause the fluctuation of currencies and the falling of world markets?
If anyone looking is for blame, try indicting OPEC which agreed to run the cost of oil from $12.00 a barrel to over $130.00 a barrel. You might add the “environmentalists” to the blame list for using critters like the Spotted Owl to drive the price of T-111 exterior plywood sheeting from a price of around $6.00 to $36.00 to $48.00 per sheet, like that which I just bought.
And don’t leave out the use of the EPA which has restricted access to even the most simple of chemicals from anyone without prohibitive licensing, disposal methods, equipment, etc, ad infinitum.
What the world is facing, is not some currency fluctuation or market corrections as much as the politics of the socialist left, which gives the problem, then offers the solution. The solution is always political power, like that which some bloggers use for propaganda advantage.
Did I leave out “global warming” or the carbon credit scam? If I did, it is on purpose because I didn’t want to bring up that the Polar ice caps are increasing, not decreasing.
Art: I didn’t know the polar ice caps were increasing. Seriously? K.W.
April 21st, 2009 at 6:54 am
Everyone always rants about the surplus Clinton created and Bush squandered which is disengenous, there was no surplus because government accounting does not take in the liabilities of social security and medicare. Congress has been raiding that piggy bank with their ear marks for years and they are not adding that debt in with their current projections now!
You all need to quit spouting the democrat party talking points and start paying attention to what is really taking place by our elected leaders, they’ve set the ship on fire, we’re thousands of miles from shore, and we have no life boats.
When you destroy the producers and taxpayers in this country with punitive taxes, to give to those who don’t produce anything, you lose the incentive that made this country great and as my momma always told me “you can’t get blood from a turnip”.
April 21st, 2009 at 9:12 am
Sez here Antarctic ice is growing: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Global-Warming/Antarctic-ice-growing-not-shrinking-/articleshow/4418558.cms So, another win for Obama.
April 21st, 2009 at 10:00 am
Art, you forgot Santa, the Easter Bunny and the tooth fairy. Oh yeah, and dinosaurs are a hoax that God is playing on us because he likes to watch us dig in the dirt so much.
Nothing is ever America’s fault is it? It’s not the Bush administration’s fault… they are the victims! That’s right, the whole world conspired against him, just to make us look bad! I guess it’s worth starvation and war for the rest of the world as long as they can make us look like fools, right?
Yep, keep doing things the way you’ve always done. The world isn’t changing. Time isn’t passing. The population of the Earth hasn’t grown EXPONENTIALLY in the last 20 years. It’s all just a liberal conspiracy designed to sell cloth diapers and solar panels and piss you off.
April 21st, 2009 at 10:08 am
The left keeps crowing about the Clinton surplus which he inherited from Ronald Regan’s policy which saved the country from the damage done by President Carter. Given another term, you can bet your bippy, that the liberal Democrats would have attacked and ruined our economic base every bit as well as Obama.
I suspect that Southern Democrats still hate people of color enough to have Obama take the fall and they would risk the country to establish long term mistrust and increase their hate base. That’s change I can believe is possible.
A supporting thought is the way the liberals are attacking our agricultural base. Without large exports of foods and grains from America, you can expect huge starvation in third world countries, especially those in Africa.
Should you Google search “Cecil Rhoades” who started De Beers control of the world’s diamonds from Africa, you will find his racist attitude and his major plan to return America to the British Empire as he considered Americans to be miscreants and criminals who stole America from part of “his” empire.
You might even find the link between Arkansas diamonds, the Rockefellers and a boy from Hope, Arkansas who was positioned to be president. Link that up to the present Democrat head who wishes to turn the wealth of America into the property of the international community and the IMF, and you have a plausible explanation of what’s happening right now.
April 21st, 2009 at 11:19 am
I suppose the Bush administration was totally honest in reporting “social security debt” and making sure all war expenses were always in the budgets.
Two of the recent posts include some of the most misled or misleading factoids I have ever seen in a forum or blog. There is apparently a steady deluge of propaganda aimed at turning Republican weakness into “strength” and Democratic strength into “weakness”. It is manifested in the continuing attacks on FDR, Carter, and Bill Clinton combined with adoration of Reagan and total misrepresentation of Bush, Reagan “accomplishments”.
April 21st, 2009 at 2:55 pm
Wow Art! Spoken like a true conspiracy theorist! You sure can connect those dots to make the picture you want to see! What talent! I’m all for the ’six degrees of separation’ game for a laugh, but it gets a little old after a while.
April 21st, 2009 at 3:16 pm
You know Aaron Sanders, our family actually used cloth diapers with our children (they’re in their 20’s), because we couldn’t afford pampers, try telling that to the welfare folks who feel they are entitled to using disposable diapers, even when they’re not working!
Personally, I am pretty tired of the selective judgements on this blog about our elected leaders, not having ever fully supported Bush in everything that he did, I can still be objective enough to give him credit for keeping us safe and for 6 years our economy was doing tremondously well! While the world may not have “liked” us, for the most part they knew that they should leave us alone. The fool we have in office now is so busy bending over kissing feet, he won’t see the assault when it happens, but he’ll own that one, especially considering the state secrets that he’s “wrestling” with releasing.
John: Obama isn’t a fool, or worse, as conservative like to call him. Bush wasn’t an idiot, or worse, as liberals liked to call him. I agree with you that Bush was often unfairly characterized by his opponents, who showed a consistent level of mean-spirited exaggerations that only harmed the dialogue in this country. Now those who cried foul on Bush’s behalf before are launching the same type of slanted mean-spirited assaults against Obama, with the same potential for impact over time. I wish we all could argue the points of policy and differing philosophy, and give up the name-calling and exaggerations. K.W.
April 21st, 2009 at 7:34 pm
Thanks KW. It’s hard to read some of the comments here sometimes. It’s like “your opinion is one of an idiot and mine is the only true reality.” Like I’ve always said, we’re ALL entitled to our opinion, but now I’ll add that we are not idiots for having an opinion that disagrees with someone else another. The slamming gets old after a while.
Someday we’ll get tired of playing I have a bigger stick than you. Hopefully it won’t be too late.
Having said that, I’ve just got to say: Art, you have such a vivid imagination! It’s a wonder you can sleep at night! You just crack me up!
April 21st, 2009 at 8:15 pm
K.W.
Your response to John Adams about discussing points of policy and differing philosophy is appreciated and I hope noted by others. I am as guilty as others on this blog and will do my best to correct my rhetoric.
It is so easy to react rather than act when there is a relentless unprincipaled attack on President Obama and you know the source of the hatred directed at him.
There was a time when I enjoyed good political discourse with my friends that were both Republicans and Democrats. What politics has degenereated to these days is disgusting and often times childish!
Thank you.
April 21st, 2009 at 9:22 pm
To Aaron Sanders, 10:00 am post:
In your third paragraph you screamed about the earth’s population growing “EXPONENTIALLY”. You sound like you might belong to the old ZPG (Zero Population Growth) gang which was prominent in the late 60s.
The movement was started by Paul Ehrlich who wrote “The Population Bomb” and who was totally dismissed by the general population which didn’t really have the stomach to eliminate themselves.
In all your name calling rants, the only time you have really gotten excited enough to scream, was about too many people. I think the anti-agriculture, anti-energy, anti-western culture which exports so much food, is going to kill off a lot more people of color than whites. I became aware of this several years ago when the young Native American took the microphone at Ron Schmidt’s political rally at Wilson Park, in Rapid City.
He said: “The average person of color gives birth to 3.6 children per couple. The average white couple gives birth to 1.4 children per couple. What that means to you, is that you will soon be facing a new political reality.” (unquote)
This was an exact quote which I remembered well, because the media reporters at the event never even bothered to raise a pen or pencil.
If you count AIDs infection rate of around 30% to 40% in Africa and similar in some other third world countries, AIDs alone is going going to kill off hundreds of millions within ten years, without the starvation expected if America stops grain exports.
If you are really worried about this gross overpopulation, you might want to add yourself to the count. Try living in the State of Oregon, where euthanasia was voted in as legal. By the way. ZPG crowd was very popular there at the start in 1968 to 1972 or so. They seemed to have never gone away, but only changed their tactics. If you need directions, Innerstate-90 comes out of the Columbia Gorge into Portland, if my memory for directions is accurate.
Before you leave, Google up “zero population growth movement”. Bye.
April 22nd, 2009 at 8:48 am
The irony is pretty thick when for 8 years, Bush was called every name in the book and vitriolic hatred poured out of liberals mouths in a relentless stream! I don’t hate Obama, but I do not agree with what he’s doing to our country, and playing “nice” only appears to apply to people with opposing views of this administration.
Take the tea party coverage, or should I say lack thereof, it’s pretty funny how most of MSM wouldn’t cover it, but they now have opinions of it. Everything from, “racist, teabagging, uninformed mobs, etc…. We can have a polite discourse, when the opposite side starts developing “tolerance” and respect for our first amendment rights!
JOhn: I saw quite a bit of coverage of the tea party, local and national. K.W.
April 22nd, 2009 at 11:16 am
K.W. Any coverage of the tea parties by the MSM was to demean, diss, ricidule, downplay, make it seem like the protestors were out of the mainstream. I heard nothing good from the MSM regarding tea parties. The NY Times buried it somewhere in the paper but put a protest of some other country on the front page. Fox covered them well, mostly because they knew what the rest of the MSM would portray them as, not because they were sponsoring the tea parties.
These protestors are common, working, taxpaying citizens concerned about the reckless fiscal spending, resultant high taxes coming, and ever encroaching powers of the fed gov’t. And I think all would be well advised to look at these things, regardless of what you think about the tea parties.
Striker: Have any examples of that demeaning coverage at the national level? Which stations, reporters, papers other than the Times? And how about all the local newspapers and stations across the country who covered it, as the Journal did? K.W.
April 22nd, 2009 at 5:34 pm
KW, I saw a Youtube that showed a nasty lady reporter from Chicago, I believe. I can see if I can find it if you’d like to see it. Oh, by the way she was working for CNN. Interviewing a man holding a small child at one of the Tea parties.
April 22nd, 2009 at 6:46 pm
Aldo: Read the entire article you link to, and the speculation is that the mass of all the Ice in the Antarctic is not shrinking. I wish there were better links to the actual research. I have read articles that say we don’t really know much about some of the Major ice on the southernmost continent. I hope this report is right, but fear there is plenty of evidence that it is not.
Perhaps it would be good to hear what you think the US government ought to be doing instead of working on curtailing greenhouse gas emissions? What response will serve our children and grandchildren best? The climate is certainly changing, what long term plans should we examine for feasibility?
Please don’t misunderstand my intention. In all the discussions on global warming in the past on Blogmore, the only thing I can recall hearing from the contras is no. I think I haven’t listened well, and would appreciate the constructive side of your argument. ( I already know how you feel about Al Gore, and the contra science isn’t all that compelling to a science major. Can we stick to policy, please?)
April 22nd, 2009 at 6:55 pm
One thing I must say about the ‘tea parties’ is that they lacked any clear goals other than ‘No’. Many of us don’t like business as usual, and I have to say I was irritated with the move that started this thread. On the other hand, Is it better to be taxed or live through a depression? My folks talked at great length about how hard the Thirties were, but I never recall them talking about how hard it was to pay high taxes in the Fifties.
Is the choice between government spending and higher taxes and a lingering world depression the only choice we have? If you think WWII was all that stopped the last Depression, how did it get the job done? What should we do now?
I know you are angry and feel helpless and like we ought to take our government back and do something, but what if we take our government back and then do the wrong thing? Might be a good idea to talk this out a little before we act. Might even be a better idea if we have a plan. Anyone got a plan?
My plan: Give us back our money. Let families decide how to spend it. Cut the federal government across the board by a modest 30 percent. Government gets out of our way. — R.R.
April 22nd, 2009 at 8:10 pm
KW: Here are two examples on one website of Racheal Maddow (MSNBC) with 13 minutes of sexual puns about Republicans and tea parties. Of course one could argue that MSNBC is not mainstream, but they are known as the Obama channel. If you need any more examples, I can keep them coming.
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/04/11/video-msnbc-devotes-13-minutes-to-teabagging-puns/
April 22nd, 2009 at 10:56 pm
Kick your shoes off and boogie!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSpjqo8ufOM
April 23rd, 2009 at 5:18 am
RR, when you say”across the board” I assume you include Defense? Veterans Benefits? Homeland Security? Food Safety? Patent Office? Immigration and Naturalization? Indian Health Services?
Or were you being facetious? Is it really giving money back to families if the services provided by that money still are needed and have to be paid for?
The short ‘plan’ is too short. It only contains tax cuts and Deregulation. A plan has enough detail that a sensible person can see it’s chance of success.
How about starting with something like” We can hold the line on present tax rates by cost savings in the Federal Government. We can stop paying Banks to make gauranteed loans such as student Loans and FHA home loans. We can cut the funds out of the Budget that were paying for Illegal wiretaps and we can Eliminate duplicated functions in parallel agencies. ”
That would be the barest start of a plan and would differentiate a plan from the undisguised yearnings of pure id.
How did the country survive its first 200 years with a drastically smaller government? — R.R.
April 23rd, 2009 at 7:07 am
I’d be interested to know how the government is in Randy’s way. i.e. if the government were 30% smaller, how would his life be any different.
A smaller government can’t get into as much mischief. The current recession would not have lasted this long or be as severe without government interference in the financial markets that triggered the recession and now prolongs it. How would my life change? My 401(k) would not have lost half its value in the past six months. — R.R.
April 23rd, 2009 at 10:27 am
KW, I gave you a link to an MSNBC reporter named Schuster that was downright filthy referring to the tea parties. The post is gone. Did you check it out, or find it too filthy to be on this blog?
Striker: I don’t remember the link. Try it again? But please don’t judge the rest of the news corps by MSNBC. Compared to them, FOX really is fair and balanced. K.W.
April 23rd, 2009 at 11:34 am
TOG,
Thanks for the snide note - Yes I read the whole article. Saw what you saw.
I threw it up there in response to KW’s question.
I don’t know that we are changing the climate, or that the climate’s changing. The jury’s still out in my view.
How do I feel about AL Gore? Tell me. I’d be curious to know that.
I’m sure you haven’t listened well but I have no desire to complete your survey.
Ciao.
April 23rd, 2009 at 11:51 am
I like the RR plan. It’s radical, jarring. 30% cuts across the board might expose the necessary from the merely desirable.
That might lead us to start asking hard questions about how our money is spent.
Questions like –
Should the federal government build runways for small South Dakota communities?
Should the federal government build bike paths for South Dakota communities?
Should federal dollars be spent for a Canyon Lake revitalization study?
Should there be means testing for Social Security?
Should we expand our military presence in Afghanistan?
Should we spend money jailing those who use or distribute recreational drugs to adults?
How much money is paid in federal taxes but winds up back in local programs? Why scrub such money through the federal government?
At a time of historic deficits how dare the administration refuse payback of TARP funds from banks? Those are our dollars.
The problem I see with the federal budget is that it’s completely divorced from its revenue source - us, the taxpayers. We’ve learned to talk about federal dollars as though they come from some magical source. It’s our money and politicians use it to buy our votes. The 30% cut Randy suggests would force us to make choices based on need rather than just choose everything.
April 23rd, 2009 at 12:43 pm
The whole idea of the tea party was dumb. Thousands of bags of tea dumped into boxes to be sent to Congress. Think about it. What a waste of sunlight used to grow the tea and the waste in potential grandeur as the plant supplies its nutrients to those who would consume it. Talk about wasted spending!
The conservatives, who by the way thought up the tea party idea, should be saving money and conserving resources by starting with themselves.
“I don’t want to pay taxes…WAA-WAA-WAA..” Well, who is going to pay more of them if the middle and lower class is tapped out? We went for years with the country in neglect as more and more money was sunk into foreign affairs. Now the bill for that neglect is due here. Years of free riding while the maintenance costs of a country were pushed into the future or put on the back burner. Investments in new technology were stalled (energy independence) or prevented (stem-cell research) and the military industrial complex was basically handed a blank check.
At the same time, every angle the financial industry could come up with in order to extract the last dime from a consumer, was allowed in the name of deregulation. The credit card companies are the latest to be standing in line for their spanking in the Oval Office. How many types of financial chaos can this economy possibly stand?
People who support the tea party have in essence removed themselves as active participants in the straightening out and rebirth of America. They want to be in their little segmented corner where their responsibility to earn and keep supersedes their responsibility to share in the grief. Those people should go back and listen to President Nixon’s message when he said, “We all should be a little less piggy.”
April 23rd, 2009 at 1:33 pm
Robert, yeah, but it was stimulus spending for Lipton.
April 23rd, 2009 at 7:35 pm
Aldo: I humbly apologize for any impression that my remark was meant to be snide. Your post was in reply to a request for information concluding the polar ice is growing. The link you posted does not say that. No snide.
Likewise, I really do want to hear real solutions and discussion of the options we have in front of us. If you want to believe the climate is not changing outside historic norms, then we don’t have anything to talk about. If you don’t believe it because you have better science at your disposal, then we have a basis for conversation because we need the best science to make good decisions, including decisions not to do things that don’t need to be done. If your disbelief is based on the politics of people who are convinced of the reality of Anthropomorphic Global Warming and think we need to act, then we need to know how the politics diverges from the science there as well.
I’m really not trying to be snide or just argue. I have become convinced that we need less heat and more light in our national dialogue.
Your budget based questions are all fair. We need to talk about all of them. Many of the questions you ask seem to revolve around the Federal Government acting as the financier of projects that communities couldn’t afford otherwise. That can make sense if the project will either enhance revenue in the community by bringing in higher paying jobs, innovation and ultimately business. The DUSEL looks like it might fit those criteria, and maybe the runway for Spearfish Airport might be peripheral to those goals. It certainly s arguable, and it might be that the airport expansion has more to do with Mr. Propps’ projects that the Dusel.
Projects like bike paths need a good long discussion, and if it were three years ago, I would give a thumbs down. The difference now is that they provide work instead of handouts to workers in the hardest hit sector of the economy, Construction. Still, it is a good idea to talk about when we stop with the make work projects. They probably shouldn’t be the normal course of business.
Means testing for Social Security? Maybe not. It seems a contract with workers, no matter how rich they get later. I would like to see some sort of ‘means test’ for Medicare. If I can buy my own insurance, then I should do so, not bill my neighbor for expenses that can easily outstrip the most optimistic projections of my retirement benefits.
We need to talk about everything you brought up, and probably in more depth.
April 23rd, 2009 at 7:51 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8i-OWDjOQfI
Here’s the link again, K.W.
April 24th, 2009 at 8:49 am
TOG and Aldo. Good contribution to the climate discussion here:
http://dakotaday.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=60:fighting-climate-change-are-humans-hard-wired-to-fail&catid=2:the-edge-catigory-1
Anton, you can read it too, if you can get your head out of the gutter with that tea party thing.
April 25th, 2009 at 6:45 am
RR: which period between 1776 and 1976 would you like to return to? Different times call for different governments and culture. I am all for reigning in excess. I am also all for longer lifespans, greater opportunities for education and more real wealth, which are all results of the expansion of government post 1976.
As I recall, 401k’s didn’t exist pre 1976.
TOG: I’m for better trout fishing and homemade cinnamon rolls as big as your head for 50 cents. K.W.
April 25th, 2009 at 9:58 am
KW: Now there’s a platform that will for sure get Mr. Nelson Elected! He could count on my vote!
April 26th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
TOG,
The benefits you cite happened in spite of government, not because of government.
April 27th, 2009 at 2:27 am
BF: My head in the gutter? At least I wasn’t censored.
Nothing new in the logic of the link you provided. At least I no longer have to pay to read his opinions in the RCJ.
Based on the environmental polling data, it seems we have stopped a lot of people from following the “science” lemmings over the cliff. TOG and Aldo are right, there are still a lot of issues to discuss, despite those who want us to jump first and ask all the questions later.
Further, our reluctance to swallow scientific pablum doesn’t mean we don’t care, don’t study the issue, or are too dumb to understand, as suggested by your author. It just means we have a higher standard of proof, especially when it means turning the American lifestyle into a world of bicycles, backpacks, windmills, solar huts, battery buses, and super trains to Las Vegas.