we have met the enemy
a fiscally conservative (coincidentally republican, though you know that's not always a 100% correlation these days) friend of mine, whose common sense i respect a great deal, is frequently observing to me how bureaucracies always act to sustain and enrich (expand) themselves. create a turnpike authority to finance construction of a roadway, and even write into the charter the intent to disband once final payment is complete? sorry, but wake up to find "massDOT" bigger and (not) better than ever, and choke on the irony that it was a republican pol, bill weld, and not a "big government" democrat at all, who handed the "big dig" assets over to the turnpike authority and guaranteed that it could not be retired.
we have a problem in this country with a government that has expanded to not just cause, but BECOME our national insolvency. party political racketeers have been spinning stories to pin all the blame on the "other guys" for years, but it's getting so rich and so deep these days that it's impossible not to picture ourselves nero as our rome (the entire world) burns.
one out of six is a proportion i've read, but whatever the number actually IN government, the truth is far more pernicious, as the rest of us OUT of government become personally attached to our own pet entitlements. (spare me that government sponsored health-insurance is not an entitlement, no matter how long you worked or how much you paid into the system). the crowning irony this morning is reading the local republican point of view, (here at right side of lowell), that free benefits to vets and oldsters to audit state university classes at UML are a travesty to be cut back by shifting more and more of the curriculum to "online" (i.e. not free) status.
how are we ever going to vote to cut off the oxygen to this behemoth who is literally smothering each and every one of us, if all of us insist that the fat off the particular portions of pork being doled out onto our own personal plates should not be trimmed for the good of the whole? this one likes free tuition. that one likes comprehensive cadillac-style healthcare coverage throughout retirement. everyone with a house likes home mortgage tax deductions. and nobody with any income at all cares to be fingered for paying for any of it.
we have a problem today, and it's our collective addiction to government bloat. democrats don't even bother to hide their enthusiasm that government continue to increase in size, until everyone is receiving all the government-sponsored handouts they can rationalize they may or may not need. (i marvel that democrat tv's never seem to be able to tune in the news from greece, where the country spends a similar portion of their GDP to ours on social safety nets and other citizen entitlements, and the whole thing has gone to shit because they, unlike us, haven't been able to print funny money to cover their asses, but, hey, maybe we need an FCC program to give everyone new broadband internet-enabled tv's so there's equal access to information...)
but our real problem is that republicans are fully engaged with the game, only bullshitting us about it so that we don't notice that the original source of our present insolvency, and the authorship to all the current administration polices, and most certainly not the solution to our malaise, is on them. the reason i say the "real problem" (many republicans in the audience will want to say "hey, but the other guys are worse") is that it's the pepsi to the coke that chokes the soda aisle with nutritionally void overpriced sugar water, not the existence alone of coke.
we need to cut government. actually, i should say, we need to SLASH government. we need to throw everyone, and i mean EVERYONE, out on the street without our blankies and entitlements and party membership cards, so that the entire electorate doesn't conspire every election to re-elect the tag-team of republican and democrat bozos who put us in the crapper in the first place. (democrats are now crying that this will hurt people--there's always an argument against it that cannot be countered, except by observing that broke is broke, and we can't afford to be this way any longer).
if you cash a social security check, or skate on a portion of your taxes owing to a mortgage interest deduction, or enjoy free tuition at a state school near you, and opine and lobby and vote to sustain such, YOU are the problem.
WE are the problem.
we have a problem in this country with a government that has expanded to not just cause, but BECOME our national insolvency. party political racketeers have been spinning stories to pin all the blame on the "other guys" for years, but it's getting so rich and so deep these days that it's impossible not to picture ourselves nero as our rome (the entire world) burns.
one out of six is a proportion i've read, but whatever the number actually IN government, the truth is far more pernicious, as the rest of us OUT of government become personally attached to our own pet entitlements. (spare me that government sponsored health-insurance is not an entitlement, no matter how long you worked or how much you paid into the system). the crowning irony this morning is reading the local republican point of view, (here at right side of lowell), that free benefits to vets and oldsters to audit state university classes at UML are a travesty to be cut back by shifting more and more of the curriculum to "online" (i.e. not free) status.
how are we ever going to vote to cut off the oxygen to this behemoth who is literally smothering each and every one of us, if all of us insist that the fat off the particular portions of pork being doled out onto our own personal plates should not be trimmed for the good of the whole? this one likes free tuition. that one likes comprehensive cadillac-style healthcare coverage throughout retirement. everyone with a house likes home mortgage tax deductions. and nobody with any income at all cares to be fingered for paying for any of it.
we have a problem today, and it's our collective addiction to government bloat. democrats don't even bother to hide their enthusiasm that government continue to increase in size, until everyone is receiving all the government-sponsored handouts they can rationalize they may or may not need. (i marvel that democrat tv's never seem to be able to tune in the news from greece, where the country spends a similar portion of their GDP to ours on social safety nets and other citizen entitlements, and the whole thing has gone to shit because they, unlike us, haven't been able to print funny money to cover their asses, but, hey, maybe we need an FCC program to give everyone new broadband internet-enabled tv's so there's equal access to information...)
but our real problem is that republicans are fully engaged with the game, only bullshitting us about it so that we don't notice that the original source of our present insolvency, and the authorship to all the current administration polices, and most certainly not the solution to our malaise, is on them. the reason i say the "real problem" (many republicans in the audience will want to say "hey, but the other guys are worse") is that it's the pepsi to the coke that chokes the soda aisle with nutritionally void overpriced sugar water, not the existence alone of coke.
we need to cut government. actually, i should say, we need to SLASH government. we need to throw everyone, and i mean EVERYONE, out on the street without our blankies and entitlements and party membership cards, so that the entire electorate doesn't conspire every election to re-elect the tag-team of republican and democrat bozos who put us in the crapper in the first place. (democrats are now crying that this will hurt people--there's always an argument against it that cannot be countered, except by observing that broke is broke, and we can't afford to be this way any longer).
if you cash a social security check, or skate on a portion of your taxes owing to a mortgage interest deduction, or enjoy free tuition at a state school near you, and opine and lobby and vote to sustain such, YOU are the problem.
WE are the problem.
posted by kad barma at 8:18 AM
2 Comments:
In fairness, before I had to pony up $1700 to get my daughter a course in "Functional Analysis I" Graduate Level Course, I was contemplating paying the $900 or so to take an on-line econ course.
I think one of the problems is found here: "It looks like the Administration is trying to make this benefit go away and go away without a lot of fuss." It is the stealth nature of the thing that is irritating. Aside from that, at a time when many older folks are out of work and looking to burnish their skills, this is an additional burden, but we have to balance the burdens.
Yes, things are going to have to change. The home mortgage deduction is probably going to have to go away or be significantly reduced. How about deducting state and local taxes from Federal taxes?
I think this realization that the tax system is twisted is a reason there are TEA Parties. And, when folks get together to talk about these things they learn new information and begin to expand their thinking.
And, the folks who have been in the US Congress for a long time, both Republicans and Democrats, have "gone native" as we sometimes say about State Department Foreign Service Officers who begin to "represent" the nation where they serve to the United States. Not by design or as treason, but just because their point of view has drifted, from losing contact with the folks who sent them there.
This is not a party issue, but an institution issue.
Regards — Cliff
Why forever would I take an econ course? I am working on a second Bachelors, this time with something like majors, as I have no major to show for 156 academic credit hours for my BS. It was a BS that was heavy on engineering, to which I added extra history and econ courses.
Regards — Cliff
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