Bob Wire Has a Point (It's Under His Cowboy Hat)
Government Shutdown: Merry Xmas, Tea Party!
Wild-eyed political commentaryBy Bob Wire, 4-07-11
"I will not yield the floor to the distinguished Congressman from...oh, the hell with it. Let's go home and have a Scotch."
Posturing Republicans and petulant Democrats continue to snap away at each other over the budget gap like two spoiled, bitchy Pomeranians. Meanwhile, thousands of soldiers who were foolish enough to think that the craven elected officials in Congress would stand behind them no matter what, continue to serve under the threat of having their paychecks withheld while the very country they’re fighting to protect threatens to collapse under the weight of a ping-pong game of financial ideology.
Everyone agrees that spending must be reduced, but President Obama and congressional Republicans seem unable to agree on how much to cut, and where the cuts are made. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s Demos are attempting to trim this rump roast of spending with a tiny keychain Swiss Army knife, while Speaker of the House John Bohner’s ruthless Republicans seem eager to kowtow to Tea Party extremists by savagely hacking away at social programs while leaving their beloved sacred cow of a military budget fat, dumb and happy.
Yes, that’s a gross generalization, but as I see it, that’s how it has shaped up since the Republicans were able to bullshit voters into sweeping them into a House majority in 2010 by promising that they’d fix what their own party managed to demolish over the course of eight years under Bush/Cheney. Grandstanding Republican Senators and spineless Democrat leaders have been doing this repulsive budget dance for months, and now millions of their constituents are on the doorstep of not just inconvenience, but hardship.
If these bloviating yayhoos can’t get their tired act together by Friday, the government will lose its spending authority and be forced to shut down, and the economic recovery is going to hit the fan. Soldiers fighting the three (damn, did I just type “three”?) wars will not be issued paychecks. Yeah, we support our troops, we just don’t want to pay them. Tax returns will not be processed, putting the kibosh on one of the government’s revenue streams. Actually, the IRS will still accept tax payment, but no refunds will be issued on paper. You know, those refunds that are routinely spent on new jet skis, giant TVs and barbecue grills. You know, spending that would give the economy a sorely needed boost. Smooth move, financial geniuses.
The battered housing market will also suffer another setback. If the budget agreement is not reached by Friday, government-backed mortgages will not be approved, meaning a whole segment of Americans will be unable to fulfill the American dream by buying their own home that they can’t afford.
National Parks will close, drying up tourist traffic to all the small businesses that make a living from park visitors. This will indirectly cause a financial suckhole in India, China, Pakistan, and other overseas countries who make all those “I Got Gored At Yellowstone Park” t-shirts. Eight hundred thousand federal employees would be sent home. The CIA would shut down (or WOULD they? Nyuk nyuk). Social Security and Medicare payments would still be issued, although their offices will close. Well, that’s a relief. Your retired neighbor with the fat pension will be able to go ahead with that expansion on his cabin at the lake, but your brother serving in the Army in Afghanistan will have to tell his wife and kids back home that they’ll have to hit the food bank for a while.
Here’s a scary one: the flow of funding would stop at the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. This is particularly bad news, because research into new health treatments would be suspended and we need to find some kind of medical breakthrough that would enable members of Congress to grow a conscience.
The mail will still be delivered, so the direct mail industry will still be able to pour millions of tons of paper into landfills. Air traffic controllers will still oversee plane traffic (if they can stay awake), prison staff will stay on the job to keep all those pot dealers behind bars, and the International Space Station will continue to operate (although delivery of Alien Babes magazine will be suspended).
Also, the Border Patrol and the war on drugs will continue to flail away, fully funded. That’s right. The Fed won’t issue a full paycheck to a soldier who’s been sent abroad to protect some oil interests, but they’ll continue to pay a bunch of Charles Bronsons in Jeeps to keep those skeery Meskins from coming into the U.S. and continuing their reign of terror by earning a living and raising a family. Whew! That was close.
These days Congress is fully deserving of their poor reputation among American voters. They are the personification of Scrooge McDuck, and their disconnect from the needs and priorities of Real People is tragic and disgusting. They all enjoy balls-out, full-on health coverage for themselves and their families; their jobs are guaranteed to last as long as they keep promising their ovine constituency that they’ll get a bigger slice of the pie without gaining any weight; and the school of remoras known as special interest lobbyists supply a constant flow of spenderoni to make sure that they never go wanting for a thing.
The problem is, we love having the wool pulled over our eyes. We want our camera-loving elected officials to tell us that Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny are real. While they suck down champagne and dine on Kobe ribeyes behind the scenes, Congressmen (and –women) produce the outrage or tears or anguish or whatever soap opera emotion is required at the press conference to show their constituents how much they care about (insert pork project here).
The system is busted because we’ve let it happen. We don’t elect people who are willing to give us the bad news. We elect people who love gravy. If we’re unwilling to make the sacrifices that our massive budget deficit requires, we’ll never see any improvement. We’ll just keep enabling and enriching the endless string of gladhanders and backslappers who populate Congress. Radical ideologies and skewed priorities have conspired to create this situation, and now the reality of the situation has come home to roost. Only this time, they’re not chickens in Washington. It’s a bunch of big, overfed, myopic turkeys.
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Bob, your generalizations are appalling.
I was in the military during the last shutdown of government and we had to wait only one extra day for our pay to be deposited into our accounts, other than that it was business as usual.
If the republicans are attempting to fix what the Bush/Cheney wrecking crew did to our economy, what did the Democrat-controlled congress do during the Bush/Cheney era?
You need to put the Dom down and take a closer look at the things you use to bash the Republican party at the behest of glorifying the Dems who are no different.
The way I see it is that the debit held by this federal government is so massive, that maybe a government holiday is par for the course. Our government is continuing to operate like there's money to be spent. It's broke and broken, it's just as well that it collapses like Greece and Iceland so we can start over.
Let me put that in human terms....you have a 140,000 mortgage you're needing to pay, and you aren't. So, let's shut down the family for about 500 to 140 bucks in cat food?
While the blame over time is bipartisan, the current fiasco is a Democrat problem, founded strictly on the fact that the first shutdown hurt Republicans. Will history repeat?
I'm sending in my 1040 tomorrow, and I'm due a refund. Shut down the whole thing, except for the flunkie who processes MY income tax return!
we must drastically reduce/ slash/ eviscerate/ gut/ whatever you want to call it, the budget and spending. business as usual for politicians, dems and repubs, and OBAMA has to end.
national debt up 40%, from 10 trillion to 14 trillion.
unemployment up 25%. from 11.5 million people to 14.5 million people.
price of gas has doubled from 1.80 to 3.60 / gallon.
the list goes on, lets try the shock treatment shutdown for a while. voters affect politicians.
the tea party is trying to awaken the democratic/republican coma.
get real bob.
What was the national debt when the GOP took over in 2000?
How did unemployment get to the 25% level and when?
What were you paying for gasoline prior to 2007?
Rooting for a shutdown is like cheering on the deck of the Titanic for another iceberg.
Obama, on the other hand, seems to never have done anything substantive. His book(s) are the kind of empty-minded, navel-gazing prattle that liberals simply eat up. But there's no vision thing there, either. Dreams are not visions....the guy is asleep.
Then there is Bob...he's right about the preening numbskulls we have elected. But WE elected them...so whose fault is it, really?
http://www.free-press.biz/usa/national-debt.htm
http://www.free-press.biz/usa/fetal-hand-grasp.html
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np
Lousy attempt at an answer BTW.
To a large extent these know-it-alls are the same people found declaring their savantry each day in neighborhood taverns around the nation.
They are certainly the crowd who voted for the teabaggers in the last election--that same group who has fiddled in Helena as Montana began to adjust itself once again to the copper collar--wielded this time from international corporate headquartere around the world--no longer in Anaconda, Butte and Helena.
Simpletons advocate cutting benefits for the permanent underclasses while refusing to increase taxes for oligarchs. Oh yes. We are indeed a classless society still being manipulated by commintern...
There was a time when elected representatives were asked to approve military action to defend this nation; but now the need to steal from the third-worlders has become an entitlement for people willing to train as killers in the hope that taxpayers will educate them sufficiently that they might become financiers whose major responsibilty will be to steal their benefactors blind.
There are those who yearn for the good old days; but not me. I yearn for the days before corporations became our masters...
You'all are knee jerking this like it happened just since last week , in a few 24 hr. news cycles, when in fact the deficit mess goes back to the funding of senseless unnecessary wars fought for ideological purposes. By which I mean Vietnam. And a couple of beached whale social programs that begin with " Medi'".
What is truely missing from the argument ehre at NewWest and everywhere else is the 'Follow The Money' argument, and a searing history of deficits and the reasons why government money is so misgotten and misappropriated.
Today's $ 14 trillion national debt did not happen overnight or even since last week or even since the end of the last Fiscal Year six months ago when the budget should've been done and passed. That we today do not have a budget deal lies squarely at the feet of the Republicans, although the Dems share some blame. Just not that much. I give it 80R-20D at best, largely on the good work of the Reaganites, Newties, and especially the passage of Gramm-Leach-Bliley and repeal of Glass-Steagall in crippling government regulation of the finance industry and taxation inequities. Somehow, the rise of the mega-corporation and the Neo-Robber Barons of Wall Street is left out of the remediation. And those massive narcoterrorism cartels...Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, and a thousand others that launder palletloads of shrinkwrapped American $ 100 bills from the global coke poke and smoke industries
There is no shortage of money in America to fix this. It's just that the money is in all the wrong places.
Income is one thing; wealth is another ; deficit spending a third thing altogether. Obama came to office during a Perfect Storm that even Jesus could not abet and absolve. It was due to 30 years of special interest politicking , and will probably take 30 years to remedy. Denying funding to NPR and Planned Parenthood is not the path of wisdom.
But taking the budget axe to the Pentagon might be a good start. I suggest aiming for about $ 300 billion and terminating a couple of stupid wars might be beneficial. Going to Single Payer Public Option national health care ...certainly. Voiding every corporate charter at the state level and renegotiating the terms of capitalization and incorporation would be useful...every corporation out there is chartered by some state overseer. Who is that guy ?
But the real longterm solution is nothing short of a dramatic transformation of the American political landscape. We need to eliminate the two major parties, and replace them with a strong multi-party political system where beliefs align along real---not imaginary --- ideological lines. Why, for instance, are religious folks in bed mainly with Republicans ?---everything the GOP stands for is so patently non-Christian, yet there they are. Wouldn't Jesus be a liberal Democrat if He came back today ?
What America needs now is a Social Democrat Party, a Green Party, a Conservative Party, a party for the religiuos zealots, a technocrat party, a gun nut party a/k/a Warrior Class, a Progressive Populist party ( that's where you'll find me). Maybe even a Non-Aligned Party ( the None of the Above Party).
We need enough bona fide diverse political movements and parties so that no single party holds an edge on ramrodding its legislative agenda without the consent of the other five. Nor should one single party hold the reins of power for all the branches of government.
The present bipolar 2-party system is an abject failure, by its very nature. It's binary. Zero or One. All or nothing. 50/50. Which is the precise formulae for the gridlock and stallouts we've seen since the Bushies stole the popular election of 2000.
The real enemy of America is not the deficit. It's the overarching multinational corporations and the incredible concentration of wealth ( not necessarily income) in the upper crust of the elite . We won't accomplish anything or get out of the hole we've dug without addressing those two symptoms. We have utterly taken our eyes off the ball , and run completely off the playing field into the weeds.
Defunding Planned Parenthood the sticking point ? I rest my case.
Pretty much 100% in agreement.
we have a spending problem. why are the pols quibbling over 20 ,30 , or 60 billion. they should be cutting way more.
And remember, you can't fix a 30-year mess in a few quarters' time.
Do you know when the last time the US Treasury had no debt? ( careful, it's a trick question ).
I will tell you that in 2010 the USA was ranked 12th in the world for ratio of sovereign debt to gross domestic product.
By the way, the US Dept. of Commerce tallies 24.7 MILLION separate businesses operating in the USA...one for every 13 residents... gross domestic product as sales was $ 16 trillion.
And the Fortune 500's General Electric Corp. paid less tax than you last year. Them and many others.
The Progressive Income Tax needs to revert to former indices and brackets. Taxes have never been a drag on prosperity , but they have kept the filthy rich considerably more honest and forthcoming . Have fun researching THAT.
And read Andrew Carnegie's "Gospel of Wealth" if you have the time.
The trillion dollar debt stimulous was a failure. Didn't make up for the three trillion of "capitalist pig" private money that's been on the sidelines while the "capitalist pigs" wait and see what "unforseen chaos" Nobama's and Deweys nirvana has in store. Can anyone tell me what "health care reform" had to do with the recession?
Perhaps when I get to retire the US can sell Yellowstone park to the Chinese to fund all the bogus IOU's they borrowed from FICA.
This is somewhat more important than disciplining a naughty child by grounding it and taking away its allowance. That you would drive an entire nation into the ditch over Planned Parenthood not getting funded...
And you wanted this ? How sick is THAT ?
The gross hypocrisy is nauseating.
Our purpose ought to be betterment of the lives of all citizens...
There is absolutely no defensible reason why the USA is outspending the rest of the planet on so-called ' defense'. None whatsoever.
It's time. The Pentagon needs to get real and quit stockpiling the whiz-bang for fighting the last 2 or 3 wars in faraway lands. Our national defense should extend no further than the Monroe Doctrine...the Continental Shelf and the border primarily , and the north half of the western hemisphere at most.
When Boehner and McConnell begin talking real Pentagon cuts , we will make real progress. Defunding Planned Parenthood and the EPA is not constructive.
The spending cut list gets much more interesting once the Pentagon is reined in.
To wit: No to NPR/PBS. Not just no, but hellno. If anything, it needs to be increased. Sorry if those words sting your ears or impugn your spleen. Corporate media cannot be handed such a pyhrric victory by default. The hue and cry against NPR is moronic.
What about raising the federal grazing fee to nearer its true cost to the taxpayer. Reducing or eliminating other Ag subsidies ? Old dogmatic hydrocarbon energy subsidies and railroad subsidies no longer needed ?
Tax loopholes must be closed. Offshore diversion of income and hiding of wealth for tax purposes must be ferreted out. The Progressive Income Tax needs to be reset to 1956 indices. Corporations need to be reined in financially and their rights reduced to real world limitations based on them being business entites, not a corporeal person. . Glass Steagall must be resurrected and Gramm Leach Bliley must go. Banks and holding companies need an iron yoke and chain around their big heads and a sharper yoke around their little heads, the credit card issuers that are s-o-o-o-o screwing us all .
For Profit medicine must be abolished. Insurance companies must be shown the door out of our lives. Big Pharma needs to be caged. The US must do the reasonable and practical thing of adopting national health care, single payer public option that mirrors Canada, just as the rest of the world has (mostly) successfully done. Social Security should not be on the table once the retirement age is raised to 70-72 and means testing becomes law. SS will take care of itself. (See above for remedies to Medicare and Medicaid).
I am willing to cut a lot actually . But without the requisite taxation and financial reforms, simply cutting the budget is not the solution any more than amputation of the limb is the way to treat a fractured wrist. Revenue increases must also be in the final formula.
That's the part most people dont get....yet.
By the way, the real damage to the American Dream from all this comes at the state level, not federal. My Wyoming is one of only 5-6 states that have a balanced budget, thanks to coal mining, but the rest of the states will soon degenerate into something resembling Yugoslavia without Tito...a Balkanized disaster zone.
We have truely taken our eyes off the ball and run off the field into the weeds, as I said earlier. And gues who was there, standing in the weeds like bandits and bushwhackers ?--- the Tea Party. Misguided fools all. Even Paul Ryan, whose math does not pencil out.
There are no quick fixes or universal antidotes. This mess was 30 years coming. What I REALLY want to hear are the long litany of Mea Culpas from present and past Republicans that mostly got us to where we are today. The Weeds.
Republicans cannot govern. That much is certain. But they should go to Confession and try to absolve now and then...
1.Spending control. Nothing off the table.
2.Top down Tax Reform ( but not blind tax cuts )
3.Top down Financial Reform
It all has to happen at once if we are going to get the debt down to a manageable level.
The United States of America since before Day 1 has never been debt free. Not...one...day.
if i came upon you, dewey, up on the north fork above pahaska and you were on the edge of meeting your maker courtesy of ursus horribilus,,, i would try to stop the bleeding before we discussed policies of bear management, or whitebark pine output, or closing NP dumpsites decades ago, or even notifying SAR.
Raise the retirement age to 70? Hell, I want it lowered to 55 like the union in Wisconsin. I assume that Dewey advocates raising the retirement age for public employee union members from 55 to 70?
I've dealt with a lot of State and Federal employees in my work. And I know many dedicated workers. I don't blame them. But I know their system doesn't encourage effenciency. The fact they don't have my boss to kick their ass out the door to make a profit motive is good for 10%. Only people who work IN goverment thinks goverment works. People who have worked WITH government knows it doesn't work. It's why I laugh when I hear libs claim that dedicated "union" public servants will "save money" if we converted to a single payer health care system by eliminating the 10% profit margin health insurance companies get. They'd not only NOT save 10%, we'd lose another 10% over that.
That is of course because capitalists think government should roll over and do what capitalists want it to...
Our current military budget is primarily devoted to giving our troops as much personal protection as possible, and the best advantage. Exactly which protections should they not have? And don't forget, this country lost over 600,000 souls in the Civil War. In a percentage of the population, that would be over 1,500,000 dead today. A shit load of men died or were grievously wounded to preserve the Union, and to free slaves. Not that anyone cares today, or even thinks about the wholesale loss of life to make lives better for people once considered chattel. That started 150 years ago this week. We lost over 400,000 in WWII. Our current war budgets are saving many, many lives, and we either spend the money and wage war, or don't wage war, and don't spend the money. Our Congress should have that vote. Hell, the people should have that vote. It is, after all, our money Obama, et al, spends to fight battles, wars. I personally, would have sold Iraq or Afghanistan to somebody like the Koch family, who owns Georgia Pacific. Now they know how to turn any chunk of ground into a barren parking lot in record time. That is how the Congress built the railroads. Gave the RR's the land and told them to sell it finance their line. We should just give Afghanistan to some world energy and mining corporation, and they can deal with the Taliban, tribal warfare, whatever, and Karzai would be in for a cut, you know damned well, and things would even out. Maybe the Taliban would take to a deal like that: a huge amount of income and all the rocks they could throw to rein in infidels and flirty girls. A monthly check along with a jar of cerise hair dye. And a gunny bag of Viagra, and a tote of Cialis. All the young boys and goats would end up in other countries in a mass outmigration, and wars get harder to wage when you are losing recruits and all the older guys have a smile on their face and other things to do than make IEDs, and shoot RPGs at the infidels who are working and sending them money. Give Planned Parenthood the job of controlling the Afghan birthrate. Let them earn their government support. Slip an iud into every young girl they could find.
Our Federal Budget issues are about buying votes. A redistribution of money. Social engineering. Spending to favor constituents who contribute to election campaigns. The Statesman Prostitute. And way too much of our Federal Government is about spending money to bolster government ranks, and voting, at all jurisdictional levels. The Eagle shits. Payday. Portland, Oregon, has gotten BILLIONS for light rail, because the Democrat Congress, or a Democrat President, or Oregon's predominantly Democrat congressional representation asked for it because the voting majority, the election turning votes, are in Portland. Portland decides. Portland is the decider. That you could give every living person in Portland a new car, a gas card for life, and still have half the money spent on hauling those few thousand light rail commuters left for other purposes. Like filling a pot hole, or rebuilding 100 year old bridges. Small stuff. Not vision stuff. Nope. Our government is borrowing $0.42 of every dollar spent to do the "vision" stuff.
Or ethanol. Required by law to be 10% or more of gasoline. And ethanol's biggest impact on the world is the food now not going to feed the hungry, as the corn is routed to the ethanol plant. By government edict. By tax credits. Vote buying in the Grain Belt. Social engineering. Give tax credits and grants to make ethanol, and not have the income from drilling on public lands. One of those deals where minus one and minus one make minus two. That is why we are broke as a nation. Two-fers. Spend more and cut income. Live like an unemployed fifty year old. Both will end up under a bridge, I guess. Hope the bridge doesn't fall on the country or the jobless. Don't do anything to address the problems for another couple of Congressional years, US fiscal years, and that is where we will be. You can't spend your way out of the poor house. You have to work your way out. Our community organizer existing on NGO money and the public trough just doesn't know how that works. Never had the life experience.
The wealth of the northwest territories, the Mexican conquest, and the land acquired by extermination of the western aborigines has been pissed away by our military in the various economic wars from which we have emerged victorious since 1812:
Americans have never been much as warriors; but few have shown greater profligacy as wastrels...