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2010-02-07 Home Front: Culture Wars

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Posted by Frank G 2010-02-07 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11129 views ] Top

#1 Count De Monet - Sire, the peasants are revolting!
King Louis - You said it. They stink on ice.

- Mel Brooks

Posted by DMFD 2010-02-07 00:29|| 2010-02-07 00:29|| Front Page Top

#2 Even larger majorities oppose the kind of spending cuts that would reduce projected deficits, let alone eliminate them. Nearly half the public wants to cancel the Obama stimulus, and a strong majority doesn't want another round of it. But 80-plus percent of people want to extend unemployment benefits and to spend more money on roads and bridges. There's another term for that stuff: more stimulus spending.

Where to start?

Unemployment insurance is not stimulus spending. It is government relief, a far cry from stimulus, and it is nominally at least self-funding.

Back in the 70s an economic stumulus was supposed to means free money to get the general public spending.

Now it means borrow money and rain cash onto top of any number of political pet projects,

That's not stimulus spending either.

Projected deficits will become even worse if the federal reserve decides to raise interest rates, and will be bad enough with the current administration's policy of expanding welfare rolls and subsidizing pet industries.

Tax cuts will work, but at this moment they will lead to another bubble similar to the one the current administration is blowing.

The only fix is the only one that hasn't been tried and that is a massive reduction of government scope, power and expenditures at all levels. Not cut spending, not reduce spending, but wholesale elimination of any non constitutionally mandated programs ( defense, border control, and other traditional government functions ( painfully limited federal law enforcement ) )

Top of the list to be eliminated: ( not cut, not reduced, but wiped out ) PBS, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Ginnie Mae, the US Department of Energy, and the US Department of Education.

For every revolution, there must be casualties. Those are my top six.

Posted by badanov 2010-02-07 00:32|| http://www.freefirezone.org 2010-02-07 00:32|| Front Page Top

#3 correct bad.

The ONLY thing that will work is reduction of government period.

Posted by newc 2010-02-07 00:46|| 2010-02-07 00:46|| Front Page Top

#4 Nah, Frank, don't punch the twit. He'd see it as vindication, and you'd just get bloodstains and puke on your nice shirt.

Far better to just smile and outthink the sorry little bastard and his hallelujah chorus. It wouldn't be that hard, really. He's so busy patting himself on the back for regurgitating what must be a "secret" talking point (remember that Time Mag rant about how the public is so shtooopid not long ago? Expect to see more in the future for a while until Axelrod sees that it's not really working all that well.)

Look, if he was so bloody brilliant as he imagines himself to be, he wouldn't be the third or fourth or whatever writer to harp on this theme, now, would he?

Let him emote loudly in public. Let him vent somewhere that gets more traffic than DU or Daily Kos. Let it out there so that the vast independent majority sees exactly what the "hopeychangey" people they voted into office really think of them when they won't follow orders.

November will be interesting. ;)

Posted by Cornsilk Blondie 2010-02-07 00:51|| 2010-02-07 00:51|| Front Page Top

#5 instead of punching him, follow him into the bathroom and piss on his leg.
There is a great how-to on that in the movie "Up In Smoke"

Posted by abu do you love 2010-02-07 01:44|| 2010-02-07 01:44|| Front Page Top

#6 "When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic."

- Ben Franklin

Posted by Besoeker 2010-02-07 05:28|| 2010-02-07 05:28|| Front Page Top

#7 If there are ignorant people out there, Jacob, perhaps it's because they are educated by the media, after learning whatever-passes-for-education-these-days in the politically-correct public schools.

But more and more folks are watching Fox News.

Posted by Bobby 2010-02-07 05:56|| 2010-02-07 05:56|| Front Page Top

#8 Jake, you are buggie.

Jacob Weisberg -(born 1964) is an American political journalist, serving as editor-in-chief of Slate Group, a division of The Washington Post Company, and a columnist for the Financial Times. He served as the editor of Slate magazine for six years, until stepping down in June 2008.[1] He is the son of Lois Weisberg, a Chicago social activist and connector celebrated in Malcolm Gladwell's book The Tipping Point. Weisberg's father, Bernard Weisberg, was a prominent Chicago lawyer and, later, judge. His parents were introduced at a cocktail party by novelist Ralph Ellison.

Posted by Bugs Flavimble4426 2010-02-07 06:36|| 2010-02-07 06:36|| Front Page Top

#9 Besoeker is correct. Social Security and Medicare are the big handouts. They were created after the passage of the 17th amendment, to provide for more democratic election of senators.

This tipped the balanced government our founders created. Too much democracy, too little monarchy and aristocracy.

Franklin also said, when asked what kind of government the Constitutional Convention had created, "A republic, if you can keep it." We are about to find out.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2010-02-07 07:10|| 2010-02-07 07:10|| Front Page Top

#10 Another hole in the bottom of the bucket are the hordes that are now taking their doctor's slip of "100% disability" to the lawyer who assists them in applying for Social Security disability. There is is a huge spike in these claims that no one is talking about. They are what I call the southern nouveau-rich. Too young to be retired, but well enough to motor their Cadillac Escalades to the department stores.

Posted by Besoeker 2010-02-07 08:17|| 2010-02-07 08:17|| Front Page Top

#11 1) Blame Bush
2) Blame the media (blogs, Fox)
3) Blame the people

He's running out of options...

Posted by Free Radical 2010-02-07 12:39|| 2010-02-07 12:39|| Front Page Top

#12 IS he an example of the self-hating Jew lefty syndrome?

Posted by OldSpook 2010-02-07 14:44|| 2010-02-07 14:44|| Front Page Top

#13 Or is he merely a typical lefty self-important elitist snob?

Posted by OldSpook 2010-02-07 14:45|| 2010-02-07 14:45|| Front Page Top

#14 yes

Posted by Frank G 2010-02-07 14:49|| 2010-02-07 14:49|| Front Page Top

#15 You want stimulus and to provide jobs perhaps we should build a nice wall (think great wall of China) along the Southern Border. That'll provide work for Americans, and a tourist attraction for the future. It might also slow down the number of illegals when the economy picks up again.

Posted by rjschwarz 2010-02-07 17:38|| 2010-02-07 17:38|| Front Page Top

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