Le Sabot Post-Moderne

If it's only .0035%--absolutely meaningless to the big picture of the budget--then why cut it?

We're taking food stamps away from families with children in order to make a statstically insignificant change in the HUGE budget deficit. Why?

However, we will by all means give even more tax cuts to people making over 200,000 doallars a year.

Food stamps--must cut.

Tax cuts for the rich--must increase.

But the stupid idiots had the bad taste to sing a silly song while protesting. Why don't we just torture them or get the CIA to open files on every one of them (if they haven't already). Kind of like those Quakers in Florida, who were listed as a "threat" when they organized a peaceful protest of the military recruiting children in the local school.

"We're supposed to take people like this seriously?" you ask. I guess to you it's not serious. I guess to you people who exercise their first-amendment rights need to check with the office of proper chanting before they try to encourage the government to care for for the poor. I guess if people think poor children should be encouraged to go to college, they'd better get their stinking chants in order before they have the audactity to call attention to policy on a public street.

I am ashamed to live in a country where people are allowed to chant like that. It's fine that people go to bed hungry at night, and it's fine that people do without doctor's visits and medicine because they have no health insurance, but these pitiful, ignorant chants make my blood boil.

nicejoest-

Nice attempt at humor, keep plugging away. . . :)

It's not the quality of the chanting, but its hyperbolic nature. Can you truly not see how childish this was? These chuckleheads are acting as if Republicans were frog-marching the poor into Treblinka when in reality the Rs simply made a set of tiny cuts in social spending.

My point, since you seemed to miss it, is that grown-ups can debate and wrangle over policy while still keeping some perspective and reason. This was pure moonbattery.

"However, we will by all means give even more tax cuts to people making over 200,000 doallars a year. Food stamps--must cut. Tax cuts for the rich--must increase."

First of all, plenty of people not making such sums get tax cuts. Secondly, a tax cut isn't a government expense -- it's simply a decision not to confiscate as much money from someone that year. This is something your type never understands -- it's not the government's money. The government isn't 'losing' money when taxes are cut, because it was never theirs to begin with.

As for overall spending. . . Yes, these are minor cuts. I look at them as a miniscule down payment on much, much, much larger cuts that should be taking place. The government has expanded its tentacles into places it has neither the business nor the expertise to handle.

To further clarify by way of analogy, today's silliness was on the level of Jesse Jackson screaming 'Selma!' everytime he gets a hangnail. Such tactics take otherwise serious issues and reduce them to farce.

More significantly, this sort of fanaticism alienates normal people. This is unfortunate when the issue is a worthwhile one. I think, for example, of the environment. Plenty of my conservative friends have been strongly conservationist. However, they have tended to avoid getting involved because of the environmentalist freak factor.

"Can you truly not see how childish this was? "

Very childish indeed. How childish to think that food stamps, student loans, and medical care for the poor and elderly were higher priority than beaurocracy and bombs and bridges to nowhere.

"First of all, plenty of people not making such sums [over 200,000] get tax cuts."

Which does not change the fact that the very rich are getting big, repeated tax cuts.

All developed nations have tax-supported government services. It is the responsibility of the public servants to use that money wisely. And the responsibility of the citizens to let it be known how they think the money should be used, even if they do so in a "childish" manner.

:)

"Which does not change the fact that the very rich are getting big, repeated tax cuts. "

Nor does it change the fact that this is due to the fact that they pay much, much more taxes than anyone else. :)

"All developed nations have tax-supported government services. It is the responsibility of the public servants to use that money wisely. And the responsibility of the citizens to let it be known how they think the money should be used, even if they do so in a "childish" manner."

Not all developed nations do so to the same degree. And many impoverish themselves doing so. You may be nostalgic for Britain of the 70's, I am not. I'd rather arrest the slide toward welfare statism rather than continue to move in that direction as the R's have taken us in recent years, expanding spending much more quickly than GDP.

It is hardly the responsibility of citizens to get arrested over something like this. Civil disobedience can be a noble thing, but it is not universally noble. Sometimes it's just stupid.

"Very childish indeed. How childish to think that food stamps, student loans, and medical care for the poor and elderly were higher priority than beaurocracy and bombs and bridges to nowhere."

It's easy to be haughtily moral when you're spending other people's money. . . What a neat trick you've discovered! Moral superiority on the cheap! (this is said without malice)

As for your points -- it's your philosophy which leads to a massive bureaucracy which needs funding. Bombs are very much a worthwhile thing as they enable better men than yourself to keep you secure while you debate about government spending. The Bridge to Nowhere was cancelled.

I personally support cuts that would be basically across-the-board, striking most programs equally but exempting some critical ones such as the National Endowment for the Arts Urine-Soaked Crucifix Grant Program.

Wait a minute, I can't believe I let you pull that rhetorical sleight-of-hand. . .

Me: "Can you truly not see how childish this was? "

You: "Very childish indeed. How childish to think that food stamps, student loans, and medical care for the poor and elderly were higher priority than beaurocracy and bombs and bridges to nowhere."

You're quoting me without context and then countering a point I never made. Nice try.

I was calling the nature and degree of their response childish, not their position itself. There is nothing at all wrong or childish about them having a differing opinion on spending.

I've already corrected you on this more than once. Please stop plucking this one string and add a second one to your guitar. :)

"...striking most programs equally but exempting some critical ones such as the National Endowment for the Arts Urine-Soaked Crucifix Grant Program."

Yes, yes, a very worthy cause. cu buffalo 86 would agree with you. Where is he by the way? I miss his frivolity!

"The Bridge to Nowhere was cancelled."
It was cancelled as far as the earmarking went. But every penny of the original bill remained in Alaska's highway funding.

"It's easy to be haughtily moral when you're spending other people's money. . ."

Note to Kettle: your hue is melanistic. "Haughtily moral..." Hmmm, that does sound like someone I remember....

And where are you getting the money for the bombs, by the way? It's easy to denigrate people you disagree with when you're bombing with other people's money.

I don't think it was quite noble of you to pick on people you disagreed with by criticizing their silly song. It's easier to criticize their silly song than to state that you really do want cuts in food stamps, student loans, and medical care for the poor and elderly, while maintaining large and repeated tax cuts for the rich.

I'm glad I got you to state your position clearly, so people will focus on the policies and not on the singing.

Are you going to head the Bureau of Art Censorship now as well as the Ministry of Proper Chanting?

Btw, to pick out something we could agree on, across-the-board has its merits--with income as well as outgo. If everyone got a 5 percent tax cut and all programs were cut 5 percent (to pick a random number) that would be fairer than the current situation, in which the poor are being asked to sacrifice disproportionately.

"It was cancelled as far as the earmarking went. But every penny of the original bill remained in Alaska's highway funding."

The bloated federal budget is something I've been attacking for ages now. You're not going to find a solid angle of attack in this one.

"I'm glad I got you to state your position clearly, so people will focus on the policies and not on the singing."

Oh get over yourself. :) My position was quite clear, you just didn't bother to read closely. I just updated with a clarification in case there are more of you out there.

"And where are you getting the money for the bombs, by the way? It's easy to denigrate people you disagree with when you're bombing with other people's money."

Defense is one of the classic functions of government. Wealth redistribution isn't. Our government handles defense well, it has destroyed whole demographic groups with its ham-handed attempts to combat poverty. It is out of compassion for the poor that I oppose extensions of the welfare state -- it has created an entire underclass of people mired in poverty and without the cultural capital to escape it. That is unconscionable.

"I don't think it was quite noble of you to pick on people you disagreed with by criticizing their silly song. It's easier to criticize their silly song than to state that you really do want cuts in food stamps, blah blah blah. . ."

I've already explained that you're mischaracterizing my position. I know no easier-to-comprehend way to lay it out for you. I'm going to have to hope that one of my readers can help you.

I really endeavor to be extra kind to the people who disagree with me here, but your consistent misrepresentation of me is pretty annoying. So you're an exception.

DISCOSHAMAN:

"I'm going to have to hope that one of my readers can help you."

I don't think you need help; you did just fine already:

"My point, since you seemed to miss it, is that grown-ups can debate and wrangle over policy while still keeping some perspective and reason. This was pure moonbattery."

[Aside from the fact I have no idea what moonbattery is (I can guess from the context)]

I just want to compliment your interlocutor on "note to kettle: your hue is melanistic." Yes, it's kinda jangly, and runs counter to my reading of the discussion, but it was nice--kinda that other string you were fishing for on the sarcasm guitar.

I have no facts to add, and just hope I didn't skim past the point where this was remarked: Yes, the infamous bridge was "cancelled" only in the sense that funds appropriated with an earmark *only* for that purpose were appropriated with no such earmark. However, !

Money earmarked for one project only is diverted from other transportation projects. Removing the earmark scatters the money to those projects. That means fewer such projects begging for funding in another round.

Removing the earmark does improve the funds situation, particularly if the Alaska legislature sees fit to quash this boondoggle, now that it's not getting special treatment from the Feds.

You can argue that this too much money is going to Alaskan transportation, and I'll agree. Shucks, folks, I'm that libertarian sort that can't find any constitutional or natural-law justification for the government making any roads that don't have a military or postal (since the Constitution expressly provides that Congress shall have the power to make post-roads) purpose.

Fact is, though, the earmark was an especially nasty boil on a badly infected patient, and lancing it was definitely a net improvement--if far, very far, from a cure.

And Tom Harkin as prophet is quite the grotesque.

Cheers,
PGE

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