The Washington Post has a devastating article about the Louisiana congressional delegation’s demand for a $250 billion federal handout:
The nation is at war. It is mired in debt. It has been hit by floods and hurricanes. In the face of this adversity, congressional leaders have rightly dropped proposals for yet more tax cuts, and some have suggested removing the pork from the recently passed transportation bill. But this spirit of forbearance has not touched the Louisiana congressional delegation. The state’s representatives have come up with a request for $250 billion in federal reconstruction funds for Louisiana alone — more than $50,000 per person in the state. This money would come on top of payouts from businesses, national charities and insurers. And it would come on top of the $62.3 billion that Congress has already appropriated for emergency relief.
Like looters who seize six televisions when their homes have room for only two, the Louisiana legislators are out to grab more federal cash than they could possibly spend usefully.
Louisiana is one of the worst-governed states in the Union, possessing a government that is thoroughly corrupt and inefficient – and now they want a quarter of a trillion dollars in political patronage. Such a request is absolutely outrageous and a demonstration of how entrenched the pork-barrel entitlement culture is in that state. The Post continues:
The Louisiana delegation has apparently devoted little thought to the root causes of the Hurricane Katrina disaster. New Orleans was flooded not because the Army Corps of Engineers had insufficient money to build flood protections, but because its money was allocated by a system of political patronage. The smart response would be to insist that, in the future, no Corps money be wasted on unworthy projects, but the Louisiana bill instead creates a mechanism by which cost-benefit analysis can be avoided.
The emphasis is, of course, mine. Interesting that the Post would explode one of the larger lefty talking points after Katrina. Then again, that statement is entirely true – the money to build the levees was there, it was just wasted through corruption and unnecessary and often counterproductive pork-barrel projects. The levee system would hold back a Category 3 storm – when Katrina hit New Orleans it was a Cat 4.
The Post is exactly right: Congress should rightly ignore the Louisiana delegation’s demands and do what works. Which means putting the levee system under federal control, putting tight controls on money sent to the state, and locking the corrupt local politicos out of the process. Furthermore, the level of corruption in Louisiana demands a RICO probe to determine how much federal money was absconded with and where it went.
The Louisiana delegation, especially Senator Vitter and Rep. Jindal – both of whom should know better – should be ashamed of itself. This kind of pork-barrelling not only trivializes a major catastrophe, but shows the nation that Louisiana is more serious about spending billion in taxpayer money than seriously preventing another disaster.
If it comes to spending $250 billion on a hurricane relief package to Louisiana or spending $250 billion on repealing the estate tax for the richest 0.2% of Americans, I’d only be too happy to forfeit my share to Louisiana’s professional looting class. Nice to have choices….
If Bush (not to mention DeLay or Frist) agrees to this, my worst fears (and Andrew Sullivan’s) have been confirmed: The contemporary Republican party has gone from Reagan and Goldwater libertarianism to kleptocratic socialism.
$60 billion is reasonable, if slightly on the high side. $250 billion is absolutely flaming outrageous.
Wow Mark, what a talking point, you the friend of the anti-rich, you agree that money should be taxed twice, hell why not just take it. Why all the faking of about “being for the people” why not admit that all money is the gov’ts first and maybe you and the rest of the socialist elites can let us fly over people have a few crumbs after you pour more money into one failed burecracy, like the one that failed in NO,after another hell give Louisana a blank check. I know I know, lets get the UN involved and they will really give Louisana a run for their money on corruption. With you liberals its not that its corrupt, its not that it has failed its wards, Its enough just to show you care more than the rest. Spend everyone elses money and if during the next hurrican cycle the same thing happens, hey lets hope its a republican in office so we can blame FEMA for not being there to hold everybodies hand. TAX THEM ALL AND THEN LET THEM EAT CAKE.
At least repealing the estate tax will help the economy but putting more money back into circulation. Giving 250 billion to a bunch of inept politicians in Lousiana does absolutely nothing.
Ray, what a sob story! My eyes are like waterfalls. The prospect of asking a shiftless heir or heiress to pay taxes on their unearned loot the same way that every hard-working wage earner in America does? How could I be so impossibly cruel. The whole “taximg money twice” argument is so patently stupid it hardly merits discussion, but a transfer of ownership always triggers a tax. With that in mind, the individual(s) newly in possession of the fortune are paying the taxes on it….not the dead guy. I think $250 billion is excessive for post-Katrina relief, but I think $0.01 is excessive for multi-millionaire heiress relief.
I have to imagine that the Paris Hiltons of America are sitting on their velvet couches eating bon-bons and laughing hysterically at all the pseudo-populist dolts out there VOLUNTEERING to pay more taxes so that they can pay less.
Oh, that deserves a Fisking. Well, let’s dissect this pile of trash, shall we?
And your brain is like an empty field…
And here we have the insinuation by Mark that A) rich people don’t earn their money and are B) shiftless. The evidence states otherwise. Which just goes to illustrate the absurdity of Mark’s Richie Rich straw man view of anyone who makes more than he does.
The money is being taxed twice. First as income, and then by the death tax.
And again, the truly rich can shield their income from estate taxes with a moderately competent accountant. Most families whose grandma or grandpa scrimped and saved for decades to provide their family with something end up getting screwed. But hey, they must be one of those “shiftless” rich people, right? The farmer who spend 60 years cultivating his land while land values soared obviously never worked a day in his life, right?
Fine. I think we should have a Democrat tax. Register with the Democratic Party, get double the tax rate. That way people can put their money where their mouths are. Given that the uber-rich like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet tend more often than not to be Democrats, then you’d be soaking the rich as well.
I’m sure Paris Hilton doesn’t give a damn about what her tax rate is. Hell, given her lifestyle, I really doubt she’s a Republican.
And the argument that anyone’s volunteering to pay more taxes is ridiculous. (OK, so Democrats are, hence the new Donkey Tax proposal above.)
How about the government STOP SPENDING MONEY ON WASTEFUL CRAP before demanding more out of all our pocketbooks.
This kind of class warfare bullshit is precisely why we need a fair, flat tax rate.
“And your brain is like an empty field…”
I’ll go along with that….an empty field which has just harvested the most abundant, fruitful crop in the history of this board. 😀
“And here we have the insinuation by Mark that A) rich people don’t earn their money and are B) shiftless. The evidence states otherwise. Which just goes to illustrate the absurdity of Mark’s Richie Rich straw man view of anyone who makes more than he does.”
Many rich people do earn their money. Even many of the children of rich people earn their money. But money handed down from Rich Person A to their offspring is not earned, it’s inherited…and should be treated as such by the IRS with an additional tax. The shiftlessness argument doesn’t always apply, but the same argument right-wing ideologues apply to the endangered “welfare mama” species applies to Paris Hilton and pre-1994 George W. Bush as well. If they can sponge off of the family fortune, why work? Bottom line: the more people who receive untaxed inheritances, the fewer people who need to be productive members of society. I would request you ask the nobility of pre-revolution France how well an ossified plutocracy works, but seeing as how their heads were severed by guillotines, it might be hard to get a straight answer.
“The money is being taxed twice. First as income, and then by the death tax.”
I just topped off my gas tank yesterday. Imagine my horror when I discovered I was taxed twice, first on my income and then with a gas tank. Moments earlier, I was also taxed twice…first on my income, and then on my DVD purchase of “MacGyver: The Complete Third Season.” Seems like there’s a correlation between another layer of taxation being imposed whenever a transfer of ownership takes place, be it a DVD set or a multi-million dollar inheritance. I suppose we could put all of our eggs in one basket, eliminating all “double taxation” with a singular one-size-fits-all tax on income or consumption, but history has proven such schemes to be ineffective and short-lived.
“Fine. I think we should have a Democrat tax.”
Look at the red state/blue state divide and then take a look at tax revenues and federal spending outlays state by state. Democrats are already paying most of the taxes in this country while Republicans who pretend to hate government wait by their mailboxes for handouts.
“Most families whose grandma or grandpa scrimped and saved for decades to provide their family with something end up getting screwed.”
Moronic talking point that also has the misfortune of being false. The grandparents in Des Moines who saved $50,000 for their grandkids don’t have to worry about the estate tax. At this point, I don’t think even $5 million in assets are subject to taxation any more. Yet the Republicans continue trying to con us into believing granny’s piggy bank is being confiscated. I don’t believe anybody’s advocating that six-figure (and even many seven-figure) inheritances should be subjected to the estate tax. 99.8% of the population is exempted from the estate tax, making the case harder to make that the richest 0.2% are being brutally pillaged in their ocean-bound yachts. That’s why you have to resort to lies about “grandparents saving money for Jack and Jill.”
“The farmer who spend 60 years cultivating his land while land values soared obviously never worked a day in his life, right?”
I think in the average year, 150 farms are subjected to the estate tax. Of them, about five are lost to the tax every year, often due to outside forces rather than a consequence of the tax. The kinds of farms that are so gratuitously large that they are subjected to the estate tax are a cancer on agriculture anyway. If you want to be the bigshot property baron of the state, deal with the consequences and pay your damn taxes.
“And the argument that anyone’s volunteering to pay more taxes is ridiculous”
The Treasury is being looted to finance the elimination of the estate tax. When we already have a twelve-figure deficit, the loss of estate tax revenue is passed onto future generations in the form of national debt interest. Whether in the present tense or future tense, members of the sweating classes who support repealing the estate tax ARE volunteering to pay more taxes to cover Paris Hilton’s bill.
“How about the government STOP SPENDING MONEY ON WASTEFUL CRAP before demanding more out of all our pocketbooks.”
Most serious people believe we are underfunding the nation’s infrastructure and health care, and are likely to pay the consequences for it in terms of competitive advantage. While we do waste alot of money ($250 billion in Iraq and the Department of Homeland Security, for some reason, come to mind), it’s not practical to think we can budget-cut our way to financial stability. The kinds of budget cuts you wish to be imposed would trigger a bruising recession and slash revenue forecasts even further.
And one more thing…..how about that Tom DeLay?!? It sure is nice we don’t have to count on those crusty old network news guys to report us the news anymore when new-wave blogs like yours so dependably report all the latest developments. :))
Mark are you saying that the government needs more money, what was the budget this year hmmm, what a couple trillion ? No give it more give it more, it will learn fiscal discipline only when it gets more of the private sectors money. The poor goverenment is starving the poor dear, we need to tighten our belts so the big baby doesn’t go hunger. Make more “investments” into our “infra structure”, what did Bush and Clinton “invest” in the NO infrastucture, that worked like a charm didn’t it ? Send in those refund checks everyone, the department of motor vehicles needs a few more people !! Whats the rate of debt for every man women and child. Waste ? you think ! I thought your boy Clinton heralded the end of big gov’t, didn’t he and Al Gore stand in front of some warehouse or was it just Al Gore. Now Bush has yet to veto any soending bills, not one.
I like you double tax refute, but what did you do to get taxed again by our benevolent tax collectors, you died !! thats suppose to have a cost associated to it ( steal the penny’s from our eyes, isn’t that a beatles song)’ Thats not just wrong, thats repugnant ! Taxing a corpse are you mad, “sorry about your husband Ms. Smith but before you plant ’em we we need you to meet with our empathetic IRS person”, before the damn body is cold…”It is the worst form of double-taxation, where, after taxing you all your life, the government decides to take even more when you die. And worst of all, one out of four small businesses will have to go out of business to pay the tax, unless it is permanently repealed before 2011.” Hey my talking points have actual figures associated with them, look at me look at me !!
By the way Paris Hilton is a lib !
As far as the flat tax is concerned the former communist gov’t in east europe are trying it, Russia is trying it. Don’t know how it will turn out but its a little to early to tell regarding the outcome, but if they fail they could always go back to socialism, right, I mean it just hasn’t been applied properly but everyone thinks even after the abismal failures it could work, tax the rich give to the poor and all that, how about the Robin Hood taxing system, where you hold them up and just pass it out and cut out the middleman.
Bullshit’s a crop now?
And according to one former Democratic Presidential candidate, some marry into it…
Keep it up. A 271 vote head start in the Electoral College will make it real easy for us. Not only is that statistic utterly fatuous (the correlation’s much stronger for population than for politics – which is exactly what one would expect), but it displays the fundamental elitism and arrogance of the Democratic Party.
And I thought the Democrats liked higher taxes – but apparently only for other people.
Furthermore, let’s accept your wrongheaded idea that the death tax only effects 0.2% of the population and 150 farms. Then why the hell does it matter if it’s repealed or not? How many of the mythical 0.2% of the populace eligeable for the death tax die every year? If that’s true, then the amount of revenue is so piddling getting rid of the idiotic $200 million bridge to nowhere in Alaska would make up the shortfall. If that’s the only amount of the population effected, than simple mortality says that it’s not an effective form of revenue.
So, rich people are stealing money from the Treasury. Again, this is why Democrats will never win arguments on tax policy. It isn’t the government’s money. It’s the people’s, and the government doesn’t have an automatic right to take it.
Oh, but we’ve plenty of money for bridges and bike trails in a system of political patronage. Unless you want to join with Rep. DeLay in saying that there’s no fat left to be cut in the budget. Given recent events, I wouldn’t want to be in his company.
Last I checked, this is my site, not a news network. Others are covering DeLay in detail.
You can call the shots when you pay me to blog full-time. Until then, I write about what I want.
Besides, the DeLay thing is a bore. DeLay’s no more or less corrupt than Earle is, Earle has a case that’s weaker than watered-down Budweiser. Earle knows there’s no way in hell he has anything that could be used to prove state’s burden, and this whole thing is a giant publicity stunt. A pox on both their houses.
“but it displays the fundamental elitism and arrogance of the Democratic Party.”
And it also happens to be true….as evidenced by decades worth of one-party Republican government in your state criticizing government while waiting for latest serving of Federal highway funds to start flowing down the trough.
“And I thought the Democrats liked higher taxes”
It would appear you’re right. Even though the taxes us Dems pay mostly finances those who’ve declared a culture war against us, we continue to pay them with little complaint.
“Furthermore, let’s accept your wrongheaded idea that the death tax only effects 0.2% of the population and 150 farms. Then why the hell does it matter if it’s repealed or not? How many of the mythical 0.2% of the populace eligeable for the death tax die every year?”
0.2% of the American population still accounts for 580,000 people. When you consider the amount of assets the richest 0.2% of Americans hold, you’re talking about billions of dollars of lost revenue in just a few years. Clearly, the estate tax is not our biggest source of raising revenue, but considering the fiscal nightmare Bush and the Republican Congress have imposed on us, the Treasury can’t afford to lose an additional penny without magnifying the long-term consequences.
“getting rid of the idiotic $200 million bridge to nowhere in Alaska would make up the shortfall.”
No argument there. I can think of no other pork-barrel project more worthy of extinction…..and it’s a prime example of the faux-cowboy culture I spoke about above in which red states who pretend to hate government keep getting fatter and fatter from the pork paid for blue-state taxpayers.
“It isn’t the government’s money. It’s the people’s, and the government doesn’t have an automatic right to take it.”
Actually, it’s creditors’ money….most of whom live in foreign countries and are graciously financing all of our Federal borrowing, enabling pandering GOP politicians to hand out fists full of cash to people under the premise that it’s “their money.” It ceased to be “their money” when the surplus went away.
Republicans just don’t seem to get it about taxes….ever. Taxes are the price for living in a civilized society, and America’s tax burden is in fact artificially low because of the aforementioned borrow-and-spend pyramid scheme sold under the “it’s your money” premise.
“Unless you want to join with Rep. DeLay in saying that there’s no fat left to be cut in the budget”
I already gave you the two biggest chunks of fat worthy of being trimmed to the bone…..Iraq and the Dept. of Homeland Security. Get rid of those boondoggles and we’d probably halve the deficit like Bush promised. And I wouldn’t object to delaying or gutting the haphazard Medicare expansion either.
“You can call the shots when you pay me to blog full-time. Until then, I write about what I want.”
You’re making my point. How can the blogosphere be taken seriously if it picks and chooses which major news events to even discuss? If Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi was indicted by a Federal grand jury on ethics charges, Dan Rather would’ve reported it whatever his political bias may have been. You have no obligation or desire to do so, and nor does any blogger, meaning you are not a venue for news at all, just a propaganda tool for a narrow ideology.
“Earle has a case that’s weaker than watered-down Budweiser.”
A Texas grand jury didn’t think so. Those damn suburban Houston liberals!
“Earle knows there’s no way in hell he has anything that could be used to prove state’s burden, and this whole thing is a giant publicity stunt.”
If that’s the case, he’s making a grave mistake. If the whole point of such an indictment is to embarrass DeLay and expose him as corrupt slime to help Democrats’ chances of picking up Congressional seats, it will surely backfire or at the very least be useless if DeLay is abruptly acquitted in the next 14 months. Only time will tell.
Yes, and I’m sure that no goods going anywhere else ever use those highways. A state like South Dakota will *always* get more back from the government than they pay in. 700,000 people aren’t a big enough tax base. A state like New York with tens of millions always will.
Again, it has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with population and geography. But hey, why let such things as facts get in the way?
To borrow from Ned Flanders: “[Taxes pay for] everything! Policemen, trees, sunshine. And let’s not forget the folks who just don’t feel like workin’, God bless ’em!”
Again, it’s not the government’s money. Our tax dollars are wasted on pork, thrown into fiscal black holes, and otherwise mistreated. When the government finally gets its crap together then they can ask for more money. Until then, they need to cut the fat.
The DHS wouldn’t be so bloody expensive and bureaucratic had the Democrats not demanded they be covered under the same set of idiotic civil service rules as other government agencies.
How about cutting the wasteful Medicare drug benefit, fraud and abuse in all government agencies, and reenacting PAYGO budgeting (John Kerry’s one decent idea) before we start destroying the agencies responsible for protecting us from the very real threat of terrorism?
Again, you make an argument that’s profoundly idiotic. This site != the blogosphere. If you want DeLay, RedState’s all over it. Personally, I don’t give a damn. It’s another stupid partisan witch hunt that reflects badly on everyone. I. Don’t. Care.
Well, you’re as ignorant about geography as you are about politics. It was a Travis County jury. As in Austin, not Houston. Austin is the Berkeley of Texas, an oasis of idiocy in the middle of Texas.
He probably is. But it was the last day of the grand jury, and he had to come up with something. A conspiracy charge is the only thing he could plausibly make stick.
“A state like South Dakota will always get more back from the government than they pay in. 700,000 people aren’t a big enough tax base”
A fact that should help you guys muster up the integrity to accept your tax burden and not suggest that you really want “less government.” Taxes are as high as they are because of the decision of red-staters to isolate themselves from civilization and force the need for an elaborate infrastructure to be designed in places where buffalo roam. Fair enough, as long as you’re willing to accept the necessary tax burden to accommodate you….and have the good sense not to shoot the geese laying the golden eggs with “culture wars” and demands for “less government” that could endanger your ability to effectively live alongside buffalo.
“Again, it’s not the government’s money.”
Then it’s not the government’s national debt either. Whatever way you spin it, you and I are on the hook for paying the bills that are not being paid today. I submit that if we restructured government to accommodate the views of you and other hard-right conservatives, deficits would be even higher since we’d even have less sufficient tax revenue being generated, along with even higher military costs and the penny-wise, pound-foolish consequences of leaving lower-income Americans standing naked in the blizzard of lawless free enterprise and thus running up higher emergency room bills and be even more likely to turn to crime for their daily bread.
“The DHS wouldn’t be so bloody expensive and bureaucratic had the Democrats not demanded they be covered under the same set of idiotic civil service rules as other government agencies”
Nice try. The Republican version of the bill which baited Democrats into opposing DHS right before the 2002 election prevailed. DHS is not subject to collective bargaining laws…..one more reason why we should drive a stake through its heart before its cancer spreads.
“How about cutting the wasteful Medicare drug benefit, fraud and abuse in all government agencies, and reenacting PAYGO budgeting (John Kerry’s one decent idea)”
Both good ideas. No opposition at my end.
“Personally, I don’t give a damn. It’s another stupid partisan witch hunt that reflects badly on everyone. I. Don’t. Care.”
A political party leader was indicted on serious criminal charges. Your personal slant on the issue should have no bearing on delivering the message to the public….at least if you want to market yourself as a member of the “new media” that should be taken seriously and sufficiently starve out the mainstream news networks. Saying that “some bloggers” are discussing the issue is like saying that as long as NBC covered the September 11 attacks live, it’s okay if CBS, ABC, and CNN had decided to focus in on whether Anne Heche was crazy because the Twin Towers falling didn’t meet their threshold of real news.
There is no accountability on bloggers’ content, and thus no pressure to inform the public on issues that don’t meet their criteria of importance. Blogs are to mainstream news what the bathroom wall is to the science textbook.
“Well, you’re as ignorant about geography as you are about politics. It was a Travis County jury. As in Austin, not Houston. Austin is the Berkeley of Texas, an oasis of idiocy in the middle of Texas.”
OK, I tried to sneak that one in there and got caught. I know all about Austin. My ex-girlfriend lives and works there and gives me regular reports. She refers to it as an “island of sanity” rather than an “oasis of idiocy”, however.
“A conspiracy charge is the only thing he could plausibly make stick.”
Even if acquitted, Teflon Tom’s reputation won’t be getting any sweeter seeing as how this will be his fourth altercation with ethics and/or legal charges. And isn’t the Jack Abramoff scandal a separate issue that’s still festering over DeLay’s shoulder? DeLay’s fast becoming the Dan Rostenkowski of his party…and we all know what happened to him.
Wow, what complete and utter idiocy. I mean seriously, this is just dumb. I know your hatred of anyone who doesn’t walk in rigid lockstep with your ideology overwhelms all common sense, but your whole argument is asinine. You really think South Dakota gets that much from the federal government. If South Dakota gets $1 billion per year that’s a per-capita receipt of right around $1,400. If liberal New York gets $15 billion per year that’s roughly $790. So you’re arguing that South Dakota is greedy because they get 1/15th of what New York has. That, quite frankly, is idiotic.
Never mind the fact that the largest part of the federal budget by far is mandatory spending on the same entitlement programs that Democrats love. Because Democrats don’t want to reform entitlements in any meaningful way, we’re facing a demographic time bomb, and the Democrats have no desire to let anyone defuse it.
The current GOP leadership may have a problem with spending, but the Democrats make them look like penny-pinchers in comparison. Cutting pork is great and needs to be done, but the only way to fix the debt is to reform entitlements – entitlement spending that goes predominantly to the blue states.
Again, you utterly, completely, and totally miss the point. One blogger is not ABC. You don’t see Christiane Amanpour covering Tom DeLay either. There are plenty of blogs that are covering that story. I don’t care to. I don’t find it particularly interesting, nor particularly eventful. Plus, I have already commented on it at RedState. The blogosphere as a whole tends to do better than the media, but arguing that one blogger (working in what little spare time I have) should cover every single bloody story is so far beyond idiotic it boggles the mind.
Again, if you want to bloviate about Tom DeLay, you’re free to do it yourself.
Hint: when in a hole, it’s best not to dig…
“If South Dakota gets $1 billion per year that’s a per-capita receipt of right around $1,400. If liberal New York gets $15 billion per year that’s roughly $790”
You continue to make my point more effectively than I could do myself, ironic as that is considering you’re attempting to discredit me. Most places in South Dakota had no reason to ever be settled….yet hundreds of thousands did settle there with the expectation that the comforts of civilized society should follow them on the taxpayers’ dime. You can’t have it both ways…or at least you shouldn’t be able to. Either deal with the tax burden you impose upon society by living in the boonies or forfeit your share of the freebies and see how long you can exist when Uncle Sam isn’t filling the trough at your beckon call.
“The current GOP leadership may have a problem with spending, but the Democrats make them look like penny-pinchers in comparison.”
According to your buddy David Brooks, discretionary spending under Bush is rising at the same percentage that it did under LBJ during Great Society…..and at more than twice the level that it did during the Clinton years, even during the two years where the Dems controlled the Presidency and both houses of Congress. The Democrats being the party of big spending has went the way of the segregation laws that would still be in place if “states’ rights” ideologues in the GOP still had their way. You no longer have a leg to stand on here.
Furthermore, an Al Gore Presidency would have at the very least saved us from a $250 billion and growing-by-the-day expenditure in Iraq as well as a new federal department whose main function has been to serve as a payola for unqualified Republican party campaign contributors. My guess is that our deficit would be fast approaching zero right now if a few dozen votes in Florida had went the other way.
“There are plenty of blogs that are covering that story. I don’t care to. I don’t find it particularly interesting, nor particularly eventful.”
Real purveyors of news don’t have that option, at least on major stories like the indictment of the Majority Leader of the House of Representatives. If every individual blogger operates like “Pravda”, those who rely on blogs for their news (which, it appears, in your ideal world would be everybody) are required to travel to blogs with a different ideological slant, and even then will receive the information in a more biased form than anything Dan Rather has ever delivered. Those who frequent your blog are probably not likely to look for the counterpoint at the Daily Kos. Bottom line: a world where blogs are the main pipeline for news is a world where the public is less informed than they were in a Dan Rather-Tom Brokaw world.
“Hint: when in a hole, it’s best not to dig…”
I tried to sneak in an utterly benign talking point that I knew was false….the same way you did in your last post when you got caught trying to say that collective bargaining rights applied to DHS employees when you knew the Republican DHS bill prevailed and that Max Cleland was smeared for supporting the Democratic alternative that supported collective bargaining. You definitely should have quit while you were behind. 🙂
Wow, that is one of the dumbest things ever said. Really, I’m forwarding this to Rep. Kennedy’s office – a comment that idiotic is golden! Rural people are a tax burden? Give me a break! Rural programs represent a pittance compared to the money that goes into metropolitan areas. Your entire argument is far beyond asinine it’s funny.
Seriously, are you sure you’re not a Republican political operative trying to make Democrats look bad?
In any event, keep this up. A 270 vote head start in the Electoral College would be excellent.
And just as the Democrats are trying to prove they’re not all a bunch of priggish coastal elitists…
I’m sure we’d be in the middle of the Second Great Depression. If Gore had been in charge after 9/11, Anthrax, and Enron we would have had a confiscatory tax rate that would have sent the economy into a major recession – and he’d be demanding more.
Blogs are unlikely to be the main pipeline for news, but neither will be the current system of centralized journalism either.
Actually, I wasn’t even referring to the collective bargaining rules. I was referring to the federalization of TSA screeners, which was a massive mistake that made things worse. Furthermore, the procurement systems for the DHS are the same crappy federal procurement systems that the agencies used when they were separate. The idea of the DHS is a very necessary one, it’s the implementation that stinks. Abolishing the DHS would be like throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and it would leave this nation more vulnerable to terrorists.
“Rural people are a tax burden? Give me a break! Rural programs represent a pittance compared to the money that goes into metropolitan areas. Your entire argument is far beyond asinine it’s funny.”
I have lived in the rural Midwest my entire life. The biggest town I’ve ever lived in had 8,000 people. With that in mind, I have the sense not to intentionally antagonize the people subsidizing my way of life, both at the state level and Federal level. Tim Pawlenty is already turning the spiggott off for adequate school funding and Local Government Aid for rural Minnesota. True fiscal conservatives in Washington would be doing the same, and at some point probably will, to America at large, which would effectively end the rural way of life. Simply put, if you wanna live in Highmore or Murdo, SD, the last thing you should be complaining about is “too much government.”
You go right ahead and forward my comments to Sen. Kennedy’s office. Meanwhile, I’ll forward your comments about undoing the Farm Bill and ending crop subsidies to Amy Klobuchar’s office. We’ll see which scares the GOP’s beloved “rural base” more.
“If Gore had been in charge after 9/11, Anthrax, and Enron we would have had a confiscatory tax rate that would have sent the economy into a major recession – and he’d be demanding more.”
If Gore had been elected, 9/11 would most likely continue to represent the phone number one dials where their toaster starts on fire. Since Gore wouldn’t have so preoccupied with manufacturing a reason to invade Iraq in his first eight months in office, perhaps he would have actually read Presidential Daily Briefings headlined “Bin Laden Determined to Attack the U.S.” and thus have held his first staff meeting on terrorism before 9/4. It’s amazing how much easier it is to thwart the attack of an enemy when you’re actually paying attention to him. With that in mind, the successful Clinton era tax rates would have been more than sufficient to finance the speed bumps that followed.
“I was referring to the federalization of TSA screeners, which was a massive mistake that made things worse. ”
How on Earth could it be worse to replace minimum-wage screeners who can’t speak English with trained professionals? Oh that’s right…they’re union members now with voting rights instead of impoverished immigrants without them. It all makes sense now.
“I’m sure we’d be in the middle of the Second Great Depression. If Gore had been in charge after 9/11, Anthrax, and Enron we would have had a confiscatory tax rate that would have sent the economy into a major recession – and he’d be demanding more.”
Not very likely. A tax increase would have never made it past the House. That, and Gore would have likely maintained the same neoliberal fiscal and spending policies of the Clinton administration. Despite his pandering, Kerry probably would have too (given that the GOP congress would have given him no choice, thank God)…
As it is, we’re buying now and paying later. I don’t want to be in this neck of the woods when the bill for this party comes due…