Via Balloon Juice: A Modern Parable:
A unionized public employee, a teabagger, and a CEO are sitting at a table. In the middle of the table is a plate with a dozen cookies on it. The CEO reaches across and takes 11 cookies, then looks at the teabagger and says “Watch out for that union guy—he wants a piece of your cookie!”
QFT.
Guess what Republicans! Reagan liked unions. He was even a union boss!
Rather than put the spotlight on all the crazy sh** Republicans are doing around the country, big media wants us to fall in love with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. This is the tag line for a NY Times profile:
The governor of New Jersey became the most celebrated Republican in America by tagging public-sector workers — especially teachers — as 21st-century welfare queens.
First off, he doesn’t sound so sane. Second, how come “the most celebrated Republican in America” barely has over 50% approval in his own state?
President Obama then publicly demanded the release of what he absurdly called ”our diplomat in Pakistan”; when he was arrested, Davis ”was carrying a 9mm gun and 75 bullets, bolt cutters, a GPS unit, an infrared light, telescope, a digital camera, an air ticket, two mobile phones and a blank cheque.”
According to rich conservative pundits, government employees need to sacrifice for the good of over-stretched government budgets around the country. Well, what about the huge tax cut you ***holes got in December? When are you going to sacrifice?
The Washington Post (via John Cole):
The 401(k) generation is beginning to retire, and it isn’t a pretty sight.
The retirement savings plans that many baby boomers thought would see them through old age are falling short in many cases.
The median household headed by a person aged 60 to 62 with a 401(k) account has less than one-quarter of what is needed in that account to maintain its standard of living in retirement, according to data compiled by the Federal Reserve and analyzed by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College for The Wall Street Journal. Even counting Social Security and any pensions or other savings, most 401(k) participants appear to have insufficient savings. Data from other sources also show big gaps between savings and what people need, and the financial crisis has made things worse.
Keep this in mind when you listen to rich Washington politicians and Big Media pundits go on about how imperative it is to cut the safety net for current and future retirees. They don’t have to worry about their retirement, but thanks to the all but gone pension system, you do.
Ladies and gentlmen, i present to you the new Republican majority:
House Republicans on Friday easily approved amendments to the spending package that would deny government financing for Planned Parenthood, block money for the Democrats’ big health care overhaul and bar new regulation of certain greenhouse gases.
[...] The Securities and Exchange Commission, for instance, charged with carrying out a sweeping new financial regulation law, will end up with $25 million less than last year, which was before the law was adopted.
Just what this country needs! More pollution, less regulation of banks and more unplanned pregnancies!
The whole budget debate, then, is a sham. House Republicans, in particular, are literally stealing food from the mouths of babes — nutritional aid to pregnant women and very young children is one of the items on their cutting block — so they can pose, falsely, as deficit hawks.
What would a serious approach to our fiscal problems involve? I can summarize it in seven words: health care, health care, health care, revenue.
Notice that I said “health care,” not “entitlements.” People in Washington often talk as if there were a program called Socialsecuritymedicareandmedicaid, then focus on things like raising the retirement age. But that’s more anti-Willie Suttonism. Long-run projections suggest that spending on the major entitlement programs will rise sharply over the decades ahead, but the great bulk of that rise will come from the health insurance programs, not Social Security.
So anyone who is really serious about the budget should be focusing mainly on health care.
Obama's new budget is meh. It stupidly cuts some programs that help the neediest among us in yet another boneheaded attempt to please conservatives. But at least it doesn’t touch the biggies like Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security, which would be fine if we weren’t dedicated to giving millionaires gigantic tax cuts.
In any case, if conservatives are so desperate to cut welfare programs, they should get their Republican friends to do it. Obama has smartly avoided political suicide. Poor and elderly Americans can rejoice.