Hey Republican, want to buy a budget plan?
When will my party leadership wake up and figure out that we’re not fooled? No one is fooled. Either do the hard budget cuts or someone else will. The party squeaked back into control of the house in November, but has yet to show anyone why it was worth it.
Now in a proud display of “fiscal responsibility” they have proposed 61 billion in budget cuts, slashing almost every worthwhile program run by the federal government. NPR, PBS, the EPA and Americorps lead the list of big flash cost saving measures. That’s good, make sure none of these cuts have a chance of passing, that way we all look like we’re being tough without the worry of actually doing anything.
Of course the American people have grown a little since the 60’s, when this kind of baloney worked much better. They are better informed now and they have their own sources of information, something Hosni Mubarak figured out too late. Already the forces of the new age are aligning against the GOP, MoveOn.Org (as if they needed another excuse) is cranking out petitions left and right. We have heard of the Internet right?
Skipping lightly around Defense and Medicare, the Republican proposals seem almost designed to bring the house down around their ears. The EPA? Really? Is that because gigantic oil and chemical spills are good for America? And Americorps, because job training is not something that our 9% unemployed who are just about to run out of benefits need right now.
Easily the cleverest move is to pick a fight with Elmo. Nice one, it’s not like just about every American either grew up or spent hours and hours with their children watching Sesame Street. It’s certainly not like that was the one television oasis alternative for children in the last 30 years. Smart guys, really smart.
Maybe they’re thinking that all the over 60 baby boomers will see this all as good sense. Well guys, not after their grand children get through with them. The twitterverse is already exploding with cries of “save big bird!” I know they say there is no such thing as bad publicity, buy seriously, do you really want to find out just how true that is?
This was our big chance to bow our heads and quietly say “Defense.” The optimum play in a war weary country would be to trim a little off the top of a defense budget that already has interest bills of half a trillion from debts of old wars. This was a chance to look really responsible, put the onus on the Democrats to put up or shut up. Oh well……
Nah, you’re right, let’s go after the minuscule amount taken up by NPR and PBS and get even Colin Powell to call it ridiculous. I guess going after the EPA is a salute to the Koch Brothers, but they’re not going to take the hit guys, we are. Maybe it’s just that we’re more into political theatre today than we’re into actual politics. Maybe it’s a comedy sketch. Maybe “Weepin’ John” thinks he can cry his way out of this?
It’s just possible it doesn’t hurt as much getting your ass kicked by fuzzy educational animals, but think of the “time out” guys. How long will you last under the endless lecture of “niceness is nice, yeah…Really, really nice..” with only an occasional break from a puppet in an overcoat asking if you want to buy a clue?
Copyright Prentiss Gray 2011
Prentiss Gray is a writer and columnist and currently writes the Domesti-Tech Blog for Gannett. He can be reached through his website at www.prentissgray.com
Prentiss Gray
Prentiss Gray is a writer/columnist/blogger from New Jersey. After 27 years as a Information Systems consultant and the death of his wife of 21 years, he returned to his roots as a writer, creating the national column Adventures of the Lone Dad/ Daddy chronicles. He now Blogs for Gannet on domestic technology, and writes feature pieces and stories for general publication. He is a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors and contributes to Bloomberg News, Daily Record, Gannett and the Tribune Syndicate.
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Prentiss, I agree with your sentiment. The Republicans want to cut many small items, and avoid the whoppers which need the most work, like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Defense and God knows what else. The Democrats want to cut nothing. The President puts up a nearly 4 trillion dollar budget, without hard choices. I think we have a group of children in Washington; regardless of party none has any balls.
They just keep spending like there is no tomorrow. And it is the tomorrows that we are screwing up. We do not need 50% of what the government does. I’m tired of hearing that any cut any where is going to ruin our lives…it is the opposite that is true… Maybe an 18 day protest on the mall will get them to cut the crap!! Nothing else seems to work…
Come on guys. Do you really believe that cutting programs that help the poor like helping with the high cost of utilities or cuts in education will not hurt people? It really irks me that people can get all high and mighty on the backs of the little folk. Maybe the cuts will not affect you and I very much (I take that back they may hurt me)but how about the elderly poor and children on Medicaid. And Lord please, our kids aren’t getting a good education now and teachers are under paid.
I have a better idea, cut those elected idiots pay, cut each and everyone of them to half of what they are making now. Cut the democrats and the republicans, cut the president and the vice president’s pay, cut the speaker and the staff and the chiefs etc. I think that will work just fine. When they cut the people out of the budget they always seem to find a way to increase their pay. Go figure.
Well Kaye, I can agree, we should cut their pay to nothing. They get rich off the bribes, I mean donations… If only that would balance the budget.
I don’t think we want to starve kids and old folks. I just think we MUST cut the budget, and make much better choices in how to allocate the available funds, like you and I do at home. The pot of money is not limitless. Perhaps the day will come when we have to sell off all of our resources… I wonder how much we can get for Hawaii and Yellowstone… maybe we can use that to cover the earmarks and pork (sarcasm)… of course then we would need a subsidy to teach Mandarin Chinese…
I wonder what it will take to convince people that a ballanced budget is an issue of national security. If this country goes broke it could fail, just like a household or business. I would hazard to guess that if just 75% of entitlement claims of all types were legitimate we could probably afford them. I would love to see free healthcare in this country and we could probably afford it if not for all the other government programs that have such rediculously low performance. Welfare to the poor is a joke, these people are laughing at us on the way to the bank, selling their food stamps for drug money and teaching thier children all the tricks of the trade. I have been watching it for 5 decades now and all it does is get worse. Hunger and discomfort are great motivators to work. If a person is too sick or disabled no problem. I am also not too happy about paying for some whore with 8 kids and 8 dads. After the second one I would say get your tubes tied or you are off welfare. We have big hearts in this country, so big that it is breaking us and then their won’t be anything for anyone, this is reality! Steve
Teaching Mandarin Chinese? How about teaching math and science? How about bout teaching standard English? What about art and music?
It has been proven that children who are involved in a music programs do much better in their math classes then children who are not yet, the first thing we do when we want to CUT a budget in education is cut music programs, then art programs, anything that has to do with creativity. I heard something today. An educator told a story about children in kindergarten who were asked to come up with ideas about what different things can be done with a paperclip. They came up with over 50 ideas for different ways to use a paperclip. Four years later they asked the same children the same question and they couldn’t come up with 10 different ways to use a paperclip.
We are stifling our children’s creativity and their ability to think out of the box. Thinking out of the box leads to invention and discovery in science, in medicine, the possibilities are endless but we want to cut this and slash that. The more we cut, slash and burn the farther behind we get. We want everyone to look like us, talk like us and think like us.
You can make light of me saying that salaries in governmentleadership need to be cut if you like but it doesn’t change the fact that when you keep people down, when you squeeze them over and over again one day when you least expect it they will rise up and fight back. Egypt is a prime example of an oppressed, tired people saying enough is enough. Look out America it just might happen right here in our own front yard. There is an old saying; You can keep your foot on my neck to try to hold me down but then you can’t move either because you have to stand right there where I am holding me down.
And what’s wrong with learning Mandarin Chinese? Americans can barely communicate with each other it is about time we learn to communicate with other peoples of the world.
Yes there is a lot of fraud in the welfare system and people do learn how to beat the system; some of them have to. You believe the hype that everyone receiving public assistance is on drugs and sells their food stamps for drug money if you like.
While living in New York I would go shopping for groceries at my local Key Food. The neighborhood was and is considered upper middle class. More than once I was incensed as I watched in shock and horror women with a very thick eastern European accent, dressed in a full length mink coat wearing not one not two but several amethyst rings on their fingers hand the cashier a book of food stamps to pay for over flowing carts of groceries. I know that there are little old women trying to raise their grandchildren or who live alone and have to eat cat and dog food or do without medication who are on public assistance and yet are accused of selling the measly amount of food stamps available to them for drug money. It is a false and biased misnomer. Who is perpetrating the scam? You tell me.
When an immigrants from Europe can live in subsidized housing in wealthy or well to do communities, go shopping in a full length mink coats while dripping in precious jewelry and pay for groceries with food stamps you tell me who is ripping off the tax payers? It is certainly not the mother who has to lie to eat.
Watch the 1974 movie Claudine; it is not far from what really happens in the homes of the people who you think are selling their food stamps.
Oh how high and mighty we can become on the backs of the broken.
Like you Steve, I’m tired of paying for the whore from the Ukraine or Russia or Poland or Germany or Italy or Ireland claiming political asylum while she is feeding her 8 kids and her papa and her mama and her uncles and aunts with my tax dollars while kids in Harlem and in the Bronx and in rural American, in Appalachia who were born here and have generation after generation of family ties here but have to eat a bag of chips or down a can of Mountain Dew before they go to school in the morning because their mothers can’t afford a box of cereal or a container of milk because the monthly allotment of WIC or EBT ran out before the month did. Oh wait, the Whore in the mink needed more assistance then the native Americfan does after all she and her 8 kids are here on asylum. Forget the Haitian refugees. They don’t even count.
Oh how high and mighty we can become on the backs of the broken.
Kaye, I was totally agreeing with you on the salary issue, not making light.
We are hardly an oppressed people. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t those who wish to oppress us. Among them are the Chinese Communist regime. We aren’t poor either. The poorest among us eats better than the middle class in many nations. That is not to say that I want people to starve…
But to the finer point Kaye, I haven’t attacked or made fun of you at all. I have tried to engage in a conversation. We CANNOT CANNOT keep spending for everything that we are, and then add high speed rail, which we don’t need, and won’t ever do anything but cost us more money; or for that matter, any manner of new programs. WE ARE BROKE! And the Arabs and Chinese are buying us up!
Demagoguery doesn’t address the issue. I can agree, how about teaching math and science. We spend billions and trillions on education when you throw in the property and school taxes paid. The class sizes keep getting smaller, the teachers keep getting raises, the school districts keep getting more money, and the test scores keep going down, and the kids pay the price. I have nothing against teachers. When I was in high school, half of the teachers in the school weren’t worth a shit. I had one who showed film strips when he had a hangover. Some weeks that was 4 days. I knew who the good teachers were. The definition of stupidity is doing the same thing we have always done, and expecting a different result. I have nothing against Sesame Street. Yo gabba gabba and a multitude of other programs seem to survive without government funding. Let Disney pay for Sesame Street. I’ll bet that they would love to.
On another post, there was discussion of NPR and PBS. A petition has half a million signatures. My suggestion is that those half a million people open their wallets and send a $1,000 to their pet program. That adds up to half a billion, a pretty penny. That would solve the whole thing. Why is it that everyone thinks that they are entitled to open my wallet and take my money to spend on stuff that they want. I want one of those Cadillac CTS V-8. It goes from 0-60 in a second and is a marvelous car. Congratulations to GM. But my want of the car, which I can’t/won’t afford, does not give me the right to open your check book!?
This is the problem. We want everything for everybody, and somebody else to pay for it. This is why we are in the shape we are in. The government spends too much money. We need to cut the total budget allowed, and then make good choices on how to spend limited resources. I have no favorite programs…cut them all or just some. But reduce the budget total…we must.
And I believe the paper clip story. That demonstrates the ineffectiveness of our current educational system. I think that lack of money is not the problem however, it is a lack of passion on the part of the educator, and thereby the student. My best teacher was a history teacher, and I know history well…I wonder why?
As a country we need to stop this class warfare.
“We want everything for everybody, and somebody else to pay for it.” That is the best way to put it that I have ever heard. And even some of my professors weren’t in it for the right reasons. Passion really does matter in life.
Michael, a study done several years ago on teachers and how effective they are seemed to reflect what you are saying. The lowest paid teachers seems to have the highest teaching scores. They determined that they simply had a passion for teaching and money was secondary.
Kaye, I was divorced over 20 years ago. I did not want my kids to suffer for my mistakes so I worked 2 and sometimes 3 jobs including weekends for almost 14 years to get them through college and keep them in the house they were accostomed two. I Left the house each morning at 6 am and at 1 am I was finishing up my janitorial job. I am not bragging just saying I was willing to work to support my kids, and work as hard as I had to work. I went form earning well over 100,000 a year to a $10.00 ph job over night. I had to make some tough choices about where the money would go just as this country need to make some tough choices. I have no regrets. I will retire this year and be able to say I never picked up one single unemployment check or disability check. Too big a portion of this country is soft, lazy, spoiled and totally lacking in ethics. I have no interest in supplying thse bums with a respectable lifestyle.
It seems that we do want those entitlements, they are important to us individually and as a nation. Even though some people (a very small percentage) misuse the system it’s still important to have the ability to help those in need. Finding out who is really needy and who is just freeloading is the challenge. That is a way to cut spending, just cutting the program by a certain percentage is not. While I agree that our costs are too high, after having worked for large corporations for 30 years I know the answer is in innovation not across the board cuts. When you start down that road you’re doomed. It’s a clear signal you’re not up to the challenge.
I think the bigger problem in all this is the misunderstanding that some how “The middle class” will be better off when the government gets smaller and less costly. It won’t. The government is where our rights come from, without it we simply would not have any. A great deal of the programs on the conservative chopping block are meant to even the playing field between big guys (wealthy, corporations, towns, cities and states) and the individual citizens. If you ever tried to get an insurance company to live up to their commitments you’ll know what I mean. You can take them to court, and with 30 million dollars and 40 years you might just get them to buy that costly prescription for you. Otherwise they will just step on you. But they can’t do that if you have a federal or state attorney on your side.
That misunderstanding help causes like limiting the EPA. Is that about expense, or is big business afraid they will limit emissions? Get the regular guy to forget places like “Love Canal” And the multiple messes Oil companies and Monsanto have made, instead making them think somehow the EPA are an evil empire of green nuts and it’s easy to defund them. Government isn’t inherently evil, after all it’s us and we have it for a reason.
In spite of all the evil some here see in governments alleged penchant for the wealthy, no one mentions there are no poor people in Congress. The Democratic Party is owned lock stock and barrel by an inhumane, insatiably greedy and amoral monster named George Soros who openly admits his goal is to destroy America. Like it or not we are faced with cutting costs or financially imploding. NPR, the Dept. of Education are in fact needless frill and fluff, not essentials.
Gifted by birth with citizenship in this great country we have become a nation of spoiled brats who milk and cheat the system for personal gain and to eschew responsibility for our own misspent lives. Time to pay the piper or reap the harvest we have sowed, financial overload through an attitude of entitlement.
Prentiss, you always write so vividly and passionately. I thoroughly enjoy your persuasive arguments and your honest point of view. As a Washingtonian, I have many conflicting emotions regarding the cutting of expenses in valuable, domestic programs in order to reduce state and federal budget deficits.
Our esteemed Governess has recently announced that in the effort to reduce the budget, cuts will have to made where she and our state legislators have decided the monies are not desperately needed. Of course, we all knew that these budget adjustments would be trimmed from healthcare, social programs, education and environmental protection. The proposal would then divert the cash toward enhancing police and penitentiaries, infrastructural remediation and providing tax-breaks for big business and corporations.
David has pointed out some of the difficulties we now face in light of the financial crisis left in the wake of the Bush Era, and subsequently exaggerated by the actions of our current leadership. Aaah, the “audacity” of hope! Hook, line and sinker… “literally”.
It is my own view that all signs point toward the current military involvement we are engaging in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as regions unpublicized. The 10′s of trillions of dollars spent in these dubious activities has worsened an already weak and impotent financial system.
The resignation of our general population combined with the noticeable dishonesty and avarice portrayed by many political leaders is a travesty. However, it is also a reality. When all is said and done, I have heard, more will be said than done. The question is obvious. The answer we seek will necessitate action from the people of this country, instead of the current, prevalent ideology that incessant debate and the lack-luster vaguery of diplomatic posturing will magically evolve into a plan that everyone can agree upon and comfortably live with. If our leaders truly are patriots and wish the best for America, we would be sweeping our own porch and withdrawing our resources and troops from countries half-way around the planet. I do not yet sense that this is their intention, as we can only tell a tree by it’s fruit, no matter how much debate is employed to divert attention away from the reality of social and economic disaster.
I have heard this notion before that our rights come from the government. This is just not true. We are endowed by our creator… and even with the freedom to decide who/what that is. We loan the power to the government, and do not receive any rights from the government, Our rights are inherent. They are ours. Such is the basis for our republic. “The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government,lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.”- Patrick Henry
But I also think that there is a point to made: more will be said than done, and this is unfortunate. In my area, every time we want to not raise tax rates, or need to cut something, it will hurt the police, schools and trash pickup. We won’t have the money to “modernize” our water treatment plant, even though we just built a new one for a cost of $ 235,000,000. And I live in an area without much population. Certainly nothing on the order of a city. It is all bullshit to keep the slush fund full; therein lies the problem. And also that they keep us busy watching one hand while they pick our pockets with the other…
“Once the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the Republic.” Benjamin Franklin
Michael, the last quote says it all. We are the problem, we elect the goverment and keep them in office. We are the ones borrowing too much and not able to pay back. I have no problem at all with entitlement programs, problem is they are not being administred properly. Prentiss mentioned that he was sure the great majority deserved to be on these programs, I doubt if 25% need to be on these programs. The very existence of our country is on the line right now and no one seems to want to admit it for fear of loosing votes.
We have trained our politicians to be gutless wonders. Whenever one tells the truth they are labelled “extreme.”
Please David, do you actually believe what you wrote? The Democratic party is owned by George Soros? The the Republicans are owned by…..? And The tea party is owned by…? Stop. That kind of inflammatory rhetoric just makes you, an otherwise intelligent and noble human being, look like a fool. That is terribly unfair so don’t bring it on yourself. How much have you investigated those claims and how much is just anger?
When you actually look past all the smoke and mirror conspiracy theories what is so bad about what this or that Democrat wants? They don’t all want the same things, they simply share enough views with their fellows that they have been lumped in one of the two parties we have. It’s not black and white. Not the good guys and the bad guys, just people with conflicting viewpoints.
I’m placing this before you because this is what I find most distressing about what our system has become. This kind of one-sided viewing is the source of deadlock in our government. Sure the Democrats probably don’t have all the answers, but I’ll bet they have some. I’m completely convinced my party doesn’t have all the answers either, but if I look hard enough maybe there’s a few. The question has always been can they get somewhere together, because that’s the way the government works.
Michael, you’re kidding right? you can claim all the “inalienable” rights you want, but until authority respects them they don’t exist. Just look at the totality of human history, look at our own revolution, look at what just happened in Egypt and Tunisia. Where were their inalienable rights when their governments didn’t support them? In reality, it’s a constant battle just to keep government supporting our rights, but it’s still that support we need. Otherwise the next “strong man” or corporation will just decide which ones we get to keep. In the real world, human rights are just a dream, some people’s governments support them and the people dream happily, others, far too many others live in a constant nightmare.
Prentiss, you are totally on target. David’s politics by personal slander (weren’t most of us taught “hate the sin, not the sinner”?) leads nowhere ….just as if you or I called Rush Limbaugh “an inhumane, insatiably greedy and amoral monster” even if we thought so. Call Soros or Limbaugh out for what they say or do, and we can have a civil discussion. Call them monsters and we can have no end to demagoguery. The choice should be a no-brainer.
It is true that name-calling amps up the passion and intensity of discourse. It is often counter-productive as it inhibits listening. I often turn off the hearing aide when someone starts deflecting and calls me names. However, I think there is a difference between Limbaugh and Soros… I could eat dinner with Limbaugh. We may disagree, but we could still talk. Soros strikes me as not a good person. Not for his politics as much as for his actions and that he did say that he wanted to destroy the United States. I heard him say it, so I know that it is true. As to whether one is a monster, I suppose would be up to the individual.
Dude, George Soros never said that. Never used those words. You’ve been watching too much Glenn Beck. You’ve translated what he said about world economics into the destruction of the Unites States. Seen the Interview, in it’s entirety, never used those words, never meant that. if you can point me to a different speech or interview I’d be happy to watch or listen.
Don’t watch Beck much, can’t stand Greta or Shawn, But I sure do like O’reilly, he is funny and usually reasonable…yes I translated it that way, I suppose what you hear is open to interpretation, but to me, it sure sounded like he said he wanted to ruin us and what we stand for
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