On FOX News yesterday, Republican candidate for Senate, Carly Fiorina, said, if elected by the people of California, she’d fight to make Bush’s tax cuts on the wealthiest Americans permanent. When pressed by Chris Wallace on what she’d cut in order to cover the $4 trillion budget shortfall that would result, though, the failed former CEO of HP couldn’t name a single program that she’d axe. But that’s kind of what you’d expect, seeing as how the American people, despite all their red-faced ranting about “big government,” really don’t want to see the programs that they rely upon cut. (The reality is that they like social programs. They just don’t like them for everybody else.) So, Republican candidates like Fiorina perform the requisite Kabuki – saying that they’ll substantially cut back government programs if elected, with no intention whatsoever of actually following through. I don’t suppose that surprises anyone, but I thought that it was worth mentioning.
Oh, it’s probably also worth noting here, as long as we’re talking about hypocritical Republicans, that several anti-stimulus lawmakers lobbied aggressively for stimulus funds behind the scenes.
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The truth that no one seems willing to face is that sooner or later Social Security needs to be cut. The retirement age needs to be raised to 70-something and benefits need to go only to those who need the money. Whoever votes for it, though, won’t be going back to Washington ever again.
They can start by cutting all spending on public schools. Then they can cut the Department of Education, HUD, and the EPA. There are a lot of programs that don’t affect middle aged white people to be trimmed.
How about cutting the military budget in half. Our military budget dwarfs the military budgets of China, Britain, France, Russia, Germany, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Italy, South Korea, Brazil, Canada, and Australia COMBINED.
Yet, I hear only calls of increasing spending from the right. See the Repugs “Pledge to America.”
The Obama admin has been no better, making half hearted promises to reduce the useless nuclear arsenal, but being unwilling to reduce the overall budget.
It’s telling to me that Americans are unwilling to provide decent schools, health care, retirement benefits and monies to repair out crumbling infrastructure, but are more than willing to wantonly throw trillions of dollars into a military complex which is largely superfluous.
But, I guess having the power to obliterate all life on Earth directly benefits middle aged white people.
Oh public schools will be the first to go. One of these days, I know that someone is going to decide that the special needs kids don’t need to be educated and start a’cuttin’. But yeah, that person won’t go back to Washington but the damage will be done.
No, Ms. Patti, you are wrong, that person will get re-elected.
There are many, many people who would love to stop funding public schools. Not the least of which is the braindead California congressional candidate David Harmer who believes that schools should return to “the way things worked through the first century of American nationhood.”
Remember those days? When black people couldn’t go to school? Those days were great.
Though Peter Larson gets some of the credit for driving EOS away, I’m going to claim the bulk of it. I know it seemed heartless but I’m just trying to follow through on my campaign promise to make needed cuts here at MM.com
I’d have a lot more respect for Fiorina and others if they were straight forward and told the truth. If she’s really not going to cut anything then she should say so. And, if she is, she should have the courage to say that social security and public schools need to be whacked down a bit. And Dems should say that they’d cut the military. We need an open, honest debate.
Robert, like cockroaches, EOS will return.
EOS is gone? Oh I missed that.
Peter, I wonder who will be the politican to stand up and say, “*Those* kids don’t need to be public schools.” Could be from this election cycle?
Rumblings are already happening because of inclusion, esp. with kids with behavior problems and autism. In my little world, we’d have two teachers in every room (me trained in special ed and her/him trained in the subject area)…I kind of do that now with “push in” support and it’s great. But the norm is to have all kids in one room with one teacher and if the one kid is spitting and climbing the walls, then it’s up to the teacher to deal with it while the other 29 are left to themselves. Parents are (and I don’t disagree) upset about this. So I think that is how it will start…instead of doubling up teachers, we’ll start pulling special kids and segregating them into the “little rooms with the shades drawn” from days of yore.
Personally, I can’t wait for the first local politican to fuck with my blind kids…who is going to bail me out of jail when I pull off his head and shit down his throat?
We need to pipeline minority kids right into the military. They don’t need school.
I have to hand it to you, John. That’s one hell of an idea. And it’s much more practical than Obama’s idea of filling pot holes with aborted babies.
Speaking of Obama and his radical agenda, a friend and I were talking over lunch today and the subject of guns came up. Specifically, we were wondering why, despite all the warnings from the right in 2008, Obama never came for our guns. Wasn’t he going to do that?
Mark, they are just waiting for when we are least expecting it, just like the terrorists did when they waited for the Bush Administration to get in before they carried out the 9/11 attacks. Bad guys are real clever like that…all ruthless and imaginative and shit.
Funny, I work with a guy who didn’t vote for Obama because “He was gonna take my guns!”. I ask him every day “Did Obama come for your guns yet?” “Not yet.”
BA and I stopped him with our harsh words.
The New York Times is on it today:
The rest of the article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/20/us/politics/20spend.html