It's bad enough when illiterate jurors issue damages awards in the billions of dollars because they don't grasp the difference between a million and a billion. Now it turns out the Democrats don't know the difference between a million and a trillion. Why not make the "stimulus bill" a kazillion dollars? All Americans who work for a living, or who plan to work for a living sometime in the next century, are about to be stuck with a trillion-dollar bill to fund yet more oppressive government bureaucracies. Or as I call it, a trillion dollars and change. The stimulus bill isn't as bad as we had expected -- it's much worse. Instead of merely creating useless, make-work jobs digging ditches -- or "shovel-ready," in the Democrats' felicitous phrase -- the "stimulus" bill will create an endless army of government bureaucrats aggressively intervening in our lives. Instead of digging ditches, American taxpayers will be digging our own graves. There are hundreds of examples in the 800-page "stimulus" bill, but here are just two. First, the welfare bureaucrats are coming back. For half a century, the welfare establishment had the bright idea to pay women to have children out of wedlock. Following the iron laws of economics -- subsidize something, you get more of it; tax it, you get less of it -- the number of children being born out of wedlock skyrocketed. The 1996 Welfare Reform bill marked the first time any government entitlement had ever been rolled back. Despite liberal howling and foot-stomping, not subsidizing illegitimacy led, like night into day, to less illegitimacy. Welfare recipients got jobs, as the hard-core unemployables were coaxed away from their TV sets and into the workforce. For the first time in decades, the ever-increasing illegitimacy rate stopped spiraling upward. As proof that that welfare reform was a smashing success, a few years later, Bill Clinton started claiming full credit for the bill. Well, that's over. The stimulus bill goes a long way toward repealing the work requirement of the 1996 Republican Welfare Reform bill and rewards states that increase their welfare caseloads by paying unwed mothers to sit home doing nothing. Second, bureaucrats at Health and Human Services will electronically collect every citizen's complete medical records and determine appropriate medical care. Judging by the care that the State Department took with private visa records last year, that the Ohio government took with Joe the Plumber's government records, that the Pentagon took with Linda Tripp's employment records in 1998, and that the FBI took with thousands of top secret "raw" background files in President Clinton's first term, the bright side is: We'll finally be able to find out if Bill Clinton has syphilis -- all thanks to the stimulus bill! HHS bureaucrats will soon be empowered to overrule your doctor. Doctors who don't comply with the government's treatment protocols will be fined. That's right: Instead of your treatment being determined by your doctor, it will be settled on by some narcoleptic half-wit in Washington who couldn't get a job in the private sector. And a brand-new set of bureaucrats in the newly created office of "National Coordinator of Health Information Technology" will be empowered to cut off treatments that merely prolong life. Sorry, Mom and Pop, Big Brother said it's time to go. At every other workplace in the nation -- even Wal-Mart! -- workers are being laid off. But no one at any of the bloated government bureaucracies ever need fear receiving a pink slip. All 64,750 employees at the department of Health and Human Services are apparently absolutely crucial to the smooth functioning of the department. With the stimulus bill, liberals plan to move unfirable government workers into every activity in America, where they will superintend all aspects of our lives. Also, thanks to the stimulus bill, the private sector will gradually shrivel and die. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the cost of servicing the bill's nearly trillion-dollar debt will shrink the economy within a decade. Robert Kennedy famously said: "There are those who look at things the way they are and ask, 'Why?' I dream of things that never were and ask, 'Why not?'" The new liberal version is: There are those who look at things and ask, "Why on earth should the government be paying for that?" I dream of things that never were funded by the government and ask, "Why not?"
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
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No, you dream of things and assign the "liberal/conservative" tagline whether it fits or not. It might be time to sit down with a pastor or counsellor and start taking a hard look inside to see where this angst comes from. Then, working on solutions for moving past the taunts and chicken little bullshat toward a meaningful existence free of all this consternation. In reading your posts, I imagine your head on the verge of exploding.
As I noted in a comment on an earlier post, you conservatives are lying when you say that doctors will be fined for not complying with the government's "treatment protocols".
If you need to lie to sell your agenda, you must know that the American public really won't go for it.
What's really pathetic is that you don't realize that all of the problems you fantasize will happen with government paid healthcare already exist in private systems, on top of the detrimental effect that employer-provided healthcare has on the labor market. How many people decide not to look for a better job because they are scared of being without insurance? How many more employees could businesses afford to hire if they didn't have that expense?
Gee...how emotional can you get? LOL You remind me of those liberals back in 2000 and 2004 complaining about Bush and how they were all planning to move to Canada!!! Remember?
"It might be time to sit down with a pastor or counsellor and start taking a hard look inside to see where this angst comes from..."
agreed, anonymous
this is not healthy
Ann Coulter defends the CCC, which is an explicit white supremacist organization.
That bitch is almost as bad as David Duke. Conservatives only shoot themselves in the foot by giving this harpy a megaphone. Coulter is like our version of Michael Moore. While socialism sucks, working with creationists and racists and nativists defeats the point-- we'd just be trading one form of collectivism for another.
American, most of the country has seen this. Only they think they are martyrs for some noble cause.
They have gone from a political opponent to a psychologically damaged group of blamesters. The party of personal responsibility has none and hasn't had for years. The first three years of Bush EVERYTHING was Clintons fault. Now less than 30 days in the entire world is doomed and its all Obamas fault. They think nobody notices their rampant hypocrisy(and this is just one example of thousands). They argue and cry NO WE ARE NOT. Everybody but them sees right through their flimsy defenses while they continue to pretend to be mighty soliders. It is now the knee jerklican party.
If there's one thing I am happy about. Actually joyous, it is to see you guys daily writhe in agony feeling like you are losing your nation. When we felt that way and tried to tell you what was happening you...well you know what you did.
Karma's a bitch and you kids need a good dose of it until you learn to straighten up and learn the advantages of empathy and understanding.
"Now less than 30 days in the entire world is doomed and its all Obamas fault"
Yes, on many levels. No one has ever dreamed of advancing this hard core govt take over of the entire country like Obama. This is going to go even farther than the New Deal. Also, there have been many economists who agree that a key reason for this economic meltdown is all the people who were giving home loans who shouldn't have...lets see, who was it that brought out the race card and used the federal govt to pressure mortgage companies to give loans to people who should not have them? I remember, Obama and ACORN.
Liberals are no longer simple useful idiots.
. Also, there have been many economists who agree that a key reason for this economic meltdown is all the people who were giving home loans who shouldn't have
That is a lie. The cause of the problem was the people who took those risky loans and bundled them together and sold them, and insurance policies on them, as safe investments.
That you don't even know that much about the economy, along with your childish shouts of "SOCIALISM" clearly illustrates that you have no idea what you're talking about.
Liberals are no longer simple useful idiots.
That's right game, we are here to destroy you and all you believe in and we are in charge!
And all of this from the party of personal responsiblity. What responsibility do you take for all of this....none.
In case you haven't been following along the need to do SOMETHING is because you guys did nothing. Oh yes you did do tax cut tax cut tax cut. We wouldn't have had to do all this if you guys wouldn't have screwed it all up so bad. ITS BUSHS FAULT ITS BUSHS FAULT ITS BUSHES FAULT!(all of that comes right out of my right wing play book...see I HAVE been paying attention.)
Yea SOCIALISM!
"Actually joyous, it is to see you guys daily writhe in agony feeling like you are losing your nation."
It is sick to see you take pleasure in destroying something good and noble.
"That is a lie. The cause of the problem was the people who took those risky loans and bundled them together and sold them, and insurance policies on them, as safe investments."
Hey Einstein! There would NOT be any RISKY LOANS if lenders were not forced to make them.
You are obviously parroting the right-wing talking points about the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977
1. The subprime problem did not become significant until Bush amended the CRA in 2005.
2. The VAST MAJORITY (approx 75%) of subprime loan were made by lenders that were not subject to CRA regulations. The CRA applies only to banks and thrifts that are federally insured. It does not apply to mortgage companies.
The question to ask is this: Did banks make risky subprime loans to make extra money or to comply with the CRA?
The CRA has been around for over 30 years, and yet there was no subprime crisis until now.
The CRA was strengthened in 1995, but there still was no subprime crisis.
In 2005, Bush weakened the law by making smaller banks exempt from following the CRA regulations. So, it wasn't until AFTER fewer banks had to comply with the CRA that the subprime crisis exploded.
As is noted here, only about one in four sub-prime loans were made by the institutions fully governed by CRA.
Also, as is pointed out here, independent mortgage companies, which are not covered by CRA, made high-priced loans at more than twice the rate of the banks and thrifts.
The fact is, anyone that is not an uninformed, brainwashed, propaganda-spewing wingnut realizes that the subprime crisis was caused by:
1. The absurdly low Fed Funds rate, which was set to disguise the utter failure of tax cuts to provide a real stimulus to the economy.
2. The ability of lenders to obtain massive profits from selling these risky loans to investors by repackaging them into unregulated instruments, thus insulating the actual loan originators from the risks inherent in these loans.
Being that you are just a propaganda-spewing dittohead, I doubt very highly that you will be able to address any of these facts in a rational manner. I've noticed that the typical wingnut response on this blog to any well-reasoned, factual argument is to most likely ignore it, or to call the liberal a "socialist", claim they hate America and then change the subject.
Why don't you prove me wrong for once?
Oh, that's right, today's Republican party is bereft of ideas or leaders. All you have left is talking points and talking heads.
Well, realism, you *are* a socialist.
Michelle Malkin has been talking about Fannie Mae since 2004. She is, how should I put this, right from the right. This isn't an example of laissez-faire capitalism; a better description, as the Competitive Enterprise Institute put it, is "profit-side capitalism and loss-side socialism."
The contradictions in the welfare state are working themselves out, just like socialist security and Medicare will 10-20 years down the road. We can have capitalism, and we can have socialism, but logic prevents us from having both.
"The question to ask is this: Did banks make risky subprime loans to make extra money or to comply with the CRA?"
Both.
"The CRA was strengthened in 1995, but there still was no subprime crisis."
Yes these things take several years to materialize.
I may be wrong but it is my understanding that the door to the subprime market was unlocked by revising the CRA in 1995. Once the door opened greedy investors went hog wild and built the bubble that subsequently crashed. All that CRA enforcement was merely mice nuts to the new problems created by taking a sound financial system and trying to force re engineer it.
Did I say I was Republican? I have no faith in either party.
"I may be wrong but it is my understanding that the door to the subprime market was unlocked by revising the CRA in 1995."
What part of "The VAST MAJORITY (approx 75%) of subprime loan were made by lenders that were not subject to CRA regulations." do you not understand?
Normally, in a well functioning free market, a lender will not lend money to a person that does not have the means to pay it back. But in the market that we had, thanks to people with an ideology like Jason's, a market which was warped and distorted by a lack of regulation, this was not the case. Please follow along carefully:
Lenders made insanely risky loans NOT because they were forced to by a meddlesome federal government, but because the company that made the loan could then package that loan together with similar loans and SELL IT for a nice profit to an investor.
Lenders weren't being forced to make subprime loans by some government regulation, they made them because they knew they could make a quick buck selling them, and if the borrowers defaulted, the original lender was not exposed to any potential downside.
The fact that republicans are still arguing these very basic points illustrates very clearly that they are not concerned with helping the country resolve the financial crisis they caused. They are only concerned with avoiding blame for a situation that clearly occurred because of their actions or lack thereof.
I certainly understand your bold text. I never argued otherwise. But to blame this all on Republicans is myopic and disingenuous.
"Actually joyous, it is to see you guys daily writhe in agony feeling like you are losing your nation."
It is sick to see you take pleasure in destroying something good and noble.
I'm not taking joy in that. I am taking joy in letting you feel just like we have been feeling for years now...like our nation is slipping away. Read Jason, take a comprehension course..feel like are the important words in that sentence. No wonder you are so misguided. You cant even comprehend what you read. Where did you supposedly go to school anyway...or are you just looking for a reasonn to smear..the answer is...yes.
TerryN - I agree that Democrats share the blame for the mess we find ourselves in. A big part of it comes from Bill Clinton's signing of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act. This law removed many of the regulations put in place after the great depression to safeguard against these very same types of abuses.
So yes, some individual Democrats are just as much to blame as some individual Republicans for this mess, but the Republican ideology that posits that no regulation is good regulation and that markets will always facilitate a healthy economy along with assorted falsehoods such as "Tax cuts are always a good way to stimulate the economy" and "Government action is always inefficient and wasteful" bear the biggest part of the blame.
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