Monday, January 18, 2010

Twiddle dum and Twiddle dee

Twiddle dum and Twiddle dee--"spending on things that matter" Each election cycle, hope springs eternal. Candidates promise change and voters buy it. Intelligent ones. People who know better or should. The current campaign highlights it. A surge is building for Obama, not for what he is. For what people think or hope he is - a populist, progressive, man of the people, a new course for America.

Do you remember that phrase after the last election? "Now maybe we can spend money on things that matter," by rejoicing, teary Obama supporters. What a laugh. The welfare state grows no matter who is in office, sometimes more under Republicans, but definitely under the less-than-conservative two Bush presidencies. Once a human services program is in place, who controls the White House or Congress makes little difference in its growth.

"The most significant growth in Human Resources spending is attributable to Medicare and "Health Care Services," an OMB category dominated by Medicaid. Still using constant dollars, these two categories combined to account for 8% of Human Resources outlays under Kennedy and Johnson, 15% under Nixon and Ford, 17% under Carter, 21% under Reagan, 26% under George H.W. Bush, 31% under Clinton, and 34% under George W. Bush. Measure all the Human Services outlays from 1962 (the first year of more detailed OMB historical tables) through 2007 in constant dollars, and it turns out that Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security accounted for just under two-thirds of the total."

More interesting facts about the persistence of poverty and the corresponding growth of the welfare state at "Reforming Big Government."

The point I am trying to make is regardless which party is in the white house the outcome is always more of the same.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

I hope Limbaugh gets his wish...

“Are conservative talk-show hosts eager to go on the attack, after years of defending Bush?” asks the Louisville Courier-Journal’s Larry Muhammad. The answer is clearly yes.

Barack Obama had not yet taken office, and Rush Limbaugh is already rooting for his failure. On his radio show, Limbaugh said, “I disagree fervently with the people on our [Republican] side of the aisle who have caved and who say, ‘Well, I hope he succeeds.’”
Limbaugh told his listeners that he was asked by “a major American print publication” to offer a 400-word statement explaining his “hope for the Obama presidency.” He responded:
So I’m thinking of replying to the guy, “Okay, I’ll send you a response, but I don’t need 400 words, I need four: I hope he fails.” (interruption) What are you laughing at? See, here’s the point. Everybody thinks it’s outrageous to say. Look, even my staff, “Oh, you can’t do that.” Why not? Why is it any different, what’s new, what is unfair about my saying I hope liberalism fails? Liberalism is our problem. Liberalism is what’s gotten us dangerously close to the precipice here. Why do I want more of it? I don’t care what the Drive-By story is. I would be honored if the Drive-By Media headlined me all day long: “Limbaugh: I Hope Obama Fails.” Somebody’s gotta say it.

It hasn’t taken long for Limbaugh to reveal his core hypocrisy. In July 2006, with conservatives in power, Limbaugh offered one of his common screeds against the left. “I’m getting so sick and tired of people rooting for the defeat of the good guys,” he complained.
During the Clinton presidency in the 90s, Limbaugh would begin his show with a gimmick, purporting to count the days America had been “held hostage.” In May 2007, Limbaugh recalled:
Back when Clinton was inaugurated in 1993 and we began our America Held Hostage countdown, the number of days left until Clinton was gone so we’d all be released from bondage, the joke, do you remember how mad the liberals got at that? Do you remember how mad the Drive-Bys got at that? Then they started running stories how I, Rush Limbaugh, was destroying the respect for the office of the presidency that the American people had.

A disastrous Bush presidency has come and gone, but some things haven’t changed a bit. Except People bringing guns to town hall meetings and presidential events has received a fair amount of attention, but I think it deserves quite a bit more. Although the people carrying weapons to political events probably seem like little more than fringe elements of an already a lunatic fringe, they may be better described as an early warning of far deeper and systemic problems in America. If we don't sit up and take notice now, we may be forced to do so when an armed liberal meets an armed conservative but then when bullets fly it will be to late.

America has benefited from a relative lack of purely domestic violence over the past decades; we may not have been violence-free, but it's also not been a daily concern for most people. Carrying weapons to political events threatens to turn all that around because weapons are inherently violent — even when they remain unused in a holster, they communicate an unmistakable message of potential violence. Indeed, that's clearly part of the point of carrying them: to communicate a message of violence for the purpose of intimidation. So who are the real Americans?

So I say again, I Hope Limbaugh gets his wish because the majority of Americans want change and change will come to this nation.