“Junket John” Boehner earned all those lobbyist-funded trips he went on by being an unwavering supporter of Chimpy’s spending bills, all of which were designed to do nothing but bleed the Treasury dry for the benefit of Chimpy’s (and Boehner’s) rich owners. It was all good though; by wrecking Government with their extravagance and incompetence, the wingtards sought to “prove” their “Government doesn’t work” mantra. Now you or I could “prove” the inferiority of an American-made car the same way, if we wanted to. As an example, if I went outside right now and poured a bunch of pancake syrup into the gas tank of my most-faithful Malibu, then after a few minutes of driving the car would choke, sputter, probably break down. Presto!-I have now “proven” that a UAW-manufactured car is “junk!”

The wingtards have been very content to try to destroy all the good that Government does from within, and they were at the height of their destructive powers during the Reign of Error. Look at their long list of “accomplishments”; the drowning of New Orleans, the ruination of American ability to project significant ground forces, the crumbling of our infrastructure, the gutting of our commons…. we could go on and on listing the wingtard damage to America. This damage would form a central theme of their “Government doesn’t work” argument, and indeed that incredibly idiotic statement by Jindal the other night made reference to New Orleans. There’s just one problem with this strategy…. the wingtards WERE the Government that they were crying about, and Americans know this. That’s why we’ve sent them to rump status all over the country.

The ‘tards, of course, are ‘tards, and they haven’t figured out yet that we understand WHY Government wasn’t working. They are, in their rump status, now fretting over many of Obama’s latest proposals because they fear that Obama might “disprove” their mantra; we heard wingtard icon Ken Blackwell admit not too long ago that the ‘tards must remain hostile to the President’s proposals not because they might NOT work, but because they MIGHT work. If they work, Kenny and the rest of the ‘tards are weitten off as a political force for at least a generation, and they know it. They also know that their gravy train will become a lot less ample, because their owners won’t be raking it in hand over fist the way they were when Chimpy was ladling out the Treasury to them. For the ‘tards, this is a serious problem, but most of them aren’t stupid enough to come right out and admit to what their problem is the way Blackwell did. They have to couch their true intentions in another language, as they always do. So in the finest traditions of the Party that brought you perpetual servitude in nthe guise of a “consumer protection” bankruptcy “reform” plan, and the erosion of worker rights under the banner of a “jobs protection plan,” and the relaxation of pollution controls on coal-fired plants covered by the “clear skies initiative,” I’d like to introduce you to the most extravagant, wasteful bunch of politicians in our history, who now oppose the President’s agenda under the banner of “fiscal responsibility.” We just CAN’T AFFORD to reform healthcare, or fix our dilapidated infrastructure-not while so many people are HURTING! RIGHT?

Sorry, ‘tards. We already know how “fiscally responsible” you are, and about 3 in 4 of us understand what it is you’re really trying to do. But you keep at it. Please, don’t change the way you’re reacting to this Depression you created.

Between Monday’s Fiscal Responsibility Summit and Tuesday’s presidential address to Congress, the White House’s economic message shifted to new territory: health care.

“To my fellow budget hawks in this room and in the rest of the country, let me be very clear,” said Peter Orszag, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, at the financial summit. “Health care reform is entitlement reform. The path of fiscal responsibility must run directly through health care.”

The sudden shift caught Republicans off guard. They had girded for a health care battle, but not on these terms. House Republicans have responded with a change of subject: they have proposed a “spending freeze,” a controversial idea among economists during an economic downturn. Their immediate target is the $410 omnibus spending bill that packs together nine bills, containing spending that ranges from NASA to national parks, that did not get a vote in the last Congress. It’s a double-down bet on spending austerity and opposition to “wasteful spending” as the message that can bring the party victory in the 2010 mid-term elections.

“We’re advocating that Congress freeze all federal spending immediately,” said Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), the chairman of the House Republican Conference, during a Tuesday luncheon at the conservative Heritage Foundation. “People out there are hurting, and they understand what you do when times are tough. You make hard choices. Today House Republicans are urging the Democrats to do the same. We think it’s time that the Democrats put our money where their mouth is.”

The strategy — in its very early stages — presents problems for Republicans who have not received any measurable uptick in support from their opposition to the economic stimulus package. Most of the party’s leadership is on record having supported Bush-era spending packages that grew the deficit. With the exception of a shrinking number of moderate Republicans from the northeast, all of the party’s members of Congress support further tax cuts, which would lead to revenue shortfalls. And while Republicans argue that voters are on their side and opposed to further spending, there are few polls that back this up.

Pence’s argument for a spending freeze is widely accepted within the Republican conference. On Monday, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) asked Democrats to “abandon their plans” to push through an omnibus bill “and instead pass a clean bill that freezes spending at current levels.” Gov. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.) has decried the economic stimulus package because, in his words, “when times go south you cut spending.” In a conversation on Monday, freshman Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) concurred with party leaders.

“We’ve already done TARP, we’ve already done the stimulus, and we’ve already spent $3 trillion,” said Chaffetz. “Can’t we freeze it at that point? We already have a $3.1 trillion budget, and the majority asked for, and got, an additional $2 trillion. It’s just time to say, ‘time for a freeze.’”

This is a controversial stance: an economic downturn is not generally seen by economists as the right time to cut back on government spending. “They’re about as wrong as it’s possible to be,” said Robert Reich, Bill Clinton’s first secretary of labor, when asked about the Republicans’ statements on Monday. Bruce Bartlett, a conservative economist who wrote a book critical of George W. Bush’s spending, could not name many peers who believe that smaller deficits and less spending are the way to combat economic downturns. “It’s a total double-standard,” said Bartlett. “Republicans deficits stimulate, Democratic deficits don’t.”

Brian Riedl, the lead budget analyst for the Heritage Foundation, disagreed that the economics of deficit spending were quite this simple. “Is the assumption that expanding government is good for economic growth?” asked Riedl. “If that worked, France and Germany would have spent the last 25 years as the strongest economies in the world, instead of watching the United States grow at a faster rate.”

I adore the absolute dishonesty of the Heritage Foundation. They want to talk in terms of numbers when they speak of a “strong economy,” but just try to get them to talk about the standard of living, which is what most of us would judge the economy by. You won’t get them to do that except in terms of things like per capita income, which puts you next to Warren Buffett and me next to Bill Gates and averages us out, which makes the US look pretty good. However, when we start talking about things like access to medical care, affordable housing, and hourly wages, the idiotic Heritage Foundation argument implodes. That’s why you’ll never hear one of them who wants to go beyond the raw numbers.

But you Heritage guys keep it up, too. Continue to expose yourselves. We’re already enjoying the fruits of that deregulation you’ve been pushing for the last 40 years or so.

Tags: economy, failure, obama, republicans, stimulus

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 26th, 2009 at 4:27 pm and is filed under Jolly Roger, Republican'ts!, The Republican Depression of 2008-?. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.