It's very true that I was discussing ideology and Burn the Ships and others are discussing cold hard financial facts. The fact is we are in debt. More debt than ever before as a government.
Before I go on, I'll let you know that I'm an Independent populist. I don't like either Democrats or Republicans entirely in their political philosophies. I find bits of both I like at times, but mostly, both parties make me feel like beating my head against something hard. A lot.
Anyway, it's true we're in debt. It might be a good idea to examine how we got that way. What happened that took a 13 trillion surplus and turned it into a 14 trillion (and counting) deficit?
Well, it wasn't the good old Republican theory of fiscal conservatism, I can tell you that. If the Republicans had made McCain their candidate back in 2000, rather than Bush, I doubt we'd be seeing the kind of financial disasters we have now. Simply because there are two kinds of Republicans. Those who are moral conservatives, and those who are fiscally conservative.
Well, there are other kinds, but those two camps seem to represent the majority. I know a lot of moderate Republicans who occasionally vote Democrat (like some of my relatives)) when the Republicans on their local ballot are what they nicely refer to "those religious wackos who seem to have run away with our party". They are fiscal conservatives like McCain.
Oh, the Republicans still want to repeal any form of social welfare. They were agin it from the beginning and nothing much has changed. Ronald Reagan would have abolished it in a heartbeat if he could have. But, he couldn't. There's a reason for that. I bet you can figure it out.
Except...just try to pry my Republican mother in law's Social Security and Medicare out of her um, cold hands. (She's not dead yet!) You see, that ship has sailed, the horse is gone and the fat lady has already sang. We've had nearly 80 years of Social Security. People who are now getting it feel that they paid into it for years, and just try to tell them, Sorry, but we're getting rid of that now because we don't want to be socialists anymore.
But, yeah, we're in the shitter moneywise now. Guess what did that? Some nice Republicans voted for Bush for two terms and mistook his moral conservatism for fiscal. The man was anything BUT a fiscal conservative. Why would he be, he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth! He spent his life running corporations into bankruptcy! He was and is a fiscal IDIOT! He ran the biggest, sloppiest and least fiscally conservative government in the history of America!
So, all you people who are pissed off at the deficit, you have a right to be. But kick the moral conservatives to the curb if you want this girl to take your stand on finances seriously. As long as you have these idiots mistaking freedom with being able to have a nativity scene with an American flag stuck on top with democracy, and mistaking the desire to tell us all how, when with whom to have sex with fiscal responsibility, well, then I won't be taking the Republican claims of fiscal conservatism that seriously.
Do we need some fiscal conservation? Hell yes! Are we going to get it from Democrats? Well, guess who got us that surplus? A Democrat who also believed in fiscal conservation, Bill Clinton. Yes, there are Democrats who don't spend money like your ex wife taking your credit card to Vegas, believe it or not.
So, it's not about party, it's about willingness to quit running a stupid and sloppy government. But, I think we can do that without making Grandma and Granpa homeless and sans medical care, and the rest of us too.
We're spending a lot of money on a war no one likes....again. About 10Billion a month. One month of that would cover a lot of health care for a lot of people. And, the current health care bill will be provided largely through private carriers. Gives them a lot of new business. Maybe more new jobs?
The only reason someone might think that stimulating our nearly dead economy in any way is bad is that they're puting some sort of party loyalty above practical concerns.
But, yes, the Democrats don't have all the good ideas about health care. Some of the ideas in the new bill were actually proposed, originally, by Republican fiscal conservatives like McCain and Romney. What I want to know is where the hell they went when it came to endorsing their own ideas in an actual bill?
That means either that they've succumbed to political posturing and appeasing the wing nuts in their party, the extremists, the fringe, or they just got pissy about losing yet another fight against the Democrats and took their ball and went home.
I can give them a piece of advice from one oof their own.
Richard Nixon ( a fiscal conservative if there ever was one) said that you should hate losing, but not so much that you take away from another's victory. Hate losing, but not so much that you blame the winner. When losing, blame yourself, because that is where the fault lies.
I'm paraphrasing, but that's what he said, and I think there is wisdom in that.
But, if the fiscal conservatives think they're going to wrest social programs long in place in this country from the people, they'd better get another idea.
How will we pay for it? How are we paying for anything now? And yet...I notice that the only thing being severely cut is public education at the moment. Gee, what a place to start.
I thought the Democrats would be the last to cut education, so they're pissing me off too. How about lowering your own salaries, politicians that we voted in? That ever cross their minds? How about all the stupid pork in so many other programs that gets put in there as lubrication for all the governmental ass raping that goes on? How about cutting some of that?
And yes, I know taxing the rich won't pay for everything. But, taxing the poor is a joke. And there are more poor now than ever. We used to be the middle class, but that won't be lasting much longer if unilateral political posturing instead of bipartisan political solutions bullshit continues.
