Road to Recovery: Republicans Score a Stunning F-

Re: Road to Recovery (0.00 / 0)

I wonder where this guy was when then Vice President Dick Cheney said deficits didn't matter and he and Bush stuck an unnecessary war and tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans at the same time, putting all on our national credit card?  All of a sudden Republicans are all but hysterical over the deficit. And yet when the Senate introduced a bill proposing a deficit reduction commission 7 Republicans who supported it voted NO when the President said it was a good idea.  Talk about political bi-polar disorderly dysfunction syndrome.  What is wrong with them?

The following is from:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0...

A comment from Dick Cheney Thursday at CPAC caught my attention. And I love Dick Cheney - he's an incredibly smart and honorable man. But he said something that jumped out at me:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FORMER VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY: I think 2010 is going to be a phenomenal year for the conservative cause and I think Barack Obama is a one-term president.

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

In a way, that bothered me. Yes, it's going to be a good year for conservative politicians, but it's not going to be a good year for the country. And not solely because of President Obama and the Democrats. It's been everyone.

Has electing so-called conservatives in the past really helped us?

After seven years, George W. Bush was in line to be the first president since World War II to increase federal government employment faster than private sector employment. I read a Reason magazine article that gave some of the following stats:

• In 2005, the average federal worker earned $59,864 a year; the average private sector worker earned $40,505

• Today, the average private sector salary is $40,331; but government salaries are up to $71,206 and they are set to increase again this year to $75,419

So pardon me if I don't get a thrill up my leg just because Scott Brown won in Massachusetts. I don't know Scott Brown, maybe he will be the next James Madison. But why should I give him the benefit of the doubt? What past evidence suggests that the "R" next to a politician's name means things will get better?

The progressive idea of a big, bloated government has infected both parties. In a survey, 80 percent said "the main thing that influences what members of Congress do in office" is either "personal self-interest" or "special interests."

But it's not just Congress; state governments are doing it too. There are 21 states who currently have under-funded pensions and entitlements. And, even if you're in a "safe zone," it doesn't mean you're safe.

In 10 years, California's annual pension contributions have gone from $320 million to $7.3 billion. Meanwhile the state is crumbling around it.

Let's say you went spending crazy and went completely bankrupt. You lose the house, the car, the family, but you say, "Hey, I'm still paying for the boat. That thing is rock solid." Well, I got news for you: You're going to lose the boat eventually.

But it's not just the states. It's you and me. There's no such thing as a free lunch, but somewhere along the line in the last 70-80 years we've been convinced there is one. And we've also been convinced we are entitled to that free lunch.

Take Tiger Woods' apology. He came out and gave what I thought was a heartfelt apology. But he said something I think is what the president should be telling every American:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TIGER WOODS, PROFESSIONAL GOLFER: I knew my actions were wrong, but I convinced myself that normal rules didn't apply. I never thought about who I was hurting. Instead, I thought only about myself. I ran straight through the boundaries that a married couple should live by. I thought I could get away with whatever I wanted to. I felt that I had worked hard my entire life and deserved to enjoy all the temptations around me. I felt I was entitled. Thanks to money and fame, I didn't have far - I didn't have to go far to find them. I was wrong. I was foolish. I don't get to play by different rules. The same boundaries that apply to everyone apply to me. I brought this shame on myself.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Isn't this exactly what our politicians have done? And exactly how entitled we have become? Politicians don't think the rules apply to them. They only think about getting themselves re-elected. They've run through the boundaries of the Constitution.

And what about us? We think we are entitled: This is America! We deserve it! But, just like Tiger said, we were wrong. It's got to stop. And it starts with us. And that's what the president needs to tell the American people.

Washington needs to stop the spending, yes, but you have to make sacrifices too. I just mentioned the pensions. In what world does it make sense to continue to promise funding a system where this routinely happens.

Also in that Reason article - this will make your eyes bleed - in California, state workers often play the "3 for 50" game. When you turn 50, you are eligible for 3 percent of your final year salary, multiplied by the number of years you've worked. Pretty sweet. So if you work 30 years and retire at 50, that's 90 percent of your final salary. And, as if that's not enough, many times the unions work it so huge raises come in your last year and you can find extra work and apply that total to your pension.

It's madness.

Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey is trying to battle bloated pensions right now. Listen to this example from his out-of-control state:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE, R-N.J.: One state retiree, 49 years old, paid over the course of his entire career, a total of $124,000 toward his retirement pension and health benefits. What will we pay him? $3.3 million in pension payments over his life and nearly half a million dollars for health care benefits: A total of $3.8m on a $124,000 investment. Is that fair?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

You pay $124,000 into the system and get $3.8 million out of the system? Forget about "fair," how is that sustainable? It can't last.

But it starts at home. Are you willing to have your own sweet pension deal go away? Because if you are not, guess what? Someone else isn't either. And the problem will persist. Sure, the politicians allowed this system to get set up, but we keep playing their game and voting the same guys in on both sides. We haven't been able to reconnect with common sense.

You must be willing to stand up and say it's been a great ride, but the ride is over. So far we haven't been able to do that - just like Tiger, we feel entitled. So and so got his, why shouldn't I get mine?

Why do you think Oprah Winfrey built that big school for kids in Africa and not here? She was asked that very question and said that in South Africa, "there is this - sort of desperate yearning to know better and do better that you just don't have in the United States. You don't have it because the opportunity's always been there."

We expect it. We assume big government will be there for us every step of the way.

Well, I hate to be the Friday buzz-kill, but it's not always going to be there. America has been recklessly spending in the last few decades and it's catching up to us rapidly.

Now, we've got a choice to make: Do we choose the fundamentally transform America to a Marxist, spread the wealth, cradle to grave nanny state? Where no one gets a boo-boo? And, as we have seen in country after country, is only sustainable through the barrel of a gun? Or do we come to our senses and realize that spending and taxing kills business? And stop with the pensions that literally pay out 30 times what we put into them!

Look, the Founders designed a country that has created more prosperity, peace and overall goodwill than any other nation in the history of the world. But we became complacent. Progressives have steered us off course and those progressive mistakes are about to catch up with us. The party is over. It's time to do the right thing so our children may not be able to have a party, but at least they can still have some cake.

You have to be willing to make sacrifices of your own.

No more palaces for schools. Haven't you ever seen "Little House on the Prairie"? Or Spanky and "Our Gang"? We didn't always have everything handed to us on a silver platter. Remember how they lived? You can do it without big government.

Yes, you might have to take your parents in. But since when has that become a burden? Think about your mom and dad. They cared for you. They changed your diapers. They fed you. They raised you. But, you won't take them in now that they are frail and old? I know they may smell weird and suck on Werther's Originals all day, but they are your parents.

I visited a friend recently. He was taking care of his mom. I saw the pain in his eyes, as he watches his mom getting older. But I also saw the gratitude in his mom's eyes. No government program can ever replace that. Sure, they can prop you up and pay for some things and make life just a little bit easier. But easier isn't always better.

The greatest American generation isn't called great because it was easy. Our grandparents didn't eat lard sandwiches, ration food or win World War II because it was easy, fun, free or even fair. They did it because it had to be done.

America as we know it is either going to be restored or fundamentally transformed. One of those two options ends in real freedom. But only the one that takes hard work and sacrifice is worth doing.

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by: txag007 @ Sat Feb 20, 2010 at 15:06:57 PM CST

Could you very kindly provide a link (0.00 / 0)

for your comment below.

After seven years, George W. Bush was in line to be the first president since World War II to increase federal government employment faster than private sector employment. I read a Reason magazine article that gave some of the following stats:

I am well aware of the talking points and rhetoric issued from CPAC.

What an exercise in violence. Everyone! Seize a nine iron and let's smash up our federal government!  Next let's fly planes like foreign terrorists on suicide missions so we can kill off some federal employees.

Great. This stuff is really, really helpful. Hey terrorists! Come on out and just bomb the crap out of us! Make our day! We are seriously hung up on violence and destruction!

Fact of the matter is, George W. Bush is the very most conservative President in recent modern history. More so than Ronald Reagan. Republicans have held the power in Washington for nearly 30 years.  It is Bush's legacy, his economic and neoconservative ideologies that have brought the U.S. to its knees.

If Ron Paul or Mitt Romney, the darlings of CPAC, now that Cheney trashed Palin b/c of her reckless, stupid and uninformed comments on Iran, i.e. bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran, Ron Paul and both Mitt Romney would re-enact Bush's same policies verbatim.

The GOP sold its souls to the devil a very long time ago.

Now, we've got a choice to make: Do we choose the fundamentally transform America to a Marxist, spread the wealth, cradle to grave nanny state? Where no one gets a boo-boo? And, as we have seen in country after country, is only sustainable through the barrel of a gun? Or do we come to our senses and realize that spending and taxing kills business? And stop with the pensions that literally pay out 30 times what we put into them!

Marxism? Throwing a life line to the poor and helping those who are in need is a form of Marxism?  I guess you folks would call Jesus Christ a Marxist, too.  

As far as pensions are concerned, don't hate something you will need and want when you are an old man or woman.  You, like most old folks, when that times comes, because it will, might realize OH SHIT, my social security benefit won't pay the bills.

When old folks have to work until they are 80, younger ones are kept out of the job market.

Contrary to conservative ignorance, pensions are not a hand out.  Working Americans pay into their pension plans.  Willing employers contribute.  Working folks also contribute to their social security and medicare benefits.  

Seriously, living abroad for awhile might help you get a better grip on how far we have fallen. Western Europeans now enjoy a higher standard of living with both affordable health care and retirement benefits than most Americans today. Of course most of them, like us, complain and moan about paying taxes but, unlike us, no Western European will go bankrupt or thrown into the streets b/c they have no health insurance and sustainable social security benefit.

Look, the Founders designed a country that has created more prosperity, peace and overall goodwill than any other nation in the history of the world. But we became complacent. Progressives have steered us off course and those progressive mistakes are about to catch up with us. The party is over. It's time to do the right thing so our children may not be able to have a party, but at least they can still have some cake.

Oh, I see, let's pin the W. debacle on the progressives. I guess you have no idea how cynical it is to suggest that our children "can still have some cake."  Do you know who Marie Antoinette is?  Do you know what she really meant when she said

Let them eat cake?

Any idea?  No wonder Texas conservatives want to order seriously dumbed down books for our school children.

The rhetoric coming out of CPAC is an exercise in both violence and cowardice. I guess you folks have some serious racial baggage. By the way, why is it that right wing war hawks like G.W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and John Cornyn, to name just a few, shirked military service in Vietnam when all could have stepped up?  Predictably, the cowards who delivered Iraq, tax cuts for super rich and a subsequent Great Recession need to find a scapegoat.  

The Founders, unlike the cowards, were willing to fight for noble principles and take responsibility for their actions. All must be rolling in their graves knowing that one President ginned up a war merely to enable the profits of a U.S. military/industrial complex.  Former President and General Eisenhower (R,in case you did not know) would be jettisoned from the GOP today precisely b/c he warned against the dangers of a military industrial complex.

President Eisenhower is one of the last Republicans who understood what the principle of altruism meant.

His party and the American people have been hijacked by a bunch of self-serving narcissists.

 

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by: Libby Shaw @ Sat Feb 20, 2010 at 21:21:55 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Re: Could you very kindly provide a link (0.00 / 0)

Fact of the matter is, George W. Bush is the very most conservative President in recent modern history. More so than Ronald Reagan.

Not according to this:
http://www.amazon.com/Conserva...

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by: txag007 @ Sun Feb 21, 2010 at 20:29:47 PM CST

[ Parent ]

I need another link (0.00 / 0)

"server not found."

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by: Libby Shaw @ Sun Feb 21, 2010 at 22:16:19 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Re: I need another link (0.00 / 0)

Strange.  Seems to work.  Try this instead:

Fact of the matter is, George W. Bush is the very most conservative President in recent modern history. More so than Ronald Reagan.

Not according to this:

http://books.google.com/books?...

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by: txag007 @ Sun Feb 21, 2010 at 23:06:05 PM CST

[ Parent ]

To the heart of the matter (0.00 / 0)

And I love Dick Cheney - he's an incredibly smart and honorable man.

Could you get a more succinct view into the twisted mind of the obsequious authoritarian "CONservative"?

Recent history goes against the Cons dire predictions for the Obama administration.  Reagan and Clinton both faced first term mid-term election issues.  The Cons' predictions might still come true for reasons beyond their comprehension, namely we are smack dab in the middle of a transition period.

The conservative mind: from Burke to Eliot - let me guess, it's cover-to-cover LSD-fueled crayoned coloring book monosyballic 'art'?  Oh wait, that's Conservatives, 1790-1952.  So this book has very very little to do with the current crowd of GOP wackos calling themselves "Conservatives".

T-bag, as usual, you're conflating, misrepresenting, and misdirecting.  And of course, going after the brass ring.  The "brass ring" being my all-time favorite vice displayed by the Cons, taking credit for someone else's work.  Cons always (try to) take credit for the results of Liberal policies while toiling endlessly to dismantle those very same policies.

Economic disparity snowballs into economic ruin, benefiting only a very slim percentage of a society.  The Great Depression was caused by policies designed to promote economic disparity and to allow a very few to game the system for personal gain at the expense of the general population.  That "Greatest Generation" about which you wax poetic, built the "socialist- marxist- communist- fascist- poopyhead" system against which you rail, and that the Cons have been working to dismantle since it's inception.

That touching scene with the sick relative, awww how sweet.  The insinuation is that those damn libruls with their Marxist agenda want to cart her away to some institution where she'll get free abortions on demand, right?  The HORROR!

Reality check - with Liberal policies, your "friend" tending to his mother would have more quality time (together and apart), and still see a better health outcome for her as compared to the system we have now.

BTW, thanks for posting that huge quote from Faux News.  It's nice to know Ailes still requires the mandatory kool-aid consumption without actually having to experience the unavoidable IQ drop from watching their BS.

There was a society of men among us, bred up from their youth in the art of proving by words multiplied for the purpose, that white is black, and black is white, according as they are paid ...  Jonathan Swift, "Gulliver's Travels," 1726

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by: jfrankparnell @ Mon Feb 22, 2010 at 04:33:51 AM CST

Re: To the heart of the matter (0.00 / 0)

Libby Shaw wrote: Fact of the matter is, George W. Bush is the very most conservative President in recent modern history. More so than Ronald Reagan.

jfrankparnell wrote: So this book has very very little to do with the current crowd of GOP wackos calling themselves "Conservatives".

That's very true, JFrank.  When Libby criticizes the Bush Administration (for saying deficits don't matter) as a failing of conservatism, she either fails to realize or chooses to ignore the fact that what she is critcizing isn't conservatism but instead a conservative candidate endorsing liberal policy. Thanks for helping me make that point.

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by: txag007 @ Mon Feb 22, 2010 at 20:12:48 PM CST

[ Parent ]

let me get this straight (0.00 / 0)

Your assertion is that George W Bush, aka Commander Codpiece, aka Shrub, enacted 'liberal' policies?

There was a society of men among us, bred up from their youth in the art of proving by words multiplied for the purpose, that white is black, and black is white, according as they are paid ...  Jonathan Swift, "Gulliver's Travels," 1726

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by: jfrankparnell @ Mon Feb 22, 2010 at 21:01:25 PM CST

[ Parent ]

What you have failed (0.00 / 0)

to come to terms with is the appalling hypocrisy of the conservatives where the deficits and a myriad of other things are concerned.  Republicans cannot rack up deficits while claiming they don't matter and then reverse themselves on their own records when another administration does the same.  Such posturing is an insult to the intelligence of the American people.  

This is especially true when the Democrats who now hold the power find ways to pay for the bills they pass.  The Bush Administration on the other hand stuck 2 wars, tax cuts for the mega rich and a Medicare entitlement program (it was an election year, of course) on the nation's credit card.  They stuck it all on the backs of middle class taxpayers.  I thought you folks hated paying taxes more than anything else on the planet. Surely not every member of the GOP resides in the upper 1-2% of income earners who got the whooping tax cuts.

If any group has had a record of fiscal irresponsibility, incompetence and recklessness it is the Republicans, especially the conservative ones.

I look forward to your response to jfrankparnell's question.

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by: Libby Shaw @ Tue Feb 23, 2010 at 17:06:29 PM CST

[ Parent ]