President Obama met with 85 mayors today to tell them to spend their stimulus money responsibly. This strikes me as roughly equivalent to giving 85 alcoholics each a fifth of Jack Daniels and then telling them to drink responsibly. Right. Like that's gonna happen. The last I heard, the partisan breakdown of the group of mayors was 81 Democrats and 4 Republicans. I'm sure NBC will report this tonight as a "bipartisan group of mayors," with Obama "reaching across the aisle" to the Republicans because he gave each of the four a cookie or a glass of punch. I have a suggestion. Let's drop the word "bipartisan" from the political arena. There's nothing remotely resembling bipartisanship going on. The only reason the Democrats let Republicans Arlen Specter or Susan Collins be heard on the Porkulus monstrosity was because they needed their votes to pass it. No more, no less.
If you've recovered from the $1 trillion sticker stock of Porkulus (I haven't), well, BOHICA (bend over here it comes again). Saint Barack of Hopenchange has gazed down upon his flock from the mountaintop, saw homeowners who might default on their mortgages, and asked himself "What Would Jesus Do ?" He decided Jesus would rob Peter to pay Paul, and announced a government program to steal another $275 billion in future taxpayer money to bail out those poor unfortunate lambs who irresponsibly bought more house than they can afford.
One comforting note – $275 billion doesn't sound like so much money anymore, even though it is. When compared to the $3 trillion we've spent so far on the worst economic crisis in the entire history of the Federation Of Planets, it almost sounds like chicken feed.
This reminds me of a time many years ago when, due to some adversity called "life," I found myself living in a house I couldn't afford. My solution was to move to a cheaper place I could afford, but that was prior to the new Obamequality. If only I'd known. I could have gone to my neighbor and forced him to pay my mortgage. Alas, I didn't feel entitled to do that. At the time, I had some apparently misguided ideas about being responsible for my own decisions. I know now that my parents and teachers must have been pulling my leg when they taught me such failed ideas from the past.
{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
I expected you're response.
However, your views here seem akin to a neighborhood house burning down and the neighbors refusing to call the fire department, even though their nearby houses are also under threat from the fire.
Oddly, or maybe not, you say that Obama is "stealing" future taxpayer money. I always thought America organized itself around a representative democracy. The representatives voting in the overall interests of the citizenry. You call that "stealing."
Future generations aren't being represented because they can't vote yet, Reverend.
The biggest critics of the stimulus bill[Repubs. of course]have identified $25b in "pork".That's 3.2% of the bill.So 97% of the bill is all muscle.Pretty darn good!
larry d. you hit the nail on the head with that one. I am sure that Rev doesn't like to see things like that one, though.
King, with much hand clapping and laughing I read that one with much glee because you managed to be very humorous and very truthful at the same time. Even a downright liberal has to see the humor in that one, especially the lead picture.
I love those republicans ! The last eight years they’ve put the country almost five trillion dollars deeper into debt at the same time they encourage people to buy homes even if they couldn't afford them. They put five million unemployed people in the streets gave Corporations and the upper 1% of the wealthiest of our country essentially a free ride when it comes to paying taxes and are crying for more tax cuts. Their response to our current situation is that putting money into the economy to bring back jobs and turn the economy around is pork and wasteful spending, and will hurt our grandchildren. But if they could get another 17 billion in tax cuts they most likely hail it as the cure all. So perhaps what is really upsetting them is who the money is going to and who the jobs will go to which bothers them . Some call it pork others will say it is a pork chop and now they can fed their kids.
Andrea, where did you get all that stuff. I see very little about King's blog entry but then that is how people from the left tend to answer things.
Andrea,
Today, Obama said his goal was to cut the deficit to about $533 billion by 2013. He's going to run trillion+ dollar deficits for at least the first couple years. According to Obama's own projections, he will match Bush's 8 year debt runup in only 4 years or less. I guess that's change you can believe in, but not me. That's not change at all.
Nice job pretending that Democrats had nothing to do with the banks giving loans to people who couldn't afford them, which led to the housing meltdown. That takes a huge dose of cognitive dissonance. I guess you never heard of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, ACORN, NAN, the Community Reinvestment Act, the update to that act, banks being fined for not giving enough loans to low-income people, banks being sued for the same, banks being denied mergers for the same, banks being crucified in the newspapers for the same. Democrats were pushing loans to low-income people the entire way, and called Republicans racists and haters of the poor when they wanted to reform Fannie and Freddy, but then when it all blew up, Dems act like they had nothing to do with it. Typical.
And the wealthy pay the highest income tax rates by far, not the lowest. They pay the lion's share of taxes. That's hardly a "free ride."
Rev,
No, if my neighbor's house was burning down, I'd definitely call the fire department.
But if he couldn't pay his mortgage, I wouldn't pay it for him. That's his responsibility, not mine.
Nice try at some misdirection though.
King, you could at least mention credit default swaps,which gave the Wall St. boys the excuse needed to sell mortgage backed security funds.Mortgage lenders were encouraged, even pressured by their mgrs. to make as many loans as possible in order to bundle them into investment funds which were being sold like hotcakes to largely foreign investors who were tripping over themselves to invest in Amer. real estate,a traditionally safe investment with solid returns.
King, I think you have finally come up with the most likely name for old Rev. Reverend MIsdirection fits him very nicely.
This is the line from larry…
"Future generations aren't being represented because they can't vote yet, Reverend."
…that made roy pee in his pants a little bit. Sometimes I'm easily amused, too, roy.
What may not be so humorous, however, is this….Republicans haven't given one sh*t about future generations for the last 30 years. Every GOP administration left big deficits for some future generation to pay off. There was never any wailing and gnashing of teeth for those that were yet to be born, then. What makes the current situation different? Democratic president.
And King…..why call the fire department? Self-interest or altruism?
If your answer is self-interest…..then you should be glad when your neighbor is able to prevent a foreclosure, too, that keeps your house from depreciating and hey, meth makers might move in.
If your answer is altruism…..then why would you not apply that same altruism to a neighbor down on his luck and about to lose his house?
And to Andrea…..cheers and godspeed…..I've read a couple of your latest comments. Excellently done. Good on ya', woman.
Bush did it too just not half as bad is an excuse that's already getting pretty feeble, Reverend.
Rev thinks it's in my self-interest to pay my neighbor's mortgage, and also altruistic to help my neighbor who is down on his luck.
Okay, Rev, I'll accept your theory on one condition – you send me $50,000, because I need it. The economic crisis has hurt me too. If you are unwilling to do that, you destroy your entire argument.
I'd prefer a cashier's check, if it's not too much trouble.
Tbomb wants me to mention credit default swaps for some reason.
Okay – credit default swaps.