Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Crooks, Damned Crooks, and . . .

Gosh, has it been two weeks since the mid-term election? Where have I been? OK, I have been hammering and painting away, chipping at all the home improvements that I put off last summer under the pretense that it was way too hot to work, especially hot after walking eighteen holes, smoking damned cheap cigars, and fussing with all my conservio-tea-republico-Jeffersonian golf buddies. Hell, even my so called liberal friends from college have pretty much regressed to a mutant form of republicanism. So, I have one simple question for all of you who voted in the “new” republico-tea-conservio-power-trust, has this f-group fixed the country, yet? I mean it HAS been two weeks for goodness sakes, and this group is a bunch of uber-fixers, right? And they all got political-religion from the scare throwed into them by the surge of teaparty-power, correct? Let’s take a look at a couple of soon to be leaders of our country and their “beliefs” about being the duty bound repairmen.

There’s Mitch McConnell, rhymes with O’Donnell, who says, "Americans are speaking out and we are listening. The proposals put forward today by House Republicans reflect what Americans are saying. They want to us to focus on jobs first, fight wasteful Washington spending, repeal and replace the health spending bill and shrink an exploding deficit. Americans want a smaller, less costly and more accountable government. We strongly support this effort, and together, House and Senate Republicans will continue to fight for these principles. While the White House will retain the veto pen, House and Senate Republicans will focus on making America more competitive, reducing the size and cost of government, keeping our nation strong and secure, and reining in the massive health care costs and mandates imposed by the Democrats' health spending bill." Actually, this dufus should say, correctly, some Americans, about 42 percent, want some of the items in the statement. This floppy, jawed dude does NOT speak for me- aherrrrummmmm, after all was he reining-in when he helped pass Bush’s prescription bill that is going to cost about a trillion plus in ten years? Sure, what he claims to want to do makes for good sound-nibbles, but take a look. How will he make a smaller government without adding to the unemployment numbers? Will he reduce wasteful spending in all areas of government including defense? I doubt it. And if he does all that, how will he not increase unemployment in the ranks of all the businesses that presently feed the Federal Hog? If he shrinks the federal government, where will all those folks, who sell to the federal government, paper, media, pens, coffee cups, cars, jets, doughnuts ,not to mention paper clips, find jobs? Good ol’ Mitch has been in office since 1984 (an appropriate irony) and had been in service to us for 16 years when Bush II showed up which in my limited thinking should have placed him at some sort of point of power with the conserving-republicans. However, in his first year in office, good ol’ George II borrowed 133 billion dollars to pay for tax cuts to stimulate the economy (remember those sweet little checks all you guys were chortling about?) when that didn’t work, he and his conservio-buddies, like Mr. Mitch, rammed through another stimulus without cutting spending; thus, in the year of the conservatives. Mitch and his ilks increased the national debt more than any preceding president and congress in the history of our country. And Mitch McConnell speaks for conservative America? Then to prove that he was truly conservative, this republican juggernaut of fiscal responsibility helped run the deficit in 2004 to half a trillion dollars. Heck, we don’t need to worry about liberals and progressive and tax-and-spend -democrats with conservatives like this acrylic-haired-elephant's-ass saving us a bundle with his oversight.

Then, there’s Paul D Ryan, who has been in office since 1998 and just in time for Bush II, and will be the new chair of the budget committee. He said, “In an effort to spur action on meeting this challenge, I put forward a reform plan back in 2008: "A Roadmap for America's Future" (www.americanroadmap.org). When I introduced the plan over two years ago, and reintroduced an updated version earlier this year, it was my hope to break through the political paralysis, and advance an open and honest discussion about how our nation can address its fiscal challenges.” I like roadmaps which would address money problems; I like roadmaps which would actually work but consider this wanker’s plan: how come he didn’t come up with it sometime between 2000 and 2007 when George II was currying republican favor in the electorate by sending checks every year to stimulate something or another. And how come he wasn’t hammering out a reform plan to bridle Hank Paulson’s diminishing federal regulations which pretty much allowed Wall Street and Big Banking to wreck the country and really the world’s economy with all the derivatives invented to make bunches of money for huge supporters of republicans. How come Ryan, this fiscal-conservative-reformer, wasn’t all over that lump of horseshit? Here’s another little quote from our next budgetmiester, “My plan offers those 54 and younger the same health and retirement benefit options I enjoy as a member of Congress. The Congressional Budget Office and the programs' own actuaries have certified that the Roadmap would make Medicare and Social Security permanently solvent, averting the painful cuts from the unsustainable status quo.” So, how can he rip up the entitlement of the current healthcare and provide a sweet, healthcare system for those who are younger than 54 and shrink government spending at the same time? Maybe the current healthcare law is a dog, but really, can what our boys and girls enjoy at the federal and congressional levels be so much cheaper? If you believe that then you have, as my buddy George always says, drunk too much of that flavor of kool-aid. Additionally, can anyone out there find where our next dude-in-charge-of-budgets might be recommending cutting his tax-dollar supported expenses including salary and benefits to match up with the cuts suffered by American-taxpayers in the last three years? Don’t bother looking you ain’t going to find it. Of course, immediately after the election, Ryan appeared in a flash on fair and balanced FUXNews where he was asked by Chris Wallace to name some specific places in the national budget where the newly reinvigorated conservatives were going to cut 100 billion dollars. Here’s his answer: “Chris, when you add stimulus -- the Environmental Protection Agency got a 124 percent increase in its budget in this last session of Congress. There have been so many massive spending increases, 24 percent in the base budget, 84 percent when you add stimulus. We need to take all these spending increases back so that we can get this deficit in the right direction and take the pressure off tax increases.” Well, OK but what does “add stimulus” mean. He can’t get back Obama’s stimulus anymore than he can get back Bush’s. And OK, if there was a 24 percent increase in the base budget, where was it and what part is he going to cut? Conservatives like Ryan say that Nancy Pelosi sucks and is much reviled for not answering questions directly with supporting detail; is Ryan,this newly anointed leader of the conservatives called to service by the mid-terms, any different? Or is it only democrats that suck when they evade direct questions?

See, I just did not get having an election to fix things that resulted in putting the party directly responsible for national grief right back in office. They claim that they get it; that America has spoken; that they will listen. Well, I think you have crooks, dammed crooks, and republicans. And I am getting antsy waiting for the later to hurry up and fix some stuff. Gawd, shouldn't they have got it all done by now?