11/30/2009

Note on Spending and Taxation: What's True and Why We Need Obama to Lead:
Few things are more revolting than the self-righteousness of Republicans over the federal deficit and national debt. Karl Rove, a man who should have to spend one day a week standing still so people can kick him in the nuts, recently cavilled in the Wall Street Journal (motto: "Actually, our editorial policy isn't so different since Murdoch bought our ass"), "When Mr. Obama was sworn into office the federal deficit for this year stood at $422 billion. At the end of October, it stood at $1.42 trillion."

This blame-by-association was too much of a lie for the Obama-hating Cato Institute. In a blog entry there, Daniel J. Mitchell declares, "[I]t is inaccurate and/or dishonest to blame [Obama] for Bush’s mistakes." See, we're actually still on Bush's last budget. Got that? The fiscal year 2009 started in October 2008. Barack Obama didn't sign off on that budget. In fact, even incorporating Obama's "waste" (by conservative standards) in cash-for-clunkers, the stimulus, and more, Mitchell says that "only amounted to just a tiny percentage of the FY2009 total — about $140 billion out of a $3.5 trillion budget." Or 4%.

Or, in other words, Karl Rove, as ever, can go fuck himself or fuck whatever gnarled, cloven-hoofed, demi-demon mutant dwarf that would have him.

There's finally creeping talk about the big damn elephant in the room: that we might actually, horror of horrors, have to think about raising taxes in order to get our fiscal house in order, something that was verboten during the Bush administration. Seriously, did George Stephanopoulos's hair ever ask a member of Congress or the Bush White House if we should maybe, perhaps think that, if they wanna throw a huge fuckin' war on America's tab, we oughta pay for it together? Because he did ask Lindsey Graham yesterday on This Week with George Stephanopoulos's Hair, "If we're going to fight a war, shouldn't the American people pay for it?"

And, like every good barking bitch Republican, whenever confronted with a question about spending so profligate and unnecessary that it makes it look like Eliot Spitzer got a bargain on his diamond-pussied whores, Graham blathered on, "I'd like to see an endeavor to see if we can cut current spending and find some dollars that we're spending today to pay for the war, and prioritize American spending." And, in a remark that instantly rendered him one of the most useless, out-of-touch fuckers in the Senate, he said, "Our national security future depends on getting it right in Afghanistan, and there is no better use of taxpayer dollars than to defend America, in my view." You know whose security depends on "getting it right" in Afghanistan? Afghanistan's. And then Pakistan's. And then Europe's. Ours? Not so much. Oh, at one point it did, but a Republican administration fucked that up.

Sometimes, the craven greed of many Americans is unbearable. We so fucking want something for nothing. Until it wasn't popular anymore in about, oh, what, 2005ish, people loved them some Iraq War, but the notion of asking people to pay for it? That was political death. For the most part, we acknowledge that some vague "something" needs to be done about health care costs, but the solution, that maybe we'll have to pay a little bit more in taxes and make do with 40" HDTVs instead of 45", is somehow anti-American.

For all the times that Barack Obama has spoken since he's been President, he has never done something with all that energy his campaign harnessed. We had a specific goal in 2008. And we achieved it. Now give us new specific goals. And he'd better do it fast. Because the energy is almost dissipated. It's okay for a nation's marching orders to come from it's leaders. Citizens elect their leaders based on who they want to follow or who will give them stuff. Obama was elected because he implored us to get to work for the nation. So tell us what to do. And if the people on top don't do it, then demagogues with only imaginary power take over and their lies, like the illusion of Obama's 2009 spending, become the truth.