Comments on: Selective Deficit Disorder is Bipartisan

By: Manfred James

Manfred James — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 12:29:50 +0000

Our ultimate goal in Afghanistan — forgive me if I sound snide — is the same as the goal in killing off health care reform: The protection and expansion of income for the already-wealthy.
Although the government is afraid that some might game the system were health-care reform to pass, the bigger fear is that those getting rich off the current system will be at a loss for victims, and thus out of work. Nobody in power gives a s#%t about poor boys fighting and dying in foreign lands, especially when it benefits the same people who are already crushing the general populace here at home. And the Constitution gives them the power to do it — or so they make it seem.
It’s another trickle-down theory: Open a market for American business, and the money will flow. Only the only thing flowing will be the blood of those who can’t get work.

By: Doug

Doug — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 00:01:19 +0000

Not saying I didn’t use the phrase, “borrow and spend,” but my preferred terminology was “red-ink Republicanism.”

In any case, prioritizing is fine. But, if you are cool with additional spending for one thing that raises the deficit, don’t pretend the deficit is what’s holding you back from spending on the other thing unless you are able to explain why the former offers more benefits than the latter.

Since health care and Afghanistan are on the table, those are the two spending items that seem to need prioritizing. With health care, I know our system is screwed. I know that other countries manage to get similar or better results while spending half as much and that they do it through heavy government involvement. So, I see the need for government involvement and potential benefits there. I don’t even know what our ultimate goal in Afghanistan is, let alone what benefit I should expect to see if that goal is realized.

By: Mike Kole

Mike Kole — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 22:31:06 +0000

Well, sure the deficit concerns should be selective. Would you rather prefer lawmakers who voted for every single possible measure of deficit spending? Not I, thank you. I like lawmakers drawing a few lines on the deficit spending, even if really late in the game.

Besides, I recall a certain blogger fanning the flames of candidate Obama’s rhetoric decrying “the failed Bush policies of borrow and spend”. Alas.

By: BrianK

BrianK — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 15:03:11 +0000

Wish I could take full credit for the SDD, but I stole it from David Sirota.

By: Lou

Lou — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 14:47:33 +0000

Let’s compare the outrage at a proposed soda drink tax to fund healthcare and the million dollar per soldier per year expense of deployment to Afghanistan.( Assuming the million dollar price tax is accurate;this figure has been widely quoted on news and political discussion recently. President Obama should have a tax proposal sent to Congress to pay for the deployment.

If we are comparing apples and oranges ( i.e, war vs healthcare ),as some will charge ,then let’s make the case in public forum just how apples are different from oranges….They are both fruits,so there’s similarity in a broad sense. All of use get caught in a logic vice when we are forced to be consistently logical. My contention is that cutting taxes makes government more desperate and less efficient,not smaller and more efficient,which is the spin.So when the money gets scarce the debate becomes a moral argument of the ‘bad people’ vs. the ‘good people.

My next door neighbor in Chicago used to take the ‘L’ to go work in loop at Social Security Administration as a claims adjustor.That’s how I look at government,my neighbor going to work.We all have a certain mindset.

By: eric schansberg

eric schansberg — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 13:41:09 +0000

One more good reason to be (at least) tri-partisan…