Nonsense! Such nonsense! Nonsense all around!
A little honesty and common sense would help a lot.
We do have a big debt. How did we get it?
We got it, partly, by going to war in Iraq.
George W. said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. He didn't.
What George the Second really had in mind was to establish
a western-friendly government in Iraq (Saddam Hussein did not
have nuclear weapons, but he certainly did not like the U.S.A.)
George II thought having a western-type democracy right in the middle
of the Arab, oil-producing world would be dandy.
Whatever made him think going to war with Iraq would turn them
into friendly, next-door-half-a-world-away, partners who would
do their best to supply us with cheap oil? Ignorance, maybe?
That whole war was never put into our budgetary process!
George W. knew that if he did that, the budget would look awful!
But simply not showing the cost of the war in a budget did not mean
that we had not borrowed the money, nor spent it, nor owe it.
The Honorable George W. also inherited a huge budget surplus
from an equally Honorable Bill Clinton (although they do not share
the same Honors). So George did what all Republicans want to do:
they cut taxes, all the while telling us that cutting government income
(which, as every sane person knows, is how government pays its bills)
would have the effect of making rich people so enthusiastic that they
would invest all that extra money in Detroit and Cleveland and
Wall Street, and make even more money, thereby producing
revenue to the government that we could hardly dream of.
To say nothing of their charitable giving!
Instead, they shut down Detroit, and moved to Mexico,
and China, and some little islands in the Caribbean that do not
look too keenly at taxable income. Oops!
The same Gubberning Party insisted that the best way to keep us all
healthy would be to give the money we might have used for health care
to insurance companies who are not the least bit interested in health care,
but in making money on people who need health care, and to drug
companies, by making it illegal for us to buy medications from
other places--places like Canada: the socialistic-barbarian neighbor
to the north. "It's not about health: it's about making money!"
So, we decided to spend all that money.
At the same time, we found clever ways to cut our income.
For instance, we allowed, and encouraged, and demanded
that the people with the most money pay the lowest tax rates.
You see, don't you, that if the people with the most money
can keep most of their money, they will have leaky pockets
and it will trickle down their trousers to the people at the bottom,
down their at the street level, and we will all be better off?
You didn't know that? Jesus! Where have you been?
So, here we are. Almost, not quite, broke. And how do we get
out of this mess? There are two answers. The first one is that
we need to cut taxes to the rich, more than for others, and quit
spending so much on the people who aren't rich. Isn't that right?
OK! If you don't agree, find a nicer way to say it.
The second answer is that we need a fairer way to pay our bills.
The people with lots of money should pay, not just more, but
at a higher rate than those who are worried that they might
not be able to keep their houses. And, second, we aren't going
to be any better off by getting mean and frugal, because the problem
is that we need to change what we have become. We need to
educate ourselves for the new world economy. We need to create
jobs and put people back to work. We need to rebuild our cities
and our infrastructure, and the focus of both private and public
enterprise. We need to rebuild almost everything, for the future.
Scrimping, while protecting the rich, will produce scrimpers
and rich people. It will not change us into a powerhouse, again.
Cut taxes across the board? Freeze the budget? Insure the status quo?
No!
I do not live far from Lake Minnetoka, where the money is, and I live
so far away from Lake Minnetonka that I cannot see it from my porch.
The President is going to give a State of the Union address tonight.
He will waffle, because he has to. He has to because an astonishing
number of people who are scared shitless think that maybe the deficit
if our real problem It is a problem, but it is not our real problem.
Our real problem is that we need to be honest, admit what we have done,
and insist that everybody, everybody, pay their fair share, that we
protect the people who are genuinely hurting for no reasons of their own
doing, and that we rebuild this country and its economy; that we
invest in ourselves! Get honest! Do what is necessary to do justice,
and love mercy, and stand up and walk straight.
A little honesty and common sense would help a lot.
We do have a big debt. How did we get it?
We got it, partly, by going to war in Iraq.
George W. said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. He didn't.
What George the Second really had in mind was to establish
a western-friendly government in Iraq (Saddam Hussein did not
have nuclear weapons, but he certainly did not like the U.S.A.)
George II thought having a western-type democracy right in the middle
of the Arab, oil-producing world would be dandy.
Whatever made him think going to war with Iraq would turn them
into friendly, next-door-half-a-world-away, partners who would
do their best to supply us with cheap oil? Ignorance, maybe?
That whole war was never put into our budgetary process!
George W. knew that if he did that, the budget would look awful!
But simply not showing the cost of the war in a budget did not mean
that we had not borrowed the money, nor spent it, nor owe it.
The Honorable George W. also inherited a huge budget surplus
from an equally Honorable Bill Clinton (although they do not share
the same Honors). So George did what all Republicans want to do:
they cut taxes, all the while telling us that cutting government income
(which, as every sane person knows, is how government pays its bills)
would have the effect of making rich people so enthusiastic that they
would invest all that extra money in Detroit and Cleveland and
Wall Street, and make even more money, thereby producing
revenue to the government that we could hardly dream of.
To say nothing of their charitable giving!
Instead, they shut down Detroit, and moved to Mexico,
and China, and some little islands in the Caribbean that do not
look too keenly at taxable income. Oops!
The same Gubberning Party insisted that the best way to keep us all
healthy would be to give the money we might have used for health care
to insurance companies who are not the least bit interested in health care,
but in making money on people who need health care, and to drug
companies, by making it illegal for us to buy medications from
other places--places like Canada: the socialistic-barbarian neighbor
to the north. "It's not about health: it's about making money!"
So, we decided to spend all that money.
At the same time, we found clever ways to cut our income.
For instance, we allowed, and encouraged, and demanded
that the people with the most money pay the lowest tax rates.
You see, don't you, that if the people with the most money
can keep most of their money, they will have leaky pockets
and it will trickle down their trousers to the people at the bottom,
down their at the street level, and we will all be better off?
You didn't know that? Jesus! Where have you been?
So, here we are. Almost, not quite, broke. And how do we get
out of this mess? There are two answers. The first one is that
we need to cut taxes to the rich, more than for others, and quit
spending so much on the people who aren't rich. Isn't that right?
OK! If you don't agree, find a nicer way to say it.
The second answer is that we need a fairer way to pay our bills.
The people with lots of money should pay, not just more, but
at a higher rate than those who are worried that they might
not be able to keep their houses. And, second, we aren't going
to be any better off by getting mean and frugal, because the problem
is that we need to change what we have become. We need to
educate ourselves for the new world economy. We need to create
jobs and put people back to work. We need to rebuild our cities
and our infrastructure, and the focus of both private and public
enterprise. We need to rebuild almost everything, for the future.
Scrimping, while protecting the rich, will produce scrimpers
and rich people. It will not change us into a powerhouse, again.
Cut taxes across the board? Freeze the budget? Insure the status quo?
No!
I do not live far from Lake Minnetoka, where the money is, and I live
so far away from Lake Minnetonka that I cannot see it from my porch.
The President is going to give a State of the Union address tonight.
He will waffle, because he has to. He has to because an astonishing
number of people who are scared shitless think that maybe the deficit
if our real problem It is a problem, but it is not our real problem.
Our real problem is that we need to be honest, admit what we have done,
and insist that everybody, everybody, pay their fair share, that we
protect the people who are genuinely hurting for no reasons of their own
doing, and that we rebuild this country and its economy; that we
invest in ourselves! Get honest! Do what is necessary to do justice,
and love mercy, and stand up and walk straight.
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