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Mindless Cheerleaders

"Bricka, bracka, fi'a-cracka, siss, boom, bah!  
Bugs Bunny, Bugs Bunny, rah, rah, rah!


Mindless crap!  It doesn't make sense.  It doesn't have to.  It is a way to make enthusiastic noise.  Fire up the crowd!  


"Offense!  Defense!  It really doesn't matter!
All we really want to do is get 'em in a lather!"


George W. was a cheerleader.  At Yale.  So is Michele Bachmann.  And Mitch McConnell. The whole Tea Party.  


"Evel Knievel!  Land on his butt!
Gubbament is evil!  Cut!  Cut!  Cut!"


It is like a high school game with middle-aged cheerleaders.  "Cut!  Cut!  Cut!"


It is all about jobs!  Right?  Everybody says so.  In a mixed economy, such as ours, jobs are provided partly by private investment, and party by government investment.  Boeing makes airplanes.  Apple makes computers and phones.   Government provides teachers and fire fighters and food inspectors.  Everybody agrees that it would be great if Apple and Boeing and just about every other business would make more jobs.  But these cheerleading idiots think it would be great if government were put on a starvation diet, and lay off teachers and police officers and food inspectors.  Maybe ramp it up just a bit if a hurricane hits, but otherwise, cut, cut, cut!


We are trying our darnedest to climb up our of the recession our genius financial community put us in, and that a previous administration put us in, mostly by starting stupid wars and drug programs they preferred not to pay for.   People do need jobs!  First we need to create jobs, wherever we can imagine them, and then, when the economy is rolling,again, we need to pay our bills.  We cannot pay our loans off if people are not working, buying groceries, paying the mortgage and taxes, and college tuition.  


But the mindless chant is to cut government jobs.  And that lames the economy, making private enterprises leery of investing in a stumbling system, so people who have lots of money sock it away.  Later!


Mitch McConnell has been plain about what he wants to do:  he wants to do anything that will get Barack Obama out of office.  If starving the government will make people angry enough to throw him out, Mitch will starve the government.  Cut!  Cut!  Cut!  


Warren Buffet is one of the richest men in America:  a billionaire.  He says, in today's New York Times that it is time the rich paid their fair share.  He says he paid almost $7. million dollars in income tax and payroll tax last year; a bit over 17% of what he earned.  He paid more--in absolute dollars--than anyone else in his office, but every one of the other nineteen people paid a higher percentage of their income than he did.  They averaged paying at more than twice the rate he did.  Warren Buffet says that is not fair.  First, we send poor and middle class kids to go fight our wars for us, and then we excuse the very rich from paying their fair share.  Buffett suggest that people should pay a higher rate on what they earn over a million dollars, and higher still on what they earn over ten million a year.  


"My friends and I," he concludes, "have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress.  It's time for our government to get serious about shared sacrifice."


Warren Buffet is not only more honest than our politicians:  he is smarter, too.  That is probably why he is a billionaire, and they are politicians, asking for handouts for re-election.  

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