Bobo On The March

[filkertom]

Today, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WTF) is presenting a budget plan that supposedly will cut between four and six trillion dollars over the next ten years. And all it has to do is utterly destroy Medicare and Medicaid and the Affordable Health Care Act, and -- you guessed it -- cut taxes for corporations and the wealthy.

David "Bobo" Brooks promotes this noise at the NY Times, but it really might be more helpful to read Jonathan Zasloff's analysis of Brooks' column, as Bobo is full of it much more than usual today.

Comments

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

Or read mistermix on the topic. He nails it in three paragraphs.

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

I can nail it in one sentence:

Paul Ryan wants to move American social policy back to the 19th Century- where the rich control everything and the poor die in squalid misery.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

True. The rest of the paragraphs I mentioned back up the assertion and suggest what to do about it.

Ahem..

[stdharma.livejournal.com]

Republicans want to move American social policy back to the 19th Century-where the rich control everything and the poor die in squalid misery.

FTFY.
:D

Re: Ahem..

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

True as a general statement, yes, but this proposal is 100% Paul Ryan's puppy, so he deserves specific targeting in this instance.

Re: Ahem..

[stdharma.livejournal.com]

True that.

[delazan.livejournal.com]

I'm embarrassed that this guy is from my lovely home state of Wisconsin. I don't know why the people of the Janesville area, who still are reeling from the loss of the GM plant, keep voting for this SOB, who obviously isn't doing anything to help them.
-L.

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

Makes perfect sense. If poor (white) folks vote for Rethugs, they'll be kept safe from the threat of gay marriage, legal abortion, illegals (brown folks) and terrist recrootmint centers (non-Christian religious buildings) from destroying their definition of "real America."

I deliberately say poor whites - because very few poor folks of color are going to be taken in by the guys who were manning the hoses and dogs a few decades ago.

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

The Republicans have just handed the Democrats a guaranteed landslide victory in 2012.

Which raises the question: How will the Democrats fuck it up?

My guess is, the spectacle of President Obama publicly twisting Senate Democrats' arms to make them go along with it in order to pass some kind of budget and avoid a government shutdown. Afterwards, Republicans will campaign against Democrats, blaming them for having ended Medicare.

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

I do admit that the democrats lack someone with guts enough to stand up to the bullies in the republican party. And that's exactly what this is -- bullying. But the ones getting beat up are you and me.

What the democrats need is a strongwilled angry shithead to stand up and tell off all the other side's strongwilled angry shitheads. But today it looks like a bunch of schoolyard bullies beating up on the playground's pansies, and nobody is going to vote for the beaten up pansy.

[bayushisan.livejournal.com]

We had that when Grayson was in office. I've never seen someone who was that vocal and would say whatever he was thinking regardless of how it what people would think.

[stdharma.livejournal.com]

And notice how fast he got rode out of town on a rail...

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

Of course, his district is moderately Republican, anyway. Now, if he moved house to where he could kick a DINO out, we'd be in good shape.

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

By proposing their own Social Security and Medicare cuts.

Which is what the Simpson-Bowles Commission was set up to do.

With a majority hand-picked by Obama for that purpose.

[rdmaughan.livejournal.com]

America does need to sort out the cost of health care. The US pays more and gets less than anywhere in Western Europe.

The other main budget problem is that the US spends more on its armed forces than any other four nations on the planet.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

WRONG, suh! You are WRONG! The US spends more than all the rest of the nations on the planet combined (http://www.wattscookinblog.com/2010/12/u-s-military-budget-exceeds-all-other-countries-combined-is-it-any-wonder-we-are-the-worlds-1-warmonger/).

I really, really long for Allan Sherman's Perpetual War Zone. Basically, you rope off Greenland. Any countries -- or cities, or corporations, or motorcycle gangs, or TV networks, or whatever -- who have any difficulties go there. Anyone violating the peace elsewhere gets parachute-dropped naked into the middle.

[rdmaughan.livejournal.com]

We get our statistics from different sources.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures

The articles you linked makes the claim but does not give numbers for anyone else's expenditure so I am as always somewhat skeptical.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

No prob. This any better (http://www.globalissues.org/article/75/world-military-spending)? (And, apparently, it's only almost as much as the rest of the world. My bad.)

[rdmaughan.livejournal.com]

That is a more recent set of numbers that the ones I had. Mine were bad but yours are worse.

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

Do keep in mind that in addition to fighting two wars (one of which was utterly stupid -- even a chimp like Dubya should know you cannot fight a two front war) we also get the call when the UN wants to save all the little Libyan children from big bad Khadafy. Guess who foots that bill? And our relief and rescue saves lives in disaster after disaster, including the whole NE of Japan atm. Where are the Russians airdropping relief pallets? Or the Saudi's, rich as they are? It's always us having to be Superman to the world, and that costs money. Unless of course you don't care about all these people in Haiti, Japan, New Zealand, etc etc.

Hell, I was in avionics and I got tapped to help fight a forest fire in Arkansas... what a strange night that was.

[zibblsnrt.livejournal.com]

we also get the call when the UN wants to save all the little Libyan children from big bad Khadafy. Guess who foots that bill?

Considering it was France's idea in the first place, they and Britain started shooting prior to the American involvement, a Canadian general's in overall command, most of the other nations involved are using materials they bought from the US, and the American military has already stopped participating in the action there, I've got the impression that quite a few people are footing the bill.

Also, if you think something like Libya's even a drop in the bucket as far as the defense budget goes, you need to think again. Even if the Iraq and Afghanistan wars weren't going on defense expenditures would still be vastly beyond any other half-dozen or so nations out there.

[rdmaughan.livejournal.com]

Details of who has sent what from about a week ago. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12806112

Although the US has sent forces they are definitely not the sole contributor. I think a large part of the problem is the US-centric nature of news in the US.
I remember when the second gulf war was still young being asked by one of my US in-laws if the UK was going to be sending troops any time soon. I replied that they had been there from day one and at that point their largest source of casualties was the USAF. That did rather kill the conversation round the dinner table.

[skemono.livejournal.com]

Where are the Russians airdropping relief pallets?

Flying to Japan?

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

And we can cut even more by getting rid of that amazingly all encompassing health care plan for all congressmen and senators. After all, we don't want no steeenkin government health system anywhere -- it are the ebil!

[r-caton.livejournal.com]

Yes Of the people? They can do as the people do.
...And if they don't like that, Sir, they can die, and decrease the surplus population.<

[bayushisan.livejournal.com]

I'd really like to think that the Republicans aren't all pro-corporate, anti-poor, and the like; but they just keep on doing things that are just that. What would the point be of letting seniors buy their own insurance when most insurance companies would deny them due to "pre-existing conditions".

We really need to get the word out this coming election and send a clear message that what the Republicans are proposing are unacceptable. Of course this also means electing people that will stand up to the Republicans and show a spine in how they govern.

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

And where can we find such people? Seems to me, the only alternative to the Republican Teahad is the Democratic Neville Chamberlain party, that capitulates to them even while they, the Democrats, have the obstruction-proof majority.

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

Led by a president who believes in supply-side economics, unlimited presidential power, and covering up any and all crimes committed by the government whatever the cost.

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

Oh, come on! Given the President's behavior over the past two years, can you honestly say that there is evidence he really believes in something?

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

Yep. I'd say he believes in the Chicago Bulls.

[judifilksign.livejournal.com]

My parents have always been "die-hard republicans."

My mother said to me this weekend that the current Republicans in power go too far to the right, and are ignoring their constituents main concerns. I was in shock.

She doesn't know who to vote for, because she still believes that the Democrats have no plan, and the inability to overcome opposition. She wants more than pointing fingers that the Republicans are being bad, and better alternatives.

[bearcat668.livejournal.com]

You know what's really sad? Shrub and Obama the spineless really make me miss the last great president we had -- Richard Nixon. Think about it before you start shouting, eh? OK, Jimmy Carter had the right heart, but the right wing conspiracy pretty much shut him out and up.

Hey, you know why Bush I picked Danny boy to be his Veep? So that he wouldn't be impeached for being Ronnie's bag man. Doesn't that explain it?

[alverant.livejournal.com]

I'm convinced the repubs pick their VPs on the logic of "If you impeach me, THIS person will be in charge and you don't want that do you?"

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

So, tea-partiers... What're you gonna do now that somebody actually IS putting their government hands on your Medicare, hm?

I'm sure you'll get right on that any minute now, right?

Riiiiiight?

[cscottd.livejournal.com]

I keep seeing Republicans claiming "We don't like having to make these cuts, but we're out of money", and yet here they are planning to turn around and give 30% of the money from those cuts to corporations and the wealthy.

And when anyone brings up the subject of the high-end tax cuts, the response is always pretty much the same: "We don't have a tax problem. We have a spending problem." But that's nonsense. If your costs/spending are exceeding your income, cutting costs and decreasing your income is not a serious way to address the problem... and that's, in effect, what they keep doing.

"Sorry, kids. You're gonna have to cut back to two meals a day, because I've decided to tell my boss to keep 30% of my income. I know you're hungry, but we're just out of money, and we've got to fix this budget. If this doesn't work, we'll have to cut back to one meal a day and let my boss keep half my pay... Surely that will fix our budget, right?"

Sheesh!

[lone-cat.livejournal.com]

Sheesh, indeed... and I really hope you don't mind that I sent that to Rachel.

[cscottd.livejournal.com]

Not at all.

By the way, here's an interesting break-down/analysis of the Ryan Plan.