John Kyl, Sen. from Texas and opponent of “earmarks” just gave himself a $200 MILLION earmark for Texas!

F***ing lying hypocrites.

QUOTE (robert beal):

Any deficit commission is at best frivolous if it doesn’t proffer ways to effectively address two fiscal and budgetary situations unique in their extremity to this country—neither of which requires debate about growth:

1.  Concentration of wealth
2.  Defense spending
____________________

A nation with a military so large that it has a constant menacing presence upon every continent, on and under every ocean, in the skies surrounding the Earth, MovingOn into space beyond that — a military engaged in serial aggressor wars waged against people unfortunate to have been born above resources corporate coveted — is **NOT** a nation having its bipartisan military expenditures spent upon defense.

A deficit is but a tool.  How it is to be used, or not, should be based on the goal of maximizing household security.  Economically, increasing household security increases productivity and demand and, thus, tax revenues.

Any deficit commission is at best frivolous if it doesn’t proffer ways to effectively address two fiscal and budgetary situations unique in their extremity to this country—neither of which requires debate about growth: 
1.  Concentration of wealth
2.  Defense spending

This is from Reuters:  “Based on an inequality measure known as the Gini coefficient, the United States ranks on a par with developing countries such as Ivory Coast, Jamaica and Malaysia, according to the CIA World Factbook.” 

One difference between “haves” and “have-nots” is the lesser or greater likelihood of their suffering a long-term reduction in earning potential as a result of a set-back in employment, health, relationship, housing, and/or transportation.  An effective safety net is an investment in human potential and thus is good for all.

Household insecurity creates discontent, fear, and dysfunction, all of which are being manipulated to:
1.    Perpetuate the uploading of wealth (burden shifting)
2.  Divert capital away from (defunding) physical and social infrastructure investments and into the military-industrial complex.

See: 
1.    Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer — and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class, Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson
2.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures

Conason’s article is a collection of Democrat deceptions.

He misdirects people, by claiming the elimination of earmarks would have insignificant effect because the billions spent are so few compared with other bigger billions spent that aren’t earmarked.

By his asserting that people who want earmarks eliminated are “stupid”, Conason acts in defense of the process of bribery and extortion that earmarking is. The purpose of earmarks is to gain support for legislation that’s not worthy of support, and to use public monies to personally reward legislators in direct proportion to their level of corruption.

Conason then MovesOn to defend Obama’s truly “historic” legislative atrocity — the bailout of the diseased ProfitCare industry — that had nothing to do with healthcare. If Democrats had any concern for We The People’s health, Single-Payer would now have everyone’s medical expenses covered — better motivated and less costly provided — with no business person saddled with any paper work for policy provision of premiums paid to deny healthcare, and no worker medical “benefit” chained to their employer.

In his closing, Conason promotes Slick Willy as a model of firm fiscal prowess. The Clinton surpluses were creative accounting and market bubble dependent — the dazzling “profits” that any pyramid scheme has in it’s early days. The Rubin/Clinton administration’s promise of wholly deregulated finance to allow banks to be all the Enron they could possible be is what had Democrats singing Happy Days Are Here Again, in the 90’s… while Clinton developed the extraordinary rendition program, and manufactured a “humanitarian” war for the sole purpose of transforming NATO into a resource war expeditionary force.

I’d like to suggest that the tax hikes by Clinton were a de facto incentive for the rich.

We learn through adversity.

The wealthy will sit on their duffs and take the tax cuts. If they feel they are somehow reaping less reward for they’re efforts,[which incidentally is exacted primarily by the manipulation of numbers in the funny money game and not attributable to anything that the make], they tend to wake up and try a little harder. Hence the economy is boosted by standing up to the rich and imparting to them a bit of their own medicine. Try a little dose of adversity.

A guy in the Middle East humps a piece in 120 degree weather and nasty dust storms every day to support your crappy, credit card based, corporate economic model.

a well written essay.  the war machine grows ever larger and more costly, ending
the wars would be a good start.

Bush and his cronies are laughing all the way to the bank

This is a wasted effort by Mr. Conason unless this is being published, with more details, in Reader’s Digest or whatever mainstream America reads nowadays.

As it stands, it is just preaching to the choir.

Hey! Joe! You want to educate or do you just want another “tsk tsk” moment where we can all nod our heads in agreement or nod off.

From Conasson:  “Proposals to reduce the deficit by impoverishing seniors, punishing middle-class families, and neglecting infrastructure and education will do more harm than good.”
  Now that you mention it, and are stressing the education of your (presumably “stupid”) readers, why not spell out exactly what harms will accrue from cutting back on welfare, social security etc.?
  People who advocate such cuts as a way to “save goveernment waste” etc. and “decreasing the power of big government” simply do not understand that they are the ones who will be hurt most by such cutbacks.
  People who have access to editorial space need to stop presuming that their readers understand all the connections which seem self-evident to them as writers. Of course “stupid” people may not read your words—probably not—but still, it’s better to err on the side of too much rather than too little.
  So tell them, in no uncertain way,  how hospitals will turn them away, how soup kitchens will serve them mashed potatoes, how one of their old uncles will die in the streets, from cold and hunger and sheer hopelessness.  How their children will grow up stunted and ignorant.  How ... well, you get the picture.
  Ask them if this is really the world they want to see, and if not, what else they propose.  If they cite “private charity” explain to them the desperate lack of funds prevalent among private charities who are already overstretched and understaffed and having to spend most of their time begging.
  In other words, tell the full truth, don’t just refer to it in passing.