Re: Oh What a Lovely Budget Item

pheh...no way.  NOW Republicans want austerity?  They seem to have no  
problem advocating austerity for the middle class, but somehow find  
brave new arguments for how the rich need tax breaks and wall street  
less regulation so they can continue their fraud.  How about a little  
austerity for Wall Street who is having record profits and salaries!   
Why are the banks paying dividents huh?  Sorry but if deficits don't  
matter, which Bernanke is demonstrating quite well that they don't,  
then I'd just as well see Bernanke to keep doing what he's doing and  
print the money and leave us taxpayers alone.  And if deficits do  
matter, then they can start by clawing back the bank profits.  Sorry  
but bailing out the rich and socking it to the middle class is not a  
policy I can advocate.
Privatize the profits, socialize the losses doesn't work for me.  Find  
another way Mr. Bernanke.

regards,
-Lance

On Apr 4, 2011, at 3:31 PM, Mike Findlay wrote:

> Yup.  We need an across the board spending cut.  Pick a number, 3,  
> 5, 8 or 10% and cut EVERYTHING, including entitlements and defense  
> spending.
>
> Mike F.
>
> From: Bruce Geerdes <[email protected]>
> To: DADL (off topic) <[email protected]>
> Sent: Mon, April 4, 2011 3:16:25 PM
> Subject: Re: [DADL-OT] Oh What a Lovely Budget Item
>
> YES. I've had it to here with "fiscal responsibility" Republicans  
> that exclude our military spending.
>
>
> On Mon, Apr 4, 2011 at 2:08 PM, david white <[email protected]>  
> wrote:
> http://reason.com/archives/2011/04/01/oh-what-a-lovely-budget-item
>
> Oh What a Lovely Budget Item
> For a neocon, fiscal restraint stops at the water's edge.
> Jesse Walker | April 1, 2011
>
> When Bill Kristol endorsed America's intervention in Libya, the Weekly
> Standard editor was being completely consistent with everything else  
> he has
> said about American foreign policy. He just wasn't being consistent  
> with his
> pose as a proponent of fiscal restraint. It's bracing to watch  
> Kristol twirl
> so easily from denouncing "the Democrats' orgy of spending" and  
> complaining
> about Republicans who "don't have a credible plan to deal with the  
> debt or
> the deficit" to jubilating that the president "didn't shrink from  
> defending
> the use of force." But the pundit's gyrations can't obscure a basic  
> reality:
> You can pay your bills or you can be a global policeman, but you  
> can't do
> both. Not in 2011.
>
> According to ABC, the cost of Obama's kinetic spending reached $600  
> million
> in its first week. The Pentagon estimates that the total could reach  
> $800
> million by the end of September, and the Pentagon just might be  
> lowballing.
> Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and  
> Budgetary
> Assessments, has told The National Journal that the price tag could  
> "easily
> pass the $1 billion mark on this operation, regardless of how well  
> things
> go." And if things don't go well...
>
> But let's stick, for the moment, with the costs of that initial  
> week. That's
> already more than half the amount House Republicans have asked to  
> cut from
> Americorps. It's more than twice the amount they've asked to cut  
> from Amtrak.
> It's nearly four times the size of National Public Radio's entire  
> operating
> budget for fiscal year 2011, including the parts that come from  
> private
> sources. All this for just a week of a war that—unlike our invasions  
> and
> occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan—doesn't even pretend to be an  
> act of self-
> defense. (When Kristol endorsed a spending freeze, he made an explicit
> exception for "national security." I realize that "national  
> security" is
> usually a euphemism for "anything remotely related to foreign  
> policy," but
> just for fun, let's take it literally. Does anyone out there seriously
> believe NATO's planes are in Libya's skies to keep Americans secure?)
>
> And what about those troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the price  
> tag
> isn't threatening to hit a billion but long ago topped a trillion?  
> It goes
> without saying that Kristol and his cohort still support both wars  
> even as
> they're eager to add a third. It also goes without saying that the  
> Libyan
> operation will make it harder to make military cuts of any kind. (As a
> spokesman for Joe Lieberman put it to Politico, "Congress should be  
> very
> careful and cautious about any reductions in defense spending, given  
> the many
> profound responsibilities shouldered by our military at this time.")  
> For a
> neocon, fiscal restraint stops at the water's edge.
>
> There are several coherent ways to think about federal spending and  
> foreign
> policy right now. You can address America's fiscal crisis by calling  
> for
> serious cuts both at home and abroad. That's the libertarian path.  
> You can
> deny that we're facing a serious fiscal crisis at all, and thus feel  
> free to
> support new spending at home and overseas. That's what the pro-war,  
> pro-
> bailout liberal hawks have been doing. And you can deny we face a  
> serious
> fiscal crisis but join in the libertarians' other arguments against  
> the wars.
> That's the liberal doves' approach.
>
> What you can't coherently claim is that we need to both (a) bring our
> financial house in order or face fiscal ruin and (b) embark on one  
> expensive
> open-ended military adventure after another. Yet conservatives in  
> the Kristol
> mold don't seem to see a contradiction here at all.
>
> On Thursday, Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post led off a blog  
> entry with
> fulsome praise for Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and a letter he  
> recently wrote
> endorsing American intervention in Libya. She contrasted Rubio and  
> his red-
> blooded hawkishness with President Obama, who she assured us "would  
> still be
> dithering" if it weren't for pressure from "Nicolas Sarkozy, David  
> Cameron,
> Hillary Clinton and a few others." She made it clear that she thinks  
> the
> locales that demand our leadership are not limited to Libya. She was
> especially scornful of Obama's alleged belief that "we will meet our
> obligations" to the world only if "it doesn't cost too much."
>
> And then, in the very same post, she complained that the president's  
> budget
> is "devoid of serious measures to steer us back from the brink of  
> fiscal
> doom." She's right about that. But she isn't one to talk.
>
> Jesse Walker is managing editor of Reason magazine.
>
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