Palin, Potter and a Tea Party Disaster Flick
On the nation’s movie screens, the Sarah Palin-as-saint movie is running a dismal second to Harry Potter, but in Washington, the Tea Party is offering its own fantasy to entertain Americans until the economic apocalypse premiers on Aug. 2.
“The House and Senate this week,” reports The Caucus, “plan to hold politically charged but largely symbolic votes on fiscal policy in what Congressional leaders hope is a prelude to moving ahead with a plan to increase the federal debt limit…
“Given the likelihood of attempts to filibuster any proposal in the Senate, just moving legislation through to passage could consume the next two weeks, including the weekends.”
This gives new meaning to the traditional dramatic category of “dumb show,” a silent pantomime. The GOP actors have all kinds of words like “cap, cut and balance” and “balanced budget amendment,” but they are all gibberish to serve as background to squeeze the last possible moments of posturing on stage before the vote to raise the debt ceiling.
“At the end of the day,” says their Senate No. 2 Jon Kyl, “Republican leaders have made it clear that we will not be the ones to put the government into default. Now the House of Representatives has to make its decision about what it will do.”
8 Responses to “Palin, Potter and a Tea Party Disaster Flick”
One has to wonder about progressives when they have multiple posts about Sarah Palin who is irrelevant but cannot be bother to write a single word about the massive school test cheating scandal in Atlanta. One should also wonder about progressives when they write endlessly about the husband of Michelle Bachmann but cannot be bothered to write about the economy, regulations, demographics, or job creation in the U.S.
When did the progressive movement become the “snark” movement. When did writing snarky quips about conservative replace writing about issues? When did ignoring large section of the Democratic Party establishment become the ideal for the “knowledge based, fact oriented” progressives?
The government has been building unsustainable programs for decades, which is easy when the economy is doing well. Now it’s time for the pain, and neither the party wants it. In the past, all either of them had to do was bribe the least committed legislators until they had enough votes — it was only a few billion here and there.
That formula doesn’t work when there are no extra billions.
We should remember that we were in budgetary surplus at the end of Bill Clinton’s term in office. It is possible to live within your means and still enjoy the social programs all other modern nations enjoy.
Yes, Clinton has surpluses, but the debt increased every year. Prices are going up, but there is no inflation. Tax increases on millionaires and above can balance the budget, they just may have to go above 100% to do so.
And linear tax increases can cover exponentially growing programs.
Superdestroyer asked:
The most likely answer is “November, 1980, with Ronald Reagan’s election and US-public repudiation of liberalism.”
The kiddies, angry “progressive” kiddies, are snarky, whereas the older liberal dinosaur crowd often exhibits a Surly Loser behavior, and the rest of the time typically exhibits resentment and attacks, mis-assessing reality, as with Stein routinely on this lefty site.
(Surly Loser behavior of older liberals, you will encounter, too.)
Prof. Elwood wrote:
Yes. What’s going to happen when the money runs out, by the start of the 2020s? Then it’s paring and pruning time for the federal and the other governments.
And don’t neglect the demographics that will cause unsustainable entitlements to fail.
Of course, some insist on remaining ignorant (or dishonest). They believe we can and should instantly, magically become like Europe. Never mind the problems with their economy now, plus the more obvious facts of much more unsustainable entitlements and a coming demographic change that notably surpasses ours.
It’s as if these people are ignorant of or willfully blind to Greece!
ProfElwood-
I am absolutely stunned by your cynicism.
I guess that depends on your definition of cynicism. You keep talking about Clinton’s surpluses, but the national debt never stopped growing. It’s a consequence of the unified budget, and some other subsequent accounting tricks, that allowed congress to debate what to do with the surplus during a deficit year.
I didn’t know of the people at the time, but here’s a video of a Max Keiser talking about Iceland’s (and the subsequent global) crash long before it happened. He was using Iceland as an example of how and why these crashes happen, even though it hadn’t happened yet. The crash itself was so obvious to him, that it was incidental to his point.
It wasn’t useful in an investing advice sort of way, because it’s hard to predict exactly when a crash will come.
The point is, 2008 wasn’t the crash, but just a tremor. It was quickly and dramatically papered over, but not fixed. The big one is still coming, and too many people are still believing the official lies, while missing a very solid, predictable crisis.
I’ll be the most optimistic one here after that.