Moaning About Spending, War and Other Maudlin Laments: Raise Taxes, Of Course.

We can depend on the New York Times to moan over money spent on things other than rescuing their fraction of our society. Bob Herbert details all the debt we will incur in useless war attains terrorism when some bribes, described in diplomatic terms might have been less costly. In his article entitled The $2 Trillion Nightmare[1] By Bob Herbert, we are treated to a long list of perceived financial misadventures over the war. The taxes were chucked into the wrong holes.

“The war in Iraq will ultimately cost U.S. taxpayers not hundreds of billions of dollars, but an astonishing $2 trillion, and perhaps more.”

We spent the equivalent of 17 trillion dollars, a full year’s GDP, on the Second World War and lost 400,000 dead and a million wounded. How does that compare to Iraq? Hitler had no reasonable nuclear weapons program and neither did Tojo, but several Arab states are willing to work with both the shrunken remains of the old USSR and North Korea and buy them with oil revenues.

“Both men talked about large opportunities lost because of the money poured into the war. “For a fraction of the cost of this war,” said Mr. Stiglitz, “we could have put Social Security on a sound footing for the next half-century or more.”

What did WW1 cost us with 160,000 dead? The Democrats were offered a chance to ‘fix’ this Ponzi Scheme from the socialist FDR at the beginning of the Bush administration and they rejected it. The tax revenues and restructuring programs were offered, but they demurred. “We have plenty of time quote the Democrats.” Their plan was to just let it rot during a Republican term and then bawl, as they are now about Iraq.

““Imagine then,” said Mr. Stiglitz, “what a war — that will almost surely involve more than 2 million troops and will almost surely last more than six or seven years — will cost. Already we are seeing large numbers of returning veterans showing up at V.A. hospitals for treatment, large numbers applying for disability and large numbers with severe psychological problems.””

It is a truism that the 400,000 dead in WW2 did not need any V. A. benefits. Imagine what costs we incurred from narcotics abuse in the US. How do much do we spend on AIDS ‘research’ on people who select an elective disease. How much have we sent on heroin rehab programs, STD education or the ‘rehabilitation’ of criminals. How much does it cost us to coddle 2 million criminals in our prisons??

Do we really spend 600,000,000 on welfare every year? How much is that summed over 50 years? Is that more than 2 trillion??

“Some former presidents — Washington, Franklin Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower — were quoted at the hearing on the need for accountability and shared sacrifice during wartime. But this is the 21st century. That ancient rhetoric can hardly be expected to compete for media attention, even in a time of war, with the giddy fun of S.N.L.”

We can only wonder what this feverish comment might mean. We can chuck accountability and shared sacrifice after 911? Would it have been less expensive to grow a field of roses after Pearl Harbor and just thanked the Japanese for showing the weaknesses in our Pacific military strategy?

The trillion dollars that was in the Social Security ‘trust’ fund was spent. How much do we have to raise taxes to get that back and reinserted into the SS system? Oh, more than 1 trillion given the inefficiency in our government spending? How about 2 trillion dollars?

Wilson lost 160,000 troops in a war that we had no interest in. FDR allowed his Marxist advisors snarl up the map in Europe and Asia in favor of the Communists and we kept 300,000 troops in Germany for 50 years and 40,000 are still there. For what? How much did it cost to support 40,000 troops in South Korea for 50 years? Or, the  30,000 in Japan for 60 years? Can we get a cost accounting for these expenditures and then call that debt?? How many bridges could we have built with that money?

What was Truman doing in Korea fighting his allies in the far left world? How did we manage to hand over most of Europe to the Communists and then fight the Cold War and produce 60,000 nuclear war heads and 400 ships and 200 nuclear submarines with tens of thousands of cruise missiles?

How much money have we chucked into the social latrines in Africa, Mexico and South America to ‘fix’ some social programs? How much money did we give North Korea to conduct research on their nuclear weapons so they could share these findings with Syria??

How is it that we have doubled spending on ‘education’ since 1960 and the test scores do not improve? Why is the most expensive educational system in the US [Washington, DC with $18,000 per student] also the worst school system in America? Should we spend more?

Most of this stuff was spending by liberal Democrats. Then, we might ask what Europe has done for us since the Marshall Plan that gave the few remaining people able to assemble more than two clichés in a reasonable order in the midst of 31,000,000 dead bodies and bombed out cities?? They offer a lot of advice about ‘peace,’ which is feasible only after 51,000,000 of their citizens and most of the soldiers were killed. Do they want some more of our foreign aid? What is the ‘cost’ of that expenditure?

What if we had just banked all the money we spent, by liberals, on WW1, WW2, Korea, VN, and foreign aid and let that interest build and fund Social Security?? Would we as citizens be paying anything at all per month for those benefits?

It is a vainglorious essay to reflect on certain spending programs in our history going back to Washington and ‘calculate’ the costs to society. This notion is so sophomoric that it only rates three honks on my kazoo.

I worked out the math and see A $20 Trillion Leftist Nightmare.

Let us raise taxes!!

rycK

The Grand Plan to Chase the Republicans out of Town Suddenly Became Cloudy as Obama Might not Raise Taxes as Expected: Panic!

In the kurrent krugmaniacal Krugman article, titled Deliverance or Diversion? , which gives only two choices to ponder we read:

“After their victory in the 2006 Congressional elections, it seemed a given that Democrats would try to make this year’s presidential campaign another referendum on Republican policies.”[1]

The Inevitability of Communism was a ‘given’ too. That was a loss for the Times. It wasn’t much of a victory as off-year Congressional elections go that frequently turn over 120 votes, but we can give a little praise here.

“But a funny thing happened on the way to the 2008 election.”[2]

A few funny things happened in 1968, 1972 and 2000 too.

Then, the article grabber:

“But Mr. Obama, instead of emphasizing the harm done by the other party’s rule, likes to blame both sides for our sorry political state. And in his speeches he promises not a rejection of Republicanism but an era of postpartisan unity.”[3] [Emphasis with italics and color are mine.]

Blame for Democrats? How disgusting and political! Why would we blame Democrats for the condition of our government? We are not sure what ‘postpartisan unity” might mean, but the Old Gray Lady is worried enough to sally forth with its best non-economist with the clarion call. Is that an oxymoron or just moronic?? After reading Krugman for a while we know that it must have some embedded  tax implication such as Obama’s potential waffling on massive tax hikes for his 980 billion dollar spending promises. Our current author never writes an article that does not troll for more public funds in one many or other.

More evidence:

“That — along with his adoption of conservative talking points on the crucial issue of health care — is why Mr. Obama’s rise has caused such division among progressive activists[4], the very people one might have expected to be unified and energized by the prospect of finally ending the long era of Republican political dominance.”[5]

The rat! He must be a mole!

“Some progressives are appalled by the direction their party seems to have taken: they wanted another F.D.R.,[6] yet feel that they’re getting an oratorically upgraded version of Michael Bloomberg instead.”[7]

A plastic suit!!

“What we do know is that Mr. Obama has never faced a serious Republican opponent — and that he has not yet faced the hostile media treatment[8] doled out to every Democratic presidential candidate since 1988.”[9]

The media would never attack a Democrat. That would be an ideological example of cannibalism or worse. FDR never faced a serious Republican opponent either.

“If Mr. Obama secures the nomination, the honeymoon will be over as he faces an opponent whom much of the press loves as much as it hates Mrs. Clinton. If Mrs. Clinton can do nothing right, Mr. McCain can do nothing wrong — even when he panders outrageously, he’s forgiven because he looks uncomfortable doing it. Honest.”[10]

This is a peculiar comment as many articles in Krugman’s own ragzine seem have criticized Hillary and then Obama and back and forth, of late. Does Krugman read his own paper? [11] [12] [13] [14] [15]

“If Mr. Obama does make it to the White House, will he actually deliver the transformational politics he promises? Like the faith that he can win an overwhelming electoral victory, the faith that he can overcome bitter conservative opposition to progressive legislation [Read Tax Hikes here, ed.] rests on very little evidence — one productive year in the Illinois State Senate, after the Democrats swept the state, and not much else.”

Apparently the fear here is that there will not be a deliverance of taxes and that Obama is an unwitting diversion. The Senator has no record of this. Hopes are being dashed as Tuesday approaches tomorrow, perhaps the End of the Clinton Machine, and blame must be laid. [16]

“All in all, the Democrats are in a place few expected a year ago. The 2008 campaign, it seems, will be waged on the basis of personality, not political philosophy. If the magic works, all will be forgiven. But if it doesn’t, the recriminations could tear the party apart.”[17]

This is the Cult of Personality argument used against Stalin. Trotsky was pure. This translates as: Obama better deliver on his politically transplantations of standard socialist mandates or the Democrats will freak out.

The conservatives could be delivered by Obama. That would be a cruel twist of fate for the left.

I wonder if he is a Republican mole. There is a theory [mine [18] [19] [20]] that Monica Lewinsky was a Newt Gingrich mole and that notion does supply us with a few needed explanations as to why Clinton’s Presidency was sidetracked and muddled in legal matters instead of the preferred tax hike adventures.  Tricks like George McGovern [ read gift here] were self-inflicted blunders by the left. Now, the Anointed One is facing defeat after 35 years of carefully planning and boat loads of Communist funding from three continents and the wine bottles and incense holders are beginning to rattle in the leftist ranks.

Mojo instead of Gonjo may be the new political direction of the left. The Magic Negro [21]has arrived.

The Marxist droolers  and their several Swamis at the New York Times may have just chucked another swell opportunity to swig deeply from the public revenue trough hither and away to the winds.

Oh, well, there is always next time.

rycK

Comments: ryckki@gmail.com

Can We Lay Blame for the Clinton Loss Yet?

Tomorrow is the last stand of the Clinton Machine as they position at the moat with the snarling dragon just across the draw bridge. The contest of some thirty five years duration is about to face some ugly assessments depending on how they do tomorrow in the Texas and Ohio primaries.

There is much bubbling and foam from the pundits and party advisers and circling vultures who see much to win [or to lose] from the end of this political juggernaut. If the competition is relaxed at the behest of Hillary and Bill in the next 5 days, it will be the first time that they have spared an opponent a bloody slugfest. Vainglorious mumblings and speeches about party unity and ‘what is good for the nation’ might follow. There would be no good reason to leave a rift in the party when Obama’s loyal forces might just stay home and not vote if Hillary and Bill do not win both jousts by a reasonable margin. Poaching from the flock of superdelegates is not an option now. The race is too close.

Nevertheless, blame must be laid upon somebody or some group for the losses here. In the John Kerry instance, the generally recognized reason for his loss would be the right-wing Swift boaters who smeared the good Senator using standard McCarthy tactics. Of course, his traitorous conduct in the Viet Nam war when he conspired with the North Vietnamese in France and his McCarthyism in his testimony before Congress are never factored into his loss. He could never view his own flip-floppery on dozens of issues as any valid reason for his demise, since his voter base cares not about the truth. They hummed to the chum. We know that the Al Gore loss was attributed to some slimy deal; strictly on partisan levels, at the United States Supreme Court and that, ignoring the Constitution, he doesn’t get to declare a win on the popular vote, but must stick to the electoral votes. Since he lost the Florida vote and several recounts he must have lost on those votes and in many other states. The salient fact that he could not carry his own state seems unimportant. Edwards could not carry his own state on his only turn and George McGovern could only carry Massachusetts and D. C. losing his own state as well in his valiant battle against a Nazi.

So, where will the blame be placed? Will it be the radical Marxism of Hillary in the 60s and 70s? Will it be her lamp-hurling, potty mouth mentality, her automaton-like scripted remarks, her sausage-machine spending promises or her numerous criminal activities and resultant suspicious depositions? Will it be some form of sleaze-over from Bill’s sordid antics? Her socialism?

No, the enumerated losers above all had something in common:

The nasty right-wingers are the total cause of the Clinton impending losses in the polls and perhaps in the actual vote on Tuesday. High on the list of those evil monsters are, in order of their nefarious deeds, are: Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter.

Shame on you!! Shame.

If the opposite result happens Tuesday, Senator Obama will not be able to blame the Evil Triumvirate above as they have not attacked the good senator from Illinois. In point of fact, Obama is an essential part of their evil plan: He is farther to the left than Hillary if that is possible. Only the war votes and minutiae embedded deep in the socialized medicine promises really divides them except for the Communist issue. The plan is for the Clinton Machine to crash so McCain can struggle against the most liberal senator in the Senate. John McCain has a sordid history of consorting with the far left so he will have to be retrained. The dangling of money before his eyes and some crash courses on tax cuts and other elemental conservative views is in order, but he can probably survive that.

With the Clintons well rotted, the contest becomes other Old Order Sequence: encourage the voters to vote against the tax whores and friends of our enemies and those would sink us in socialism.

Blame Rush and his cohorts for this! Shame. Shame! We can all imagine Rush and his Preceptors sitting in high-backed chairs with sooty candles and lurking familiars in attendance in their Right Wing Star Chamber dangling drooling puppets on strings to steer the valiant Clinton Campaign into the latrines.

Shame on them if this works out in their way.

[Shame on capitalism if it doesn’t!!! ]

ryck

The Old Red Lady from the Old Gray Lady Instructs us in Slogans, Obscure Literary References and Clichés.

We read:

“Channeling her inner Cheney, Hillary Clinton dropped a fear bomb, as Michelle Obama might call it, implying in a new ad that if her opponent is elected, your angelic, innocent, sleeping children[like Snow-White? ed]could die in a terrorist attack.”[1]

The last time Hillary channeled with the underworld was with the sainted wife of FDR at her gravesite. That recitation was not popularly received with many except those who rely on mysticism and the Dark Arts for sustenance and survival or by those who survive on tax revenues. How many more clichés and hackneyed phrases do we have to suffer through before the central tendency of this wreckage is revealed?

“Only she has the wise head to go nuclear, should that Strangelovian[2] phone call from a power-mad Putin come into the White House at 3 a.m. Her ad shows how composed she would be at the dread moment when she picks up the phone. Her nuke look is feminine, in a tailored camel-colored jacket and gold necklace, yet serious, in Tina Fey black reading glasses.”[3]

Oh, yes. This reminds us of Weird Walter Mondale’s ‘push the button (and blow the earth to Hell) speech’ during one of his failed attempts to mimic Hubert H. Humphrey and win the White House. One might argue that there really is no red button experience other than that of Harry Truman, the only one to push one twice so the Democrats do not want to dredge up visions of the errant little poker player and mix it in with feminism and Islamo-Fascists who will soon have their fingers (or other parts) on similar buttons. If we are cremated and our histories buried beneath a smooth slab of molten glass it will not come from the Russians, who have found out how to get money for the first time in 1800 years. They are busy enjoying the fruits of capitalism.

What about a call from Osama bin Laden saying goodbye to the infidels?

“Hello Infidel Hillary! Goodbye Infidel Hillary!”[4]

“It’s hard to discern the message of the ad.”[5]

No, is not. The message is briskly decoded in the next passage and we are forced to wait.

 “Tangled in her own victimhood, she snipped to Cynthia McFadden that Obama had written in his book that “he’s a blank screen and people of widely different views project what they want to believe onto him.” She said voters were projecting their hopes onto that blank screen even though “he just hasn’t been around long enough.””[6] [Emphasis is mine in all quotes.]

We will wander along bubbling brooks[7] and yonder glen for a while until we get back to the ‘experience’ cliché. As an aside, wasn’t there a mirror at Hogwarts [8]that worked something like that? We are being barraged with some 21 gun salute to the Goddess of Experience it seems. But, she has plenty of experience!

“On a conference call Friday with Hillary’s ever-more-hysterical male strategists, Slate’s John Dickerson asked exactly when she had been tested in a foreign policy crisis. After a silence long enough to knit a sweater in, as the Web site The Hotline put it, Mark Penn cited “her work on the Armed Services Committee.”[9]

There it is! Testing this notion using retrograde analysis could we just assume that any bozo who had served on the Senate [?]Armed Services Committee would be gifted with the theory, elegance and intricacies of pushing little red buttons? Now, that resume crumb is just as impressive as the answers to the following question to O’Bama: what have you done in terms of accomplishments in legislative matters??

“Duh?” “I am for change”

[Perusing an historical list of members in both halves of Congress is not interesting, rewarding or revealing. Weren’t Patsy Schroeder and Ron Dellums both on such a committee?]

If Hillary was in the thick of the post Cold War snarls with the Islamo-Fascists then how did she get inside information so as to be involved and gain ‘experience?’ She did not have a top secret security clearance. Did she break the laws[again]? Where did she get her military experience? From reading the New York Times—aka—The Walter Duranty Papers?[10]

Quoth Old Red Lady:

“Hillary’s boys pout that the press should find some dirt on Obama before time runs out.”[11]

We thought Bill already had prepared this. The only thing that prevents Billy Clinton from an outright racial attack on Senator Obama is that this might appear to be an outright racial attack in the eyes of minorities. They might sit this one out. The signal here is for somebody to tear down Obama’s image in some manner that cannot be traced back to Billary and Company. Such a task is delegated to the ragzines such as the NYT!

Perhaps, the Old Red Lady[12] missed her chance at this:

Quoth the Queen:

Mirror, mirror upon the wall,

Who is the fairest fair of all?[13]

Quoth the Mirror:

Thou, O Hillary, art the fairest of all,

[Aside in a stage whisper: Until Super Tuesday O Queen!]

[Months later an after being prodded by the NYT:]

Quoth the Queen:

Mirror, mirror upon the wall,

Who is the fairest fair of all?[14]

Quoth the Mirror:

O Lady Hillary, though fair ye be,

O’Bama is fairer far to see.

[Aside: “… and will be thus even fairer after Texas!”]

[Poor little Hillary [playing several parts in this tale with ease] was now all alone in the wild primary race, and so frightened was she that she trembled at every superdelegate vote that rustled and thought to flee.] [15]

[Then, after a shouting match with the King she stormed back to the lying mirror and repeated her threat:]

Demanded the Queen:

Mirror, mirror upon the wall

Why the Hell am I not the fairest??!!

[Ignoring the implied response and in a Satanic Frenzy she retorted:]

Quoth the Queen:

I will have you broken up into little pieces and

Scattered on the top of the landfill on Staten Island!!

[Nonplussed by this effrontery,]

Quoth the Mirror:

O Lady Queen, though fair ye be,

O’Bama is fairer far to see.

Over the hills and far away,

He dwells with seven liberal dwarfs

And the majority of delegates as well."

[Stage direction: Then as the playwright[16] jumbles both metaphors and some fairy tales:]

Quoth the Queen:

Then off with the bugger’s head!!

And the media set off on the quest for political dirt

and to  grind their axes and prepare for war.

The end [of Hillary].

rycK

One of the Democrats Will Have to Get Out of Dodge or Else!

Evenly matched, the Left Liberal candidates will have to draw a line in the map and make their final stand before the ugliness starts. (I thought it already had with Bill!)  Although the mathematical variations of the superdelegate’ votes offer numerous scenarios where either candidate could ‘win’ the nomination, the showdown as been mystically drawn somewhere between Ohio and Texas.  There is something other that mere mathematics at work here. As none of this would impress an algebraist, the political coefficients tied to the sum must be assigned certain values and the New York Times seems to believe that the person with the slightly larger number of bullets in their gun belt will prevail before blood must flow. We haven’t seen this much confusion since we were all swarming in the streets in the Eternal Quest for the identity of the perp who shot J. R.

Bob Herbert, at the Times, in an article entitled A Nominee? Or a Debacle?   has occasionally flirted with reality in matters that lacked a defined black and white structure, tells us that a loss for Hillary in either of these two states means she must step down with grace. [1]

The reasoning:

“When does a dandy fight become an ugly brawl?”

The best answer is anytime two politicos want the same thing. And dandy? A dandy is something else.

“If Barack Obama wins in either Texas or Ohio, the race for the nomination will effectively be over. At that point the Clintons, if they have any regard for the fortunes of the party, will be duty-bound to graciously fold their tents and try to rally their supporters behind a candidate who will be stepping into a firestorm of hostility from the other side.”

How about Battons le fer quand il est chaud! [2]

Is this a scene from King Arthur’s court or from some Wagner opera?? Will Parsifal throw down his lance? A little finger gepoking on my calculator shows that if they split the votes they are still in the same position as a chess player would view as a probably draw. But, any foray into logical reality is frequently a flight from political reality so we have to rely on the ‘experts’ here. So, the New York Times [3] [1] endorsed Hillary and then they tried to [2] dump Obama[4] and they [3] undumped [5]Obama and now they [4] dump Hillary [6]. That sequence of events does make sense to me. It is known in the alleys in Bronx and areas of Flatbush and Redhook as ring around the dumpster with kazoos and drugs and cheering crowds.

If Rush Limbaugh entices Republican Texans to hold their noses and flock to Hillary along with millions of absentee ballots with Ann Coulter’s name on them so that Hillary pulls a carpe diem then what will the Times say? How about: “The election was ‘stolen!!” That slogan is written on every brick wall in Florida and Massachusetts after Al Gore lost the Battle of the Enchanted Chads and is even more prevalent than the ubiquitous French wall sign Defense de uriner.

La raison tonne en son cratère.[7]

The reason here seems to be grounded in panic. The racial volcano is groaning and ready to blast.

Herbert gives us this: “If Hillary Clinton wins both Texas and Ohio, the Democrats will need a trainload of aspirin and a shrink.”

Aspirin is not exactly the drug of choice of slobbering liberals. Revisit the Gory Gore Loss for a better selection.

And worse:

“That is a scenario [where Hillary and Bill get the votes from Michigan and Florida factored in] guaranteed to infuriate the Obama true-believers. If Senator Clinton managed to secure the nomination under those circumstances, it would open deep wounds in the party that would be very difficult to heal.”

Herbert dances around the notion of a perceived race war within the party where the blacks have no place to go in the voter booth. After carefully sequestering 90% of the African-American votes with decades of work and a few trillion tax dollars of tax revenues, this scenario guarantees the utter destruction of the Party of Democrats. They cannot win without angry minorities. Give them their due.

Le peuple ne veut que son dû![8]

If the exit polls show that Republicans, blindly following the Ex Cathedra Edicts of El Rushbo, drove the mindless range cattle in Hillary’s lost doggie pen then the call to annihilate talk radio will be louder than a Rolling Stones rock concert.

But, Herbert’s math analysis produces a middle case, in his mind:

“There is a third scenario: Senator Clinton wins just one of the big ones on Tuesday but decides to hang on rather than gracefully step aside, hoping that some blunder, or some other unforeseen force — a news event, a scandal — causes the Obama effort to implode. That would also cause bad feelings that would be difficult to assuage.”

Just ‘one of the big ones’ means Texas so this is just a corollary of the previous scenario. Since Rush just called on Texans to show their stuff---he will get the blame [or praise] all the more.

“The Republicans, who had nothing going for them in this election, who had a weak field of candidates and were on the wrong side of virtually every major issue, are beginning to feel a bit like Lazarus. Democratic voters were courageous enough to put two candidates at the head of their line of potential nominees who have built-in political disadvantages. Party unity and a strong message are essential to overcoming those disadvantages. The longer the Clinton-Obama fight goes on, and the more bitter it gets, the better it is for the G.O.P.”

Wrong side of which ones? What political disadvantages? Race and criminality? Has Herbert been listening to Rush?? This is a retreat to the comfortable clichés of the leftist caves where they crawl to bawl when their plans produce the wrong outcome. This is cop out. Besides, the ‘issues’ have not even been debated yet and the Republicans are salivating for the moment to push either liberal on taxes, illegal immigration and much more.

“Tuesday’s elections may decide the nominee. But if they don’t, the wisest heads in the party will be faced with the awesome task of preventing a train wreck that would ruin what was supposed to have been a banner year.”

The “wisest heads” here might refer to the pot heads that now putrefy the Party of Democrats.

This impending train wreck will be the head-on collision of two trains: one black and one white. To think that either side might budge here is to believe that one of the gunslingers would throw down her pistol and want to make peace for the good of town and avoid unnecessary burial costs.

But, we can remain confident that the Republicans, especially Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity will be blamed for this mess.  When will some point out that this impending race riot instigated by the racists in the Clinton House is just poetic justice? I think we should just blame Rush as he is guilty of every nasty outcome that befell the left-liberals.

Bank on that.

rycK

Comments: ryckki@gmail.com