"Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast" -Oscar Wilde |
"The liberal soul shall be made fat, and he that watereth, shall be watered also himself." -- Proverbs 11:25 |
These last few months, much of the country has watched in horror as the Tea Party Republicans have waged jihad on the American people. Their intransigent demands for deep spending cuts, coupled with their almost gleeful willingness to destroy one of America’s most invaluable assets, its full faith and credit, were incredibly irresponsible. But they didn’t care. Their goal, they believed, was worth blowing up the country for, if that’s what it took.
Like ideologues everywhere, they scorned compromise. When John Boehner, the House speaker, tried to cut a deal with President Obama that included some modest revenue increases, they humiliated him. After this latest agreement was finally struck on Sunday night — amounting to a near-complete capitulation by Obama — Tea Party members went on Fox News to complain that it only called for $2.4 trillion in cuts, instead of $4 trillion. It was head-spinning.
All day Monday, the blogosphere and the talk shows mused about which party would come out ahead politically. Honestly, who cares? What ought to matter is not how these spending cuts will affect our politicians, but how they’ll affect the country. And I’m not even talking about the terrible toll $2.4 trillion in cuts will take on the poor and the middle class. I am talking about their effect on America’s still-ailing economy.
America’s real crisis is not a debt crisis. It’s an unemployment crisis. Yet this agreement not only doesn’t address unemployment, it’s guaranteed to make it worse. (Incredibly, the Democrats even abandoned their demand for extended unemployment benefits as part of the deal.) As Mohamed El-Erian, the chief executive of the bond investment firm Pimco, told me, fiscal policy includes both a numerator and a denominator. “The numerator is debt,” he said. “But the denominator is growth.” He added, “What we have done is accelerate forward, in a self-inflicted manner, the numerator. And, in the process, we have undermined the denominator.” Economic growth could have gone a long way toward shrinking the deficit, while helping put people to work. The spending cuts will shrink growth and raise the likelihood of pushing the country back into recession.
Labels: closing the barn door after the horse escapes, economic death watch, icepick meet forehead, irrelevant has-been pundits, We Are So Screwed, wussy-ass Democrats
http://goo.gl/7qL1j
However, I have a problem with calling Americans who simply disagree with you 'terrorists.'
What would you call the public employee unions and the Democrats in the legislature in Wisconsin physically attacking Republicans, the president himself for holding military families and social security retirees hostage unless he got his way on the debt ceiling ( there's more than enough $$ to pay those items) or the Democrats locking the other party out of the room when writing the stimulus or ObamaCare and then shoving it through by devious means, simply because they had a majority?
It cuts both ways.And using terms like 'terrorist' merely poisons the dialogue. It's rhetoric certain people want to see adopted so they can use it as campaign fodder to fool people again.
You probably won't print this, which is fine.But I merely suggest you do a little soul searching and challenge some of your assumptions.
Regards,
Rob Miller
Nocera & Co. remind me of that great Claude Rains line from "Casablanca": "I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is giong on here!"
Nocera is shocked, shocked to discover the Tea Party is a Frankenstein monster run amok. Too late, you clueless bastard. Anyone with half a brain could have told you long time back that this would happen if you let these maniacs into the tent....