In this debt fight nonsense, the deficit scolds continue to say "its for the children". Whenever I hear that what I want to reply is something profane-and with good reason. The children lose no matter what, if the cruel and inhumane policy prescriptions are carried out. What the arrogant and pompous preachers of the deficit really want is a way to back out of the contract. Basically, the talk of children and their needs is just a smoke screen to hide a more sinister emotion, " I got mine, so fuck off!"
I wrote a year and a half ago why this a flawed viewpoint. I think it bears repeating now:
So its about the children, eh?
Also known as-Why Mark Steyn sucks.
Phib presumes to lecture me on what issues are really about-sadly I missed most of his lecture because I was having a good time over the weekend-sightseeing and practicing not procreative sex with the S.O. In a recent post, he asserted that he was tired of discussing:
This totally contrived non-controversy has almost left me looking to either retreat to my country acreage to wait out the rioting of the unworthy, or join James Cameron in the undying lands to watch to new Dark Age take hold.
The fact that some are trying to bring this non-issue up at this time in our republic makes me feel at times that this nation is not worthy of the generations of sacrifice that brought us here … but that is crazy talk. This nation has gone through worse, and in the end all will be well.
The issue is not putting a sheep's bladder on your John Thomas; it is what legacy we leave to our children. This is an economic crisis we cannot fix with a peace treaty or a post-war boom; no, nothing that simple – but we need to fix it sooner more than later.
Well, jolly good and dandy-it’s for the children is it? Well, on that you are right-but it’s also about telling those same children the correct story-not just the parts that suit your narrative. I’ve got some suggestions about some things you might want to tell your children to warm their hearts as they struggle to keep their heads above water in the multi-polar world you are going to bequeath them, but I’ll do that at the end of this post. One should leave with the things that need to be remembered.
And something that is not worthy of any brain memory space are the silly words of that pompous twit, Mark Steyn. Not the master-as Phib would present him-but just another worthless piece of Fox News paid excrement. Quoting another worthless piece of excrement-Paul Ryan, Mark Steyn has the balls to assert that the discussion about demanding that all employers provde a standard level of preventative care, is somehow a clever ruse to divert public attention away from the President’s recently released budget. ( As a matter of policy here at Far East Cynic HQ-we do not link to idiots, thus you will have to Google what I am about to quote to you).
This is a very curious priority for a dying republic. “Birth control” is accessible, indeed ubiquitous, and, by comparison with anything from a gallon of gas to basic cable,one of the cheapest expenses in the average budget. Not even Rick Santorum, that notorious scourge of the sexually liberated, wishes to restrain the individual right to contraception.
But where is the compelling societal interest in the state prioritizing and subsidizing it? Especially when you’re already the Brokest Nation in History. Elsewhere around the developed world, prudent politicians are advocating natalist policies designed to restock their empty maternity wards. A few years ago, announcing tax incentives for three-child families, Peter Costello, formerly Timmy Geithner’s counterpart Down Under, put it this way: “Have one for Mum, one for Dad, and one for Australia.” But in America an oblivious political class, led by a president who characterizes young motherhood as a “punishment,” prefers to offer solutions to problems that don’t exist rather than the ones that are all too real. I think this is what they call handing out condoms on the Titanic.
Statements like these are why Steyn needs to be held down and have his smirk and beard dry shaved off of him. Besides the fact that the prophylactics are not under discussion here-a clever dodge by many of Phib’s commenters to not discuss the real issue-the standardization of services provided by insurers, something they solved a long time ago here in Europe. The services that Steyn and others say “just pay for it yourself” can actually be rather expensive: contraceptive services and related counseling, a number of related preventive health services such as: patient education and counseling; breast and pelvic examinations; breast and cervical cancer screening according to nationally recognized standards of care; sexually transmitted disease (STD) and Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) prevention education, counseling, testing and referral; and pregnancy diagnosis and counseling. Some of those items can run up a fairly healthy bill-more than just the cost of a box of condoms. Not a great deal for a wealthy man like Steyn-but some 800-1800(cost of screenings and prescriptions) a year in prescription costs can be a lot for someone making less than 25K a year. And what’s more –it’s clear that GOP candidates want to expand what the definition of contraceptive services means, if the “testimony” of that well known douchebag Presidential candidate Rick Santorum has any bearing:
Rick Santorum opposes all mandated coverage without co-pays. Rick Santorum is linking mandated coverage to abortion because it’s politically beneficial to him to do so. It doesn’t matter if the mandated coverage without co-pays is screening for gestational diabetes or amniocentesis, so this is (of course) not about abortion because screening for gestational diabetes without a co-pay (for example) has nothing to do with abortion, and Santorum opposes that, too. I know that because that’s what he said.
There’s really no reason to discuss amniocentesis specifically, other than the fact that media swallowed Santorum’s carefully calculated and misleading framing whole and thus discussed only what he wants to discuss. How about this headline: Rick Santorum is protecting large employers and health insurance companies, and he’s using disabled children to do that. The conservative opposition to mandated coverage in insurance policies is about opposing federal regulation of health insurance companies and large employers, not abortion, because conservatives oppose all mandated coverage without co-pays. All of the rest of this over-heated nonsense is misdirection. No one ever asked the religious leaders what other sections of the health care law that apply to large employers they opposed, and that’s a shame, because that would have been a very good question.
But then again-misdirection and avoidance of telling the entire story are Steyn’s trademark. Steyn writes with "a shrill, mocking tone of moral certainty that consigns those who disagree with him to the status of appeasers or even terrorists; and a willingness to distort, misrepresent, and omit facts in order to advance his argument." One should expect nothing more from the man and his column linking the controversy over coverage to the deficit proves it yet again.
Which brings us back to the children. When you sit them down and tell then the story of the decline of a once great nation that failed to live up to its potential-make sure you tell them all the facts. Don’t leave out the important ones like pompous moral zealots like Steyn do. Make sure you tell them about the fact that:
The great majority of the debt that you so love to rail about-was racked up by a combination of spending on wars that we could not afford, and should probably have never gotten involved in, in the first place. And then tell them that –even for ones that were brought upon us, we failed to mobilize all of our potential strength and power to fulfill the first obligation to win quickly and decisively-because a presidential appointee wanted to prove some outdated theories on “transformation”. The other part was hinged on tax cuts that never should have been made.
And then tell ‘em that the President that appointed that same Secretary of Defense, refused to raise the necessary revenue to fund these wars. And decided to double down on not funding those wars when-as many critics had predicted-energy costs rose and impacted growth rates across the world and within the United States.
Tell them that in the end-both countries we went in to “save”-were hopeless basket cases, primarily because of the failings of the citizens of those countries. We, however, refused to pin any of the blame on those same tribally motivated people-even when it was clear that we could stay for 2 or 20 years and nothing would change. But we were able to send their aunts and uncles to die in the dusty corners of the far reaches of the American empire.
Then tell them tell them that the government-their government, pushed a policy of tax cuts for the richest one percent combined with a systematic dismantling of the regulations that were in place to prevent those same one percent from bringing down the house through unbridled greed. Tell them that the lure of easy profits distracted the banking industry from its core mission: providing an efficient payments mechanism and assessing and managing risk. That instead of focusing on lending to small businesses and creating jobs-they concentrated on creating increasingly risky securities all so they could reap huge bonuses and transaction fees. Don’t treat them to tired old explanations about the Community Reinvestment Act and Fannie and Freddie-without first pointing out that these criticisms are sheer nonsense. They had nothing to do with the 200 billion dollar bailout of AIG-which was based solely on derivatives, nor did Fannie or Freddie have anything to do with the massive overinvestment in commercial real estate.
Tell them about the money the banks were supposed to have used to restart credit. But didn’t.
Remind them that the so called “productive class” became so obsessed with short term returns-on which their bonuses and pay were based- that they engaged in repeated and reckless accounting gimmicks-that hid the truth.
Tell your children that because of your devotion to American Exceptionalism-they remain just one major illness or job loss away from bankruptcy and poverty ( assuming they aren’t there already)-that in the first decade of the 21st century, when faced with a clear moral and economic incentive to reform the healthcare system and in the end drive down the overall cost of a major driver of the government expenditures you love to lecture them about. Tell them that the rest of the advanced world solved this problem during the 80’s and 90’s offering the US some good ideas to pick and choose from-these countries providing equal or better care than the US, but spending less than the US does-your country turned its back on literally millions of its fellow citizens in the name of “freedom”.
When you tell them the story of Greece-make sure you highlight the role the major banks and funds played in 2010 assaulting the Greek economy when they sold Greek bonds short. Be sure and tell them that the austerity doctrine that you and other “conservative” economic theorists pushed on them –simply created a death spiral that never increased aggregate demand. The banks and funds who demanded all this never got hurt-but the average middle class or lower Greek paid a terrible price. Tell them about the inherent Greek laziness-never too early to have them remember American superiority. But when you do-be sure to point out that the “people” who don’t pay taxes in Greece are mostly big corporations and professionals who can afford to hire people to help them evade taxes. ( Kind of like the GOP wants it to be over here). Remind them that banks got away with it and that linkage of the world economy made a default by Greece a nonstarter from the word go.
Tell them too-that companies that could well afford to invest in their companies failed to do so-but instead sold literally thousands of their workers down the river, to make a huge profit for one person. ( Insert well known CEO of a major corporation walking out on pension obligations).
Remind them that the banks pulled off one of the biggest frauds in history-but not one banker went to jail for it. Tell them too of the unbridled commodity speculation in 2008 –that literally starved people to death-but made a lot of people rich.
And then finally, tell them the God’s honest truth, that their country-a once great nation that still has great potential-frittered away the first decade of the 21st century by failing to recognize the changes that had taken place in the world. And in failing to adapt to those changes-it brought itself to the point where it failed at home and abroad. And in the end it had no one to blame but itself-because it let itself be seduced by an illusion: that things would stay the way they were some 30 years ago, because we were a great power. We could have still been a great power had we made the necessary changes to fix our society and balance our budgets-but we were too easily fooled by our corporate masters, who were more than willing to write off some 90% of the American population to make sure they were comfortable.
Just like the Chinese.
Skippy, how you gonna pay back that $16.9 trillion?
It keeps growing and is just a fraction of the outstanding public debt but you don't seem to care that interest payments alone on the little debt will soon be greater than the defense budget so what gets whacked to pay interest on more debt?
I know you have a clever scheme that you and your friends all believe in but share it with us how you get to keep stealing money from future generations to pay for today's bullshit and they have to pay for it.
Some people hold the perfectly rational idea that if you just stop spending money you don't have, your debt problem will soon whither and go away. You appear to think they're all idiots. Why?
First of all, future generations are not my concern. Making sure the train keeps running in the here and now is. The kids can look out for themselves.
Second-as I have pointed out before, there are relatively straightforward ways to balance the budget.
Lifting the cap on SS taxes keeps the system solvent till 2065. By then the hated boomers will be gone and hopefully a good deal of Gen X will have died off too. It does not hurt any particular person that much and makes the system a lot fairer. Conceivably it would allow the 35 years that are required to convert to a Central Provident Fund type scheme. If we needed to. It might be that we could just keep SS thanks in part to declining birth rates, and the general irrelevance of institutions like marriage by then .
Repealing all of the Bush tax cuts restores a LOT of revenue to the Federal budget. Enough to make a real stab at balancing it without fucking whole blocks of people over, or destroying things that government needs to do. The 90's pretty much proved that in spades. Rates would still be the lowest in recent history and with meaningful tax reform ( which will include things like eliminating the mortgage deduction) would allow lower overall rates, but with more revenue. Repealing *all* Bush tax cuts would raise $3.3 trillion over 10 years. In addition, if all tax cuts are repealed, the U.S will save $0.7 trillion in interest on debt. Its tragic that we wasted so much money on worthless wars for worthless people-but we did. Those who advocated for those wars without also demanding that they be paid for were stealing from every one, not just their children.
And a careful retrenchment overseas will go a long way towards reducing the expense of defense, which I have come to realize, as Ike told us, is pretty much an albatross around our economy. Certainly we don't need to be near as involved in the Middle East. Containment is probably a pretty good idea for both Africa and Arabia-especially since we can't stop the rise of multi-polar world. Our days as the lone power on the earth are through, we just haven't realized it yet.
Ah. I see.
I'm pretty much for hijacking the gravy train now and tossing people off. I see that happening in the future anyway. When there simply is no money out there to steal, life for grifters and thieves gets a lot harder. Right now we have an insolvent government spending without regards to its means and people like you agreeing that is all they can do. They can't cut back anywhere. They can't stop making new iron-clad spending committments and they can't slow the rate of growth of any federal program from education to HHS and Obamacare, and you reckon it may improve when the old thieves die off in 50 years.
At the current rate of deficit spending the 'winners' in 2065 will have only to pay off $750 trillion in debt. It sounds so much more reasonable when you say it.
That's not much of a plan.
the mulit polar world is a myth. China, Russia, India, even my beloved Korea, Japan..all have significant problmes, and to me, the MOST glaring are the demographic disparities, the consquences which are just now being felt.
It IS true that we have a dysfunctional government, inequality in income and a very ignorant populace. easily led and manipulated. But, for good or ill, anmd i think the later, we are the current hegermon and will continue to be so for decades.
Forget about the hype about "Africa" as the new "China": lije the hypew surrounding the BRICS, that tow is a pipe dream, fed by the mney men who want to convice themselves and others that Africa is the NEW place to invest.
Latin America? no one country is a pwoerhouse or politcaily or miltarily powerful enough to be the new hegemon. I see no other country, or group of countries that can replace the United States.
Your beloved Japan is aging fast. No immigration, no "new" blood to revitalize the economy. Its headed for disaster…another demographic nightmare.
And the rest of SE Asia, at least the politicians, tremble at the thought of a Chinese Tiger in their midst..its been much easir to manipulate the United States to protect THEIR intreswts at little cost to themselves, They know and believe that China, manipulating "Barbarians for eons" is no such patsy. and their avarice is insatiable.
Welcome to a "steampunk" universe.
When I hear aboiut doing things for the "children's sake" I am reminded of my home state of AR. They have a program called "AR Kids" that provides free health care for children of the poor, mainly generated by the tobacco taxes and settlements. FYI, it was going strong even when Huckabee was the guv.
What strikes me about the whole program is how they treat the people who provide the revenue for the program the smokers. If you were to go to the Arkansas Children's Hospital, it is a smoke free "campus." The main smoking area is across the street which is an off ramp of I-630. So for people visiting a sick child one must cross a highway at night often on foot and smoke on an overpass bridge.. What's ironic is that on the other side of the bridge is the Arkansas state capital building and all of the Arkansas state government offices.
That pretty much paints a picture of what the governments think of us. We pay our taxes, and the ruling elite makes up rules that make us have to stand on an overpass and "have a smoke" as it were while the very product that they are taxing us on is going to help someone else. All this is being done right in front of the ruling class, and they don't seem to have enough sense to look out the window and see what is really going on.
Much like the Bozos in D.C. making us pay more than we need to, and spending on things that may not be necessary for, all the while looking out the windows at the taxpayers standing on an overpass as the world goes by.
Oh, and for the record, those poor kids get very good health care and dental care in the state of AR. So when you see these polls come out that say America is lacking in health care "for the children" they are lies.
Skippy,
Back in 2006, then Senator Obama said the following: "America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better. I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America’s debt limit." He then went on to say: "The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can't pay its own bills,"
Of course all politicians lie, but at least if they were to come clean and tell us that they are going to screw us over, then maybe we could figure out where we stand, and make sure we set ourselves up to weather their idiotic policies. I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist, but I heard of an interesting spin on this whole shut down from The Jerry Doyle Show. He's not in either camp, and will give blame and praise to either party where it is needed. But he brought up the supposition that the shutdown/debt ceiling is just another form of smoke and mirrors, to get our eyes off the fact that the start up of Obama care is a failure. When HHS Sebilius was asked how many people have signed up, she couldn't give an answer, but the number is out there. So far, only 51,000 people have signed up (if they actually have health insurance is another issue). Based on that number, the number crunchers have figured out that by the time 1 Jan 2016 rolls around when Obamacare will be in full effect, only about 2 to 3 million people will have actually been enrolled. Obamacare needs at least 7 million enrollees to make it work.
I surmise that they know that they are going to fall short, and that would be more of a major blow to the legacy of this administration. Think about how many people are on twitter of Facebook at the moment, and you are telling me that we can't get a government system up and running since the bill was passed back in 2009 working? I am sure that the IT companies paid good money to the lobbyists to get this thing passed, and one would have thought that they would be able to get it underway in a very short time.
I liked when the Daily Show had Sebellius on and she was told to register for Obamacare while John Stewart downloaded all the movies ever made in the same period of time.
The only way Congress will ever "fix" anything is when that thing has a firm grip on their balls. Since they exempt themselves from most such legislation they enact on the rest of us, I don't think we'll ever see Obamacare fixed. Think about it. $634 million for crap IT system that doesn't even begin to work. I still haven't heard who the contractor was that got that money.
Curtis,
I think it was a group called CGI Federal that was responsible. Think about the problems we have had with OneNet/NMCI, for a relatively smaller group and then see how this has played out. I still remember when they bought SWONET years ago and tried to push all of us SWOS over to it as a method of keeping informed. Great concept, bad execution.
I also seem to remember that we were going into a crisis after the 2012 election, and that they needed all of the people back into D.C. to work on budget issues that were too great to ignore. They were supposed to get them all "fixed" in the days after the November election and before the 2009 session of Congress starts. I wonder what happened to all of those results that were supposed to free us from these issues? Once again, those elected have zoomed the public.
Curtis,
Not only does the Fed Govt. have IT issues, the state of CA has similar issues. They bought a new system to replace their system from 1983 on paying out unemployment payments. The system was to go into effect this summer, but it failed. So bad that to the point that up to 300,000 people in CA were going without getting their unemployment payments. They finally had to resort to the 1953 method, and write checks by hand. Considering that from news reports, the initial whisle blower was chastised for not following the proper protocols for informing that it didn't work and nothing was done. Then the state tried to get ahead of this problem by blaming the Feds. Bottom line, the state of CA spent $188 million on a computer system that didn't work.
Same thing with the EBT glitch over the weekend, and the near riots that occured in places in LA when shoppers went wild with unlimited accounts and wiped the shelves bare. Only when the system came back online and people couldn't buy the food since it was over their limit, they just left the food in the carts and walked away.
What is America coming to?
Maurice,
I worked in PMW 157 back when it rewrote GCCS-M and spit out GCCS-M 4X. As I recall that was close to half a billion $ but that program was just about fully interoperable with all the other battlefield command and control software used by the Army and the Air Force. None of that counted for squat since the only consumer was surface navy and even their most of the interoperable level billets were not using it anywhere. We had one LCDR come back from a year at the CAOC who said they never even turned it on.
I was peripherally involved in some of the lower level programming and felt enormous pressure from way above to make our stuff purple and get rid of stovepipes but outside the guys in the joint offices at Pentagon, nobody and I mean nobody, was willing to pay for it to happen. They seemed to think it would just happen.
Any fool knew that what they had to do with Obamacare healthnet was a pipe dream in the time frame they were talking and $ they threw at the problem. You cannot get interoperable without forcing players to hold to one single standard. I laugh at the idea that IRS or insurers or doctors or medical companies or drug companies were going to hold to common standard.
Watched Gravity tonight and for me the least believable thing about the whole entire movie was that the shuttle controls were identical to the Soyuz controls which were identical to the Chinese spacecraft controls. You can't get the Army and Marines to agree on level of classification and handling of XPOS data.
I'm kind of surprised Skippy and his usual crew fell for it. You'd think they had some experience with government rice bowls and software engineering realities.
Guess what?