What Is It With Liberals and . . .

. . . welfare? 

Aren't people embarrassed to live up to their stereotypes so shamelessly?  Republicans are still saying tax cuts will solve everything, and Democrats are back saying government spending will solve everything.  Double déja vu all over again!  Jeez, maybe only a real catastrophe will wipe the slate clean . . . Fast forward a few hundred or thousand years and watch the red and blue cockroaches duking it out on the incinerated planet . . .

I don't like to think that way, especially because I have a new grandniece this morning (the first, apart from step-), and what the hell kind of a world is she going to inherit??

Comments

[Ron]

Firstly, let me congratulate you on the new grandniece! Kids are great fun, and they wind up usually making us look silly!

It is sobering to think how much people can't get through this nonsense...and it is tempting to blow everything up and start again...but I'm not sure that will work, now!

BTW, they're not "cockroaches", they're "Insectoid Americans." Remember that when you need a bill to pass the various Roach Motels on the Potomac!

[realpc]

I guess there has to be a dynamic tension between government and private business, and the Democrats and Republicans each represent one of these. I don't know if Democrats realize their ideology needs to be balanced by Republican ideology, and vice versa. Or does each side think it has the whole answer?

I also love the way liberals and conservatives define "freedom" in opposing and incompatible ways. For conservatives, freedom means economic self-determination, including the freedom to fail. For liberals, freedom means freedom from hardship, starvation and inconvenience of all kinds (probably including freedom from not having an internet connection and PC).

Neither side seems to notice that it can't be all one way or the other. If you expect the government to provide all your needs and wants, you can't expect to be an independent non-conformist. And if you want to be independent, you can't also expect the government to be your nurturing protective mother.

Didn't we discover all that as adolescents?

[Tari]

Congratulations, amba.

I agree that it is troubling. I don't mind the two sides balancing each other out as realpc mentioned, but I don't see that happening here. What stoppers do we have? I'm afraid very few.

Really praying that the American people reject this path of spending and government filling all needs somehow...

[amba]

The trouble is . . . how can we reject it? We elected these representatives and now, there they are, doing as they please. All we can do is threaten to throw them out next time.

[RW Rogers]

In most states, we don't elect representatives any more. They get together and select their constituents in order to suppress competition.

[Callimachus]

Put the Amish in charge. They make money hand-over-fist. They're self-sufficient. And they're socialistic and communal-minded: Nobody gets left behind.

Of course, nobody gets to 9th grade, either.

[Donna B.]

Congratulations on your grandniece!

Perhaps she and my grandchildren will overcome this mess, all the while saying, "Gee, I love my Grandma and Auntie Amba, but whatever were they thinking back then?"

In the meantime, maybe we can learn from the Amish; if not how to make money, at least how to milk a cow.

[amba]

Who needs Amish! We can learn that from Karen!

[Christopher]

Oh, I don't know. It seems to me that both sides like welfare quite a lot. It's just they have different constituencies.

[amba]

Heh. Well put. TARP, anyone? Call it WARP, maybe. For "(Throwing) Welfare At Rich People." Or for what it's doing to our future.

[Donna B.]

TWARP is even better than TARP or WARP, I think. It encompasses the stupidity of both maybe?

There is no way on God's earth (or an earth without God) that this stimulus bill makes any sense. It's worse than TARP, WARP, or TWARP!

There are seven versions listed at the Library of Congress website, including one called the "public print" version which includes all the strike-throughs and runs 1400+ pages. I'm not stupid enough to print that, nor am I stupid enough to read it.

Basically the bill is running about $1 billion per page.

It covers every imaginable area that the federal government has jurisdiction over, plus many more where jurisdiction is questionable.

A bill of this size, whether you choose to measure it by dollars or words CAN NOT be a good thing for the country.

Same thing for TARP, and now we have two such bills in a row.

[Donna B.]

And... it's not like our fathers' didn't tell us to be wary of Congress.

[karen]

Guys, i don't milk cows like the Amish- the ~real~ Amish- do. I think after milking one or two by hand, i couldn't continue for the crabbed, cramped up mitts. I do know that a lot of Pennsylvanian Amish used to come up here(North) to buy new herds for the marrying season:0). I guess that is when man leaves woman, cleaves to his wife and they start a new farm in need of good cows. They are cool.

Anchoress has a really decent post w/lots of links about this ~crap sandwich~ being forced down our throats(yeah, that's another RightWing-ish term for the TWARP)and points out the fact that consumer spending gained 1% in January. Obama had better hurry and sign this pimped out Bill soon, or the market might just right itself w/out him.

[Spud]

Karen, it's funny how all of a sudden, republicans have become born again budget balance rs. Isn't this the same party who put a trillion dollar war, on a credit card?

[RW Rogers]

You're right Spud, many GOP members have become born-again budget balancers. About equal to the numbers of Democrats who ceased being budget balancers. It's called partisan politics. The interests of the nation be damned.