The Orange Country Register had a good editorial about the pork spendulus, where the editors concluded "Without secrecy, panic and haste, the stimulus bill could never have passed."
A reader named Windfall posted a reply explaining political truth to us in a resigned, matter of fact way. I'm not the author of this rant, and it's not a barn burner like Finntann's, but I love it nontheless.
windfall wrote:
Let me make this real simple for you. If you are a political party, you are in business to win elections. To do that, you need voters.
If you are the party of say the long distance runners, you want to create more long distance runners, either by importing them or by influencing voters already here to become long distance runners.
If you are the party of the rich, you want to create more rich voters. You do this by removing impediments to work, saving, investment and production. You lower tax rates and reduce the burden of government.
If you are the party of the poor, you want to create more poor voters. You do this by increasing impediments to work, saving, investment and production. You raise tax rates and increase the burden of government. If this still doesn’t create enough poor voters to solidify your powerbase, you import more poor people and put them on a path to citizenship or just register them to vote anyway. And if this still doesn’t create enough poor voters, you finally just pay people outright to stay dependent on government, which ensures that they never get ahead.
The path to financial independence has an early fork in the road.
One way leads to dependence, one to independence. In order to qualify for government handouts, you need to present and document yourself as a victim. In order to get ahead, you need to accept the axiom that “if it’s going to be, it’s up to me”.
These two positions, states of mind really, are diametrically opposed. It is virtually impossible to hold both concepts of oneself simultaneously. This is why you can choose to get by or you can choose to get ahead but you can’t choose both. Of course, you can always go back and revisit that choice. And that is why the welfare reform of the 1990s worked in terms of weaning people off the welfare rolls and onto a different, more responsible, more productive and, ultimately, more independent path.
In repealing welfare reform as well as encouraging illegal immigration, motor voter laws and the right to vote without providing even basic identification, and by constantly pushing for higher taxes, more government intrusion and intervention into business as well are more borrowing and spending, Democrats are simply doing everything in their power to make it easier to get by and harder to get ahead. They’re hoping that when millions of voters and potential voters reach or revisit that fork in the road, they will choose dependency.
What’s so difficult to understand about that? After all, they are the party of the poor. They need to create as many poor people (and as few rich) as possible.
2/18/2009 7:46:57 AM
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10 comments:
That's an absurdly cynical way of looking at it, and excuse me... Oversimplification: if the rich pay less taxes, the poor pay more, there are less benefits for workers, etc... how is the republican party creating rich people? They're putting more an more implements on poor people from becoming rich.
The greatst impediment between poor and rich isn't receiving a welfare cheque for two months between jobs. That dependence indpeendence thing is dribble.
"Stop 'helping' poor people. They'll never become rich!"
Ridiculous
If welfare continued for 35 years that would be an example of the gov't creating people dependent on it.
And people working minimum wage jobs, even if the wage is 10 or 12 dollars an hour are not kicking their heels up in glee. How does being payed very little help you get ahead. Maybe with a decent wage they can save some of their income, earn credit and start a business of their own or buy a house of their own.
This idea of starving people to success is really ridiculous and a bit immoral in my opinion.
Republicans are the party of the rich. And they want to keep those people rich and convince poor people that if they don't do what is not in their interest they can never dream of success, and when thye get it they'll be so bogged down with taxes they won't be able to enjoy it.
I mean... this is just ridiculous. The gap between rich and poor increases. So, despite the fact that more people may go from well-off to rich under Republican administrations even more people go from poor to poorer and from getting by to starving and suicidal.
You're doing a good job furthering this absurd and immoral idea of the role of gov't.
CP again your show arogance.. Stay in Canada. if you decide to come the usa. Go to SanFanciso California because they would love your liveralism there. Then would have somebody to talk to,,Jerk Redneck ron
Oh, Bahram... We are a highly mobile society thanks to Reaganism. We have more rich people who used to be poor than any other country.
Liberal Democratic policies create more dependency. Look at the Liberal Union strongholds of the the northeast and California: They are dying. The conservative south is doing comparatively better.
Reality is a bitch...
South Carolina...? I'm not sure exactly which other states are red and which are blue, but there are problably many more factors that go into 'dying' as opposed to political affiliation.
I just looked at what they called 'the misery index' chart on CNN a minute ago and combo-unemployment and inflation were much higher during both the Bush and Reagan years than during the Cinton years. In fact they shrunk every year Clinton was in office and grew every year Bush was in office.
Now, I'm not an economist, but if inflation nd unemployment are bad things and they were higher during those times...
Also, places like Washington and New York are doing okay. They're blue; aren't they?
Anyways, despite the fact that you may not buy into it, California is investing in energy efficiency and alternative energy. Their growth may be in the future. They may very well be sacrificing a bit of the present for it.
I don't know about the lights, but double-paned windows, etc... no matter how you slice it will end up being economically and environmentally neneficial/efficient over a long enough period of time.
Bill Clinton followed good, conservative economic policies put in place by President Reagan.
It took Reagan over three years to straighten out the Nixon-Ford-Carter Keynesian mess, so for 3/8 of his term, the economy sucked.
Paul Volker, an Obama man now, had a big hand in getting us out of that recession (props where props are due)
Red and blue? I know the CNN simpleton network told you to think like that, but that is irrelevant. Sometimes "red" states vote "blue" and vice versa.
Look at the states' tax and regulation policies. Michigan has chased away 90K jobs over the past decade because of high taxes and onerous regulation.
California, breadbasket of American, is bleeding people. This is exhibit A in what happens when you give away freebies. Somebody's gotta pay for that free college, free health care, etc. And the working people are tired of paying it so they are leaving.
California and Michigan are failed states and liberalism is what did them in.
productive people leaving tax hells such as michigan and california is the beauty of a system of states rights. states try new things. sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. these two examples clearly show that creating a welfare state where the state govt provides nearly everything, for everyone, doesn't work. we should have already known that by the various national examples of this throughout the world in the past hundred years. but we're slow learners.
and this also shows the problem with an overbearing nanny-state NATIONAL govt. we can't escape it. it's everywhere. it's no longer a trial to see what works best...it's nanny-state socialism crammed down our throats, and it drowns out any attempt by a state to grant more freedoms and individual rights.
Good points, Russell. Liberalism and reality don't mix too well, do they?
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