@#$! Debt @#$! Ceiling @#$!!!

[Plaid Adder]

This is not trenchant analysis. This is venting. Just so you know, so you can bail now if you want to.

So, I am out of the country for a little while. The debt ceiling thing comes up from time to time. THis is my one-sentence analysis of the situation:

"You see, there are a lot of people in Congress who would rather destroy the country than allow a Democratic president to have a second term."

Which I think more or less captures it from the Republican side. On the Democratic side...it's too depressing. It really is.

Social Security and Medicare, huh.

For fun, as I walk through the streets of someone else's city, I sometimes entertain myself by making a list of things we should cut *before* we cut Social Security and Medicare:

THINGS WE COULD DO WITHOUT IF WE'RE REALLY THAT SHORT OF MONEY

1. Guantanamo Bay (Trying these guys would be cheaper than holding them...forever)
2. Ginormous military presence in Iraq
3. Afghanistan war (hey...we got Bin Laden, right? Wasn't that the original objective?)
4. Department of Homeland Security (seriously...now that we don't do color code alerts any more, what ARE they doing with all that taxpayer money?)
5. The Bush tax cuts
6. Backscatter X-ray technology in airports (it's just frickin' creepy, I don't care how they do it...but being felt up by a TSA agent is worse)

...and so on. I'm sure you will all ahve other favorites you would add. But of course none of that matters, because this is not about balancing the budget for them, it's about trying to gut "entitlement" programs because...

Because why? Because it offends their ideological purity? Because they just cna't bear the thought that their money might be going to support someone in their own country who has been working their whole life instead of going to bomb the crap out of people they don't know? Criminy. It's so hard to believe, even after seeing all the evidnece, there there are that many people in this country who wake up in the morning just burning with anger about the fact that somewhere, somehow, someone is getting something from the government. I don't get it.

But why should it surprise me? Out in Chicago, we now have Mayor Rahm Emmanuel. Chicago has its own debt problems. First thing Rahm did to show he was serious about 'balancing the budget' was to cancel the city Fourth of July fireworks display. Because Navy Pier does fireworks twice a week anyway, and people can just go see theirs if they want to. Thanks, Rahm. Daley was a dictator and surely corrupt but at least he didn't mind blowing some dough so people could have fun in public for free. I can tell right now that I am going to enjoy living under your combination of symbolic public fuck-yous and private behind-the-scenes union busting.

I hate this. I hate the whole thing. I hate reading about it, I hate knowing it's going on, and most especially I hate knowing that at the end of the day they will present us with some @#$! "compromise" which will permanently change the country for the worse and pretend like they won. It is not that this totally surprises me, this huge disappointment in progress. But I still hate it.

@#$!,

The Plaid Adder

[G_j]

1. you could also include

the war on (some) drugs and the prison industrial complex..


good rant btw :applause:

[Warren DeMontague]

2. Cut defense 30-50%. Legalize and tax marijuana.

For starters.

[Ghost Dog]

9. Tax legal marijuana

sales, ok. But also permit tax-free homegrown, for personal use, up to some reasonable quantity.

Cut defense spending for sure. Also limit the goals to legitimate self-defense. Outlaw the naked aggression and other interference in others' affairs.

[Warren DeMontague]

12. People can brew a certain amt. of their own beer and wine at home

I don't see why growing legal pot would be considered differently.

I think probably most consumers would take the convenience route and buy it as a legal, regulated product, in which case the tax revenue; even if you had a significant amount of home-grown pot; would be significant I suspect.

[annabanana]

3. hey Hey PA!. . Nice to see you!. . And I am SO with you on this stupid

pointless unnecessary crapola!

[dana_b]

4. I like your rants

and enjoy your time away.

[PA Democrat]

5. K & R. and I'll add one more thing to your great rant:

Make the @#*&ing drug companies negotiate prices with Medicare!

[Shagbark Hickory]

6. We should send France the bill for Libya too.

[snappyturtle]

7. K&R

[MiniMe]

8. You need to add Medicare to that rant

You said Medicaid, but it needs to include Medicare too.

[woo me with science]

10. Superlative rant. nt

[aquart]

11. Welcome back.

[hairyHans]

13. ALL of the above AND..... reality for the dithering politicians!

 Why do Americans not insist(RALLY, RANT & RAGE) that the
first cuts to ANY taxpayer-supported wages/benefits are those
of ALL the politicians... President, congressmen,senators,
upper political civil servants!  
 If this were to happens you would have NO problem coming up
with PRAGMATIC not rhetorical solutions. 
 WHY do AMERICANS NOT JOIN TOGETHER EN MASSE AND INSIST
" POLITICIANS FIRST!" . 
 Don't forget: they put themselves first on EVERYTHING ELSE: 
Best benefits, best expense accounts, best health care, best
working environment .... all at taxpayers' expense.`
  
Will you allow them, by dithering, to further reduce your
common American's well-being?
 

[progressoid]

14. Nice to see a Plaid Adder vent!