Sirota -- State Crises Mean New Language of Deceit

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/state_crises_mean_new_language_of_deceit_20110303/

For most of history, we had undebatable definitions of words such as bailout and bankruptcy. We understood the former as an undeserved public grant, and the latter as an inability to pay existing bills. Whatever your particular beliefs about these concepts, their meanings were at least agreed upon.

Sadly, that’s not the case during a deficit crisis that is seeing language redefined in ideological terms.

Bailout was the first word thrown into the Orwellian fire. As some lawmakers recently proposed replenishing depleted state coffers with federal dollars, the American Conservative Union urged Congress to oppose states “seek a bailout” from the feds. Now, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., says, “Should taxpayers in Indiana who have paid their bills on time, who have done their job fiscally, be bailing out Californians who haven’t? No.”

Ryan, mind you, voted for 2008’s TARP program—a bank bailout in the purest sense of the term. But one lawmaker’s rank hypocrisy is less significant than how the word bailout is being used—and abused. Suddenly, the term suggests that federal aid would force taxpayers in allegedly “fiscally responsible” Republican states to underwrite taxpayers in supposedly irresponsible Democratic ones.

More at the link --

[rfranklin]

1. You mean those "fiscally responsible" Rep. states that get back $2 for every $1 they pay in taxes?

It seems that the reddest states are the ones that never quite contribute as much as they take in government money--sounds Communist doesn't it?