Wasteful Government Spending

One of the many constants in United States politics is the context ignoring, common sense insulting accusation constantly made by conservatives that liberal Democrats are engaged in wasteful government spending.   Without regard to what the money is being spent for, or how dire the need, a student of American politics can count on this charge being made by these grandstanding political opportunist!  Republicans reflexively make this charge, as it is always made (it’s an article of faith with them), in a complete factual/historical vacuum.   It’s worth noting that, despite the apparent requirement that Republicans uniformly complain about government spending, when these same Republicans controlled the White House and both houses of Congress, they spent money (in the words of Senator John McCain) like drunken sailors!    It would be defensible if all this debt was accumulated providing the American people with some benefit or program they desperately needed, but unfortunately for the American people, the Republican spending spree was motivated by their ideology, political self interest and lust for power!      Two wars, three big tax cuts (for the already wealthy), a huge government bureaucracy (Dept. of Homeland Security) and an unaffordable  prescription drug benefit for Medicare recipients may have added billions to our national debt, but there was no wasteful government spending because none of these items were paid for!   In their narrow and ideologically constricted minds, debt bares no relationship to spending unless and until Democrats control government!   These are not serious people http://www.politico.com/arena/perm/Greg_Dworkin_851ED9B6-D5C6-4C5D-A445-8F14810DB420.html, they are not serious about government and they should not be taken seriously!

Apparently, a Republican official’s responsibility to govern in no way encompasses the additional requirement that he/she govern responsibly!   Even the most math-challenged Republican should understand that if you launch a war (or two) and grant a tax cut (or three) and you make no attempt to offset those items with cuts in other areas, the cost of those items goes straight to the national debt (Duh)!   Making matters much worse, the Republicans coupled their traditional self serving ignorance of math with a new found ignorance of history!   Dating back to the much misremembered days of that conservative icon (God really) Ronald Reagan, Republicans have continued the tradition of offering the American people the “tax cut candy” without providing for sufficient offsets in other government programs in order to make said tax cuts affordable.   In all of American history no administration was as politically brazen and irresponsible as to provide for both tax cuts and war!   Again, the math on this is also pretty simple, wars cost a lot of money and if you cut taxes you limit your ability to pay for the war (Duh)!   Whereas we used to say that “a people who don’t know their history are doomed to repeat it”, Republicans have unwittingly abbreviated this age old adage to fit our times and the consequences of their orgy of political greed and government excess with; a people who don’t know their history are doomed!    

Anyone who examines the nonexistent relationship between the wasteful government spending accusations and the political reality that faced the Obama administration after the last 8 years may understand why The Liberal Examiner displays so much distain for the America media.   Much like congressional Republicans, our Cracker Jack political reporters ignore the Republican Party’s history of failed policies and politicians while simultaneously assigning credibility to these same failed politicians as they insist that their already failed policies be applied to address problems that these same policies caused in the first place http://blog.buzzflash.com/carpenter/539!      Today, the media (particularly Fox news) provides credibility for this madness by uncritically reporting on the predictable Republican complaints about Democratic wasteful government spending and any number of unsubstantiated and highly dubious conspiracies http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/11/19/806043/-How-Divorced-From-Reality-Is-the-GOP-Come-Look, without acknowledging that the Democrats are spending the money necessary to get America out of the ditch the Republicans put us in!   These pampered and trivia obsessed salons mimic the non-reality based projections of congressional Republicans (and their supporters) as they suggest that our current recession and both of our wars began on January 20, 2009!   This is clearly evidence of a people with a severely limited mental capacity http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/11/20/EDVD1ANC42.DTL!

Thus far in his presidency, the only legislative initiative President Obama has proposed that isn’t intended as a “fix” for some disastrous outcome that an ideologically driven Republican policy has saddled the American people with is his health care proposal!  Awakening from their slumber, our perfumed political reporters recount fact a-verse Republican complaints (death panels) without acknowledging that these same wailing and outraged Republicans did noting to address this enormous problem when they controlled all of government and therefore had the responsibility to do address it!   To be fair, problems in the American health care system predated the Republican’s ascendency to power, but they did absolutely noting to address it and their conservative economic policies (concentrating wealth amongst the already wealthy) only made matters worse.   The Republicans ignored the suffering of the American people and our media ignored their ignoring, while the quality of life for the American people fell further behind the rest of the industrialized world.   Without recognizing the inherent irony in all this madness, these Republicans have defined American exceptional-ism down, while simultaneously declaring their “uber-patriotism” http://www.examiner.com/x-21075-Baltimore-Liberal-Examiner~y2009m10d19-USA-USA-Nobel-Prize-edition!

Not content to stand aside and allow the Democrats to make a serious attempt to address the problems that they have foisted upon the American people, the Republicans have enlisted both a slavishly enabling media and a pliable segment of the American people as accomplices in their efforts to derail any policy that conflicts with their failed ideology!   Even where the livelihood of the entire American population is at stake, these crass political opportunist remain wedded to obstruction, if not outright sabotage!   They persuade Democrats to include a non-stimulative AMT fix in the stimulus bill as a condition of securing their votes and then vote against it anyway declaring that the bill isn’t sufficiently stimulative!   These are the idiotic games of irresponsible children and the country pays a steep price when they are played.   Nowhere is this orgy of idiocy more apparent then in the irrepressible phenomenon that is Sara Palin.   Demonstrating her Republican credentials, she is devoid of any policy ideas that even approach mainstream thought.   As Time Magazine’s Matt Taibbi brilliantly put it;

“She has staked out, as her own personal political turf, the entire landscape of incoherent white American resentment”.  

Respected editors of respected publications send respected reporters to cover her every move or utterance, notwithstanding the fact that not one of the aforementioned editors would ever hire her to do anything for their publications other then deliver them!   You betcha!

While The Liberal Examiner is not in the business of giving Republicans advice, there is one sure way to cut wasteful government spending that will be appreciated by all Americans who take government seriously; they should give back their congressional salaries!   Not only that, but since they are so committed to derailing the Democratic attempt to improve the nation’s failing and ailing health care system, they should give up the taxpayer funded benefits package they enjoy!   These anti-government government employees are also privileged to jump on air planes and go on taxpayer funded “fact finding” missions all over the world.   When one considers how irrelevant facts are to the substance of their arguments (word groupings really), it’s clear that the expense associated with these trips are wasteful and can be put to better use.  They also have several staff people, all of whom have decent salaries (senior staff can also make 6 figures) and handsome benefit packages.    These positions are not needed as Republicans have clearly demonstrated that giving lip service to the needs while ignoring the concerns of the voters is their field of expertise and those same voters should not be required to pay for anyone to assist them at that task!   These folks are experts at their craft and they are fully capable of being insolent and irresponsible without the help of taxpayer funded staff!   

If Republicans are going to continue to complain about wasteful government spending while simultaneously attending Tea Parties and anti government rallies (while missing important security related votes in Congress), if they are going to block and delay much needed legislation they ultimately intend to vote for (as they did with extending unemployment insurance), they should forfeit their handsome salaries and all the other taxpayer funded perks associated  with the elected offices they abuse!   Clearly, the American people aren’t getting anything of value for their tax dollars from these “legislators” that they don’t already get for free from Sara Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and the rest of the talk radio, Fox news gasbags!    Such a move would clearly be supported by the vast majority of the American taxpayers and it would distinguish the wasteful government spending issue as the one issue on which they weren’t complete hypocrites!       

Michael G McFadden