A long time ago I read an account of barbarian soldiers sacking a civilized city. The soldiers ripped plumbing fixtures off the walls to take with them, apparently not realizing faucets don’t work if they aren’t attached to water pipes.
House Republicans hacking away at the budget remind me of those barbarian soldiers. They are ripping stuff out in apparent ignorance of how it works and what the consequences could be.
Last month, House Republicans decided to hack the budget of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration by $126 $454 million. This is the parent agency of the National Weather Service, which in turn oversees the National Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii.
Democrats, on offense for a change, sent out a press release earlier this week pointing out that GOP budget cuts were defunding the tsunami warning system.
Now some Republicans are all huffy about that, saying Dems are playing a dirty trick. For example, Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Washington) said that she only voted to cut the funding of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “There is nothing anywhere that states tsunami warnings systems should be cut,†her spokesperson said.
In other words, she voted for all those cuts without bothering to find out exactly what the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration does, and what programs she might actually be axing. And she still doesn’t seem to know.
At Faux News, James P. Pinkerton scoffed at the Democrats’ memo, calling it an example of “Washington Monument Syndrome.”
That is, if the Interior Department, for example, were confronted with the slightest of budget cuts, the Secretary of Interior would gravely warn the would-be budget-cutters that if the proposed cuts go through, the Department would have no choice but to shut down the Washington Monument, or Mt. Rushmore, or any other popular and visible Interior Department property.
I say Pinkerton suffers from the “free lunch” syndrome, or the belief that if he stops paying taxes the government will somehow continue to take care the nice stuff that he likes, like Mt. Rushmore. But it’s a fact that if the GOP continues to hack money away from the National Park Service, eventually monuments will fall into ruin and parks will have to be closed. I understand a lot of parks are operating on half a shoestring as it is.
Cuts to the National Weather Service also could affect hurricane and tornado alertness, as well as the quality of information needed daily by people like farmers and airline companies. So cutting that budget could harm a lot of people. Yes, it’s possible someone with thorough understanding of what NOAA does could comb through its budget and find some items that could be cut without serious consequences. But you know the House Republicans didn’t do that. Hack!
Getting back to plumbing — a better analogy to what Republicans are doing is cutting the budget for the city waterworks and then saying it’s not their fault if your drinking water is brown. Of course, it probably wouldn’t turn brown right away; it might take a few years for the aeration system to break down completely. Until then, they’ll assure you that everything is just fine, and those crazy people who say the water is getting dirty just want to make you pay more taxes.
And when the water does turn brown, they’ll find some way to blame a Democrat for it.
maha,
How dare you?!?!
These aren’t Barbarians, they’re the Christieist of the Christie!
And when we finally change completely over to a ChristoCoporateFascist country, we can add another motto to “In God we Trust.”
And that will be: “God Will Provide.”
If it’s God’s will, of course.
And if you’re one of those people for whom God ain’t providing, or providing enough, well – ‘Hit your knees and pray, you Heathen bastard!’
America: Where ignorance is a virtue, and stupidity is a right of passage into the halls of power.
This country is already suffering from a tsunami of ‘stupid.’ Now, it’s about to implode from all of the stupidity.
The US will be unrecognizable in about 10 years. Even more so than in the last 30.
God help us all. But I think if there’s a God, He/She/It, will be more concerned about people and nations that who are trying to make things better for all of humanity, not worse for one another in their own.
Pretty much says it all.
Maha, you’re absolutely correct. The Republicans are voting as a block either because they truly believe the crap or because they’ve been bullied into it by the party leaders. Either way, it’s crap.
Here in Ohio, the Republicans and TeaBaggers put John Kasich into office as Governor. He’s a former FOX news commentator and also a banker. He ousted Ted Strickland and has commenced stripping away the programs the Dems had put into place. He’s big on privatization and is selling off our prisons, highways, and schools to his cronies. Quel suprise! He’s also busily busting unions and throwing people out of their government jobs.
So now he’s at a 40% approval rating, overall. It’s higher with Republicans and much lower with Dems and Independents. But the truth is, people chose to vote for him, or didn’t vote at all, and now they’re sorry. The police and fire departments who voted for him are seriously pissed. He campaigned on killing the light rail projects, giving 400 million dollars back to other states and people were fine with that, but now he’s getting right into their livelihoods. They have serious voter’s remorse.
I see my home state now as teetering on the brink of disaster. My heart breaks for the schools who no longer have all day kindergarten required: working parents are going to be screwed and so will their children. New tolls on highways, new privately-run prisons, it’s all going to turn our state into a black hole.
This is the sort of thing that reveals how much wingnuts are out of touch with reality. Taking away all-day kindergartens throws families into chaos and forces people to shell out more money for transportation and day care than they were paying in taxes for the all-day kindergarten. And is he cutting money for after-school programs, too?
I remember when my son was in kindergarten, the public school not only had half-day kindergarten, but half the year it was in the morning and the other half in the afternoon, so people had to switch their day care arrangements mid-day. And there was no way I could get away from work every day to pick him up at school to drive him to day care, and I couldn’t find any other transportation that didn’t worry me. So I ended up shelling out money for a year of private school kindergarten, which I way could not afford — I went into debt paying for it — but at least I knew he was safe.
To my point about the dumbing down of America, I just made the mistake of turning to CNN to find out about what’s happening in Japan since I last checked a few hours ago (Yeah, I know, it’s an old reflex reaction from back when they were a credible news organization).
And there I saw an attractive female in her early to mid ’30’s, their “Sr. Medical Correspondant,” say the following as they were talking about radiation:
“Well, as we were all taugh in grade school, ‘the solution to pollution, is dilution!'”
Really?
Who else ever heard that? Maybe I’m so old that they came up with that (after I left grade school) in the late ’60’s and ’70’s, when entire rivers burst into flames. Has anyone else ever heard that saying?
OT – how old is the “Jr. Medical Correspondant?” 16?
Then, what ever happened to ‘The solution to pollution might be deterrence/avoidence?’ What, it doesn’t rhyme?
And what do we dilute nuclear radiation with, pray tell?
Water?
Perfume?
Epecac?
An enema and a boatload of water?
Oy, cable news…
I don’t remember that either, but I do remember “duck and cover”!
I remember that one, too.
Did you ever see the movie “Atomic Cafe?” What a hoot!
It came out about 30 years ago and it was nothing but a compilation of all of those ‘what to do if there’s a nuclear attack’ films we all had to sit and watch in school up until the mid or late ’60 before some genious finally figured out that students were laughing at the idea that their wooden desk (with the empty inkwell), or going into the hallway and covering their head, or leaping off their bike and putting their head by the curb, was going to protect them in case of a nuclear bomb going off down the block. I remember we used to joke that what they should tell you to do is, “Stick your head between your legs, and kiss your ass goodbye!”
Back to pollution – I remember this cartoon owl from back in the early ’70’s saying, “Give a hoot, don’t pollute!” Kind of makes more sense than dilution.
And how do you dilute, pray tell, as well, oh great “Sr. Medical Correspondant,” a f*cking RIVER that’s on fire?
That’s a pretty apt metaphor. Allow me to expand further.
Ever watch the show “Dirty Jobs”? It’s incredibly educational, as it explores little-known professions. Followers of the show can quickly come to realize how much shit has to be done to make things work. It’s good Mike Rowe is so charming, because the show, if you think about it, can make you feel very small.
There are a lot of Dirty Jobs. And Hard Jobs. And Important Jobs. A lot goes into maintaining a technical civilization like we have here.
But people don’t get it, or even understand it. There’s both deliberate ignorance and real ignorance.
Right now a LOT of politicans and pundits are just spewing party line BS because it gets them elected, it’s expected, and it gets them money. The people backing them are often the same kind of people (if not the same people) who screwed up our banking and financial systems. A lot of these people have no idea how the world works or do they care.
So fueled by ideology, greed, and ignorance, they’re perfectly happy to dismantle the system that works for us and even them. Voters, hopped up on fear, misinformation, and darker emotions back them. The news system, focusing on short-term profits and market share goes and says whatever gets them money.
It’s greed, fear, but also a lot of ignorance. If people understood truly how the world worked, they’d vote and act differently (even if the greed and fear were still there).
Instead, the Barbarians wonder why the plumbing doesn’t work.
they won’t blame Democrats they will use the always reliable “Nobody could have predicted this would happen”
Or, they’ll say that it’s proof that government doesn’t work. It’s a very clever scheme, when you think about it.
1) say that government sucks
2) cut government funding so it can’t do anything right.
3) use this to prove that government sucks.
4) cut government funding to punish it for sucking
5) gather more proof that government sucks
The problem with the strategy (other than, you know, the millions who are being hurt, and the pure evil of hurting so many) is that there’s no end game. What do you do once you’ve cut government and made it totally dysfunctional?
LongHairedWeirdo,
“What do you do once you’ve cut government and made it totally dysfunctional?”
Go to Disney World!
Wait, no, that won’t work.
You need too much government to support a theme park in the middle of a swamp, so that’ll be gone.
I know!
Go to “Mad Max” World!!!
It’s just a popular talking point. It has *some* merit – arsenic is a naturally occurring substance, for example, and in sufficiently low quantities, won’t cause any harm over an average person’s life span. Many pollutants are considered “safe” at sufficiently low concentrations.
But the mindset that comes up with bullshit rhymes fails to appreciate that there are often many solutions to pollution. Many times, you can just not make the pollution in the first place – oh, but that will cost money. Can’t do that. No, people might demand better industry regulation if it’s just money.
(Technically, there are times when regulating an industry will cost too much money. For example, if we tried to make all energy carbon-neutral over five years, it might be possible (we might have the technology – and, we might not), but it won’t happen, because it’s too expensive. Unfortunately, we’ve gotten to the point where statements of this nature can’t be granted because one side is not arguing in good faith, and the other is already too sympathetic to these claims.)
Boehner, suddenly aware of the devastation caused by tsunamis, realized what a great way to get rid of politically ‘blue’ America and Americans. Tsunami’s, after all, only occur in coastal areas, generally ‘blue’ so just defund tsunami warning stations and, voila, bye bye ‘blue’ America. It’s a wrap.
The common man let the Barbarians sack Rome because there was nothing left for him. We assume action will be at the ballot box, but the Mid-West middle-class and poor are under attack and they are waking up. We should not take “democracy” for granted when many feel it has been corrupted and they have nothing left to do but fight. If we want “democracy”, we need to use it honestly for everyone. The GOP is funded by the wealthy and obviously willing to tilt the system in favor of their financial supporters. This is a class battle and not the “culture wars” fake division used by the GOP to get that 51% of the vote.
I sincerely hope so. There are some positive signs coming from the upper midwest, for sure.
And where is our President in these fights against cutting off our arm because we have a hangnail? Isn’t the President supposed to fight for the priorities of the party he represents? Isn’t that party supposed to have priorities and make arguments?
The political playing field is being ceded to one side, in the hopes that they will accept compromise and not ask for more. This is the very definition of appeasement, with NO indication that the Republicans, having spotted weakness, will accept anything less than effective dismantling of many federal gov’t functions. The media of course, focuses on conflict and lionizes aggressive behavior, so they participant in the charade that the debt is public priority #1.
I am now convinced Obama is in WAY over his head, and hasn’t the stomach or the head for sustained political fights that will be necessary for the policies FAVORED BY MOST AMERICANS to prevail over the better organized and more committed forces of conservatives and the media.
And when the water does turn brown, they’ll find some way to blame a Democrat for it.
And when the water does turn brown, they’ll claim it has nothing to do with shorting the budget several whole years ago.
Why doesn’t someone point out that the Republicans who keep saying “Government doesn’t work” that they are the “Government”. When a Repug says that, someone needs to ask them point blank why if “they” are so incompetent, they take the taxpayer dollars used for their salary. They are taking our money under false pretenses.
Well, I sympathize with him to some degree. He showed why he’s having this problem during the town hall with the Republicans. He pointed out that they need to tone down their rhetoric, because they *can’t* work with him while calling him a socialist who might pull the plug on grandma.
He wants to break the back of the screamers, by re-energizing the sensible Republicans. He wants to return to the days of deal makers and people who put country, not party, first. If both sides refuse to compromise and vilify the other, the country suffers that much more for it.
The problem is, as near as the Republicans can see it, there’s no advantage to being dealmakers. That would put them back into the 80s where they were honest and in the minority. And they think they still have plenty of time. They don’t think global warming is all *that* bad; they don’t think deregulation will cause *that* many problems; they don’t realize they’ve already crippled the middle class and we need massive changes to society and societal attitudes to recover. They think (if they think at all) that there’s still plenty of stuff they can do, that there’s no real difference between the parties so it’s okay if they do whatever they want for a while longer.
And they’re wrong.
donnah-well said. I am in Ohio and voted for Ted Strickland. I am not surprised Kasich (late of Lehman Brothers and Fox News) has tried to sell off Ohio to the highest bidder. It will be like Noe and Coingate all over again, but much, much worse in the consequences to the needy, the elderly, children, and public employees.
It was Stirling Newberry who said the Republicans were the party of bash, break, and borrow.
There is a natural rhythm to all of this, of expansion followed by contraction, followed by expansion, and so on. The Republicans are destroying everything (their claims of ignorance about what they’re destroying notwithstanding) built up during the last expansion (known as liberalism). There are even larger cycles involved, with todays’ Republicans trying to destroy everything built up during the last large centuries-long cycle of expansion (known as the Enlightenment). And so it goes.
I don’t remember the title, but some years ago I read a dystopian novella where the government bashing had been going on for several decades. The story’s protagonists were walking by a sewer line that was dumping (shades of Japan’s nuclear disaster) thorium into the public waterway. The writer noted that the discharge was properly labelled, but it was explained in such a way to burn into readers’ minds that in our age, such hideously toxic stuff would never be allowed to contaminate water in the first place – such was the contrast between this future time and our own. Not if todays’ bright GOP lights have their way.
I would add this. We can’t wait for Obama.
It’s not his fault exactly, he inherited an absolutely insane situation. I go easy on him despite concerns because he has to partner with an insane asylum who has their own news network. I don’t know how much better I’d do.
Here’s the thing though – we should NEVER rely on a president, senator, or any one official. We have to rely on us. We have to be active, vocal, donate, and be involved and never give up, shirk, or whine. We also have to be tactical and plan ahead.
Democracy is practiced 365-24-7. Or in the end, not at all.