“Suppose you were an idiot, and then suppose you were a member of congress. But I repeat myself.”
-Mark Twain
The “Spendocrats” are at it again. If it wasn’t so pathetic, the recent “debt deal” between Capitol Hill and the White House (with its aftermath) would be rather funny, or at least according to my somewhat twisted sense of humor. The debt problem arises from the Congressional habit of spending more taxpayer money than the IRS collects each year, and that dates back to FDR’s “New Deal” socialism of the 1930’s. Granted that social welfare programs aren’t the only cause (I expect “cold war” expenses had a lot to do with the national debt as well), but I do believe that the long term federal effort to make the American populace dependant on government largess has just about destroyed this nations economy. In case you’ve been hiding out in the woods for the last seventy or so years, in 1929 the socially approved crap game of the American stock market crashed, it led the United States (with the rest of the world soon following), into the “Great Depression” of the 1930’s. That of course pushed the American public into massive unemployment, bank failures, personal and corporate bankruptcies, the loss of many people’s life savings, and a whole lot of social and political unrest. Enter the do-gooder socialists with a spending program to “end the depression”, a program that nearly eliminated the national treasury with huge “make work” spending programs.
That spending gave us Social Security, the TVA, Hoover Dam, and the Golden Gate Bridge well enough, but contrary to popular belief it did nothing to end the depression, and in fact extended the misery for several additional years. It also gave us a bureaucracy and a welfare state that has been expanding at a logarithmic rate ever since. Under several democratic presidents since then, Congress has been happily handing out tax dollars and borrowed money to state and local governments along with their welfare bureaucracy, in a mad attempt to curry political favor and to “buy” votes ever since. Currently, to keep up that spending spree and pay the interest on those borrowed funds, the US Government as authorized by Congress consumes approximately 20% of our gross national product every year! Now, at the beginning of the 21st Century, our national debt exceeds our ability to pay it off, and the interest alone puts a severe strain on our nation’s finances. This in turn led to the fight in Congress, and the threats of defaulting on our debts unless Congress raised our debt limit.
The congressional battle as I understand it, was essentially a disagreement about raising the debt ceiling which the Democrats preferred so that they could continue borrowing more money and spending our future. The Republicans on the other hand opposed raising the ceiling, and instead preferred to attack the problem by curtailing government spending (I doubt that would have actually happened), which in turn would have made a lot of potential voters who are presently feeding at the government trough quite unhappy. Everything focuses on the debt burden which must be reduced, so that if our taxes are not to be increased yet again, then government spending must go down, and the compromise reached does neither, it merely ignores the problem for another year or two. Now of course, the DNC spin doctors are blaming the Republicans, George Bush, the Tea Party, corporate America, and all those greedy rich people who don’t particularly wish to redistribute the rewards of working hard all their lives.
I receiver the following in an e-mail not long back, and will paraphrase a bit…
Remember the old story about the ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER? Wherein the ant works
hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter, while the grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed, and the grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.
The moral of the story is; be responsible for yourself.
Now we have the modern upgraded version of the story…
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter while the grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while he is cold and starving. CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.
America is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?
Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper and everybody cries when they sing, 'It's Not Easy Being Green...'
ACORN stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the news stations film the group singing “We shall overcome”. Then Rev. Jeremiah Wright has the group kneel down to pray for the grasshopper's sake while he damns the ants.
President Obama condemns the ant and blames President Bush, President Reagan, the Tea Party, Christopher Columbus, and the Pope for the grasshopper's plight.
Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid claim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.
The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the Government Green Czar and given to the grasshopper.
The story ends as we see the grasshopper and his free-loading friends finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the government house he is in, which, as you recall, just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around them because the grasshopper doesn't maintain it.
The ant has disappeared in the snow, never to be seen again.
The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident, and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the ramshackle, once prosperous and peaceful, neighborhood.
(My apologies to the original author of this tale.)
The House of Representatives contains 435 members, while the Senate adds another 100 people to the fumbling committee running the show. Thus we have 535 “Spendocrats” who are solely responsible for the mess we now find ourselves in. They and only they determine the revenue rate, they and only they determine the spending. When things, good or bad, happen to the United States, it is because “they” want it to happen that way.
You might want to remember this story as you prepare to vote in 2012.
That spending gave us Social Security, the TVA, Hoover Dam, and the Golden Gate Bridge well enough, but contrary to popular belief it did nothing to end the depression, and in fact extended the misery for several additional years. It also gave us a bureaucracy and a welfare state that has been expanding at a logarithmic rate ever since. Under several democratic presidents since then, Congress has been happily handing out tax dollars and borrowed money to state and local governments along with their welfare bureaucracy, in a mad attempt to curry political favor and to “buy” votes ever since. Currently, to keep up that spending spree and pay the interest on those borrowed funds, the US Government as authorized by Congress consumes approximately 20% of our gross national product every year! Now, at the beginning of the 21st Century, our national debt exceeds our ability to pay it off, and the interest alone puts a severe strain on our nation’s finances. This in turn led to the fight in Congress, and the threats of defaulting on our debts unless Congress raised our debt limit.
The congressional battle as I understand it, was essentially a disagreement about raising the debt ceiling which the Democrats preferred so that they could continue borrowing more money and spending our future. The Republicans on the other hand opposed raising the ceiling, and instead preferred to attack the problem by curtailing government spending (I doubt that would have actually happened), which in turn would have made a lot of potential voters who are presently feeding at the government trough quite unhappy. Everything focuses on the debt burden which must be reduced, so that if our taxes are not to be increased yet again, then government spending must go down, and the compromise reached does neither, it merely ignores the problem for another year or two. Now of course, the DNC spin doctors are blaming the Republicans, George Bush, the Tea Party, corporate America, and all those greedy rich people who don’t particularly wish to redistribute the rewards of working hard all their lives.
I receiver the following in an e-mail not long back, and will paraphrase a bit…
Remember the old story about the ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER? Wherein the ant works
hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter, while the grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed, and the grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.
The moral of the story is; be responsible for yourself.
Now we have the modern upgraded version of the story…
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter while the grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while he is cold and starving. CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.
America is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?
Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper and everybody cries when they sing, 'It's Not Easy Being Green...'
ACORN stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the news stations film the group singing “We shall overcome”. Then Rev. Jeremiah Wright has the group kneel down to pray for the grasshopper's sake while he damns the ants.
President Obama condemns the ant and blames President Bush, President Reagan, the Tea Party, Christopher Columbus, and the Pope for the grasshopper's plight.
Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid claim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.
The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the Government Green Czar and given to the grasshopper.
The story ends as we see the grasshopper and his free-loading friends finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the government house he is in, which, as you recall, just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around them because the grasshopper doesn't maintain it.
The ant has disappeared in the snow, never to be seen again.
The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident, and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the ramshackle, once prosperous and peaceful, neighborhood.
(My apologies to the original author of this tale.)
The House of Representatives contains 435 members, while the Senate adds another 100 people to the fumbling committee running the show. Thus we have 535 “Spendocrats” who are solely responsible for the mess we now find ourselves in. They and only they determine the revenue rate, they and only they determine the spending. When things, good or bad, happen to the United States, it is because “they” want it to happen that way.
You might want to remember this story as you prepare to vote in 2012.
