Here we are, the talking heads are encouraging this debt ceiling rhetoric with the specter of the Ryan Plan like the sword of Damocles hanging over our heads and it's another scam to gut the middle class on the heels of the last fleecing in 2008. We've actually been subjected to the prospect of jerking Joplin around on aid money to ram home this farce. The Ryan Plan actually adds to the deficit, hugely. Obama's plan a la catfood commission is better on the numbers but not on US. Ryan's Plan is not only bad, it's really bad. It relies on projections to balance the budget in 2083?! But not really. When was the last depression? 1929. That was 80 years ago. Does any sane person believe that legislation crafted on a timeline so large is realistic, let alone doable? I remind you that buzz words like "permanent tax cuts" are fallacious given the mercurial nature of that saturnine body otherwise known as Congress. So I'm sitting here, my youngest is just 13, and thinking this Ryan creep is proposing some sort of closure when she will be in her 90's. That's if she makes it. Never mind that we're at peak oil, we've passed the climate change tipping point and America is out of the government democracy business in favor of neofeudalism. A part of me is aghast that an adult person in a position of responsibility can actually stand up, with a straight face and proclaim: "This is my plan.". Yes, I'm talking to you, widows peak boy.
Of course all of this is thinly layered on top of Sarah Palin and her stupid bus tour of all the sights that make America great and how we need to understand about our history. I submit she needs to know about our history. For myself, I live in it, on it and around it. I live in a town that predates the Revolution. I own a property that is on one of the oldest roads on the continent. I like history and soak up little facts daily. It's easy to do living here. Next to the illiterate bus tour, rests the Weiner/twitter non story. Neither of these saturated issues affect me. Or you. Or anybody. They are only indicative of the LCD that drives income toward mass media. Any time a pundit conversation gets serious and interesting about actual issues facing us, it's time for a commercial break. I suppose these things are upsetting to the unseen PTB.
Mr. Ryan then trots out demagoguery.......as a noun. It's the new 911 in Guiliani speak. I have to say at this point, sadly, that maybe 30 percent [being kind here] of the citizenry even know the definition of the word. It sounds all fitty cent and stuff. What's funny is, sad really, is that Ryan's entire plan is itself, demagoguery. In fact, the entire Republican theme is demogoguery. We're being led by prejudice and fear to give up what we worked for so that the "people who own the money" get their money back from the middle class........AGAIN. And again and again and again. Because that is the game being played on us. I say we, us..... are being led but that's not accurate. We're being dragged. And the Democrats are helping with the dragging. Our representatives are not representing, they're fronting. The polls all say we want higher taxation to pay for the things government does. The polls say we don't want wars. The polls all say we want Medicare to stay as it is, or be made better. The polls all say we want a public option. So who are the Congress and the President representing if it's not us? Follow the money. Follow logic. Money for rich people: good thing. Money for majority of the people: bad thing. Bailouts for corporations and banks: good thing. Money for healthcare, necessities, education, environment, disaster relief: bad bad things. We are supposed to pull ourselves up by the bootstraps and get out there and make it for ourselves because they stole it all. Start from zero. See ya!!
And the Democrats make the sad serious face. "Well, we have to to do this [swerve to the right sharply] mumble mumble chart graph mumble, we have no choice.......mumble deficit, debt, mumble". This is demagoguery. We're being dragged to the edge, Democrats seemingly cowering at the scary prospect the Republicans keep repeating. "Boo!! We HAVE to lower to corporate tax rate to 25% because we need jobs and we need to grow the economy." How's that scheme working for you so far? Depressed/flat wages since the late 70's?!?! Housing bubble. Underwater mortgages: 28%. Foreclosure rate: 8%. 44.6 million people on food stamps. 60 Million people with no health insurance. But hey! The Stock Market is is in the 12.2k range!! Yay!!! NOT.
So what are we going to do about it? What can we do about it? Have we reached the tipping point of this democracy? The debt ceiling [manufactured] fiasco is like waiting for Dudley Do Right to come snatch Nell from the train tracks in slo-mo. Are we going to be beaten down with the demagoguery from the demigod, Ryan? Is it already shake and bake and Obama&Co helped?
And if we are capitulated down the river [passive verb], what then? Being that I fall into the cohort that payed the longest into the Medicare program only to have it potentially disappeared by these elected cretins I find myself questioning the value of patriotism. Values period. What point is there in having a government at this juncture if it does nothing but reroute resources to people that already have most of the resources. We're already watering the rosebush to the point of rottenness while the lawn is parched and dying.
Rational discussion of how to manage our GDP [the main metric of what our country is and what it is doing] 18%+ of which is concerned with health care, is not happening. Instead, the House is involved with endless laws concerning abortion getting money from Federal dollars when abortion hasn't gotten any money from Federal dollars for a long time. In other words, to keep making redundant legislation to the legislation we already have. Because they can and it keeps less informed people distracted.
Ryan's 70+ year plan is not rational, doesn't address the 18%+ portion of GDP that needs to be halved and apply/benefit to all citizens. It doesn't reduce deficits or debt. It directs more water to the rosebush and away from the lawn. The lawn has already dried up to the point that it's eroding. It's time to tax the ever loving crap out of the rosebush before the whole house is washed away by a light rain.
We need a new grid. We need to transfer to alternate energy, localized solar, wind and anything else that gets us off of oil, natural gas and coal. We need jobs. We need universal health care. We need education. To do this we need to raise taxes. The majority of us want more taxes. If we were being represented properly:
1. That last deal Obama made with Boehner to extend the Bush tax cuts never would have happened.
2.The Rahm/Obama deal with big Pharma to disallow bargaining/reimportation of drugs would never have happened.
3.The bill for discontinuing welfare to oil companies would have passed.
So what's it going to be? We're back at #1, again. Republicans have hostage, Democrats/Obama accede to demands?
Prune that rosebush and water the lawn.
See: House Progressive Caucus Budget Plan. The only plan that makes any sense.