Election Irritability: What Program Will You Cut and How Much?

Soooo....one week to go. As regular readers (and I do thank all 7 of you) know I have been rather silent lately. Part of the reason has to do with starting a new law practice and traveling a lot like I do not even need to make a living. Trips to Austin, Cancun, Michigan etc... leave little contemplative time and when coupled with trying to work enough to keep body and soul together there is very little time to watch and observe food, travel, music, life and of course politics. Which brings us to the real reason I have not written...politics.

We are just coming off the long dark tea time of the NPR pledge drive where I listen to Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Jamie Allman... the angry cynical chick on talk radio around lunch... and the whole sick experiment has left me even more tired then ususal and more hopeless then I have felt since the start of W's second term. Never has the discourse been so vile, low, stupid and without hope and all of this in the greatest country in the world.

Roy Blount and June Carnahan... What programs are you going to cut and how much? And don't tell me healthcare... it has not brought us here.

I feel for the arguments that are supposed to be at the core of the tea party. Smaller government. Living within our means and self reliance are all great traditional American values. Not religious values but really, REALLY good things. But seriously, where were you fucking people when Ronald Reagan, Bush the Elder and the born again moderate Bill Clinton and then Dubya were ramping up spending at a monstrous level and even Saint Reagan increasing governments size and budget deficit (with the exception of a few Clinton years every year? And every year we elect the same people who say "I am going to cut waste and fraud". That is bullshit. The political class makes it's bones every day on waste and fraud. THEY NEVER CUT WASTE AND FRAUD! But we are going to elect Christine O'Donnell and re-elect Michelle Bachman and elect that crazy chick running in Arizona because these people are serious? These are the ones who will do it?

Ed Martin and Russ Carnahan, what programs are you going to cut and how much? Ed, I don't care that you were a politcal fixer for a governor who was smart enough to quit before his secrets made him a target and Russ... well Russ, i do not care about you at all.

I want to believe it. I am a bleeding heart liberal. My religion causes me to think that Jesus would want all people to have health care (even illegal aliens) but I know the government cannot afford it, anymore then it can afford wars of choice in the middle east. I like health care more then war with a couple of trillion but it is not affordable and sustainable BUT if we can send a few thousand American boys off to be killed and in the process destabelize a region so hundreds of thousands of their people can be killed and they can legitimately blame us for it while paying trillions to do it... I will take health care (even for illegal aliens).

And now we have this silly, silly election. In my life they have always said the same thing about election cycles. In every non presidential election 40% of the country dictates their displeasure and in the next election cycle 60% decide they did not like what the 40%. Well we are in a 40% year. I will vote but many of the crazies who voted for Obama will not come out and cheer for their local congressman and Senators. I do not blame them. they are an uninspiring bunch. the only thing less inspiring is their Republican dopplegangers who are there to rescind, remand, undo, unfund and stop Obama Care. Reinstitute tax breaks for everyone and shut down government. That will work well. The minute someone's mom misses a social security check... heads will roll.

And therein lies the lie of the tea party. They want to cut government but not the government that serves them. they decry socialism but take social security, unemployment, medicare and every tax break they are entitled to and they ARE entitled to their breaks. But the others...the LAZY ones who "take advantage" of the system.... their support needs to be cut. If smaller government is the goal (and it is an honorable goal) there is only only question EVERY candidate should be asked. Which programs will you cut and by how much? The follow up being if you are going to cut taxes what dollar for dollar cuts will you make in programs to justify those cuts. But forget the follow up. Ask you candidate, which programs will you cut and how much? Which programs will you cut and how much? Which programs will you cut and how much? (Repetition is a rhetorical device). If they cannot answer and if they answer with bullshit platitudes like they are going to stop earmarks and cut waste and fraud... then they are the frauds. Call them out. Republicans, Democrats, a pox on both their houses. I will vote Democrat again and hold my nose because their politics seem slightly less stupid, slightly less selfish in concept and frankly slightly less mean.

20 years of Republicans enlarging of government (the last 20) but it takes a black President to unite the anger over big government and the self righteous bullshit about selling out our kids futures. Now the Tea Party wants us to believe that their politicians have gotten religion. Being co-opted by the Republican party illegitimizes their goals. I get the anger, I am angry too, but until our culture changes, the institutions cannot change. Changes at the top are pure laziness. If you cannot pull our country together by it's core values of inclusion, hard work, charity, self reliance and compassion then we will keep electing leaders who reflect our broken sense of values.

Change youself and become a better person. train your kids to be better persons, discuss being a better person with your friends and what you (and they) can do to make a better Country. Then our leadership can make a meaningful change. In the interim...ask these hypocritical son's of bitches...which program would you cut and how much? Then wait for a real answer.