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CallaFirestormBW -> RE: Biden: We 'Misread the Economy' (7/6/2009 11:53:57 AM)
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Ok, here's the deal... Whether you're an individual or a country, you can't run a home or a country on someone else's money. I've made my share of mistakes in this area -- it took me a long time to figure out that borrowing to buy just doesn't work. Our country is doing the same thing, and, frankly, the American people are part of the reason why. We want things like food for our poor and health care that we can afford, but we don't want to PAY for it... and we're willing to pay for stuff that really doesn't work worth crap... like our legislated morality (the 'war' on drugs, etc.) and flush the money down the drain, without ever asking "how are we going to pay to -enforce- that new 'no smoking' law? How are we going to find prison space for all those new 'morality' criminals? Who's going to pay to feed and house them, and what rapist or murderer are we going to RELEASE to put that pothead with a quarter-ounce in his back pocket behind bars?
Honestly, I think Arnold, for all the other ways in which I don't agree with him, did the right thing in telling the people of California that, if they didn't want to pay for their social programs, the programs were going to have to go. That being said, the Congressional budget is -fully- as bloated and obese as the American population has become. The difference is, I -know- I'm fat because I made bad choices, and I know the only way it's going to change is to make even HARDER good choices. The American population is still caught up in finding someone -else- to blame for where we are, instead of tabling the "he did it... no SHE did it" and sitting down and doing the really HARD work of fixing it instead of wasting months on who did what. There is just too much excess in the damned budget, and some of it is going to have to go. Is it going to hurt? Hell yes. Sticking to the 'obesity' analogy, when I stopped being able to work out and walk, I should have stopped eating some of the stuff that was inclined to pad my ass -- but I didn't, and now my ass is big as a house, and it is HARD WORK and really painful to get it back off there, especially because I still have to deal with the core underlying illness on -top- of the disease caused by my 'bloat'. In the same way, getting our budget mess straightened out is going to HURT -- and honestly, the poor and the unemployed and the next generation shouldn't, IMO, have to carry the whole burden of this. There are a lot of folks out there who are getting government handouts who don't NEED it. Trickle-down economy -does not work-. If we need proof, it is all over the financial pages. It is a -failed theory- folks... so maybe it's time to pull in our belts and be our own Robin Hoods and start looking at where the money is -really- going, who is benefitting, and whether that is -really- the way we want to see ourselves.
I'll say, up front, that I hurt like hell for all the greedy folks who don't want to be part of a society and who want to keep all their money to themselves or give it to their rich friends AND for all those folks who think that the community should pay their way while they sit on their assets, play their Playstations and watch cars go round and round on a track while downing a 12-pack of OPB (other people's beer). Maybe there's a nice island somewhere that you can go to and not have to think at all about the people around you who are struggling, busting their butts to try to make ends meet, and dying while pharm companies, insurance companies, medical profiteers, corporate farmers, welfare frauds, and speculators line their pockets, but those days need to come to an end, my friends. If we're going to get a handle on this mess we've made, EVERYONE is going to need to suck up the pain, get off hir behind, and contribute, one way or another.
Dame Calla
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