Fat & Lazy? How 'bout Criminally Stupid

“After twelve years of being in power, you tend to get fat and lazy, and in some cases arrogant with respect to your positions,” said Saul Anuzis, chairman of the Michigan Republican party. “There is no doubt that we have had people who have gotten caught up in both illegal activities and immoral activities and none of that helps the party as a whole."

Never say the GoP are all inveterate idiots. Not even the ones from Michigan.

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Financial whining

I'm so sick of listening to complaining about cutting government spending. Let's back up and look at it again, folks. How to fix the country's budget/spending problem:

1. Figure out how much money is actually coming in
2. Make a list of everything that you want the government to pay for.
3. Make a list - it'll be reeeaaaaaaaaaallllllllllllly long - of every last damn dime spent by Uncle Sam. Do NOT make this list first. Ignore, completely and totally ignore what we're spending today when you make the list of what you actually want to pay for.
4. Start spending and stop when your balance sheet hits $0.

The financial wizard/con-men are trying to screw you by including point #3 above. This is completely irrelevant to the solution. Ignore today's reality when trying to create tomorrow's. Really. Seriously.

"Cutting Spending" is the modern mantra. It's bullshit. You don't want to pay for the state's maternal and child welfare (a.k.a. WIC) ... just don't put it on the We Want To Pay For It list. Cut everything!
Start from Zero. Not from the current budget.
What do you want? Can you pay for it? Figure out what you can afford. Everything else will be eliminated anyway, so stop arguing about whether or not to cut it.

Back up.

1. Decide whether or not you want to live with Capitalism. If you don't, please go away. If you do, please wake up and smell the coffee. You don't live in a capitalistic economy, if you live in the USA. I hate to break it to you, but all of you already live in a socialist state which has NOTHING to do with whether GW or Obama is in office.

2. Eliminate every last goddamned penny of federal subsidies. Take the resultant $1.6 Trillion* and cut the federal deficit by half.

Subsidies are economic engineering. A True and Pure Capitalist would refuse to take them. A real capitalist would ... well, actually she would take them. And any other damn thing the federal government threw her way.
Then she would start to rely on them.
Then she would demand them as her due.
Then she would claim they were her right as a business owner.
Then ... one day she might look in the mirror and realize that she's been sucking off the teat of the American Taxpayer and has committed Capitalistic Heresy and Apostasy.

If you want subsidies, that's fine. Just don't ask for them and then delude yourself into thinking you're a Capitalist.


As I listen in painful agony every weekday morning to 91.1 FM, I hear people of all parties saying they want to cut spending. And I never ever ever ever hear them say exactly what they want to cut.

The following need to be removed from any conservative (that is, the American ones) whining about social problems. None of this would be a problem if you just sucked it up and did what you're supposed to be doing according to the Word of God and Conservative Society:

1. birth control: if you ain't married, you don't need it because you aren't having sex
   
2. abortion: since the only way you'd get pregnant is if you're married, you can't need an abortion
   
3. financial aid: if you can't afford to pay tuition, you need to get off your ass, get a job, and save up your money. You cannot sit back and expect me to pay for you to go to college.
4. unemployment benefits: you'd have a job, if you just got off your ass and made a real effort
5. unemployment benefits: if you'd saved your money like a responsible person, you wouldn't need to worry about a year of being without a job because your neighbors and fellow parishoners will be helping you like Good Folk Should
   
6. job safety: if you just do your job properly, there wouldn't be any accidents.
7. drug safety: if we just let Pharma alone, they'll be more than happy enough to let us know if there's a problem with their products
   
8. food safety: if it isn't safe, don't buy it and the market will realign itself to reflect the customer demand.

Holy cow - think of how much money we could save by eliminating all of the government agencies or laws which regulate the above items?
OSHA
MSHA
USDA/APHIS/PHS
EPA
CSB
FDA

This, plus cutting all subsidies should fix the Whole Financial Crisis and we could get back on with our lives.

Ad spending for election here in MN

Some of the TV stations are not releasing independent expenditure buys related to state races, including the governor's race, saying they are not required to do so under state and federal laws.
... therefore it's
1) a wonder the law has actually lasted
2) obvious the law will be repealed ASAP


Based upon the information contained therein about candidate spending,

1) the GOP will do anything legally possible to win the governor's race because they'll be horribly embarrassed if they out-spent Dayton more than 2:1, but still lost
Emmer(R): $1,713,780
Dayton(D): $ 889,330

2) the GOP voters apparently charge more, but the DFL votes are worth more
Emmer(R): 1,713,780 / 910,382 = 1.89 $/vote = 0.53 vote/dollar
Dayton(D): $ 889,330 / 919,238 = 0.97 $/vote = 1.03 vote/dollar

3) you can't win a state-wide seat on a shoe-string budget.
Governor: Hakeem = 6,187 votes (0.3%)
Auditor: Young = 54,152 votes (2.7%)
Admittedly, this might be interpreted as personally knowing me guarantees you can't win state office.
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She Who Must Not Be Named #2