February 07, 2005
Time to Go To Work, Work All Night
Search for underpants, hey!
The underpants gnomes return with a vengeance on a national scale:
(1) Start with a budget surplus.
(2) Run up large deficits with freewheeling spending initiatives and tax cuts that disproportionately benefit business and the wealthiest 1%.
(3) Notice the large deficits several years later after claiming for years that they "don't matter."
(4) Take tax cuts for businesses and wealthy off the table.
(4a) Start slicing entitlements for children and veterans, thereby pushing their health care burden down on state and local governments.
(4b) Shake your tiny fist at another 150 programs you probably don't intend to cut.
(5) Claim to plan to cut the gigantic budget deficits that weren't around when you took office in half by the time you leave office. Make sure that the initiatives that further explode the deficit are like cherry bombs you flushed down national toilet before you clear out.
(5a) If necessary (and it will be), use accounting tricks, such as not factoring in the costs of ongoing wars, making tax cuts permanent, new programs and transition costs of programs that don't even claim to solve the crisis you manufactured.
(6) Claim that math is hard, or disarm reporters with a "it's clearly my budget, it's got a lot of bullshit in it" quip.
(7) Profit!
If you can come up with an all-encompassing analogy, substituting your personal finances for the national ledger, I would be most appreciative. Mine usually ends around stage 4b with somebody from Bank of America Mastercard breaking my kneecaps, and me having to transport myself to the soup kitchen on a modified plywood skateboard.
UPDATE: Invaluable commentor HWRNMNBSOL reminds me of another extended analogy (that nobody paid attention to) that I could have reprinted at no additional brain-cost.
Two words: Milton Friedman
That modified skateboard crack is offensive to everyone who ever served in 'Dha Nang' or 'Mha Lang' or, you know, all over the place.
Posted by: drew at February 7, 2005 01:54 PMAll-ecompassing analogy using personal finances, go.
1. Take a shit in my toilet.
2. Removed turd by hand.
3. Polish turd by hand to a nice high gloss shine.
4. Package polished turd in cellophane wrap.
5. Label the wrapped polished turd with a label stating "High quality, exclusive, organic, high-gloss shine fertilizer. $399.99"
6. Sell labeled wrapped polished turd to the unwitting public that should know better.
7. Mechanize and repeat.
8. Incorporate.
9. Take company public with high-profile IPO.
10. Steal all value from public company, screw shareholders and employees.
11. Make huge personal profit.
11. Take fortune and move to Costa Rica.
That's as close as I can get. Sorry.
Posted by: Kop at February 7, 2005 02:21 PMStealing underpants is hard. Stealin trillions of dollars from hard-working Americans is easy.
Posted by: NTodd at February 7, 2005 02:55 PMHey you, lazy American Joe! You want million dollars? You want five beautiful girls like I got? 20 year ago I come from Vietnam on boat; now I buy big fancy boat! You like that? you can do it; no money down!
Here how! check it out, I tell you everything! First, why you pay all those taxes? you so stupid! You take back you money, buy nice refrigerator, no worry about basic services! why I lie to you? you get rich like me, lounge on boat with hot models! I love AMERICA!
Now this important, you listen up good! You wanna fight big war in Asia, blow up two country, foom, nobody left? no problem! You get started now, no money down! you pay later when big internet boom make you rich! what you say, no big internet boom any more? shut up, you stupid Joe! now I got seven girls on my boat! how you like that, hah?
What you mean, you got bills to pay? paying those bills not so smart! How come you feed poor people, send little kid to school? they should just get on boat to other country and get rich there, just like I did! Don't be like dumb guy, don't spend you money on those crazy people! You pay for war, buy second refrigerator, get another model on your boat!
Hey guess what Jack! while you reading this, I make another million, get number 8 bikini model, also get re-elected president! four more years baby! no money down! you so STUPID!
[ed: link added at the top of the comment for visual effect]
Posted by: HWRNMNBSOL at February 7, 2005 03:09 PMAs the Invisible Sky Fairy is monitoring all my thoughts and deeds, I did not recall the above linked posting. If it had I'd have just linked to it too. I'm sure it just quietly crept into my subconscious mind and stayed dormant there until it could express itself, much like herpes.
Just to cherry pick one near and dear to my heart, when talking about the veterans, you forgot the part where the co-pay goes from $7 to $15 and only applies to vets making above a rather high threshhold *and* if they're non-service related injuries. Meanwhile, this administration has nearly doubled VA funding. There's plenty to bash away at, but that kind of misinformation doesn't do anyone any good.
Posted by: Ted at February 7, 2005 04:15 PM(1) VFW press release:
"The claimed increase of $880 million for VA health care funding is really only about $100 million once you subtract those amounts that would be shouldered by military veterans," said John Furgess, the VFW's commander-in-chief. "And $100 million neither matches inflation nor do anything to help the VA keep pace with the needs of a veterans' population that now includes wounded troops from Iraq and Afghanistan," he said.
The budget proposal slashes $351 million from veterans' nursing homes by serving 28,000 fewer residents and significantly reduces state grants from $114 million to $12 million. It cuts $4 million from medical and prosthetic research, bringing to $53 million the total amount cut from research in two years. The proposed increase of 113 employees to help process veterans disability claims barely covers the number of positions that were deleted just last year, and won't begin to make a dent in the current backlog of 480,000 compensation and pension claims, a number of which are from veterans from the current war on terrorism.
(2) From last year: John McNeill, deputy director of the VFW, credited the Bush administration with increasing the VA's health care budget during the last few years. But, he added, "just as they are getting close [to the needed level of spending], this proposal retrogrades everything. It doesn't even take care of the inflation factor." Linda Bennett, AFGE's legislative director, was equally critical of the proposed cuts in nursing home care, which she said would reduce the number of full-time VA nursing home beds to 37 percent below the level set in law by Congress in 1998. She said the VA has been trying to move more veterans into state-run nursing homes and "non-institutional" settings, such as home health care programs.
(3) It hasn't been doubled, it's been increased 40% over 5 years (according to the Administration's spokesperson), which obviously isn't nearly enough to keep up with the aging veterans' pool, plus the demands of new people with catastrophic injuries coming in from Afghanistan and Iraq.
I'd say 'You've been served', Ted
Posted by: drew at February 7, 2005 05:06 PMSince I like my kneecaps just where they are, I've never gotten beyond step #2. But I like Kop's idea very much, and may steal it. After all, my Vice-Preznit says there's lots of money to be made on EBay.
Posted by: andante at February 7, 2005 05:10 PMROFLMAO If you think the VFW is a credible source, you're delusional. Might as well start using AARP as an impartial source for elderly issues.
It's all about the power, and the national organizations for vets (VFW and American Legion) are just as ego-trippin' as any other.
Posted by: Ted at February 11, 2005 03:29 PM