Posted by
Bill Crawford on Thursday, January 20, 2011 7:21:16 PM
I understand that, to those who don't go along with this, the end of the world is coming. The screaming will commence immediately.
Here are some of the wildest ones: first, they cut discretionary spending back to 2008 levels- the ones where Pelosi and her "swamp drainers" were lamenting George W. Bush and his "runaway deficit spending".
Eliminate 15% of the federal workforce through attrition. No "automatic" pay increases for five years (I can guess quite a few ways they will try to circumvent that).
Here's some things that get cut off entirely: Amtrak. PBS. The National Arts Endowment. UN Climatology studies. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac! If they had done the last one ten years ago, there would have been no implied federal guarantee for private mortgagers to hand out ninja loans to inflate the housing market.
Mohair and sugar subsidies. I was so hoping ethanol was on the list, but alas, not yet. There is a vote market out there for an enterprising Presidential candidate to start things off by telling Iowans that their ethanol money train is at an end, have their head handed to them and then find the rest of the country isn't so ready to condemn them.
Politics is all about timing. Many of these things have been in the conservative gunsight for years, but the public wasn't ready to go along with them. But when they spend a couple of years watching the national debt balloon up like a malignant tumor, things change.
So, here's the crazy part. If you follow along with the NY Times, the network news divisions and CNN, who are still stuck in 1980, there is going to be hell to pay for being so craven with the public trust. And six months later, the polling won't have changed. The same thing happened with ObamaCare, and it's proponents STILL haven't learned what happned to all the swing voters who were their best friends in 2008.
I know what happened to them. But nobody from that world wants to hear from me any more.
Editor's Note: I understand that the use of military terminology in political discourse is now verboten in some circles. It's not that I don't care. It's that I think the reasoning behind it is....well, vacuous.