Entitlements

I'm getting about fed up with all this talk about "entitlement" programs and how they need to be cut as part of a responsible debt management. Every American who works pays into Social Security and Medicare. Retired people paid into these programs their entire careers. They trusted the government to hold their retirement savings. Unfortunately, some of them voted a bunch of Republicans into office who spent part of the money and now they say they aren't ever going to pay it back. That means the government robbed my parents and is refusing to make it right. They have the nerve to tell my parents, who worked hard and saved responsibly all their lives, that they're spoiled children for expecting to get what they earned.

They repealed Glass-Steagall so my Mom's retirement was cut in half by the stock market collapse. They ruined the housing market by artificially inflating home prices and causing a bubble. Now my parents equity in their home is substantially cut as well. These are two people who did everything by the 1960's book of responsible financial management and now they're going to be lucky if their insurance lasts out their lives.

Entitlement my ass. Republicans think that they are entitled to all the money and everyone else can shine their shoes.

Thanks again, Lefty

Mike Stanfill (aka Lefty) deserves your eyeballs and your cash if you can spare it. He's been publishing a great comic every other weekday at The Far Left Side for years now. His rants are often inspiring and always worth reading. Today he posted a link to this article "9 Things The Rich Don't Want You To Know About Taxes." Take a look at the chart below then go read it. After that, call up your accountant and have him pull all of you retirement out of Wall Street. If you have a company stock package, sell it and buy T-bills. At least they'll still be around when you retire, unlike the stocks which will be belly up while some broker sits on a boat in the Caymans and complains about how ugly and depressing America has become.




Also, today is Steal Something From Work Day so get out there and take a little back. They're stealing your life, your health, and your dignity. Don't you deserve a little something back?

Cagle Cartoon Roundup

It's been a while since I posted a cartoon roundup. I went to Cagle's page today to see what I could find and now I'm kind of depressed. It seemed like there were three right-wing comics for every left-wing one I found. It wasn't there long before I gave up and quit looking. Before I did, though, I managed to find a few good ones for you. The last one's for my boyfriend, who was just telling me about Lampedusa the other day.

by Tim Eagean

by Mike Lester

by Martyn Turner

It's worth noting that Mr Turner is working for an Irish newspaper.

by Damien Glez

All cartoons belong to their creators and can be licenced for republication at Daryl Cagle's cartoonist index page.

deficits matter

Mighty thanks to Crooks and Liars for delivering this graph to my rss reader.

It also came with this quote: Ronald Reagan came to office in 1981 promising to simultaneously slash taxes, massively increase defense spending and balance the budget. Instead, as his budget director David Stockman acknowledged last year, Reagan produced red ink as far as the eye could see:

"[The] debt explosion has resulted not from big spending by the Democrats, but instead the Republican Party's embrace, about three decades ago, of the insidious doctrine that deficits don't matter if they result from tax cuts."

See how that works? Republicans would like to think of themselves as frugal spenders who cut government waste. All they really do is cut spending to help the underprivileged and piss away any so-called-savings on tax cuts for the rich and corporations. Even a 5th grader can understand that if you're taking in less money than you used to then you have to cut spending by that same amount or go into debt. The Tea Party seems to think that tax cuts can't hurt anything because "it's not the government's money to lose, it's yours". Well guys, if that's true then your paycheck isn't yours, it's your employer's. You say you earned it so it's yours? The government earns your tax money every time they arrest a drunk driver and put him in jail, every time they regulate how much your utilities can charge you, every time they help pay for your cholesterol medication that you need because you won't put down the Doritos and exercise.

The stupid! It costs!

Not What I Wanted

In the past few weeks I have started back to school for the first time in lo these many years. Two of my classes are using old PBS documentaries in class. The age of the material certainly made me wonder why they are using something so old and dated. I don't have a TV so it took some serious thinking on my part to remember that PBS isn't making quality documentaries any more. The Ken Burns series' are ok but what else is there? Every time I hear about a great new educational series it's from the BBC. Don't get me wrong, I like the BBC. I don't want to reject the great work they're doing, but what about shows like Nova? The schools are still using the old programs because they were good but don't students need up-to-date resources, especially in math and science?

What about the Discovery channel and the other cable networks? I don't know? What about them? The last thing of any worth I saw was Walking With Dinosaurs and guess what? It was from the BBC. The most expensive documentary ever produced according to the Guinness Book of World Records. Discovery just had an American replace the voiceovers.All those penguin documentaries? Same story. Where does the BBC get the money for things like that? The British government charges a TV tax for every television subscriber which is used to fund the BBC in all its many forms. It pays for a radio news service that is the most respected news source in many parts of the world. It pays for Dr Who. It pays for Radio 4 playing pop music for teenagers. It pays for a web presence that many Americans rely on for their daily news. And it pays for new science documentaries every year.

And in America PBS is a wishy-washy presence that very few people even use. It's funded primarily by donations and trusts from private individuals. The approximately 10% of its budget that comes from the federal government is constantly under threat and even now is on the chopping block. This is so similar to the American attitude toward education in general that it bears mentioning. Almost every school district in the country has had cuts this year. No one wants to pay. Everyone wants the system to work for free. The results of this attitude are evident in the fact that the US is far down the list of Best Educated Nations even though we spend more than other countries. Just like our health care. Yet we are so convinced that we're the best nation on Earth that we're incapable of taking any lessons from anyone else.

We're all gonna get what we deserve.