Update from The Loony Bin, aka the Republican congressional delegation: The House on Friday rejected a move to fight the current economic crisis by imposing a freeze on federal spending.
According to The Associated Press, House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio (voted “Best Tan in the House” for three consecutive sessions) “said the jump in unemployment to 8.1 percent and the loss of 651,000 jobs in February is a sign of a worsening recession that demands better solutions from both parties.”
So what’s the Republicans’ better solution? Freeze federal spending, which means taking more money out of circulation and creating more unemployment. Yeah, that’s the ticket!
The measure failed on a vote of 160-218, with every Republican – including our own Rep. Greg Walden – voting for it and all but eight Democrats voting against it. A similar measure sponsored by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) was defeated in the Senate on Tuesday.
On a TV talking-heads show this morning, New York Times columnist David Brooks, speaking for what remains of the rational wing of the GOP, said the spending freeze idea was just plain nuts.
“The problem with [Republican congressional leaders] and the problem with [radio gasbag Rush] Limbaugh in terms of intellectual philosophy is they are stuck with Reagan,” Brooks said on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.” “They are stuck with the idea that government is always the problem. A lot of Republicans up in Capitol Hill right now are calling for a spending freeze in a middle of a recession/depression. That is insane.”
George H.W. Bush famously referred to Ronald Reagan’s trickle-down tax policy as “voodoo economics.” The mind simply boggles when trying to come up with an appropriate description for Boehnernomics.
This article appears in Mar 5-11, 2009.
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Yes freeze it!! I thought taxes were only supposed to be used for government only! and not used for privot industry’s, isn’t that ileagle, I won’t are kids kids money back!!!!!! and not givin to industry’s that run bad businesses.
Wayne, wuz you “home-skuled” by any chance?
“Prepare for a the next great depression lady’s [sic] and gentlemen.”
A little late to prepare, I’d say — it’s already here. The right-wingers created it by impoverishing the middle class through dribble-down economics and union-busting and by deregulating business to give the crooks free rein.
Now the liberals have to pull the conservatives’ chestnuts out of the fire just as they did in the 1930s.
“Do you know why the French and most socialist and communist countries hate America????? Because they are not free.”
LMAO!!! The French and the other “socialist” countries of Western Europe have just as much political freedom as we do, if not more. The richest 1% in those countries are maybe a little less free to rob the other 99%, but that’s a form of freedom I could do without.
BTW the French don’t hate America — they laugh at it. With good reason. The French would never put up with the bullshit Americans put up with from big business and the government.
“Welcome to your future.”
Hmm … a health care system that works, good public education through the university level, fast and efficient public transportation, the ability for workers to earn a living wage and have an adequate pension when they retire … is that the “socialist” future you’re terrified of? I certainly would welcome it. And I believe the great majority of Americans would too.
“Socialism” is just a label, a bogeyman that right-wingers have been using to scare Americans for more than a hundred years. Know what? It doesn’t scare people as much as it used to. Americans are finally getting wise to this old con.
HBM:
Obama says economy “not as bad as we think”!
What say you??? Can you argue with your messiah??
Guest: LMAO again! Is that the best rebuttal you can come up with — that it’s harder to buy a gun in France?
“We got no health care, we got a lousy education system, we got lousy public transportation, we got no job security or pensions or paid vacations, we gotta work two or three jobs (if we can get ’em) to make ends meet because of the shitty wages they pay us — but, dammit, WE GOT GUNS and that makes America THE GREATEST! Yeeeeeee-HAW!!!”
HBM: You must be so saddened that you could not be on the government dole your whole life!!