Where government money really goes….

I feel this person’s pain. A member of Daily Kos that lives in rural Oklahoma writes:

My friends are nice people. I am nice people, and I am their friend too.

My friends do the same stuff that nice folk in the rest of the country do. They work hard, they play hard. They raise their kids well and they generally have their priorities in the same place everyone else does.

They are decent, honest and politically about as stupid as stupid gets.

I have always preferred the term “low-information” to pejorative terms like “stupid”. I am rapidly running out of patience though. If you have “low-information” yet refuse to accept any that is offered, then you are stupid.

I don’t really know why, or who to blame. I am tempted to blame them for their ignorance, their completely incurious acceptance of the conventional wisdom around here that all that is Republican will be their salvation, and all that is Liberal is dragging the country down to the level of, oh I dunno, Ulan Bator, or somewhere else most of them couldn’t find on a map. Maybe Wisconsin …

I have tried. I am blue in the face (sic) from trying, but to little avail. Even the little things are beyond their comprehension, or capacity to accept. Even things as basic as the President being an actual American, or that two wars contributed massively to the deficit, and cost 5000 American lives, needlessly.

They won’t hear of millionaires or billionaires paying a little more tax … and this from a guy who works for the sanitation department. Well he might be a billionaire one day. He fails to acknowledge, understand or concede that were he ever to be so fortunate then he actually would be able to afford to pay a little more tax, given that he would have more money than he would ever be able to spend.

He thinks that Liberals are “Big Government” mad. He thinks they should stop wasting his tax dollars on “government spending”. This spending isn’t actually quantified. He can’t tell me which government spending should be cut. He thinks that teachers, first responders, sanitation workers should have decent pay and benefits, but that Unions who try to obtain these benefits are ruining the country. [...]

So exactly where does all of that government money go? Paul Krugman explains:

I gather, from what I’ve been reading and hearing in various places, that the right-wing line is that it’s all Solyndra — that your tax dollars are going to pay for vast numbers of wasteful projects.

Now, even the Solyndra story is a lot more nuanced than that. But this seems like a good time to repeat, once again, the truth about federal spending: Your federal government is basically an insurance company with an army. The vast bulk of its spending goes to the big five: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, defense, and interest on the debt.

But what about recent deficits? They’re caused mainly by a fall in revenue and a mostly automatic increase in spending on safety-net programs. Oh, and the federal government has been providing aid to state and local governments, largely to limit layoffs of schoolteachers.

The amounts spent on anything remotely resembling Solyndra is a rounding error on a rounding error. It’s just not what your government does on any significant scale.

And if you want smaller government, either you’re talking about cuts in the big five, or you have no idea what you’re talking about.

On the lighter side: I am watching the Air Force vs. Boise State football game. It has been very good; a fumble helped BSU score a touchdown right before half time and go in with a 20-10 lead; it has been back and forth in the second half. Boise is driving and leads 34-26 (after blocking an Air Force extra point and having an exiting but futile multi-lateral attempt at a return). But with 3 minutes to go and an 8 point lead, BSU is confident enough to pass on any down to move the ball. It is down to 2 minutes and baring a fumble, it looks as if BSU will hold on. But it has been a great game.

Oh well; BSU just iced it with a field goal; they are up 37-26 with 42 seconds to go.

I was flipping through Yahoo College Football and saw this photo:

(this is from Auburn vs. LSU: photo from yahoo)

I think that it is great!

Something else I think is great:

(click the photo for access to a much larger one at the site; there are MANY more at The Spandex Statement)

Advertisement