I AM STILL USING THE INTERNETS. OBAMA DIDN’T TAKE IT AWAY. YOU CAN CALM DOWN NOW AND QUIT TRYING TO SCARE MONEY OUT OF PEOPLE.
In case you’re wondering, the birthers over at ‘The United States Justice Foundation’ have been sending out emails for days advising us that they have had a full on psychotic break with reality and now think that somehow, I guess through a kind of magic, the President will be taking over the internet.
Meanwhile, in the real world, Rep. Hensarling has decided to take the axe to Fannie and Freddie, two of the five functioning pieces in the mortgage market today. The other three, FHA, VA and USDA will eventually find their way under Hensarling’s microscope where he’ll find a way to screw them up as well (if there’s one thing conservatards like Hensarling are good at, it’s screwing up a perfectly functioning government program by bringing in private enterprise to do a worse job at twice the price). I’m sure you’ll hear much about how Fannie and Freddie (AKA, the Agencies, the GSE’s) caused the financial crisis which is a lie. What you won’t hear is that the private banks actually cost the taxpayers FAR more in terms of guarantees and outright bailouts. AIG and CITI have both taken close to or more than the Agencies.
So much for that free market and all those overpaid bankers who know what they’re doing and don’t need a bunch of pesky regulation.
In other news of the real world, Governor Perry is trying to persuade everyone that the budget hole in Texas really isn’t that big using the following nonsensical explanation…
Many budget analysts say the real shortfall exceeds $15 billion. If lawmakers were to maintain spending at current levels and then fund programs to account for school enrollment growth, health care services for a growing population and other expanded needs, the gap could rise to as much as $27 billion. That would represent more than quarter of all state discretionary spending.
Perry, a Republican, said he doesn’t assume the budget has to grow.
“I don’t think we have a budget hole,” he said. “It’s only a budget hole when somebody has wished that they had more money.”
Not for nothing, but this isn’t an issue of ‘wishing for more money’, this is an issue of ‘we can’t pay our bills because our income exceeds the demands on it’. Perry apparently believes that, despite the fact that we have more demand on public services, that somehow we can meet the increased demand with less money. It’s completely asinine and frankly a pretty stupid argument considering that these cuts are about to hit his core constituencies in the suburbs.
To say this will hurt the Republicans in their strongholds would be like saying that the Mariel Boatlift was a very nice regatta.
Let’s make this clear… we don’t have a spending problem in Texas, we have an income problem. We do not have the tax income to support the spending people demand. Of course, morons will whine and kvetch about ‘the illegals’ but they aren’t the problem since they are pretty well targeted (like all poor people) by our taxes. The only group not paying enough? Corporations and the wealthy who, on a percentage basis, pay next to nothing in taxes compared to most individuals.
Now, Texas has never been known for it’s fantastic public services. However, what’s left is absolutely essential to educating our children, protecting our communities and making sure that businesses can operate smoothly. Even when times were good, our budgets have been remarkably lean and devoid of extras. Now, we’re going to cut into bone and organs.
It’s unfortunate, but the people of Texas voted for this and now they’re going to get it. Many of them wanted to ‘show Obama!’ and, as a result, they’ve given themselves four more years of the worst Governor in our history. So, thanks for that. You decided not to shoot yourselves in the foot not once, not twice but 200 times.
What’s most offensive to me, as a Texan, is the fact that at some point we stopped talking about everything we could do and started talking only about what we couldn’t do. Small government doesn’t build world class schools or massively improve our infrastructure. Small government can’t figure out how to do anything but dig us deeper into a budget hole while we cut back continuously on our capabilities.
The report card is in… small government = FAIL.