Posted by M. Wright | Filed in: Blogosphere
I don’t mean to be too critical of LeftWingCracker’s Steve Steffens, who reacted emotionally to the tragedy in Minneapolis earlier this week. Though his proposed remedies may spring from a mix of crass partisanship and simple ignorance, I appreciate his sympathy and his concern that a similar tragedy may be in store for us here in Memphis. He may deny it, but LWC actually touches on some values that many Democrats and Republicans share, including an appreciation for competent governance, a desire to solve the problem of traffic congestion, as well as a hatred of political negligence and corruption.
That said, I don’t know whether to laugh, cry or rip out my hair.
Steffens blames the bridge collapse on the usual whipping boy, President Bush, whose list of dastardly accomplishments also includes: creating a category 5 hurricane, blowing up a levee, causing terrorists to hijack airplanes and/or blowing up two skyscrapers, starting a war to feed his insatiable appetite for Texas tea (goes great with pretzels), and creating a time machine allowing him to travel back to 1997 and force the Senate to reject the Kyoto treaty in a unanimous vote.
I’ll take “rip out my hair” for $100, Alex.
Answer: Elect tax-raising Democrats to both houses of Congress and the White House.
Question: How can we prevent disasters like this from ever happening again?
Correct!
Cracker’s post is reminiscent of the recent Onion headline: “John Edwards Vows To End All Bad Things By 2011.”
Yes, if only we would all vote for Democrats, there would be a rubber chicken in every pothole, the Earth would remain at a constant 72 degree temperature worldwide, and Christopher Reeve would not only walk again but would also come back from the dead, bringing with him rainbows, lollypops, world peace and free universal healthcare.
Cracker undercuts his own argument by reporting that the bridge wasn’t due for major repairs “until 2020″ and also by mentioning that “it happened in a relatively progressive state,” which suggests that perhaps it wasn’t Republican negligence at fault, after all. This does not, however, prevent him from concluding:
[W]e need a DEMOCRAT in the White House, because Democrats are the only ones who TRULY believe that humans are capable of self-governance, and know how to do it right. We need MORE Democrats in each house of Congress, in order to keep the Goopers from blocking legislation with needless filibusters.
Now let’s do a line-by-line rebuttal, starting in juicy paragraph three:
With the rape of the treasury via the unneeded Iraq war, plus the unnecessary tax cuts for the wealthiest 1%, our treasury is depleted, while our infrastructure crumbles. When we DO replace W, if he hasn’t declared a dictatorship by then, we will have to overhaul our tax structure in order to rebuild the infrastructure that has been crumbling since 2001.
- With the rape of the treasury via the unneeded Iraq war…
We have spent a total of about $440 Billion on Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Noble Eagle and Operation Iraqi Freedom combined.
Like it or not, we are fighting Al Qaida in Iraq, which is needed unless we want Al Qaida to win and continue to threaten our country and our allies. The cost of inaction, to speak for the other side of the equation, is estimated at about $429 Billion.
- …plus the unnecessary tax cuts for the wealthiest 1%…
The Bush tax cuts benefited taxpayers in every bracket, not just the highest ones. The Bush tax cuts made the tax burden more progressive, and high income taxpayers now pay more taxes relative to their share of income. The top 1% of wage earners now pays more than a third of all federal taxes.
The tax cuts were not “unnecessary,” as the average American works 120 days to pay his tax burden, a third of the year; and the state and local tax burden is at an all-time high. In addition, the Bush tax cuts led to job growth, lower unemployment and a robust economy.
- …our treasury is depleted…
Even with the tax cuts (or because of them), the federal deficit is shrinking much faster than projected. Federal revenue is at its highest level in history, and since 2003 when the Bush tax cuts were fully implemented tax receipts have increased by about 35 percent (not decreased). Tax revenue continues to outpace spending growth.
- …while our infrastructure crumbles…
The federal government has spent hundreds of billions on roads and bridges, but that spending has yielded little in the way of results: “Since 1970, the federal government has spent (in inflation-adjusted 2005 dollars) nearly $800 billion on roads, and the 50 state departments of transporÂtation combined have spent an even larger sum. Yet despite this vast amount of money, capacity inÂcreased by only 6 percent.”
- …When we DO replace W, if he hasn’t declared a dictatorship by then, we will have to overhaul our tax structure in order to rebuild the infrastructure that has been crumbling since 2001…
In 2005, President Bush signed a six-year transportation bill that gave Minnesota “an increase of about 46 percent (or about $1.1 billion) over the previous six-year bill.” Our infrastructure may be crumbling, but it’s not for a lack of federal funds.
Now let’s jump to paragraph six:
The next president, if he or she is a Democrat, MUST be ready to raise taxes to rebuild bridges and schools, because NONE of this can be privatized, this must be bid out (properly) and done. If it happened in a relatively progressive state like Minnesota, you know damn well it can happen here.
Ok, line-by-line again.
- The next president, if he or she is a Democrat, MUST be ready to raise taxes to rebuild bridges and schools…
The inconvenient truth is, Democrats always want to spend more money. But when they get more money, they tend to spend it on other projects, such as unwanted light rail systems and unnecessary sports stadiums (sound familiar, Memphis?).
Democrats consistently try to spend more than Republicans on every conceivable item, with only one notable exception: national defense.
To pay for all of this increased spending, progressive Democrats want to raise taxes by nearly 1 trillion dollars over the next five years.
But that still won’t pay for everything. Every few weeks, the Democrats find a new way to spend the tax dollars they imagine were lost with the Bush tax cuts or on military spending. When you add it all up, and combine that with more social giveaways, increased prescription drug benefits, more federal money for education and research and every other program, various “free” healthcare plans, etc… it becomes obvious that the Democrats are either not dealing with a realistic budget or are not being honest about their economic plans (or both).
- …because NONE of this can be privatized…
NONE? Bridges and schools can’t be privatized?!!
For pete’s sake, that’s not true at all.
By my count, there are some 83 private schools in Memphis.
Yes, private ownership of toll bridges peaked in the mid 19th century, but that doesn’t mean they can’t or don’t exist.
There are many privately owned and operated roads and highways throughout the world, including the Dulles Greenway in Northern Virginia, for example.
While private roads have been constructed all over Europe, fewer have been built in the United States. According to Wikipedia, “Typically, the U.S. private highways are built by companies that charge tolls for a period of time while the debt is retired; then the highway is turned over to government control.”
A list of private roads compiled by Mother Jones magazine includes projects underway in Florida, Oregon, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Texas, Virginia, Utah, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Alaska. This is in addition to past projects in Michigan, California, Alabama, Virginia, Illinois and Texas.
For more on the transportation privatization trend, you might be interested in “Roads Are Too Important to Be Left to Governments,” an editorial written by Gabriel Roth, author of Street Smart: Competition, Entrepreneurship, and the Future of Roads (2006).
- …this must be bid out (properly) and done. If it happened in a relatively progressive state like Minnesota, you know damn well it can happen here.
According to this link posted in a comment on LWC’s blog, the civil engineers lobby is asking for $1.6 trillion “to bring the nation’s infrastructure to a good condition.” So if $440 billion can be considered a rape of the federal treasury, it follows that this figure must be equivalent to a gang rape. What are the states doing with their own tax dollars? Minnesota already has one of the 10 highest tax burdens in the country.
The thing is, Democrats are really good at taking your money. Just ask the leading Democratic presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, who wants government to take more of your money:
“Many of you are well enough off that … the tax cuts may have helped you,” Sen. Clinton said. “We’re saying that for America to get back on track, we’re probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We’re going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.”
Yes, Democrats take away plenty of things, but somehow the “common good” always ends up being neither common nor good.
To put it briefly, socialists don’t build better bridges.
August 5th, 2007 at 9:37 am
This took too long to read. A point-by-point reply would take even longer to read, so I’ll try to keep this brief.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but this seems to be the main idea of your rebuttal: “Democrats consistently try to spend more than Republicans on every conceivable item, with only one notable exception: national defense.”
The reverse of this is also true, that is that Republicans don’t think government is good for anything but making war. However, at a time when our biggest threat comes not from other nations, but from small groups of pissed off people, this Cold War pre-9/11 mindset of invading other countries and undermining foreign governments is not only backfiring, but it is costing incredible amounts of tax money that would be better invested on our infrastructure at home.
I find it astonishing that the same Republicans who could look down the business end of a Soviet ballistic missile without blinking have turned into nelly housewives at the thought of bearded men hiding in caves.
It’s not just Bush, either, it’s the whole GOP. John McCain wants to bomb Iran. Tom Tancredo thinks we should nuke Mecca and Medina. It’s as if someone let a bee get in the car, and the Republicans want to take the biggest, most expensive bazooka they can find and blast the little insect to kingdom come.
Al Qaeda can be stopped without wasting all this money. If we had spent $429 billion in Minnesota and New Orleans instead of in Iraq, at least we’d have something to show for it. It’s much easier and less expensive to build bridges when the electricity is on all day and someone isn’t constantly trying to blow them up. And unlike in Iraq, had the money been spent on bridges and roads at home, we’d get to drive on them.
Socialists certainly don’t build better bridges, but the bridges in this country weren’t built by socialists. There is only one socialist in the United State Senate, Bernie Sanders, and he is not a Democrat.
Why do Republicans try to turn every enemy into a communist?
August 5th, 2007 at 11:34 am
The main idea is that LWC is wrong on just about every point in his post, which is why I went into detail showing his assumptions, statements and insinuations to be false.
But to respond to your comment, I would say that Republicans, or rather conservative Republicans, believe in the principle of federalism upon which this country was founded, a concept that protects the authority of local governments, defends personal and economic freedom, and limits the power of the federal government to its essential duties, among them national defense, justice and domestic tranquility.
The Democratic tendency to put every conceivable issue above these essential functions of federal government is what I find astonishing.
Bernie Sanders may be the only declared Socialist in Congress, but as you probably know he caucuses and votes with Democrats. The only difference is packaging. Republicans have no need to turn socialists into socialists.
Why do Democrats try to turn a serious, well-financed, tech-savvy, well-educated terrorist threat into insects, bumper stickers or just a group of emaciated cavemen?
August 5th, 2007 at 1:11 pm
I’ll admit that I live in a news blackout most of the time and am therefore quite simple minded when it comes to politics, but I just don’t get this blaming everything on Bush…He didn’t start this terrorism stuff…those countries have been fighting each other since Bible times and have borught it to our shores before…no one before Bush had the guts (that I know of) to do any thing about it. He certainly didin’t cause Katrina. He’s not powerful enough to control the weather and he wasn’t the one who let all those school buses sit down there in New Orleans and get flooded while the New Orleans mayor fled to higher ground…Are the bridges not the responsibility of each state? I don’t know, I’m just asking?
August 21st, 2007 at 1:45 pm
I know I’m late in replying, but I just checked back in here, and your question deserves an answer.
“Why do Democrats try to turn a serious, well-financed, tech-savvy, well-educated terrorist threat into insects, bumper stickers or just a group of emaciated cavemen?”
The reason for this is simple. The more attention we give terrorists, the more powerful they become. Terrorists exploit the weaknesses in human psychology to achieve ends far greater than their limited resources would ordinarily allow. Why give them the pleasure of our attention?
I’ve often heard conservatives complain to me about the fact that I don’t blog about the latest terrorist attacks. The implication, of course, is that liberals like myself simply don’t care. As the standard talking point goes, liberals “don’t recognize and appreciate the threat of terrorism.”
To the contrary, we absolutely do. We understand that terrorists are weak and cowardly by their very nature, and that giving them any attention whatsoever only feeds their pathology. They have the mindset of serial killers, and all of them, down to the last man, want to go down in a blaze of glory. Excuse me, I’m not going to give a assholes like that any encouragement.
When the President of the United States uses his bully pulpit to hype the latest terror threat, he’s doing Al-Qaeda’s work for them. Even as much as I hate George W. Bush’s guts, I still think he’s better than them, and those people don’t deserve his time. He demeans his office by even saying their names, and he all but does their bidding when he changes our entire foreign policy for the sake of a bunch of psychopaths.
So why do I characterize them as insects? Because from the point of view of the United States, they are insects. To say that we must react to Osama bin Laden by changing our fundamental vales as a country gives him a power over us that he doesn’t deserve.
9/11 should not have “changed everything.” That only encourages them. We will defeat radical Islamic terrorists only by treating them like the pests that they are.