willclarke.net

There are seven stages, and Rush Limbaugh perfectly illustrated stage three today in the Wall Street Journal. The shock and denial was long, the pain and guilt was short, and now we’re on to bargaining:

Fifty-three percent of American voters voted for Barack Obama; 46% voted for John McCain, and 1% voted for wackos. Give that 1% to President Obama. Let’s say the vote was 54% to 46%. As a way to bring the country together and at the same time determine the most effective way to deal with recessions, under the Obama-Limbaugh Stimulus Plan of 2009: 54% of the $900 billion — $486 billion — will be spent on infrastructure and pork as defined by Mr. Obama and the Democrats; 46% — $414 billion — will be directed toward tax cuts, as determined by me.

Aww, we get the wackos! It’s adorable how he thinks the 46% aren’t wackos themselves. But I digress - since when is the Executive’s policy based on how many people voted against him? I would have loved to hear his response to that argument back when Bush got 47.9% of the vote and Gore got 48.4. I’m sure he’d react as calmly and open minded as he’s asking Democrats to be today.

Obama won, and he gets to set the agenda. He put a remarkable amount of tax cuts into the stimulus bill for the crazy liberal you made him out to be over the past 12 months. Take your wasteful tax cuts, shut the hell up, and be happy you have a president who at least treats his opposition respectfully.

In a desperate measure to oppose the $900 billion stimulus plan moving through congress, Republicans are providing leadership by bitching (which I propose should be called bitchership). There’s a basic formula for this bitchership: find an obscure part of the bill that accounts for a fraction of a percent of the total, find some way to attack it as “faggy” or in opposition to Traditional Values of America™, and go on the cable networks to bitch about it. Here are some examples:

• Contraception: The bill provides $200 million that states can request to provide contraception to low-income mothers. Not abortion, just contraception. The congressional budget office projects that this measure will save over $600 million in Medicaid costs because fewer children born to poor mothers means less federal money spent on their care. Plus, more mothers can keep their jobs because they won’t be pregnant with children they can’t support. However, contraception is used for sex and sex is yucky so we can’t have the government doing yucky things. This measure is now out, flushing over $400 million down the toilet.
• STD Prevention: the bill has $350 million to teach prevention of STDs. This measure will employ people for the task and reduce health care costs. Of course, like the contraception measure, this means talking about gross, sinful sex. Plus, why teach about STDs when that $1.5 billion we spent on abstinence-only education worked so well?
• Bike paths: Minority leader John Boehner attacked the plan for providing about $1 million (0.0001% of the total!) to adding bike paths to roads and highways. Half of all car trips taken by Americans would take less than 20 minutes on a bike. More Americans biking would mean a healthier populace with more money in their wallet and lower dependence on foreign oil. However, it would also mean fewer cars on the road, which is pretty gay if you ask Republicans!
• Revitalization of the National Mall: with Obama in the White House, Washington DC is cool again. Tourism is expected to hit new highs, but projects to pretty it up would involve landscape artists and decorators, and we all know how fruity they are.

The point of this rant is, all the measures being attacked by Republicans are wonderful, money saving, job creating proposals. And, combined, all the measures I mentioned account for less than 1% of the total bill. At this point it looks like they may all be cut, thanks to your local Republican leader.

Update: the National Mall revitalization program is out.

The CBC is reporting that Canadian panhandlers in Edmonton make up to $400 a day, meaning a six figure salary if they were to do it full-time (which I’m guessing they don’t). Still, it’s a hefty chunk of change, literally, and from my experience they deserve every bit of it.

Now, I’m making a big assumption here that Edmonton panhandlers are like Vancouver panhandlers, the only Canadian panhandlers I have any experience with. But if it’s true, they earned their money by being quite possibly the nicest panhandlers on Earth. Here is my exchange with one such person:

Panhandler: Excuse me sir, could you spare any change?
Me (rudely): No - sorry.
Panhandler: No need to be sorry! Have a nice day!

I should also mention at this point that the panhandler was adorable and looked like he belonged in some Christmas movie. I bet if I gave him a loonie he would have clicked his heels together.

I’m not saying it’s a noble profession, but if any panhandlers deserve to make six figures, it’s panhandlers like the ones in Vancouver.

Yesterday I watched Georgia congressman Tom Price on CNN attack Obama’s stimulus plan because it called for government spending instead of tax cuts. Have Republicans ever heard of a problem to which the solution was not cutting taxes? Ignoring the fact that the plan DOES call for tax cuts (nearly a third of the 850 billion), the reality is that in this economic climate, lower taxes will result in more saving by Americans, not more spending. Tax cuts do not increase money velocity in the lean times.

I don’t know whose interests they think they’re serving with this tax cut rhetoric. People want increased spending on infrastructure, overwhelmingly. In fact, it’s difficult to overstate the degree to which they support increased government spending on these projects. A poll by the conservative pollster Frank Luntz found support for the president’s proposals near-unanimous. He was even surprised to learn that 74% of Republicans support raising taxes in order to build our infrastructure. That’s right, 3 out of 4 Republicans want taxes raised.

Conservatives like Tom Price need to get it through their hair plugs that the era of preaching quasi-anarchistic small government “conservative” principles is over. There are essential public services that the government officials should take pride in providing to their constituents, and do their best to ensure they are provided in an efficient and fully-funded manner. Or they should lose their jobs.

A few Christmases ago I got a sleeveless down vest from Timberland. It looked nice and seemed warm, so I showed appreciation for it, but years later I have not worn it once. Why? Because sleeveless vests in the winter are the most pointless item of clothing ever conceived.

Why would you want to keep your torso ridiculously warm and leave your arms to freeze? It isn’t like they make down sleeves to keep the rest of your upper body warm. What’s next, down bikinis, for the woman who can maintain her inner body temperature my only covering her boobs and crotch?

Sorry mom, it’s going to the Salvation Army.

Bush apologists keep insisting we should let history judge the president. Why? The only thing waiting to reserve judgement will do will give us time to forget the constantly annoying, pig-headed bullshit of this president and allow those same apologists to interject their opinions at a time where it won’t matter anymore.

What’s wrong with judging him now, when our memories are still fresh? In fifty years we won’t remember the little things, like the insistence on abstinence-only sex education, the underfunding of the EPA and education, directives to the FDA to put less scrutiny on drug companies, the ban on stem cell research, and hundreds of other basic policy decisions that truly made him a terrible president. Those things matter. They need to be remembered.

Canvassing for Obama in South Carolina, December 2007

Okay, maybe it was a little cool.