Why are Americans so in love with big government?

[Traianvs]

Fear not! The ONE will provide health care for everyone. Then at least your yankee taxes will be used for the good rather than for waging wars all over the planet.

[KrazyHorse]

bump for GP

[TCO]

Kittie...I get so angry at this. What do you want me to say? IK've already made not so vague 1911 refernces at Just One Minute. I think the Repukes in Congress and Bush opened the door for all this.

There remains a public dislike for the bailouts. But no credible spokesperson to be the standard bearer.

[KrazyHorse]

It's not just the bailouts. Your political system has gotten two parties who want to be divorced from fiscal realities. The dems want to spend, but don't want to tax. The repubs don't want to tax but do want to spend. Over time tax revenues go down (as percent of GDP) and spending goes up.

What will it take to make the electorate realize that's ****ed up?

Also, let's say I was American. I'd want to vote for somebody who was going to cut spending (in a serious way, and not with stupid **** like cutting 100 million from a 3 trillion budget) but also somebody who wasn't hung up on ****ing abortion or gay marriage and who wasn't going to spend his time letting torture go on.

WTF? Can you guys find somebody who will be reasonable on all those things? Will the Northeast start electing people like that? Maybe the Mountain West?

[DaShi]

It's not just the bailouts. Your political system has gotten two parties who want to be divorced from fiscal realities. The dems want to spend, but don't want to tax. The repubs don't want to tax but do want to spend.

Is this deliberate or are you drunk?

[KrazyHorse]

a) I am drunk.

b) what? I realize those were the same thng, but I thought that listing the key priority of each party first it would emphasize things

[DaShi]

K. Just seemed a bit strange and wasn't sure who would want to tax.

[KrazyHorse]

Nobody. And nobody wants to cut spending. They just put priorities on different things.

[The Mad Monk]

It's not just the bailouts. Your political system has gotten two parties who want to be divorced from fiscal realities. The dems want to spend, but don't want to tax. The repubs don't want to tax but do want to spend. Over time tax revenues go down (as percent of GDP) and spending goes up.

What will it take to make the electorate realize that's ****ed up?

Also, let's say I was American. I'd want to vote for somebody who was going to cut spending (in a serious way, and not with stupid **** like cutting 100 million from a 3 trillion budget) but also somebody who wasn't hung up on ****ing abortion or gay marriage and who wasn't going to spend his time letting torture go on.

WTF? Can you guys find somebody who will be reasonable on all those things? Will the Northeast start electing people like that? Maybe the Mountain West?

The closest thing we have to that is Glenn Beck.

[DaShi]

We're screwed.

[KrazyHorse]

The closest thing we have to that is Glenn Beck.

God help you in that case. Because the guy is bat****.

[The Mad Monk]

He's the first to admit it.

[The Mad Monk]

VOICE: The Glenn Beck program presents more truth behind America's march to socialism.

GLENN: Well, socialism isn't the easiest thing to sell in this country, believe it or not. It's important that you have a strategy, and Barack Obama has a strategy. His apparent strategy is called a straight face, which I don't know how he does it but I mean, you do something that drastically moves us toward socialism and then you make a speech in which you act like you did the exact opposite. That's a fantastic strategy. It seems to be working.

For example, was this a critic of Obama in congress or was it Obama himself: We cannot settle for a future ‑‑ I'm quoting: We cannot settle for a future of rising deficits and debts that our children cannot pay. Too often the result is wasteful spending, bloated programs and inefficient results. It's time to fundamentally change the way we do business in Washington, end quote.

Amazingly not a critic of the administration, that was the administration. Barack Obama said that he was fretting about wasteful spending, bloated programs and inefficient results, and he managed to say it with, his strategy, a straight face, completely without irony. Not even a hint of, not a whiff of irony, nowhere. It's like yesterday when he said we're going to go after those people who are doing things overseas and then not paying their fair share of taxes, and he did it with Tim Geithner right next to him! There was no irony. Nobody went, "I can't believe it. We can see if Geithner didn't pay his taxes when he was working overseas." See, that's the key. See, if while you are saying it you break into hysterical laughter, somebody might bother looking past the fact that you seem to, you know, seem to act like, you know, you're cool to hang out with and then actually look at what you're actually saying and doing. Now, you can't always get away with it. I mean, it didn't really seem to work when he was trying to take credit for his $100 million in savings out of his 300 ‑‑ I'm sorry, $3.55 trillion budget. The media, usually employed just to come up with new adjectives to describe how wonderful he is, "He's the Messiah" or, you know, how toned his wife's arms are. They actually did their job on this one, pointing out for someone in $40,000 in debt, it's like cutting one Starbucks latte out of the budget per year and so the people in the press corps went, "You've got to be kidding." They saw the irony. And, of course, the very same day he was touting the $100 million in savings. He sent $100 billion to the International Monetary Fund to strengthen their war chest. Like to point out, $100 million is less than $100 billion. And the International Monetary Fund is the place that Tim Geithner was working when he didn't pay his taxes. And I'd also like to point out the third piece here: Their war chest? We're sending $100 billion for their war chest? Really? Does anybody notice we don't have any money in our war chest? And since we have actual wars going on, we could use a war chest? You know, not to mention that we have ‑‑ I think we have killer pigs attacking us or something. I'm not really sure what's going on. But that was a rare hole in the straight‑faced philosophy of government. Coming soon, universal healthcare will save us money, cap and trade will create jobs, and President Obama will work closely with Republicans to achieve bipartisan solutions.

http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/24911/

[Imran Siddiqui]

Governor John Huntsman of Utah may be closest thing to KH's wants... but he may be a big pro-lifer (I dunno, he's made waves for being a Republican governor who supports civil unions for gays and says WTF to the rest of the Republican Party). But he is a Mormon...

[The Mad Monk]

Just one more. I promise.

Glenn Beck: Bankruptcy Is Good

April 30, 2009 - 23:23 ET

Watch Glenn Beck weekdays at 5 p.m. and 2 a.m. ET on FOX News Channel

Word from the White House that Chrysler is headed toward bankruptcy; Thursday was the deadline for the car company to provide a restructuring plan. Creditors reportedly turned down an unbelievably generous offer in which they would get the privilege of forgiving almost $7 billion of debt.

So here's the one thing that no one else will say about this story today: We have been in denial. Bankruptcy is good! In fact, the word "bankruptcy" has been absent from our vocabulary for way too long.

When the economy began to fall apart, most of us knew in our guts that the best way to stop a ship from sinking is to get rid of the deadweight. Let struggling companies declare bankruptcy, reset and start over. The system works.

But the "smart people," including George W. Bush, said no, no, no we can't let companies go bankrupt! Do you know how many jobs that would cost us? This is an emergency, we need to save them!

How's that working out for us now?

Chrysler still declared bankruptcy. Fannie and Freddie are hemorrhaging money. At least six more major banks need government cash and others that want to give the cash back are finding that the government won't take it.

Oh, and all of those jobs we were scared about losing? They're gone anyway.

We need to stop trying to make this hurt less and instead take our lumps. Remember the expression "no pain, no gain?"

But as I read a story in The New York Times Thursday, it became obvious that's not happening. The headline read: "Economy slides at fastest rate since the 1950s." Scary, except that it continued: "Silver lining detected."

And the silver lining? Consumer spending is up.

That is not a silver lining.

What if the headline read "Little Johnny is sick. But the good news is, he also has a fever."

Not good.

For years we denied that our economy is based on, as the president said Wednesday night, "a pile of sand." We closed our eyes, covered our ears and said "charge it!" Yet even after our house of cards has fallen, we still aren't facing facts. We still cheer on consumer spending as if it's our savior.

It's sand!

We look for silver linings in the job market and hear that 8.5 percent unemployment isn't too bad. Fine, but what about the cities? Washington, D.C.'s unemployment 9.5 percent; Oakland, California: 10.5 percent; Los Angeles County: 11.3 percent and Detroit: 14.9 percent.

We are looking for silver linings in housing, but the numbers are dismal. Phoenix now has the distinction of being the first city where home prices have fallen 50 percent from their peak.

The point is that this is not the time to look for silver linings, it's a time to use some common sense and stop living in denial. Common sense is the reason we are not sending troops to close the border to keep out the swine — sorry — H1N1 virus. What's the point? It's already here, that would be a waste of resources. Man is not going to conquer this virus, we can only try to manage it and hunker down while it burns itself out. The same common sense should be applied to the economy.

The economy has a virus and it needs to run its course. Our weakest companies are infected; some are in critical condition and will die no matter what kind of government antibiotic we try to keep them alive. But instead of letting them fail we're trying all sorts of experimental techniques. And they're all failing. Now we're all in danger.

I have hope — I really do. But this is deeper than most people think it is. Now is not the time to keep listening to the so-called experts who missed this the first time around. It's time to start listening to your gut.

Bailouts and spending can't save us, but common sense can.

http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/24759/

Funny thing is, he's been beating this particular drum for quite a while.