Government Programs For Me; Not For Thee
In a two week span in which the East Coast of the United States was beset by a monstrous hurricane, states in the same area had their strongest earthquake since World War II and Colorado experienced its most violent quake since 1967, we were reminded once again of the important role played by federal government in our society.
Now, I’m no constitutional scholar - like, say, Michele Bachmann - but I remember something in that document about government’s responsibility for “the general welfare”, which I can only assume means that if the state you live in comes to resemble Waterworld there is probably a useful role for the government in helping you keep your head above water.
This is not only a progressive view of governance. It is also one rooted in reality and based on US history and culture. In the early days of the republic, the Congressional Act of 1803 provided assistance to a New Hampshire town damaged severely by a fire.
This pattern would continue as Congress would help the victims of natural disasters in the two centuries to follow - not including Lady Gaga’s performance at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards or Tim Pawlenty’s presidential campaign, of course.
The stories like the fire in New Hampshire, however, have not formed the dominant narrative since that actor-who-climbed-into-bed-with-the-monkey transformed government into something that was on your back or just for those “welfare queens”.
Reagan and his ideological soulmates understood quite well that as Josef Stalin infamously said, while “the death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic.”
In other words, if Americans realize that a single-payer healthcare system will help protect their parents and children from disease, then they’ll be for it. But if it can be something abstract that just helps those other people who are mere statistics at best, supplied by an amorphous “big government” with no human face, long tentacles and the ability to force you to drink fluorinated water or strictly require a pulse to purchase a firearm - well, then, it’s easy to hate.
And hate it they do. As long as it is government spending for you, and not them.
Because the truth is, with very few exceptions, conservative elected officials (of both parties) are hypocrites when it comes to spending money.
It’s probably why they hate that darn intrusive government until it’s time to collect those fat farm subsidies for the family estate, or that government-sponsored healthcare they happily take but would be a leftover Soviet plot with a side of El Che if it were offered to you.
You need more examples? Well, how about the Social Security-despising, French-cuff cowboy himself, Governor Rick Perry of Texas? Man, does he hate that Obama stimulus plan - except for when he doesn’t hate it so much.
Namely, when it helps him.
According to the Texas Tribune, “Through the second quarter of this year, Texas has used $17.4bn in federal stimulus money - including $8bn of the one-time dollars to fund state expenses that recur over and over. In fact, Texas used the federal stimulus to balance its last two budgets.”
Perry, of course, is far from the only tea party darling who takes his Earl Grey with some sugar and your tax dollars. There is Congresswoman Bachmann, formerly one of those “jack-booted thug” IRS agents, which she now claims was part of “knowing your enemy”.
I guess that’s probably why she also learned to read.
In any case, Bachmann seemingly decided to see Perry’s porking out on stimulus funding, and raise him a family farm and business, according to, among others, the Los Angeles Times:
“A counseling clinic run by her husband has received nearly $30,000 from the state of Minnesota in the last five years, money that in part came from the federal government. A family farm in Wisconsin, in which the congresswoman is a partner, received nearly $260,000 in federal farm subsidies.”
A quarter-million bucks of your and my tax money for her farm. She sure did get to know the enemy pretty well.
Similar examples abound among other GOP presidential candidates, congressional leadership and party officials, as shame seems to have a very short shelf life in conservative America.
It sure didn’t stop walking tea party bullhorn, Representative Joe Walsh of Illinois, from bellyaching about how we had to live within our means during our debt debate - as he was being sued for over $100,000 for deciding his former wife simply didn’t need funds for his three kids for the past decade or so.
The practitioners of the tea party arts seem very comfortable with the idea. As Mark Twain once said, “nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits.”
Follow me on Twitter @cliffschecter
Originally published at Al Jazeera English
Perry's housing expenses cost the taxpayers of Texas $10,000 per month...... how about him living with in his salary of $150,000 instead of living the life of millionaires? The hypocrisy and insanitea of these tea-hadists make me ill. They are entitled, no one else is!
Had a similar incident in the teabagging barber shop (is there any other kind) where I get my hair cut. Bagger cutting my hair was telling me about how he's trying to buy a house from Fannie Mae, and I was saying, "oh, great, you only need 3% down." To which he replied he didn't even have that, but was trying to utilize the first-time buyer program to get that mean old government to make his down payment as well.
Sometimes the cog/dis is so deep you need waders.
Had a similar incident in the teabagging barber shop (is there any other kind) where I get my hair cut.
In my neighborhood there is. Maybe you should come here to get your hair cut. It's not exactly unheard of you know. My people can usually do hair for everyone whereas if a black person walks into a white hair shop......OMG. All you have to say is something like, "I need to get my hair cut somewhere else because I can't stand the stupid Teabaggers."
A related video linked from the above shows Perry just last year trying to explain how "not all Stimulus is bad"..
He twists himself into knots trying to defend his position so badly that the audience openly laughs at him.
Too funny.
* There are two types of Republicans: millionaires and suckers.
"Mugsy's Rap Sheet": Recording history for those who seek to rewrite it.
The enumerated power is to tax and spend for the general welfare. It's important to include the tax and spend language, as it means the federal government does not have carte blanche power to legislate for the general welfare.
Meaning, it can't just make things it doesn't like illegal and claim the general welfare will benefit. It can only raise revenue to spend on programs that will benefit the general welfare.
So, yes, taxing for emergencies to spend during environmental disasters is exactly what the clause should invoked for. As well as for things like Medicare and Social Security.
Conservatives and right wing Libertarians just loathe that clause, and like to pretend it can be omitted for being too broad. It's not too broad at all. It's limited to progressive spending programs, and does not allow for the nasty authoritarian laws scholar Bachmann would love to pass.
Everyone is equally entitled to the pursuit of happiness. Wasn't that once self evident?
There has to be legislation setting out the spending for environmental disasters. There was legislation establishing Medicare and Social Security. Nothing that the government could 'tax and spend' to do can be done without it first having been legislated.
But it's not correct to say that the government cannot make something illegal claiming a benefit to the general welfare. If that was the case, the federal government could not have passed laws against treason and sedition. The federal government also could not address immigration or slavery, all of our paper money would be illegal, there would be no federal recognition of marriages. There is no right to vote, no right to a jury of your peers, and you're not innocent until proven guilty - none of these are mentioned in the Constitution. For that matter, there would be no Marine Corps, Coast Guard, and certainly no Air Force - the Constitution only specifies an army and a navy.
Even your signature line - there's no provision for the pursuit of happiness. That's a phrase from the Declaration of Independence, which actually is not a legal document, but only a statement of the colonies' intentions to King George.
...of the ability to channel and interprete God's will and its meaning you'd think it might occur to at least one of these clowns that maybe these recent events are an actual slapdown from the big guy for their refusal to look after their less fortunate fellow man.
Heh! To these gangland crooks God is just a tool, a tool for their greed.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
Actually I think they really believe but they believe that he is on their side. He doesnt like you very well.
You summed it up well with this: ..as shame seems to have a very short shelf life in conservative America.
That's the essence of it. They imagine themselves the noble heros of the American way. Talk is about all it amounts to though,their definition of such of course. Sadly most of them would be sunk if we dropped the regulations and put everyone on the survival of the fittest road.
Without government money many corporations in the US would cease to exist and many more of them would be struggling. Many live on government contracts. Is that the only thing the government is suppose to spend money on...private enterprise? That sounds like socialism for them and the free market survival of the fittest for the rest of us.
They dont understand what they are talking about, they are completely programmed by the media.
Conservative politicians are smooth operators. They have little use for shame unless it serves their agenda of control and conquer.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
. . . to be responsible for "the general welfare." I'm not saying that it's not a good idea, just that the Constitution doesn't say that. It gives the Congress the power to spend for the general welfare, not the obligation. There's no need to be a constitutional scholar to figure that one out, just a need to take a minute or two to read it (folks with a political agenda, like Michele Bachman, for example, wouldn't be bothered).
But it's definitely true that government spending is fine when it's for "them" and not for you. I think Democrats were just fine with spending $750 billion in TARP funds and $16 trillion from the Fed to make sure that Wall Street bonuses and corporate profits hit record levels. But getting a tiny fraction of that to create jobs or provide relief to those in foreclosure is just too much to ask.
Funny how Bachman and Perry, who had little to no role in the "anything for the very rich and crumbs for the rest us" approach the Democrats have taken the past few years take the blame in this post while those actually responsible, the Democrats, are, by deliberate implication, saviors from this madness.
I wonder if it might read differently if it were Republicans offering peanuts in job creation in exchange for cutting hundreds of billions from Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
You oughta read that Preamble again:
It's amongst a list of reasons for which purpose the Constitution was written and passed. I'll make the point clearer through some simple editing:
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
The Constitution itself was ordained and established by the people to promote the general welfare. There was no such responsibility required of any branch of government (e.g. the president has the responsibility to report on the state of the union)
You summed it up pretty well in your edit.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
Not my fault that you still can't read and think critically.
One of the duties of the federal government, as laid out quite plainly in the Constitution, is to promote the general Welfare. How the government does that isn't specified, but it is to be done within the limits of the (amendable) process described within that document.
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
Prove yourself to be a grammatical idiot even after given a chance to back off from an obvious mistake.
Your choice.
I know there's no real need to address the Supreme Court's holding over 100 years ago that:
But given the LaRouchie crap you tried to pull last night, I really couldn't resist rubbing it in.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
What Harlan wrote:
Or what I wrote?
The problem here is that no part of the Constitution defines "the general Welfare".
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
The problem is that even when you are shown to be clearly, undeniably, and painfully obviously wrong, you childishly insist on throwing up what ever irrelevancy you can come up with in a vain attempt to distract from and change the subject.
That's all the effort I'm willing to waste on you tonight (and so very little was necessary). Low hanging fruit may be easy, but the taste can quickly bore the palate.
As Harlan might have written: "The record is clear. Dismissed."
Have a nice day.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
Heh heh... old Fiver might as well be a Teaper... makes an argument, gets rebutted, launches an ad hominem strike (calls the rebutter an idiot),makes another cite, gets rebutted... takes his marbles, dismisses anyone and everyone else and makes a snarky exit.
I don't know if I agree with either of them or not but it sure brings back memories of my days in the old forum wars when all the right wingers used exactly that same formulaic routine in all "their" enlightened discussions.
I think Democrats were just fine with spending $750 billion in TARP funds and $16 trillion from the Fed to make sure that Wall Street bonuses and corporate profits hit record levels.
Ask yourself this: why is it that the Tea Party never protests on Wall Street or at the Federal Reserve like progressives do?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzNOdTieMQ4
Could it have something to do with it being an astroturf organization funded by billionaires who have a stake in keeping things the way they are? Why did Tea Party candidates accept Wall Street money?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dave-johnson/te...
It was Bush's bailout, even Fox News knows that:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,428921,00...
- Tom
~
Corruption favors the wealthy.
Aside from the fact that Rick Perry is nothing but a shill for oil/corporations, the FACT that ED continually covers him as if he'd be a real gas to watch debating POTUS obama is counterproductive. Wouldn't we want someone who challenges the noble peace laureate on all of the "change" we've yet to see or feel? ED is doing everyone a disservice by focusing on Perry and his idiotic statements-which tend to be hypocritical according to his record as governor. The COGNITIVE DISSONANCE EXISTS simply because we have a jingoistic driven media thats entire purpose is to divide the people so we can be conquered by the monied technochrats. KILL YOUR TV.
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