Detaching from Reality
A random thought that I ran across today:
That philosophy of conscious or unconscious left-wingers is steadily and openly unfolding itself. It becomes visible as a mixture of coercion, collectivism and lust for personal power poured into the American system of free men. And it mortgages the next generation to pay for it. Anyway their new system is satisfying enough to receive the illuminating support of the Communist Front and their fellow travelers.
- Herbert Hoover, “The Real State of the Union“, 1939
“Interference of the State, the belief in the omnipotence of the State: that is a reaction to market failures,” Mr Putin said in his keynote address at the opening of the four-day meeting. “There is a temptation to expand direct interference of state in economy. In the Soviet Union that became an absolute. We paid a very dear price for that.”
Just something to think about while you ponder the results from the House vote for Obama’s “stimulus” plan.
People, there’s no such thing as a free lunch. In order for the government to “stimulate” the economy, it has to have money to spend. Government gets money one of two ways - it either takes it from you and me now or it takes it from you and me later. If we’re really lucky, we can set it up so that the Government can take from your kids and my kids later and skip us entirely; of course, that’s not so “lucky” for our children, now is it? Then, once it comes time to spend it, it doesn’t spend it on things that you and I need; instead, it spends it on things that its supporters need. Right now, government’s supporters need…
There’s $1 billion for Amtrak, the federal railroad that hasn’t turned a profit in 40 years; $2 billion for child-care subsidies; $50 million for that great engine of job creation, the National Endowment for the Arts; $400 million for global-warming research and another $2.4 billion for carbon-capture demonstration projects. There’s even $650 million on top of the billions already doled out to pay for digital TV conversion coupons.
[...]
Most of the rest of this project spending will go to such things as renewable energy funding ($8 billion) or mass transit ($6 billion) that have a low or negative return on investment. Most urban transit systems are so badly managed that their fares cover less than half of their costs. However, the people who operate these systems belong to public-employee unions that are campaign contributors to . . . guess which party?
Here’s another lu-lu: Congress wants to spend $600 million more for the federal government to buy new cars. Uncle Sam already spends $3 billion a year on its fleet of 600,000 vehicles. Congress also wants to spend $7 billion for modernizing federal buildings and facilities. The Smithsonian is targeted to receive $150 million; we love the Smithsonian, too, but this is a job creator?
Question is… what about us? What do we need, hmm?
pork | David Colborne | 
January 28, 2009 6:03 pm
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