From the sublime to the ridiculous

For the sublime, simply enjoy my diatribe against the concept of only changing who you are at New Years when you need to make changes every day. I, being the marvelous, wonderful, intelligent, charming person I am of course never need to change, but the rest of you peons...don't wait for New Year, change now. Be more who I think you should be. Meet my personal standards for personal hygiene, intellect, and appearance. Or change to meet them. That is how it should be. The world does, after all, revolve around me. And the more nights I spend in the glories of nighttime incontinence, the more it revolves. Those fumes are terrible.
(previous paragraph may contain lies, sarcasm, and satire)
For the ridiculous...there is a trend I have noticed for better than 20 years and always thought was ridiculous. Today it is in the news again and I find it just as ridiculous as the New Years Resolutions. After all, who actually believes that George W is following the economic plans laid down by Bill Clinton? Or that Clinton followed the economic plans laid down by Bush Sr.? Or that Bush Sr., for that matter, followed the economic plans of Reagan, who was, after all, from the same party?
Yet it was announced today that, like those who have gone before him, Bush is setting forth a plan to balance the budget by 2012. OOOOOOOOOoooooooooooookkkkkkkkaaaaaaaaaayyyyy. And there are still more than 3% of the New Years resolutions that are still being kept, too....
I think just as highly of his choice as I did of Clinton's before him to balance the budget by year X....a year he also would not be in office. This is just what it always has been...a grandstanding bit of polemic nonsense with no real value and absolutely no chance whatsoever of being enacted.
What, are you going to scale back Social Security, figure out a way to make welfare something helpful instead of the nonsense it currently is, something that helps few, hurts many, and is more corruption ridden than the so-called third world nations.....oh, and make Medicaid/care also useful and non-scammy on the people purported to help, all without continuing to raise taxes, add programs, and refund pork barrel projects? And are you furthermore going to make sure this plan continues next year with all these and many more factors continue...and so forth...until long after you have left office?
The concept is good. It includes planning for the future, not mortgaging the future for today. Of course, the more cynical among us might point to little things like billions of dollars for the war, for foreign aid, for subsidizing the tobacco industry, for nonsensical projects building roads or industries to benefit specific states at the expense of others and other such things.
The beauty of this is the expenditures are not tied to one party...the Republicans are no better and no worse then the Democrats. And, for that matter, in the increasingly likely event that a third party...or even true independent...candidate breaks through....s/he will be every bit as bad.
Furthermore, these unhelpful things come up every....single....year. So pre-emptively balancing the budget in 5 years is not possible unless the crystal ball kicks into gear, accurately forecasts world events, the economy, contingencies, emergencies, public opinion, and whatever else comes up is an exercise in fantasy and futility. But hey...it keeps the huddles masses happy, so I guess it has a point. But not really....

1 comment:

Riot Kitty said...

Definitely, we should eliminate pork barrels...maybe have free-range pork instead ;)