Ignorant Tea Party Talking Points: U.S. is the Next Greece and Federal Budget akin to Family Budget; the Simpleton's Math

"We got to fight 'em over there so we don't have to fight 'em over here!" used to be my favorite example of the GOP pr machine distracting the ignorant masses with an absolutely false and ridiculous argument to further their illegitimate and in the case of the Iraq War, an illegal and immoral purpose.  Well step aside "fight 'em over there" you've been replaced as the numero uno asinine argument by the dynamic duo argument that is on the lips of even normally intelligent Republicans.

"What you talkin' 'bout Willis?"  Well thanks for asking, Gary.  What I am referring to is the moronic and overly simplistic and  inane notion that the U.S. is on the road to becoming the new Greece economically and the U.S. budget is akin to the household budget.  These two ridiculously false concepts are used as argument stoppers, trump cards if you will, when trying to have a rational discussion with people on the right.

This is why we have such gridlock in Washington.  You cannot have an adult conversation with someone on the right because they have been brainwashed by the GOP pr machine which reduces complex problems down to 10 second sound bytes and slogans.  I would be incredibly insulted if my party thought so little of my intelligence that it had to boil down complex concepts into kindergarten age analogies.

Balancing the Federal budget is not in anyway analogous to balancing the family household budget.  The Federal budget was never intended to be balanced on a regular basis.  That is its whole purpose.  The founding fathers ran up huge deficits for its time that took many years to pay off.  All this talk of a constitutional amendment to require a balanced budget is not only stupid but dangerous.

Conflating the U.S. economic situation with that of Greece is so false for such obvious reasons I giggle whenever one of the Cracker Barrel bonobos throws it out there, like one of my colleagues did yesterday.  Let me see, the U.S. is not part of the European Union, is politically autonomous and can print its own money.  Under those circumstances, the analogy to Greece is specious and intellectually dishonest.  But hey, when your party is intellectually bankrupt I guess you run what you brung

A One Month Hiatus and My How Things Have Not Changed

 
It's hard to believe that it has been an entire month since I took my self-imposed hiatus from the Great Roll Call.  I would like to be able to say that it was to done to recharge my creative juices and reflect on the style of writing I have engaged in the past and want to compose in the future.  Truth be told, the Don Quixote of the Minnesota Progressive Blogosphere came down with a particularly virulent strain of respiratory flu from which I have yet to fully recover from.  Thankfully while I was wallowing in self-misery the political landscape in the country underwent an incredible transformation and now the little children in that adult kindergarten we call Congress are suddenly getting along well with others and placing country first.  NOT!

Buckle your seat belts America.  It should come as no surprise that the party of the grotesquely rich and stupid are more than happy to drive the economy right back in the ditch over a wrong headed principle that flies in the face of all logic and rational economic thought.  Much like their ideological forefather George Wallace who famously said in his 1963 inaugural address as Governor of Alabama "...in the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever" the "It's Not Tea its GOP Party" have made "Austerity now, Austerity tomorrow, Austerity forever" their Rebel Yell.

Well leave it to me to have to break it to these Cracker Barrel bonobos aka the Tea Party, but we are in the midst of a liquidity trap set in an extremely fragile economy just beginning to recover from the last boom and bust cycle that your  Wall Street marketeers put us through to our chagrin and their great financial gain.  Much like the Goldman Sachs execs that sold the country short while promoting known losers to its own customers, the Tea Bag wing of the GOP have got to know that their over emphasis on austerity now is going to dampen the recovery no doubt so that they can then point their fingers at the Democrats in time for the 2014 mid-term elections.  If they can convince 70% of the American people that the deficit and long term debt are the most critical issues facing the country when in fact it is job creation and strengthening our fragile economic recovery, I guess we do get the government we deserve.

 "...then all I've got to say, God didn't make the little green apples, and it don't rain in Indianapolis in the       summer time...And there's no such thing as make-believe, puppy dogs or autumn leaves, no BB guns.
God didn't make the little green apples,and it don't snow in Minneapolis when the winter comes."

(Note to the Tea Party and Roger Miller:  We've got plenty of snow in Minneapolis last time I looked and if you want my BB gun "...you will have to pry it from my cold, dead fingers"!)