Propaganda and Demagoguery

Propaganda and Demagoguery

Contrary to the propaganda and demagoguery being spewed everywhere (I KNOW!!!!  Those were really fancy words, huh?  I have no idea what any of them mean.  But WOW I felt smart using them), Republicans do NOT want dirty air and water.

(That was a short clip – I don’t want to be accused of taking the President’s words out of context – again – so if you want to see it IN context go here.)

***TANGENT ALERT***  Imagine a family seated around the dinner table.  Little Johnny gets up and  takes a drink, and his father jumps up and smacks him on the back of the head. “Spit that out!” he screams “what are you thinking?  That’s clean water. Don’t drink that! We want dirty water in this family.”

 Republicans don’t want to throw grandma off a cliff. They do not want to rob the elderly of Medicare, they don’t want to “put ya’ll back in chains,” and they certainly don’t want to take food out of the mouths of babies.

According to the Huffington Post (hardly a right leaning organization) “Nearly half, 48.5%, of the population lived in a household that received some type of government benefit in the first quarter of 2010.”

Nearly half?  Of that 34.2% of Americans lived in a household that received benefits such as food stamps, subsidized housing, and cash welfare or Medicaid (the federal-state health care program for the poor), the rest was made up of Medicare and Social Security.

34.2% is a huge number.  Now a “hand up” doesn’t bother anyone I know.  It is the “handouts” that are a problem.  If you’re a nineteen year old woman, who is a single parent, struggling to make ends meet, trying to better yourself by going to a trade school of some kind, then I think you should be enrolled in WIC, or programs like it.  For the father of a family of five whose company closed its doors after twelve years of employment, you are entitled to a little help.  A twenty-nine year old man, who hasn’t had an honest job, and has fathered six children with four different women, and on welfare, you sir, are a piece of shit.  That’s it.  It is time to grow up.  Time to pull up your big boy pants, and get a job.  I don’t know anyone who is so heartless they have a problem with a “safety net.”  The problem is many on welfare treat the safety net like a hammock.  (Quick side note: both my parents read this.  You have NO idea the amount of grief I just subjected myself to by using a swear word, but it is honestly how I feel.)  You can’t tell me that all of the 34% are unable to care for themselves. Many, yes.  I’ll even accept most.  But all?  No.

So with almost half of the country receiving some sort of assistance from the government, what does the current administration do to curb the problem?  Why, they PROMOTE the use of food stamps.  YAAA!!  (That link is audio only)

Again, if you need help, and there are many who do, I get it.  What really gets my goat (other than goat thieves, obviously) is when you are behind a guy at a convenience store, who has tattoos crawling down his arms, legs and out of his wife beater T-shirt, who purchases beer and cigarettes, and then hits you up for “spare change” as you exit the store.  Yeah, that JUST BARELY happened.

In my little brain it wouldn’t be so bad of we could ensure the money was spent well, or wisely.  But we don’t.  According to the Washington Times American tax payers spend $80 billion each year financing food stamps.  “The amount spent on food stamps has more than doubled in recent years, [and] the amount of food stamps laundered into cash has increased dramatically, government statistics show.”

That isn’t the only place government wastes money. In 2011 the Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report identifying over $200 billion in unnecessary, duplicative programs.

Last year Senator Coburn made a small list of some stupid government projects, some of those include:

“The IRS approved roughly $1 billion in tax credits intended for energy efficiency home improvements to individuals who did not even own a house. These recipients included prisoners and children, some probably not even old enough to own a doll house.

“Dead Federal Employees Continue to Get Benefits Checks – (U.S. Office of

Personnel Management) $120 Million.

“Millions In Foreign Aid to… China? – (Department of State & U.S. Agency for

International Development) $17.80 Million.”

Then we have unnecessary departments like the Department of Education who has 5,000 employees with an annual discretionary budget (2011) of $69.9 billion.  Why can’t education be managed on the state level?

What about Solyndra ($535 million)?

Then we spend billions in government subsidies like adding ethanol to gasoline (what a stupid idea).  If it was a good idea the government wouldn’t NEED to subsidize it.  The free market would figure out a way to make it work.

What we need is a guy to run for President, who once owned a successful company whose mission was to go line by line through the budget of major companies, making them profitable again.  OHMIGOSH, wouldn’t it be awesome if he chose as his running mate, a man who was the Chairman of the House Budget Committee, who played a major role in drafting and promoting budgetary proposals, who understands the government’s budget better then anyone?  Yeah, that would be awesome.  That would turn this country around.

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