Day: December 2, 2009

How Shall We Pay For The Troop Expansion?

Okay sports fans…you heard the president last night…..more troops for Afghanistan…..by the time all is said and done it will most likely be in the neighborhood of 50,000….that is the troops and all the support to get them there and keep them there…..

Before we talk money…I would like to ask a few questions…..if there is NO open end commitment why do we keep sending troops?  Is it an escalation to termination?  Just a few question that need a proper answer…..

On both sides of the aisles of Congress there is a concern on just how will the country pay for the extra troops in a time of massive deficits that grow hourly….

Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said on the same show: “I believe there will be a separate accounting. … We may wish to discuss higher taxes.”

House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey of Wisconsin has proposed a war “surtax” to pay for additional spending in Afghanistan. While that proposal isn’t likely to be approved, it has started a debate on how to pay for the troop surge in ways that don’t add to the deficit.

On CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, (D., Mich.), said he didn’t support a general tax increase “in the middle of the recession,” but was open to boosting taxes on those making more than $250,000 a year. He said Mr. Obama should address the budget issue in his discussion of his Afghan war plan.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, (R., S.C.), said he would prefer the country pay for the troop surge by cutting spending elsewhere. What was needed was to “prioritize American spending,” he said.

Lots of of answers to just how to pay for the “surge”…..but my favorite comes of a Repub….go figure…..Sen. Graham of South Carolina…he also said that the government would have to look to cutting other programs to pay for the troops, like health care…..

Cuts in health care?  As usual the Repubs are willing to let people in this counbtry DIE so they can send more Americans to their deaths…..nice politics……but has anyone told them that they are looking like idiots when they say stuff like this?  So it is somehow a good plan to deny Americans health care so that a war a can continue……No matter how I say it ….it still sounds like a moronic bonehead move to me…..

Radical Right–You Have Nothing To Fear!

Daily Agitator

The Right has been using socialism as an attack on all things Obama….from health care to volunteerism to energy to……they try to lather up the people into fearing the presidency as something from a Stalinist nightmare…..we and I mean the thinking public is it for what it is…..fear mongering and pure manure….but unfortunately their are some that believe the hype and believe that the US is heading for another “socialist” revolution….as Ron White says, “you cannot fix stupid”!

I just what to let the Radical Right know they have NOTHING to fear…..it will be awhile before the US moves into the “Socialist” column or camp….why do I say this?

One of the godfathers of socialism once said:

“If Socialism can only be realized when the intellectual development of all the people permits it, then we shall not see Socialism for at least five hundred years.”
Vladimir Lenin

What this really mean…it means that the people have to be informed and educated enough to see the need for real change….as it is the US the educational system  is sliding in the wrong direction because of too many programs that emphasis BS over learning….we are more worried about the teachers union than whether the children are learning.  The slide in scores in several areas that puts the US behind a third world country like Kazakhstan is a pretty good indication that the programs that the government focuses on are not the ones that generate learning….

So all the flash and smoke about socialism is just that….pure MANURE…..it would require intelligence and learning, not blind obedience….the country needs to focus on teachers that can get students to want to learn and stop worrying about which organization they belong to…after all it is their right to join any group they want…I believe that is yet another right given in the Constitution….