Thursday, September 11, 2008

Good point

From American Conservative on the McCain campaign's earmark fixation.
If Palin was simply taking advantage of a broken system, there’s not much reason to be outraged by that, but there is good reason to take issue with her decision to engage in a pattern of deceiving the public about her record, which she has clearly done in the hopes that her past obscurity will shield her from being held to account for making false claims. More to the point, once you strip away the hostility to earmarks Palin’s “reform” credentials become pretty thin, and the more it becomes apparent that adding Palin to the ticket really was as much of a P.R. stunt as the critics said it was.

For my part, I think the Republican preoccupation with earmark reform reveals a truly bizarre view of what is wrong with the federal government and how its dysfunction might best be fixed, as if pork-barrel spending were the main problem with Republican governance over the last decade. Still, this is the field where McCain and Palin have chosen to fight, and this is what they are choosing to lie about, so it seems fair that they pay some political price for that.
That's the point of course. Earmarks are the least of our problems but they're hoping to win on the trivial issues. Just how trivial is this? I'll let John Cole tell you.
The total national debt, as I write this, is $9,679,000,000,000.00 (nine and a half trillion).

The Budget for 2008 is close to $3,000,000,000,000.00 (three trillion).

Our budget deficit for this year is going to range in between $400-500,000,000,000.00 (four hundred to five hundred billion, give or take a few billion).

The total value of wasteful earmarks in 2008 (according to CAGW) will be approximately $18,000,000,000.00 (eighteen billion).

In other words, when McCain talks about earmarks, he is talking about 3% of our annual budget deficit, .6% of our annual budget, and a number too small to even report when discussing our national debt. Or, put another way, he is talking about two months in Iraq, something he wants to keep going indefinitely.

Not only are they lying about Palin’s involvements with earmarks, they are just not being serious about the horrible economic problems we face. These are not serious people.
These are seriously dangerous people but I can see why they're using it. They've got nothing to run on and it makes a good slogan.


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6 Comments:

Blogger rockync said...

I just finished reading an article about her attempts to censor library books in Wasilla during her term as mayor there. She even went so far as to fire the head librarian only to reinstste her the next day due to public outrage. Seems a pastor from a church of another denomination had written a book addressing gay issues and Comrade Palin wanted it gone. I think she is probably greatly admired abroad -- by Putin and the Chinese government.
She is the Anti-American and now I am afraid...

10:41:00 AM  
Blogger Libby Spencer said...

The real Manchurian candidate I'm afraid Rocky. I just watched a clip from the Gibson interview. Look at her eyes if you watch it. She's clearly crazy.

10:54:00 AM  
Blogger rockync said...

Funny, I was just watching a clip, probably the same one. She doesn't strike me as very intelligent or aware but so obviously deceptive in the way she approaches all the questions. She asserts she is qualified for conducting foreign relations because there is an island in Alaska from which you can see Russia?
I think the GOP knows this is going to fall apart and I think they did this just to garner attention so they can go out with a bang. Let's face it, until they pulled this rabbit out of the hat, their whole campaign was abysmal. (notice I made no reference to pigs and lipstick):)

11:15:00 AM  
Blogger Libby Spencer said...

LOL Rocky. I think you're right and she won't hold up well. You can't teach someone years of politics in a couple of weeks. She obviously has had no interest in foreign policy before.

11:45:00 AM  
Blogger Capt. Fogg said...

Of course these are serious people, but they are not serious about anything we would consider good for the country. They have no morals, they have little conscience, they have no respect for the law or justice. They care about wealth and power and Abortion and making gays second class citizens.

That's fine with a good number of Americans.

3:50:00 PM  
Blogger Libby Spencer said...

Unfortunately true Fogg. I just watched some clips from the View interview with McCain and he got an applause line on some Jesus statement. That was really the only one and I suspect those were shills in the audience.

4:59:00 PM  

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