Last week I happened to be flipping channels and happened on comedian Jon Stewart’s rant about “pork” projects in the President’s $410-billion omnibus budget bill. Defending anything any Democrat does at (literally) all costs, he had a graphic that depicted the amount of pork at 2% of the bill. His comment was to the effect that it was like Republicans walking out of a dollar store after finding out a 99 cent item would actually cost them $1.01.
In reality (if anyone remembers what that was like), he’s saying it shouldn't bother anyone when 8.2 billion dollars is thrown away on needless projects. I wish I made the kind of money – no, I’m glad I’m not the kind of jerk – whose politics make him trivialize the outright waste of $26.99 for every man, woman, and child in the USA, let alone in these times.
Want fair and balanced? Here it comes.
Last night I flipped on WXNT-AM in the car when talk radio host Neal Boortz was wondering how Democrats in Congress could be “outraged” about $450-million in AIG bonuses when the total bailout bill was for 787 billion dollars. Indeed, it represents less than one percent.
My question is: When did we arrive at this place where talk radio hosts trivialize the brazen theft of half a billion dollars – making instant millionaires out of 93 upper-middle class white guys who screwed up the world’s insurance funding – while the men and women who supplied the funds are losing their jobs at a rate not seen in 80 years?
Commentators speak of recent years, and in particular the "W" years, as a time when politics is so polarized as to paralyze a nation’s decision-making apparatus. Seems to me that Barney and Chuck and Harry and Nancy and their GOP counterparts are a whole lot more pragmatic and dare I say reasonable than ideologues like Neal and Jon.
In reality (if anyone remembers what that was like), he’s saying it shouldn't bother anyone when 8.2 billion dollars is thrown away on needless projects. I wish I made the kind of money – no, I’m glad I’m not the kind of jerk – whose politics make him trivialize the outright waste of $26.99 for every man, woman, and child in the USA, let alone in these times.
Want fair and balanced? Here it comes.
Last night I flipped on WXNT-AM in the car when talk radio host Neal Boortz was wondering how Democrats in Congress could be “outraged” about $450-million in AIG bonuses when the total bailout bill was for 787 billion dollars. Indeed, it represents less than one percent.
My question is: When did we arrive at this place where talk radio hosts trivialize the brazen theft of half a billion dollars – making instant millionaires out of 93 upper-middle class white guys who screwed up the world’s insurance funding – while the men and women who supplied the funds are losing their jobs at a rate not seen in 80 years?
Commentators speak of recent years, and in particular the "W" years, as a time when politics is so polarized as to paralyze a nation’s decision-making apparatus. Seems to me that Barney and Chuck and Harry and Nancy and their GOP counterparts are a whole lot more pragmatic and dare I say reasonable than ideologues like Neal and Jon.
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