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Just some interesting things I read on the interwebs today:

So Obama releases his budget today and the press corps FREAKED OUT because Obama is going to repeal the Bush tax cuts on the 5% wealthiest people in the country.   Wait isn’t that exactly what he said he was going to do, oh, I don’t know, about 100 times on the campaign trail?  Some people just amaze me.  I know raising taxes during a recession is never a good thing; however, i think that the most affluent in our nation will be able to go back to the marginal tax rate that they were under during the years of the Clinton administration.  I think we all did pretty OK then, right?  I mean, I know I was about 12 when Slick Willy left office, but I mean come on, let’s be serious here.  Obama is actually coming through on a campaign promise.  Just like he did on the Lilly Ledbetter Equal Pay Act that was passed this year.  Just like he did on Gitmo.  Just like he did on the stimulus.  Wait, how long has he been in office?  A month? Jumpin Jesus, if most presidents did this in their first term it’d be a good term but Obama has managed to get this stuff through in his first month.  Now, I do understand where much of the worry comes from: how are we going to pay for all this?  Well, the current budget deficit is running at about, let’s say at worst $3 trillion.  We’ve got about $500 billion in interest this year alone, so that’s not good because that gets paid out right now.  Now if every single person who has a Treasury bond (issued when they essentially buy government debt) was to show up tomorrow with a tire iron and ask “Where’s my money?” yeah, we’d have to default on most of those debts.  And that would be catastrophic.  But, considering we still do have the worst largest military and quite a stockpile of nuclear bombs, I’m pretty sure people aren’t going to come calling for their money tomorrow.  In fact, people are buying up goverment debt like hot cakes, sometimes even at a negative interest rate, because these bonds are so safe precisely because they know we won’t default on them.  I’m not saying that we can have a $3 trillion dollar debt forever, or even say 10 years.  But I’m pretty sure we’ll be OK.

Right-wing punditry makes me laugh.  They are so red in the face with anger at what Obama’s doing that they can’t even speak straight sometimes.  However, they are “unified”, although what they’re unified for I still haven’t figured out yet.  I’m pretty sure we tried the whole tax cuts for the wealthiest of the wealthy and we all see how that turned out.

Just want to give a shout out to all the Republicans who vehemently voted against the stimulus bill, even when Obama gave you what you wanted, and then go back to your district trumpeting how amazingly amazing this bill is going to be for your district.  Also want to give a shout out to Bobby “Kenneth the Page” Jindal for his riveting response after Obama’s speech.  I know it must be hard to follow “Big Speech Obama”, but I mean come on.  The one example you give of how goverment red tape prevents progress is Hurricane “Heckuva Job Brownie” Katrina? SRSLY? Wow, words cannot explain…should’ve brought a poet.  Good thing too, cuz that story was complete BS to begin with.

Oh well, at least it gives me a nice laugh during the day.

Vero Possumus

Scotty

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