Adam Bitely, echoing Sarah Palin, among others:
Many elected officials have fallen prey to the belief that because America is exceptional, they as the leaders of the government must also be exceptional. And that is why the responses from these people when their credit rating was downgraded came as no surprise.
Some seemed shocked that S&P would point out that over $14 trillion in debt is slightly high. Others claimed that S&P is in no position to pass judgment on credit ratings.
Have our politicians forgotten that they racked up such massive debts that have no realistic way to be repaid at this point in time?
Washington politicians need to look at the credit downgrade as a wake-up call, a reminder that they have to abide by the same spending laws that everyone else abides by. But as Obama indicated Monday, he is content on continuing to live in the fantasyland that the U.S. still has a AAA credit rating, and will completely disregard the lessons from this downgrade.
Liberal talking heads such as Michael Moore, taking a page from Fidel Castro, suggested on Twitter yesterday that Obama should arrest the CEO of Standard & Poor’s suggesting that their action of downgrading U.S. credit was aimed at taking down the economy. [Seems the lump of dough took it down; funny how such “truthseekers” as Moore are always so quick to sanitize their own histories – ed]
Paul Krugman weighed in suggesting that S&P’s is trying to murder the economy, stating in the New York Times, “If there’s a single word that best describes the rating agency’s decision to downgrade America, it’s chutzpah — traditionally defined by the example of the young man who kills his parents, then pleads for mercy because he’s an orphan.”
It would appear that the nation’s leaders have no appetite for learning their lessons. Instead, Obama and his cohorts in Washington plan on continuing to live in the myth that you can borrow and spend as much as you please, with no possible repercussions.
If only they would come to the realization that they are mere mortals, and can’t repeal the basic economic laws that govern every household in America and every other country in the world just because they are the temporary custodians of power in Washington, our nation would be a better place.
Sure. But that’s like asking a hyena to eat nothing but arugula, or a scorpion to try stunning its prey with nothing but a hug. They are who they are.
I was never one for term limits as a matter of law — voluntary term limit pledges were good enough for me — but I’ve come of that hardline stance because it is clear to me now that, with politicians essentially able to carve out their own “safe” districts, in many cases, what is supposed to be a temporary civic job as a servant to the people becomes a career built on handing out other people’s money in exchange for votes, power, and the perks that come with being part of a governmental establishment that is largely unaccountable to anyone and anything.
Because we’ve allowed politicians to think themselves somehow exceptional — rather than remind them that they are merely temporary workers “hired” by the public to represent a specific set of citizens — the political class inside the Beltway feels itself less and less responsible to its various constituencies and more and more responsible to its own survival and prosperity as vendors of cheap grace.
Which is why I’ve been saying of late that party affiliation matters less these days than does one’s idea of what the role of government is: to the inside the Beltway politicians, government is all and every; to many of us outside the Beltway, however, the function of government is protect our natural rights, and then relegate itself to the enumerated functions specified by the Constitution.
In other words, get out of our way.
When politicians start thinking of themselves as somehow more than merely representatives — and temporary ones at that — they need to go. And because the political class will never vote itself less money or less power, we have to insist on putting in place the structural mechanisms that compel such things, be it a Balanced Budget Amendment tied to a percentage of spending, or term limits that prevent permanent entrenchment of a political class that eventually begins to work in its own interests rather than in the interests of those it is ostensibly charged with serving.
Short of that? Tar and feathers might work, as well.
Paul Ryan has to stay until the job is done the rest of you grab your shit
bh is working (I assume) so on his behalf I’ll chip in that public choice theory applied would seem to be pretty useful here. Thing of that is that it’s doubtful an external thing like the credit downgrade of itself would cause the commonplace politician to do anything remotely like thinking about themselves as mere mortals and result in better governance as a consequence, at least as I sketchily understand the theory. More likely they’d just shift their feet a little bit without even knowing why and then keep on keeping on doing what they were doing twenty minutes ago; so the theory would ask for some more pinchy application as inducement. And there’s where we want to make the changes. With the insertions of inducements, that is. The problem then is getting the insertion of the inducements through the barrier of the commonplace politician, standing in the way of her own reformation.
Yeah, what the hell does a credit rating agency know about rating credit, anyway? Leftism is its own refutation.
We’ve discussed term limits in the past, along with the many drawbacks that would come with treating Congresscritters like the temps they are. My main worry was and is that each office would come with a Chief of Staff who did all the legwork, wheeling and dealing with the other Chiefs of Staff, leaving the representative as a mere figurehead.
For me, the solution is mostly about reducing the scope and power of the feds, and with it the power of Congress. If they weren’t involved in every bit of buying and selling that goes on in the country, then they wouldn’t be bought and sold quite so readily.
Of course, if that proves impossible, we can always send busloads of goons to their houses SEIU-style. That oughtta make the job a little less desirable.
There’s sticks.
And there’s carrots.
Cut the spending, get a bonus in cash. Or like that somehow, but better.
also there’s cinnammon rolls sometimes
That’s a lucky donkey gets a cinnamon roll cause it got dropped in the dirt, either that or an awful profligate donkey drover.
It’s simple. S and P thinks it’s more risky to invest in bonds now than it was last year. They don’t think the US is going to default, they think we’re going to have more stimulus. We are. The downgrade has probably made it more likely sooner than later. Moore doesn’t know what S and P is or what the credit rating means because he’s ignorant.
Obama’s ignorant too. He’s like a freshman who just had macro econ 101 and only read the chapter summaries. A stronger dollar means more imports, a weaker dollar means more exports… aha! Inflation is good! He won’t call it inflation, because inflation is a bad word, but it’s what he wants, go read his 2010 SOTU.
…they are mere mortals, and can’t repeal the basic economic laws that govern every household in America…
This. Arithmetic don’t care if you’re a Donkey or an Elephant. It just don’t. Fact is, there ain’t no more money, there ain’t gonna be no more money, so’s everybody should probably come to grips with the fact that the gravy train is over.
You can accept the fact now, when it will give you a black eye, or you can deny it ’til it refuses to be denied any longer. ‘Course, by that point, it’ll be mad enough to break both your legs. You’ll be wishing you’d taken the black eye (and you’ll be really pissed off that all the guys who had black eyes in 2011 are mocking you and saying ‘TOLD YA SO!’).
Unless he gets elected President and has to resign so that he can be a better President than the current one.
Even if that would be quitty.
we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it … it may be we’ll need to devise a double standard to where we don’t judge Mr. Ryan as harshly as we may judge others
You know who cracks me up?
MATT DAMON!!
Did you catch his act, with the cameraman who had the balls to question Mattie’s lunatic assumptions?
“Oh, well, you’re what, a fucking cameraman?”
The cameraman was not up to quipping back “Oh, well, gee Matt, you’re what, a fucking actor?”
That would not surprise me in the least.
Without cameramen, Matt Damon would still be acting in front of a tripod-mounted VHS camera.
Paul Ryan has boy parts, not girl parts (apparently, I don’t know for sure), so other standards apply to him in the land of electric hamsters.
Matty needs to be taken down a notch or three.
It is really hard to insult someone that stupid, c-d. The Southpark boys tried in Team America.
Wanna make one little baby step back to sanity? Stop addressing these clowns as Mr. President, or Mr. Congressman or Ms. Secretary of State after they’ve left office. We don’t have titled gentry in the US and we don’t need any. Every time I hear Hannity call Gingrich “Mr. Speaker” I want to puke. It’s NEWT. We don’ need no stinking royalty. You are NOT your last job. What do you think would happen if talking heads started addressing these has-beens as civilians?
Good point, Dennis.
For instance, once Obama gets the axe, I intend to address him as “that motherfucker.”
I have already started practicing up for that, Jeff.
“Memento te mortalem”, motherfuckers!
I prefer “jug-eared fuck,” myself. Toe-may-toe, toe-mah-toe.
dumass works in a pinch
But I do that now. Is that wrong?
“But I do that now. Is that wrong?”
i think you have to add president at the end
baracky’s goons stifle energy production
Link
Done.
Citoyen Robespierre it is.
Re #27
Fuck!
If I speak of the former 44th President at all, it will be to deplore the fact that the 45th President wasn’t the 44th.
…but I might shorten that to “a complete waste of four long years…”
Maybe our political masters need to be remnded that we are mortal and not Sisyphean.
Wouldn’t the proper term of address be “President motherfucker“? Whatever.
If I had mad cartooning skilz I’d draw him up as Teleprompter Man. A post-modern superhero, he’s a used car salesman by day who rides into action in a golf cart and talks his opponents to death. His super power is withering arrogance, unleashed by tilting his head and staring down his nose at his victims, reducing them to a helpless rage. His powers are limited only by the length of the extension cord his super sidekick strings out to power his Teleprompters of Death, and by his need for a constant media spotlight to maintain his super powers.