Conned Once Again

Don't you get tired of being conned? I do. We have 85 billion dollars in automatic "cuts" coming up with sequestration (in fact with baseline budgeting they aren't cuts at all, just cuts in the rate of growth). But to hear the Obama administration tell it this is the end of the world (or government) as we know it. Defense Sec. Panetta said he would be forced to furlough or cut 302k defense employees and other cabinet members have indicated national parks will close, air traffic controllers laid off, TSA employees kicked to the curb, fire departments, emergency services, police; my God it's a catastrophe! And I agree, that's the word that best describes this situation; It is catastrophic stupidity by the American people.

According to the latest figures we spent $3.796 trillion in 2012 with revenues of $2.469 trillion for a deficit of $1.327 trillion. We will spend more this year than last, regardless of what happens with sequestration. $85 billion represents about 2% of the budget or 2¢ out of every dollar, so they want us to believe they can't save 2% out of a nearly four trillion dollar budget? Hey, let's look around a bit first. According to the GAO there was at least $45 billion in fraud in the Medicare program last year. With all the government workers, all the bureaucracies, are they telling us they can't police a program any better than this? And this is just one program. Just police the waste, fraud and abuse and they'll find 2% almost immediately.

But the sad fact is Obama is winning the argument. OK I know we've got some real idiots out there (very loyal idiots as it turns out), and I know we have a press that is positively in Obama's back pocket, but I blame the Republicans. This is just the kind of government you get when Rockefeller Republicans are in control. The Republican are like a Woody Allen character in therapy; "Well I'm not sure about this and gosh this sounds really stressful and I just wanna get under the covers."  In another ten years guys like David "We need to be more like Muslums" Cameron will be running the party. When that happens "conservatives" won't be trying to repeal the welfare state, they'll be trying to better manage the welfare state.

When are we going to get some conservatives with a set of balls?