And, on top of that, citing Catholic moral teachings to do so without mentioning teachings on just war (the Iraq war wasn’t and isn’t) or usury, which tie into your own social classes interests does not make you look honest. As senior managing Principle and founder of “Sovereign Trends, LLC”, you probably doesn’t need the sort of programs you want cut, but you certainly don’t mention limits on how much your class can suck from the necks of the poor and middle to enrich themselves and I don’t see you advocating radical tax increases on your own class to pay for such frills as public education.
The citing of subsidiarity is also remarkable, since subsidiarity (making decisions at the level best suited to them) would actually suggest, for example, a federal takeover of the entire US primary education system, since it’s very clear that the current system is unfair, that municipalities often don’t have the necessary resources and that municipalities and states are ensuring students don’t receive either accurate teaching of history or science: which is to say, they have proved they can’t handle the responsibility. Likewise, State budgets, which are constrained, clearly cannot even handle Medicaid (health care for the poor, whom Jesus cared about a bit, I’m given to understand), so that sort of thing should clearly be entirely federalized.
A man who can call for the slashing on entitlements without mentioning the military or progressive taxation while citing Christianity as his authority is a man who should spend less time worrying about the public good and more about the state of his own soul.
How’s the eye of that needle looking?
anon2525
“This is my message today: there is no great society which is not a caring society. And any effective war on poverty must deploy what Dorothy Day called ‘the weapons of spirit.'”
“Materialism, ultimately, is boring, and consumerism can build a prison of wants.”
– the public philosopher george bush, in a speech at Notre Dame, May 2001
The Notre Dame speech is part of a familiar pattern. As the policies of the Bush Administration get more and more set in hard-right concrete, the speeches of the President (if not those of his privy councillors) sound more and more like the Brotherhood Week sermons of an earnest liberal clergyman, circa 1964. This is checks and balances, Bush style: the very rich get the checks, drawn on the United States Treasury; the less rich get homilies about the emptiness of materialism; the poor are advised to get religion. link
Apparently, the rich are not like us. If you are rich, then getting a huge tax cut is your “holy grail.” If you are poor, then you should not want money or gov’t. services because that would just make you materialistic, boring, and imprisoned by your wants.
anon2525
“This is my message today: there is no great society which is not a caring society. And any effective war on poverty must deploy what Dorothy Day called ‘the weapons of spirit.'”
“Materialism, ultimately, is boring, and consumerism can build a prison of wants.”
– the public philosopher george bush, in a speech at Notre Dame, May 2001
The Notre Dame speech is part of a familiar pattern. As the policies of the Bush Administration get more and more set in hard-right concrete, the speeches of the President (if not those of his privy councillors) sound more and more like the Brotherhood Week sermons of an earnest liberal clergyman, circa 1964. This is checks and balances, Bush style: the very rich get the checks, drawn on the United States Treasury; the less rich get homilies about the emptiness of materialism; the poor are advised to get religion. link
Apparently, the rich are not like us. If you are rich, then getting a huge tax cut is your “holy grail.” If you are poor, then you should not want money or gov’t. services because that would just make you materialistic, boring, and imprisoned by your wants.
(Reposting with corrected HTML for the citation. Please delete the first version.)
anon2525
…citing Catholic moral teachings to do so.
P.S., Dorothy Day (cited by bush) was the founder of the Catholic Worker movement.
Bush Term III, anyone?
Notorious P.A.T.
“As the policies of the Bush Administration get more and more set in hard-right concrete, the speeches of the President (if not those of his privy councillors) sound more and more like the Brotherhood Week sermons of an earnest liberal clergyman, circa 1964. ”
Sounds like our current president, too.
beowulf
“As the policies of the Bush Administration get more and more set in hard-right concrete, the speeches of the President (if not those of his privy councillors) sound more and more like the Brotherhood Week sermons of an earnest liberal clergyman, circa 1964. ”
Its the mirror image of a point I made here last month about Richard Nixon and his negative income tax plan:
…makes me wonder if the formula then is the more progressive and equitable the economic reform, the more reactionary and divisive terms it must be framed by its proponent (who, ideally, is viewed as an angry and hateful person himself).
“Into this “mess” stepped President Richard Nixon. What he proposed was a striking departure from the status quo… The income of poor people living in the South would be tripled, and the welfare rolls themselves would double in size. According to not a few economists, 60 percent of all indigent people would be brought above the poverty line immediately were this proposal to be enacted into law. Lyndon Johnson never dared go so far. Both architects of the programs– dubbed the Family Assistance Plan (FAP)– and correspondents, not to mention historians, have recognized the boldness of Nixon’s proposal.”
http://books.google.com/books?id=J9oZ2yTlR_kC&lpg=PA287&pg=PA287
Cujo359
Last time I checked, if you added the amount of money as a percent of GDP over and above what other advanced countries pay for their defense, and the money we spend on the two wars we’re still, that adds up to about as much as the federal deficit. And this guy doesn’t want to talk about that? I can’t read the article, because I don’t have a subscription. Frankly, if they employ clowns like this to write editorials, I don’t see why I should waste the money. There are plenty of folks who will gladly lie to me for free.
Morocco Bama
I am not a worker, was never a worker, and will never be a worker. Any system that refers to people as “workers” is an untenable system doomed to failure….it’s just a matter of when. So, when I hear terms like “workers’ movement” or “workers’ rights,” I cringe, because the outcome has already been narrowly defined by a term that has emanated from the self-limiting system.
And yes, Notorious, it does sound just like Obama, and might as well have been. It’s called the Washington Consensus, or Continuity. So-called “Liberals/Progressives” can’t seem to grasp this concept, and instead engage, perpetually it seems, in partisan exceptionalism…..to the peril of us all.
malcontent
Add $55billion more for intelligence spending in FY 2012 according to this
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2011/02/budget-2012-ciaintelligence-ag.html
That figure sounds low for some reason.
Morocco Bama
It is a low figure because there’s so much more in the unaccounted for “Black Budget.”
David Kowalski
Raise taxes on corporations and the super rich anyone? That with a 50% cut in defense spending, strict regulation of the malefactors of great wealth, and an actual honest to god infrastructure program including education and Medicare for all would be a wonderful start.
The economic growth numbers for FDR, Kennedy and Johnson show it works. The only thing lacking is a real President. We need a Lincoln or an FDR. Pray???
anon2525
The only thing lacking is a real President.
I agree with your prescription, but changing the president alone is not going to be enough, especially now that Bernanke, G/S, “high-frequency” trading, etc. have levitated the stock market’s DOW index above 12,000. The crisis that exists for many ordinary people will have to widen and deepen, the scarcity of resources will have to grow sharper, and the climate will have to worsen even more before obama’s socioeconomic class can be unseated. In the meantime, welcome to the new normal.
Raise taxes on corporations and the super rich anyone?
Nine Pictures of the Extreme Income/Wealth Gap