Cut this

Much has been made over few weeks about Obama's budgetary spending freeze and the GOP counter plan to slash everything, gut Medicare, and privatize Social Security. All of this is with the idea that massive budget deficits will soon impregnate this country with it's devil baby, which will burst out of the womb through the skin, and devour us while we writhe in agony.

Of course the things that our elected betters want to cut and freeze are thing that are commonly referred to as things that benefit the American populace. The things they don't want to cut? We call those things that benefit the military industrial complex and our desire to explode brown people.

But what do the American people want cut? Well, nothing. Overwhelmingly nothing.

Spending Type	Federal Budget	Support for cuts
Social Security	19.6%	2%
Military	18.7%	18%
Unemployment	16.1%	15%
Medicare	12.8%	6%
Other health care*	10.4%	10%
Interest on Debt	4.6%	10%
State Department	1.5%	28%
Veterans	1.5%	2%
Anti-terrorism	1.2%	17%
Agriculture	0.7%	12%
Energy	0.7%	14%
Crime / Justice	0.7%	10%
Environment	0.3%	16%
Science	0.2%	14%

So aside from this country's inexplicable hate for the State Department and love of programs that benefit itself and veterans, this country would most like to see the Defense budget slashed. It's only about 1 out of 5 of us, on a good day, but that's practically a flood of support of biblical proportions.

Will it ever make a difference? No. We'll keep putting together bullshit deficit commissions whose only objective are to put a polite, smiling, media pundit approved face on slashing things that benefit people, while never touching a red cent of defense appropriations.

Still, we seem to love all that spending, tea parties be damned. I'll bet there are numbers showing that we'd like spending on most of these programs increased. Also, much lower taxes. It's part of the cognitive dissonance that makes this country great.

Chart of the day

With the early week dedicated to budget talk (which I pointedly slept through to avoid) and the retarded (RAHM~!) budget freeze and today going to be largely taken up by the phony Republican budget that thinks it's a popular idea to gut and privatize Social Security, cut Medicare, while promising to end the deficit... in 50 years. So instead of jumping into that sad rabbit hole, I'll talk about the one budgetary thing I do like: increased science funding!


That's right, pending the interminable budgetary nonsense that Congress goes through, most of the governmental organizations that do sciencey type stuff will get more money. If you remember back to the Bush years, sciencey governmental organizations got money... but it was appropriated into programs that mandated they pray that God would solve the issues they were working on.

As I said this is all subject to the sausage making horrorshow that is the Congressional budget process, so things like Obama's idea to cut NASA's Constellation program might get scrapped and some science funding might get cut out in order to placate a bloc of Southern Senators who want abstinence education for cells that are considering mitosis and meiosis.

Still, everyone but the CDC gets more money. But that's a calculated decision. Given the current state of economic affairs, if a horrid Captain Trips super virus (like the one Sean has now) fans out into a global pandemic, do you really want to survive it? No. Hence the budget cut. So with this and the stimulus spending on science, it looks like it's a pretty good time to be figuring out stuff based on something other than an old book written by primitives. Unless the rapture comes. Then you're all heretics who caused God to pass His cruel judgment on us and I renounce your witchcraft.

Your morning reminder that the Senate is filled with barely functioning, brain dead idiots

Concern troll Ben Nelson (D-Go fuck yourself Nebraska) on how his lack of understanding about economics and deficits isn't going to get in the way of his notions about doing nothing.

Democrat Ben Nelson, a Senator from Nebraska, said the slumping economy and rising joblessness will be factors as Congress considers climate change and health care legislation. They are also driving concerns about the budget deficit, which widened to a record $1.42 trillion in the fiscal year that ended on Sept. 30, he said.

“When the economy’s not strong there’s a lot of interest in controlling spending,” Nelson said.

Yes, because the thing you want to do when you see two massive issues that represent two gigantic chunks of the economy that needed fixing decades ago and will swell and affect spending, deficits, and the economy in dramatically negative ways if something is not done about them: you sit on your fucking ass and do nothing, citing your concern about spending, deficits, and the economy as reasons for not doing anything about spending, deficits, and the economy. Because the best time to worry about long term problems is never, especially not in the short term.

So there you are. The reason we can't do anything to fix the bad economy is because of the bad economy. It's a perfect little snake eating it's own tail, much like your brain is eating itself right now. I betcha Benny is going to be real surprised too when his brilliant plan of "do nothing" results in the economy getting worse and all his buddies not getting re-elected. Then again, he'll probably just take that as a sign that the Senate should have done nothing earlier.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 10.29

The High Drama Behind Reid's Public Option Decision
TPM gives the lowdown on how the White House and Harry Reid in the decision to put a public option in the Senate bill. Long story short: the WH told Reid they'd back him and it was his decision, Reid said he was "motherfuckin' goi' with the motherfuckin' public option", the WH asked if he was sure he had the votes, Reid said he did, the WH asked if he was sure he was sure he had the votes. Reid repeated yes, then strutted out of the Oval Office jauntily whereupon he was kneed in the groin by Joe Lieberman. President Obama is reported to have then preceded to give the definitive "fail facepalm" as a little piece of him died inside.

Victory for Obama Over Military Lobby
How might you ask does signing a $680 billion dollar defense spending bill that increases spending from the previous yea constitute a win? Uhhh....because military/defense lobbyists and M-16 humpers in Congress only got most of what they wanted instead of all of what they wanted. I'll throw the parade. Remember that we'll easily fork over $680 billion a year plus God knows what else for our two ongoing wars and give little thought to it. But try to spend $900 billion over a decade plus in an attempt to give people health care? Whoa buddy, you're out of your fucking mind.

Climate Change Caused Radical North Sea Shift
It seems that because of the effects of climate change on the North Sea, the ecological makeup of the area has changed, radically altering the food chain and sea based businesses. Which is fine if you think the jellyfish market is going to replace the cod market, but bad otherwise for tose who believe massive rapid ecological changes are a bad thing. Someone want to wrap this study around a brick and throw it through Jim Inhofe's front window? Does anyone know the number of a good discount masonry supplier?

Inside Astronaut Boot Camp
Popular Science takes a look at the preparations and people who are looking to be the first people in 40 years to go out further than the space station, out towards our enemy the moon. Because that's America's new space ambition: to re-do stuff that NASA already did decades ago. Marvel as the astronauts learn to drive moon buggies and laugh as a drunk Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stumble onto the test course to heap withering abuse on what they've dubbed "Team Bitch". The only thing standing in these new astronaut's way, besides an inebriated Buzz Aldrin waving a golf club and muttering about "punks copying his shit"? That whole funding thing. Whoops, don't have that yet.

Health Care Budgeting 101: Congress’ Fiscal Scolds Earn an “F-”
FDL looks at how Blue Dog Democrats, all in the name of "fiscal accountability", have decided (and succeeded in getting) that the cost of the original House bill was too high, so in order to cut it down.....they weakened and gutted provisions that would have cut the deficit, saved money, and reduced health care costs. As always, they want to save money in the short term at the expense of costing us gobs more in the future. So just remember, anytime you hear some Blue Dog idiot droning on about "fiscal responsibility" or the deficit or some such shit, what they're really saying is that they're an idiot who doesn't understand basic economics and that they need to have their head held under water until the twitching stops.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 09.18

CBO dismisses co-ops' relevance
Lost in the shuffle yesterday was a little revelation from the Congressional Budget Office. The co-op's, the supposed non-socialist answer to a public plan that would provide all of the benefits of price reduction, competition, and coverage without the fascism, are ineffective, don't reduce costs or increase coverage. I'm betting little things like that won't stand in the way of co-ops being in the bill. Why? Because we're governed by adults.

Okay, you lazy bitch
Hunter S. Thompson, from the grave. Letters of note brings us a 2001 letter HST dashed off to the soon to be defunct studio the Shooting Gallery, complaining that they were dragging their feet on an adaptation of the Rum Diary, which is something that only was able to start filming this year. It's classic Thompson, with liberal use of the underline function and phrases like "waterhead fuckaround", threats of dismemberment, as well as constant assaults on their professionalism and dilettante behavior.

Nobel winner Joseph Stiglitz predicts recession's end: not now, but 2012
Now, now, This counts as staggering optimism from Stiglitz. Sure he's pessimistic about everything that's going on now to deal with the financial apocalypse, but he's confident that in the future the recession will eventually end. Oh, not because of any actions taken or laws passed or bailouts handed out, just because he's a big Mayan calendar buff and he feels the world will end in 2012. That headline is a little misleading, it should read: "Stiglitz predicts recessions end, along with all life as we know it in 2012."

Baucus and the Threshold
It's pessimistic economists showing optimism day, as Paul Krugman looks at the Baucus bill and deems it to exceed his low, low, low, low, low expectations. Hell, he even has convinced himself that it will be improved when it gets to the full Senate. But he mainly centers the article around the question that while the Baucus bill has large flaws it is an improvement over what we have, so at what point do people have to accept that fact, accept that the bill won't have everything they like, and move forward and support it?

Study links 45,000 U.S. deaths to lack of insurance
That's right, more people die from lack of insurance than drunk driving, homicide, and drunk homicide combined and have a 40% higher risk of death than peopl ewith coverage. That's a very controversial opinion Harvard researchers have put forth: that people without coverage are more likely to die from things that coverage can help prevent. It could be worse; they could be insured and just be deemed too sick to use it.

Oh Christ, not this shit again

Obama Tells His Cabinet to Look for Efficiency

When is $100 million small change?

When you are President Obama and you propose trimming that amount from your $3.6 trillion federal budget.

On the theory that every little bit helps, Mr. Obama convened the first cabinet meeting of his presidency on Monday and said that in an effort to make the government “as efficient as possible” and to ensure that “every taxpayer dollar is being spent wisely,” he was challenging department heads and agency chiefs to come up with ways to save $100 million over the next 90 days.

You know during the campaign when Crazy Uncle John and the Church Lady were droning on about how making government more efficient would account for all their budget holes and economic crises, it was funny. Because we knew these were the last desperate gasps of losers who, after they said it, would go back out behind the McCain Campaign Shed for a serious session of weeping.

But now Obama also thinks it's a good idea and wants everybody to pretend that a million dollar cut here on studying the migratory patterns of herons, a million dollar cut here to make those assholes at the Smithsonian use a cheaper brand of printer paper, and buying office supplies from Staples instead of Office Depot will fix everything, one efficiency at a time. Obama's mantra is "It all adds up", but no, it doesn't. As Nobel winning economist Paul Krugman points out, from his Econo-balloon floating 2 miles over Princeton, that if we cut $100 million from the budget every working day during Obama's first term, at the end of the term they'd have reduced the budget by $80 billion, or 2% of the budget for one year. "Chump change" I think is the proper economic term.

I'm all for making government more efficient, but can we do it in a manner that doesn't appear to be by picking a random number that you feel sounds good, holding the Defense Department to the same dollar amount cuts as the Department of Transportation, or pretending that this is all making some grand difference. How about just making the changes without the big empty gestures and focus group tested numbers?

Budgetry

The first Obama budget passed the House and Senate today, meaning we will get to stick China with one last multi-billion IOU before our country collapses in on itself. The House budget is $3.6 trillion and includes a deficit of $1.2 trillion, while the Senate budget is $3.5 trillion with a $1.2 trillion deficit. Crafty Senators, less money, same deficit. That's top notch work, boys. In actuality both deficits are an improvement over this year's deficit of $1.8 trillion. All in all there were many boring platitudes and cheap accusations to be handed out.

"It's going to take a lot of work to clean up the mess we inherited, and passing this budget is a critical step in the right direction," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said. "Staying true to these priorities will help turn around the economy for the many Americans who are underwater right now."

Republicans in both houses accused Democrats of drafting plans that would hurt the recession-ravaged economy in the long run, rather than help it, and saddle future generations with too much debt.

"The administration's budget simply taxes too much, spends too much and borrows too much at a moment when we can least afford it," said the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

What happened with the Republican budget plans that totally didn't cause deficits and diddle the economy with debt? Not much. Apparently the Ryan pamphlet/joke budget they handed out to a incredulous media only garnered 137 Republican votes. John McCain's budget never materialized. I guess he's going to wait until next week to unveil it. All in all no Republicans voted for the budget, just like no Republicans vote for practically anything the White House wants passed.

In other news, two democrat Senators, Ben "That number sounds too high" Nelson and Evan "I lead a group of Senate moderates who ascribe to no unified ethos or even vote together" Bayh, crossed over to vote against the budget. Why? No reason other than the budget was in no danger of failure and you don't get your name in the paper for agreeing with your party. Rest easy, there was enough bipartisan consensus to tack on an amendment to give a tax break to people who inherit more than $7 million. Why not? These people clearly earned that money. This is the bipartisanship we're in danger of losing if Democrats try to pass anything through the reconciliation process. Rest easy. Budget passed, money borrowed, future mortgaged, Paris Hilton's future secured. Time to lean back and put your feet on the desk, the important work is done.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 4.1

Super Bowl Loss Can 'Kill' Some Fans
I knew the Steelers winning the Super Bowl meant more than just bragging rights over 31 other cities, it turns out the XLIII victory meant that the Steelers Nation will live longer. Now if they could just figure out how many years Super Bowls XL and XLIII added to my life and computate it with how many years the Kordell Stewart helmed AFC Championship games took off it. According to science if the Steelers are able to string together three SB victories in a row everyone in Pittsburgh will become functionally immortal. Highlanders. So draft some fucking lineman already so we can live forever.

Unions protest Joe the Plumber in Pittsburgh.
What's that? A union town doesn't like a mongoloid political novelty act come to town to bash unions and ignorantly pontificate on things he doesn't understand? For future reference: Republicans, if you want to send someone to advocate to unions that they should willingly sodomize themselves, don't send the scab plumber.

McCain Rumored To Be Working His Own Budget
Oh dear God, someone kindly tell him he lost and no one cares. Let me guess what his budget is: no earmarks, tax cuts for the rich, some paen to the working class about how government needs to tighten its belt just like the regular folks do in tough times, and something named after Reagan. I know it's April 1st and all but can the GOP stop releasing so many joke budgets? As we demonstrate here daily, jokes become less funny after you ram them into the ground a few thousand times.

FARC guerillas fail in bid to kill defence minister after spelling mistake
Pobody's nerfect in FARC. I can just imagine the conversation. "You wanted me to kill Jose Rodriguez? I thought you said Jose Bodriguez! DOH!" followed by a comical slap to his forehead, the sad trombone, studio audience laughter, and the sound of gunfire as he's shot to death by a firing squad out back. Actually it's even dumber: they misspelled "policia" on their fake police gear. Boy are they gonna get made fun of in prison.

Luxury Property - The Luxury Real Estate Authority
If you'd like to trainwreck gawk at the misery of the rich there's the Luxury Property Blog. A place where you can see all the hot new foreclosed mega-mansions that are up for sale. Perhaps laugh as some poor baron's castle and mega-yacht are put up for sale. It's OK to laugh, they're rich and thus don't have real human feelings or emotions. Remember to point.

HBO sets drama series in Treme with focus on city's musicians
What's that, David Simon, creator of the Wire and Generation Kill? Writing a new TV show for HBO? About post-Katrina New Orleans? It follows destitute musicians trying to get back on their feet and it stars Bunk and Freamon from the Wire? Sounds like like a typical Simon appointment viewing epic for those of us who get a huge tragedy boner from depressing TV. I'll get my TiVO ready.

Uh-oh, find a better plan thean "No!"

Seems that the Obama Administration has taken a look at the Republican strategy of "filibuster everything, find out what it is we're opposing later" and deemed it an obstruction to their agenda. Fortunately they unleashed their number master, OMB Director Pete Orszag, on the problem. His radical solution is to make it so that a simple majority of votes will secure passage and that legislation will actually get voted on. Guh? In the Senate? What type of witchcraft is this?

A top White House official threatened Tuesday to use a congressional rule to force some controversial proposals through the Senate by eliminating the Republicans' power to block legislation.

Peter Orszag, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, said the Obama administration would prefer not to use the budget "reconciliation" process that allows measures to pass the Senate on simple majority votes.

Orszag said he wouldn't rule it out, however. The legislative tactic is being considered to push through Obama's global warming and health care programs, and perhaps his proposals to raise taxes on the wealthy.

"We'd like to avoid it if possible," Orszag told reporters at a luncheon in Washington. "But we're not taking it off the table."

Can you start doing this two months ago? Perhaps you should have used it on those bailout measures that were large parts of the budget that needed reconciled. Seriously, just use it all the time. "Uhhh...this requires...money...and thus...needs to be...reconciled. Majority rule!" Then hand out drinks and party. It's no secret that the filibuster process has been increasingly abused, why keep fucking around with people who have no other ideas and are uninterested in debate or doing anything?

Why announce you want to avoid it either? Are Senate Republicans going to get less unreasonable, play less hardball, filibuster less? No. If you announce you're going to do it can they even possibly obstruct and filibuster more? I doubt it. Don't hamper health care passage because Mitch McConnell is going to whine because he can't block it or because you need to water it down bad enough to get Arlen Specter or Olympia Snowe to jump over and keep Ben Nelson and Evan Bayh from jumping ship. Don't take any guff from these fucking swine. Do it.

I sure hope you're hungry

Congratulations, President Obamccain. Here is the commemorative pile of fiscal shit we've cooked up for you to swallow during your first term.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The next president will inherit a record budget deficit approaching $490 billion, a Bush administration official said Monday.

The official said the deficit was being driven to an all-time high by the sagging economy and the stimulus payments being made to 130 million households in an effort to keep the country from falling into a deep recession. A deficit approaching $490 billion would easily surpass the record deficit of $413 billion set in 2004.

Honestly, we had no idea this would happen. I mean, who'd have thought that deep tax cuts, the bloated spending of patronage politics, and burying $560 billion (and growing!) in the desert would create a financially tenuous situation?

But we got us into this mess, so the least we can do is help sort it out. Why, I bet if we all just sit down and roll up our sleeves we could-- HOLY SHIT, WHAT IS THAT?!-- (door slams, heavy footsteps, sound of tires squealing).

Like a good dick, too big to fail

Good news, taxpayers! It'll cost us a mere $25 Billion to bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac if the Mortgage Hutts buckle under the strain of the crippled housing market they helped create... Unless it costs more.

Even better news! The financial giants might not even require that bailout package proposed by the Bush Administration over the weekend... Unless the housing market continues to dwindle.

On the bright side, given the scope of our $2.9 trillion federal budget for FY 2008, $25 billion is pocket change. To put things in perspective, the estimated cost to rescue these two corporations is more than projected outlays for the following budget items:

-Renewable Energy ($1.2B)
-Higher Education ($23.8B)
-Federal Aviation Administration ($12.1B)
-Total US Army Enlisted Soldier Pay ($19.9B)
-Pell Grants ($13.2B)
-Federal Work Study (<$1.0B) -Customs and Border Protection ($8.8B) -FEMA ($5.2B) -Public Housing ($6.0B) -The (Entire Fucking) Department of Justice ($20.2B)
-National Nuclear Security Administration ($9.4B)
-The Environmental Protection Agency ($7.2B)

...Oh, and the War in Afghanistan ($19B)