The Crazy Talk Conundrum

So this debt ceiling thing is dragging on a bit.  On one hand, this fact is heartening because it means the GOP hasn’t caved.  (Yet.)

On the other hand, the longer the battle rages through soundbites and news clips, the more ridiculous everyone sounds.  All of us.

Here’s a perfect example.  The other day, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee emails me a message that begins:

“Washington is focused on the debt ceiling – and how Republicans will allow our nation to default in order to score political points and hurt President Obama.”

That’s just crazy talk, right?  Of course it is.

What about this little two-word switcheroo:

Washington is focused on the debt ceiling – and how Democrats will allow our nation to default in order to score political points and help President Obama.

Does that sound like crazy talk?  I’m gonna be honest, and admit it sounds pretty plausible.  If you are a fiscal conservative, you might agree.

Yeah, I know what’s missing so far:  facts to back up or refute these dichotomic arguments.

If you haunt my little corner of the ‘net regularly, you probably have lots of facts already tucked in your memory and your bookmarks.  You’ve read voraciously, listened to the talk radio and talking heads, and even shared your own analysis in the blogosphere.

Imagine for a moment, however, that you have no facts to support or refute either argument.  Imagine that you are one of those uninformed types.  (Like these.)

These folks have little knowledge of political science and economics.  They’ve never followed this stuff or personally examined the philosophies.  Yet, they aren’t dumb.  In a culture increasingly comfortable with higher levels of civic ignorance, one cannot swipe a broad paint stroke and call them all “stupid.”

Many of these voters are plenty smart.  They have higher-ed degrees, professional jobs, specialized skills and talents, and at least moderate financial success.  Sure, Mr A doesn’t know Keynes from Hayek, but he can renovate your house.  Yeah, Mrs. B doesn’t know about the outrageous Obama-Pelosi spike in spending as a percentage of GDP, but she makes beautiful scrapbooks. 

These are the folks to whom the President was referring, when he empathized with those who have too much on their plates to be worryin’ about Treasury auctions.  These are the people that got him elected.  They do have full lives and full plates, even if their brains are devoid of hard political fact and analysis. 

They may vote Democrat simply because that’s what their parents did.  Who can blame a person for never critically pondering political science, anyway?  When one is spoon-fed over a lifetime the idea that Democrat-style “liberalism” is kind, generous, and progressive, it’s understandable that many just absorb the notion and move on to more interesting things.

In addition, this particular topic–the debt ceiling–is no walk in the park.  The information Keith Hennessey provides in The Substance of the Budget Negotiations is enough to make my eyes glaze over.  We’ve got Randall Hoven at the American Thinker, explaining that Social Security and Medicare should be covered by current revenue, even if no deal is reached on 02 August.  (That article is via Conservatives on Fire, thanks Mista Gourdie.)

We’ve also got heavy-hitter Jennifer Rubin, with a sober warning that if conservatives push too hard and artificially create a situation that requires drastic cuts, “voters are going to get rid of you, not the spending.”

Some fiscal conservatives are in favor of Mitch McConnell’s plan to put the debt-raising ball into Obama’s court.  Some are banging their heads on the wall in frustration over it.

We’re into the tough stuff, guys, and I’m pretty much sick of it all.  Here’s a safe bet:  my non-political friends and neighbors are probably sick of hearing about it, too.  So, I’m doubting whether anything we conservatives say will have a positive effect.

It doesn’t matter how crazy or full of baloney “The Left” is, because the minute ”The Right” counters vociferously, they sound just as crazy and just as full of processed beef by-product and mechanically separated chicken.

We’ve reached saturation point.  The uninformed are done.  They’ve tuned us out.  The normalcy bias makes our debt warnings ineffective.  At this point, politics sound like a broken record, necessitating that people tune out before the din drives ‘em nuts.

What do you think?  For the love of all things holy, please tell me why I’m wrong.  This “crazy talk conundrum” has bothered me for days now.

And you:  the apolitical type.  The one who doesn’t follow this stuff much.  If you have actually read my ramblings, I especially want to hear from you.  What do you think?  What can I say to get you engaged in the civic debate?

Want a snack?

Just different flavors of the same product?

Some Remedial Instruction UPDATED

For us unwashed masses, since weer sew dum.

First, Condescension 101:

“Let me distinguish between professional politicians and the public at large. You know, the public is not paying close attention to the ins and outs of how a Treasury auction goes. They shouldn’t. They’re worrying about their family, they’re worrying about their jobs. They’re worrying about their neighborhood. They have got a lot of other things on their plate. We’re paid to worry about it.”

Aw, ain’t that thoughtful of our leader?  He’s protecting us from worrying our purty wittle heads about Boring Stuff That’s Hard.

Ugh.  News flash, Sir Professor Snooty-old Smarty-pants.  You, your wild-spending, no-budget-passing Dem buddies and complicit RINOs are the reason we have to worry our purty heads about the Boring Old Debt Limit.

Also, being patronized is my #1 pet peeve.  Well, maybe #2, right beneath disrespectful feral children in the neighborhood, whose parents get angry if you yell at their precious angel who actually needs scolding more often.

Ahem.  Anyhow, on to the next class, Microeconomics 101.  It’s not just any microeconomics class, though, because that would just be more Boring Stuff That’s Hard.  (We’ve got paid experts to worry about that stuff, you know.  Obama says so!)

This particular microeconomics class is A Very Special Edition For True Believers:

“A provision in President Barack Obama’s health-care law that requires small businesses to begin buying health insurance for their workers when they hire their 50th employee–or otherwise pay a penalty to the federal government–’will actually be a great incentive’ for businesses to grow, stated Sebelius.”

From CNS news, via The Lonely Conservative.

Did–did you catch that?  When businesses who do not insure their employees are faced with a penalty for hiring the 50th employee, they have incentive to grow?

Oh, oh dear. 

I’m going to have to cut our tutoring session short today, everyone.  Terribly sorry, but I think my brain has finally exploded.  I can’t see much, just a lot of red.  Disorderly thoughts intruding . . . the chickens got loose from the pen.  And wait ’til you see all them bats . . .

UPDATE:  I’m feeling better, thanks to Planet Moron’s Advanced Moonbattery Course.

UPDATE #2:  James Taranto says it better:

“What got our attention about this exchange as reported by Cantor is the president’s threat to take his case ‘to the American people.’ Would those be the same American people who aren’t paying attention and don’t understand all this complicated stuff?”

At the same link, Mr. Taranto provides extra nuance from a WSJ reader email:

“The correct quote is: ‘The public is not paying close attention to the ins and outs of how a Treasury option goes. They shouldn’t. They’re worryin’ about their family; they’re worryin’ about their jobs; they’re worryin’ about their neighborhood. They’ve got a lot of other things on their plate. We’re paid to worry about it.’

It may seem insignificant, but it should be noted that every single time the president mentions the great unwashed masses ‘out there’ he instantly drops his precise pronunciation of ‘-ing’ endings, and launches into what he imagines all those ‘folks out there’ talk like. We’re jes’ workin’ and hopin’ and waitin’ for him to help us out, y’know? He does it midsentence. It is quite jarring when you listen for it. It is also very telling and very insulting.”

 

 

Nerd Heaven

Well, this nerd’s heaven anyway.  So brilliant.

“the economy’s not a class you can master in college
to think otherwise is the pretense of knowledge.”

Word.

Brings me back to undergrad.  I earned my business degree with an emphasis in economics.  By the time I reached senior level courses, none of it made any sense.  My professors would rattle off premises and formulas and act as though it all made perfect sense, but it sounded more like the chanting of magic spells.

I memorized what I had to, regurgitated it and promptly forgot everything but the accent with which the Cambodian professor said, “International zeh-Bahnk,” by which she meant the IMF.

Funny to look back on it now.  I chose economics because of my freshman level macro-economics class, which was taught by a nice young non-Keynesian who I would never see again.  The introduction of that simple supply and demand chart made a profound impression.  The idea that price served a function, that it was not arbitrarily set–revelation!  That macro-econ class thrilled me somehow (yes that’s why I’m a nerd), and I didn’t find that kind of thrill again until I read The Road to Serfdom almost twenty years later, on Instapundit’s recommendation.

The realization that I have this econ degree and yet had never even heard of Hayek–well that was a revelation too, just not a good one.  Still angers me to think about what a complete waste of time all those classes were.  Oh well, at least I didn’t major in Women’s Studies.

Rush Limbaugh introduced me to politics at roughly the same time as my econ 101 class.  1990? (I’m really bad with dates, just ask hubs about the date inscribed in his wedding band).  I worked at a sporting goods store, and the fellow in charge of inventory would listen to Rush in the warehouse.  Next thing I know, I’m lingering in the back to listen when I should be helping the customers out front.

At the time I didn’t even realize economics and politics were related.  I also didn’t realize the philosophical influence of my favorite Heinlein books.

It just takes awhile for a thick girl like me to put the pieces together, that’s all.

Sometimes I wonder, though, what it’s like to have been a “liberal” in the past and then convert to conservatism.  Perhaps my lack of conversion is the reason it’s hard for me to accept the fact that so many people embrace the irrationality, lunacy, and evil of Collectivist Thought.

Whew, enough rambling.  I’ve strayed far from the reason of my post, to share the latest Keynes v. Hayek rap:

The EconStories website is here, via Instapundit of course.

For any of you who actually missed the first one:

And if you are a nerd like me, maybe that’s not enough.  Hear from the creators of this unlikely rap duo here:

I love you too, Rand Paul

Sigh.

Ah, unrequited love.

Or is it?

For those without eight minutes to spare, here is an important bit:

“We are not yet serious in Washington.  We have not yet here recognized the severity, the enormity, and the significance of how big this deficit is.  This deficit is going to have serious repercussions.  The Chinese have bought over a trillion dollars of our debt.  The Japanese nearly a trillion . . . Can they continue to buy our debt?  The other question is, how long can a government continue to exist that spends more than it brings in?”

I’m pretty sure that Rand Paul just said he loves me.  Me, the Tea Party.  Me, the average Jane.  Me, the dummy who’s fool enough to moan about the debt, the deficit, the overspending and blah blah blah whatever.

He loves me!  He does!  I’m not just some one night stand to be ignored.

Don’t make me boil the bunny, Rand.

Some Sloppy Housekeeping

I am grateful to have some out-of-town company this weekend.  They are here to help me celebrate a milestone.  Yep, the big-four-oh.

Yay me! 

Never bemoan a birthday, folks, because you probably wouldn’t fancy the alternative.

On to the housekeeping.  I’d rather give these links a more proper treatment, but if I don’t spit ‘em out right now, they’ll only get lost in the shuffle.

First, P.J. O’Rourke has the last word on the Amy Chua Tiger Mother thing, and dang it’s funny.  I cannot match his talent, but I can parrot his words:

Amy Chua, I’ve got bad news. “A” students work for “B” students. Or not even. A businessman friend of mine corrected me. “No, P. J.,” he said, “ ‘B’ students work for ‘C’ students. ‘A’ students teach.” Teaching in the Ivy League gives you a lot of time off, Amy​—​enough to write a crap book, worse than Yale prof Erich Segal’s Love Story. Maybe when you get some time off again you should come to rural New Hampshire and meet the Irish Setter Dad children.

Buster, age 7, is a master of passive resistance who can turn staying up past his bedtime into Tahrir Square. He could hire himself out as a civil disobedience coach to Mahatma -Gandhi and Martin Luther King, if they weren’t dead. Poppet, 10, is a persuasive saleswoman, not to say charming con artist, who can hand you a sheet of black construction paper with a hole in it and convince you it’s a science project on collapsed super-novas. And Muffin, 13, has her own .410 shotgun and knows how to use it.

Try your Chinese Tiger Mom stuff on my kids.

Ha!  The whole article is worth it if you have time.

Second, via Disrupt the Narrative comes yet another awesome Bill Whittle video, Eat The Rich!  This video has that extra little something which no leftist can ever refute:  math.

Third, via Mayrant & Rave and Mr. Macky comes a nifty little resource: LiberalSpeak.com.  The list isn’t long, but here are a couple of my favorites:

Health Care = Abortion rights

Unconstitutional = We don’t like it

Open-Minded = Subscribes to liberal dogma

Fourth, someone named Duane Lester rather ingeniously asks the obvious:  Isn’t Fear of a Government Shutdown Proof That Government is Too Big?  His answer contains lotsa good info.

Next up is the lovely fact that unions aren’t as powerful as they think they are.  Wisconsin Supreme Court:  A Referendum That Wasn’t:

“Union have already spent millions fighting battles across the country, depleting their war chests for the 2012 election cycle.  Many states are following Wisconsin’s lead and taking away the ability of government unions to force their members to pay dues.”

Warms the cockles of my heart, enough even to withstand the gutless maneuverings of the House GOP.

Happy Weekend, ya’ll.

And Still They Threaten Shutdown

At least Rand Paul is speaking for us.  Not many of ‘em are.

Personally, I like the way that Spellchekker puts it:

“The budget debate is a pathetic, disgusting, carnival freak show.”

Yep, pretty much.  Follow this link to see whether your representative was among the fifty-four GOPers serious enough to vote NO on the budget extention.  Happily, newly-elected Rigell was a NO vote.  I left a thank-you message with the staffer manning his D.C. phone.  If yours voted NO, have you done the same?

None of us conservative bloggers are gonna get the vapors over a shutdown, that much is a no-brainer.  However.  If the GOP gets the guts to hold firm on the budget, and a shutdown occurs, well . . . .  I wonder if those who can control which checks do and don’t get cut will make that shutdown as painful as possible?

I’m not trying to insinuate the answer.  If any of you have practical information about how the shutdown works, do share.

There is this.  Spellchekker is assuming that in the event of a shutdown, the military will “continue to function per normal. By law.”  That is what happened in 1995, but maybe not this time:

“U.S. troops could be required to report to work without pay if a budget clash in Congress results in a government-wide shutdown, according to draft planning guidance circulating in the Pentagon.”

Yeah, hmm.

Doesn’t phase me, and the military is our sole source of income. 

But I ain’t the norm.  Not everyone is as prepared or stubborn.  Most are paid somewhat less than my hubs, a mid-grade officer (that and two-fifty will get you a cup of coffee, BTW).  I don’t like to imagine some of the young-enlisted-types’ families skipping even one paycheck.

Even still, I join Spellchek in his rallying cry:  “SHUT IT DOWN!”

As far as my military community goes, we’ve got each other’s backs.  Those that are able will step in to help those who suffer by it. 

Sometimes, you’ve got to bring the pain now, so you can hurt less later.

Very Interesting Time Capsule

Did you know about the big budget anti-federal debt commercial directed by Ridley Scott?

I certainly missed it.  The lovely Roxy discovered it recently.  (Please go see her to view the video; she has lots more info on the group behind it.)

Do you know what is so striking about the ad?  It was made in 1986.

Watching it now is rather nostalgic.  Two trillion dollars of debt.  Peanuts!  Ha ha ha, uh . . . hmm.  Yeah, it’s maybe not so funny.

Even more interesting is this old news clip about how the networks refused to air it:

It’s a powerful reminder that things may not be so bad as we fear today.  Sure, 14 trillion, yeah, scary.

But.

At least it’s not 1986.  There was no Rush.  No AM Conservative Talk Radio.  No FOX.  No internet.  No YouToobz.  No blogosphere.  No Tea Party.

The Big Three Networks had total control of the message.  The ad was “too controversial.”  Bwa ha ha!  They just didn’t agree with the message.  So the message didn’t get out.

No wonder the MSM has been going into apoplectic convulsions over “right-wing extremists.”  My goodness, it sucks to lose power.

So I’ll take the $14 trillion debt today over the $2 trillion in 1986, given this changing power dynamic.

I think.  Ask me again in a few months, will you?

I’ve Got A Name For It Too

I’m detecting a wee bit of cynicism regarding Congress’ commitment to controlling spending.

Citizen Tom calls it a “tempest in a teapot.”  But, how can that be?  A government shutdown is looming, hanging over our heads like an axe!

Wait, what?  The GOP’s drastic $60 billion proposal amounts to only a 1.6 percent cut in the 2011 budget?  Anybody want to check the math on this?

That Spellchek fellow seems adept with math.  (Hopefully better than his spelling, wink.)  According to him, the Dems’ proposal to cut $6.5 billion ”doesn’t even equate to 20 hours of deficit spending, based on the record February rate Obama just added to our debt.”

Wow, 20 whole hours of spending.  Nice.

Even the stoic watchman on his tower isn’t feeling it:

“This is going to come all the way down to the wire, but in the end the Republicans will give up much more than they gain because they will be too timid to shut down the federal government in light of the repercussions it had when they tried this in the nineties.”

In the meantime, OFA is sending a mass email brimming with shocked denunciations and chicken little proclamations like:

They would close more than 16,000 classrooms, lay off 55,000 teachers, and cause 218,000 children to be kicked out of early-childhood education programs!

They would slash homeland security investments and lay off thousands of police officers and firefighters!!

They would defund health insurance reform, doing away with the cost savings and vital patient protections relied upon by millions of Americans around the country!!!

They would eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood, ending thousands of health center jobs and leaving millions of women without access to preventive care!!!!

They would kick homeless people out of their cardboard shelters to recycle said shelter for a penny while simultaneously shoving grandmas and kicking puppies!!!!!

 Where was I?  Oh, I promised my own descriptive phrase for this budget debate:

Ladies and gentlemen, please enjoy your dog and pony show.

The GOP starts off their negotiations with a proposal to cut $60 billion.  Sigh.  Let Rand Paul tell you how that dog don’t hunt.

Meanwhile, the clock keeps ticking . . .

Washington Math

This exchange between Senator Sessions and Education Secretary Duncan is amusing.  The video itself is worth your time–if only to see the parental smirk on Session’s face, and hear the parental tone in his voice as he doggedly throws wrenches of fact into Duncan’s well-oiled machinations.

Here are the best parts, though, transcribed and annotated by yours truly for your reading pleasure.

Sessions starts off by asking Duncan if the debt is a problem.  Duncan responds:

 ”I think those are absolutely valid concerns . . . . The President is committed to a trillion dollars in deficit reduction over the next decade . . . .”

Sessions:  “Well over the next decade, the deficit will double from 13 trillion to 26 trillion, and, you can say that cuts and saves a trillion, but it doesn’t seem like it to me.”

(Sessions probably meant to say that the overall debt will double, not the deficit.)

Oh, Duncan.  The debt v. deficit trick?  The budget is fiscally responsible because it reduces the yearly deficit?  (“Reducing the deficit” merely slows debt growth.  It does not pay off the debt.  The debt continues to grow.  But I bet you already knew that.)

Sessions then asks whether it’s correct to say that the President’s budget proposal doubles the 2008 level of Pell Grant aid, from 18 billion to 36 billion dollars.

Duncan responds:

“We can go thru the numbers.  We are going to save, uh, we have a way of closing the Pell shortfall, 20 billion dollars worth. [translation:  see this hat?  watch this . . . look, a bunny!  I pulled a bunny out of the hat!]  But let me be very very clear. [where did he pick up that phrase, hmm?]  What our country desperately needs is many more young people going to college and graduating. . . . Four million jobs are unfilled because we’re not producing the skilled workers that our country needs. . . .”

Our country desperately needs . . . more college graduates.  Huh.  That’s weird. 

This Is My Credulous Face

 I could have sworn that the problem is having too few jobs for workers, not the other way around.  But even if we stipulate to a shortage of workers, then we have to swallow this big whopper:  holding a college degree–of any type, presumably–is proof-positive that you are a skilled worker.

Yeah.  Listen.  I’m a girl with an almost, but not quite, entirely useless undergrad degree in economics.

This degree did not make me a skilled worker.

Furthermore, word on the ‘net is that college often fails to improve a student’s basic skills, like writing and critical thinking.

Sessions continues,

“Well I think we can all agree that funding and money does not necessarily improve education.  Your proposal . . . doubling the entire budget, and we don’t have the money. . . . We’ve now taken over the student loans; 100% is federal.  But according to our calculations, the total of these loans will go from 98 billion in 2008, to 167 billion in 2012, is that correct?”

Duncan starts to stall a bit at this point:

“I don’t know the exact numbers [veering off point until redirected by Sessions]. . . . We have many more people accessing higher education, which as a country we desperately need.  The only way we strengthen our economy long-term is to produce the innovators, the entrepreneurs, the knowledge workers–”

Because college is all about cranking out the innovators and entrepreneurs.  Mercifully, Sessions interrupts him.

Sessions:  “Well why don’t we just spend three times as much?  Won’t that just help us fix it all?”

Duncan:  “Well actually we made some very tough cuts in Pell Grants, so we asked for a 5 billion dollar increase, but we are reducing costs by 15 billion dollars.”

Sessions:  “Well this is Washington math.  You haven’t cut Pell Grants.  Pell Grants are increasing dramatically Mr. Secretary.  The numbers are plain.”

Duncan:  “That’s correct, and it would have increased even more substantially, did we not make the tough and painful decision to eliminate–”

Sessions:  “You’re proposing they increase that much.  They are not going to be increased that much because we don’t have the money.”

Ha ha ha!  Washington math, indeed.  Did you catch that?  A 5 billion dollar increase is a product of “very tough cuts.”  Cuts in spending create . . . an increase in spending.   (And who knows whether the purported cuts are even real.) 

Did Sarah Palin turn you into a newt, too, Secretary Duncan?

Oh, I’ve written enough.  Here’s the video.  Share and enjoy!

 

Yay For The LOUDelf And 10000 Pennies: Jack Daniels Explains The Deficit

LOUDelf’s posts have been sporadic lately, but the latest was money.  More specifically, 10000 Pennies.

I remember this video from last year, but I didn’t follow the fellow who made it, Matthias Shapiro.

The LOUDelf did.

That’s why LOUDelf rocks. 

Besides the 10000 Pennies channel, Mr. Shapiro also blogs at Political Math.  It’s well worth a click over.  (By the look of his avatar, Mr. Shapiro could be related to Jim Carrey, doncha think?)

Oh!  Mr. Shapiro’s latest post explains that he is trying to win a video contest.  Go on and vote, here.  As of today he is in a third place, so it would be nice if more of you participated than the number who took my Michael Moore poll.  (Only 10 votes?  Really?)

Anyhow, without further ado, I present to you, Jack Daniels Explains The Deficit: