In Defense of Government-Funded and –Run Programs
I don’t know anything about this S-CHIP health care coverage for kids legislation that Dumbleyou is about to veto except that all the right people are for it and all the wrong people are against it. Starting with President Bush, author or facilitator of most of the country’s bad ideas since he got the job.
I mean, come on… it’s about insuring kids whose folks can’t afford medical insurance because medical insurance is crazy expensive. What kind of fucked-up political calculation could drive a person to vote against that? Jesus, even the Human Political Calculator, Hillary Clinton, voted for it.
The government mandates we insure our cars, but not our kids. You suppose that’s because the Insurance Lobby throws a lot more cash at Washington lawmakers than the Lemonade Stand Lobby does? But I digress...
W’s ostensible argument is that he doesn’t want “the government” to run health care because he doesn’t trust the government to run anything without creating graft-generating, Orwellian bureaucracies. It’s the classic Conservative small-government argument but it’s occurred to me recently…
Isn’t his beloved military a government-funded and –run program? How can you make a blanket assertion about government-funded and –run programs while you’re constantly throwing laurel leaves at one of the biggest, most expensive ones there is? The argument’s inherent inconsistency reveals its total bogusness!
Speaking of bogusness, isn’t his own administration a government-funded and –run program? Who pays his salary? We do! For that matter, isn’t his stacked Supreme Court a government-funded and –run program? I don’t hear him belly-aching about funding the Supreme Court. What about the post office? I can move physical property 3,000 miles across the country for less than 50¢ by dropping it in a box on a street corner in my home town and count on it to get where I want it to go almost every time.
That’s a pretty fucking efficient government-funded and –run program. Of course, none of W’s cronies are in positions of authority at the post office. Hmmmm…
We don’t have to run the SCHIP program like we run FEMA. We can run it like the post office and have a lot less poor kids forced to wait till they become critically ill using the local E.R. as their primary physician.
As usual, Bush is wrong on tactical, fiscal and ethical grounds. What a fuck-up.
posted by Fang Bastardson at 8:39 AM
2 Comments:
It's not just Squatter George: today's G.O.P. is as divided as the Democrats ever were. The Neocons want endless war, and don't care too much about government spending. The Theocons want a religious state, and share in the Neocons' delight with war. As far as government spending goes, the theocons like the talk, but aren't too worried about it, so long as gay people don't get married and have abortions. Many of the old guard conservatives realize that Iraq is an unmitigated disaster, and have taken flack for saying so. But so far they have been slapped down. After all, the terrorists hate us. They really, really hate us, and want to destroy us. Don't you realize that? Don't you see what this means?
Bush feels the pain of the shrink-the-governmenters, and he knows they're forever disappointed that the government hasn't been washed down the drain. So he throws a veto their way, one he no doubts believes in anyway. Gee, I get to be a fiscal conservative after all!
That's Bush's logic. You can't say, "But what about the children?" to this motherfucker. All you're going to get is a stone cold vacuous glare and maybe a grunt, or a chuckle. He he he.
And few in his party will vote to override his veto, too scared not to look tough and resolute and manly, even if that means carting off sick kids to the E.R. They'll keep grim faces. It has to be done.
We're at war.
8:31 AM
Hear hear - I give you the gentleman from Iowa! [applause]
8:40 AM
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