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Only Cut What’s Unimportant

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I don’t disagree with this piece in the Yakima Herald that combating crime is important.

Have you ever been a crime victim? Have you ever felt the violation of having your home broken into? Do you know someone who’s been mugged or murdered? If you have been lucky enough to have escaped victimization, then look around you; look to your immediate family and neighbors and ask yourself if any of them have been victims of crime. At this point, the numbers shrink pretty close to zero. Yakima is one of many cities in America where crime is a sad fact of life.

I don’t dig this second person construct. But yes, crime is bad, and we should do what we can to stop it. OK, so what should we cut? Or will this argue for tax increases? OK, what taxes? Oh it doesn’t? It just says public safety is good. So is education.

Public safety, along with education, must be the foundation of any civil society. Don’t take my word for any of what I have written. Do the homework, then ask yourself what the possible consequences of such draconian budget cuts will be. Too many of us have already been victims of crime. Are we safe enough to allow the bar to be lowered even more? I think the answer must be a resounding no.

Right. And a social safety net is also important. We’re long past the relatively easy things to cut. We need to raise taxes, and to do so in as progressive a way as we can. But even when an article begging no to cut corrections and education can’t mention raising taxes, we’re not going to have that discussion.

Comments

  1. 1

    Oh c’mon Carl, this is America, Land of the FREE!! The average American will gladly pay $2,500 for a $2,000 rebate on a new car (Detroit figured this out 100 years ago), but they expect public services to cost NOTHING and public workers to work for FREE. Gimme roads, gimme schools, gimme cops and firefighters and librarians — but don’t ask me to pay anything for them. Remember what happened a few years ago when voters approved two school improvement initiatives but voted down the penny sales tax to pay for them on the same ballot? Americans who’ll gladly fork over $50,000 for a shiny new SUV or pickup, or $500 million for a shiny new sports stadium, won’t pay 50 bucks for public schools. If that attitude continues to prevail, we’d better all learn to speak Chinese.

  4. 4

    There was a very good referendum on the ballot in 2010 which would have significantly reduced the budget gap.
    Washingtonians, in their wisdom, chose the opportunity to not pay income taxes in the unlikely event they might some day be rich.

    In a world where people who steal billions serve little time, and petty theives do time, I’be no problem cutting spending drastically for the prison industrial complex.

  6. 6

    @5. That question is out of order. The question is: How much should society pay for these services.

  8. 8

    We should have a law that in order to cut a tax it takes a 99.99 % majority.

  10. 10

    @1: Yes. Shiny objects, like the UW stadium upgrade are great vote-getters. All the costs are to private sector contractors. Win-win!!!!!!

  12. 12

    Let’s look at what happens if we eliminate all government services except police.

    Social safety net-gone.
    Public education-gone.
    Unemployment-up.
    Poverty-up.
    Crime-up.
    Need for police, courts, and prisons-up.
    Uh, oh….now we need to raise taxes.
    Who’s left that can pay?
    Uh, oh.

    Conservatives: Bringing you the urge to commit social suicide. Why, that strikes me as moral relativism.

  13. 13

    @1: The major reason for the trade imbalance is our strong dollar policy. Thank you Robert Rubin and Bill Clinton. See Dean Baker for details.

    Further: If Chinese apples taste good and don’t poison me, what’s the BFD? I get cheap prices. This frees up more of my money to spend on other stuff or invest. Whiney social parasites (subsidized apple growers) go out of business and find real jobs. There is less demand for illegal (i.e., low priced) labor to pick the fruit. The land can go back to its natural state and get reinvigorated. Precious water supplies are freed up for other uses. In return, the Chinese get our worthless treasury bills. This pushes interest rates lower. We can borrow money for free and use it to invest in our future (send parasites and illegals to school or employ them on socially useful tasks with long term paybacks).

    Win win!!!!!! Think long term, roger.

  14. 14

    Further: If Chinese apples taste good and don’t poison me, what’s the BFD?

    Yeah, but the Chinese apples and honey do poison you, they just do it slowly, and they’re literally killing their lands with toxic crap. What’s going to happen when all the local apple growers are gone and there’s no more Chinese apples left to import?

    The human race has a history filled with famines. You’d think we’d have learned by now.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines

    Plant an apple tree in your yard now and it will be 3-5 years before you get your first full harvest. We might want to get planting.

  15. 15

    Michael,

    You miss my point: Local commercial apple growers deserve nothing but our contempt. They whine about Chinese apples. They whine about a “labor shortage” because if they paid a living wage their costs would go up and they would go bust. They demand the government do something, you know, like intervene in the ‘free market’ to get the outcome they want.

    But they will turn on a dime instantly to beat you up for infringing on their right to profit from unrestrained “free market” capitalism when it comes to the application of noxious pesticides.

    They are assholes.

  16. 16

    But they will turn on a dime instantly to beat you up for infringing on their right to profit from unrestrained “free market” capitalism when it comes to the application of noxious pesticides.

    The real kicker: they get a sales tax exemption worth ~80 Million when they buy the poison to spray on our food.

    Do the math. That’s a lot of poison.

  17. 17

    PTBAA,
    Nah, I got what you were saying. I decided to go somewhere else with it.

    Zotz, by stuff from the organic growers…

    At the end of the day, regardless of who sucks and who’s greedy and all that, we’re still going to need to build a sustainable, mostly local, food system.

  18. 18

    Hmmm, banner ad at the top of the page for “Search for your Confederate Ancesters”.

    I haven’t clicked on the banner, I presume there is a fee involved somewhere. I’ll save you the trouble. The NPS has a system called the “Soldier’s and Sailor’s” listing, which allows you to search for civil war ancestors based on the name. You can find it quickly by a Google search. I’m betting that’s where this site gets most of it’s information.

    But be aware that it really helps to have the state where your ancestor likely enlisted (or was drafted), and the branch of service (infantry, artillary, cavalry). If you know the regiment number, it’s that much better. Because most of the soldiers had names originating in England, Scotland, or Ireland, you will find an awful lot of similar names, with little information to help you sort them out.

    Also, watch for the use of initials instead of names, and for different spellings. I searched in vain for several years, before finding out that my ancestor spelled his last name differently, and enlisted using first and middle initials.

    I was able to find my ancestor only after I saw a photo of a headstone which one of my relatives had. It showed that he went by his initials, spelled his last name differently than just about everyone else in the family, and it listed his regiment number and even the company designation.

  19. 19

    Thank you Robert Rubin and Bill Clinton.

    Or as Ron Suskind writes in Confidence Men …

    The latter, Glass-Steagall, was, in essence, repealed in 1999 when the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, with support from Bill Clinton’s team of Bob Rubin acolytes, led by then-Treasury secretary Larry Summers, withdrew the original provision preventing bank holding companies from owning other financial companies. In particular, it affirmed the recent merger of Citigroup and Travelers, two unique financial entities that would not have been able to consummate their merger, a vast entity that Rubin would soon sit atop as chairman.

    Robber Baron Rabbit Commentary: Of course everyone here is accustomed to reading the projectile-vomit spew of greedhead rabbits who gloat about their greed and easy money and private schools, and who whimper their annoyance at being tainted by commoners on Route 358.

    But not everyone here understands that goatfuck Roger’s greed is emblematic. It’s the fuzzy face of modern left-wing liberal progressives, except for the retard progressives who look like rejects from Route 358 and who occupy liberal-greed Wall Street.

    Suskind’s comments about Bimbo Bill’s Rubin and Summers come from pages 36 and 37 of a very long book about liberal greed. Check it out. Read it if you can read.

  20. 20

    It looks like the Cain camp is in the “attack the victim” mode right now.

    In the meantime, Romney is getting a free pass, skating towards the nomination with little actual scrutiny of his history, financial transactions, and positions. He knows that if he can outlast the Tea Party forces to win the nomination, their allegations that he isn’t “Republican enough” will only help him in the general election.

  21. 21

    19. liberal greed is good spews:

    Thank you Robert Rubin and Bill Clinton.

    Or as Ron Suskind writes in Confidence Men …

    The latter, Glass-Steagall, was, in essence, repealed in 1999 when the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, with support from Bill Clinton’s team of Bob Rubin acolytes, led by then-Treasury secretary Larry Summers, withdrew the original provision preventing bank holding companies from owning other financial companies. In particular, it affirmed the recent merger of Citigroup and Travelers, two unique financial entities that would not have been able to consummate their merger, a vast entity that Rubin would soon sit atop as chairman.

    Robber Baron Rabbit Commentary: Of course everyone here is accustomed to reading the projectile-vomit spew of greedhead rabbits who gloat about their greed and easy money and private schools, and who whimper their annoyance at being tainted by commoners on Route 358.

    But not everyone here understands that goatfuck Roger’s greed is emblematic. It’s the fuzzy face of modern left-wing liberal progressives, except for the retard progressives who look like rejects from Route 358 and who occupy liberal-greed Wall Street.

    Suskind’s comments about Bimbo Bill’s Rubin and Summers come from pages 36 and 37 of a very long book about liberal greed. Check it out. Read it if you can read.

    11/08/2011 at 10:19 am

    Really.

    Seriously, this clown goes apeshit over a piece of consumer protection legislation and completely IGNORES the rape and pillage of the US Treasury by Cheney/Bush-Halliburton/KBR and the almost total destruction of the WORLD economy by Lehman Bros./Bear Stearns et al.

    @19…just really fucking stupid or deliberately disingenuous?

  22. 22

    Actually, the revolving door of liberal regulatory capture by liberals at Lehman, Bear Stearns, Robber Rubin’s Citi (where he made out like a bandit after pushing the “consumer protection” of busting the walls between commercial banking and investment banking), and Goldy Goldman is The Point of the book and the post.

    If Robber Baron Rabbit is the fuzzy face of greedhead liberal shakedown capitalism, Rujax! is the retard face of retard liberalism, using the bad word retard with its good Borat inflection.

  23. 23

    http://www.americablog.com/201.....cline.html

    Tuesday, November 08, 2011

    Wall Street bonuses expected to decline this year

    By Chris in Paris on 11/08/2011 02:15:00 PM

    Before anyone sheds a tear, let’s remember that the pampered bunch on Wall Street already make considerably more than any other sector out there. Even with reduced annual compensation, the Wall Street crowd will still continue to live a comfortable life, which is what their obstruction to reform has been all about. There has been no interest at all by Wall Street to show any interest in protecting the American system, except of course when they were all failing and screaming for government handouts to stay alive.

    The recent Dodd-Frank reform was weak and failed to go far enough but even following its implementation, Wall Street is already seeing fewer profits. Republicans and Wall Street may view this as socialism holding down business, but this is nothing more than a convenient memory of recent history. Wall Street somehow envisions itself as a buch of entrepreneurs, thus the high rewards but that couldn’t be any farther from the truth. The only risk involved so far has been risking taxpayer money, knowing that there would be a bailout without claw backs for bad business.

    @19…just really fucking stupid or deliberately disingenuous?

    Looks like the answer is…BOTH!!

    Hah.

  24. 24

    22 – Classic! The HNMT is condemning Democrats for eliminating FDR era reforms..

    Heh. Didn’t El Rushbo say Roosevelt is DEAD???

    Doesn’t get much better than that.

  25. 25

    There’s lots of Dodd in Suskind’s recent book. And, frankly, there’s lots of Boytoy Frank in the book Reckle$$ Endangerment.

    Endangerment is mostly written by Gretchen Morgenson. Heard of her? Part of Hillary’s half-vast right-wing conspiracy? Actually, she does the business beat for the far-left New York Times. Won a Pulitzer. Totally pulls down the pants on Dodd-Frank and on your quaint formulations of a neocon or con(servative) Wall Street. Totally blows the whistle on the liberal subprime racket that Fannie Mae used to kill the economy for the benefit of deserving Democrats.

    To be fair and balanced, Madrick at NY Review reviews Morgenson’s book and is not convinced. So read the book, read the review, and then do your own thinkin’ if you can rub two brain cells together.

    (And your quaint formulation of Republican Wall Street didn’t even hold up way back in the day when Fat Cat Raskob was running the Democrat Party and Fat Cat John W. Davis was your candidate for president.)

  26. 26

    Suskind, not HNMT, reports and condemns. You decide. HNMT derides.

    And de ride, little twisted sister, be de Big Ride. You really sure you’re ready for this?

  27. 27

    @22 “If Robber Baron Rabbit is the fuzzy face of greedhead liberal shakedown capitalism, …”

    I love it! Great imagery! Can I use it in my posts? Thanks.

  28. 28

    #22 demonstrates that some trolls can learn, after all. It finally dawned on one of them that I’m not a socialist!

  29. 29

    From an Amazon review of Reckle$$ Endangerment:

    For example, you learn how James Johnson, the erstwhile CEO of Fannie Mae built it into a colossus that gradually jettisoned all prudence in lending and vastly enriched himself and a bunch of cronies. He also suborned powerful legislators like Barney Frank, the powerful Massachusetts Democrat. And, lastly, he looked on and encouraged Wall Street firms to do the same and used that as justification to increase the scale of his own operations. … He continued to be politically influential and was an adviser to the current president until forced to resign because it surfaced that he had received sweetheart loans from a leading purveyor of toxic financial junk.
    …
    Angelo Mozilo, founder and CEO of Countrywide, was a good friend of Johnson’s and used his methods to grow the cancer that was Countrywide. The company made it a policy to give sweetheart loans to persons in power – these VIP loans were informally known as Friends of Angelo loans. Richard Holbrooke got such a loan. So did Senators Chris Dodd, Kent Conrad and Barbara Boxer. So did Donna Shalala …

    Mmmmm mmmmmm. Makes you proud to be a goddam Democrat, doesn’t it? And note well that bit about Deserving Democrat Johnson advising the current president. Advising, as in running his search-and-destroy committee to find Joe Biden. That was after Johnson ran the stunning upset victory campaign of Walter Mondale in, um, 1984.

    Mmmmmm mmmmmmm.

  30. 30

    Robber Baron Rabbit is not a socialist and HNMT is not an anti-govt teabagger.

    Nope. HNMT used to work for IRS, and HNMT’s best guess is that capitalist Rabbit is a tax evader, a tax avoider, or a tax cheat. Just like Geithner, Daschle, Prancer, and Nixon.

  34. 34

    Now don’t hold back, ‘Jax! We know you can’t think, so tell us how you really feel.

  37. 37

    @30 You guessed wrong — again. Believe me, the frikken IRS sticks a needle in my belly and siphons a gallon of blood every April … just like they do to everyone else (except the rich with offshore tax shelters; I don’t have one of those).

  38. 38

    “liberal greed is good” – not really, but it’s no worse than Republican greed.

  39. 39

    The stock market started out down today, but then Berlusconi called it quits, and the Dow finished up 101.79 points — and I made $1,100 today without lifting a paw or doing any work! That works out to $137.50 an hour, based on an 8-hour day, and I didn’t have to fight commuter traffic or even get out of bed! Thank you, Silvio! Gawd I love capitalism!!! It’s hard to believe some of our dumbfuck trolls still think I’m a socialist …

  40. 40

    Lol…poor rujaxoff, ylbleeder and the rabbit are vetting owned today..

    For some real laughs, check out lee rujax rosenbergs facebook page…..its a riot….

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