Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Rs on Federal Budget - Do As I Say, Not As I Do

As conservatives wage their war on the Federal budget this spring, fueled by rhetoric critical of the governement, here are a couple things to keep in mind.

Conservative states in the USA accept the most (and benefit the most) from Federal government spending and programs. Info HERE and HERE. This is quite interesting for a lot of reasons, but esspecially given that, generally speaking, more liberal leaning states (CA, NY, IL, MI, MN, etc.) have much bigger populations than coservative ones (OK, TX, GA, WY, KS, ND, SD, ID, TN, etc., etc.).

And, Republican governors - despite rhetoric to the contrary - are all too happy to accept Federal money. Info HERE.

And of course you should remember that the spectacular Federal budget defecit, financial and housing market meltdown and growth of goverment all happened under Republican control of the Federal goverment (WH + House + Senate from 2001-2007, WH + House 2007-2009).

Keeping all that in mind, several adages come to mind when thinking about conservative attempts to drastically cut back Federal goverment spending:
  • "Be careful what you wish for because you just might get it." I mean, hey, the states that will suffer most with drastic cutbacks will be the states run by conservative politicians.
  • "Do as I say, not as I do." While rabble rousing their supporters on a jag of "small goverment" speech, Republican governors quietly take the Federal money they say should not be spent in the first place. Hypocrcy.
  • "You made your bed, no lay in it." Republicans and conservative economics got us into this mess, and my opion is that they should be the ones to suffer with whatever remdy is decided. This might happen in conjunction with the "be careful what you whish for" situation because if these people bring down the type of cuts their talking about, voters in their states may decide it's time for someone new.

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