By 2010, we’ll be slightly less screwed!

Too bad Bush’s budget didn’t include the War (probably not that big a deal) nor did it include making his tax cuts permanent, which he is dead set on.

So if you ignore a couple of the biggest items, cut education, police, first responders, help for the poor, research, and most of the things that make us a society, then this budget is only half bad.

Yea, but at least that gay couple next door can’t get married.

From the posts and comments here recently, I guess it’s no secret that Bush’s goal is to push the nation toward something like the libertarian ideal of a “hands-off” government (at least in terms of wealth redistribution if not in social issues). According to the libertarian, almost everything currently in the federal budget should be privately funded instead.

My question is: Is this really what his supporters want? Sure, they want to keep government money from flowing to other people, but do they really want to lose the flow of government money that goes to them? Do they realize that this is what Bush is aiming at? Do they even know what money / services they’re getting from the federal government?

Jim, dude, I’m pretty sure Grand Teton is in Wyoming. So Cheney is going to protect that or maybe have one of his friends buy it outright for $1,000 and get to deduct it.. and then get a gov. subsidy to maintain it.

Second mortgage on Idaho! You’re a financial genius Adam.

GWB is an MBA president. What do companies do when they’ve got more debt than they can handle? (Aside from declaring bankruptcy and screwing their creditors). They sell “non-core” assets. What could be more non-core to the US of A than some of those pesky blue states? They’ve got some inherent value but they’re not core to the business at hand. Remember, Napoleon sold the Louisiana Purchase to payoff his debt. So, it’s not completely out of the realm of possibilities.

Start off small…see if anyone wants Connecticut or Oregon. But those probably wouldn’t raise too much cash. To really bring in the big bucks, we’re gonna have to sell either California or New York. I’ll bet one of those Russian oligarchs or Saudi sheiks with lots of oil money would just love an island off either coast of North America.

Let’s see the Dems try to retake the White House without all of those electoral votes.

I think that we should sell off Canada. I’t big, and so what if they comlain a bit, what can they do about it?

No. no. Don’t sell Canada. Take over the Northwest Territories- they are the new diamond producer. And their’s are perfectly clear! The *really* expensive ones! We can then buy off all of our creditors.

Your Majesty, look! It’s Princess Di! (Now grab her handbag!)

When the Chinese and Japanese decide the US government is too big a risk to invest in further, and we can no longer raise enough revenue to pay the interest on our debt, how much you want to bet (in gold please) the Very Rich will get early notice of the collapse of the dollar and switch all of their assets to Euros? The rest of us can push our wheelbarrows full of worthless bills to the grocery store and hope that they’ll still buy a loaf of bread. As I recall (using Liberal math), social security payments worth $1,500 x 0 value = 0.

Slow down there craig. “Start off small…see if anyone wants Connecticut or Oregon” Idaho only has 1,366,332 residents while here in Oregon we have 3,421,399 and Connecticut has 3,405,565… just a minute, go ahead and sell us off to Canada or New Zealand. yeah New Zealand, then I could live in commonwealth country. No visa needed to work in any other commonwealth country, I could easily leave this sinking ship.

That would be $207 billion in 2010, the second year of Jeb Bush’s first term. Unless Jeb needs a war he can call his own.

I assume that most of the wealthy already have transferred their assets from US$ to something more stable, like euros, or gold, or dinars, or .

Please, oh, please, oh, please sell off Connecticut to Canada!! Take Massachusetts, too, so that I can still visit Boston without a visa.

bramster -

Why buy into a failing proposition? Colonize (or just buy our Treasury notes…same thing.) Suck what little is left out of the increasingly corpse-like region, and then pull out, leaving warring states to decimate their own population. England and France did well this way, so hurry on down! Don’t let the PRC get all the good stuff!

But if you would like California, I’m first in line to collaborate!!

I think we should sell off the West coast States:
Northern California Oregon and Washington are basically the same state…

We can attach Southern California to Arizona or Nevada, they have more in common.

Yeah, then we’d be canadians.

Sorry Adam, you’re gonna have to move north if you want to join South Brittish Columbia too.

Just stating the obvious.

Mike Z

I just read Lehe’s piece (thanks for the link!)

What is to be said? I knew I should have stayed in academia! Get paid for oozing nonsense LIKE PUS, have access to moony-eyed co-eds. Ya know?

This is the prime advocate? How sad, yet appropriate. I’m going to show my hubris, and sum up: “In spite of complexity theory, in spite of thermodynamics, in spite of the vast amount of time allowing for Evolution, in spite of the vast evidence in biology, genetics, paleontology and other disciplines, in spite of my inability to even suggest who the Intelligence required by ID is (or what might have designed the Designer, or…well you know,) it, well, looks, ya know, designed to me.”

This is the “balance” they want in science as taught in schools. Along with the (No God Here, Really) magic of the “natural” world, absent, of course, EVERYTHING WE HAVE LEARNED IN THE LAST 600 YEARS, AND THAT IS SUPPORTED BY CROSS-DISIPLINARY WORK IN DIVERSE FIELDS OF STUDY.

Sorry, just tired of fighting this crap in a reasonably enlightened part of the world. My sympathies to those of you holding up the side where people believe in the inerrancy of a book that contradicts itself in the first two chapters!

Jerry,

A-f***ing-men! I keep wondering when (if?)we’ll wake up from this bizarre nightmare.

Bumper sticker of the day: Never Underestimate the Power of Stupid People in Large Groups.

One thing I don’t understand about this budget. How can it be called a budget when it doesn’t include gimongous anticipated expenses like the war in Iraq, for which Bush is going to request another $80 billion or so? Shouldn’t that be one of the major chunks of the budget? And if Congress accepts Bush’s budget and forks over all that cash, where are they supposed to find that $80 billion that WEREN’T in the budget?

Let’s see what happens if I apply the same logic to my own personal finances. Here in Santa Cruz rent is the biggest item in anyone’s budget. So if I disregard my monthly rent, I can easily live within my budget! And after a few years of this, I’ll have saved enough money to pay down some of my personal debt.

Ooh-ooh, I’m gonna go write a letter to my landlord.

Allison, once you eliminate your rent, there’s no reason that you should live WITHIN your means. That would be running a surplus. If you have more money at the end of the year, you should give your employer a salary cut. After all, it’s their money, right? Even without your rent, if you’re not spending more than you’re taking in, then you’re not a true blue — excuse me, true red (as in ink) — fiscal conservative like W.

As for calling OR and CT small compared to ID, what I meant to imply is that these states are not part of the “core” America that voted overwhelmingly for the current government. After all, wasn’t it Abraham W. Lincoln who said that the United States is “government of the people, by the people and for the people and if you’re not with us you’re against us”?

Allison:

Just as long as we can cut out the reddest of the red parts of CA. Hell, I’ll make everyone’s life easier and move back north as soon as I get my masters.

Although I am a Floridian, I also know how to drive in snow. I also know what an arret sign means. Besides, the filet-o-fish sandwich I got at a McDonald’s outside Montreal actually tasted like fish, not bread soaked in old cooking oil. Can I join the Great Emigration that appears to be gestating here?

This blue exodus is making Denver seem like a lonlier place than ever. Won’t any of you consider moving inland? I know it is almost the exact center of a sea of red, but we did go Dem at the state level so you can consider us a promising shade of lavender…

Nah, Nicole, no naturalization process. You’ll just have to pass a little shibboleth. We’ll set up a continuous broadcast of Rush Limbaugh at the border. Everyone who doesn’t wince visibly on approach will be turned away.

“He/she/it/they are trying to kill us!”

Oddly enough, that would be a pretty strong arguement -for- Intelligent Design in my opinion… I can all too easily picture the lab-coated Giant Lobster looking down upon the earth and wailing, “WHAT HAS SCIENCE WROUGHT?” (or whatever the crustacean equivalent would be) before doing his level best to mitigate the worst effects we have on the planet. -grin-

I think the theory, at least, is that we can continue to compete by:

a) Starting from a position of extraordinary power, both military and economic. (After all, if you’re a conservative, Bush’s policies aren’t trashing the economy — their unleashing latent entrepenurship, removing red-tape regulations, encouraging investment, and all that free-market dogmatic nonsense.)

b) Using the morons as a political base (and a supply of cheap labor for the malls, fast-food chains, etc) while maintaining an elite that actually runs things, and importing foreigners if there’s a shortage of engineers and the like, preferably using H1B visas so they have a tough time staying permanently.

Old Europeans are about the only people (at least a substantial portion of Old Europeans) to try to move on from the bondage of ritualistic religious thinking. They’re the only people I know of who generally consider it rude to ask someone else about their religious preference. And given the fundamentalist tide sweeping over much of the world, it is looking pretty damned grim. Lobster is apparently more interested in some other Lobster than what earth folk are devolving back into.

Maybe we can keep fast rewinding until we get back to the early Greeks. Their gods were often pretty nutso, but they were fun, and it was understood that at times they were the problem, even though one couldn’t really do shit about it.

And they inspired some terrific literature. Of course, so too does human calamity in general.

If I understand correctly, the Navajo take on all these “Great Religions” is Huh? Spiritual yes, “religious”…

OK, I’m now pretty much lost. Roots-rural Southern ain’t the easiest thing in the world to be.

Dave,
Calm down, it’s OK. Here have some nice herbal tea. Try to relax.

Adam probably did make a mistake and none of us noticed or cared but please settle down.

There, that’s better.

Dave, this is satire, not science or law where a misplace comma or decimal is a disaster. The rest of us understood what Adam meant. No need to send your blood pressure into the millions (or is it billions).

Here, take these pills, you’ll feel MUCH better.

Two things:
1. Kirk Carraway wrote a great article about this and said, “While stating the budget was in line with his commitment to cut the deficit in half by 2009, Bush failed to mention the three items that weren’t in the budget. First, there is the cost the war in Iraq. Next up, we have the $1 trillion (at least) price tag to privatize Social Security. And lastly, there is the continuation of the tax cuts, which are set to expire, but that Bush said he wants to make permanent.”

2. I think that most of the voters in this country seem to think that the deficit is the same as the debt. So when Bush says he’s going to cut the deficit in half, they think he means he’s going to cut the debt in half (which would be quite the accomplishment). Few people stop to think, “doesn’t that mean you’re going to still be spending in the red, you ass clown?”