We Can't Afford It

One thing has become clear since the mandate (and yes, it is a mandate) came down that the people want a smaller (and consequently less expensive) government, as seen by the historic results of last week's election.

And that thing is that if we don't pay attention, nothign will change and the government will spend assloads more.

Which brings me to the fun of my stream-of-conscious analysis (which is how I think about things):


The Obama $200 million a day India trip - I don't need to necessarily cite a link, because this has exploded across the airwaves and blogosphere since we got weary of incessant election coverage. The problem is that there are no hard numbers (as the White House, by tradition, won't release them).  The original story was some unnamed source in India.  And CNN has apparently debunked it.  I had been thinking about posting on this as a perfect example of out-of-touch extravagance that comes with an ever-growing imperial federal government.  But with big questions on numeric accuracy, no way I'm going to go off about it.

Which makes me wonder why the story is so easy to believe?  The simple answer: it fits the template of a government that dumps money into a giant hole.  To exaggerate:


In The Know: Should The Government Stop Dumping Money Into A Giant Hole?

Which brings us to the fun of recession-proof jobs.  Here's a hint:  They're not in the private sector.


"More federal workers' pay tops $150,000" - It's pretty self-explanatory.  If you want to do the least amount of work for the maximum profit, and you excel at not giving a fuck, then working for the government is for you.  The government is legendary for inefficiency, as it continues to pile on jobs, then shit for them to do, then more jobs.  All with the ability to pay whatever some bureaucrat or politician thinks is a good salary (despite the actual wages involved).  Then you add government unions, who have the power to vote out their management through elections, and you can see why even such big-government, pro-union presidents such as FDR knew they were a bad thing (and this is without me levying the additional damage that government teachers unions do to out children):

"Meticulous attention should be paid to the special relations and obligations of public servants to the public itself and to the Government....The process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service."

 Of course, the growth of government in every way begins to add the costs:

"Red Tape Rising: Obama’s Torrent of New Regulation" -Now I'm not going to hold Obama 100% responsible for every regulation in this story, because without Democrats and Republicans and prior presidents all adding to the framework, no one person would have so much power over us.  It's bad enough today that some liberals have gone so far as to urge the President to pursue his agenda without Congress (can you say "unconstitutional?"). But if you want to nickel and dime America to death, there's nothing like a massive quilt of regulations to smother it.  Now not all regulations are bad, and some will have a positive impact.  But when the answer to every problem is to have the government add a regulation, you're bound to end up with a pile of shit on the diamond. 

Like I said in the above paragraph, Obama's not 100% responsible.  Which is why I've committed myself to be a pain in the establishment GOP's ass. 

Mitch McConnell fights GOP earmark ban - Now in all of the things Washington wastes money on, one of the least significant but most symbolic is pork, aka vote buying, aka earmarks.  One thing that the freshman class of the House has been big on is putting a stop to earmarks.  Now to think that they will disappear, not likely.  But at least tackling the concept is thinking that is in the right direction.  Enter establishment douche and minority leader Mitch "the bitch" McConnell, who is in the process of back-room maneuvers to quietly kill an agreement among the GOP senators (led by Jim deMint) to abandon earmarks in the current fiscal mess.  Of course, this is not an open fight, yet.  But it is a reminder that, given the choice between embracing tea party ideals and lapsing into that thing which, if I were an Obamadrone, would be them, "last 8 years," the old timers of the GOP would work the tits on the government pig until it squealed in delight.

Now of course, this doesn't address the big 3 money-suckers in the federal government (Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security), the defense budget (in which there has to be some fat as well), and the new entitlement bitch on the block, the beast known as Obamacare.  And while we on the homefront are tightening our belts, the states are either cutting like hell (New Jersey) or collapsing (California), and even more "progressive" countries are either slashing their entitlement budgets (Great Britain) or collapsing (Greece), our government is still fighting over expanding the very things that bring other, lesser governments down.

I'll address the tax situation in another post.  This is about throwing money at problems.  Washington still has the desire to do so, despite the election.  Let's not let them forget why the GOP did so well.