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I hate this election cycle
Oct. 29th, 2010 01:19 pmIf I hear one more conservative on TV say that the president has caused the biggest increase in the US deficit in history I'll explode. They're referring to the fact that the most recent budget actually includes the spending necessary for our wars, rather than leaving it out and having congress approve special "supplementary" spending to fund the wars, which was an asinine trick that Bush used.
I also hear people refer to the health-care bill as "the trillion dollar health-care bill." That's just an idiotic scare tactic. It's going to cost a trillion dollars over ten years, which is less than the US would spend on the health-care system sans-bill over those 10 years, yet the right wingers are trying to use that label to help motivate support to repeal the bill.
TARP and the auto industry bailouts are also frequent targets of criticism from TV pundits, who conveniently ignore that huge quantities of the TARP money has already been paid back, is on track to actually make money for the federal government, and they seem to completely forget about the bigger bank bailout that Bush pushed through just before the end of his term with no strings attached and no expectation of repayment.
I'm tired of seeing democrats on the defensive this season, especially the president. His two years has been full of accomplishments and I'm left confused and shocked that they're being so defensive. I'm definitely not a disaffected democrat at this point. I never bought into the president's hope and change rhetoric, which I thought was an entirely hollow stock slogan. Despite compromising it to no helpful effect, his progress on health-care legislation alone is almost miraculous.
When on one side we have a group that wants to abolish a half a dozen constitutional amendments, and disassemble the most successful and popular parts of our government, and the other side only makes measured progress toward actual reasonable goals, I find it difficult to not be enthusiastic to go vote.
I also hear people refer to the health-care bill as "the trillion dollar health-care bill." That's just an idiotic scare tactic. It's going to cost a trillion dollars over ten years, which is less than the US would spend on the health-care system sans-bill over those 10 years, yet the right wingers are trying to use that label to help motivate support to repeal the bill.
TARP and the auto industry bailouts are also frequent targets of criticism from TV pundits, who conveniently ignore that huge quantities of the TARP money has already been paid back, is on track to actually make money for the federal government, and they seem to completely forget about the bigger bank bailout that Bush pushed through just before the end of his term with no strings attached and no expectation of repayment.
I'm tired of seeing democrats on the defensive this season, especially the president. His two years has been full of accomplishments and I'm left confused and shocked that they're being so defensive. I'm definitely not a disaffected democrat at this point. I never bought into the president's hope and change rhetoric, which I thought was an entirely hollow stock slogan. Despite compromising it to no helpful effect, his progress on health-care legislation alone is almost miraculous.
When on one side we have a group that wants to abolish a half a dozen constitutional amendments, and disassemble the most successful and popular parts of our government, and the other side only makes measured progress toward actual reasonable goals, I find it difficult to not be enthusiastic to go vote.
