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"teeming maelstrom of ideological sludge and rhetorical vomit that is the modern conservative mind"
Ladies and Gentlemen, Charles Pierce:
Ed Kilgore is probably right. The budget released by the White House on Monday has less chance of becoming a law than a scouting report on the Minnesota Timberwolves does. (After all, there’s already been a budget deal passed, to great acclaim, by the Congress last week.) But as a deep gaze into the teeming maelstrom of ideological sludge and rhetorical vomit that is the modern conservative mind, it is extremely valuable. Usually, it’s Speaker Paul Ryan, the zombie-eyed granny starver from the state of Wisconsin, who presents a “budget” that causes his colleagues to hide behind the drapes and actual economists to immolate themselves.
As is their wont, The New York Times and most of the rest of the elite media concentrated first and foremost on how this budget will increase The Deficit, thereby standing in naked violation of the shebeen’s First Law of Economics. The human cost is staggering.
...
Imagine, for a moment, the number of families whose lives this ridiculous scheme will make worse. A box lunch budget? “100 percent American grown foods”? Even this president*’s cruelty is jingoistic. And, if you’re keeping score at home, even the box-lunch budget is too luxurious for Mick Mulvaney, the jumped-up Tea Party relic who’s presently the director of the budget.
...
There are the expected cuts to the social safety net, which are further proof that the president*’s words on the campaign trail were as utterly worthless as everybody knew they were. Over the next decade, there’s a $266 million hack at Medicare, and a $1.1 trillion hack at Medicaid. As for Social Security, they’re after the SSDI program again, cutting it by $72 billion. The National Endowment for the Arts and public broadcasting are scheduled to be zeroed out. And the budget celebrates Infrastructure Week by cutting the Highway Trust Fund.
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a17598724/trump-budget-cut-social-safety-net/
As is their wont, The New York Times and most of the rest of the elite media concentrated first and foremost on how this budget will increase The Deficit, thereby standing in naked violation of the shebeen’s First Law of Economics. The human cost is staggering.
...
Imagine, for a moment, the number of families whose lives this ridiculous scheme will make worse. A box lunch budget? “100 percent American grown foods”? Even this president*’s cruelty is jingoistic. And, if you’re keeping score at home, even the box-lunch budget is too luxurious for Mick Mulvaney, the jumped-up Tea Party relic who’s presently the director of the budget.
...
There are the expected cuts to the social safety net, which are further proof that the president*’s words on the campaign trail were as utterly worthless as everybody knew they were. Over the next decade, there’s a $266 million hack at Medicare, and a $1.1 trillion hack at Medicaid. As for Social Security, they’re after the SSDI program again, cutting it by $72 billion. The National Endowment for the Arts and public broadcasting are scheduled to be zeroed out. And the budget celebrates Infrastructure Week by cutting the Highway Trust Fund.
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a17598724/trump-budget-cut-social-safety-net/
Pierce is a national treasure.
(Pierce's First Law of Economics is "Fk The Deficit. People got no jobs. People got no money."
