These people have no concept of what it is like to be out of work and struggling (they think it's just laziness that keeps you from getting a job in the worst economic climate in recent American history), to have children you can't feed (you must be sexually sinful and let's not talk about restrictions on birth control and abortion), to be elderly and unable to work and having to choose between rent and food. Hey, just die already. Save the country some money.
These asshats think that stimulating the economy is creating debt. What they don't realize is that those dollars, which give people the ability to buy food, pay medical practitioners, take care of other needs, come back to the government in taxes, both from the actual transaction and from the continued ability of people to feel like they can get things they need (put money back into circulation), and have hope that they can be wage-earners and tax payers again. If, that is, they can get jobs, and for some, that means government having the resources to enforce hiring practices, job discrimination and minimum wage standards.
Some people think getting a new job is easy. They haven't been 63 years old and appearing at interviews where one is facing a group of thirty-somethings who look at you as if you are a creature from an earlier geologic age. It's hard to claim age-discrimination. It's hard to claim any discrimination ("Oh, she was black? We hadn't noticed.)
I used to think that people inveighing against our education system were blowing smoke out of their collective asses, because we weren't producing the productive robots we need for a manufacturing economy. Now that our economy has gone south, or at least east to India and China (which, incidentally holds a lot of our debt) and we don't need to produce the 1950's era kind of workers (both blue and white collar), I see that our education system in the last thirty years has really fallen short.
My sister was an English teacher in a junior high school, and she can tell you story after story of protective parents coming to her complaining of a bad grade their child got because s/he didn't study, try, think, about an assignment.
Does the government do anything to help our teachers in saying "Dude, I know you smoked a lot of dope and saw God in the seventies, and believe in free expression, but your kid is still f-king up in class now, and hasn't a hope of going to college"? Does the government help teachers when they say "I know you want your kid to go to Harvard Law School, but s/he's as smart as a box of rocks and you should prepare her/him for some other kind of work?"
Naw. The wingnuts/asshats (your choice) in congress now only look at how much money they can save, as long as it doesn't affect their corporate sponsors. God forbid that we should require corporations, especially oil and gas corporations, to pay a proportionately equal part of their earning in taxes as we, the hoi polloi, do. And besides, a poorly educated citizenry is more malleable to the propaganda of the ruling classes, that is, the classes which have enough money to influence our Congressmen.
Some of these characters claim to be Christian. If so show them this:
Matthew 25: 31-46
…(then they will answer) “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, and thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?” And the king will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are my family, you did it to me.”
Feeding the poor, helping the sick or troubled or struggling—Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Health Insurance, Food Stamps, Unemployment Insurance—this isn’t socialism, folks, it’s Christianity.
