the same genius who said in the state of the union address that he wants to balance the budget is now talking about increasing spending and making the tax cuts permanent. how is this possible, you might ask? well, first of all, it isn't, second of all, it involves slashing healthcare (and thus creating a great hot button topic for the demokkkrats to ride to victory in '08... thanks, dubya), and third of all, it isn't.

ok, first. the treasury secretary has put the challenge out to the demokkkrats: balance the budget without raising taxes. that's like saying mix paints to make orange, but you can't use red. the only feasible solution to balance the budget at this point is to raise taxes, but it need not be across the board. the wealthiest two percent of our country control twenty percent of the wealth. that's a lot to get at.

second of all, it's easy to cut the shit out of healthcare programs that you are never going to have to use. if dubya resigned in disgrace and lost all his government provided insurance, he could afford to personally pay for any and every bit of medical treatment for the rest of his life.

thirdly, it won't really be balanced even if they do say "fuck the poor" as usual. every year, we have a budget, then an "emergency spending bill" that doesn't count. it consists of a lot of pet projects, like, i don't know, the war in iraq. this is billions of dollars that don't get counted against the budget for the year, so if by some miracle, we had a surplus instead of a deficit, it could still be eaten up by "emergency spending." (since the war has been going on for years, how much of an emergency can it really be? it's not like it came as a surprise.)

trickle-down doesn't fucking work.

yet another reason to discount ethanol as a viable alternative to fossil fuels: tortilla price gouging. i listened to this story on npr this morning, and the worst part is that wal-mart, mexico's largest private employer, is using this crisis to drive smaller operations out of business by continuing to sell cheap tortillas.

i have decided to write a cookbook. any gthedamned readers who have eaten my cooking who would like to remind me of something i made at one point, please do so, via the comments section. this is going to be one good fucking cookbook. i'm also looking for a title, so suggestions are welcomed (siouxs! assures me that i shouldn't swear in the title, though in the book text is ok).

proof that repulikkkans only love their rich neighbors...

the federal minimum wage has been the same for the entirety of the time i've been out of high school. people working for minimum wage have been getting poorer and poorer for ten years, and the republikkkans are just now figuring out that there needs to be a change? the best part in my estimation is that they don't want to do anything, but the only way they feel they won't be raped by the demokkkrats politically is to go ahead and support an increase. this is just a way to nullify the bad juju that would come from not supporting the bill. i like it when the right-wingers are on the defensive for a change. now, if only enough people could stop shouting mindless pseudo-patriotic drivel long enough to listen to the rational folk out there, we might even get to point out a few of the other things the republikkkans need to be scared of in november. like corruption, anti-privacy legislation, the anti-progress mentality, and, oh yeah, the needless waste of a money-sinkhole that is iraq.

fuck bush.

if the best thing you could brag about was "things are slightly less bad than was initially predicted," would you be crowing about it? that's just what our brave leader is doing now. has he forgotten that we were in a time of surplus under his oft villified predecessor? we were actually on our way to paying the national debt, as opposed to adding to it at a record pace.

deficit spending doesn't work for households (just ask some of my cousins); why would it work for the whole country? true, it is possible to float briefly on a wave of credit and then surge forward to pay it off, but drowning is more likely than surfing.

i've posted two days in a row. that's the all-star break for you, i guess.

fuck bush

i still think that the immigration debate that we're having as a country right now is a dodge, much like gay marriage was a dodge. they're both great ways to get (white)middle america up in arms. who can remember gross ethics violations, misguided warmongering, or tax cuts for bill gates and his three hundred closest friends when there are dangerous brown people/creepy homos lurking about, seeking to attack our flagging economy/sacred bond of marriage (and divorce)?

that said, here's a bit of economic thought for the racists out there who want to deport all the immigrants becuase "they're taking our jobs." right now, illegal immigrants are available to work for $2/hour with no benefits whatsoever (ok, perhaps a drive to the hospital if the lawnmower cuts your hand off, but that's it, and we will be squealing the tires out of the parking lot as soon as your foot touches the ground). that's a lot cheaper than hiring a legal citizen for $5.15/hour (dear god, we need to fix that... $5.15 an hour?!!), so a lot of less than scrupulous employers are going to go with that option. if we make immigration easier, everyone will have to be paid at least minimum wage, and immigrants have the same chance at getting a job as native born white and christian xenophobic citizens. i wonder if that thoguht can turn around in your narrow, narrow mind.

thank god for our brilliant lawmakers. they're talking about passing a law that would place penalties on energy price gouging. how revolutionary. does anyone believe that there will be a single corporate bandit taken down with such a law? this law would make a nationwide standard for price-gouging (likely at the expense of states with a lower cost of living), but it won' t address the real problem. oil companies are currently taking a certain percentage of the price of oil as their profit. this percentage has remained the same even thought the price of oil has skyrocketed, pulling the profits through the roof as well. when the price of oil goes this high, the oil companies need to lower the percentage to take some of the pain out of filling up.
but i guess that makes me a communist.
fucking republikkkans.

bolivia has nationalized its natural gas industry in an attempt to avoid being exploited by the energy gobbling united states, adding another latin american country to the list of "people who are tired of being exploited by the united states." another major component of this group is "most americans."
even most of the democrats don't really care about the little guy. (one of) the problem(s) with representative democracy is that too much effort is expended trying to be reelected. we need to cut their salaries down to a living wage; maybe then, we could get some leaders who were actually in it to be the voice of their constituents. i'll bet they'd fight a lot harder for universal health care if they were uninsured.

yeah, i'm trying to pick a class fight. rich political bastards.

good weekend. jack has more personality everyday. yesterday, we barbecued the stuff we bought the day before he was born (purchased in an effort to get him going... obviously, it worked). i broke the landlady's birdfeeder, we invented a new sport (tongball), siouxs! picky sister ate shrimp. a good time was had by all.
i'm sure i have voiced my distaste for wal-mart at some point on this blog. i'm not alone in hating the monoculture bohemoth, but it seems that our dear friends in organized labor are standing up to fight. on the whole, i am pro-union (at least when they are actually fighting for their members, and not just to keep union brass salaries high), so needless to say, i'm right behind them in this one.
do we really need to be funding the chinese economy to the extent that wal-mart is? i have nothing against china, but in our quest for ever lower prices, we're managing to tank our own economy. at the rate we're going now, at least by the time jack has kids of his own, he may be the one doing the "outsourced" job (eventually, americans will be forced to do jobs at less than the going rate for the indians and chinese who are getting them now.) if this sounds paranoid, so be it. i'm strongly against pure capitalism, and i'm sure it comes out in these rants.
stop sam walton's monster or pay the consequences!