Category Archives: Media Criticism
Programs To Cut
How about Head Start?
I know that discussing the elimination of a government program is heresy, and that all government programs once initiated become sacrosanct, and the only permissible discussion about them is the budget level, but I just find it amazing that, given our fiscal straits, we aren’t having a serious discussion about a) what should the federal government be doing, b) even if the goals of the program are constitutionally legit, is it doing them in the most cost-effective way possible? We should be talking about eliminating programs entirely, and not just arguing about how much money we should be wasting on them. Planned Parenthood and CPB/NPR are obvious examples, particularly given the results of recent stings, but even those run by people who are well intentioned, and not duplicitous, should on the block as well, if they’re not federal responsibilities, or if they are not effective. When our monthly deficit is larger than any of George Bush’s annual ones, it’s time to get serious.
By the way, this principle would apply to NASA as well. Certainly SLS/Orion are prime candidates for elimination, and the only thing keeping them alive is their constituencies for the pork.
[Update a few minutes later]
The Democrats’ dull budget scissors.
Traffic Jams
This had me scratching my head, though. It lists the top ten most congested highways (not sure how they measure that), and I found a couple of surprises.
First, that none of them were in southern California. I would have thought that the 405 through West LA and over Sepulveda Pass into the Valley would have been a prime candidate.
Second, that they list the merge between northbound US-23 and northbound I-75, in Detroit. Only one problem. Those two highways merge in Flint, sixty miles northwest of Detroit (and my home town). And while I haven’t spent much time there lately, I have been there some, and I’m quite surprised that it beats all of the Detroit freeways for congestion. The only time I can imagine it would be a big problem is on holiday weekends with people coming from the Detroit area heading up north. Even then, it can be avoided by taking I-475 through town. I’d like to know how it got so designated. It makes me question the validity of the rest of them as well.
The Bigotry
…of Keith Ellison. Not to mention his teary-faced lies.
High Gas Prices
Ten things not to do about them. But you can bet that many economic ignorami will be calling for all ten.
Dispatch From The Bizarro World
Thanks to this bill — which doesn’t touch any of the civil service protections afforded public workers, nor any private-sector unions — public sector workers will have a choice over whether to join a union. Thanks to this bill, public workers who elect not to join a union won’t be forced to pay dues anyway. Thanks to this bill, elected officials won’t be negotiating away taxpayer dollars with the people who finance their campaigns. So, naturally, the Democrats call it the the undoing of fifty years of “civil rights.”
Naturally.
Your Tax Dollars At Work
You’ll be just as shocked as me that the ombuds(wo)man for NPR would have a reckless disregard for the facts.
What’s Gotten Into Ruth Marcus?
The questions the Peter King is right to ask.
Saving Us From Ourselves
You know, when they were casting Atlas Shrugged, they should have seen if Henry Waxman would do a cameo. He’d be a perfect fit.
Tiny Cuts
The cuts represent less than 2 percent of the total budget, less than 4 percent of the deficit, and less than 5 percent of discretionary spending, which rose in real terms by 75 percent from 2000 to 2010 and by about 9 percent in each of the last two fiscal years. If the House-approved reductions would be “the largest one-year cuts in history,” as the folks at Every Child Matters say, that is a sad commentary not on Republican cold-heartedness but on the fiscal incontinence of both parties.
They squeal like stuck pigs at pinpricks.