“A fiscal fantasyland.”
That’s actually a pretty good description of the District of Columbia in general.
[Update a few minutes later]
The drug pusher in DC:
An initial bailout of state governments eases their pain and makes them feel better for a little while, after which they’re going to crash without another fix.
It’s all part of the goal of making us all dependent on them.
From the early thirties. Some things never change. Unfortunately.
…by Life Magazine, in 1938 (starts on page 31). Yup, that Italy was sure one right-wing, unregulated capitalist nirvana.
Is this the year that the media no longer cheer leads the warm mongers?
The student audience, which at first clapped enthusiastically as Reich started to tell his unspeakable “truths” stopped clapping by the end. Reich had uttered the fundamental heresy. You really can’t have something for nothing. Pulling in one direction meant giving way in another. He went on to say that America was hopelessly addicted to fantasy; that anyone who got up on stage and reeled off the points he had made was politically dead.
Although I may disagree with many of the public policy positions that Robert Reich takes, his point that the truth makes piss-poor politics seems valid. Things come down to choices: lower costs versus death panels; torture versus intelligence; equity versus growth. And politicians, ever eager to garner votes, never want to say this. They will always try to have it both ways. Even when politicians choose one road over the other, they take pains to suggest they are simultaneously proceeding down two paths. One can disagree with the choices Reich makes but he is right to say that choices are unavoidable.
Yes, “progressives” do seem to be allergic to truth, and reality.
Thoughts on Osama bin Laden’s extreme misogyny. Were female troops really the catalyst for 911? Those who have fought for coed armed services should ask themselves “Why do they hate us?”
I have a piece over at PJM this morning that describes the linkage.
Now it’s up to us.
I find it ironic that the thuggish congressman Grayson is accusing Republicans of wanting people to die, when Robert Reich is very explicit about that as the Dem’s plan.
…in outer space. Glenn Reynolds and Kenneth Anderson on bombing the moon.
…from its petty detractors. I wish that we could come up with some other word for free market systems, though — “capitalism” is intrinsically a Marxist concept.
[Via (and viva) Veronique, a most sensible Frenchwoman]