Best line of the day

“[K]eep your government hands off my Medicare.”

Man at a recent town-hall meeting in Simpsonville, S.C., to Rep. Robert Inglis (R-S.C.). “I had to politely explain that, ‘Actually, sir, your health care is being provided by the government,’ ” Inglis recalled. “But he wasn’t having any of it.”

washingtonpost.com

8 thoughts on “Best line of the day”

  3. Michael Moore had a TV show a few years ago, back when Newt was still in office. Gingrich called for drastic cuts in federal spending, so Moore dispatched a corespondent to Gingrich’s Georgia district to ask people how they felt about the cuts. The corespondent interviewed people while they were engaged in federally subsidized activities — for example, boating on a reservoir built with federal money — and every single one of them said yes, cut everything, the bastards don’t deserve the money. When informed that they would have to give up whatever activity it was they were at that very moment enjoying, every single one of them objected. The money the government spends on them is just fine and absolutely necessary.

    There’s a bunch of this attitude that comes down to race. When a lot of conservatives think about government spending, their visceral belief is that it’s money going to unworthies, most of whom are colored or foreign. (In poll after poll, conservatives wildly overestimate how much of the federal budget goes to foreign aid, for example.) There is almost no understanding that the vast majority of federal spending goes to things that are generally popular and appreciated. That’s why Republicans never enumerate the cuts they want to make. You can cut welfare and foreign aid all you want, but if you want to erase the deficits we’ve had for the last nine years, you’re going to have to cut stuff that even conservatives like.

  4. If you want to erase the deficits we’ve had for the last nine years, you’re going to have to raise taxes.

  5. Athanae from First Draft hit this spot on:

    “Oh yeah, what about the fat person who smokes, do I have to pay for his health care? What about the lady who scammed welfare for bazillions of dollars, should my hard work reward her? What about this one time my cousin’s brother’s wife’s bridge partner went to the store and heard two people speaking Spanish to each other, why doesn’t everyone just learn English?” Because if they can make the fight about some exception then they don’t have to argue the rule.

  7. We have to do everything: raise taxes, cut services, make decisions about what we think the government really needs to do, foster economic growth. The deficits are so big — even leaving out the economic stimulus stuff, which is presumably temporary — that it’s going to take sacrifice from everyone. That’s not something that politicians are good at demanding until there’s a crisis.

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