Special Analysis:
The Sound Bite and the Fury
The White House Office of Management and Budget has even published a Website called ExpectMore.gov, which details what the Administration considers productive and unproductive agencies.
The record $2.8 trillion budget proposed for 2007 includes a nearly five percent increase in Pentagon spending to $439.3 billion and another five percent increase in spending on Homeland Security.
Only hours after the speech, Mr. Bush signed into law the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005—including as it does $39 billion in spending to cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, farm subsidy programs, and student loans—thereby making good on his promise that only unproductive programs would face the budget cutting axe under his Administration.
The Dark Wraith is always grateful when the news, itself, renders scathing commentary anticlimactic.
Published 2/08/2006 11:32:00 PM
<< 28 Comments Total
Good Morning Dark Wraith,
Those of us who put [the budget] together really did see the human dimension."
Maybe they SAW it, but they sure didn't allow it to get in the way of their plans to wreak havok with our economy!
Good morning, SB Gypsy.
You know, it crossed my mind when I read Bush's statement about the "human dimension" that he might actually be so utterly, thunderously stupid that he believed what he was saying.
Then it hit me: yes, the man truly is utterly, thunderously stupid; and this is the reason he can say things he doesn't believe. Truth is irrelevant to politicians of his ilk, so lies become currency of common and dispensible discourse rather than treasure of extraordinary and altogether rare necessity.
But it seems to work: he's still the President, and he will likely never face material punishment for what he's done.
Justice is such an ass.
The Dark Wraith appreciates those who make the world so easy for cynics.
Here's the only sound bite needed to understand Bush's budget Warning: A Rude Human Dimension
that programs eliminated or whose budgets were reduced were those that hadn't produce results.
For 3 years & 4 months, we have not seen any positive results in Iraq, yet the Pentagon gets an increase? ow perverse.
Oh, at this point I don't doubt that he believes what he says. If you were to point out to him how thunderously stupid such a belief is in the light of simple common sense, he'd probably have one of his temper tantrums because you had the temerity to upset his view of the world.
Darth Cheney is another matter. I think he may believe, but only in the sense that he doesn't believe such social programs are a healthy thing for the government to have ever begun in the first place.
That's how it looks to me, anyway.
- oddjob
Good afternoon, Dark Wraith.
Out of curiosity, I took a look at ExpectMore.gov to see what they term an "unproductive program". Surprise, surprise - roughly a half-dozen of them are/were mandated by IDEA, and designed to support mentally and physically challenged students and their families.
Even better, the programs aren't labeled nonproductive, but "program not proven". I guess you have to take the time to examine the program to decide on its effectiveness; too much work for some. Or maybe I'm just cynical. Very interesting, just the same.
What little I've read suggests to me there are enough sensitive programs involved to make this a classic Reagan-era "dead on arrival" budget of the sort that Congress will mostly ignore while they work out something on their own.
- oddjob
Well and there's this little gem too Bush's Social Security Sleight of Hand
"You know, it crossed my mind when I read Bush's statement about the "human dimension" that he might actually be so utterly, thunderously stupid that he believed what he was saying." -- DW
Another view suggests:
"...we are dealing here not with a complete man at all but with something that suggests a subtly constructed reflex machine which can mimic the human personality perfectly." -- from "The Mask of Sanity" by H. Cleckley
as quoted in "Organic Portals – The “Other” Race" at
http://tinyurl.com/d9nvr
Well and there's this little gem too Bush's Social Security Sleight of Hand
Indeed.....
- oddjob
Good afternoon, Karen M.
A large frustration I have is that this whole idea of "productive" is a dismissal of modern economics: the concept of public programs that create "externalities" of types and proportions that are just unmeasurable.
Take, for example, public education. How do you measure the effects (both financial and otherwise) on third parties? Public service announcements are another example. What is the metric that could possibly be used to determine effectiveness not just on the targets of the messages, but on everyone else, as well?
And how, exactly, do we measure the entirety of the benefits arising from a Medicare program or even a Social Security disbursement?
Are these neo-conservatives posing to say that a society the protects its elderly, that educates its young, that provides for people in their old age is not in so doing vesting into those people a deep and abiding stake in the society, in the government, in the very fabric of the nation?
Do these Republicans believe that all the government needs to do is put down the iron fist of the law on everyone, and everyone will want that nation to continue? Perhaps that works in some places in this world, but that was most decidedly not what we had in mind, and it is most decidely not what made the last half of the 20th Century such an unbelievable success story for the United States.
Their vision is of a wholly different type of government; but more to the point, their vision is of a wholly different configuration of that government with respect to its governed.
That, I would submit to you, puts them into a territory of nomenclature they seem to like to pin on others: they are, in fact, seditious.
Speaking for myself, I have more than a small problem with sedition.
The Dark Wraith has growled.
A large frustration I have is that this whole idea of "productive" is a dismissal of modern economics: the concept of public programs that create "externalities" of types and proportions that are just unmeasurable.
At the very dawn of ShrubCo. I happened to watch Texas opinion writer Molly Ivins being interviewed by Charlie Rose, and one of her first observations was that he was from Texas, and in Texas the popular sentiment was that government should operate like business.....
- oddjob
Good evening, OddJob.
One of the fundamental principles of business is that the enterprise can fail.
In fact, it happens quite frequently, and it is no accident: this is the means by which innovation comes about. More into one of my lines of specialized work, this is how pricing of securities occurs: relative and absolute risks, one of which is the risk of cash flows not being realized and claims against cash flows not being satisfied.
Mr. Bush should be all too familiar with this concept, given that he has, himself, provided ample evidence of the principle in practice. That he and like minded people believe that the government should be exposed to this risk as the primary motive force for conducting operations is not at all silly.
It's downright frightening.
The Dark Wraith finds Mr. Bush a tad too extreme to be in civil company, which means he should return at once to Texas.
including as it does $39 billion in spending to cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, farm subsidy programs, and student loans—thereby making good on his promise that only unproductive programs
I guess we know where humanity rates with these bastards!
proposed for 2007 includes a nearly five percent increase in Pentagon spending to $439.3 billion and another five percent increase in spending on Homeland Security.
I can halfway understand Homeland Security, however the Pentagon spending increase? What exactly do we get for our money out of the Pentagon? Seems like that's a pretty high price to pay just to get screwed!
Good evening, trailer trash.
For that five percent increase in the Pentagon budget, we get a bunch of very grateful private military contractors...
...like Halliburton.
The Dark Wraith is glad our government cares about the underprivileged.
Carpet baggers, I tell you! ...and doing just as much damage to all of us in 5 years as the carpet baggers did to the south after that war!
He will live in infamy as the reason that we should all vote and elect a president.
Or, his history will be scrubbed by the same people who buffed up that war-mongering, guns for drugs, death squads Reagan.
I almost don't want to find out which.
good morrow sir wraith,
altho the whole mess of bush just might be concealed, i doubt that. i did for a long time think that it would take as long as 20 years for the rest of the country, those not as informed as we are, to wake up to the disaster. i have lately begun to see small evidence that the empire just may crumble sooner. postponing libby's trial, most assuredly a political act, hasn't stopped the trickle of damaging stories (true or not) about libby and cheney.
I love it when billionares born with silver spoons up their butts talk about quality of life.
When it is all said and done Bush will go back to his Ranch and life the rest of his life not even understanding the damage he has done.
For him, his life won't change. He's got money and family connections.
The only way that wouldn't happen would be if some subsequent administration/Congress/both had the gumption to charge him with war crimes.
Richly as he deserves precisely that, I'm not holding my breath.
- oddjob
Indeed. Somethimes the story write its own irony.
Great site.
Well, good readers, I had been preparing a Pulp Economics special of topical interest, but then the trade deficit figures were released, so I'm trying to decide if this is one of those moments I should seize to re-interate the interconnectedness of trade and budget deficits, monetary policy, fixed exchange rates, and just about everything else in the universe.
If I really felt ambitious, I could probably even throw in an explanation of why the European Union is on the bandwagon—using false intelligence and completely dismissing controvery-defusing proposals by Tehran—to bomb Iran back to the Stone Age.
I have a feeling that, come tomorrow morning, I'm not going to be able to resist the urge to lay the whole thing out once again.
Maybe if I use diagrams this time, Mr. Bush will understand the concepts better.
Yeah. That's been the problem all along: nobody has used flow charts to explain economics to Saint Imbecile.
Then again, I might have to do it in cartoon format to hold his attention.
The Dark Wraith gets a bit sarcastic every time the figures on the American hand-over to China hit the news.
Good evening, Dark Wraith and his assembled guests.
I feel like I'm tied up, my eyes and ears horribly uncovered as I ride in the back of a van right next to a tank of propane. In the van with me are a bunch of yahoos who are high on the fact that they just ran over somebody. The driver is heading straight for the overpass supports, but insists on looking back into the van so he can participate in the sharing of manly chest-puffing bravado, and sharing stories about the last time they all ganged up to beat a single person down.
The other motorists on the road are either veering off, or keeping pace to guide the van to a fiery death, despite the fact that they, too will be caught in the fireball. The few passengers who actually care about what's going on are trying to be overheard over the raucous male bonding session, but haven't quite decided how to go about fixing the situation. I look over and see a few other people who are likewise restrained, and all I can think is "well at least I'm not the only one who knows what's happening, and feels that this is one f***ed up way to die."
Sorry, my optimism is now roadkill a few miles back. Maybe it will get a second wind, and I'm going to keep fighting just in case there's a chance of getting these freaks out from behind the wheel, but I gotta vent now and again.
*pokes his head back in*
Personally, I could use the education on how it's linked together. It might explain to me this sinking feeling I have that once the crunch comes, the plan is to go on a mass privatization binge.
These people have to be accumulating money for some reason.
Good evening, Stealth Badger.
Although I shall not share with you the details, a bothersome thing just happened to me again.
At about 11:00 p.m., I was overcome by exhaustion, and I fell asleep for an hour and ten minutes. (My cat woke me up because she knows it's not normal for me to sleep at such a time and in such a manner as I was.) In my time tonight away from the world of the waking, I had a dream that has recurred in variations on perhaps a half-dozen occasions over the past few years. In some cases, I can vaguely assemble what the metaphor is all about; but this time, the incident—trivial 'though it is, and always has been, in retrospect—bothers me because I cannot match it to waking-life meaning. However, I keep thinking that this time it's more ominous than it has been in other instances.
Now that I'm awake, the sense of foreboding is passing quickly.
I must remember not to sleep so much.
The Dark Wraith puts his head back on straight.
Good morning, Dark Wraith.
Your cat probably sensed you were having a difficult dream, too. They seem to be pretty in tune with their parents. Mine seem to know when I've overslept for work. I don't know if it's because I give them treats in the morning, or because the alarm clock is making too much noise.
You mentioned : However, I keep thinking that this time it's more ominous than it has been in other instances.
Sometimes they are like that. Whether it's something on your mind from what you've read, or seen on TV, or just a thought lurking there in the background. Hopefully, it was nothing to be worried about.
Good Evening Dark Wraith
So sorry your sleep was ruined by nightmares. Last nasty one I had was about 6 months before the riots in LA, and it was about... riots in LA, black people murdering whites, and hispanics sitting on the fence laughing. Yes, I have had many literally prophetic dreams, so many during HS that I thought I was going to die (I mean literally pass away) when they came less often.
A good brisk walk in cold air clears the head. A nice hit of whiskey warms the gullet. :)
Good afternoon, SB Gypsy.
For me, it's leaving my hovel—ideally while screaming my bloody fool head off—that clears the air and freshens my mind.
The Dark Wraith won't abide a house that's scaring the crap out of him.
And I do need to address some more of the comments that have been put to me; but I shall do that at length tomorrow, especially considering some of the issues being brought up are pretty important.
Some of you might have noticed a few subtle changes that have been occurring in the look of the blog. Most of it has been relatively unnoticeable, although OddJob did comment on what appeared to be a coloration change on the sides. (i call that effect, by the way, "sideblushes.") That visual change was temporary, and it's gone now. What you should be seeing now, among other things, is a wider text area of the main column. I still have to make a little adjustment to that because I'm getting a tiny bit of "spillage" at 800x600 resolution. Although it is becoming rare to see visitors running at anything less than 1024x768, it's still just above my threshhold of 5% of visitors, so I want to maintain the "default" screen at 800x600 for the time being.
All of this marginal tweaking is to a specific purpose, which I shall reveal when I've perfected the code for the new feature. Some of you will like the new trick, and some of you will have no use for it. The good news is that the feature will be available for those who want it, and it will not be there for people who don't want it.
The Dark Wraith gets back to work on the special project.