Thursday, October 30, 2003

The Death Of Journalism

Partisan Politics

According to Bill Moyers, it may be at hand.  I haven’t seen much lately that leads me to believe otherwise.  There are still a few signs of life out there, where ethics haven’t been bent and folded enough times to disappear entirely...It’s a sobering interview.

Everything involving television is for sale.  I wonder how long even NPR can last; its ad content has slowly been creeping upwards too.

It occurs to me that I have heard entirely too many times that we “shouldn’t be spending public money on NPR”.  Here’s the thing, for those of you on the right.  There are things that you think government should spend money, and there are things that I think government should spend money on.  On your side, we’ve got big guns and a military, invasions of other countries, huge jails for mostly black people who can’t afford Rush Limbaugh’s lawyers, corporate welfare, tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy, and government funding of religions.  I think it’s worth noting that we’re actually spending money on all that stuff. 

On my side there’s an R+D budget, health care, serious funding for educational institutions, we keep our progressive taxation system progressive, taxes can certainly go higher, and we keep important programs like NPR and NASA and yes, even the NEA. 

Here’s the thing: The right’s pet expenditures are an order of magnitude higher than the left’s. The old canard about “free-spending liberals” just doesn’t hold water any more.  We all know exactly who the free spenders are now.  So the next time you want to knock off the NEA, maybe I get to pick one out of your list. 

You too can play amusing budget games!  Try this budget simulator.  I pretty much balanced the budget on the first try.  It’s not even hard to do.  You just have to have your priorities straight...and get rid of the stupid tax cut that got us into this deficit mess in the first place.  Plus nuke agricultural subsidies.  I can’t for the life of me figure out why a single mom struggling to make ends meet in the inner city should be forced to give part of her income to Archer Daniels Midland.

Old budget was $3274.734 billion
($2292.807 billion in spending, $981.927 billion in tax expenditures and cuts).

New budget is $2914.09 billion

($2253.16 billion in spending, $660.93 billion in tax expenditures and cuts).

You have cut the deficit by $360.64 billion.

Your new deficit is $-3.63 billion.


Posted by Ross on 10/30/03 at 07:44 AM
Partisan Politics • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink