Budget Fairy Tales, Left and Right

I haven't posted in a while but I felt this article was worth posting. The article is succinct and worth every word.

Budget Fairy Tales, Left and Right

On..."Earned Success"

A few articles to share. It's been a while.

First Michael Barone ties together a number of ideas to formulate an idea that is overall pretty basic but is often ignored.
Barone writes

• They want public policies that enable them to earn success, and they resent policies that channel money to the politically well positioned or to those who have not made decisions and taken actions necessary for earned success. They want to be empowered, not patronized.

• (Walter Russell) Mead makes an even stronger point when he writes that "for large numbers of voters, the professional classes who staff the bureaucracies, foundations and policy institutes in and around government are themselves a special interest." One, he adds, that acts "only to protect their turf and fatten their purses."

Americans Want the Honor of "Earned Success"

The Tea Party's rise and success has been linked to both of these points, but especially the second one. Government has become a massive special interest and for those on the outside-looking-in resentment has been growing for some time. Continually throughout US history the people have rebelled from what they deemed an unnatural growth (and abuse) of power consolidated in one group's hands i.e. slave holders, Gilded Age capitalists, urban political machines. In all three cases, the federal government was strengthened to destroy (slave holders) or reduce (capitalists, political bosses) these power grabs. Now, the very monster they created to protect the republic is now seen by a growing minority to be the threat to the republic.

If there is one person who needs to be read it's Walter Russell Mead. His last few blog posts have been awesome, especially

The Writing on the Wall

It perhaps is the best long essay I've read all year.

His latest American Tinderbox is also very interesting.

On...A Wonderful Birthday and an Unhappy Birthday

Robert Samuelson continues to be a great voice in our Republic's present skirmishes. The linked piece may be a tad pessimistic on a glorious day for our nation, but he really is presenting a reality that many of our citizens are ignoring. Along with William Russel Mead he is in a smooth groove.

I particularly loved the bit about the reactionaries versus radicals. I think this is becoming truer and truer.

Unhappy Birthday

On...Hilarious Historical Comedy

This bit from Jimmy Fallon is over a year old now but I love it. Inane historical humor. My AP students tend to get a kick out of it after we study the Manifest Destiny chapter.

Gadsden Purchase from Michael G on Vimeo.

On... Sipping Gas in the Faculty Lounge

Victor Davis Hanson presents some interesting points about Obama and his administration in regards to the high price of gas and their disconnect with middle-class reality. He doesn't include it, but I also think they've drunk from the Tom Friedman school of economics: only super high gas prices will force us off the teat of foreign oil. They never say this too strongly in public, but you only need to connect the dots.

Obama, Gas Prices & the Faculty Lounge

On...Ceilings of Debt

Shouldn't it be a basement of debt? Anyway, this graph is pretty amazing, and scary and I don't know what we're going to do. Where in the hell is all this money going? I think we could have filled the Grand Canyon by now.

NationalJournal.com - GRAPHIC: 10 Years, 10 Broken U.S. Debt Ceilings - Wednesday, April 13, 2011