What the fuck, Tea Partiers? What the fee-fi-fo-fum? You control less than one-half of one chamber of Congress, and yet have somehow convinced everybody they’ve gotta slash trillions in spending because of the ‘deficit crisis.’ Many Republicans supported extending the largest contributing policy piece to our deficit — THE BUSH TAX CUTS!!! — take the win!
What are you so angry about? TAKE THE WIN! What are you still angry about? Yes (sardonic) — government still exists. We still have traffic lights. We’re sorry. Not everybody defines ‘freedom’ as ‘the ability to not pay taxes.’ Government isn’t perfect, but some people wish it was better — not gone. This whole process has been like, you’re in a bank, it’s a negotiation where you got some hostages, and after getting everything you wanted, you’re still like, ‘Hey — I still get to kill the hostages, right?’
This is the part where they all come after you, and they go, ‘You won the debate — what are you going to do now?’ And you’re like, ‘We’re going to Disney… (beat) Colonial Williamsburg.’
JON STEWART, on petulant Tea Party members who refused to vote for the debt compromise bill, on The Daily Show.
Fuck the Tea Party.
(via inothernews)
The hard truth about health care
Everyone knows — or should know — that the United States spends much more than any other country on health care. But the Kaiser Family Foundation broke that spending down into two parts: the government’s share and the private sector’s share (both measured as a percentage of total gross domestic product), then compared the results to figures from 12 other countries that are members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. And here’s the shocker: Our government spends more on health care than the governments of Japan, Australia, Norway, the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, Canada or Switzerland.
Think about that for a minute. Canada has a single-payer health-care system. The government is the only insurer of any note. The United Kingdom has a socialized system, in which the government is not only the sole insurer of note but also employs most of the doctors and nurses and runs most of the hospitals. And yet, measured as a share of the economy, our government health-care system is the largest of the bunch.
And it’s worse than that: Atop our giant government health-care sector, we have an even more giant private health-care sector. Altogether, we’re spending about 16 percent of the GDP on health care. No other country even tops 12 percent. Which means we’ve got the worst of both worlds: huge government and high costs.
(Source: azspot)
Raise America's Taxes
NYTimes’ Nicholas D. Kristof addresses President Obama’s speech, Republican Representative Paul Ryans’ proposed budget plan, and argues taxes needed to be raised instead of cutting essential programs like Medicaid.
This isn’t just an argument to get the country out of debt. We live in a society that is so apathetic we don’t even care if senior citizens can’t afford health care and proper medical attention because we don’t want to pay higher taxes.
In the end, it’s not about socialism, capitalism, etc. It’s about a common decency and humanity we’ve all lost.
Naomi Klein: Wisconsin’s Shock Doctrine | The Nation
been dealing with this discussion all day at local meetings. i’m glad to see it being talked about on a national front. but i admit—the whole thing is so fucking scary insidious *depressing*…I feel shell shocked.
(via radicallyhottoff)
Jesus. Governor as dictator.
(via onetinycorner)
i mean—there’s no fucking mistake the cities that chronically in danger of being taken over or *have* been taken over by the state are former industrial fucking cities. Flint (a city I lived in) was the ground zero of GM, Detroit (a city I work/organize/love in) is the Big Three, Pontiac and Saginaw are both factory towns and on the factory 1-75 corridor…there are NEVER this level of problems on the other side of the state—but the other side of the state was built on religion rather than economic investment.
private businesses *CAUSED* these fucking problems. THEY ARE THE CAUSE of these problems. And now they are being pushed as the fucking SOLUTION?????
(via radicallyhottoff)
(via soupsoup)
