Republicans and Mad Max

Townhall.com ^ | December 4, 2012 | Mona Charen

[Kaslin]

The incomparable Walter Russell Mead, writing in the American Interest, offered a glimpse into the coming dystopia:

"Things are getting worse in San Bernardino. The city filed for bankruptcy earlier this year, but its financial situation has continued to deteriorate. And now with what promises to be a heated court battle over payments to the state pension fund in the offing, further cuts are likely.

"Things are getting so bad that at a recent city council meeting, the city attorney advised residents to 'lock their doors and load their guns' because the city could no longer afford to keep up a strong enough police force."

Consider also this Reuters story from Greece:

"For hours the leader of the Greek journalists' social security fund had been chairing a meeting about disastrous losses on retirement savings caused by the country's economic collapse. 'She tried to present herself as the fund's savior and asked (members) to double contributions to 6 percent of salaries,' said one of those present that night at the Titania hotel. Spanopoulou, 58, did not succeed.

"When she rose to leave around midnight, enraged fund members first swore, then waded in punching, kicking and tearing at her clothes, according to witnesses. A bodyguard managed to bustle her out of the room, but another group caught her just outside the hotel and gave her a second beating. She spent the night in hospital.

"It was a brutal sign of the fury many Greeks feel at the way the country's debt crisis has dashed hopes of a comfortable old age. Greece's pension funds - patchily run in the first place, say unionists and some politicians - have been savaged by austerity and the terms of the international bailout keeping the country afloat."

When governments cannot pay their current employees because they've gone broke paying pensions to previous employees (among other obligations), you don't get a "fiscal cliff," or even a bad recession. You get the unraveling of civilization.

That is how Republicans should present the stakes in the budget impasse when speaking to the press. So far, John Boehner has described the president's proposals as "unserious" and Mitch McConnell has let it be known that he laughed in Tim Geithner's face. Does either of those responses convince the average voter that something is at stake here beyond Republicans protecting their wealthy friends?

In point of fact, the Republicans have already bowed to the election results and agreed to raise taxes on the top 2 percent of earners. But the president is pushing for much more. Far from proposing spending cuts, Obama touts new stimulus spending and "investment" in infrastructure. He wants to limit deductions and have sole discretion to raise the federal debt limit. He may be hoping to provoke angry Republicans into permitting sequestration, calculating that he could withstand a recession at the start of his second term and still emerge with his legacy intact, but that Republicans would be devastated in the 2014 midterms if they were made to take the blame for a downturn.

It's a triple irony that Obama is successfully painting Republicans into the "party of the rich" corner. First because they've already agreed to tax increases, and second, the much-maligned Bush "tax cuts for the rich" actually made the code more, not less, progressive. And third, because the Republicans are holding out for what? For spending reductions. What is the nature of those spending cuts? There are a number of possibilities, but one that Republicans have endorsed includes means-testing entitlements.

Means-testing translates into another tax on wealthier Americans. They will receive fewer benefits from programs like Social Security and Medicare than they've been led to expect. So Republicans are holding out -- and being scorned as the party of the rich -- for demanding fewer benefits for, yes, the rich.

The Republicans are attempting to divert the nation -- not from the "fiscal cliff" but from something much worse. If government debt is not controlled by spending cuts (tax increases on the rich make scarcely a dent), the U.S. is headed for drastic economic decline. Interest rates will rise to attract wary international investors. Rising interest rates will in turn increase our debt service burden, while a diminished private sector will provide less and less tax revenue. The combination of spiraling debt service and entitlement spending will quickly leave no funds for any other purpose.

That's when it becomes Mad Max. That's what the negotiations are about.

[Andrei Bulba]

The liberals always scare people into higher taxes for “roads and police”. Yet with high taxes, cities are beginning to disband police forces and the surrounding counties have to take up the slack.

[muir_redwoods]

'lock their doors and load their guns'

Quite apart form any fiscal issues, I've lived like this my whole life. I don't need some city government cockroach to give me this advice.

[eyeamok]

The way I see it, San Bernardino is in a position to stop all the lies and deception, All they have to do is claim that ALL these Pension Contracts are by Definition PONZI Schemes, they are Mathematically IMPOSSIBLE to fulfill, They depend on the Enslavement of Future Generations making them out and out Unconstitutional, thereby making them ILLEGAL in the First Place, Let CALPERS prove otherwise, they Can’t. Then have the City Attorney Arrest, Jail and Prosecute ANY Government Official who claims otherwise, for if they make that Claim they are defact committing FELONY EXTORTION. Why is it that Public Pension Debt is allowed to be passed on to our children?? is that not SLAVERY?

[G Larry]

Boehner needs a bigger stage and more drums and horns.
Courage would help.

His message must be:

The President’s suggestion that all he wants is a tax increase on the top 2%, is a lie.
The proof is that it would raise less than $85B and ALL of it would be spent TWICE. NONE of it would be used to pay down the debt,

The Presidents behavior proves that it is born out of malice and neither ignorance, or a sense of “fairness”.

Man’s talents, intelligence, and will power, can NOT be redistributed by the government!

[Travis McGee]

Liberal hucksters and demagogues find it very easy to sell magical thinking to morons. It's as old as the Pied Piper story.

But eventually, magical thinking crashes into hard reality.

The crash is going to be epic, the survivors uncertain, the future unknown.

Try not to be in that car when it happens. Location, location, location.

[Malone LaVeigh]

YOU! You can RUN, but you can't HIDE!

[Daveinyork]

lock and load

[Daveinyork]

Liberals act as if infrastructure, defense and law enforcement are the only places they spend money.

The truth is that they spend trillion on millions of small programs, each of which costs each taxpayer pennies a year, but benefits few people a lot. The sum total is trillions and thery are never cut, because taxpayers generally are not going to be excited about the cost of each program, while the beneficiaries can be counted on to make a lot of noise at the mere suggestions of cutting.

So, big bird stays, and police get cut, and governments go bankrupt, along with taxpayers.

To paraphrase the much missed Milton Friedman, the beneficiaries of freedom are many, and they don’t know who they are, while its victims are few, and they know who they are.

[Psalm 144]

The Soviet Union died in exactly this manner. Civilization did NOT unravel however. With the death of the massive, top heavy, oppressive, Socialist, totalitarian central government, civilization began a long, slow recovery.

[virgil283]

Hey Kaslin This post was mentioned on “the Gateway Pundit “site.. congrats.....’V’\

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/