Posted on 11/09/2010 6:48:59 AM PST by WebFocus
One of the most frustrating tendencies of mainstream leaders in the United States is their willingness, year after debilitating year, to embrace policies that have no hope of succeeding.
From Lyndon Johnson’s mad pursuit of victory in Vietnam to George W. Bush’s disastrous invasion of Iraq to today’s delusionary deficit zealots, the tragic lure of the impossible dream seems never to subside.
Ronald Reagan told us he could cut taxes, jack up defense spending and balance the budget — all at the same time. How’d he do? As his biographer Garry Wills tells us, the Gipper “nearly tripled the deficit in his eight years, and never made a realistic proposal for cutting it.”
President Obama is escalating the war in Afghanistan while promising to start bringing our troops home next summer, which is like a heavyweight boxer throwing roundhouse rights while assuring his opponent that he won’t fight quite as hard after the eighth or ninth round.
I don’t know if it’s the drinking water or the rarefied air at the highest reaches of government that makes so many of our leaders go loopy. Whatever it is, we need to put a stop to these self-defeating tendencies. The U.S. is in sad shape, and most of the policy prescriptions being tossed around by the movers and shakers are bad ones.
To get a sense of how deeply entrenched the problems are, consider what passes for good news these days. The economy added 151,000 jobs last month, which was more than most economists had expected. But even at that rate of job growth, it would take 15 to 20 years to get the employment rate back to where it was when the Great Recession began in December 2007.
There is no time to waste on plans that can’t succeed.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Apparently, I’m smarter than anyone in the Obama Regime or on the NYT Editorial Staff, and so are most Americans in what they dismiss as “flyover country”. If my personal budget didn’t balance, I could get a second job and earn more money . . . or . . . I could spend less. Either way, I could get my budget to balance. Only a moron or someone being intentionally obtuse would miss that second option, and with today’s liberal elites, either stupidity or evil could be the truth.
Why would I ask a alcoholic how to quit drinking.
"NY TIMES: All the tripe that we can type."
I’m one of those people who could qualify for plenty of assistance, and yet I’d rather go without. Why? Because it’s your money, not mine.
Of course it’s bad when employers are asking me why don’t I go on disability. I just want a job, that’s all.
Very few people today have much character at all.
Not surprising when any talk of virtue has been systematically erased from our culture.
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