Class Warrior in Chief
Except for two things, President Obama and his class warrior minions have criticized, trivialized, denigrated, ridiculed, disparaged, or mocked everything Mitt Romney has said, thought, or done. So far, the Romney name and religion have not been touched. I’m not too sure, however, about exempting religion from the hit list.
Even the Romney family is not immune. Anne Romney was ridiculed for the expensive garage she built for her Cadillacs. No slack was cut for her over the employment of the workers to build the garage, its accouterments, and the automobiles.
The class warrior pitch was about this obscenely rich woman spending money on herself instead of sending it to the government for redistribution. In their view, the money would have been better spent in Washington as grants to Solyndra for its bankruptcy and turning its employees over to the unemployment lists.
Even Romney’s light hearted comment about defunding Big Bird by eliminating the federal subsidy for National Public Broadcasting was the subject of ridicule. The subject here is $445 million for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funnels $19 million of that money to the producer of Sesame Street and Big Bird. This tax payer money was just a small part of Sesame Street’s revenue of $134 million in 2011.
The class warriors laugh at the suggestion to eliminate the CPB subsidy. They note that $445 million is so minuscule as to have no discernible effect on the budget deficit and national debt.
The warriors are right. The CPB subsidy, as a portion of the national budget, is roughly the equivalent of a grain of sand on the Galveston Island beaches.
What they do not appreciate, however, is that the engorged budget deficit and debt grow just like the beaches. As both grow one grain at a time, they can be dismantled a grain at a time.
Republicans in Congress have proposed such a dismantling. The list of subsidies, grants, and special programs suggested for elimination is mind boggling. Some of the items involve only thousands of dollars. Others cost either millions or billions.
The annual CPB subsidy of $445 million leads the list. Just a few of the other annual gifts on the list are:
National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities--$167.5 million each
Woodrow Wilson Center--$20 million
John C. Stennis Center--$430,000
Hope VI Program (What’s this?)--$250 million
Amtrak Subsidies--$1.565 billion
New Starts Transit (???)--$2 billion
Exchange Programs for Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, and Their
Historical Trading Partners in Massachusetts (honest, this is on the list)--
$9 million
Eliminate duplicating education programs--$1.3 billion
Death gratuities for Members of Congress (tradition of awarding one year’s salary to the family of any member of Congress who dies while in office)--saving depends on who, if anyone, dies in office.
This is a few of the long list that would reduce the debt by more than $2.5 trillion over ten years.
The reduction would be one grain of sand at a time. There are ways, however, to remove that sand by shovels full. Eliminating entire federal bureaucracies like the make-work Departments of Education and Homeland Security would reduce the deficits and debt by multiple trillions.
We now have clear evidence of how class warriors view removing even one grain of sand from that beach. Each of those grains represents a core support group of one or more members of Congress. Dampening the ability to buy the votes of those groups with federal funds must be opposed with vigor.
This paints a grim picture. Part of the picture will become darker and begin to look more like the landscapes of Greece and Spain if the class warriors retain control of the White House and at least one wing of Congress.
So here’s the perspective.
In less than two weeks, some Americans will have decided the fate of the country. Those who decided to leave their TVs for a while to go to the polls will have set the nation’s course for four years.
Will we be sailing toward a government that believes it owns all the wealth of the nation and can decide who gets what portion of that wealth? Or will the future be one that each citizen is entitled only to what he or she earns?
Only time will tell.
enough
