There is a Russian proverb: “The only place you find free cheese is in a mousetrap.”
America is addicted to ‘free cheese’. Non-discretionary spending (essentially a publicly sponsored ponzie scheme), which we as a nation have all signed off on, chokes the federal budget. The discretionary Iraq War and the prolonged Afghan Campaign/War over the last seventeen years have been good for defense contractors, but have catapulted the national debt. Inept handling of the war by George W. Bush and Obama Administrations created the situation that we find ourselves in.
America is addicted to ‘free cheese’. Non-discretionary spending (essentially a publicly sponsored ponzie scheme), which we as a nation have all signed off on, chokes the federal budget. The discretionary Iraq War and the prolonged Afghan Campaign/War over the last seventeen years have been good for defense contractors, but have catapulted the national debt. Inept handling of the war by George W. Bush and Obama Administrations created the situation that we find ourselves in.
President Trump is not a conservative and never claimed to be. He’s a populist, which is why he’ll be elected again in 2020, all things being equal. Hillary Clinton would have beaten everyone else in the field from Jeb! (low energy, Hillary-with-a-dick politically) to Rand Paul (a libertarian of sorts). That means that President Trump isn’t nearly as concerned with a growing debt as he is doing popular things like military spending, which while useful, is a form of welfare for the middle class, and getting better trade deals to drive an even bigger wedge between the Democrat Party and their constituents in ‘big labor’.
Reducing free cheese is a cornerstone of conservatism, but since President Trump is not a conservative, we shouldn’t expect much from him.
Individually, there’s not much we can do. Collectively, like minded people are a far smaller group than the larger population since many of us have our own form of ‘free cheese’ – even if it’s an entitlement. Naturally we don’t think of it as free cheese if it comes to us. AND I am not exempt. I draw a government pension for my service, am entitled to go to the VA for treatment, etc. Though because I have another pension, I am NOT entitled to Social Security (though I’m not presently old enough to collect) even though those SS payments were taken from me by the government, essentially at the point of a bayonet. It’s just a SS tax – free cheese for somebody else. I’m resolved to money down a rat hole, lies and deceit from government, and I move on. I wouldn’t apply for Medicare out of principle, but as I understand it, there is some sort of requirement that I do so when I’m 65, by my healthcare insurance carrier (I pay for my healthcare out-of-pocket without engaging in the ObamaCare exchanges). So the free cheese is being shoved down my throat after a fashion.
The Russian sayings can be so practical. It's why I read Russian novels in my youth.
Your description of Jeb! made me LOL. Spot on.
Re healthcare, it's a dilemma for me and many others. We make too much to get help and the reason healthcare is so expensive is because so many are getting it for free.
Healthcare is a lot like education or any other government program. Before student loans were ubiquitous, tuition for state schools anyway, was affordable. Now that the government hands out loans that students are burdened with their whole lives, the schools feel free to jack up fees and eliminate classes to keep students there and paying longer.
The use of the term "trust fund" is meaningless in the federal system so long as it can be borrowed from by the government. Social Security has been raided many, many times.
I read, somewhere, that Jeb! once summoned the energy to rise from his club chair and order another Gimlet. Then he sank back down again.
The Old Crone would've had him for breakfast. I'm not saying the FBI was hoping for that outcome but I'm not saying it wasn't, either.
The Government gives me no cheese.
Social Security is a doomed system that we cling to because (like holding a tiger by the tail), we're afraid to hold on and we're more afraid to let go. I don't know what we'll do once Social Security dies. Trust in government at all levels is at a low ebb, and a graying population makes these sorts of schemes unattractive.
Jeb! usually just has the waitress deliver his Singapore Slings until he passes out and four or five guys hoist him into a wheel chair and motate him to the waiting limo. He thought that it was his turn. She thought it was her turn. Neither won.
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