Saturday, January 10, 2009

Random Thoughts: WTF RI?!?!?!

OK, I know people, en masse can be pretty stupid. I also know that some individuals can be infallibly stupid. Lastly, I know anyone can do or say some stupid things at times. That said, some of the responses to the Governer's latest necessary budget ideas are some of the stupidest things I have ever heard. I'm not happy about reduced aid to cities and towns, but at least the Governer wants to eliminate some state requirements, to make the town spending discretionary, rather than mandated. There was a quote from a woman who said, "These cuts aren't the right thing to do."

WHAT THE F*** IS THE RIGHT THING TO DO?!? RAISE TAXES?!?!

Well, according to a quote from union leader, that is exactly what we should do in RI. Yeah. That's the solution... Lets make it harder for everyone to live here, so we can maintain our socialist government. I think what we need is a good old fashioned Red Scare. Yep. Some rampant parinoia that people are out to destroy us would be just what we need right now.

More seriously, what we need is an across the board spending cut at all levels. Take a printed out copy of the budget to McCoy and have it shredded at the Great Shredding Event. What comes out the other end are the limits of what we should spend. Does anyone in this state have any concept of fiscal conservatism? We apparently need to change our state flower to the bleeding heart. Maybe we should change our state motto from 'Hope' to 'Empty your pockets.'

1 comments:

KingM said...

This is my general feeling about attempts to spend our way out of the crisis. When my personal finances take a hit, I tighten my belt and work doubly hard to dig myself out. I don't *increase* my spending by using my credit card to maintain the illusion of greater wealth.

I understand that this is an oversimplification of the business cycle, but it seems like things like the stimulus checks we got last May or most of the pork-laden bill that just went through are only going to make the problem worse in the long run. Things like infrastructure investments might pay off, in the same way that it is worth borrowing for a college education, but that seems to be a small fraction (1/4? 1/5?) of the current plan.