sotto voce

In the midst of last night’s reading session, I googled this : "Why does the GOP hate spending so much?"

It’s more out of exasperation than any motives to find the real answer (No, I didn’t find any substantial answer to that question). Now, I don’t really agree with all the earmarks squeezed into the stimulus package by the Dems either, but for goodness’ sake, stop saying that the way out of this crisis is through tax cuts and that everything else other than tax cuts is bogus. Grahhh…

So this is what I want from the stimulus package:
- tax rebates in form of  reduced witholding payments in the payroll tax. For better explanation of why this is a good idea, read this.
- job creation through construction / improvement of public infrastructure (READ: Fix your broken public transit system a.k.a Don’t build more unnecessary roads)
- renegotiation of home loans and reduced mortgage interest, give tax incentives to first-time home buyers
- sales tax holiday once every month

I’m okay with the Republicans picking fights with the Dems over unnecessary spending. There are a lot of, IMHO, earmarks that shouldn’t be there. I hate whichever Dems who treated this opportunity as the first time in a very long time where they can throw in whatever pet projects they have. It’s like you’ve been in a restricted diet camp for eight years and suddenly you’re free and you start frequenting every fast food restaurants you encounter. Still, the Republicans should stop treating this bill as a political game. But, who am I to say this. It’s politics after all, of course they’re going to do this silly, childish bickering… 
I personally don’t believe in an economic principle that’s based on one’s political ideology. And it’s back to my first question: why does GOP hate spending? why does the dems lurveee spending? why does GOP lurves tax cuts? etc etc etc
Now is not the time to be a stickler with ideologies, just do whatever works! I call that economic pragmatism.

And what’s with Phelps suspension and his being dropped as a sponsor by Kellogg’s?? For fuck’s sake… can someone (ie. the non-existent secretary of HHS) please stop this whole stupid bullshit about marijuana. Almost half of the population have smoked marijuana at least once and do you know US has higher percentage of pot smokers than the Netherlands (where it’s fucking legal)? What does this mean? Making marijuana consumption a criminal offense DOES NOT WORK. I repeat, people will still smoke pot whether it’s legal or not. Instead of wasting taxpayers money on this stupid war on drugs, why not just legalize it and tax all the pot dealers who’re making millions of dollars per year? 
I doubt that was the first time Phelps smoked pot and if so, why are these stupid hypocrites making such a riot over a substance which apparently doesn’t stop you from being a 14-gold medals Olympian.