This started out by asking the unanswerable about Right Wing propaganda about "taxing success" and "entitlements."

The right wing argument boils down to:

The wealthy should not be taxed. Corporations with huge profits should not be taxed.

Because you see, that's "taxing success," and that's pure and simple evil.

"Taxing success" is code for taxing corporate profits and the graduated income tax.

And entitlements is code for Rooseveltian and Johnsonian (LBJ) stuff like Social Security, Medicare, MedicAid, War on Poverty, etc.

But the name of Herman Cain kept popping up. The guy is fascinating and he bears looking at.

The last 5 budgets of the United States of America,  hold entire planet's record for the 5 highest record deficits ever recorded by anyone in history, by anyone.

George HW Bush (41) is actually responsible for instigating the good years by requiring that any tax cuts must have equivalent cuts in spending.

Clinton added to good fiscal policy when he got passed the balanced budget amendment.

Throughout American history, every generation has endured hardship and has done whatever was required to better their children's future.  George Bush undid that .  Because of Republican tax cuts, and only because of Republican tax cuts,  we will be the first generation to give their children a world far worse than the one they inherited, because of the mantra once espoused by Republicans, that "deficits do not matter".

Catch 23
By David Glenn Cox

Probably the most profound statement made by a US President in the last fifty years was, "It all depends on what your definition of is, is." We no longer have Presidents who make profound statements, they would be lost over the heads of the masses and so the old axiom kicks in: If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.

I've been writing diaries for some time about struggling to climb out of poverty.  I've written about how I fell into poverty, by becoming disabled with pain.  Kossacks have replied in comments, asking why I'm not collecting disability benefits or other government assistance.  Here is why:  

Now I know how Gregor Samsa must have felt.

It’s a terrible thing, waking up in the morning to realize that overnight you have metamorphosed into a conservative. How do you face your family?

I was shocked...shocked, to realize suddenly that I hate entitlements. It’s conservatives who preach against entitlements, right?

The head of the GAO (Government Accountability Office) David Walker has announced his resignation (effective 3/12/08).  Mr. Walker has been speaking out about the amount of debt that the US government is accumulating and the devastating effects that will have on our ability to meet our commitments to seniors.

He has appeared on TV shows, performed radio interviews, held speaking engagements, and produced a web video of his information.  The lack of attention paid to his message by lawmakers has been appalling.  I believe that Congressional and Presidential irresponsibility led him to appeal directly to the general public to raise awareness.  This too has failed.  Private citizens have not risen to the challenge of holding our elected officials accountable for the mountains of debt that they are heaping on our children and grandchildren.

While reading 'Culture Warrior', i've found myself seriously questioning O'Reilly's stance on a lot of things.  When listening to Bill on TV and reading his poorly constructed prose, you've got to ask yourself if he really believes in the words that he drools out day after day.  What is he like in his personal life?  Does he treat his family the way that he treats his co-workers or his guests on his shows?  Has his life been shaped by his upbringing, his family, his education; or is this all just a persona he adopted to satiate his masters, Rupert Murdock and Roger Ailes?  Bill likes to call the 'secular progressive' crowd 'selfish'.  But, something tells me that Bill isn't exactly ready to share his toys with the rest of the kids on the playground.

I think we really have to listen to what our GOP friends up on that stage are really saying.  There was a consensus up there that the problems we face was caused by a drunk GOP Congress spending too much money during the last six years.  What was some of their solutions?  One candidate said we must rid ourselves of the Departments of Homeland Security, Energy and Education.  Another candidate says that the only purpose of government is defense and nothing else.  It was stated that America can no longer afford the trillions spent on entitlements.  Of course, those FOX propagandists will never ask the follow up questions that really had to be asked about all this.  If true follow-up questions were asked, the American people would begin to understand the consequences of these statements.  

A member of Rockridge Nation recently alerted me to a column on SmartMoney.com assailing the "entitlement mentality." Its author, a hedge fund manager, writes that "the problem in America isn't with those who are succeeding, but with those who are struggling." These struggling people, he asserts, wrongly believe they are entitled to "the things necessary to live." From this classic strict father explanation, we can see how conservatives use language to mislead and how we can challenge it.

In his essay "The Entitlement Mentality Doesn't Fly in Investing," Jonathan Hoenig writes to his audience of investors, "Aren't we all looking to get in on the next Microsoft (MSFT) or Google (GOOG)?"  He then proceeds to write that investors who profit from such investments "rightfully feel pride in our accomplishments" because "we earned it."  He laments that people "resent" successful CEOs because of their wealth.

No, this is not an Iraq war diary, nor is it a threat to move to Canada or some other more amenable-seeming country. This is about yet another glaring need for reform in our social safety net, one I hope the Democrats will consider taking up this legislative session--erasing the inadequate Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) with parental and health leave laws that are actually worth the paper they're printed on. This was my wife's tearful comment on the true family values of the Republican party.

I'll wheel in a veritable market basket of topics with this diary. Be forewarned, this is not an election diary, though I've loaded my basket with political issues from the aisles of healthcare entitlements, veterans issues, and such blue light specials as signified by touchstones and harbingers of the future.

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

When Freud discovered psychoanalysis he first had to notice the power of suggestion, and repudiate it.  Hypnotists use the power of suggestion, and their claim is that no one would do anything under this power they wouldn't do without it.  The catch is that no one for sure knows what's in his or her own heart, no more than what's in anyone else's.

There they go, again!

For the past three years an invidious word has been slowly reemerging in the Republican vocabulary - entitlement.  The word appeared on several talk shows this past weekend, spewing from the mouths of Republican candidates, and their  pundits.

As someone who has repeatedly seen words used to misinform and distort the public dialogue, and as a retired person whose private pension was wiped out by corporate shenanigans, this particular word is striking fear into my heart.

Social Security Insurance is being increasingly referred to as "an entitlement" by Republicans every time they can get their hands on a public microphone.  Use of the word entitlement carefully links the SS Insurance program in the mind of the public, to "just another form of welfare".

Lots of you have asked me to write about something good that is happening in our healthcare system.

This is hard to do as millions and millions of Americans are denied access to basic health care.

However I'd like to tell you about a heroic Kossack who has sent me several emails about her long and difficult battle with cancer as a Medicaid patient in California.

If you want to learn about courage in the face of tremendous adversity, then you should read about this remarkable woman.

Medicaid is the government insurance program for low-income Americans. For this woman it generally delivered healthcare as it was intended. Her care was by no means perfect.  There was at least one huge lapse involving a CT Scan, and possibly another involving a medical error. But if you take the time to read this entire diary, you'll see that given the gravity of her medical nightmare, she believes most of the care she received was adequate.

Of course, any doctors who read this may see things differently and of course they should let us know.

Bush's past appointments haven't really been the greatest, but because Republicans and Democrats alike seem to hold on to the antiquated notion of "entitlement", no one's really begrudged him any of his choices. After all, the President is entitled to choose his own staff, right?

For his latest choice, The Decider has decided to appoint Michael V. Hayden as Head of the CIA, kind of like asking a burglar to guard your house while you're on vacation. The facts on Hayden have been spoken and written about exhaustively, so I think if it's all right with you, I'll just skip that and go straight to the anger.

Dick Cheney wants us to save more of our money, yep. I read that on the AP news feed on my little blog awhile ago. It caused me to run upstairs and mix the mother of all Bloody Marys.

I felt as if I had been slapped, actually I felt as if I were fifty million Americans who had been slapped.

Now believe me, if you’re taking a slap for that many people it calls for a stiff drink, or two. Excuse me a sec.. .....................OK, as I was saying Old Uncle Dead-eye, that pillar of Protestant rectitude, thinks that we should be more parsimonious in our financial affairs and that we Americans should start saving on the very first day of work, "Too often, workers are living paycheck to paycheck and are not saving sufficiently," Cheney said.

Cheney failed to mention that wages for most Americans have been stagnant during these last many years of Republican looting and squandering, that millions of jobs have simply gone away, and that the bright economic future promised by the budget surpluses at the close of the Clinton years have been sacrificed on the altar of tax cuts for the wealthiest among us.

Something has been troubling me lately.

I was wondering, do our leaders ever gaze out across the bleak winter landscape, a landscape so barren for so many of our fellow citizens that it is devoid of hope. A landscape so grim  for so many, that life is little more than a daily battle to survive. Do our leaders ever do this and pause for a moment of reflection and think, there but for the grace of God go I?

Do they recognize the hurt and suffering in the land?  If they did, surely they would drop to their knees and look to the heavens and plead for forgiveness. They would tremble in shame before the Almighty. They would see the destruction they have wrought and they might utter there but for the grace of God go I.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

While he may be a Luddite, Mr. Will actually makes some interesting points about some pending legislation that would provide vouchers for digital television converter boxes to consumers: