by Jack
This is one of those times when a series of low events makes me wonder about the future or if we even have a future? Yesterday around 4 pm, I’m driving to the grocery store. As I approach the stoplight there’s some weathered plastic flowers tied to a small, white, wooden cross that’s staked into the dirt. It’s a memorial to a young man shot by a sniper last year. The shooter and the victim didn’t even know each other, it was just a stupid, savage attack for no reason. The guy just pulls up to the red light just like me and a shot rings out from the tall grass. Senseless, absolutely senseless.
The light changes. I continue across the intersection where several years earlier two teenage brothers (good kids) were killed by a madman driving over 100 mph into a red light. Why? Because he had a fight with his girlfriend and he didn’t care what happened to him or anybody else. I’m glad he’s gone, but he took two good people with him. In a moment I’m pulling into Sky-Park Plaza. A week ago a customer like me was stabbed in the stomach because he didn’t give some bum his spare change. That stabbing set a new record for stabbings in this little college town, coincidentally we’ve also got a record number of bums on the street.
Last year Chico had 5.7 homicides per 100,000 population, and 10 years ago it was 1.5. Rapes averaged 54.9 per 100k pop over the last 5 years, burglaries and assaults were similarly way too high. (Note to Council: Dear progressives….that’s not what we like to call progress)
If there’s a bottom line here I think it has to be about the collective character of the country and what it says about us that such things happen on a regular basis. You don’t see this in Japan or the UK, etc., so there’s something about us that’s different, something brutish. It’s not a good sign, and when people in Washington behave no better than the thugs on the street you know we’ve got a serious problem. Even the president is a liar and not a very good one at that. Look at this latest mess spinning out of Benghazi, and look at the IRS abuse of power and trust. And just today we’re reading about the government is investigating the cell phone numbers of reporters trying to find a security leak. (More on this to follow) This is a big story, and it has implications that go far beyond the mere crime their looking into. So much for a free press and confidential sources. Like I said, makes me wonder what kind of future we’ve got?
“Last year Chico had 5.7 homicides per 100,000 population, and 10 years ago it was 1.5. Rapes averaged 54.9 per 100k pop over the last 5 years, burglaries and assaults were similarly way too high. (Note to Council: Dear progressives….that’s not what we like to call progress)”
Well, if we’d been ruling the roost for the last 40 years, we’d take the blame. That is, alas, not the case. You are bemoaning the fruits of Reaganomics. Clinton, ostensibly a Dem, abolished Glass-Stegall and enabled the Shrub. And Obama may yet go down in history as the greatest fraud yet perpetrated on us poor sad progressives.
But you, you should be cheering. It’s how you wanted it. You no like? Tough noogies.
Libby, I hope you will at least take the time to read this, I went to a lot of trouble to get these facts for you.
My co-conservatives would accept blame at our municipal level, if we had been responsible, but we weren’t! We’ve had absolutely nothing to do with bad economic decisions in Chico for well over 16 years, perhaps longer, because a majority of liberals dominated the council. This reflects the determined group of local liberal activists who seem to be able to get-out-the-vote and beat conservatives everytime.
Now lets talk State politics. The demographics have changed in this state and the populist vote is solidly controlled by the democrats. Therefore, they can dominate the legislative conversation, and they’ve always had the attention of the media which makes their job easier. They’re able to raise the big bucks to turn out a greater number of voters than the GOP ever could…and with only a modest effort, adding insult to injury to a failed State GOP. The last big mistake the GOP made the deregulation of the power industry and that was actually a bi-partisan plan, so your liberals ruined this state. The liberals have been in total control. Sure, we’ve tried tell the voters the truth, we’ve fought against every piece of rotten legislation that has chased off jobs and damaged the economy, but in the end the democrats and stupid voters ruined a great state!
You want to talk about Congress now?
Your liberal democrats controlled both house and senate for 26 straight years, until 1980!!! Then they held both houses from 1987-to 1995. The GOP only controlled both houses from 1995 until 2005. Any other years power was split between dems and reps. With only two brief interruptions, the Democrats controlled the House from 1930 until 1994! You’ve had Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, Clinton and Obama. Congress determines the budget Libby…they spend on the credit cards and create the debt. Are you getting the picture? You have a bunch of dems calling the shots, but read on, you’re going to love this next part.
Now let’s talk about that debt: “President Obama wins. He contributed the most to the debt, with cumulative deficits totaling $5.073 trillion in just four years. Obama’s budgets included the economic stimulus package, which added $787 billion by cutting taxes, extending unemployment benefits, and funding job-creating public works projects. The Obama tax cuts added $858 billion to the debt over two years. Obama’s budget included increased defense spending to around $800 billion a year. Federal income was down, thanks to lower tax receipts from the 2008 financial crisis.
Both Presidents Bush and Obama had to contend with higher mandatory mandatory spending for Social Security and Medicare. Obama sponsored the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which was designed to reduce the debt by $143 billion over 10 years, but cost overruns say this is gonna cost us, not reduce debt.
President George W. Bush:
President Bush blundered too. He’s in there racking up $3.294 trillion over two terms. He responded to the attacks on 9/11 by launching the War on Terror and spending money we didn’t have like it was water. This drove military spending to a new records, between $600-$800 billion a year. President Bush also responded to the 2001 recession by passing EGTRRA and JGTRRA, otherwise known as the Bush tax cuts.
Now lets go back to President Ronald Reagan:
President Reagan added $1.412 trillion to the debt during his two terms. He fought the 1982 recession by cutting the top income tax rate from 70% to 28%, and the corporate rate from 48% to 34%. He also increased government spending by 2.5% a year. This included a 35% increase in the defense budget, and an expansion of Medicare. Although $1.412 trillion doesn’t sound like a lot, compared to 2012 debt levels, in fact Reagan’s economic policies doubled the debt during his Presidency.
President George H.W. Bush:
President George H.W. Bush added $1.03 trillion to the debt in one term. He responded to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait with Desert Storm. He oversaw the $125 billion bailout to end the 1989 Savings and Loan crisis. Part of his debt contribution was due to lost tax revenue from the 1991 recession.
Although many other Presidents added to the debt, none comes close to these four in terms of overall spending. Part of that is because the U.S. economy, as measured by GDP, was so much smaller for other Presidents. For example, in 1981 GDP was only $3 trillion, growing by five times to $15 trillion in 2012. See the table below for a year-by-year detail of each President’s budget deficit since President Woodrow Wilson. (Updated January 31, 2013)” http://useconomy.about.com/od/usdebtanddeficit/p/US-Debt-by-President.htm In other words Libby, we’ve been screwed by both dems and reps when it comes to a president and our national debt. So don’t act so smug and give us you one liner jabs when you offer no supporting evidence. Is that because you know you don’t have any evidence, you would rather just blame republicans? Well, at least you are understanding what a colossal fraud Obama has been. Now just when you are about to get your social security he’s gonna cut it! That’s gotta tick you off, right?
I’m not interested in your revisionist histories. There is now, for all practical purposes, no such thing as “the left” in this country.
You got what you wanted, and now you don’t like it.
Well? … suck it up … and no snivelling.
And no more sneering and stepping over the bereft. Gonna have to walk way, way around … lest they stab you.
Revisionist history Libby, that’s the best you can come up with? I cited numerous facts and you came back at me with suck it up and you got what you wanted? That’s just sad. Libs you’re not paying attention and I’m trying to help you understand the problem so we can move on to the solutions. Libby, you’re a bright girl, but sometimes you just don’t get it because you don’t want too!
Libby: ” There is now, for all practical purposes, no such thing as “the left” in this country.
You got what you wanted, and now you don’t like it.”
What a horrendous crock of bologna!
Not only do you refuse to take responsibility for the progressive mess we are in as a country and the many expensive entitlement programs progressives have bullied and connived into place over seventy plus years, and are at the very core of progressive thinking, you have the audacity to proclaim the result is what we wanted!
One thing we can count on is that when your grand progressive ideas are shown to be nothing more than a power grab for a bunch of elitist frauds you start screaming for others to “suck it up”.
As for the “bereft”, give me a break! Our current very progressive society is built around first creating and then enabling the so-called bereft! How you can equate those able bodied low-life’s that will stab and rob others at will with the truly bereft is beyond me. (Perhaps this inability to discern is the problem with progressivism).
It is your beloved progressives that have torn to shreds the family and the moral values that are the foundations for any civil society and most assuredly this republic. Progressives have made our institutions of learning nothing more than social engineering and environmental policing labs…they are institutions designed to confuse and confound rather than enlighten.
Bhaaa! You’ve been throwing other peoples money into the grand collective solution for decades and this is the result of that great progressive nirvana. Own it like a man, lady!
Libby says “Well, if we’d been ruling the roost for the last 40 years, we’d take the blame.” I gotta ask does that go for Chicago and Detroit also? I bet it doesn’t, lol.
Well said, Tina & Post Scripts!
Jack and Tina, mixed emotions is what I get while reading some options by commonplace liberial contributors to Post Scripts. While I feel that these writers just turn a blind eye to the reality of their selected ideology, and attempt to move the point away from the intent of the original post, I wonder if it is just reaching out for attention. The benefits of the research you both go through to dispel the falsehoods of those same contributors does not always fall on deaf ears (mostly theirs . Quite often you bring up facts that have been lost in time due to continuing revisionism (todays word would be SPIN) of events as they unfolded. Admittedly neither party is blameless nor solely the cause of today’s issues, however when there is a clear described as to how long their liberal party controlled events, and the declining situations created by the failed direction they put upon us, you would hope they would realize the facts and not change the intent of the post. Your post about the decline of a healthy life style caused by the neglect to field effective ideas of resolve the near-do-well invasion in Chico added by Liberal councils, past and present is honest and to the point. This sadly outlines the root cause of Chico’s current homeless problems. The additional abundance of Homeless and crimes associated with it is the aftermath solely created by their poor decisions, once that is realized you have to ask “What is their goal?”. The world of national economics is not the problem entirely, and to have a writer try to apply it to a local problem is a lot like blaming a hammer manufacture for you hitting your thumb. We have choices at the ballot box and so far we are making all the wrong ones, so your revalidation of history and a fresh approach is what is needed to prevent others being misled by certain contributors spinning facts.
Toby, the places you name are a part of the nation generally named “The Rust Belt”.
You’re not telling me that it was Dems that spirited the nation’s industrial capital off to the third world?
If so, I have to say, there is no discussing the subject with anyone so willfully blinkered.