| "Now, after she shaved her head in a bizarre episode
that culminates a months-long saga of controversial behavior, it's the question
being asked by her fans, her foes and the general public: What was she
thinking?"-- Bald and Broken: Inside Britney's Shaved Head, Sheila
|
What was she thinking? How about nothing? How about who gives a
shit? How's that for an answer, Sheila
I'm not one of those curmudgeons who freaks out every time that Bradgelina moves the war off the front page of the Post,
or Katie Couric decides to usher in a whole new era
of network news with photos of the imbecile demon-spawn of Tom Cruise and Katie
Holmes. I understand that we live in a demand-based economy and that there is
far more demand for brainless celebrity bullshit than there is, say, for the
fine print of the Health and Human Services budget.
But that was before this week. I awoke this morning in
Apparently, from now on, every time a jackass sticks a pencil in his own
eye, we'll have to wait an extra ten minutes to hear what happened on the
battlefield or in Congress or any other place that actually matters.
On the same day that Britney was shaving her head, a guy I know who works in
the office of Senator Bernie Sanders sent me an email. He was trying very hard
to get news organizations interested in some research his office had done about
George Bush's proposed 2008 budget, which was unveiled two weeks ago and
received relatively little press, mainly because of the controversy over the
Iraq war resolution. All the same, the Bush budget is an amazing document. It
would be hard to imagine a document that more clearly
articulates the priorities of our current political elite.
Not only does it make many of Bush's tax cuts permanent, but it envisions a
complete repeal of the Estate Tax, which mainly affects only those who are in
the top two-tenths of the top one percent of the richest people in this
country. The proposed savings from the cuts over the next decade are about $442
billion, or just slightly less than the amount of the annual defense budget
(minus
Sanders's office came up with some interesting
numbers here. If the Estate Tax were to be repealed completely, the estimated
savings to just one family -- the Walton family, the heirs to the Wal-
The proposed reductions to Medicaid over the same time
frame? $28 billion.
Or how about this: if the Estate Tax goes, the heirs to the
Some other notable estimate estate tax breaks, versus corresponding cuts:
And so on and so on. Sanders additionally pointed out that the family of
former Exxon/Mobil CEO Lee Raymond, who received a $400 million retirement
package, would receive about $164 million in tax breaks.
Compare that to the Commodity Supplemental Food Program, which Bush proposes
be completely eliminated, at a savings of $108 million over ten years. The
program sent one bag of groceries per month to 480,000 seniors, mothers and
newborn children.
Somehow, to me, that's the worst one on the list. Here you have the former
CEO of a company that scored record profits even as it gouged consumers, with
gas prices rising more than 70 percent since January of 2001. There is a direct
correlation between the avarice of oil company executives and the increased
demand for federal aid for heating oil programs like LIHEAP, and yet the
federal government wants to reward these same executives for raising prices on
the backs of consumers.
Even if you're a traditional, Barry Goldwater conservative, the kinds of
budgets that Bush has sent to the hill not only this year but this whole
century are the worst-case scenario; they increase spending generally
while cutting taxes and social programming. They commit taxpayers to giant
subsidies of already Croseus-rich energy
corporations, pharmaceutical companies and defense manufacturers while
simultaneously cutting taxes on those who most directly benefit from those
subsidies. Thus you're not cutting spending -- you're just cutting spending on
people who actually need the money. (According to the Washington Times,
which in a supremely ironic twist of fate did one of the better analyses of the
budget, spending will be 1.6 percent of GDP higher in the 2008 budget than in
was in 2000, while revenues will be 2.6 percent of GDP lower). This is
something different from traditional conservatism and something different from
big-government liberalism; this is a new kind of politics that transforms the
state into a huge, ever-expanding instrument for converting private savings
into corporate profit.
That's not only bad government, it's bad
capitalism. It makes legalized bribery and political connections more important
factors than performance and competition in the corporate marketplace. Beyond
that, it's just plain fucking offensive to ordinary people. It's one thing to
complain about paying taxes when those taxes are buying a bag of groceries once
a month for some struggling single mom in eastern
I also don't remember reading much about this year's budget. It was a story
for about half a minute when it came out two weeks ago. It barely made TV newscasts,
and even when it did, only the broad strokes made it on air. There was some
fuss about the Alternative Minimum Tax and a mild uproar over the fact that the
2008 budget failed to account for estimates of the costs for wars in
Here's the thing about the system of news coverage we have today. If the
Walton family, or Lee Raymond, or the heirs to the
Shit, when you think about it that way, why not steal from us? People
that dumb don't deserve to have money.