A Great Moment in Astroturf

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

Folks living in the DC area get to hear some very specific ads. Whole ad buys are made just to be heard by a few congressmen and their staffs.

A recent astroturf radio ad from Citizens for a Concerned America or whatever is going after the consumer protection provision in financial reform using "real" people bemoaning that we cannot afford such an expensive program.

For real... expensive. As the ad states, this mammoth government take-over of whatever will cost... gasp!... 400 million dollars.

It's like Doctor Evil in Austin Powers. That has to be about the cheapest thing the federal government has ever done! (No wonder the agency is proposed to be under the Fed... it must be to save on office expenses.)

Actors portraying soccer moms, hard-hats and inner-city voters complaining about how we cannot possibly come up with $400 million dollars to fund an agency charged with, for instance, keeping an eye on abusive credit card practices, because we just cannot afford it.

And wailing things like, "With all the problems we have the last thing we need is a new government agency!"

QUESTION: How much money is being spent in lobbying to try to "save" us $400 million?

[abelenkpe]

1. We can't afford ot protect the people

But we can to protect the banks and wall street, and to bomb the shit out of people we don't know on the other side of the earth.

Yeah, that makes so much sense.

[Ikonoklast]

2. About what the Pentagon spends on shoes, in any given year.

Chump change, in the overall scheme of things.