The Rise of the Wrecking-Ball Right

[seafan]

To Norquist, who loves being called a revolutionary, hardly an agency of government is not worth abolishing, from the Internal Revenue Service and the Food and Drug Administration to the Education Department and the National Endowment for the Arts. "My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years," he says, "to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub. ----Link, April 26, 2001

That is the ultimate goal of the radicalized Right.




Robert Reich

July 15, 2011


'Government-haters seem to be everywhere.'

.....

At the same time most of what government does that helps average people is now so deeply woven into the thread of daily life that it’s no longer recognizable as government. Think of the indignant voters who showed up at congressional town meetings to protest Obama’s health care bill shouting “don’t take away my Medicare!”

A recent paper by Cornell political scientist Suzanne Mettler surveyed how many recipients of government benefits don’t really believe they have received any benefits. She found that over 44 percent of Social Security recipients say they “have not used a government social program.” More than half of families receiving government-backed student loans said the same thing, as did 60 percent of those who get the home mortgage interest deduction, 43 percent of unemployment insurance beneficiaries, and almost 30 percent of recipients of Social Security Disability.

Add in the relentlessly snide government-hating and baiting of Fox News and Rush Limbaugh and his imitators on rage radio; include more than thirty years of Ronald Reagan’s repeated refrain that government is the problem; pile on hundreds of millions of dollars from the likes of oil tycoons Charles and David Koch intent on convincing the public that government is evil, and you have all the ingredients for the emergence of a wrecking-ball right that’s intent on destroying government as we know it.

.....

One would have thought the last few years of mine disasters, exploding oil rigs, nuclear meltdowns, malfeasance on Wall Street, wildly-escalating costs of health insurance, rip-roaring CEO pay, and mass layoffs would have offered a singular opportunity to explain why the nation’s collective well-being requires a strong and effective government representing the interests of average people.

.....

We are imperiled by the outright failure by this president (or his party) to use the bully pulpit to make the case for why an effectively functioning government is tantamount to protecting the people's rights and interests.

No one is out there presenting the case that government is necessary.



And that is the reason the Right's wrecking ball and bulldozers are in full force, destroying what is left of it.

[judgegblue]

1. do teabaggers want adefault to destroy government?

If there is a default the government will not be able to borrow funds at reasonable rates to operate and provide services. Ergo, government cuts back for lack of funds. They win.

[KharmaTrain]

2. It's All About Being Selfish

The teabagger attitude is they shouldn't pay any taxes...and I'd bet even if the rates were zeroed, they still be moaning about how they pay too much. They yelp that the government spends too much but don't you dare touch their corporate welfare...that's hurting the "job creators". This is the byproduct of decades of right wing talking points being hammered home and become an article of faith despite all evidence to show their "ideology" is one big lie.

Welcome to DU...

[checks-n-balances]

3. Good way to familiarize yourself in you're a newbie to RW agenda

:kick: