Oklahoma elected officials are pleading ignorance with regard to the excess salaries being paid to school superintendents, along with the ridiculous pay raises recently granted to the heads of various state agencies. Perhaps they should take up acting lessons. Appearing angry, while demanding accountability, has worked rather well for Barack Obama. Even though transparency and accountability was the centerpiece of Obama’s administration and every other political candidate in recent years, that conviction only seems to evaporate with time.So let's begin with that fact that this letter is horribly written. What's his thesis? It sounds like he's going to vent about excessive pay among state workers but then he shifts to some sort of anti-Obama rant. It is amazing to see letter after letter from right-wingers in the Oklahoman who really have no idea how to form an argument and continually fall back on this I-hate-Obama crutch.
Anyhow, so after this stream-of-consciousness rant, Mr Williamson continues:
If the state and federal governments continue to grow at the current pace while ignoring short- and long-term debt, a stagnant economy and record unemployment, there’s a real possibility the system could fail. Placing such a burden on the private sector and future generations, with the fear and uncertainty of Obamacare ... could easily guarantee such an outcome.See? Like, what the hell is this rant even about? Remember: this started with a discussion about how Oklahoma politicians seem less concerned about certain government employee salaries. And now we get into a huge rant about growing governments and ignoring debt and the economy and unemployment!
Hey-- wait. Government spending continuing to grow? That's not right. I mean, look at this chart:
Do you see how the blue line goes down after the recession? Like, if you were thinking, Man, I want a president who is going to rein in government spending, then the two periods you'd point to as being what you like would be the ones where Clinton and Obama were in office, and the periods you'd point to as being bad were the ones where Reagan and George W. Bush were in office.
Seriously: how divorced from reality could a person be?? This is what happens when you opt to get your news from shitty sources like Fox News and the Oklahoman. And then, seriously: look at these unemployment numbers:
It's hard to talk about Obama not doing anything about "record unemployment" when unemployment numbers are nearing pre-economic crisis levels-- a far cry from the numbers that we saw during the actual economic crisis. To be sure, they are still not ideal and more work needs to be done. But to actually complain that this administration isn't concerned with unemployment is to ignore reality. Well, that, or just spend your time skimming the Oklahoman and listening to Rush on AM radio in the afternoon.
And what's the "fear and uncertainty" about the Affordable Care Act? As Forbes notes, it's not killing jobs-- in fact, the opposite is happening. And things like choice and competition and a slowing of healthcare costs-- all things that the right-wing nut jobs swore wouldn't happen-- are actually happening. By the way, I love that this Forbes headline reads "And You Won't Believe What's Going To Happen" since anyone who hasn't been deluded by right-wing spin already knew this. At least a right-wing news outlet like Forbes can be honest when confronted with reality, though.
In any case, Mr Williamson's letter-- which started out with "Oklahoma politicians should pay more attention to school superintendent salaries" and ended with "Obama's economic policies and healthcare law will destroy America!" is utterly fatuous and no real newspaper would run such an incoherent mess. The fact that this paper bothered to run it tells you what sort of "paper" the Oklahoman is.
No comments:
Post a Comment