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Thursday, August 20, 2009

Those damned Signs

What's Mallard raving about today?

Cash for Clunkers, Taxes.

I have to give a "Thank You" to Mallard today.

See, I have never quite understood why Republicans hate Cash for Clunkers.

As an economic stimulus measure, it injected cash directly and immediately into an ailing part of the economy, directly helped an industry which employs millions of people (thus staving off a worse economic crisis). And since we, as a country, now have a major stake in the Auto Industry, it benefits us long-term if the Auto Industry grows in value. Not to mention potential benefit to the environment (which I realize the care nothing about.)

But today, Mallard crystallizes, for everyone to see, why Republicans hate Cash for Clunkers.

Because, while there may be massive and widespread benefit for the country, none of it helps Mallard personally. And if it doesn't help Mallard personally, then he's against it.

This is the definition of Patriotism...of a sort...I guess.

Anyway, thanks for clearing that up, Mallard.

21 comments:

Factinista said...

It doesn't seem very smart to stand in the middle of a busy street. Maybe he's suicidal because his tax money has been spent.

HT said...

I like how the guy on the left is apparently checking out the sign-holder's ass. He likes what he sees too.

But then he saw he was a selfish right wing nutjob, and realized he could do better. Maybe bandanna guy with crescent-moon mustache and no mouth?

Iron Dragon said...

My tax dollars also pay for things I don't like. I don't like how we spend our money militarily, too many no bid contracts with weapons industries too many bases that lack strategic use. We don't spend enough on our schools, we don't properly maintain infrastructure, and our citizens seem to care more about tax cuts than the long term good of the nation.

My cash also went into the cash for clunkers bit, and you know what, I'M HAPPY. It worked, people bought cars, and they bought cars which were better environmentally and also helped inject some cash into the american auto industry which we, the US taxpayers, now have a stake in. Hopefully it means they can take on more workers, which means more jobs, and more money circulating in a community which in turn will help those areas recover. You know, gradual strategic infusions of money to help a nation rebuild.

As a side note, I read something recently which, while perhaps a bit cruel, also is starting to feel alarmingly accurate.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/the-republican-party-is-t_b_262594.html

GeoX, one of the GeoX boys. said...

Hey, I can relate--Tinsley objects to his tax money helping people; I object to my tax money bombing the shit out of people. Same basic idea, right? Interestingly enough, though, only ONE of us frequently proclaims his Christianity in loud, obnoxious tones. Which one? The answer may surprise you!

Tog said...

Oh, I was hoping Tin would turn THAT KENYAN SOCIALIST PROBORTION NEGRO GONNA KILL YO GRANMAMA into a full week or two of prime-cut foaming-at-the-mouth batshit insanity. Still.

Nothing enrages the average neocon subhuman nearly as much as seeing someone else benefit in any way, shape, or form, from anything.

Remember, Tin still holds dear the idea that FDR was the Antichrist, and still titters uncontrollably at Reagan's joke about people who go to bed hungry being "on a diet."

Anonymous said...

@Iron Dragon
The Republicans have gone from faux outrage on non-issues (Obama eats his burgers with fancy elitist Dijon mustard! Obama can't throw a baseball!) to real outrage on faux issues (Socialist death panels will kill your grandma!) They went from harmless and idiotic to maliciously doing real damage to the country. If the Republican party is a cult, then it is Scientology. Well funded, dangerous, and led by immoral people who most likely don't honestly believe the crap they're spewing.

Rootbeer said...

The federal government collects over $2.5 trillion in taxes each year, of which my contribution is approximately 0.0000005 percent.

There has been $3 billion budgeted for Cash for Clunkers, which is 0.12 percent of tax revenues, and even if each program participant received the maximum $4500 credit, that is 0.00015 percent of the program cost.

So I, as an individual taxpayer, had 0.0000005 percent of 0.12 percent of 0.00015 percent of $2.5 trillion taken away from me and given to each C4C buyer.

Give me back my 2.25 thousandths of a cent, lousy freeloader!

Beef Wellington said...

I'm kinda surprised ducky would be against this program, afterall I'm sure he has a large stockpile of cars he's diven into tress while inebriated.

Anonymous said...

Funny, I don't see the "liberal" Obama administration cutting anything substantial out of the bloated Pentagon budget; in fact, we have new and bigger wars promised. But he's a Democrat, so we mustn't complain, must we?
Please, stop assuming that a (D) after a name makes a politician any better than an (R). They take their marching orders from the same masters, and it ain't the regular American people.

Kip W said...

OT, but Prickly City hits the trifecta today. In four badly drawn panels, Obama interferes with the police, confesses his ignorance of matters he is concerned with, and then calls for a teleprompter. And I'll bet he did it with only half the research!

Also, Anonymous is right! We have to spend more time criticizing Democratic politicians, or we have no moral standing, even though this is a forum specifically to talk about Tin Eye and his reactionary duck-thing. So:

Gosh-darn Chappaquiddick!
Dumb ol' Woodrow Wilson!!
Bleeding Dixiecrats and Know-Nothing Copperheads!

Okay, that's enough balance for today. Carry on!

rewinn said...

Since y'all got to "My Tax Dollars Paid For Your War Of Agression", and Anonymous Coward's straw man is just silly (hey, Coward: when Obama lies us into a war, you & me will be first to object, 'k?) ... let me educate Tinkley's sign-waver on economics.

Nothing about the magic of "supply-and-demand" says when economic supply = economic demand, all Americans will have food on the table. In fact, markets can and do stabilize (economic supply=economic demand) at a point where we have "one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished". Left to its own devices, the market can and does throw people into crazy talk and despair (although often they blame not the market itself but easier targets such as Jews and Presidents with dark skin.)

It's a simple fact that since private sector demand has collapsed with the housing market and (longer-term) the export of good-paying jobs, we need to jack up economic demand somehow. Cash for Clunkers is more helpful (because it also does something that helps our environment and energy independence) than hiring ineffectual private assassins.

The most recent winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics has updated a very helpful and surprisingly readable book on the subject: The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008!

CW in LA said...

As Iron Dragon and GeoX allude, liberals like government when it's used to help people, and conservatives like government when it's used to hurt people.

Is there another blog like this for discussing how much Prick City sucks? It may not suck quite as blatantly as the Duck, but it is the same sort of dishonest talkingpointfest.

Tog said...

Funny, I don't see the "liberal" Obama administration cutting anything substantial out of the bloated Pentagon budget; in fact, we have new and bigger wars promised.

I'm familiar with anon's game. It's similar to the one played against Al Gore: If Gore uses a plane, or electricity, or does anything besides live in a cabin in the woods, he's a "hypocrite." Of course, if he lived in a cabin in the woods, he'd be a "kook." Likewise, if Obama doesn't scrap the Pentagon, he's a "hypocrite." If he does...you get the idea.

Michael Foley said...

Glad to see Sergeant Slaughter is taking advantage of the program. And he still had money left over to buy a sweet African hat!

I didn't see this guy complain when the Iraq debacle cost us over $1 trillion dollars; but now he's raving in an intersection because of a beneficial program that pumps $1-3 billion into the U.S. economy? Get out from in between lanes, dude - not understanding Keynesian principles is the least of your problems.

Glad to see the "average taxpayer" uniform back again: a flannel shirt and pair of glasses. If you wear that, you're almost certain to be taken advantage of by the government.

Rootbeer said...

On the plus side, this is the most detailed background that Tinsley has drawn in months.

On the minus side, Sgt. Slaughter's face is impossibly close to the windshield of his car, unless that's a severed head we're looking at, a gruesome war trophy collected by an enemy trooper after a G.I. Joe operation went terribly awry...

Actually, if this comic strip is set in "Springfield, USA", the Cobra base/suburban civilian-brainwashing camp, that would explain a lot.

PRiverside said...

Just remember, people actually used "Cash for Clunkers", therefore it failed.

Anonymous said...

I'm very much not a Republican, and Cash for Clunkers is such an irresponsible capitalist scheme that it seems that only a Republican could have thought about it. If Obama was Republican and White, Mallard would be raving about how wonderful it is and how evil all the Democrats who opposed it were.

The problems with the scheme are manifold. Let me start with the fact that in this time of economic crisis, our money needs to be spent on those who are hurting the most; the poor. Instead of these sorts of stimulus programs focusing on making the rich richer and encouraging conspicuous consumption (The ugliest side of American capitalism), we need to be injecting money directly, without making them jump through hoops or workfare "fill a ditch and empty it out again" schemes, into sustaining all of the poor who are losing what little they have of their income as their companies lay them off. Instead of focusing on that though, our government, Republicans and Democrats, are happy to think of new schemes to bail out the auto industry and encourage unsustainable growth.

The second problem with the scheme is that it claims to be environmentally friendly, while it in fact encourages factories to pump out more and more cars at a great cost to our environment. An environmentally friendly plan would have been to quit the Bushite precedent of bailing out failing industries and let them die in the first place. Another environmentally friendly scheme would be to say, invest government money into infrastructure with high speed railways and whatnot available free to people under a certain income level. Another environmentally friendly scheme would be to pay people to give up their driver's license for a certain amount of time and walk, ride a bike, use public transportation or whatnot. Encouraging auto factories to pump out more cars is not an environmentally friendly scheme, even if Hybrids are at the front of the program, because whatever good they do won't make up for the pollution the factories that make them create.

On the bit with unsustainable growth and the like, this measure is also a disaster. The plan is judged as a success by how many who participate in it, not in its long term effects, which will be negative as all aspects of American styled conspicuous consumption capitalism end up being. The program is close to ending now, and once it dies down, so will the auto industry, by a lot, and all while they have shown their lack of foresight by stopping the closure of factories and ramping up their production as if the deal was going to exist indefinitely.

The fourth and last problem is that most people buy cars on debt. Now I know all Keynsian Capitalists seem to have idea that debt is this wonderful thing, but most average people don't have China or the ability to print more money to bail them out, and they are being encouraged to exchange one useful utility for one another that has the exact same usage. In the case of people who actually bought hybrids, well, if they help them economically, it will be in the far long term, and if they collapse under the debt they used to buy the car in the first place, it will be in the short term. And in a slump of an economy, it is going to be in the short term when they lose their job or whatever and collapse under the mounting payments. It isn't good to encourage consumption like this when people can't afford it. Unfortunately politicians want to choose unsustainable means to encourage short term growth and show what heroes they are so they get elected again (And this is true of Republicans and Democrats, once more). So when our unsustainable economy shows how unsustainable it is, it'll be those who were poor enough to put it on debt (I think the normal figures are around 75% put it on debt through payments) who end up screwed because the plan for them to get a shiny new car looked too good to pass up.

Not THAT Anonymous said...

Here we begin to see the difference between "liberal" and "Progressive," and the similarity between "Progressive" and "neoconservative."

You may take offense, thinking, "But I'm progressive!!" Just follow the simple rule: if you're progressive, you're "liberal." If you think liberals are too conservative, you're "Progressive." I don't like the label game either, but I don't make the rules.

Progressives and neocons are both obstructionist zero-sum gadflies who refuse to cooperate with anything unless their group grants its seal of approval beforehand, and will impede any solution on the grounds is it not a PERFECT solution. In truth, neither is truly interested in solutions; they live to exploit problems for their own gain, not solve them.

Each is an extreme of today's polarized political spectrum, and offers nothing but whining and uselessness.

rewinn said...

While I'm not sure about the labeling, I will agree with "Not THAT Anonymous" that "The Best Is The Enemy Of The Good".

Cash for Clunkers is not perfect but then nothing is. I would urge Anonymous 4:53 to ask an actual poor person whether he or she would rather have a job or a handout.

Anonymous said...

Well, I am THAT Anonymous, and I'm pretty sad, because I was expecting reasonable, rational argument against my points, and instead I get some rambling against the evils of progressivism. No, progressivism and neo-conservatism don't have much in common. Neo-conservatism is the new elitist core of the Republican party (Though the Democrats post-Clinton have started to adopt some of their points to steal away some of the Republican's thunder) that was developed under Reagan and replaced the "Old Right". Progressivism is an age old political ideology dating back perhaps from the turn of the 20th century or before then, with strong leanings towards humanism/human welfare, egalitarianism, and socialism. The "enemy of the good" progressives have given us a greater degree of social welfare, freedom for minorities, voting rights for women, and have done more for the welfare of this country that Republicans and Democrats combined, all because their voice has been loud and strong and forced conservative politicians to act in spite of their wish not to. Though I wouldn't exactly consider myself a progressive per say, I at least share a lot more in common with them than neo-liberals (To denote the new kind of Christian Democrat built in response to neo-conservatism, as opposed to the old kind of liberal) like you.

Now, for the other person, is it bad that the sort of progressivism I'm accused of is for social welfare instead of the new face of Trickle Down Economics which does the most for the wealthy elite of the manufacturing companies? Well, I suggest you look into the tent cities which have popped up all over the United States yourself if you want to find the answer. The surprising Democrat turnaround in actually working to fund and improve the state of social welfare in the country could perhaps be reversed if every Democrat made a pilgrimage to one of these cities and saw for themselves that for a lot of people, jobs aren't options and welfare needs to be distributed to a much greater degree than it is right now. I'll always contest that Democrats, if there is one difference they have from Republicans, it is that they are much more empathetic individuals, and I think the nation could do well if they were actually introduced first-hand to the poor of this country. Then maybe you'll get off the workfare Neo-Keynsian line the Republicans have been touting for years now and come up with a more reasonable and direct solution. Welfare reform should be as foremost as Health care reform, because right now it is considered an embarrassment and a shame, and that stigma is what keeps so many people down in the first place. There is no shame in people accepting welfare.

Anonymous said...

Tog,
It's not a "game" to express disgust that Obama is carrying on the same homicidal, asinine Bush administration policies (and even expanding on them.) We have to look beyond party labels and political tricks to get to the issues; it's wrong to carry on these unjust wars which are killing innocent people and bankrupting this country. It's not OK when it's a Democratic president as opposed to a Republican president. No one wants or expects Obama to scrap the Pentagon; I did expect he'd close Guantánamo, stop the illegal surveillance and wiretaps, and bring troops home. So far, so bad. Just another Wall Street stooge.