Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for August 29, 2011

As long as the progressives intend to spend us into oblivion, there is little point in having a debt ceiling. The government needs to live within it’s budget just as you and I do.

Lack of creative thinkers in Washington.

When I was a deputy sheriff, I offered to give rides to many homeless people..some living in boxes and some under bridges, to shelters..beds with meals, even mimimum wage jobs to begin with, but I was turned down because the shelters wouldn’t allow them to bring their bottles, pot, etc., with them.

For me, Boehner opted to negotiate with the tea party Representatives knowing the end result would not be acceptable to the Senate, instead of negotiating with the more conservative Democrats. End result, time lost, but face saving for the tea partiers to Boehner’s own lack of credibility. No win scenario.

Wiley’s cartoon character took the issue too literal and is stil trying to understand what the fuss was all about.

Therein lays the “BIG LIE”….It is the liberal democrats who are taking money from those who earned it because they believe that the American public is too stupid to know how to spend their own money! They are very good at finding frivolous projects to waste it on and line their own governmental pockets!

Everyone so far has missed the underlying point here. The president could have and should have declared the debt ceiling raised by executive fiat. The SCOTUS would have either refused to hear the inevitable complaint (on the grounds that nobody has standing to bring it) or ruled for the president (unless the rightwing five are all willing to reverse themselves on assorted core principles they claim to espouse). Either the fourteenth amendment says what it says or it doesn’t.

“So what was the big deal?” The president, in letting the congressional absurdity play out, was simply following his instructions. What we have now is how his bosses want it: your money will continue to be extracted from your pockets to be handed to the rich, only now on a slightly accelerated schedule. When Mr Obama’s campaign said “hope” it meant “because that’s all you have to cling to” and when they said “change” it meant what every other politician saying “change” has ever meant throughout history: business as usual with a slightly different band of pirates splitting up the booty.

And yes, I’m pretty sure Miller knew what he was saying. Doesn’t matter, though. Whether that’s what he intended or not, that’s what the cartoon says. Any half-decent semoitician would see it.

It costs alot to keep the lights on here. Inflation be damned. We want to pay 2011 bills with 1980 money.

Maybe Congress would work more efficiently if they all lived in cardboard boxes under a bridge.

You got that right!

If I lived in a box, I might have a different outlook. Stop loopholes like Mortgage interest deductions, child day care, medical, educational, personal and spouse deductions, child deductions, moving expenses, and charitable contributions. To a man living in a box, these are all rich loopholes that don’t affect him at all. Why should richer people get them when he does notNow you middle class complaining about the “loopholes” the rich get, do you write a check April 15 for $15k to 50K? That’s one quarter (thank you Bush for lowering it from 28%) of your income. Or do you find your own loopholes?

Everything you need to know about politics:When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators. PJ O’Rourke

sure, cut more spending and see how high you can really make the unemployment numbers.. The higher the number the better shot of getting rid of Obama, plus better chance for cheaper labor for business, win, win, win, win, win!!!

Keep dreaming FishStix.

Please, homeless box guy, you know you’re just a lazy schizo welfare leech that will always be unproductive and therefore useless to society. Never mind the fact the son of the “God” all the Republicans talk about told us to give all our excess possessions to the poor and and said they were blessed. That’s just a little technicality.

Our society is doomed to fail because it is based on greed. All politicians are corrupt – it doesn’t matter what “party” they belong to. The only way to fix it is to fire all of them and start over, making sure that these people cannot be bought and sold.

Republican win in 2012 presidential election = 20% unemployment rate within 2 years. You heard it here first.

Of course that 20% will be the “official” rate. The real rate will be closer to 40%.

The real problem isn’t in Washington, it’s here. Everyone who parrots extreme partisan rhetoric with out ever considering the middle ground is the problem. Stop with the tired old party cliche’s and use some analytical thought. Every time you thoughtlessly parrot back the extreme rhetoric you make your own problem worse. Tell a lie long enough and you’ll believe it yourself.

You wanna know who to blame? Look in the mirror. Washington DC only goes as far as you allow it by not honestly thinking for yourselves rather than just repeating what some media puppet told you.

It’s not democrats it’s not republicans it’s not liberal or conservative. If you want it fixed it takes people NOT PARTIES doing what they know they have to do.Tighten the budget, tax those who have money, take care of those who are down without hypocritically pretending that because there are some who are bad apples the entire group must be bad.Rebuild what is broken including our countries infrastructure and quit whining because the repairs take some cash. Allow this mindless extremism to keep on and with in a few years there’ll be nothing left of this nation.

What hath Wiley wrought?

The infrastructure hasn’t been kept up, much less any new built(except in Boston). Now that the government can get contractors to work cheaper(they pay their workers less in this economy), they can actually get something for our money. Now is when they should be paying workers to do real work on our infrastructure upkeep, instead of paying them NOT to work.Prevailing wage can be adjusted by the unions to be 50-60% of new construction wages. It has to be done sometime, we should have been checking on what needs to be done and how to do it over the good times.Also, making industrial zones where an environmental impact report has already passed the early stages, would go a long way towards being manufacturing friendly, which means JOBS friendly.

Get rid of the old guard and do not allow anyone to be elected that has signed a pledge or has a boss other than the citizens he/she represents. (like THAT will ever happen)

Wiley spreads bread upon the water… keep up the good work!

He’d stay warmer in the first box, less volume to “warm” with his body heat. Like most dreaming of joining the “wealthy” class, who bought into the bigger house dream, on credit that didn’t really exist, he’s only damaging himself by living beyond his means.

Nothing is going to change for the better until the American people make it change. Apparently Americans have forgotten how this country was started in the first place. If you think the powers that be are going to wake up some day soon and start doing the right thing, you’re delusional. Fear is what the GOP runs on, and this BS about the debt ceiling is just another example of this fact. The debt ceiling was raised 17 times during the wonderful Reagan administration and most Americans don’t even know this. So, Americans have a choice, just keep doing what you’re doing, hoping that the evil, greedy one’s in power will all of sudden become good people, and watch the country descend into chaos and collapse, or take the country back. It’s your choice.

Unfortunately, we’ve seen this before. In the 5th century, the Western Empire ran a perennial deficit—they couldn’t afford to pay the army to defend themselves, and couldn’t stop the Bread and Circuses. Nor could they tax the rich (Senatorial) class. Result: the Western Empire collapsed into chaos, and misery came for something between 600 and 1000 years. On the other hand, the Eastern Empire was just rich enough to survive, if groaning under the tax burden.

The question is, which one will we be—and how many generations of misery will we create if we get it wrong?

It was under Reagan and Baby Bush that our debt exploded. Trickle down does not work.

Now what are the Tea Baggers going to do with all the damage from IRENE…FEDERAL DISASTER AREA my fannie. everyone wants the govment to bail them out…

There was no debt ceiling during the bush years.

Without a ceiling the politicians will spend and print until the money is worthless. Its happened many times before with the same attitude.

Right, kreole, we all know THAT homeless people are drunken druggies. Or did you just look for “drunken druggies,” of which a number of homeless are unfortunately, before you offered your assistance?

There always has been a base of alcoholics and hoboes, but the people living in cars and under bridges today include what had been middle-class families and mental cases who were in institutions before the states shut them all down and turned them loose on the streets. We’re talking now about 25% of American children not knowing where their next meal is coming from. This is really serious stuff.

@LameRandomNameThe Constitution gives Congress the power to create legislation, but the in practice, these days, that’s not how it works.More importantly, it is both unavoidable and desirable to run large deficits during economic slumps. The sin is running them during boom times, like 2003-2007.If you aren’t willing to read a book on economics, you could try the 41st chapter of Genesis, where — in a simpler economy — the idea is laid out clearly.Had Joseph been a Republican, instead of a Holy Man, he would have had Pharoah run a deficit during the seven rich years, even borrowing grain from Crete. Then he could destroy the welfare state during the seven lean years.

@LameRandomName What a jerk.