“It Will Cost Nothing”

[Alan]

Hope it went well today for you and your family, Alan! Was thinking of you.

Thank you! It went well. The tumor and kidney were removed without complication. Now we await post-op testing and further consultation but everything's looking good at this point. She'll come home in a couple of days and we're hoping life can get back to normal soon.
I was at the hospital with her from 6:15am until they threw me out at 6pm and will be back first thing in the morning.
Thanks to everyone who wished us well, I think it may have helped.

[jp1]

So glad to hear that Alan! Cancer is so common that I’ve lost count of all the people I know who have had to deal with it. I’m always relieved when I hear good news like this. Wishing continued good news for you and your wife.

[ToomuchStuff]

So now the administration is claiming that their $3.5 trillion spending package will cost nothing. They say this is because they will raise taxes on “the rich” and corporations that they believe should have been taxed more harshly all along, and there will be no new debt required. I suppose this might be true if you believe all our income belongs to the government, who decides how much we are worthy of keeping.

This is what happens when people don’t listen to accountants.

Maybe they are hiring Hollywood accountants.

[Jane v2.0]

Thank you! It went well. The tumor and kidney were removed without complication. Now we await post-op testing and further consultation but everything's looking good at this point. She'll come home in a couple of days and we're hoping life can get back to normal soon.
I was at the hospital with her from 6:15am until they threw me out at 6pm and will be back first thing in the morning.
Thanks to everyone who wished us well, I think it may have helped.

I have a friend who had a malformed kidney removed when she was in high school. She and her remaining kidney are still going strong sixty years later. I'm happy to read that everything went so well.

[happystuff]

Thank you! It went well. The tumor and kidney were removed without complication. Now we await post-op testing and further consultation but everything's looking good at this point. She'll come home in a couple of days and we're hoping life can get back to normal soon.
I was at the hospital with her from 6:15am until they threw me out at 6pm and will be back first thing in the morning.
Thanks to everyone who wished us well, I think it may have helped.

So glad the surgery went well. Sending more prayers for a speedy recovery!

[Teacher Terry]

Studies show that people that were prayed for did better even if they didn’t know it was happening. Alan, so glad the surgery went well.

[flowerseverywhere]

So now the administration is claiming that their $3.5 trillion spending package will cost nothing. They say this is because they will raise taxes on “the rich” and corporations that they believe should have been taxed more harshly all along, and there will be no new debt required. I suppose this might be true if you believe all our income belongs to the government, who decides how much we are worthy of keeping.

This is what happens when people don’t listen to accountants.

Haven’t you heard about the special presidential exemption from lying by using imaginary made up rules? Like Mexico will pay for the wall? Tax cuts won’t raise the deficit? I did not have sex with that woman? I am not a crook?

you cannot possibly think for one minute politicians care about the taxpayers they represent. Power and money are the number one goals.

[LDAHL]

I don't think the left has exclusive rights to soft selling their programs under certain false or weak promises. I can remember when 45 promised his tax cuts and trade deals would eliminate or greatly reduce the national debt by fueling the economy. But somehow the debt grew to record levels. I remember the delusion of weapons of mass destruction. It's politics as usual.

Whether the proposed budget has within it hidden bloat is probably a separate issue on it's own, but at least this time there is some sort of tax increases to balance spending. Or that's the story I'm getting. I haven't looked at specifics, but aside from infrastructure, I'd like to see some of the programs that were cut under T, like climate research, cleaner energy, EPA, education, NIH etc. restored to the levels that make us a country focused on future prosperity instead of immediate wallet gratification. Part of that needs to include focus on the debt issue, too. And someone is going to have to pay for it.

There are the usual squid-ink distraction moves about how Republicans run deficits too, or how deficits don’t matter. There are also the usual “we are about values, not the petty details of ways and means” posturing. They aren’t really arguments, but they sound good.

But this bill seems to take malarkey to an unprecedented level. That’s why they’re pushing to vote on it without CBO numbers.

Ultimately, our best defense against this abomination will be the Democrats’ trying to hold each other to ransom over various aspects.

[catherine]

We all know that a pet GOP tactic is "starving the beast" which usually means taking tax cuts to a low and spending to a high in order to prevent Dems from tackling social issues. In the 2000s, Bush simultaneously added a couple trillion to the deficit with his tax cuts, and added spending by engaging in wars in the Middle East.

[LDAHL]

We all know that a pet GOP tactic is "starving the beast" which usually means taking tax cuts to a low and spending to a high in order to prevent Dems from tackling social issues. In the 2000s, Bush simultaneously added a couple trillion to the deficit with his tax cuts, and added spending by engaging in wars in the Middle East.

Even if all of that is true, it detracts nothing from the mendacity surrounding this spending package.