Jules Feiffer has described Tony Auth best, "His perspective is that of a bemused and often angry comic historian. Irony, never a favorite form with Americans, is his meat and potatoes. He is not smug, and though he can be mean, he is never mean-spirited. Auth is a moralist and an optimist. He insists, even in this day and age, that hope is more than the name of a right-wing comedian or the shtick of a reactionary president."
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Chuck Asay by Chuck Asay
Clay Bennett by Clay Bennett
Comments (68) (Please sign in to comment)
ODon said, 3 months ago
“…. but I am willing to take that chance to show Obama up.”
Stipple said, 3 months ago
That is the one good thing about the sequestration, it will get rid of the republican extremist problem.
.
“hurts me more” is so true and so missed by the naysayers.
Bruce4671 said, 3 months ago
Should sequestration happen, you are trying to tell me that the only choice lawmakers have in cutting “deficit” spending is to cut into programs that pay for these essential services? Really?
AND
you are telling me that in a 3.6 trillion dollar budget, one that is planning to spend over 1 trillion dollars more than projected revenue that the 44 billion dollars that will be required to be cut is going to shut down essential programs first?
What kind of fools do you assume we are?
In the proposed budget (one that was unanimously defeated in Congress) sent by the President there is 1.5 trillion dollars in discretionary spending. That is spending that is NOT mandatory and has nothing to do with things such as Social Security, Medicare and the like (entitlements). Spending that can be NOT done with NO consequence to those depicted above. It will be the CHOICE of the President and his cronies if it is decided to layoff in any of the above areas.
This is not a crisis. It is politics and partisan politics at that.
ansonia
said, 3 months ago
President Obama on November 21, 2011, speaking about what would happen if someone tried to stop the sequester cuts:
Already, some in Congress are trying to undo these automatic spending cuts. My message to them is simple: No. I will veto any effort to get rid of those automatic spending cuts to domestic and defense spending. There will be no easy off ramps on this one.
.
But I’m tired of all the fear tactics and fear-mongering.
If the sequester does happen, none of the horror stories that obama says is going to happen, will happen.
If it DID happen, low-information voters see that we can cut government spending and the world won’t end.
Obama certainly does want THAT to happen.
ahab
said, 3 months ago
http://www.whitehoue.gov/the-press-office/2013/02/19/remarks-president-sequester To debunk the lies about what Obama said!
DrCanuck said, 3 months ago
Rednecks: “Cut spending, cut spending, cut spending.”
Obama: “Ok, I’ll cut spending.”
Rednecks: “No-o-o-o-o, don’t cut spending.”
Iluvnancy said, 3 months ago
I am so tired of the idiots who call Social Security and Medicare “entitlements”. We have paid taxes all our working lives to be able to have these earned benefits. They are only entitlements to the free loaders who get them without having paid up front. Some without having bothered to work and think they are “entitled” to benefits other people paid for. Some who come here from other countries not to work but to freeload. Some who move to states that give benefits whether you have earned them or not from states that are keeping the benefits going to the people who paid their dues during their working lives.
ahab
said, 3 months ago
Congress created the sequester with the GOP’s blessing. Why would the Republicans support a measure that threatens national security and thousands of jobs? See Byron York’s(a conservative Chief Political Correspondent’s) article in the Washington examiner. http://wasshingtonexaminer.com/the-gops-astonishingly-bad-message-on-sequester-cuts/article/2522040
ahab
said, 3 months ago
http://firstread.nbcnews.com/-news/2013/02/21/1703492-first-thoughts-gops-weak-position-on-the-sequestration?site
jack75287 said, 3 months ago
It was Obama’s idea he should be up there. Also when the economy goes south the american people don’t look to congress they look at the President. Although they should look at the congress, it control’s the Purse strings.
“Section 8.
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
To borrow money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;
To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States;
To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;
To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States;
To establish post offices and post roads;
To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;
To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;
To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;
To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;
To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;
To provide and maintain a navy;
To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;
To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings;—And
To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof".
jack75287 said, 3 months ago
@Iluvnancy
But we all get more out of Social Security then we pay in. We live longer now. It is not quite an entitlement but we need to cut back on that one. Knocking up the age to receive Social Security to say 69 or 70 is a good idea.
raycity2 said, 3 months ago
There cutting 2.4% of a huge budget thing they were losing their nut sack.
Bruce4671 said, 3 months ago
@DrCanuck
No you are just lying. Doing your best to make trouble when there would be none without liberal scare tactics.
Conservatives said cut spending before.
Conservatives say sut spending now.
Or don’t your hear the let the sequester happen mantra?
You are becoming no more than a liberal tool.
mikefive said, 3 months ago
The county I was living in threatened to cut emergency services (and did slightly) but still managed to come up with a few million to expand the county parks and park services. I thought that their priorities were….interesting.
Bruce4671 said, 3 months ago
@Iluvnancy
Yes, stop and think. WE – who have paid into it all our working lives – are “entitled” to collect from the “trust”. So yes, entitlements.
That includes social security and medicare. Government programs which collect specific taxes and are suppose to pay specific benefits or entitlements.
So don’t be sick.