The Daily Gouge Archive, Wednesday, January 9th, 2019

On January 10, 2019, in Uncategorized, by magoo1310

It’s Wednesday, January 9th, 2019…and here’s The Gouge!

First up, while the MSM wails and gnashes their collective teeth over a partial government shutdown about which most of the country couldn’t care less, writing at Best of the Web, Jim Freeman’s asking what inquiring minds want to know:

The 380,000

Just how many unnecessary employees does the federal government employ?

“…Various media reports have noted that the temporary closure of 25% of the government has forced roughly 420,000 federal workers deemed essential to continue working while some 380,000 who are not deemed essential stay home. If it were a business, this non-essential portion of just a quarter of our government would be among the largest private employers in the country. Does this mean that non-essentials approach 1.5 million across the entire government? As American businesses scour their communities for talent during an historic worker shortage, taxpayers seem to be paying to maintain the world’s largest reserve force of bureaucrats.

An incurious press corps seems largely uninterested in the appropriate size of the federal workforce. Numerous recent reports have covered the shutdown story largely as a tale of a villainous President inflicting uncertainty on civil servants who wonder when they will be able to pay their mortgages. (Financial institutions willingness to work the problem notwithstanding!)

…This column doesn’t wish for anyone to miss an earned paycheck. But the people who support the federal payroll deserve an explanation for why their political leaders seem to be buying almost twice as much bureaucracy as even official Washington deems necessary.“

A question which, in the politically-correct purview of Progressives, makes those asking it either homophobic, racist, misogynistic or some other “tic” or “ic” creation of their warped world views.

In a related item courtesy of NRO, Kevin Williamson accurately assesses what we’re witnessing is just a…

Dress Rehearsal for Fiscal Armageddon

This little shutdown is a blip. The debt crisis is an atomic bomb.

“The angst and wailing over the brief shutdown of a fraction of the federal government is instructive. The left-leaning news and commentary is full of dire scenarios about hard-working…whatevers…“running out of peanut butter and jelly,” as one SiriuxXM Progress host put it. Federal employees on average earn 50 percent more than their private-sector counterparts, but apparently they are living paycheck to paycheck.

But the conservative side of the radio and television dials is not without its own tales of woe. Think about the contractors who may never get paid. Think about all of the restaurants and doggie daycares and dry-cleaners who are suffering because their federally employed customers have no spending money. We are indeed all Keynesians now, apparently. Stimulate that demand!

This is what happens when a relatively small group of federal workers don’t get their paychecks.

Imagine what it is going to look like when the Social Security checks stop coming.

Around 2038, less than 20 years out, total spending on the major entitlements — Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid — plus interest on the debt will exceed all federal tax revenue. Put another way, come 2038, if we put every dollar Uncle Stupid collects in taxes toward Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and interest on the debt, all of that money combined will not cover those expenses.

Fiscal Armageddon is coming…”

And that…

…right soon!

Debt crisis…WHAT debt crisis?!? Just when you thought Liberals couldn’t get any loonier, FOX News informs us that California Governor Gavin…

Newsom pushes sweeping new California health-care plan to help illegal immigrants, prop up ObamaCare

“…Making sure healthcare is affordable and accessible for every Californian, including undocumented community members whom the federal government has unjustly shut out of care, is essential to reaching that vision for our future,” the organization said. “Today’s announcement is an historic step on the road toward health justice for all.”

Note the influence the California Immigrant Policy Center exerted on Newsom’s decision:

Note as well they conveniently omit the accurate adjective “Illegal” from their title!

And for their next trick, Gavin Newsom and other pandering Progressives will run faster than the Train to Nowhere and leap tall stacks of valueless government IOUs in a single bound!

In all seriousness, why not propose taxpayers, whether in California or any of Obama’s other 56 states, pick up the healthcare costs for those currently residing in Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador? We’d have mentioned Mexico, but America’s immediate neighbor to the south already offers free “healthcare”…though not for everyone:

Which begs the question why so many of her citizens continue to flee north.

For that matter, why not all of Central America? Hells bells, while we’re at it, why not every single Third-World inhabitant of Planet Earth?!?

Here’s the juice: Dimocrats will promise whatever 100% of YOUR income can buy them…in votes!

More importantly, nothing they do is in the interest of hard-working, tax-paying Americans!!!

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, that’s…

Which brings us to the Stupid Is As Stupid Does segment, courtesy today of Ed Harvey and perhaps the dimmest bulb to ever run a major city…outside of David Dinkins:

De Blasio says NYC will offer health coverage to 600,000 more, including illegals

The last time we can recall such blissful ignorance was the evening of April 14th, 1912:

And, as history repeats itself, most of the lifeboats the second time around will again be occupied by those traveling…

…First Class!

Which brings us, appropriately enough, to our next item, as the WSJ reports how, as always, House Dimocrats aren’t focused on the problems facing U.S. citizens, but rather preserving their personal power and profit:

Majority Preservation Act

The first House Democratic bill aims to hamstring opponents.

“House Democrats are up and running, and their first bill is instructive. Couched as an anti-corruption and good-government measure, it is really an attempt to silence or obstruct political opponents.

A central part of H.R. 1 is “campaign-finance reform,” no surprise given the progressive fixation with money in politics, which oddly turns to mist when Tom Steyer or Mike Bloomberg are spending. The House bill requires some advocacy groups to publicly disclose the names of donors who give more than $10,000, even if the groups aren’t running ads that endorse candidates but merely inform voters about the issues.

The goal is to identify donors who don’t genuflect to progressive views, then bully or harass them to stop giving. Recall how the Mozilla CEO was driven out after he donated to California’s referendum opposing same-sex marriage.

…Democrats know the bill is dead-on-arrival in the Republican Senate. But it’s a measure of Democratic priorities that their first order of business, before green energy or health care, is hamstringing the competition.“

Dimocrats: the more they change, the more they remain the same!

Next, Speed Mach sums up the Dimocratic response to the sanctity of U.S. sovereignty: