Republicans defending socialism

I understand (I think) most of the series of political calculations that got them there, but this is just too rich anyway. The only way the Obama/Reid/Pelosi/Baucus approach to health care doesn't bust the budget dramatically is by including some $4-5 hundred billion in cutbacks in Medicare over the next 10 years (they won't make those cuts anyway, but that's a tale for another day). So the Republicans are now defending every penny spent on Medicare as if it were sacred. Medicare is as close as anything in our current system to a pure socialist approach to medicine. So that's what Republicans defend if they think it leads to blowing up plans for the next phase ogf government takeover. I sympathiz3, and it just might work. But the irony/hypocrisy deserves a mention.

Earmarks: hypocrisy all around

You've got to love that Barack Obama gave a speech denouncing earmarks the very same day he sighed (away from the cameras) a spending bill containing over 8,500 earmarks. Here's the Register's editorial on the occasion, which I think actually bent over backwards to be fair to the earmarkers. But of course it's way out of hand. And of course even now, although the Republicans claim to have gotten fiscal religion after eight years of backsliding under Bush, they received 40% of the earmarks, and most of the most vigorous seekers of earmarks were Republicans.

To be sure, earmarks are a tiny part of the massive federal budget -- 1-3% of discretionary spending -- but are still indicative of a spending system out of control.