Congressman Steve Cohen (TN) came to my law school today and led an hour lecture. It was horrible. I just kept wishing that I had Tom Woods or Jeff Tucker sitting next to me to politely destroy everything he asserted. Instead I decided to dictate his arguments so that they could be shared with an audience that wouldn't just laugh uproariously at every one of his lame ass jokes like an aspiring writer in Hollywood trying to score a movie deal. Here are some of his best quotes:
-Our real defense department is the National Institute of Health. The sequester cut 1 billion from it, and now our medical progress will grind to a halt.
-Republicans just try to "force cuts" anywhere they can
-They want to close patent offices which will stifle innovation
-We've done a good job with the recession, but the sequester is going to set us back (he referenced Paul Krugman multiple times)
-Despite the stock market being as high as it is, minimum wage has not proportionally kept up since the 90s (I found this one particularly perplexing)
-Drugs like heroin should be kept illegal because people will steal to afford it.
-Private colleges are too corrupt because they use the profit motive, they are making education too expensive
-The military industrial complex is corrupt and colludes with private contractors (apparently the military is the only corrupt sector of government, everything else goes directly to the benefit of the people)
-Our tax rates are too low, the richest are not contributing
-We don't spend enough on infrastructure, we're 28th in the world
-Who here has received the HOPE scholarship? (everyone raises hand) It took me 5 years to pass that bill. (everyone applauds)
egh.
...why I think it is funny when people get upset at politics.
Still up with the Washington Monument malarky?* Can't these people get creative?
The one thing I find depressing is how politicians don't feel the need to ever change from their line: we are doing an excellent job and our Workers' Paradise is just around the corner, just give us the power to raise taxes a little, intrude on you lives a tiny bit more and continue spending. And people keep on buying into it. Imagine if Toyota was still offering exactly the same car they were offering in 1968, because that's exactly the case.
* In the '60s, Senate approved a budget increase for the National Park Service which was inferior to what the bureaucrats running this "fine" establishment had asked. To prove their point NPS simply shut down the Washington Monument during holidays, affixing a panel which explained people they were doing this because of "budget cuts" and other places run by them (Yellowstone for example) may be next. Tourists returned home and wrote to their Senators and Representitives complaining about these non-existant "cuts". End result: the NPS bureaucrats got all the budget increases they wanted and a bit more in a few months.
I thought we weren't supposed to laugh uproariously?
"-Our real defense department is the National Institute of Health. The sequester cut 1 billion from it, and now our medical progress will grind to a halt."
Hi congressman. How much money have you received from the national institute of health, and how much money have they spent to lobby for this as your primary adgenda? And clever semantic trick, saying cut to seem to imply that there is no raise, when really it is a cut in a raise in spending. And seriously, why is this $1 billion dollars so critical for medicine? Honestly, I wouldn't be suprised if this $1 billion was wasted on padding salaries and buying useless crap, or subsidizing some company.
"Republicans just try to "force cuts" anywhere they can"
Apparently cut is a good euphemism. Budgets not growing fast enough? Call any attempt to reduce the rate of growth a cut, and get instant increase in budgets. Also, can you show me evidence of where these "forced cuts" are? Don't some Democrats want to cut things, like Military?
"-They want to close patent offices which will stifle innovation"
Hmm, more special interests at work I see. Clever tactic, presenting something as doing the opposite of what it does. Of course, patent holders love this argument, they can claim that they are innovating, when in reality they can use patents to force other innovators out of business. I just wonder how much lobbying and donations you get from these patent holders.
"-We've done a good job with the recession, but the sequester is going to set us back (he referenced Paul Krugman multiple times)"
Don't you love Paul Krugman, who makes what you do for a job, try to get money from others spent on the pork barrel projects, sound important to the economy. It makes it much easier to approve spending now, doesn't it, even when the spending happens after the recession. And if nothing else works, overexaggerate any cut in the increase of spending a setback.
"-Despite the stock market being as high as it is, minimum wage has not proportionally kept up since the 90s (I found this one particularly perplexing)"
Congressman, why do you like minimum wage so much? Is it because you have business special interests who want minimum wage to be high so they can outcompete other businesses? Of course, those businesses want "minimum wage" to keep up, otherwise workers being more productive and money printing might undo the law's effects.
-"-Drugs like heroin should be kept illegal because people will steal to afford it."
Congressman, you must be a master of deception. You presume that people won't buy heroin if its illegal, even though it has become infamous in the market. You are blind to the fact that the increased price of herion makes it more attractive to steal to pay for it. Also, you are blind to the fact that making it illegal makes it much harder to ask for help, which would otherwise provide an incentive to afford it. Also, why is the fact that people will steal to buy something a canidate for making that something illegal. Should we make food illegal because people will steal to afford it? Looks like anti-drug lobbyists are at work again providing you with these seemingly sound sound bytes.
"-Private colleges are too corrupt because they use the profit motive, they are making education too expensive"
Because people in public colleges are not interested in the profit motive, they are interested in padding their own paychecks, whether its through raising tuition or getting politicians like you to subsidize them or make the private colleges pay more. How much have these public colleges lobbied/donated for you? And clever semantic trick there, trying to associate private with profit motive. But everything must be owned by someone, and everyone has a profit motive.
"-The military industrial complex is corrupt and colludes with private contractors (apparently the military is the only corrupt sector of government, everything else goes directly to the benefit of the people)"
Apparently military didn't lobby/donate(bribe) to him enough. And people who are against the military-industrial complex lobbied to him more.
"-Our tax rates are too low, the richest are not contributing"
Those colonists hundreds of years ago who complained against taxes didn't realize that their tax rates were to low. And nice trick, getting people to focus on the rich to use as a pretext for increasing everyone's taxes.
"-We don't spend enough on infrastructure, we're 28th in the world"
Nice trick, trying to convince people that more spending = more quality. And where did you get that 28th figure from, some lobbyist? And nice trick, saying we, when its really people like you who foist this spending and force others to pay. Looks like more lobbying is here, again.
"-Who here has received the HOPE scholarship? (everyone raises hand) It took me 5 years to pass that bill. (everyone applauds)"
CLASS, WHO WANTS FREE MONEY? (everyone raises hand) BECAUSE AREN'T YOU A SPECIAL INTEREST? IT TOOK ME 5 YEARS OF PLAYING SOLITARE TO GIVE YOU THAT MONEY! SO VOTE FOR ME NEXT ELECTION! (everyone applauds)
Schools are labour camps.