TCTI: Too Crazy Too Ignore
 Dave Ross
social-security_treasury_irs_check_economy_980ap.jpg
John Boehner suggests that Dave Ross' mom, and other elderly Americans should simply stop cashing their checks. (AP Photo/File)

Here comes the shockwave

BY Dave Ross  on February 21, 2013 @ 6:00 am (Updated: 6:45 am - 2/21/13 )

A budget meteor - $85 billion in diameter - enters America's atmosphere in a week, and we're getting a sense of what the shockwave would look like.

"Thousands of security screeners would be furloughed. Wait times at the busiest airports could increase by up to an hour," explains a reporter.

The trouble is we've heard all this before, and we're at the part of the fable where the villagers frankly don't care if the wolf eats every last sheep.

"The Navy would shut down four of its nine carrier airways."

We get it - but what can we do about it?

Well, the Speaker of the House John Boehner, wrote a piece in the Wall Street Journal, in which he says, "Washington must get serious about its spending problem. If it can't reform America's safety net and retirement-security programs, they will no longer be there for those who rely on them."

What he's saying is, if the government wasn't on the hook to spend so much on old people and sick people, this could all be averted.

Well then! If we believe the Wall Street Journal - and I have never known it to lie - those of us who are healthy and employed, must politely, but firmly, ask those who are retired and sick to stop cashing at least SOME of their government checks.

Mom - this means you. If you find yourself short, I will write you a check myself - as I'm sure every other working American would do ...

Yikes! - she's calling already. I'll get that later.

Dave Ross, KIRO Radio Talk Show Host
Dave Ross is co-host of The Ross & Burbank Show on KIRO Radio (weekdays 9-Noon) and never too far from the spotlight.
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Comments (77)


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  • Sportfisher wrote...
    At least the old folks are safe with Dave Reichart
    February 21, 2013 8:45 am
    If only he had not caught Ridgeway. That seems to be the way you think. So what is it? Are you just trying to back republicans into a corner because they want to spend 1% less than the democrats. Or at your heart are you one of the democrats who thinks, once you are not paying taxes anymore, your usefulness to the fatherland is zero? You guys are going to break the bank. The social security tax cut put those programs deeper in the hole. Which side were you on? You remind of the now retired Ken Shram, who blamed the banks and other mortgage folks for the meltdown, while his show ran ads for the very same dirtbags, that paid his salary.
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  • luckedout wrote...
    Sequester is not a cliff
    February 21, 2013 8:59 am
    $85 billion is not going to create so much as a blip on the radar when it comes to government spending. The last quarter of 2012, which saw a slight decrease in gov't spending, still produced a deficit of $200 billion. $85 billion is barely 7% of the deficit of 2012. That's money we don't have and we were borrowing! If spending $850 billion in stimulus wasn't enough to affect the economy... how are we suppose to believe this doom and gloom scenario when they cut 1/10 of that?
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  • GetReal4me wrote...
    Really Dave Ross?
    February 21, 2013 10:03 am
    I have to admit, it doesn't make any sense. It seems like Dave really pulled a rabbit out of a hat trying to twist that statement into something he wanted to believe it meant. He's trying to make Boehner's statement seem so far from it's true meaning -- but isn't that what the left usually do? They say something that is so far out there, as if just by saying it makes it true. Maybe they think the rest of us don't have a brain to figure it all out. Obama seems to do the same thing? Hmmm I wonder is there a connection here? Is this some kind of "I'm going to say what I want everyone to believe, not the truth so I can get the masses to believe anything I want. Am I wrong here?
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  • The Dude Abides wrote...
    A sum up of almost every forum poster to MYNW
    February 21, 2013 10:05 am
    blah blah blah repubelicans blah blah blah dimocrats blah blah blah country in the toilet blah blah blah obamacare blah blah blah guns blah blah blah "THEY'RE TAKIN UR JERBS!" blah blah blah it's your fault blah blah blah no, it's your fault blah blah blah right wing blah blah blah liberal nazis blah blah blah EXPLOSIONS! blah blah blah (insert blog poster here) sucks and writes biased stuff that we hate blah blah blah MYNW loves queers blah blah blah eff the gays blah blah blah mareeejuwanna blah blah blah everyone sucks but me! blah blah blah orange juice! sound about right? did I leave anything out?
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  • hnuh wrote...
    02-21-2013 Here comes the shockwave...
    February 21, 2013 10:19 am
    1) Government makes promise. 2) Suckers go for it. 3) Government takes money from suckers to pay for promise. 4) Government scams money into other uses. 5) Sucker is less able to take care of himself because of the money government takes and sucker becomes dependent on government. 6) Government spent up all the money. 7) Sucker gets to live on dog food and go to the witch doctor in retirement. Now let me ask you, how is this a good thing? Who is at fault? Is the parasitic government your buddy? Or is it your enemy? Why do you fall for sucker promises? Why do you think someone else ought to pay your way? Why do you vote for people who make empty promises? Why do you vote against people who suggest you need to be responsible for yourself? Why are you such a sucker? Government is a necessary evil, not your MOMMY or your DADDY. Democrats have been playing the handouts for suckers game forever. Republicans have been playing for a long time too. It really isn't about party any more, it is about the enormous PARASITE government has become.
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  • sportsguru wrote...
    hnuh
    February 21, 2013 10:24 am
    The best post in the history of posters on this entire blog EVER. I have my football helmet on so fire away.
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  • dori monson fan wrote...
    yikes! she's calling already?
    February 21, 2013 10:19 am
    from her obama phone?
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  • Cbrew wrote...
    Why do people talk about Pensions as if they're an evil thing?
    February 21, 2013 10:58 am
    Companies used to offer pensions before they pushed everyone over to 401K's that essentially can lose their value overnight... Pensions went away because companies got greedy, they stopped caring that the working man, their employees are who build the company, not some greedy CEO that works as a free agent for 5-10 years then bounces with millions of company dollars in tow... it used to be that companies valued your work, valued the output of their employees and recognized that without their talented hardworking employees they wouldn't have the profit they're getting... instead now they value profit above all else they've killed the American dream and killed wages over the past 25 years... we're all making less than our grandparents and those that came before us, even if wages look higher, bounce your salary against Cost of Living and you'll see, Coporate America is making a science out of how to make Americans working poor.
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  • gaymarriedchristianfromhollywood wrote...
    Cbrew, I'm with you.
    February 21, 2013 11:43 am
    CEO pay rose 725% between 1978 and 2011, while worker pay rose 5.7% according to the Economic Policy Institute. That means CEO pay grew 127 times faster than worker pay. Sometimes I worry about the destratification of America. A strong middle class helps corporations too.
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  • mnpat wrote...
    gaymarriedchristianfromhollywood
    February 21, 2013 12:24 pm
    Start your own comapany and do the work and investments and risks and you can be just like them.
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  • gaymarriedchristianfromhollywood wrote...
    Hellz yeah!
    February 21, 2013 1:31 pm
    And then the American public can subsidize my multi million dollar making corporation, I can pay little to no taxes using loopholes, take my earnings off shore ala white collar gangster style, pay the workers shiate earnings, rob worker's pensions ala Enron style, call myself a "job creator" instead of an out touch right wing ahole, and spend my gold years biatching and moaning about how I'm overtaxed and underappreciated while sipping on $1,000 a glass champagne. Sounds good to me...oh, wait, there's just one problem. I'm not that much a souless viper. No one earns billions of dollars. It's a fraud.
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  • mnpat wrote...
    "401K's that essentially can lose their value overnight"
    February 21, 2013 12:23 pm
    Pensions are invested in the same market as 401 K's.....pensions lose money in the market place just like everyone else. Everyone complains about greedy CEO's.....nothing stops anyone from trying to reach that challenge and not be a houry worker.
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  • Cbrew wrote...
    mnpat - No... I'm not talking about a 401k I'm talking about....
    February 21, 2013 12:50 pm
    a defined benefits plan Pension, Where the company guarantees X amount per month after retirement. a 401k and an IRA are AKA a Pension but they are defined contribution plans where the company matches the worker's contributions to their 401k or IRA... Pensions that are defined benefits plans do not lose value to the employee, they are guaranteed their money upon retirement. That's the plan that's been demonized by so many and it's absofackinglutely rediculous... as for your defense of CEO's you're an idiot, they haven't become more valuable.. they are essentially like a President or a Governor that gets to raise their own salary and there's really no checks and balances, they are evil facks that don't deserve the air they breathe and no i do not aspire to be one, they are horrible people that care for only themselves and not the people that build their fortunes.
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  • maplefish wrote...
    Like what Obama
    February 21, 2013 6:56 pm
    Is doing right now??? Destroying pensions. Demonizing wealth and people who have worked their entire lives to be successful only to blame them for not paying their fare share???
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  • SeattleNative wrote...
    Pensions...
    February 21, 2013 12:58 pm
    ...sure have done well for the health of the US auto industry.

    NOT.

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  • Cbrew wrote...
    SeattleNative
    February 21, 2013 2:05 pm
    Pensions aren't what did in the US Auto Industry, the US Auto industry did themselves in. You're falling in line with the propoganda put out that Workers are the cause of a company's problems, in reality those pensions were a small fraction of those company's costs, the company could have afforded all the pensions no problem if their worthless CEO's didn't take millions in earnings straight out of the company... they fly around in corporate jets and spend the company's money like it's nothing, you are naive to think a worker's pension crushed the auto industry first it was a failure of the CEO's to innovate and keep ahead of foreign automakers i'd love to know how that is the fault of a 60 year old dude that spent 40 years making those company's millions of dollars. you're an idiot.
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  • gaymarriedchristianfromhollywood wrote...
    Breaking news! Hypocritical Republican changes stance.
    February 21, 2013 11:02 am
    Shocker!!! In a complete about-face, Republican Governor Rick Scott of Florida is backing Medicaid expansion under President Obama’s health care law. Scott was a staunch opponent of the president’s Affordable Care Act, fighting it all the way to the Supreme Court. But now, his decision to support a limited expansion of the law could bring health care coverage to an additional 1.3 million Floridians.
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  • sohojo wrote...
    What he's saying is, if the government wasn't on the hook to spend so much on old people and sick people, this could all be averted.
    February 21, 2013 11:38 am
    This is not what he is saying. Today's media needs to go back and review the definition of context. To blame one political party for the mess we are in today is crazy. Maybe it's time for all media hacks to actually review history, do your homework!
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  • 32coupe wrote...
    Stunningly stupid..
    February 21, 2013 11:48 am
    As are all of the rest of the koolaide drinkers. I wonder if the english language was spoken in Mr. Ross' home when he was a child. How he extrapolates his definition of Boehners comments shows an ignorance of basic english. Gawd... what an imbecile! BTW, bonehead, just let obama and his hoard continue to spend your grandchildrens money without controls and devalue the dollar until we will as a nation look like the democrat model city, Detroit.
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