When liberals run things there is a trend.
Let’s start with the media. The New York Times is going broke. The Chicago Tribune went broke. Al Gore sold his TV station to Al Jazeera. This should qualify him to be Obama’s next Secretary of State. Oprah is losing money with her TV station. MSNBC and CNN are going broke. The all liberal radio experiment with Al Franken went broke. Those that went broke did so without ever reducing spending. Those that are going broke, the same. You see spending money you don’t have is a liberal disease. It’s incurable.
Let’s look at the recent BCS Championship game. It was over by the end of the first quarter. Notre Dame had no business being in the same zip code with Alabama. But, liberals who dictate the rules for the BCS, negotiating with liberals who run the networks, have brought us here. Universities can’t duplicate the successful, and fair, NCAA March Madness format because they want 35 bowl games. TV will pay anything for the game rights. Liberal negotiating with liberal. Alabama vs. Notre Dame, millions spent for that product?
The educational system is run from El-Hi through graduate school by liberals. The US spends the most per student of any country in the world and gets the least. When challenged about the world rankings, it’s always, “we need to spend more”. Union teachers can’t be fired and the pay and pensions and benefits escalate while performance on student tests plummet. Every dime gets spent and then the hands are out for more.
Colleges and universities have raised tuition’s 10 times inflation the past 10 years. Why not, it’s free money. Students borrow from the government in the form of student loans or get grants. If you can find a kid who pays full retail, even better. Still, these institutions say they are losing money. Spending is going up even faster. Test evaluations against foreign universities are dropping. Like lower education, higher education is totally inefficient and spending like drunks and performing like them.
We may have a breakthrough here, however. Mitch Daniels, the former Indiana governor who did so many good things in the state is the new president of Purdue University. He has structured his pay package based on performance and accountability. Reducing expenses, like he did for the state, and improving professor performance are part of that pay package. Watch what happens at Purdue. There will be a purge of bureaucrats which have built up by 100% in the past 10 years. Assistant this and Provost that may be job seekers. The beneficiaries will be the kids who will have smaller student loans and you, the taxpayer.
Then, of course, there’s government. The more liberal the state, the worse the economy of that state. You can just about line them up with the color of the state. The bluer, the redder. They don’t come any bluer than California. And, the ink is the reddest. Illinois tucks right in behind followed by New York. Liberals have bled them dry. And, they elect the president.
Spending is a disease. There is a 12 step program for excessive spending. Liberals seem to only have the disease when it comes to other people’s money. They can control spending when it’s their money, but give them a dime in tax dollars or tuition and poof, it’s gone along with another nickel.
Watch hopelessly as the debt clock ticks to $20 trillion and as the credit rating gets lowered again. There is a sadness taking over this country. You feel it everywhere you go. Every day more and more people see the problem and watch as it gets ignored and grows.
No sadness here. I will live the rest of my life without damage from what is happening. It will take more years than I have left to hit bottom. But, my children’s generation will suffer greatly and my grand kids even more. But, many in my children’s generation are voting for this direction. Even my grand kids are buying into it and the oldest won’t hit college for another 18 months. So, it’s not my issue to fix. I’m out of the game, just another voice in the audience.
My generation did this. The sons and daughters of the “greatest generation”, something we will never be called. We let it happen, but there’s not enough juice left for us to fix our mess. Nor, do we seem to be able to convince out kids that there’s a problem. I guess we’re just too tired to try.
