The following needs to be read in full, but I’ll provide you a beefy excerpt. The setting is the Senate HELP subcommittee on Primary Health and Aging, chaired by Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. The topic is the human toll and budget consequences of senior hunger. The moron is Rand Paul.
Mary Jane Koren, a geriatrician and vice-president of the Commonwealth Fund, noted that seniors often suffer health problems and are put in nursing homes after falling down. Poor nutrition leads to decreased muscle strength, meaning a higher chance of falling—and weaker seniors are more likely to be gravely injured in such a fall. Koren noted that by 2020, the annual cost of medical care for seniors who fall is expected to reach $54.9 billion—many magnitudes more than the approximately $2 billion per year the federal government spends on nutrition assistance for senior citizens.
Senator Paul, however, explicitly rejected this logic. “It’s curious that only in Washington can you spend $2 billion and claim that you’re saving money,” he said. “The idea or notion that spending money in Washington somehow is saving money really flies past most of the taxpayers.” Instead, Paul touted the “nobility of private charity” as opposed to government-funded “transfer programs.” He suggested privatizing Meals on Wheels and other government assistance for hungry seniors.
Sanders had none of this. “Senator Paul has suggested that only in Washington can people believe that spending money actually saves money. And I think that’s the kind of philosophy that results in us spending about twice as much per person on health care as any other country on earth,” Sanders said. “We have millions of millions of Americans who can’t get to a doctor on time. Some of them die, some of them become very, very ill and end up in the emergency room or end up in the hospital at great cost.
“Maybe it’s the same reason why we have more people in jail than any other country on earth including China, tied to the fact that we have the highest poverty rate among children among many other major countries on earth,” Sanders continued. “I happen to believe that intelligently investing in the needs of our people does in fact save substantial sums of money.”
Nevertheless, Paul—who’s home state of Kentucky is ranked twentieth in the nation in senior citizen food insecurity, with over 5 percent of seniors there facing hunger—pressed on. Addressing Greenlee, he asked: “If we are saving money with the two billion we spend, perhaps we should give you 20 billion. Is there a limit? How much money should we give you in order to save money? If we spend federal money to save money, where is the limit? I think we could reach a point of absurdity.”
Senator Al Franken turned on his microphone and offered a quick reply: “I think you just did.”
Here are a few questions I have for Senator Rand Paul. Is it cheaper to replace your roof when it begins to wear out, or should you wait until your house experiences extensive water damage because it costs money to replace your roof?
If your water bill is too high, should you put in low-flow toilets or would that be a bad idea because new toilets cost money?
Was Japan wise not to spend money on backup electrical systems at their nuclear plants because you can’t save money by spending it?
Finally, since it costs money to maintain the levee system in New Orleans, shouldn’t we just abandon that effort and take our chances?
Also, too, we are going to take your lightbulbs away.
Hmm. I think you need a much stronger word than wanker.
Moran?
freekin’ mental midgets…this guy shoulda been laughed out of town the minute he opened his mouth…but now he’s a US Senator.
he’s a board certified wanker, indeed.
How did this asshat become a doctor of any sort? Who lets him operate on their eyes? But to be honest, he fits in with most of the mental midgets in the Senate.
Right. If I spend money to have Rand Paul fix my eyes so I can read and do my job, I must be some kind of jerkoff because I’ve just spent money to make money.
I have to assume that Rand Paul is also not a believer in changing the oil in his car, brushing his teeth, etc, etc.
This is the type of extremist economic bullshit that sounds great to a frighteningly large percentage of people who are either unable or unwilling to put in the requisite two seconds of critical thought into debunking it.
Kudos to Franken and Sanders for calling him on his asininity.
What’s even more headshaking is that Paul’s brand of libertarianism worships the free market, and one of the most basic truths in capitalism is the strategy of spending money to make more money. Same principle: losing money up front to get a better result down the road. Idiot.
Of course, by his very own logic, the fact that he’s now drawing a public salary is proof positive he couldn’t cut it in the private sector. Now we can see why.
We often get fixated on silly statements like Rand Paul’s.
We forget.
Rhetorical tricks don’t have to make sense. They just have to superficially convince.
It’s just like the analogy of the US budget to family finances. Families don’t have the implicit or explicit power to tax employers; they can’t raise wages by passing a bill. Congress has the power to do both of those, but is not willing to use it.
Consider that the interest on the national debt ($412 billion in 2010) represents 18.74% of the budget. That represents primarily a transfer of wealth from all taxpayers to folks who are holders of US Treasury bills (the big ones not Savings Bonds). That represents a $412 billion transfer to affluent if not wealthy Americans, to corporations, and to foreign Treasury bill holders. So now Rand Paul wants to deny $2 billion from going to the folks who have been paying 18% of their taxes, not to the government but through the government to the rich.
There is one argument for eliminating the deficit and paying down the national debt. It ends the dooH niboR tax policy. That is also an argument for why the rich need to pay disproportionately more in taxes than even the repeal of the Bush tax cuts would impose. And why corporations need to pay taxes more in line with their net incomes (i.e. close the loopholes).
The sooner we get back on the fiscal path we were on in 2000 in which it would have been possible to pay down the national debt in 20 years, the better.
But that requires government spending on education, infrastructure, research, and healthcare. And cuts to military adventures. And a highly progressive tax system.
But Rand Paul is not exercising logic, he is exercising rhetoric. More specifically he is spouting talking points scripted by Koch-fund thinktanks, passed through Koch-fund media personalities, provided by Koch-funded lobbyists to Koch-funded politicians like Rand Paul. Which is why Paul comes off looking like Mortimer Snerd.
We should really save some money, and cut out the cost of insulation on federal building projects.
Why build the building in the first place. A bunch of milk crate stackable files, some folding chairs and card tables. And all employees required to have a internet-capable phone, paid for at their expense.
With this plan, you can lease out all those iconic government buildings or sell them to commercial realtors at today’s fire sale prices minus the “it comes from the government” discount.
Also replace limousines with retirement community tricycles for Congresscritters.
Why do we spend money on roads, water treatment and all other kinds of public infrastructure? Why is anything public at all? What if every particle on the planet was totally private interest?