How to slash the budget: Let the red states die

As man-made climate change sends yet another hurricane smashing into Louisiana -- as the more prosperous blue states once again face the prospect of funneling aid money to the Jesus-addled red state leeches who already live off the (quote) "disability" (unquote) checks sent each month to their trailers and swampland shacks -- I have come up with a brilliant idea designed to slash the federal deficit: Let the libertarian fuckers die.

The folks in Louisiana voted for Bobby Jindal, who gives the standard libertarian line here. Fine. If that is his philosophy, force him not to be a hypocrite. He who lives by Atlas Shrugged must die by Atlas Shrugged.

No aid. None whatsoever, no matter how horrific the imagery that appears on our television screens. Let the libertarian fuckers die. If the people in the red states want Tea Party governance, force them to live with the consequences of their decision.

Jindal:

In the president’s mind, government is key to success. Thus, if you have succeeded, it must be because the government helped you. And if that is true, then you owe the government. You should pay more taxes. You should give back, not to charity or people in need, but to the government. This is not a recipe for economic growth, and it is not the American way. Here in Louisiana, we are going the opposite direction; we are empowering people to grow and start businesses, and good jobs are increasing.

"Not a recipe for economic growth"...? The tax rates were far more steeply progressive before (and even during) the Reagan revolution, and our economy grew enormously. The 1940s, '50s and '60s were the best years of our lives, and even the '70s are starting to look pretty good.

More to the point: Jindal was in the House of Representatives in 2005, when he led a congressional delegation requesting massive aid in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. As this WP story from that year notes:

Exhibit A is the Louisiana congressional delegation's new request for $250 billion in hurricane reconstruction funds. As a Washington Post editorial pointed out this week, this money - more than $50,000 per Louisiana resident - would come on top of the $62.3 billion Congress has already appropriated, on top of the charitable donations, on top of the insurance payouts.

What breathtaking hypocrisy. The blue states gave Louisiana $50,000 per resident, at Jindal's insistence -- and then those ungrateful southern-fried motherfuckers turned right around and made Jindal governor, precisely because he now derides the very idea of a role for the federal government.

As we've noted in many previous posts, the blue states are (for the most part) the only productive states in our union: They give more to the federal treasure in taxes than they receive in goods and services. The red staters say they hate pork, but everyone knows that they would all die without it. The red states are mooch states, receiving more from the federal government than they deliver in taxes. Louisiana is among those red states which take out more than one dollar for every dollar the residents put into the bucket.

Those jobs that Jindal brags about? Jindal didn't build that -- and (to a large degree) neither did the brave, unfettered John Galt-ian entrepreneurs boldly going forth doing Atlas-like things in his state. Many of those jobs are due to such programs as Obama's little-known State Small Business Credit Initiative:

The SSBCI is a critical component of the President’s Small Business Jobs Act signed into law in 2010 that helps to unlock credit for small businesses.  Under the SSBCI, the Treasury Department provides funding for new and existing state-run programs that partner with private lenders and investors to increase the amount of credit available to small businesses.

In Louisiana, the Louisiana Economic Development Corporation has used that state’s $13,168,350 SSBCI allocation to support two programs: the Small Business Loan and Guaranty Program and the Louisiana Seed Capital Program.  These two programs have already begun to support small businesses in the state.

If Jindal were not a hypocrite, he would snub that money.

If I were Obama, I'd follow a simple rule. If a state's governor and leading legislators talk the Ayn Randian talk -- if they continually insist that government should cut spending, that the federal government really has no role -- then no money for them.

Let the libertarian moochers die. Die.

The money spigot will turn on again only when the red state governors say the magic words on teevee: " I was wrong. Libertarianism is unworkable. There is a legitimate role for government." There must be no weasel wording; there must only be total loss of face. Lose the face or lose the money.

The productive residents of the blue states are the only true Atlases in this country. Time to shrug.