I enjoy talk radio. Can't get Air America in Albany, NY yet, so I'm stuck with Rush. The show was guest hosted by Tom Sizemore today. He was talking about America's great generousity in terms of foreign aid.
I talked to his screener first. I said that we were kidding ourselves if we think we are anything wonderful in terms of foreign aid. For example, we've committed $35 million to tsumani victims but we plan on spending $40 million on presidential inauguration parties. The screener said, "Yeah, but that woulda been ok if your boy Kerry had won, right?" I said, "No - not when we are running half trillion dollar deficits." Screener said, "How much should we spend?" I said, "$100 thousand would be more appropriate." Screener said, "OK, hold on"
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I held about 5-7 minutes.
Then Tom picked up saying "We now have Mike from Albany, NY."
In the 5-7 minute gap, another idea occurred to me, so I started off by saying, "You know, there is a story in the Bible where a poor old woman takes her last penny and offers it at the temple and then goes to pray quietly in a corner. While she is praying, a rich man comes in and makes a show of offering a larger sum of money. He then goes on to praise himself before God for being such a righteous contibutor. I think you and the rest of your right wing crew flogging this aid horse could learn a lesson from that. We may donate more than any other country, but we are richer than any other country.
And to be honest with you, how much have we really given? So far we've committed $35 million to the tragedy, but we're gonna spend $40 million on Bush's inauguration."
He pointed out that "only" $12 million of that was taxpayer money.
I said, "Why should one red cent of my tax money go to pay for a bunch of people in tuxedos to drink champaign?"
He said, "What's the difference between Bush and Clinton?"
I said, "I dunno - one's a dem, one's a repub?"
He said, "Well would it trouble you if I were to point out that Clinton spent $41.7 million for his inaugural?"
Me: "Yeah, it bugs me - I don't think tax dollars - at a time we are running half trillion dollar deficits - should be used for parties. And bringing it back to my original point, $40 million for parties and $35 million for aid to 100,000 catastrophy victims - well, that's just plain wrong."
That was pretty much the end of the phone call - he went on to call me a Bush hater, but I never got back on the air.
It was fun. And thanks to Atrios for the $35 million for aid vs. $40 million for parties context.