Glenn breaks down the “essential” elements of government

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Below is a partial transcript of Glenn’s opening monologue tackling the looming government shutdown:

I’m in New York mainly because I’m a little concerned about the panic that is coming, and there’s no place safe than New York City when panic happens.  And the panic, of course, is because the government is going to shut down, and you should be afraid, and I’m telling you, be very afraid.

The country is going to grind to a halt.  If the government closes its doors, what will you do?  The market is going to collapse.  I’m afraid I have to bring you the bad news, but the national parks are going to close.  They’re going to gouge the eyes out of anybody who tries to look up at Mount Rushmore.  It’s going to happen.

And the economy – I was going to say the economy will get worse, but I don’t know if it really can do that, but oh yes, yes, it can.  And that’s what they want you to believe if there is a government shutdown.  The media is feeding this kind of nonsense and propaganda, but it’s a game.  That’s all it is.  It’s not really even a shutdown.

Here’s what could happen if Congress doesn’t agree on a spending bill:  One, the government will not have the legal authority to spend money on nonessential services.  Okay, two, essential federal employees will continue to work.  That’s the border patrol and military, and nonessential employees will not get paid.  I’d vote for a candidate who said that’s what they were going to do to us on purpose.

Are they supposed to look scary?  Because this looks good.  I mean, we’re trying to trim the fat.  That sounds like that’s a pretty good start, doesn’t it?  Make it a felony crime for politicians to spend taxpayer money on nonessentials; that’s what we should be doing.  This is the least frightening list I’ve ever seen in my life.  It actually sounds like a pretty good idea.

I mean, if you really think about it, the candidate who would make this their platform wins my vote.  Bring it on, bring it on.  Shut it down, I’m all for it.  You know, the only people who should be afraid of a shutdown are the Progressives who have been, you know, making a living lying to people, convincing them that they couldn’t live without government handouts.

Please shut them down, please.  People will realize that their life, their small business, their job, their state, their economy is actually better off without Congress constantly interfering in it and messing it up.  People might actually realize that they can be self-reliant.  Now, that’s crazy.  And that the Life of – do you remember this – the Life of Julia that the president put out, it’s a load of garbage.

Think about the concept they’re trying to get you to accept, that you should be afraid that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid will lose their ability to legally waste your money.  That’s a good thing.  You should be terrified that government won’t have the funds to do things like this.  For instance, let’s see, do we need the White House?  Not really, not really.  All the tours, cry your eyes out, little kiddos, we can’t do it.

Department of Education, oh, turtle crossings, $3.4 million, sorry turtles.  Department of Education, do you really think if we took the Department of Education off, do you really think that your schools wouldn’t be able to run?  Do you really think you couldn’t fix that and make it work better just locally and through your state?  Come on.

Fannie and Freddie, it would be a dream come true.  Military, let’s keep.  Consumer Protection Bureau, what the hell have they even done?  Buh-bye.  Amtrak, I can’t get that one off the board fast enough.  Border patrol, I’m kind of torn on that one, because if I have a border patrol, of course I’m a racist, but we’re going to have to leave it there.

Congress, if I could only do this to Congress.  Believe it or not, we are spending $200 million a year creating a reality show for India.  Robo Squirrel, this was to create…$350,000 to create a robotic squirrel to figure out how snakes would react to a robotic squirrel.  What the heck?  Martian food tasting, $950, almost $1 million on out of this world food tasting.

Amtrak snacks, okay just took Amtrak down.  Do you know that we give Amtrak $84.5 million a year, and they lose it on snacks?  They lose $85 million a year on snacks?  I don’t even know why that’s even in the budget.  One hundred forty-one thousand dollars to study pig poop…and air traffic control, I’m going to leave that.  I have no problem with a government that does that, do you?

I think everything else could go away.  One of the best-run states is Texas.  That’s the way the country should run is like Texas.  In Texas, their House and Senate meets every other year, and each session goes a maximum of 140 days, but that’s usually about three months.  That’s all they can do.  That’s how it should be it, and believe it or not, that’s the way it used to be.

It used to be a Senator or a Representative, it used to be a part-time job.  They would show up for a maximum of six months.  They’d get a per diem, and they’d go back to their regular job the rest of the year.  Guess when that changed.  I know you’re thinking I’m going to say Woodrow Wilson, but who’s the next guy?  1933 and FDR when Congress ratified the 20th Amendment.

Now landing a job in Congress doesn’t look anything at all like service.  It’s more like winning the lottery.  There is no sacrifice.  They are paid more than three times what you, the average American, gets paid, and they have incredible benefits.  They don’t have to worry about health care.  They’ve got it.  You, no, you’re going to be held to ObamaCare but not them.

And all they do is just increase the size of government.  George Bush increased the national debt, doubling it from $5 trillion to $10 trillion, and remember when that was horrible?  When Bush enacted TARP, it was all about stabilizing the economy.  I told you no, it’s not.  But then when the president, President Obama, enacted the stimulus, it again was all about stabilizing the economy.

When they did QE1, QE2, QE3, printing money from the Federal Reserve, that was also about stabilizing the economy.  Over five years of stabilizing the economy, the economy is anything but stabilized, and that’s because all of the money pumped into the system wasn’t ever about stabilizing.  It was about leveling the playing field.  Oh Congress, would I like to level the playing field.

If you could just live within your own laws, and you had to live by all the laws and the rules and regulations that we have to, wouldn’t that be a level playing field?  They devalue our currency and take America down a notch or two or all the way to the bottom so we’re not a global colonialist superpower anymore.  We’re just part of global equality.

I don’t want to be a global colonialist, and I don’t want to be at the bottom of the barrel, either.  I just want to really be left alone.  If we keep spending and flooding the market with printed dollars, that’s exactly what’s going to happen, because what are your long-term prospects?

…

America is going the way of Greece and Cuba, and at best, by 2016, with an estimated 100 million Americans on food stamps, we will be Venezuela, who by the way just put military, stationed them, and I’m not making this up, stationed military at the toilet paper factories because it’s an evil capitalist plot to destroy their toilet paper factories, and so they had to send the government out there.  Why is it that every time somebody tries to do global Socialism or Communism, it always ends up with guards at toilet paper factories?

That’s where we’re headed, gang, because every government, bloated government disaster, is currently imploding all around the world, and it’s going to implode here.  The only way to stop it, to stop some epic form of collapse, is to send people down to Washington, D.C. with spines.  You saw some of them last week.  Ted Cruz is being the poster example of this.  He and anyone standing with him and the principles that they are promoting, I believe, will be remembered.

I believe what they did to Ted Cruz, they made him into such an evil poster child, that by the time people really figure out what ObamaCare is, and it’s cutting their hours, it’s making them lose their doctors or the health care coverage that they did have, or destroying jobs, they’re going to look at this guy and say he was right.  And anyone for the status quo or the establishment who caves into that idea to keep expanding the government and spending money will also be remembered, but in a more notorious sort of way.

We are learning now on the right, and this is the good news, this weekend, The New York Times had a piece on how we’re not the people we were just a few years ago, that the party relied on Newt Gingrich and his progressive Republicans in Washington to be our voice, but according to the Times, “Today, a fervent group of Conservatives – bloggers, pundits, activists, and even members of Congress is harnessing the power of the Internet, determined to tell the story of the current budget showdown on its terms.”

Let me translate from The New York Times, its terms, translation: truth, the truth lives here.  And the truth is that America cannot afford nonessential spending bonanzas.  It can’t.  It is time to boil things down to the essentials.  We’re done playing the game, and we’re not going to let Progressives do things like scare us with a government shutdown debate.

I don’t know about you, but I celebrate that idea.  We won’t let progressive Republicans get away with protecting the status quo, either.

  • Draxx

    Just think how much money could be saved by cutting the Wages of Congress and Top Executive Branch Administrators IN HALF…  Or cutting a General Wages from an Average of $272,000 a Year In HALF, They are Not Generals For Honor, Integrity, and Protecting Americans… They Are In It For Greed And To Become Millionaires Off Of The Sweat & Tears Of Hard Working Honest Americans!  OH, That’s Right None Of Those Listed Above Have To Worry About Losing Any Pay At Any Time!!! 

    Trust me on this one, I have served in the Military and Can Tell You From Experience Too Many Chiefs (Generals) And Not Enough Indians (Soldiers) Does Not Make For A Strong Military, Just a Broke One Full Of Bureaucrats Full Of Their Own Interests…

  • Draxx

    Now on ObummerCare, it should be All -or- Nothing (Meaning No Waivers For Anybody or Any Business)… Either We All Pay or Nobody Has To Pay For This Piece Of Crap Legislation!!!

  • Anonymous

    Hey Glenn, in your list of wasteful government spending you forgot Obama’s dogwalker who is paid $105,000 per year of tax payer money in order to feed and walk Obama’s dog……lol

    Here’s the bottom line: starting with the New Deal’s socialist security programs there has been a running up and a rolling out of thousands of government programs that have replaced individual, family, community and state responsibility with federal collectivism. The end result of this transformation is nearing its climax…… America has slowly fanished and been replaced with Obama Land.

    The good news is that Obama Land will totally collapse into ashes much like the U.S.S.R. did. Let’s all hope and pray that Obama Land doesn’t start a nuclear war with Russia and/or China on its way down…..

  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUrbEIqFl_Q Sam Fisher

    Everything the do is a lie Obama just lied today blaming the Tea Party on his mess because he refuses to come to the table. He just don’t care and wanted this to happen so that he can do the finger pointing and his high perst liberal media is going to push the message. The dems set this up for the GOP to fail to bad we don’t have any leadership to point out the truth. 

  • Dianne Vinson Reed

    I tried and could not complete my application.

  • http://www.facebook.com/rigoberto.serrano.39 Pachy Serrano

    I do agree with you on paying issue, but there is no excuse to shutdown the Govt. just because we disagree on the Law or its implementation. There will be plenty of time to rip it, fix it, change it, drop it, whatever we wanna do after. Like my dad used to tell me, there is always time for everything in life . . . time to fight, time to peace, time work, time to rest, time for politics, time to work together . . . that’s what missing now!

  • http://www.facebook.com/rigoberto.serrano.39 Pachy Serrano

    Again, I really agree on this as well. If the Govt. shutsdown, they should shut down their salaries as well . . . ALL of THEM, Dems and Reps, liberals and conservatives.

  • Anonymous

    If they are non-essential, why do we have them at all!!!!!!!!!!

  • http://www.facebook.com/rigoberto.serrano.39 Pachy Serrano

    One thing for you. If we gut or cut ALL social programs like you want. We should begin by cutting Corporate Welfare first and all the tax cuts our American corporations get. Then, we can start cutting for regular folks like low-income families, children, elderly, military, etc. (I don’t know how good that will go with the majority of Americans who have family or friends in some kind of Govt. assistance program) But, your plan might create a new America where there will only be rich and poor, dominated by the greed of corporations, no help for the needy, and a more unfair and injust society . . .
    Make the pitch and see how many will be willing to let their grandma without food stamps, their children without education or health care, their veterans without their benefits . . . Risky plan, but Tea Baggers will be super happy to see others suffer

  • http://www.facebook.com/rigoberto.serrano.39 Pachy Serrano

    Let me tell you something . . . Would you sit down to make a deal with someone who has been ripping your guts apart everytime they get for the past 5 years??
    Since this President got into the WH, the GOP and its “lunney” Tea Baggers made a plan to opposse everything and everybody who could side with this President. Its been 5 years of NO, NO , NO, Obama is a piece of crap, Obama is this, Obama is that and they still try.
    If I am the President (thank God I am not) and I will put my foot down and say . . .
    Well, I have been playing nice since you guys started yelling and screaming and now you want me to laydown and take any deal you want on my major policy Law . . . sorry but it does not work that way. Respect goes both ways. You wanted a shutdown . . . You guys fix it NOW!! and American people are seeing who you guys really are.
    PA’L CARAJO CABRONES!!!

  • Vince Fox

    Funny, I heard Newt Gingrich on with Sean Hannity yesterday and he said the GOP is divided into two factions, the progressive faction and the militant faction and then he described himself as always ending up in the militant faction.

  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUrbEIqFl_Q Sam Fisher

    I am sorry but that is not true for the most part the Tea party tried and tried again to reason with your sides foolishness it is your god that refused to play ball over and over again.

  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUrbEIqFl_Q Sam Fisher

    Oh let me tell you something you go around this web site saying if you disagree with my crazy views than your going to hell. First who died and made you Jesus? Second a video pointing out you and other liberal hypocrites that think Jesus would be a liberal Dem. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Kzmyk9d8lk

  • Anonymous

    Corporations benefit most of all from government programs, and I would agree with you that they should be the first to be cut. And let’s not forget about the corporate banks, cut off their welfare, too. Let’s also not forget about corporate health care providers who wrote Obamacare……What? Did you think Obama wrote ACA? ……..lol…….no, the insurance companies and the big health care providers wrote your beloved Obamacare so that they could bypass state laws which restricted the cost of health insurance. See how Obama fucked you over good? No, you don’t, but you soon will, because you and the other dimwits are going to see all of your healthcare costs rise. Unless, of course, you are a non-producer. Non-producers are rewarded by stealing producers money via a dramatic rise in premiums.

    You, Patchy, belong among the half-brained half-wits who actually believe in a socialist government and governmental programs. Well, just over the horizon out of sight from you and the other welfare lovers is the end of the road.

    We’ve almost reached the point of too many promises made by government collectivist to too many people for too long of a time.

  • Watch it

     Obama has not compromised – it’s his way or the highway, and that is NOT how our government was designed to work. He has abused his executive powers, with no consideration for the US citizens, is destroying the financial future of all Americans, especially the seniors because of his QE practices, and  has trampled on the Constitution. He is helping to carry out the ‘sellout of America’.

  • http://www.absoluteintensity.com dennis reilly

    I’d love to see Reid and Pelosi pay back the money they have pilfered from the citizens and go to a toilet paper line

  • Draxx

    Pachy, that is the Best thing I have heard you say here… WooHoo!

  • Draxx

    If they budgeted better we wouldn’t even have such a High Debt, and Partial Shutdowns wouldn’t happen… It should always be a Balanced Budget Without Debt.

    People get in trouble for writing checks without having the money in the bank, the Gov’t Should Not Be Any Different!

  • Jim

    Pachy, you hit the nail right on the head! Flat tax! No deductions. No loopholes! No business filing! All individual! Everyone pays the same rate regardless of income. If you make $10,000 you pay the same rate as someone who makes $10 million! I think you might be onto something! Let me add: Then shift all social programs or welfare to state control under the 10th Amendment, since the Enumerated powers prohibit the Fed from spending money on them. Each state can enact whatever level of welfare the local voters choose. We could then shut down several federal depts. 

  • Anonymous

    Don’t know the truth of this, but the word out is there will be 800,000 nonessential gov’t workers

    on leave.  800,000!   What are they all doing?  Most have good paying jobs, probably good

    benefits, thanks to the taxpayers.  Do we really need that many workers?  For how many

    departments/agencies?  And how many of them have been created since 2009?

    To answer your question, Glenn, re: guarding the toilet paper—why, it’s quite elementary, sir.

    It’s needed when the sh– hits the fan!   Read: when Glorious Leader’s bloated (very) ACA is

    fully implemented and all the promises made about how wonderful it would be for everyone is

    seen in the full light of—disillusion and disappointment for all those who ”believed.”   There

    will be some who will benefit from it, but many could find their hopes for it unfulfilled. 

  • Anonymous

    Yes, Glenn let’s completely do away with Congress because that’s entirely constitutional. The White House is also non-essential, right. 

    Beyond those ridiculous points, does Glenn realize that the Dept. of Education funds public education beyond what states contribute in taxes? So states don’t destroy housing markets with insane property taxes/sales taxes?

    C’mon Glenn. You’re better than taking such a simplistic argument. It’s very easy to say slash it all and everything will work out. It takes more work and a high level of critical thinking to actually solve problems in public policy rather than simply say we don’t need it or we need all of it.

  • greywolfrs

    He was speaking in terms that dolts, like you, could understand. Here, you want a more comprehensive statement. Do away with prohibition, since it is unConstitutional anyway and then we no longer need the DEA. Do away with Obamaocare, since it is unConstitutional, then we need not hire a bunch of IRS people to enforce it. Do away with SSI and Medicare, since they are unConstitutional, then get rid of all the people working for those agencies.

    You left wing idiots really should read and comprehend the Constitution some time. The Feds have a very limited scope of what their function is supposed to be and education isn’t one of them.

  • greywolfrs

    You are a complete moron. Obamao had a super majority in Congress for almost the first two years and they blocked out the Conservatives. Now, you believe you can spout this B S and someone will think it is true. You are one dumb M F er, fudgepacker.

  • greywolfrs

    I have a better idea, cut all illegals off the system. Make it crime to hire them, rent to them or anything else. There is the BEST place to start, fudgepacker.

  • Victor’s Punishment

    Looks like there are 800,000 potential budget cuts. I don’t think that all of them are expendable, but I would guess many would not be missed. I don’t mean to sound hard but this federal government has become unsustainable and it definitely needs to be pruned.

    If they simply repeal the ACA there is a lot of overhead that will be done away with right there. All they really had to do was make cross state line insurance shopping legal and force the insurance industry to cover all pre-existing conditions. Young and health people are not going to pay for insurance they don’t feel they need. The rest of us should not be compelled by law to buy health insurance coverage especially at the inflated rates they let the insurance companies charge us once they made it a law that you had to have the coverage. All these insurance companies have done is get mandatory coverage in place and then they put it to the people in the most egregious way possible by upping the rates in hundreds of percentages. If it were sex, this would be rape.

  • Anonymous

    Don’t know it ACA was passed on it’s merits or BECAUSE if was what The One
    so desperately wanted. Do know that the ‘rich’ can afford the rate hikes and the
    majority of the ‘poor’ will get subsidies or free care.  The major portion of costs
    will be borne by the middle class, V/P.

  • Victor’s Punishment

    All true – especially the burden on the middle class – for our children and theirs the middle class will cease to exist, they will be taxed out of existence.

    It is a wealth redistribution scheme and that loosely translates to theft. All I know is it is wrong and the ten commandments are one thing that tells me so.

    Coveteousness, stealing, killing by denial of services, those three features of the mindset that brought us ACA are readily apparent to those with the power of discernment.

  • http://www.facebook.com/edwin.pilobello Edwin Pilobello

    Small “essential” government. CHECK! Deficit budget tap shut. CHECK!
    We got what we want, in a dirty kind of way, but we now have small government and we’re not spending money we don’t have.  So wait for the positive cash flow then trickle the tap with extreme prioritization.
    KEEP THE DEFICIT BUDGET TAP CLOSED!!