That Steffen Schmidt Is So Funny!

Steffen Schmidt is a water carrier for the loony liberal left, but that doesn't stop him from dabbling occasionally as a political science "professor" at Iowa State University and earning over $112,000 a year while letting the TA's do most of the heavy lifting.

Today, in a guest opinion piece of crap in the Des Moines Register, Steffen takes a stab at snark, irony, lame humor, profound ignorance, and confusion:

In the Senate, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Marco Rubio of Florida and Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania will ride into town to join Scott Brown of Massachusetts as the front edge of the tea party contingent in Washington. In the House of Representatives roughly 60 of the 83 new Republicans are tea party adherents. Highly visible members, such as Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, will clearly not stay still and agree to politics as usual. They are all mavericks, and mavericks throw bombs and raise heck!

Oh yes, the old canard that fiscal conservatives are violence-prone.  Mr Schmidt, how many open cuts, bruises, rope burns, or gunshots does your body or the politicians who you support have?  None, right?  All except your fragile ego, which is clearly torn apart following the recent elections.

Let's continue:

As the Washington Post noted right after the election, "They all have vowed to topple the existing order in Washington to one degree or another, by cutting taxes, repealing the health-care overhaul and shrinking the government."

Now comes the fun part. Where to start cutting?

This is starting to sound like an echo of the Register Editorial Board piece following the recent election which suddenly started carping about the deficit.  Just a few years ago they were complaining about all the wars that are still going on.  Now that Republicans are in charge of something again it's the deficit that is the fault of Republicans.  Never mind who has been in charge of Congress the past four years, and what Obama has signed over the past two years.

If you thought this leaner, smaller government only applied to those East and West Coast "Blue" states and the cutbacks are about "them," you are sadly wrong. They are also about "us"

Iowa does not have a defense industry, but then the GOP and the tea party movement do not want to cut military spending anyway.

Perhaps because military spending is Constitutionally mandated?  But Schmidt you would know that because you're a political science professor, correct?

We do have lots of folks on Medicare, Medicaid and reaping the benefits of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act signed by President George W. Bush in 2003. The centerpiece of this law, of course, was an entitlement benefit for prescription drugs, through tax breaks and subsidies. The tea party views all of these as big government and spending taxpayers' money for things people should earn and save for on their own.

Iowa is the third "oldest" state in the nation, so many of these programs are important to folks as their health starts declining. Want one of those "free" Hoveround scooters they advertise on TV? As one conservative student asked me, "Why should I buy people one of those 'go-carts' with my taxes?"

If you look at the campaign positions and promises of the most conservative Republicans, especially the tea party candidates, cuts in all of those programs are definitely on the agenda.

Only because the benefit is "fiscal insanity" if you can read and understand http://www.cato.org/pubs/briefs/bp91.pdf and http://www.concordcoalition.org/issues/facing-facts/why-medicare-drug-benefit-bad-policy

It's very funny stuff coming from somebody whose party didn't even bother to write a budget for this fiscal year.  "Just keep throwing shit on the charge card until we max out" seems to be Steffen Schmidt's belief in fiscal management, right?  Or maybe it's the old Marxist "take everything from the rich, whoever they are" attitude.

Let's move on to other areas where cuts are now clearly on the horizon. New passenger rail service from Chicago to Iowa City is doomed. Are you kidding me? Running money-losing trains from one of the bastions of liberalism to another bastion of liberalism at taxpayers' expense? Let them drive their Priuses!

Here's another egghead professor who can't do the math.  Schmidt, we don't have the money!  We don't have the Federal money and we don't have the State money!!!  What part about "We're Broke!" don't you understand?  Did you ever take a math class?

I could go on, but what's the point?