You Forgot The Sugar Coating On My Satan Sandwich!
Rep. Emmanuel Cleaver (D., Mo.), chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, called the debt deal struck by Boehner and Democrats "a sugar-coated Satan sandwich." And that is possibly the best description of any legislation I've come across. But I want to know where the sugar-coating is, exactly.
I keep hearing conflicting things but Jim Geraghty reports that the debt ceiling will be raised $2.4 trillion and the cuts will work out to about $100 billion per year for ten years. But wait, there's more! We'll also get a committee that will propose deficit reductions. Whoo hoo! Can you feel the excitement? A committee!
Liberals are freaking out, saying "The Tea Party wins" and that "the Presidency is a weak, impotent office." And conservatives are either saying "meh" or that it's a "Tea Party Triumph," too.
Geraghty says that Boehner's presentation of his plan sounds a bit tougher:
The plan, as presented by Boehner, looks tougher: It raises the debt ceiling by $900 billion (enough to get to February) while discretionary spending gets cut $917 billion over ten years. If a balanced-budget amendment is sent to the states, or if the joint committee cuts spending by more than $1.5 trillion by then, they can raise the debt ceiling another $1.5 trillion. If that joint committee doesn't achieve at least $1.2 trillion in savings, spending gets cut across the board, automatically. (!) But Social Security, Medicaid, veterans, and civil and military pay would be exempted from the across-the-board cuts.
I gather that this might be the best deal the country could hope to get. But this is not impressive. I'm not blaming Boehner but, rather, every single person who is failing to take our out-of-control budget seriously. These cuts are the equivalent of rounding errors. It's neither sugar-coated nor a Satan sandwich. Garçon! There's something wrong with my order!
- Comment (16)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (0)
Comments :
Jun '10
Re: You Forgot The Sugar Coating On My Satan Sandwich!
The deal is a joke, wrapped in a lie, and sprinkled with perfume.
Mar '11
Re: You Forgot The Sugar Coating On My Satan Sandwich!
I am afraid we Hobbits will have to go to Mordor and defeat Sauron before we can return home.
We have just started.
Dec '10
Re: You Forgot The Sugar Coating On My Satan Sandwich!
If the cuts were over 2 years (or 5 at the most) this might be meaningful. The very best we can hope for is a BBA being sent to the states. The committee of imaginary cuts in the out years won't actually reduce the size or cost of government.
Apr '11
Re: You Forgot The Sugar Coating On My Satan Sandwich!
The problem is that there are just too many people (including politicians) who see any reduction in any non-defense area a complete failure. To these folks, there is no debt problem, or if there is, we need MORE gov't spending to fix it. The Krugman and Will exchange yesterday proves that point. Krugman uses Japan's "lost decade" as an example of what we face if we stop spending, yet Japan spent at much higher levels than we have. Only in Krugman's ideological world does a failed policy serve as a great barometer of what we should be doing.
The question then becomes, how do you negotiate or co-govern with these people? A healthy national debate needs to take place with facts and figures as our main weapons. Electoral mandates must then follow as we have seen on a limited basis the past 6 months with the Tea Party. If this doesn't transpire (quickly) than market forces will take over and austerity will be forced on us which will be a VERY painful repudiation of the Rep Cleavers of the world.
Jul '11
Re: You Forgot The Sugar Coating On My Satan Sandwich!
"Sugar-coated Satan sandwich"? Wow! Proof the English language still survives under the onslaught of political speech.
Language aside, the deal may be the best that could be negotiated between two diametrically opposite political philosophies. It will have to do until reasonable people take control of government and restore something closer to the free market and small government our founders envisioned. Now let's get out there and get conservatives elected in 2012. If we don't work for themf, we share the blame for the bleak future Obama's reelection will ensure.
Jun '10
Re: You Forgot The Sugar Coating On My Satan Sandwich!
After years of anti-business sentiment oozing out of Democrats like bile, combined with idiotic eco-activism based on faulty science aimed at business that would otherwise create jobs, and no new energy exploration and production that would create even more jobs to say nothing of enhancing national security, a balanced budget is the least of Americas's concerns.
Allow Communists a say in the governance of a country and this is what you end up with.
Dec '10
Re: You Forgot The Sugar Coating On My Satan Sandwich!
Patricia Newman:
Language aside, the deal may be the best that could be negotiated between two diametrically opposite political philosophies.
What strikes me in the deal is not what it actually will accomplish (which is close to nothing); rather, it is the philosophical foundation of the deal. The whole thing is built upon the idea that the ship of state must be turned. I haven't seen the text of the legislation, but the reports I'm reading about the deal make it look like there are no democrat ideas in this. It is conservatives on offense, liberals on defense. For the first time in my memory the D's are simply trying to minimize the impact of the R's rather than advance their own agenda. My fear remains that it's been so long since conservatives have had the ball that they won't remember how to call plays or run it up field, but only time will tell.
Jun '10
Re: You Forgot The Sugar Coating On My Satan Sandwich!
Mollie Hemingway, Ed.:
I gather that this might be the best deal the country could hope to get. But this is not impressive. I'm not blaming Boehner but, rather, every single person who is failing to take our out-of-control budget seriously.
I've thought a lot about this issue (additional quantities of my thinking are not necessarily illuminating) and I agree with King Prawn's narrative.
Let's remember which party is "failing to take our out-of-control budget seriously." It's the Satan-Sandwich party--you know the one that never under any circumstances wants to cut spending a dime. Rather than give up a single credit card, they insist that we take them from their cold dead hands (note: metaphor, not an invitation to violence). We don't have the power to do what must be done to really attack spending. All in all, the Republicans come across (at least to people who care) as the serious party. Let's build on it.
I don't get the Satan-Sandwich metaphor. If we're eating him in bite-size pieces and thus getting rid of him, isn't that a good thing? Theologians: please explain.
Edited on Aug 1, 2011 at 8:20amDec '10
Re: You Forgot The Sugar Coating On My Satan Sandwich!
Cas Balicki: After years of anti-business sentiment oozing out of Democrats like bile, combined with idiotic eco-activism based on faulty science aimed at business that would otherwise create jobs, and no new energy exploration and production that would create even more jobs to say nothing of enhancing national security, a balanced budget is the least of Americas's concerns.
Allow Communists a say in the governance of a country and this is what you end up with. · Aug 1 at 7:59am
Exactly, and the anti-business sentiment has been translated into an explosion of very anti-business regulation - in the words of the philosopher, Buzz Ligthyear, "to infinity and beyond". The anti-business regulations not only choke off business activity and increase unemployment, the killer-regulations will lead to severe inflation - they add an immense amount of friction to the economy which adds useless costs to each and every business transaction.
The supply-side miracle that Reagan unleashed had two catalysts - pro-growth tax policy and the shredding of the very onerous regulations. The dangerous and unintended consequences of regulations have proven beyond any doubt that Forest Gump is a towering intellect when compared to government technocrats.
Oct '10
Re: You Forgot The Sugar Coating On My Satan Sandwich!
It looks like the text of the bill is here. Look how nicely it fits within the existing structures of the spendoholic appropriations architecture that got the country into this mess in the first place. Yeah, I'm sure Paul Ryan can play this thing like a harp, but the US doesn't need a different tune, it needs a different orchestra.*
The real success of this whole process has been shifting public discourse another baby-step towards the realisation that Big Government is the problem. I hope.
(* Torturing metaphors isn't a CoC violation, is it?)
Dec '10
Re: You Forgot The Sugar Coating On My Satan Sandwich!
Best we could do. TEA Party changed the trajectory. Disappointing that there are no actual cuts in the near term. Yes, yes, yes.
What would amuse me, if I didn't find it so irritating, is how, every time conservatives take a tentative half-step forward, the Left behaves as if they've been knocked three steps back and we don't argue the narrative because we're relieved (I wouldn't go so far as to say "happy") to have advanced our half step.
Meanwhile in reality world, the Dems neglected to even formulate a budget for the World's Biggest Government Evah! for two whole years coinciding with Obama increasing the budget baseline astronomically -- and got away with it.
Oh, and the Republican's victorious "deal" puts the middle class and the military on the chopping block. Yeah, Democrats have taken quite the hit, huh? (D) is for Drama Queens.
Jun '10
Re: You Forgot The Sugar Coating On My Satan Sandwich!
Over at the Corner, our friend Jonah has this take on "sugar-coated Satan sandwich" metaphor, finding it wanting and suggesting a few better ones:
"I don’t think the phrase is as great as everybody else seems to. You don’t eat Satan, and you don’t coat sandwiches with sugar. I like colorful phrases as much as the next guy, particularly if the next guy likes them a lot, but I think they should have an internal consistency to really work. I’ve been trying to come up with an alternative, but so far they have other problems, too much explanation required, not enough alliteration, etc. Still, a few meager attempts:
Lucifer’s lunch bucket, once you open it, all Hell breaks loose.
Mephistopheles’ M&Ms: candy coating on the outside damnation on the inside.
Pernicious Peanut Butter Cups, tasty chocolate on the without, agony within."
I'm putting my money on Lucifer's lunch bucket.
Re: You Forgot The Sugar Coating On My Satan Sandwich!
tabula rasa: Over at the Corner, our friend Jonah has this take on "sugar-coated Satan sandwich" metaphor, finding it wanting and suggesting a few better ones:
"I don’t think the phrase is as great as everybody else seems to. You don’t eat Satan, and you don’t coat sandwiches with sugar. I like colorful phrases as much as the next guy, particularly if the next guy likes them a lot, but I think they should have an internal consistency to really work. I’ve been trying to come up with an alternative, but so far they have other problems, too much explanation required, not enough alliteration, etc. Still, a few meager attempts:
Lucifer’s lunch bucket, once you open it, all Hell breaks loose.
Mephistopheles’ M&Ms: candy coating on the outside damnation on the inside.
Pernicious Peanut Butter Cups, tasty chocolate on the without, agony within."
I'm putting my money on Lucifer's lunch bucket. · Aug 1 at 9:30am
Jonah is wrong! What about the Monte Cristo? Definitely sugar-coated. Definitely a sandwich.
Aug '10
Re: You Forgot The Sugar Coating On My Satan Sandwich!
Rep Cleaver's metaphor is alot easier to understand if you know this.
Not only does his ride cost us $3 grand a month, it smells like french fries. Last time there were reporters trying to follow him, they got into a minor collision in a Mickey D drive thru. The driver was overwhelmed by the fumes, and complained he "had to get a large fry right away ".
Most of the time, we're not sure whether his first name is Emmanuel or Eldridge. He and Lacy Clay have these ironclad, gerrymandered districts here in Missouri and the only thing that would change that is losing districts, which is happening. But the gerrymandering marches on.
Jun '10
Re: You Forgot The Sugar Coating On My Satan Sandwich!
Mollie Hemingway, Ed.
tabula rasa: Over at the Corner, our friend Jonah has this take on "sugar-coated Satan sandwich" metaphor, finding it wanting and suggesting a few better ones:
"I don’t think the phrase is as great as everybody else seems to. You don’t eat Satan, and you don’t coat sandwiches with sugar. I like colorful phrases as much as the next guy, particularly if the next guy likes them a lot, but I think they should have an internal consistency to really work. I’ve been trying to come up with an alternative, but so far they have other problems, too much explanation required, not enough alliteration, etc. Still, a few meager attempts:
Lucifer’s lunch bucket, once you open it, all Hell breaks loose.
Mephistopheles’ M&Ms: candy coating on the outside damnation on the inside.
Pernicious Peanut Butter Cups, tasty chocolate on the without, agony within."
I'm putting my money on Lucifer's lunch bucket. · Aug 1 at 9:30am
Jonah is wrong! What about the Monte Cristo? Definitely sugar-coated. Definitely a sandwich. · Aug 1 at 9:32am
Even a well-informed, intellectually-honest reporter can get it wrong.
May '11
Re: You Forgot The Sugar Coating On My Satan Sandwich!
At her blogsite Ann Althouse implies that Cleaver should have just been candid and called it a [expletive] sandwich which doesn't leave much room for clever sugarcoating.
Edited on Aug 1, 2011 at 4:54pm