At the government level, there’s *always* money when the cause is deemed worthy.

Right you are sir.

And what I have been telling neocons for years is that we only ‘let the market decide’ when we’re talking about public education or health care or the environment or any type of social spending. When it comes to bailing out the financial industry, or the airline industry, or the auto industry, or anything else ‘important’, so called conservatives would just as soon the market shut the fuck up.

With matters such as health care, childcare, job training, etc. we’re constantly told two things: 1) there’s no money, & 2) even if there *was* money (which we repeat, there *ain’t*) gov’t assistance = handouts = dependence = end of civilization as we know it.

But here’s the dirty secret: At the government level, there’s *always* money when the cause is deemed worthy. Does anyone really think that (no matter how many times Mavericky McMaverick tells us Barack voted “no”) the military is ever not going to be funded? Anyone think that any senators are worried that *their* health care plan might run out of money? Yeah — didn’t think so.

From my barely-literate-when-it-comes-to-the-economy perspective, it sounds like the financial world’s in a heckuva mess, and that the $700 billion the government is spending is money that needs to be spent. (Whether it’s being spent *wisely* is, of course, another matter altogether.) But once again, the fundamental problem isn’t “do we have the money?” but “do we feel this is *worthy* of spending money on?”

Even if we weren’t spending billions every month on Iraq, & even if we weren’t sending $700 billion (plus whatever comes next) to Wall Street, we wouldn’t have universal health care, & every kid wouldn’t get a healthy breakfast at school, & we’d still be lacking in job training opportunities.

And the excuse would be “we don’t have the money.”

And you people call yerselfs compassionate?