# The Most Unkindest Cut of All **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 22, 2005, 9:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-unkindest-cut-of-all/286063 "2005-01-22T09:47:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2005, 9:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-unkindest-cut-of-all/286063/1 "2005-01-22T09:47:16Z")
According to [this Earthlink News Source](http://enews.earthlink.net/article/nat?guid=20050121/41f1ddd0_3ca6_15526200501222080172589), President Bush is working on cuts in his new budget: > [@](#): > > WASHINGTON - President Bush is readying a new budget that would carve savings from Medicaid and other benefit programs, congressional aides and lobbyists say… > > \ > But lobbyists and lawmakers’ aides, speaking on condition of anonymity, say he will focus on Medicaid, the health-care program for low-income and disabled people. Was he working on this before or after the prayer meeting in the National Cathedral? Let them eat _what_? ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2005, 10:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-unkindest-cut-of-all/286063/2 "2005-01-22T10:05:49Z")
Hey, as long as they are safe from the terrorist threat… ---
**Author:** ![Oregon\_sunshine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/50afbb/32.png) [@Oregon\_sunshine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oregon_sunshine)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2005, 11:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-unkindest-cut-of-all/286063/3 "2005-01-22T11:12:57Z")
God help us all. Medicaid is often the only “safety net” that many working families with kids enjoy. Many of these folks can’t get a job that even offers affordable insurance. It’ll be a fucking sad day when the government starts clipping away at this already measly, inadequate program. Of course, that’s what we get for VOTING FOR A REPUBLICAN!!! :mad: ☹ :mad: ☹ :mad: ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2005, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-unkindest-cut-of-all/286063/4 "2005-01-22T11:36:48Z")
A pre-emptive strike: before there are any posts complaining about the grammar of the thread title, check out Shakespeare’s **Julius Caesar** , III.ii.188. Thank you. ---
**Author:** ![Brutus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Brutus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brutus)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2005, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-unkindest-cut-of-all/286063/5 "2005-01-22T11:45:00Z")
> [@Case Sensitive](#): > > A pre-emptive strike: before there are any posts complaining about the grammar of the thread title, check out Shakespeare’s **Julius Caesar** , III.ii.188. Thank you. Shakespeare? Wasn’t that a movie or something? ---
**Author:** ![Lightnin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightnin/32/180_2.png) [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2005, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-unkindest-cut-of-all/286063/6 "2005-01-22T16:35:37Z")
> [@ggurl](#): > > God help us all. Medicaid is often the only “safety net” that many working families with kids enjoy. Many of these folks can’t get a job that even offers affordable insurance. It’ll be a fucking sad day when the government starts clipping away at this already measly, inadequate program. Of course, that’s what we get for VOTING FOR A REPUBLICAN!!! > :mad: ☹ :mad: ☹ :mad: I’m bettin’ that most of the people that voted for Bush won’t be affected too much by Medicaid getting whittled down. ---
**Author:** ![davenportavenger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f8ce5/32.png) [@davenportavenger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davenportavenger)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2005, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-unkindest-cut-of-all/286063/7 "2005-01-22T16:47:01Z")
> [@Lightnin'](#): > > I’m bettin’ that most of the people that voted for Bush won’t be affected too much by Medicaid getting whittled down. Yeah, but not all. My parents’ neighbors, who are on SSI, are rabid Bush supporters because of his “values” positions. The one bright spot over the next four years will be seeing them lose their (IMO, not-deserved) government stipend. That’s what you get for hating gays so much that you vote against your own best interests, bitches! ---
**Author:** ![Abbie\_Carmichael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/49beb7/32.png) [@Abbie\_Carmichael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Abbie_Carmichael)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2005, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-unkindest-cut-of-all/286063/8 "2005-01-22T21:46:41Z")
Everyone bitches about the deficit, but the second cuts start getting mentioned, we get threads like these. Make up your damn mind. Either you want the government to control spending, or you don’t. According to the article, these programs constitute almost 2/3 of the budget. You’re not going to get spending under control WITHOUT cutting into entitlement programs. Make your decision already. If you don’t want Medicaid, et. al cut, then quit whining about how the eeevil Republicans are spending too much money. You can’t have it both ways. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2005, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-unkindest-cut-of-all/286063/9 "2005-01-22T21:52:45Z")
> [@Abbie Carmichael](#): > > Everyone bitches about the deficit, but the second cuts start getting mentioned, we get threads like these. Make up your damn mind. Either you want the government to control spending, or you don’t. According to the article, these programs constitute almost 2/3 of the budget. You’re not going to get spending under control WITHOUT cutting into entitlement programs. Make your decision already. If you don’t want Medicaid, et. al cut, then quit whining about how the eeevil Republicans are spending too much money. You can’t have it both ways. I think the “whining” (mature, that) has to do with the fact that Bush passed an enormous tax cut for the wealthy, got us involved in an unneccesary war, and is now taking it out on medicade. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2005, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-unkindest-cut-of-all/286063/10 "2005-01-22T22:06:58Z")
**AC:** \* You’re not going to get spending under control WITHOUT cutting into entitlement programs.\* Well, we had spending pretty well under control—in fact, we were generating budget **surpluses** —in the late 1990’s, without taking a knife to Medicaid in this way. I’m no cheerleader for Clintonomics in general, but I do think it’s fairly clear that we don’t automatically have to gut social programs in order to decrease budget deficits. As Larry points out, the things that really socked the budget most under Bush were not social programs but large tax cuts for the wealthiest taxpayers, repeal of the estate tax, the war in Iraq, and so forth. In fact, it has been suggested that the drunken-sailor tax cuts in Bush’s first term were partly a strategic move by anti-government right-wingers precisely **for the purpose of increasing deficits** , so that they could use the resulting budget pressures to justify cutting social programs—as they’re doing now. This is known as, in the words of conservative consultant Grover Norquist, shrinking government down to the size where you can “drown it in the bathtub”. (Except, of course, for military spending, corporate welfare, all that sort of thing.) ---
**Author:** ![jlzania](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/67e7ee/32.png) [@jlzania](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jlzania)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2005, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-unkindest-cut-of-all/286063/11 "2005-01-22T22:22:29Z")
> [@Abbie Carmichael](#): > > Everyone bitches about the deficit, but the second cuts start getting mentioned, we get threads like these. Make up your damn mind. Either you want the government to control spending, or you don’t. According to the article, these programs constitute almost 2/3 of the budget. You’re not going to get spending under control WITHOUT cutting into entitlement programs. Make your decision already. If you don’t want Medicaid, et. al cut, then quit whining about how the eeevil Republicans are spending too much money. You can’t have it both ways. I have a novel idea-how about we continue to fund the neediest Americans while figuring out an honorable way to stop paying out the arse an unprofitable war? ---
**Author:** ![Brutus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Brutus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brutus)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2005, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-unkindest-cut-of-all/286063/12 "2005-01-22T22:39:51Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Well, we had spending pretty well under control—in fact, we were generating budget **surpluses** —in the late 1990’s, without taking a knife to Medicaid in this way. I’m no cheerleader for Clintonomics in general, but I do think it’s fairly clear that we don’t automatically have to gut social programs in order to decrease budget deficits. Wasn’t Medicaid scaled back in 1997? ---
**Author:** ![SPOOFE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@SPOOFE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SPOOFE)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2005, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-unkindest-cut-of-all/286063/13 "2005-01-22T22:43:29Z")
> [@](#): > > Well, we had spending pretty well under control—in fact, we were generating budget surpluses—in the late 1990’s, without taking a knife to Medicaid in this way. You’re right. We slaughtered the military instead. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2005, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-unkindest-cut-of-all/286063/14 "2005-01-22T23:00:47Z")
**Brutus:** _Wasn’t Medicaid scaled back in 1997?_ Yup, but AFAICT the proposed cuts would be way more serious, especially given the way that state Medicaid budgets have already been repeatedly cut between then and now. **SPOOFE:** _We slaughtered the military instead._ Really? The same US military that everybody was admiring in 2002 and 2003 for their high quality and speedy successes in Afghanistan and Iraq? Didn’t hear much about their having been “slaughtered” then. The 1990’s military budget cuts didn’t seem to have impaired the armed forces’ ability to carry out **reasonable** military goals. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2005, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-unkindest-cut-of-all/286063/15 "2005-01-22T23:04:23Z")
It is entitlement programs that supposedly make up 2/3 of the budget, not Mediaid. That includes those nifty retirement packages for Congress. Purely as a symbolic gesture, of course, why doesn’t the President start with his own retirement package and that of Congressional Reps and Senators? How about corporate welfare? How about waste in the DOD? Take the last of the GI Generation – the ones that survived the Great Depression and turn them loose on the National Budget. They will have the DOD washing out and reusing coffee filters. I’ve noticed that the word _whining_ has become a new favorate word of that element of the Republican Party that has ceased to give a damn about anyone else. _Compassionate Conservatives_ – and they _do_ exist – have no interest in robbing the poor to feed the rich. **Abbie** , I made up my _damned mind_ about these issues from seeing poor people when I was a child in the early 1950’s. _ **Get a mind.** _ ---
**Author:** ![wolf\_meister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolf_meister/32/15202_2.png) [@wolf\_meister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolf_meister)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2005, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-unkindest-cut-of-all/286063/16 "2005-01-22T23:13:54Z")
**continuity error** Precisely. [severe sarcasm] Sure, people may go broke over massive medical bills but they can be comforted in the knowledge that gay people will have a tough time getting married. Yes Grandma, you can’t get that hip replacement - but those 2 lesbians down the street can’t get married either !!! Perhaps Roe vs Wade will get overturned, ending the abortion “horror”. Hey maybe we’ll be lucky enough to get an anti-flag burning amendment too. Let’s get prayer back in our schools and force teaching “creationism” aka “Intelligent Design” aka bullshit in our science classrooms. But we’ve got a tough president who is NOT afraid to declere war on any country. (Oh, as long as HE doesn’t have to do the fighting.) [/severe sarcasm] ---
**Author:** ![flickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7bcc69/32.png) [@flickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flickster)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2005, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-unkindest-cut-of-all/286063/17 "2005-01-22T23:34:23Z")
Well, you might want to hold off on _the sky is falling_ routine until this story comes from sources other than lobbyists and lawmakers’ aides, speaking on condition of anonymity.