{"id":59944,"date":"2016-08-12T12:40:48","date_gmt":"2016-08-12T17:40:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=59944"},"modified":"2016-08-12T22:16:55","modified_gmt":"2016-08-13T03:16:55","slug":"welfare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=59944","title":{"rendered":"Welfare!"},"content":{"rendered":"

SCENE: \u00a0Mitch BERG is driving down a rural two-lane road near Rapid City, South Dakota.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

He notices a plume of smoke up ahead, so he steps on it to get closer. \u00a0Presently, he notices the burning car is a 12-year-old Subaru. \u00a0Standing by the side of the road, looking away from the car, is Avery LIBRELLE. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

BERG pulls over, pops his trunk, jumps out, and grabs a fire extinguisher. \u00a0He runs over to the car. \u00a0As he pulls the pin and points the extinguisher, LIBRELLE notices him.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

LIBRELLE: \u00a0 Merg! \u00a0 I’m driving among the red-state welfare queens!<\/p>\n

BERG: \u00a0 Avery, your car is burning! (Directs fire extinguisher towards engine compartment<\/em>)<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE: \u00a0 Oh, yeah. \u00a0Don’t change the subject. Paul Krugman says that Red States get more money from taxpayers than they pay in…<\/p>\n

BERG: \u00a0\u00a0(distracted, as he extinguishes fire) Uh huh<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE: \u00a0 …while Blue states pay in more than they get back!<\/p>\n

BERG: \u00a0(Coughing as cloud of smoky steam engulfs him, as the fire dies down<\/em>).<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE: \u00a0 Red staters are welfare queens!<\/p>\n

BERG: \u00a0 \u00a0(Finishing a bout of coughing<\/em>). \u00a0Look, Avery. \u00a0See over there? \u00a0(BERG points over to Ellsworth Air Force Base<\/em>). \u00a0See those planes over there? \u00a0Probably close to two dozen B1B bombers<\/a>, which rolled off the dealer floor at $300,000,000 a piece and probably cost $30,000,000 a year apiece in fuel, maintenance, aircrew and ground crew salary, benefits and maintenance, not to mention the cost of the base itself in terms of people, supplies, and the cost of the very valuable farmland it and its associated training areas are built on? \u00a0Not to nThat’s tens of billions of dollars, just at this one red-state military base – which, divided among the sparse population.<\/p>\n

Now – are you saying those planes, those personnel costs, all this physical infrastructure, is a transfer to the people of South Dakota?<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE: (Idly stares at nearby prairie dogs<\/em>).<\/p>\n

BERG: \u00a0Then look over there (points at nearly Black Hills mountains<\/em>). \u00a0That’s a huge national park. \u00a0Hundreds of thousands of acres, along with lots of other federal land. \u00a0Is\u00a0that\u00a0<\/em>a transfer payment?<\/p>\n

By the way – while there’s a ton of military spending and federal land, there’s a very tiny population with very low cost of living. \u00a0Blue staters pay lots of taxes because their cost of living, and income, are higher. \u00a0So – progressive taxation is suddenly bad?<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE: \u00a0 Yeah, you’re a racist, and why do you advocate killing Hillary Clinton?<\/p>\n

BERG: \u00a0Naturally.<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE: \u00a0 Hey \u00a0(pointing at prairie dogs<\/em>) – are they regstered to vote for their best interests?<\/p>\n

BERG: \u00a0Not yet. \u00a0So – why did your car catch fire?<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE: \u00a0 Oh, yeah. \u00a0The oil light was on for like a month.<\/p>\n

BERG: \u00a0Well, why didn’t you add oil?<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE: \u00a0 I didn’t want to enrich Big Oil.<\/p>\n

(And SCENE<\/em>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SCENE: \u00a0Mitch BERG is driving down a rural two-lane road near Rapid City, South Dakota.\u00a0 He notices a plume of smoke up ahead, so he steps on it to get closer. \u00a0Presently, he notices the burning car is a 12-year-old Subaru. \u00a0Standing by the side of the road, looking away from the car, is Avery […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[327],"tags":[236],"class_list":["post-59944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-activism","tag-dramatization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=59944"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59948,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59944\/revisions\/59948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}