Is America Becoming a Banana Republic Watch - The South Carolina Version Posted by Michael Cohen

Honestly, when I first started writing these "Banana Republic" watch posts it was really just a way to write something snarky about crazy man Jim Bunning, but everyday I look at the news headlines I come up with new examples. 

And to be clear there is a legitimate national security angle here - if America cannot effectively govern itself and maintain its economic competitiveness . . . it can't be a great power or even a great country. As President Obama noted in his West Point speech, "we must rebuild our strength here at home. Our prosperity provides a foundation for our power . . . it will allow us to compete in this century as successfully as we did in the last."

With this in mind, consider what's happening in South Carolina:

Lawmakers are considering cutting all services for nearly 26,000 people with disabilities as

 South Carolina tries to plug a $560 million budget hole. Parents say the proposed cuts to day care programs and other services would force them to give up much-needed jobs to stay home and care for their young and adult children.

Mary Bennett, a single mother of three, said the budget cuts would mean sending her 11-year-old autistic son to an institution or giving up her job at a Columbia program that helps parents like her. Her son goes to public school a few days a week and a state-funded program cares for him the other days.

"He's completely dependent on other people. He can't do anything himself," said Bennett, 47. "I wouldn't be able to work if they cut his services."

More than half of the proposed cuts in the current version of next year's $5 billion budget — about $113 million in all — affect Medicaid and other human services programs. The Department of Disabilities and Special Needs would see its funding slashed by $42 million, or 28 percent.

Other states, like Oklahoma and California, are also cutting services for people with disabilities, but the changes are minor in comparison. Advocates say the South Carolina cuts are shortsighted because they eliminate early-intervention programs that could help prevent more expensive problems down the road 

And why are these cuts necessary: because according to Dan Cooper, a South Carolina Republican, "There's just not a willingness to raise taxes in a Republican House." To be sure, this isn't just a failure of the GOP; Democrats too skittish to have an honest discussion about taxes and voters who balk at any notion of higher taxes - but demand government services all the same - are part of the problem as well.

A country where a political party would prefer to pay the political price of cutting aid to disabled childrenrather than pay the political praise of raising taxes . . . or a country where the ideological opposition to raising any tax is so great that disabled children have to suffer . . . or a country that would wage wars in two foreign countries and put it all on a Chinese credit card - Banana republic-hood awaits you.

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Mullen's speech followed a 2007 Kansas State address by Secretary Gates, which called for a "dramatic increase in spending on the civilian instrumentsrolex replica watches of national security." Though not exactly news (Gates and Mullen have made such comments on several occasions), the timing could not be worse for the Mittster. phylogeny of montblanc This is because nestled among the bizarre foreign policy ideas catalogued in Romney's new book, No Apology, is his recommendation that diplomatic relations be turned over to an "ambassador from CENTCOM or any of the other regional military commands.” So, just as the Pentagon is reiterating its concern about the dangerous militarization tiffany glory centuriesof U.S. foreign policy, Mitt Romney is releasing a book arguing that U.S. foreign policy should be militarized even more? Yikes.

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