{"id":6316,"date":"2011-09-05T21:11:19","date_gmt":"2011-09-05T21:11:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/?p=6316"},"modified":"2011-09-05T21:13:20","modified_gmt":"2011-09-05T21:13:20","slug":"no-electricity-for-me-but-a-new-hosptial-for-thee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/no-electricity-for-me-but-a-new-hosptial-for-thee\/","title":{"rendered":"No roads for me but a new hospital for thee?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>House Majority Leader Eric Cantor&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/ericcantor.us\/2011\/08\/fema-head-brushes-off-eric-cantor-2\/\">on-again, off-again suggestion <\/a>that federal disaster relief for Hurrican Irene victims be offset by cuts elsewhere in the federal budget is a courageous precedent to set against further deficit spending.\u00a0\u00a0 And yet I wonder how many of the Republicans who have backed that idea, including Cantor himself, require similar offsets for &#8220;counterinsurgency&#8221; infrastructure projects abroad&#8211;which David Petraeus, undoubtedly to great huzzahs in the Republican establishment, <a href=\"http:\/\/atwar.blogs.nytimes.com\/2011\/08\/31\/petraeus-retires-with-a-warning\/?ref=davidhpetraeus\">recently warned <\/a>against cutting.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0The belief that by building roads and hospitals in Afghanistan, America has the power to change that society in significant and positive ways, and to foster long-term good will towards the U.S., strikes me as no less fanciful than any Great Society faith in the ability of government social service programs to eradicate dysfunctional underclass behavior.\u00a0\u00a0 Restoring electricity and rebuilding bridges in New Jersey and Vermont, by contrast, is eminently doable and a service that American citizens can legitimately expect their government to provide&#8211;even if the costs of doing so should be offset during this time of spiralling deficits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>House Majority Leader Eric Cantor&#8217;s on-again, off-again suggestion that federal disaster relief for Hurrican Irene victims be offset by cuts elsewhere in the federal budget is a courageous precedent to set against further deficit spending.\u00a0\u00a0 And yet I wonder how &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/no-electricity-for-me-but-a-new-hosptial-for-thee\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[838],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6316"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6316"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6316\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6319,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6316\/revisions\/6319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}