Thanks For the Tip, Dick

Found this on the Democracy For America blog:

A message came down from on high yesterday from an American living off the interest from his millions to those of us who turn down the thermostat a few degrees and put on a sweater when heating oil prices creep upwards.

Vice-president Dick Cheney, having run out of friends to shoot, is now taking aim at the portion of the American public who live paycheck to paycheck. At a Washington, DC conference, he "urged Americans... to do a better job of saving."

"The American dream begins with saving money and that should begin on the very first day of work," Cheney told a conference here exploring how to encourage people to boost savings and be better prepared for retirement.

Too often, workers are living paycheck to paycheck and are not saving sufficiently, Cheney said.

Cheney then re-loaded and took a shot at tinkering with Social Security:

"There will always be a wagon load of excuses for ignoring the problem of entitlements," Cheney said. "But Americans have a right to expect more out of the nation's leaders, especially when it comes to Social Security and other defining national promises."

Only a Republican, with their Strict Father model of conservative politics would imagine that the right way to help Americans prepare for the future is scolding us into saving more. How are we to begin when many of us already have what we consider to be "good jobs," but we still anxiously await the first and fifteenth of each month?

A few members of the DFA community replied to the vice-president's exhortation:

Demetrius: "Can... they... *POSSIBLY*... be that out of touch? In other news: Fox Scolds Henhouse For Record Losses To Predators"

Tom Bearse: "The vice president has a point. It’s hard to understand why others don’t simply become Defense Department Secretary, authorize studies for the privatization of military functions like feeding, security, and entertainment, take over as CEO for the corporation that provides these services and see that these contracts are conveniently funneled over to it.

Read the rest....