Stop the presses! Stop the presses! Bill Maher on Friday actually said something well-reasoned and intelligent that conservatives - including members of the Tea Party - might agree with.
"We have 23.5 percent dirt bags in America," the HBO Real Time host surprisingly said. "It just seems like there’s less people pulling the wagon and more people in the wagon, and at some point the wagon is going to break" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
BILL Maher: One of the things Obama said in his speech that was kind of a jab was that Mitt Romney, who didn't go to the inauguration, by the way. That’s, nobody has done that since Dukakis didn’t show up. It’s a little bit of a snub. A little bit of bitterness, don’t you think?...What he did, he was talking about the 47 percent kind of because he mentioned “takers.” I mean, I can't remember what his exact quote was, but he basically was talking about when Mitt Romney during the campaign talked about the 47 percent. And of course to get to that number of 47 percent who don't pay federal taxes, that’s what he was talking about, you have to include veterans and retirees.
Okay, so basically what Mitt Romney was saying was, you know, “These spongers, these grifters, these people, I wouldn't piss on them if their ass was on fire because they don't pay in.” But it's not really 47 percent. But I, here’s my question: It's not zero percent either, takers. I mean, there are a lot of dirt bags in this country, and I think it's somewhere in between 47 and zero. I think we should split the difference and say we have 23.5 percent dirt bags in America. I do. Like the Octomom. California pays, we pay to, you know, feed and cloth and spay and neuter her children. And she's not giving back to society.
Moments later, he continued:
MAHER: And here, listen to this about disability. People who take disability, who are on disability, in 1968 it was 51 to1, people on disability to people who worked. In 2001, not that long ago, it was 23 to 1. Now it's 13 to 1, 13 people to one who are on disability. Now, of course, you know, some of that is real. We are an overworked, overstressed, polluted, ripped off and lied to people. So, I mean, obviously there are some people who really do have disabilities. But 13 to 1?
You know, it just seems like there’s less people pulling the wagon and more people in the wagon, and at some point the wagon is going to break.
Wow! I think that's what the Tea Party has been saying since Obama and the Democrats passed their stimulus package early in 2009.
It only took Maher four years to realize the "tea baggers" as he likes to call them actually make sense!
Somebody pinch me!
