To understand how Republicans expropriated "Family Values", "Patriotism" and "Defense", look at who they collude with to who owns the media. Oxycontin Rush, Black Diamond Robertson, Slave Master DeLay, Boy Love Foley, Enron Cheney (and Bush).......
...and still some buy their bullshit. If not they always have Diebold.
And the Venusians, Nutcase. Don't forget the Venusians who taunt you through the fillings in your teeth, forcing you to wear the tin-foil hat and to rant amusing conspiracy theories in the public square of DR.
By the way, are these the same Diebold machines that gave Congress to the do-nothing Dem majority two years ago. The majority that as been squandered by Pelosi's and Reid's inability to manage their way out of brown paper bag? uh-huh....
The politicians (during the boom times) promised - in exchange for votes -- unreal amounts in pensions and perks to city and county workers.
That is killing Mass. as well, Cali. In town after town here there is an all-out war of attrition with folks trying to pass overrides to save school and town services, and folks voting against overrides in an attempt to "smoke out" the unions through cuts to teacher/police/firefighter staffs.
In the end, the old union farts keep their jobs and continue to pay only $10 a week for health insurance, while young teahcers and cops end up laid off and the schools fall to shit.
Every federal dollar that comes by way of the state (after they take their piece) ends up going to mandated state programs for SPED and other programs which are typically medical in nature and so, the costs of those programs end up riding up the same soaring curve that medical insurance and healthcare in general is riding.