We are now locked in the great budget battle of 2011. Who will win, the president or House Republicans? It's impossible to say yet, but I do know who is going to lose: us. In fact, we've already lost. This is due, in part, to the fact that our country no longer seems capable of coming up with anything other than what Tom Friedman once called "suboptimal" solutions to our problems.
Just look at this so-called "debate" we're having. The problem ostensibly on the table is the deficit. But, without any context, the raw deficit number is meaningless. If the country's debt were, say, $50 million, that wouldn't be a big deal. If some average American suddenly found himself $50 million in debt, well, that would be a big deal. And that's because the country's GDP is a lot bigger than the average person's income. So what we're talking about is really the debt-to-GDP ratio.
Yet the debate is concentrated almost entirely on the debt side of the equation and barely at all on ways to increase the GDP side. How has the playing field of what is acceptable in this debate been so shrunken that the only two competing proposals still allowed on the field are the president's cuts and the House GOP's draconian cuts?
Well, it was no accident. And, as it turns out, there's an entire field of study based on the dynamic being played out: Agnotology. Coined by Robert Proctor, a historian of science at Stanford University, the word means the study of ignorance that is deliberately manufactured or politically or culturally generated. "People always assume that if someone doesn't know something, it's because they haven't paid attention or haven't yet figured it out," Proctor says. "But ignorance also comes from people literally suppressing truth -- or drowning it out -- or trying to make it so confusing that people stop caring about what's true and what's not."
Sound familiar? It's the process underlying practically every crisis that has befallen this country in the last decade or so. But you don't need to be a professional agnotologist to see that this pattern is endangering the future of the country.
And here we are in the middle of another budget "debate" in which the only choices being offered are largely confined to which programs in the non-military discretionary budget are going to be cut and by how much. That means almost all the cuts are limited to a portion of the budget that makes up just over 12 percent of our spending.
And the way to enact these "necessary" cuts is, to quote Council of Economic Advisers Chair Austan Goolsbee, OMB Director Jacob Lew, and President Obama himself, to make "tough choices."
But curiously omitted from all this self-congratulatory talk about making "tough choices" is any mention that the president just gave away nearly $120 billion by extending the Bush tax cuts for the rich.
In fact, had the administration done the right thing in December, it would have had the public on its side. Only 26 percent favored extending the cuts for everybody, with 53 percent wanting them extended only for those making less than $250,000. But the public doesn't make the rules for the debate. And so now our "tough choices" are limited to bad and worse.
The reason is easy to understand, concluded Steve Benen in the Washington Monthly: "Pesky Americans may think jobs and the economy are the most pressing national issue, but the political world has no use for such parochial concerns. The establishment has moved on."
But not only are the solutions allowed on the table by the establishment inadequate to the crisis, they'll actually do long-term damage to the country. "Slashing spending while the economy is still deeply depressed," wrote Paul Krugman last week, "is a recipe for slower economic growth, which means lower tax receipts." And, of course, that will mean (all together now) more "tough choices"!
It's a vicious circle. But it's not inevitable. It's happening because this is the choice -- and not a "tough" one -- of those who control our political debate.
We all know basically how this "debate" is going to end -- with lots of unnecessary suffering. Whether we're going to have to deal with bad choices or worse choices might still be up in the air, but let's at least stop pretending that it's a real debate and that nothing else was possible.
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Republicans want to keep the super rich tax cut, tax the middle class and poor some more, break up collective bargaining as a ploy to reduce union contributions who normally vote democratic in presidential elections.
I fault the democrats for not sticking to their principles and just do what is right instead of continually trying to compromise with republicans when republicans have stated that they are not interested in compromise.
Could the solution not be any clearer? Too bad we have to wait for the next election to correct this abortion of a government. Unless we recall those clogging up the governments ability to get things going again.
Dont get me wrong, I am all for cutting out waste, pork barrel spending and think its reasonable to cut Medicare a bit by means testing (if you are rich and qualify for medicare, medicare should not pertain to you. you can afford to pay for your own doctors, hospital visits and medications). Will someone with common sense please stand up and take the reins of leadership.
a banana republic run by large corporations
who offer only slave wages....
revolutions are happening all over the world hopefully towards democracy...
when will the masses of the poor and much poorer middle class decide that they've had enough...
why should we pay taxes to a corrupt government that only profits the very rich special interests and the expanding military industrial complex?
Maybe we can have a peaceful revolution by just refusing to pay taxes?
If only it were that simple! Can't pay the rent? Go take out a credit card and voila!
Our INTEREST payments on debt alone this year will exceed $450 BILLION.
All debt increases exponentially whether you do anything about it or not.
Make no mistake - we MUST...MUST pay down debt.
Think of debt as a weight on your shoulder as you move about. The bigger the debt, the larger the weight. Eventually the weight is so large you can no longer get your job done.
46 of 50 states can't seem to manage their money very well either, and I think a common thread between state/federal is rampant public ignorance, because of lack of good working information. Hence, when the public tries to participate in the budget debate, we're basically driving off from a point of general ignorance.
So, how to amend the situation? Well, first by asking how much information IS available to the public, and by turning it into an open project. Wisconsin's in the news in a budget battle. Ok, so where can you readily reference that state's financials?
Government is also about the voters. To the extent and degree that voters are being excluded, the process is/has broken down. If we really want to fix the situation, we have to actually be able to see the patient and how bad the injuries really are. All this rhetorical telemedicine is just fumbling around in the dark. First, Wisconsin, then, the Nation! Something like that. Either we want balanced budgets, or we don't. Put that one up for a simple majority vote among the public. And, if need be, hire the UN or somesuch as external election monitors to help try and exclude any funnybusiness. And, anytime you're talking about THIS kind of money, it's pretty much guaranteed there'll be some.
or 57 Billion.....
Even the manufacturing profits of our weapons are up for international bid.
WTF ? We are doomed perhaps a prostrate USA is for the best...A new Rome,
an all too quick end to the PNAC vision. we are a country run by men who
have no sense of nationalism.
This, on a grand scale, is what Saint Ronald of Hollywood dreamed up 30 years ago to cripple, and then dismantle, government, in order to "get government off our backs" so we would be free to carry out such democratic actions as rigging the derivatives market and bringing down the economy, while making billions of dollars. He and Budget Director David Stockman, who later apparently found Jesus and confessed the plan, called it "Starving the beast".
By refusing to consider increased expenditures for education, health care infrastructure and various other underfunded services, we're effectively forgoing additional economic growth.
You have to want to change.
The system no longer creates jobs but it does still create profits, more than ever.
No economy, especially in a country this size, can survive on a stricktly "service-based" workforce.
Those who work at places like Wal-Mart, McDonald's, Target and other service-based jobs, working for minimum wage, can only prop-up the economy for so long. Without a good manufacturing base, it will soon collapse.
What we need are some strong, forceful leaders who are prepared to do what is right for the long-run, not just what is convenient for the short-run.
Demolishing and demoralizing the middle-class is not the answer.
It's time for Washington (and the Top5), to start thinking about feeding the economy, instead of acting like a bunch of anorexics, who are deathly afraid of that next Cheerio.
If we are not careful, we may just have total meltdown. There is no more wriggle room left. It is time for the Republicans to think of "America First", not the false economy, based on foreign labor, that they love so much.
I can just hear them: "Hands off the Two Party System! That would be subversive."
Then, of course, they would realize that subversive is exactly what they wanted.
The jobs created and saved by the economic stimulus law that President Barack Obama signed on Feb. 17, 2009 cost at a minimum an average of $228,055 each, according to data released yesterday by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
In a report released Wednesday—“Estimated Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act on Employment and Economic Output from October Through December 2010”—the CBO said it now estimates the stimulus law cost a total of $821 billion, up from CBO’s original estimate that the stimulus would cost $787 billion.
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/cbo-jobs-created-and-saved-stimulus-cost
This is the result you get every time it's tried. ENOUGH!