Most people are familiar with the concept of "chicken hawks." Chicken hawks are the politicians who are anxious to send other people to risk their lives in war, but somehow managed to avoid service when they had the opportunity to fight themselves. Former Vice-President Dick Cheney and former President George W. Bush are the leading members of the chicken hawk society.
It turns out that we have a similar story with budget policy, where there appears to be a large contingent of budget deficit chicken hawks. The deficit hawks have been filling the news lately. These are the folks who are yelling that something terrible will happen if we don't reduce the deficit. Most of them seem to have missed the fact that something terrible is now happening. We have almost 15 million people unemployed and 9 million underemployed, with several million facing the loss of their home in the next few years.
People of all ages are seeing their lives wrecked by an economic disaster that was entirely preventable, if the folks running economic policy were not too incompetent to notice an $8 trillion housing bubble. In fact, one of the reasons that this bubble did not get noticed was that even before the bubble burst -- creating large deficits -- the deficit hawks were running around yelling about the deficits. These deficit hawks were able to get far more attention for their whining than the people who were warning about the dangers posed by the housing bubble.
Now that we have seen this collapse, rather than supporting action to get the economy back on its feet, the deficit hawks are again yelling about the long-term deficit. But, what is really striking is that many of the people who whine loudest about the deficit are the most reluctant to take steps to reduce the deficit -- at least when it involves powerful interest groups.
So, in the last week, we were treated to the sight of two senators who are leading Democratic deficit hawks, Kent Conrad from North Dakota and Ben Nelson from Nebraska, both coming out for the extension of the portion of President Bush's tax cuts that went to upper income people. These two senators, who have been in a near panic about the debt that we are handing on to our children, came out firmly for more debt for our children if the alternative was higher tax payments by the wealthy.
Unfortunately, this chicken hawk approach to deficit reduction is more the rule than the exception. The surge in the deficit in the last three years was overwhelmingly due to the economic collapse. It might be reasonable therefore to look to Wall Street to pick up much of the tab for future shortfalls. My calculations indicate that a tax on financial speculation could raise in the neighborhood of 1.0 percent of GDP or $150 billion a year.
Yet, almost none of the deficit hawks will go near a financial speculation tax. In fact, when America Speaks, a group funded by Wall Street investment banker and leading deficit hawk Peter Peterson, put on a series of town halls on the deficit, their booklet told participants that a speculation tax could only raise 0.1 percent of GDP, one third of what the United Kingdom gets from taxing stock trades alone.
It is not only Wall Street that is protected by the deficit chicken hawks. The insurance and pharmaceutical industries can also count on the deficit chicken hawks. As all budget analysts know, the country's long-term budget problem is due to our broken health care system. We pay more than twice as much per person as the average in other wealthy countries.
But the deficit hawks are scared to talk about fixing the health care system. This would hurt the insurance industry, the pharmaceutical industry and other powerful interest groups. When America Speaks came to health care, they said reform was off-limits. They only wanted participants to talk about cutting Medicare and Medicaid. The elderly and the poor don't have powerful lobbies like the industry groups.
Basically, the deficit chicken hawks want deficit reduction, but they only want it to be at the expense of the elderly and the poor, hence their attacks on Social Security and Medicare. Of course the public is not anxious to go along with gutting the programs on which they and their parents depend, which is why the deficit chicken hawks prefer to do their work through commissions that hold secret meetings.
The deficit chicken hawks also don't have much commitment to honesty. When America Speaks reported its results to the public and President Obama's deficit commission, it noted that one cut to Social Security, raising the retirement age, got majority support from participants. However, it turns out that this result was based on a software error. When the error was corrected, support fell to 39 percent.
Remarkably, America Speaks did not have the integrity to publicly acknowledge and correct this mistake. It just quietly changed the number on its website. This is the sort of behavior we should expect from deficit chicken hawks who want to attack the programs on which so many ordinary working people depend, while protecting the interests of the rich and powerful.
Why do we still subsidize the oil companies? When even a small oil company makes 8 billion in profits and most make that much and more in a quarter.
It goes way beyond core republicans and moderate democrats. It is truly a case of our politicians treating themselves as royalty at our expense. It is a case of our politicians having NO MORALS. The republicans and democrats are sleeping in the same bed and eating at the same table and partying with the same corporations.
BP.Cut the military budget by 50% over the next ten years,end the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy in December ,re-instate the Clinton tax rates for the rest of us once the economy recovers,get out of Afghanistan and Iraq ASAP,impose the Social Security tax on all incomes,not just the first $104,000, increase the tax on incomes of $750000 to $20 million plus to 45% to 65%,and include at all income levels a separate war tax to pay for any future wars our elected leaders might get us into.
Obama and Pelosi are second
plenty for banks
crumbs for americans
record 'health' spending and we still get big bills
this sounds good right! Except that the underlying reasons IMHO was about the government's desire to fund 2 wars and they couldn't get people to do that IF we were in a recession... Wars are expensive. This is the same thing that Johnson did during the run up with the Vietnam War. Then Nixon continued along with selling off our forests at below cost just to keep the economy going. US governments for 50 years have been increasingly borrowing from the future to fund today's spending... With no regards to consequences. And lots of rhetorical BS to justify this insanity.
We are living thru a totally insane period where up is down and down is up and few know the difference.
http://www.newamerica.net/publications/policy/the_fiscal_crisis_in_state_government_and_what_should_be_done_about_it
nothing to keep buses running
more $$ for building new highways
Dems give the wealthy most of the $$
When one is reduced to a diet of ramen with an occasional treat like Kraft MacNCheese with ketchup, there is no one there to plead your case before a senator of your very own, bought and paid for. Help exists for poor people. People on the starboard side of politics think it's enough, but it isn't. Food banks are perpetually running short. Churches only give charity to their own congregation. Food stamps can be hard to get, and can be hard to use. Many places won't take them at all, and don't give me the stereotype of food stamps. We got bread, milk, cheese, peanut butter with ours. Staples.
Simply put poor people are too busy worrying about which bill is getting skipped this month to go about lobbying their congresscritters. They definitely don't have the monetary resources that big business does to buy their love. And it is most assuredly for sale.
PoorAsDirt PaC. Our slogan: "We don't have two dimes to rub together, but there are a LOT of us."
This definition would include Lincoln and FDR who, like Bush, served in non combat roles during times of war. I would add LBJ but he was (more or less accidently) subject to 10-15 minutes of combat observation. Come back when you have something significant to say.
Humm. Obamacare was going to save costs, right Dean?
This is why liberalism truly is a mental disorder....facts are not friendly and troublesome. Your liberal friends in Mass passed pre-Obamacare and whoops, it's really, really bad (one CORE tenet is ER visits will drop...not accurate...).
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/2010-07-28-column28_ST1_N.htm
Why don't you just say it..you want socialized, govt paid healthcare and everything will be fine!!!
Whoops, those dang facts keep getting in the way....the 60+ yr NHS is decentralizing services...I guess govt paid, decided hc isn't so great....
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/world/europe/25britain.html?_r=3&hp
As far as the debt, "progressives" will whine forever about taxpayers being allowed to keep a tiny sliver of what THEY EARN 2000-2008 and trun a blind eye to increases of debt and deficits under Obama that even the CBO is now warning us about.
Here's Paul Ryan's response: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2443601/posts
The Dems have no plan. Paul Ryan does.
PS: I think people who call it ObamaCare are going to feel pretty silly when it goes into effectvand turns out to be popular. MediCare probably didn't start out being called that; I admit I don't know. But legacy trumps re-election, and people are going to be calling their improved health care by its snazzy new name. Thanks repubs!
Spending is the issue. Check the link, the largest items are Medicare/Medicad, Social Security, and defense. We already know Obamacare will increase costs to the federal government.
The government cannot tax its way out of this situation, much like a drunk can't drink themselves sober.
the Republican way! no wonder W ranks where he does in the presidential rankings and our country is doing so well economically!
Oh, and there is no correlation between your paycheck and government revenue/spending. For your paycheck, you actually did something!
How would that impact the ability to service debt and increase your paycheck?
Whose "blood and coin" is Obama using in Afghanistan?
Sounds like you need to update your talking points...
It's more absurd than any novel - even "Catch-22" - could capture, yet it goes on and on and on. Many people are getting very, very rich off these "wars" which should cause a national retching, but instead: silence. We now know that it was the draft that caused the protests during Vietnam, and that is a crass, ugly fact. If there were a draft now, these wars would end. There is no draft. There are "volunteers" (in other words, America has a mercenary army) and so no is too bothered by what is going on. Put a sticker on your car "Support the Troops" and give that sticky greeting, Thank you for your service"..... and move on.
Wretched state of affairs. Country in severe decline, right under our noses. Can't you smell it? Smells like dirty money.
We need to return to that kind of fiscal responsibility. Before Democrats took control of Congress, the deficit was $161 Billion in 2007. Now it is nearly ten times that! The U.S. can not sustain a federal government that spends 25% of GDP.
I read global warming deniers and many contend that cutting back on carbon will hurt the economy. Well, it might in the short run. I read problematic-deficit deniers and they contend that cutting back on deficits will hurt the economy in the short run, and it might. Why not think long-term?
I think that Tea Party movement is good in some ways. However, where were these folks when the deficit was mounting to ten trillion dollars? Were they writing letters, protesting and making a fuss? I don't think so; a few individuals were fussing and not getting heard. We need millions and millions of individuals to get out the pen and ink and write letters to all those folks you voted for (or against) and let them know that we feel that the long-term effects of out of control spending are unknown and potentially very harmful. If wild spending doesn't stop now, when will it stop?
no-bid contracts to companies with whom they had vested interests and threatening inspectors general who brought attention to irregularities and law breaking resulting in high expenditures and a rip off of the US treasury
I was a software engineer for 30 years, and I'll bet that's a lie. Things blamed on "bugs" are usually human input errors, or possibly the programmer was intentionally given a bogus method of counting.
Not that there are not a lot of bugs, there are, which is why "software error" is a convenient, believable excuse. Sure, blame the programmer :-)
"America Speaks has explained this discrepancy by identifying a technical glitch in the software that they used to count up the responses. They claim that on certain questions, participants hit the button multiple times, and that all of them counted, increasing the perceived support."