There are several ways to know that Republicans do not actually care about the national debt, most particularly not reducing it.
One is to understand that Republicans didn't complain when the previous president, George W. Bush, doubled the national debt to $11 trillion. You'd think that a party supposedly outraged by debt would have been bellowing outrage, wouldn't you? Not one peep.
A second way is to know that in the last 70 years, there have been six full administrations when the national debt increased -- and every single one was Republican.
A third way is to remember that it was Ronald Reagan's Chief of Staff who infamously said, "Budget deficits don't matter." (Deficits and debts of course are kissing cousins.) How outraged were Republicans? They chose that man, Dick Cheney, to be vice president.
But all of these -- clear as they are -- pale when compared to a gaping fourth reason.
We'll get to that in a moment. But first, you must remember what Republicans are crying for when they say that The Most Important Thing is reducing the national debt. When they say they will risk worldwide financial collapse by not raising the credit limit unless the national debt is reduced.
To reduce the national debt, Republicans say that "Everything is On the Table." Everything. Absolutely everything. The most sacred, cherished programs to Americans -- Social Security, Medicare -- they are on the table. Not only on the table, but they're the centerpiece surrounded by doilies and a candelabra. Cutting government pensions for teachers, nurses, janitors, bus drivers, park rangers, that's on the table. too. Remember, Everything is On the Table. Funding for NPR, Public Broadcasting, Planned Parenthood, social issues that touch all Americans, cutting them is on the table. Because Everything -- Everything is On the Table.
"Everything is on the table," Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) told ABC's This Week last November.
To cut the national debt, Republicans insist that Everything... truly Everything... is On the Table.
"We have to live within our means," Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) said on Fox News last December. "It means all of us will sacrifice."
Sacrifice. All of us. Every American. We ALL have to sacrifice. And that's why Everything is On the Table.
Everything.
Absolutely everything.
Except raising taxes for the wealthy.
"Nothing is off the table, except raising taxes," John Boehner (R-OH) told reporters on May 6.
Tax hikes are "off the table," he repeated on the Today show, May 10. "Everything else is on the table." Mind you, only the day before Speaker Boehner swaggered on Fox that "Everything is on the table and everything should be on the table."
Apparently, the word "everything" comes with a qualifier to Republican leaders.
Just four days later, the GOP chose Rep. Martha Roby (R-AL) to speak for the party and give their weekly address. "Everything should be on the table," she explained. "Everything, that is, except tax increases."
To be clear, I'm not suggesting that Congress should raise taxes on the wealthy. Or shouldn't.
What I am saying is that when you declare "Everything is on the table" and "All of us must sacrifice" -- and the only thing you take off the table is raising taxes on the wealthy, then the only sacrifice you are actually asking for is from those who can least afford it. Cutting Medicare, Social Security, pensions, compensation benefits, and unemployment insurance only impact the middle and lower classes. The lone sacrifice you can ask of the wealthy, of corporations, of Wall Street investment houses and big banks is to have their taxes raised -- and Republicans took that off the table.
If you insist therefore that We All Must Sacrifice and that Everything is On the Table -- and the sole thing you won't do is raise taxes on the wealthy, then your lie is exposed.
It doesn't matter your "reason" why taxes shouldn't be raised. All things being cut have reasons why they shouldn't be. But "everything" means "everything." And "we all must sacrifice" means "all."
When you insist that "Nothing is off the table, except raising taxes," your goal can't be cutting the debt - since raising taxes would obviously cut the debt. What's clear is that you are protecting financial institutions. All at the expense of Middle America and the poor.
But ultimately, it's more than that, because something else is driving the conservative Republican bus.
And what conservatives most care about, and have cared about for decades, is not cutting the debt but getting rid of programs they hate. Making an issue of "cutting the debt" -- something we repeatedly see they have never cared about, nor do now -- is, rather, a way to get Social Security, Medicare, and social programs cut, unemployment insurance, welfare, food stamps, low-income public housing assistance, NPR, PBS and more. That's what conservatives want cut. Not the debt. Republicans have never cared about the debt. And if you listen to what John Boehner and his fellow Republicans say, you hear them tell you.
And if they're not clear enough for you, then let Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-SC) be blunt.
"We want to see real structural, cultural-type changes," he told The New York Times in April. "Game-changing kinds of changes."
That's what this is all about. Cultural changes. And he just told you.
If you think the calls for program cuts are about anything else to conservatives, you're wrong. Because they not only just told you -- they keep telling you. Over and over.
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1. Sacrifice; 2. sacrifice ; 3. sacrifice
EXCEPT FOR BILLIONAIRES AND MILLIONAIRES.
It's the republican way.
A budget consists of TWO parts: spending and revenue.
No one in their right mind would/could think that taking HALF of the equation "off the table", would/could possibly EVER result in a balanced budget. It is a fantasy. It is a waste of time. And, we seem to be running out of time. Any "adults" left in Washington? Time to step up!
The following available on the net: Yearly deficit from 1946 to 2010, inflation adjusted value of the dollar, House and Senate majorities, and who was President. You can also find out when we had recessions, wars and when we enacted major social legislation like Medicare. This, and a good spreadsheet program are all you need to come to the conclusion above.
House = D, Senate = D, President = D, Average yearly deficit $331.806 billion over 21 years
House = R, Senate = R, President = R, Average yearly deficit $168.109 biliiion over 5 years
House and Senate split D & R, President = R, Avg. yrl. deficit $673.575 billion over 9 years
House = D, Senate = D, President = R, Average yearly deficit $531.118 billion over 22 years
House = R, Senate = R, President = D, Average yearly SURPLUS $59.804 billion over 8 years
The President can propose a budget but he can't pass one. Every legislator in Washington gets their fingers in this particular pie. We need to give each party at least some of what they want to insure stability among the voters, and the only way to do that is with a divided government.
SS is NOT the reason for our deficit. Eliminating SS will have no affect on our deficit.
Medicare is FIXABLE by cutting waste, fraud and mismanagement...better known as Government OVERSIGHT, which even Tom Colburn just admitted that Congress ought to be in JAIL for neglecting since OVERSIGHT IS Congress job.
I mean, I doubt the Repugs could plan something like that.
Oh, I agree they want to kill social programs.....and they are "evil" enough to destroy the lower classes who to them are worthless.
However, I think you are giving the Repugs too much credit.
What do I think?
They take advantage when things go bad.
And now they have the perfect opportunity to gut the social programs and they are really trying.
The Repugs aren't brainy enough to do what some of you think they did....but they ARE smart enough to watch for good opportunities!!!
That the temples of the Gilded Age were built on a foundation of life-long human misery and suffering seems to be beyond their ken... or at least their caring.
The masses that embrace that siren call envision themselves within the temples. I don't think they understand the frightfully small capacity of those august shrines to the glory of the Profit.
****For the conservatives, oligarchs, and Repug politicians....
America (and the world) before the Wall Street crash in 1929 was a DIFFERENT world than today.
Today we are better educated AND better informed.
We are more likely to have social and political unrest because we would realize what happened.
Oh, maybe not right away, but sooner or later.
When ordinary Americans as a group realize that the rich took it all and turned us into wage slaves, the sh--t will hit the fan.
Think it won't happen?
Look at Greece.
The riots there have gotten ugly.
Look at the Middle East.
What do you think is the main reason for the Arab spring?
It would have taken much more abuse and poverty to get those people going 100 years ago.
Now?
They are inflamed by knowledge and the media.
Or just more generalizations that have no basis in reality.
None of which seem to have anything to do with creating jobs.
They might well work long hours but they are basically passing money around and, at times, costing jobs: Witness the not long ago mortgage crisis and, still, housing bubble; and, right now, the cost of oil and gas that has nothing to do with "supply and demand" and everything to do with speculation.
After George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and the neocons misled the nation into war under false pretenses, they charged the whole thing on a credit card. Unbelievably, instead of asking for shared wartime sacrifice a la World War 2, they actually gave the wealthy TWO immoral wartime tax cuts and told them to "go shopping" while working class soliders and countless civilians end up as casualties so that Republicans driving SUVs can have cheaper oil.
That, more than anything else, epitomizes the amorality of the modern conservative movement and what they intend to do to America.
I think most of them got picked on in Kindergarten. Now they'll show us!
The Conservative mind sees the world this way, owners and owned. They are driven to be owners because they dont want to be owned.