Democrats ask Bush to reverse "reckless" fiscal policies (The Hill)

[struggle4progress]

Friday January 26, 2007

... In a letter to the White House, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), plus Budget Committee chairmen Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) and Rep. John Spratt (D-S.C.) left no doubt that they view Bush's policies as the reason for a looming fiscal crisis ...

To embark on a bipartisan course to fiscal responsibility, the Democrats urge Bush to submit a budget that accounts federal costs realistically, including spending for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In addition, they ask that the White House "realistically project short-term and long-term deficits." Democrats noted that a "clear perception exists that for years, administration budgets have both overstated current year budget projections - to allow claims of 'progress' later in the year - and understated long-term deficits, to avoid the need for hard choices."

Lastly, the Democratic leaders ask for specificity in the budget and a full accounting of "short and long-term consequences" of Bush's fiscal policies ...

- Klaus Marre
http://www.hillnews.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/012507/fiscal.html

[illinoisprogressive]

1. He can't. W doesn't know what realistic means.

[struggle4progress]

2. They're just getting their documents stamped to show they were there:

I don't think they expect much from Wazzizname

[niceypoo]

3. Hearings on the root cause of the budget deficits, which we all know are the wreckless tax cuts

[Peace Patriot]

4. Spend some of the booty on the poor, on alternative energy, on job creation,

on saving our planet from meltdown, on education (free through university), on innovative small businesses, on organic food, on trains (!), and, for godssakes, on universal health care!

We. Cannot. Recover. From. The. Bush. Junta. With. A. "Balanced." "Budget."

We need FDR and a New Deal, not "Blue Dog," turncoat, corporatist Democrats.

This pisses me off so much. This is what the World Bank did to Argentina. Gave big loans to the rich elite, who ripped off the money, leaving the poor to pay the debt. Education, health care, everything went down the tubes. Nearly destroyed Argentina's society. Until the people struck back. Oh, yes, they did. The poor and middle class, in coalition, took tiny hammers and went round breaking every bank ATM display window in the country, in protest. Three governments later--in quick succession--they finally got a good leftist government that made a deal with Venezuela, which bought up part of the debt on easy terms, so that Argentina could recover quickly and restore progressive social policy--and now all indicators are up in Argentina; they are well on the way to recovery, and are even in talks with Brazil about a common currency.

It is going to take government SPENDING to recover from the wrecking ball of the Bush Junta. And if they do this "fiscal conservative" B.S., then the COST of the Bush Junta is going to be taken out of the hides of the poor, and we are going to have a crash that will make '29 look like a picnic.

I'm all for coming down on the Junta like a ton of bricks about their utter lack of accountability, their massive thievery, their diabolical tax cuts for the rich, and all the rest. But this "Blue Dog" 'fiscal conservative' crap is CORPORATE PROPAGANDA. They SHOULD BE cutting the military budget by 90%, down to a true defensive posture (no more wars of choice!). THAT is the huge cancerous growth on the back of the American people, to which the Bush Junta has ADDED massive corporate tax breaks and tax cuts for the super-rich, gas gouging, drug company gouging, credit card gouging and every other load they can dump on the poor to the benefit of the rich. We furthermore have gigantic monopolies in every sphere conspiring on price-fixing, on forcing us to remain an oil economy, and on destroying labor rights.

Everything is upside down and backwards--and headed to disaster. Stop WRONGFUL spending--spending to kill and torture people and destroy countries, and destroy the planet. START progressive spending--on education, on bootstraps for the poor, and middle class recovery, and on every kind of non-polluting technical creativity and product. And watch this country bounce back!

'Fiscal conservatism' at this time is WRONG. It's TOO LATE. It's Herbert Hoover all over again.

[Lasher]

8. Excellent rant there, Patriot

And very good content. We need to focus on restoration of a progressive social policy as you have correctly pointed out. I would like to see the agenda focus more on 'affordable aircraft carriers' and less on 'affordable health care'.

But it would be easy to balance the budget and still fund social reforms. If you rescind Junior's 2001 & 2003 tax cuts for rich folks and stop flushing money down the Iraq toilet, we'd be back into a surplus. Money for initiatives such as tuition-free college education could easily be obtained by killing white elephants such as Junior's Maginot Line in the Sky.

[rodeodance]

5. These accounting practices of the WH are immoral and our kids and

grandkids will pay for them.

[Stuckinthebush]

6. The GOP - The party of fiscal foolishness

Let's take the BS Party of Fiscal Responsibility tag away from the GOP once and for all.

[indepat]

7. 'pukes since the Gipper have been responsible for increasing Federal debt 7-fold in

a quarter of a century: a reckless moniker does not do justice to this shameless, dastardly, absurd, cunningly shrewd ploy for ultimately reneging on its "entitlement" obligations while off-loading several trillion dollars to the most affluent and large corporations.

Edited: context

[Lasher]

9. How right you are!

Here is a graph to illustrate your point:


http://zfacts.com/p/318.html

[indepat]

10. The extraordinarily reckless fiscal policies and regressive tax schemes set in motion

by Saint Gipper and continued by Bush I and Bush II will likely have relegated this nation to a banana-like republic (dictatorship) in the foreseeable future with the only thing holding us up now is the willingness of others to fund our huge twin deficits. Should "they" ever get tired of our imperialist, to hell with what you think, foreign policy now in vogue, and decide to quit funding our nationalistic follies, the chickens might just come home to roost.