" DEFICIT HAWKS " Have Amnesia

[Segami]

:applause::applause::applause::applause::applause:


" Yesterday, the Co-Chairs of the Bi-Partisan Commission on the Deficit proposed a package of dramatic cuts in government expenditures and changes in the tax code that they said were meant as "shock therapy" to force attention onto the growing Federal deficit.


The implication is that putting the Federal Deficit represents a massive, intractable crisis -- a national emergency that requires all of us to sacrifice. For many "deficit hawks" the federal deficit has morphed into an enemy that threatens the nation like a foreign army. They claim that victory in their war on the deficit requires "shared sacrifice" -- that "we" simply cannot afford to continue on the current path to fiscal perdition.


These people have lost their memories. They seem to have forgotten what caused the deficit. And they have certainly forgotten that we know how to eliminate the deficit without making the middle class pay the bill.


Recall that just ten years ago, at the end of the Clinton administration, the Federal budget was generating a long-term surplus. It was in the black as far as the eye could see. The big question of the day was, "what do we do with the surplus?"


Then George Bush and the Republicans in Congress systematically eliminated the surplus and replaced it with budgets that generated more debt in eight years than all of the debt generated by all of the presidents before him. How?


They passed the Bush tax cuts, with the lion's share of benefit going to millionaires and billionaires. Who wouldn't gladly pay the tax rates of the 1990's today and experience the benefit of the economy of the late 1990's?


They initiated two wars that were paid for entirely with borrowed money. These two wars alone account for 25% of the accumulated deficit since 2000.


They allowed Wall Street to wreck the economy and cause the greatest economic disaster since the Great Depression. That caused tax revenue to the government to collapse, and required massive federal spending to prevent the economy from going into free fall.


Please note that none of the factors that caused the Federal deficit involved profligate spending by middle class Americans -- or senior citizens. In fact, during this same period the incomes of middle class Americans shrunk and those of the very wealthy continued to soar.


In fact, earlier in the week it was announced that many of the big Wall Street Banks will give record bonuses to their traders and CEO's. Yet, yesterday the Chairs of the Bi-Partisan Deficit Commission proposed that to deal with our "fiscal problems" we should reduce the incomes of seniors citizens on Social Security, make cuts in Medicare, cut veteran's health care and take innumerable other steps to reduce the living standards of the middle class.

Then you hear some of the network commentators -- all of whom make very comfortable incomes (some in the multimillion dollar range) pontificating about how seniors with an average income of $15,000 to $18,000 a year should take a twenty or thirty percent cut in Social Security to solve our long-term deficit crisis. How outrageous.



Time for us to remember seven key facts about the deficit debate:



Social Security has nothing to do with the deficit.


The Social Security program generates a surplus and will do so for many decades to come. To assure its long-term solvency, all that is needed is to require that the wealthy are subject to the same Social Security tax on all of their income -- like most everyday Americans.


The budget deficit debate is not mainly about numbers and budgets -- it's about who gets what. For two decades the incomes of middle class Americans have stagnated. The share of income and wealth in the hands of the top two percent of the population is at its highest levels since 1928. Federal budgets should be aimed at increasing the share of national income that goes to the middle class and reducing the share going to millionaires and billionaires.



The budget debate is not just about policies and programs.


It's about right and wrong. Fixing the budget does not require "shared sacrifice." It requires that the millionaires who had the economic party for the last decade -- and whose greed caused the financial collapse -- be required to pick up the tab. The middle class did not benefit from the Republican economic policies that lead to the current deficit -- they were the victims.


cont'

<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-creamer/deficit-hawks-have-amnesi_b_782109.html>


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[SidDithers]

1. Unrec...nt

Sid

[Segami]

2. LOL. Looks good on you Sid.

[City Lights]

5. One-trick pony.

:boring:

[BeFree]

7. Cheney

This whole deficit commission thing is an in your face repudiation of the big Dick.

Deficits don't matter, according to the big Dick.

So, is the commission calling the big Dick a big lying sack of shit, or what?

[Little Star]

3. k&r

[City Lights]

4. "Regan showed us that deficits don't matter." - The Dick of Death

:nuke: the hypocrites.

[hughee99]

6. One small question about this...

"These people have lost their memories. They seem to have forgotten what caused the deficit. And they have certainly forgotten that we know how to eliminate the deficit without making the middle class pay the bill.

Recall that just ten years ago, at the end of the Clinton administration, the Federal budget was generating a long-term surplus. It was in the black as far as the eye could see. The big question of the day was, "what do we do with the surplus?""


We know how to eliminate the deficit without making the middle class pay the bill? So why haven't we been doing THAT the past two years? If we had been doing it, Dems would have increased their majorities in both houses. I hope the "plan" doesn't involve building a time machine and/or trying to create a new tech bubble.