Once again, the only reason anybody cares about the deficit is that Republicans are screaming that they should care about the deficit, so that they can break unions, decimate public education, ruin most major centers of the educated populace and drive power into the hands of the mouthbreathing teawads who elect them.That’s what’s behind all these oh-so-necessary spending cuts:
Cutting non-security discretionary funds by $100 billion means a 21% annual reduction in the part of the budget that includes funding for education, health and human services and housing and urban development, among other things, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank.
In other words, the sacred cows of domestic Democratic policy.
Asked which programs will be cut to get to the $100 billion target, Boehner did not offer specifics.
“But I will tell you,” he told reporters earlier this month. “We are going to cut spending.”
It is the fucking cereal box copywriter version of public policy. And oh, by the way, those things aren’t just “sacred cows of domestic Democratic policy,” they’re the goddamn underpinnings of modern American society, but hey, let’s cast everything in the most trivial possible light. After all, CNN’s staffers can probably spring for at least a middling private school for their kids when the apocalypse comes, so screw it, really.
A.
Of course spending cuts are necessary! Look, those programs don’t go to help rich people, so they can’t be worthwhile. And if they might help some people be less poor, and possibly even provide a way towards riches, well then fuck them for not already being rich. Don’t you know it’s a moral failure to not be rich? Jeez, lady, get with the program here.
It’s very simple, really:
We’re talking about people who hate America and want to destroy her.
Period. End of story.
Don’t talk to me about nuance, or different views but the same goals, or healthy differences of opinion, etc. etc.
None of that applies here.
The modern American Republican Party and most of its members hate America and want to destroy her.
Accept that and you’ll never be confused by their actions again.
I think what we are seeing is the fact that the super wealthy own our government, from Congress to the President to the Supreme Court. As a result the government reacts only to what the super rich want, and what they always want is more money. More money is available to them if they can stop paying taxes, so taxes are defined as “evil”.
There are enough voters who are dumb enough to think that their problems are all caused by the _______’s (fill in the blank), so Republicans just keep up the drumbeat against the _________’s, and Democrats are forced to defend them. This gains the Repubs enough votes to stay at least nominally in command.
Boehner is pretty confident that the Blue Dogs will vote with him in the Senate, so Congress will have the votes to do whatever the Repubs want. And, he apparently is confident that Obama will sign whatever they send him, as long as they title the bill so it appears to fulfill some Obama campaign promise. I won’t argue that Boehner is wrong, but I certainly hope he is.
The super wealthy also own the media, who dutifully report cuts that are actually shifts. I mean, c’mon, does anyone think a politician like Boehner isn’t going to spend boatloads of money? That’s like asking a fat guy to ignore the “Fresh Product” sign in the Krispy Kreme window.
I swear, if I had a nickel for every time a reporter let a conservative off the hook when they falsely claim they’ll “cut” government, I could retire.
If I had a nickel for everytime a reporter actually challenged a conservative on the difference between cutting and shifting (to the defense budget), I…wouldn’t have a nickel.
Meanwhile, the defense budget itself is so larded up they can’t even conduct a rudimentary audit, so larded up they “lost” ten billion dollars or more in “Iraqi reconstruction funds,” so larded up you’ve got an entire Afghan kleptocracy getting rich in no small part by renting luxury apartments (paid for with our tax dollars) to lobbyists and private military contractors (paid for with…our tax dollars), etc. etc.
And to top it all off, now the Republiclowns are whining about the poorest people not “paying their fair share.” Seriously:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_12/027265.php
As Michael Parenti reminds us–frequently–the United States at the turn of the last century was a third-world country. No labor laws, no safety net, unsafe working conditions, Jim Crow laws, women’s suffrage just a hoped-for future ambition, and a government that had been honed by Wall Street money to act in the interests of the wealthy. It was the age of Mark Hanna passing out cash on the Senate floor (is it any wonder that Hanna is Karl Rove’s idol?), and the country’s commercial and political life was dominated by a few obscenely wealthy privateers who had their sights set on using that government to fulfill their imperial ambitions in the Far East and Latin America.
That was the Gilded Age, and that’s what today’s buccaneers imagine is possible again. Deregulation and privatization (particularly of military and security tasks, and, eventually, most municipal functions such as clean water delivery and roads) combined will ensure profits unimaginable even two decades ago.
We’ve been the recipients of the shock doctrine for the last three years, but, the job is not yet done. Tearing holes in the safety net is next, and we can expect even more tax cuts for the wealthy (corporate and individual) in the next decade, along with continuing alarmism about social spending.
They’re just not done with us quite yet, and they’ve not quite been able to mold government wholly to their aims, but, they’re getting closer to that end.
Their ideal is encapsulated in the remark of the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Jay: “The people that own the country ought to run it.”
We’ve been fighting that prospect ever since 1789.
never the military.
They will reduce the deficit by reducing fraud and waste. Isn’t that were all budget cuts come from? Oh, I almost forgot the magic dollars that will swamp the treasury once we cut taxes for billionaires.
here’s where the cuts ought to come from, but won’t:
Congressional pensions and healthcare — reduce them to the level of the SocSec/Medicare recipient not eligible to have his/her SocSec taxed. That should be the top level of pension / health care available.
Congressional perqs and staffers — zero ’em out. If they make $200 K a year they can pay a secretary out of their own pockets. Put a dent in their lifestyle, will that? Tough, buddy.
Military budgets: if it’s being contracted out, that is to say, if it isn’t being done by US military personnel … defund it. Now. Completely. Bring the troops — all the troops, everywhere — home. Now. The exception? VA hospitals and GI benefits.
And put a tax on stock trades. Tax every share traded half of a fifth of a penny every time it’s traded.
There’d be no deficit by 2012.