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SDR
millennium club
Joined: 02 Oct 2004
Posts: 1664
Location: San Francisco
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Kevin
Site Admin
Joined: 13 Apr 2004
Posts: 1086
Location: Eugene, Oregon
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 Posted: Tue Feb 08, 2005 2:08 pm Post subject: |
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Good piece, thanks.
And if one were to step outside the Washington/New York political box, and consider the possibilities if the wealth and power and ingenuity and resources of the US were really put to public service... then the failure of opportunity is only many times more enormous.
At least we can still say so, out in our own modest commons. |
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Donald
Joined: 16 Apr 2004
Posts: 493
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| Posted: Fri Feb 11, 2005 8:59 am Post subject: |
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In the 10 years since the Republicans have controlled Congress, the size of the federal government has doubled. President Bush has gone on a spending spree that makes Bill Clinton look like a cheapskate. Unfortunately, politicians of neither party are going to ever truly cut spending. With the Democrats you get tax and spend, with the Republicans you get borrow and spend. Take your pick.
But let's concentrate on the Democrat's response to Bush's spending cut proposals. The Democratic response could have been predicted. Basically, the claim is that every single dollar cut from any government program, no matter how ineffective, duplicative or unnecessary that program is, will hurt either senior citizens, children, veterans or the environment.
Democrats have never seen a tax cut they didn't hate or a spending cut they could live with. Democrats know that if they show any sense of approval for any tax cuts it undercuts their constant and relentless drive for more taxes. In spite of the temporary (they hope) inconvenience of Republican control of the congress, the goals of Democrats remain the same: Shift the entire income and then payroll tax burden to America's highest achievers, those with high incomes. The Democratic nirvana is a society where the cost of government programs are borne by a minority unlikely to vote Democratic. During every single election of the past 50 years Democrats have warned voters that if they dare to vote for a Republican they will lose their Social Security. Medicare was added to that list in the 1970s. Think how powerful the argument would be that if you vote for Republicans they are going to make you pay taxes.
Let's face it. Short of a tax revolt by American citizens, we are NEVER going to see any meaningful cuts in the size and the power of the Imperial Federal Government of the United States. It just flat isn't going to happen. It takes only minutes after that swearing-in ceremony for a new member of the House of Representatives or the Senate to realize that this is a pretty cool gig. The perks, the power, the prestige ... all very hard to give up. Within minutes after that first swearing-in the new politician will have that great epiphany: "Whatever else I do here in Washington, I've just got to keep this job." From that moment on every move, every step, every vote, every phone call, every letter, every interview is conducted in such a way that reelection will be all but ensured.
And just how do you ensure your reelection? You make sure that you collect as much money from the taxpayers as you possibly can, and you spread that money around your home district or state. It doesn't matter how innocuous the spending program. It can be a half-million dollars to restore Lawrence Welk's boyhood home, eleven million to spruce up the King Center in Atlanta, hundreds of thousands of dollars in subsidies for farmers in Williamson County, or a new backstop for the softball field at your local elementary school ... the money must be spent!
I don't care if you're 16 years old, or 66. You will never in your lifetime see a federal budget where less money is spent in one year than in the preceding year. The prime directive for government is to grow itself and increase its power. Nothing is going to change. The American people feed off this government. It absolves them of the necessity for responsibility for their own lives. I don't see that changing in our lifetime.  |
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Kevin
Site Admin
Joined: 13 Apr 2004
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Location: Eugene, Oregon
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| Posted: Fri Feb 11, 2005 2:46 pm Post subject: |
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Donald, let's not focus on your false accusations about the party that is not in control regarding this budget.
Let's focus on responsibility, and hypocrisy, and the fact that the degree of success attained by the Republican party is based on one Big Lie after another, after another, after another.
Are you happy with what the hands of Republican billionaires are scooping out of your pocket and mine, just because they whisper (or maybe, shout) seductive ideological mishmash in your ears at the same time?
Don't be a sucker for the big con, corporate-style. |
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Donald
Joined: 16 Apr 2004
Posts: 493
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| Posted: Fri Feb 11, 2005 3:10 pm Post subject: |
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WARNING! HUGE BUDGET DEFICIT!
The latest estimate is that it could be just under howmanybillion dollars?
Give me an honest answer here. Considering your own household budget, which would you rather have: A deficit equal to 5% of your annual budget, or one equal to 3% of that budget?
Now, another question. Which deficit would you rather have: A $3000 annual deficit or one equal to $5000? You're going to take the $3000 deficit, right? So far, so good.
Now ... the third question. Just a little more complicated. Which would you rather have: A $3,000 deficit with an annual operating budget of $10,000; or a $5,000 deficit with an annual operating budget of $50,000. Whoops! Now you're going to take the larger dollar amount, right? If you chose the smaller deficit amount there is a strong probability that you were educated in government schools. The $3,000 deficit in our example represents a 30% budget deficit, while the $5,000 deficit equals a 10% deficit. It would be a lot easier to increase your productivity by 10% to cover that $5,000 deficit than it would be to boost your personal economy by 30% to take care of that smaller $3,000 total.
Now, what did we learn here. We learned that the important figure regarding budget relates to it's percentage of the total budget rather than its dollar amount.
Don't you wish you had someone like me teaching the left basic economics? |
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Kevin
Site Admin
Joined: 13 Apr 2004
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Location: Eugene, Oregon
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| Posted: Fri Feb 11, 2005 4:20 pm Post subject: |
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I wish you had a reasonable point to make, rather than obscure renditions of the Big Lie propaganda message of the day.
The new Bush administration budget proposes to spend vast amounts of money, while leaving some huge expenditures out of the picture as if they didn't exist, while locking in heavy tax cuts for the rich that are bankrupting us as a society in the process of making them even richer.
Cool! |
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Donald
Joined: 16 Apr 2004
Posts: 493
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| Posted: Fri Feb 11, 2005 5:43 pm Post subject: |
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Yes, KM there does seem to be a budget double standard....thats not so 
President Bush's budget for the next fiscal year came out at a $2.5 trillion spending proposal that includes cuts in 150 programs. Since the left hates any cuts in spending, get ready for an endless parade of sob stories.
The media will read the budget, see that a program is being cut, then run right out and find at least two people who's lives will just absolutely be ruined by the "cuts." But isn't this quite the double standard? Weren't we being told just a few weeks ago that the deficit was out of control? Why..it was the highest ever! (Not true, of course.) Now that Bush is actually doing something about the deficit, the left will have none of it.
To the left there is one and only one way to solve a budget deficit .. and that is to raise taxes, and to raise taxes only on rich people.
Just as with most major issues, the Democrats have no ideas, no plan and nothing to offer. They're concerned about the deficit, but they don't want to cut any spending. Their answer is going to be to raise taxes. Unfortunately, the majority of the Republicans in the House and Senate probably won't have the gonads to cut any spending either.
BTW, most of these "cuts" are just going to be cuts in the growth of spending |
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Kevin
Site Admin
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Location: Eugene, Oregon
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| Posted: Fri Feb 11, 2005 6:10 pm Post subject: |
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You're still complaining about the left.
But the pure simple fact is that the "right" is driving our budget deficit sky-high.
Hard to admit it, though? |
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SDR
millennium club
Joined: 02 Oct 2004
Posts: 1664
Location: San Francisco
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| Posted: Sat Feb 12, 2005 12:24 pm Post subject: |
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Something that would require "guts" on the part of the politicians (lined up, ironically, at the nation's feeding troughs) woud be to explain to the American public that there's no "free lunch." Programs that the public wants and needs, whether in the form of "entitlements" (school lunch, Head Start, Social Security, etc), or law enforcement, or national security, or highways and bridges, COSTS MONEY.
Why wouldn't an ever-growing US population support and require a steadily-increasing annual budget? Why wouldn't the disproportionate growth in the value of real estate, translate into an ever-higher cost of living for the majority of Americans?
YOU CAN'T HAVE YOUR CAKE AND EAT IT TOO. Yet the American public have been wooed and lulled into believing that, somehow, they can, and SHOULD, have just that. Why? Because it's a rare politician who has the "guts" to say ANYTHING unpopular, no matter that it's the truth.
The super-rich -- executives "earning" obscene salaries and unjustifiable "golden parachutes," and their giant corporations -- can well afford the legal counsel necessary to secure their interests; the many laws passed by their cronies and lobbyists serve to insulate them from most "attempts upon their castles" by the common horde. Don't cry for them; they're well-protected. Rather, the government's proper function, as set forth in the Constitution, is to "secure the common good." The increasing disparity between the "haves" and the "have-nots" in America is a warning sign of trouble ahead; "circling the wagons" will only protect those with an unfair advantage for so long. . .
SDR |
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LindaP
Joined: 31 Jan 2005
Posts: 29
Location: down south
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| Posted: Sat Feb 12, 2005 4:22 pm Post subject: |
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SDR -- I totally see your point and respect most points you made, and you certainly articulated it all well.
But, that being said, what do you see as the solution? |
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SDR
millennium club
Joined: 02 Oct 2004
Posts: 1664
Location: San Francisco
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| Posted: Sat Feb 12, 2005 5:56 pm Post subject: |
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1) Shorter, far less costly election campains, in which the candidates raise little of the money; ie, publicly-financed campaigns of limited duration -- like our overseas neighbors -- reducing the influence of donors on elected officials
2) Term limits, with strict rules about post-term lobbying, so that office-holders can concentrate on doing the people's business instead of worrying about "keeping the job," and a fair playing field can be established on which to play the games of capitalism and commerce
3) Encourage the constituency to more frequently and forcefully communicate with their elected representatives
The purpose of these reforms would be to take the temptations of self-interest out of office-holding, and to improve the likelihood that the people's business will be conducted, in state capitals and in Washington. The incentives to maintain the status quo are very strong, of course, and those who profit by the present state of affairs have plenty of money to spend to keep it that way. The only hope is for enough principled office-seekers to emerge and to successfully gain the public's trust and respect. And for that to happen, a far better education in civic affairs will have to occur in the nation's secondary schools.
By lulling and seducing the public with plenty of distractions, while largely ignoring their need for a decent education, the people with "something to sell" may have secured a sufficiently ignorant and gullible populace, that such reforms are already a hopeless prospect. But, those would be the aims and some possible steps to achieving them, since you ask. It isn't a pretty picture. . .
SDR |
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Kevin
Site Admin
Joined: 13 Apr 2004
Posts: 1086
Location: Eugene, Oregon
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| Posted: Sat Feb 12, 2005 7:10 pm Post subject: |
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How about this dimension?
Somehow diversity, openness, fairness, and accuracy in mass media need to be restored.
Restore and refine some of the regulations limiting consolidation in media ownership. The big media oligopoloy, the condsolidation of which has been accelerated by the Bush administration, is deeply and fundamentally anti-democratic. |
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SDR
millennium club
Joined: 02 Oct 2004
Posts: 1664
Location: San Francisco
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| Posted: Sat Feb 12, 2005 8:33 pm Post subject: |
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Yes, and. . .(do we find ourselves in some sort of hideous Perfect Storm of malevolent effect? Never, in my awareness, have the Oracles portended worse!)
"Uniter, not a Divider," my *** Lynne and Laura are smiling, anyway. No - forum abuse - needed in THOSE households!
Sorry to be a bummer. . .SDR |
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Kevin
Site Admin
Joined: 13 Apr 2004
Posts: 1086
Location: Eugene, Oregon
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| Posted: Sat Feb 12, 2005 8:55 pm Post subject: |
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http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/11/opinion/11krugman.html
| Quote: | It may sound shrill to describe President Bush as someone who takes food from the mouths of babes and gives the proceeds to his millionaire friends. Yet his latest budget proposal is top-down class warfare in action. And it offers the Democrats an opportunity, if they're willing to take it.
First, the facts: the budget proposal really does take food from the mouths of babes. One of the proposed spending cuts would make it harder for working families with children to receive food stamps, terminating aid for about 300,000 people. Another would deny child care assistance to about 300,000 children, again in low-income working families.
And the budget really does shower largesse on millionaires even as it punishes the needy. For example, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities informs us that even as the administration demands spending cuts, it will proceed with the phaseout of two little-known tax provisions - originally put in place under the first President George Bush - that limit deductions and exemptions for high-income households.
More than half of the benefits from this backdoor tax cut would go to people with incomes of more than a million dollars; 97 percent would go to people with incomes exceeding $200,000.
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from "Bush's Class-War Budget"
by Paul Krugman |
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SDR
millennium club
Joined: 02 Oct 2004
Posts: 1664
Location: San Francisco
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| Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2005 12:14 pm Post subject: |
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By that logic, the people should be left to: build their own highways, bridges, power stations, hospitals, schools and jails.
Do the nation's highways "make a profit"? Do schools "make a profit"?
The government is charged with the responsibility to provide for the collective citizenry those facilities which it needs but are individually unable to provide for themselves.
It's called civilization, Donald.
If commerce profits disproportionately from the use of the rail system, it should be taxed or charged in due proportion. The real need for trains is to haul goods, sharing that burden with trucks and highways. Passenger service has naturally declined as travellers use faster means of transit.
SDR |
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