| Of course this is really part of the Republican planning. They get the tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires then scream "Deficit! Greece! Ireland!", and try to take a hatchet to spending programs.
It is not like the Republicans were not asked at least a million times what how they would pay for their tax breaks for the Paris Hilton's and Glenn Beck's of the world. Hell, Chris Mathews must have asked Republicans a half million times himself this past election season.
What we were told, with that deer in a headlights look, was that tax cuts don't have to be paid for. It should have been enough to make the voters piss on any candidate that said such from a great height, but sadly the American people, as a group, are about as good in the math of the Federal Government as the Republicans they keep sending to Washington.
There is no one left in the Republican Party that should have any credibility on this issue. You can not be at the same time a deficit hawk and a massive tax cutter. We are going to hear Sen. Mitch McConnell (Turtleman, KY) bleating through his beak that we must slash federal spending that we can't continue to spend at this unsustainable rate. The thing is he will never take the obvious step of raising taxes on the wealthy.
The last time the United States had such high debt was in the aftermath of World War II. At that time and into the middle 1950's we had 27 tax brackets and the top one was 90%. We were serious about paying off our debt and went about it in a serious way. What we see today is the jug-headed policies of the Republican Bodine's.
They are talking up the value of austerity and how if we cut spending it will grow the economy. Well, there is another glaring math error there too. You see if the only place in the economy where there is strong demand being generated is the public sector, then cutting the spending in the public sector is going to shrink your economy not grow it. Republicans might not believe it but we have a clear example in Britain.
Since the new government has taken over and slashed spending in the name of austerity, the British economy has shrunk by .5 %. That is just the start, not the end of the trend. They have basically precipitated a recession on themselves. Worse it can become a cycle of deflation which is very hard to get out of once you start.
It is not like Democrats and others have not said again and again and again that the policies of the Republicans are disastrous. After all this is the party that took a budget surplus, turned it into "deficits as far as the eye can see" and ran up $5,000,000,000,000 in unpaid for debt in just 8 years. They are the ones that still have the magical thinking that tax breaks pay for themselves ( they never have and never will, they actually can't).
Now we have people like the mendacious and duplicitous Sen. Orin Hatch (Bodine, UT) who said in the New York Times:
Mr. Hatch added, "It's time to cut spending, not freeze it at these bloated and unsustainable levels."
This from the same Senator who said of the Bush spending spree "it was standard practice not to pay for things".
We do have to deal with these know-nothing Senators and Reps, there is no way to get anything passed without them to one degree or another. But we should not treat them like serious sober people. They should be treated the way Jethro was treated, with an understanding that there is not a lot going on upstairs with them and any idea they come up with will be half thought through and dangerous to anyone that pursues it.
Jethro on the Beverly Hillbillies was a loveable goof ball. He did not have a mean bone in his whole body. Republicans have all the mental acuity of Jethro without any of the redeeming qualities. Just as you would not listen to your bankrupt cousin Joe Bob about what commodities investments to make, we should not be giving any credence to people who are shocked that the deficit goes up when you extend tax cuts.
The floor is yours |
