Tuesday, February 22, 2011
HEY, DEFICIT HAWKS! LOOK HERE!
There is a true story of the confession of a famed bank robber. When asked about why he robbed banks, the thief replied, “Because that is where the money is.”
But this is a lesson not yet mastered by some of our republican would-be contra Robin Hood’s who crave budget cutting notoriety and hero status among their wealthy donors and culturally backward voter support groups. Mostly they just want to gain status by robbing the poor and giving to the rich. But they do show a certain barbarism by going after anything cultural, artistic, or intellectual.
The republicans are really going after those spending cuts. But mainly they are working within that 16% of a very big budget that is called “discretionary” spending. So, they have gone after school lunches, nutrition aid to poor mothers and children, student aid, Head Start, and poverty programs. They have also voted to defund public and educational broadcasting, the arts, and the humanities.
Strangely, they have not yet found all the riches doled out to farmers across the country. They haven’t touched the oil and gas company subsidies, or the newer ones for ethanol farmers in the political state of Iowa. They haven’t found the sugar subsidies either. Since there are literally hundreds of such special interest give-away programs, one might conclude that republicans aren’t even looking to cut the considerable costs of all these.
And, neither the republican nor the democrat deficit hawks have found the wars in Afghanistan or wind-down in Iraq. In fact, they have hardly touched the military expenditures at all. Some leadership republicans had to be beaten down to allow the air force to discontinue an unneeded engine built in their area.
The war in Afghanistan is 112 months old, has killed 1400 of our young Americans, and wounded 8800 more. War related costs have amounted to as much as 25% of all the deficits since 2003. The war was carried “off-budget” during the Bush years, and put back on by Obama in a move toward fiscal honesty.
Hey! Hey, deficit hawks! Look here! Look here! There is big money to be cut! And, there are lives to be saved, and families preserved from grief.
The human and personal financial burdens of the wars have been borne almost entirely by the middle and lower income classes in this country. All of those wealthy beneficiaries of war prosperity have not paid one extra dime in taxes to pay for the costs of a war being fought for them by other Americans. Instead, they have been given huge tax cuts by their republican minions.
There is a lot of hullaballoo about Social Security. One would think that Social Security has been bankrupting the nation. Instead, it would be historically accurate to say that Social Security has been bankrolling the nation.
Year after year since the 80’s Social Security has run a surplus. Before running its first deficit in 2010, it had accumulated a reserve account valued in trillions. That has all been loaned (invested) in treasury notes, the most revered investment for banks and businesses all over the world. It can go on as it is for several decades, and with benefit reductions of 25% around 2040 it will go to the 2100’s.
Of course, it would be wiser to make some minor tweaks now than on down the road, but why all the screaming? That is simple. Social Security was brought from “off-budget” to “on-budget” in government accounting a while back. This was done by politicians so that the SS surplus would cover up some of their annual budget deficits, and they would look better to the people. Now that SS has run a year of deficit, instead of surplus, it adds to the annual government deficit rather than ameliorating the deficit’s impact.
Now, of course, some “deficit hawks” would like to claim that entitlements such as SS have been ruining the fiscal state of the country, so they are out to try to gut a program which they have always opposed on ideological grounds. Well, it was enacted over republican opposition in the 1930’s, and Bush tried to privatize it.
The Medicare program is not so fiscally fortunate, and it has more immediate problems. The republicans’ enactment during the Bush years of a prescription drug benefit program made matters worse much sooner. A lot of that came from a gold mine for pharmaceuticals with windfall pricing. With no funding sources added, Medicare was then on a collision course with reality.
Remediation of the drug problem been rebuffed by republicans. They have opposed all legislation that has sought to control medical costs, a necessity for reducing Medicare, including the recent health insurance reform bill. One might think they want failure. Well, yes, they did vote against its original enactment.
Republican deficit hawks, then, yell the loudest about expenditures going mostly to poor, old, or working people. They are still opposed to entitlements just as they have always been. They are opposed to paying their share of taxes, and they want to keep all of their rich friends’ subsidies. And, they would like to starve all those government services and agencies they are against.
Watch out for a government shutdown – if they can blame it on somebody else.
Dr. Edwin E. Vineyard, AKA The Militant Moderate
But this is a lesson not yet mastered by some of our republican would-be contra Robin Hood’s who crave budget cutting notoriety and hero status among their wealthy donors and culturally backward voter support groups. Mostly they just want to gain status by robbing the poor and giving to the rich. But they do show a certain barbarism by going after anything cultural, artistic, or intellectual.
The republicans are really going after those spending cuts. But mainly they are working within that 16% of a very big budget that is called “discretionary” spending. So, they have gone after school lunches, nutrition aid to poor mothers and children, student aid, Head Start, and poverty programs. They have also voted to defund public and educational broadcasting, the arts, and the humanities.
Strangely, they have not yet found all the riches doled out to farmers across the country. They haven’t touched the oil and gas company subsidies, or the newer ones for ethanol farmers in the political state of Iowa. They haven’t found the sugar subsidies either. Since there are literally hundreds of such special interest give-away programs, one might conclude that republicans aren’t even looking to cut the considerable costs of all these.
And, neither the republican nor the democrat deficit hawks have found the wars in Afghanistan or wind-down in Iraq. In fact, they have hardly touched the military expenditures at all. Some leadership republicans had to be beaten down to allow the air force to discontinue an unneeded engine built in their area.
The war in Afghanistan is 112 months old, has killed 1400 of our young Americans, and wounded 8800 more. War related costs have amounted to as much as 25% of all the deficits since 2003. The war was carried “off-budget” during the Bush years, and put back on by Obama in a move toward fiscal honesty.
Hey! Hey, deficit hawks! Look here! Look here! There is big money to be cut! And, there are lives to be saved, and families preserved from grief.
The human and personal financial burdens of the wars have been borne almost entirely by the middle and lower income classes in this country. All of those wealthy beneficiaries of war prosperity have not paid one extra dime in taxes to pay for the costs of a war being fought for them by other Americans. Instead, they have been given huge tax cuts by their republican minions.
There is a lot of hullaballoo about Social Security. One would think that Social Security has been bankrupting the nation. Instead, it would be historically accurate to say that Social Security has been bankrolling the nation.
Year after year since the 80’s Social Security has run a surplus. Before running its first deficit in 2010, it had accumulated a reserve account valued in trillions. That has all been loaned (invested) in treasury notes, the most revered investment for banks and businesses all over the world. It can go on as it is for several decades, and with benefit reductions of 25% around 2040 it will go to the 2100’s.
Of course, it would be wiser to make some minor tweaks now than on down the road, but why all the screaming? That is simple. Social Security was brought from “off-budget” to “on-budget” in government accounting a while back. This was done by politicians so that the SS surplus would cover up some of their annual budget deficits, and they would look better to the people. Now that SS has run a year of deficit, instead of surplus, it adds to the annual government deficit rather than ameliorating the deficit’s impact.
Now, of course, some “deficit hawks” would like to claim that entitlements such as SS have been ruining the fiscal state of the country, so they are out to try to gut a program which they have always opposed on ideological grounds. Well, it was enacted over republican opposition in the 1930’s, and Bush tried to privatize it.
The Medicare program is not so fiscally fortunate, and it has more immediate problems. The republicans’ enactment during the Bush years of a prescription drug benefit program made matters worse much sooner. A lot of that came from a gold mine for pharmaceuticals with windfall pricing. With no funding sources added, Medicare was then on a collision course with reality.
Remediation of the drug problem been rebuffed by republicans. They have opposed all legislation that has sought to control medical costs, a necessity for reducing Medicare, including the recent health insurance reform bill. One might think they want failure. Well, yes, they did vote against its original enactment.
Republican deficit hawks, then, yell the loudest about expenditures going mostly to poor, old, or working people. They are still opposed to entitlements just as they have always been. They are opposed to paying their share of taxes, and they want to keep all of their rich friends’ subsidies. And, they would like to starve all those government services and agencies they are against.
Watch out for a government shutdown – if they can blame it on somebody else.
Dr. Edwin E. Vineyard, AKA The Militant Moderate
