"Spending Cuts?" REPUKES Need to Make 'Em!

As noted in multiple prior blogs, despite all the palaver over the national debt, and $16 trillion deficits, it has really been the GOP, aka the Repukes, that created it over the past 11 years. The charts shown illustrate the primary contributors to the massive debt, and where we'd really be minus the "wars" (actually prolonged occupations) and Bush tax cuts. And yet, the obscene narrative promoted by Neoliberal stooges and hacks in the Beltway is that it's been "entitlements" such as Social Security that have caused the massive deficit, and debt. Not by a frickin' longshot!

Looking at the left side chart we see that (current)  debt without the tax cuts and the wars would have been about 40% of GDP.  Without the tax cuts, wars plus the 2009 stimulus the debt would've been around 37% of GDP. I have always argued that the stimulus was needed, to help us escape another Great Depression, so I don't deem that factor as useless like the other ones. (Military types might argue that the "wars"-occupations were not useless additions to the debt but my point is they ought to have been paid for by higher taxes as all other wars have. Real wars, that is!)

On Friday, I wanted to punch Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) right in the face for saying on national TV (MSNBC, Rachel Maddow show with Ezra Klein standing in) that the debt was now "160% of GDP" thereby arguing for major entitlement cuts. The truth is disclosed by the chart at the right, which shows in fact the total of all contributors to be roughly 68% of GDP at 2012 - with two of the contributors (again tax cuts and "wars") unjustified. Factoring in the stimulus, which was justified, one arrives at debt at about 42% of GDP. Add in Medicare ongoing over -expenses, and it rises to about 50% of GDP. (Over -expenses means the money Medicare must shell out over and above what the beneficiaries themselves pay for treatments, etc. Much of this arises from the 2003 Medicare Modernization Act and introduction of Medicare Advantage plans which yearly runs higher imbalances than standard Medicare.)

See also:http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/dave-johnson/47383/deficits-were-on-purpose-to-cause-this-crisis


All of the above discloses that the hair-on fire screeching of the Repukes to cut "entitlements" is so much PR codswallop fueled by the shameless Neoliberal media and politicos. It is not entitlements - other than the misbegotten "Medicare Modernization Act" of 2003 (which essentially sought to privatize Medicare and increase premium costs on standard beneficiaries) that have contributed to the massive debt load but rather unpaid for wars and military expenditures- many of which have actually siphoned off Social Security monies to try to make deficits appear smaller.

Let's also recall here that the end-of-decade $5.6 trillion surplus forecast by the Congressional Budget Office in 2000 was more than eviscerated by the two unfunded "wars",  plus two indefensible rounds of Bush tax cuts, and the unpaid for Medicare prescription drug benefit along with the TARP bank bailout. By all standards of reason, NO tax cuts ought to have been implemented once two invasions and occupations had been planned, as we now know ad been the case even before Bush Jr. entered the WH.

Lastly, please recall that in order to accommodate those "spend and not tax" (e.g. massive credit increase) policies, Bush and his GOP allies in Congress voted seven times to raise the U.S. debt ceiling. As it turns out, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) voted for all of it. And yet now, the Repukes - dastardly vermin that they are - plan to use the debt ceiling to take the country hostage as they did last year. Refusing to raise it unless Obama and the Dems give in to them! (Which is why I say this time Obama must cease showing them any "respect", or treating them as rational equals, thus invoking the 14 th amendment to raise it on his own. Thereby for once acknowledging his Reepo opposition in the House as economic terrorists!)

Given this, it makes sense that a last ditch effort by these shameless Reep-turds to interject Social Security cuts into a late, limited "fiscal cliff" deal  (via the chained CPI)was shot down by the Dems.

At least it shows they have some cojones. As I've said before, if a terrible deal is on the table, it's better to dive over that cliff one time and let all the tax rates rise - since there's no way the Repukes would ever have willingly voted for them with Norquist holding a phoney no-tax pledge gun to their heads.

Brace yourselves people, and be ready for whatever comes next!