Scarborough: "BWWAAAAHAHA! We Can't Have Higher Taxes!"

Joe Scarborough this morning broke into a hissy fit and almost cried at the mere mention (by 'Morning Joe' guest Al Sharpton) that Obama wants a balanced approach to the deficit problem and that means more taxes. Sharpton made the accurate point that Obama had already ceded $650b as part of the fiscal cliff deal, and that had come down from $1.2 trillion.  Meanwhile, over $1.2 trillion in spending cuts had already been made last year. The time was now for MORE taxes, not less.

But why the crying, pissing and moaning from Repukes? THEY are the ones, after all (see graphs) that let deficit spending explode under Bush Jr's reign, for both tax cuts that mainly benefited the wealthy, and unpaid for wars.  While these cretins incessantly demanded TWO "wars" (actually occupations), they never insisted that anyone actually sacrifice to pay for them!

Meanwhile, I not long ago received in the mail (from my first cousin) two war ration books issued to my mom back in 1941 when she was just 19. The ration book allowed access to certain provisions, but with limits. Each book had born a number of war ration stamps which could be used to buy special goods, such as meat, bread, butter etc. The person had to sign and date each time such stamps were accessed for purchase, such that it had been legitimate, with this representation made formally (under penalty of perjury) to the Office of Price Administration. Evidently, mom had three ration stamps left at this point. (Old recovered letters from my grandmother to her son (fighting in Europe), dated 1943-44 noted some meat supplies, such as ham, beef and bacon, were running low by then.)

To me, the war ration book embodied sacrifice of the citizen in the war effort. That, along with increased taxes, disclosed it was a real war as opposed to a fraud and mockery perpetrated for the sake of lining the pockets of defense contractors and padding the payrolls of certain congressonal districts - as occurs now.

But all Americans are aware of anymore are the frauds and make-up "wars" for which no sacrifice is expected, not even higher taxes,  far less ration books with war ration stamps. And so we have a populace for which basically the events in Afghanistan (and earlier Iraq) only existed on a fantasy or unreal level if they existed at all. No surprise there!

But what Americans ought  to be processing is that those recent wars of choice exacted a cost, along with the atrocious tax cuts,  at a time taxes ought to have been raised!  The twin tables, again, show the whole sordid picture and what has really dug us into the existing deficit hole, which the "Simpson Bowlers" and Repukes now propose to extricate us from, via Catfood 2.0 perpetrated on our seniors. (See e.g. http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/thom-hartmann/48217/youve-heard-of-the-birthers-now-meet-the-simpson-bowlers )

Now, logically, since the Repukes dug us into this debt hole by refusal to approve adequate revenue, for both the "wars" and tax cuts (as well as their insane 2003 prescription drug bill - more a giveaway to  Big PhRma), then it is logical that increased revenue must be the way to dig us out of the debt mess.  As a New York Times op-ed put it today, the first major tax hits....errr....hikes.... must come from the hides of those who benefited most from the Bush tax cuts during the "war" years:

"Those taxpayers are the same ones who benefited most from Bush-era tax breaks and who continue to pay low taxes. Even with recent increases, the new top rate of 39.6 percent is historically low; investment income is still taxed at special low rates; and the heirs of multimillion-dollar estates face lower taxes than at almost any time in modern memory."


Incredibly,  despite these facts, the Repukes are resisting any cuts to defense, this despite the fact that they haven't - up to now - paid for any of their earlier defense spending shenanigans. They let TWO "wars" go unfunded, during supposed "war time" - a big hoot if there ever was one- plus they've not paid for the two sets of Bush tax cuts that already produced $3.2 trillion in deficits even before Obama got into office.

These miscreants demand this perfidy despite the fact it would impose "brutalizing cuts in non-defense discretionary areas like education, environment..already set to see their lowest share of the budget since 1950" according to the NY Times op-ed.   The education hits may well mean thousands of college students can't obtain affordable loans. The cuts to the EPA will mean our water here in Colorado, for example, will not be checked for contamination from the recent discovery of nuclear-polluted tailings, or from fracked effluent with xylene, benzene etc. backed up into our aquifers. Hello, more cancers!

The TIMES makes the additional sound point that:

"Raising taxes at the top is neither punitive nor gratuitous. It is a needed step, both to achieve near-term budget goals and to lay the foundation for a healthy budget in the future. As the economy strengthens and the population ages, more taxes will be needed from further down the income scale, both to meet foreseeable commitments, especially health care, as well as unforeseeable developments, from wars to technological challenges"


Will the Repukes pay attention? I doubt it, despite the fact that recent polls all disclose the public is on the side of Obama's solutions not the Tea-Party tainted Repuke House. For example, A USA Today/Pew Research poll released Thursday shows Obama with a strong lead over Republicans in Congress on gun policies (45-39 percent), the budget deficit (45-38 percent), immigration (50-33 percent) and even climate change (47-26 percent). When this news came out it prompted Scarborough to cry out two days ago: "We're gettin' our butts beat by Obama!"  Yeah, Joe! Deal with it!


Meanwhile, a Bloomberg poll from Wednesday had similar findings, with Obama’s approval ratings reaching a 3-year high at 55 percent, while just 35 percent have a favorable view of Republicans. From Bloomberg:


"Americans by 49 percent to 44 percent believe Obama’s proposals for government spending  on infrastructure, education and alternative energy are more likely to create jobs than Republican calls to cut spending and taxes to build business confidence and spur employment."

Now, this ought not come as a shock for anyone with more than air between the ears! I mean, as one wit aptly put it a year ago, referring to the European austerity measures: "Look, it's silly to think you can run a race faster if you cut off one of your feet!"

Adding to Republican troubles: 43 percent of Americans blame Republicans for what’s wrong in Washington, compared with 34 percent who blame Obama.

If any Americans read the recent TIME story concerning the F-35 waste ( Feb. 25, 'The Most Expensive Weapon Ever Built’ ,p. 26), they'd also be asking why have that white elephant when cutting it would mean so much more benefit for the nation, in all domestic spheres. The Repuke answer is "We need to be strong on defense!" but that's a red herring. What they really want is military jobs for their own districts- they care nothing about real national sacrifice, not like during a REAL war (WWII) which saw my mom using ration books and her family paying higher taxes! You can't have a real war and not have a broad spectrum of citizen-public sacrifice, particularly to PAY for said war. Otherwise, you have a shameless farce and one costing lives and wasting treasure unnecessarily!


Bottom line: the shtick of Repukes and their pro-Southern extremist party has been well known since the 1960s: Bleed the government coffers dry using bloated military spending and tax cuts, then demand the next Dem president cut all domestic spending on account of the deficits the war mongers-tax cutters generated.

But I believe too many people are much wiser now, especially as most of us have the first hand evidence - whether from ration books of WWII, or from deficit charts today - to isolate the frauds from the real McCoys. And the Repukes are frauds!

Robert Samuelson's Dishonest Economics

Robert Samuelson, WaPo Neoliberal PR hack, has a solution for the ongoing deficit impasse ('How to Get A Deficit Agreement', today) which begins with the proposition that the automatic spending cuts required by sequestration are unfair and unbalanced. He further insists "the whole sequestration process is something of a sham". He claims, with straight face:

"The sequester is not neutral. though defense spending represents 19 percent of the budget in 2012 it would absorb half the cuts. Moreover, many entitlements (Social Security, Medicare) were excluded from the cuts."

He goes on to bitch:

"The sequestration now scheduled for next January means about another $500 billion in military cuts over the decade. These are in addition to the $487 billion in defense reductions already in the BCA and billions of earlier cuts ordered by former Defense Secretary Robert Gates."

Now, here are the facts and aspects this reprobate PR flack hasn't mentioned, for good reason:

- The military has been the beneficiary of a bloated, obscene budget - unpaid for by any taxes - since 2001! Indeed, the Pentagon budget doubled between fiscal year 2000 and 2001 and is now so big that it dwarfs the defense budgets of all the other nations of the planet together! Unlike any time in our previous history, when the military reaped its production and weapons via paid for taxes, this post--Bush pre-emptive war lot has been on the deadbeat end for over 11 years!

- Over this same time, I repeat the past 11 years, the beneficiaries of Social Security and Medicare have continued to pay in their 6.2% in FICA taxes (the only respite being the recent payroll tax cut...which may not be a good idea in the end) and whose Medicare premiums -expenses have increased 133% over that time compared to only a 31% increase in paid benefits (COLAs suspended for over 3 years) hence amounting to a pure benefits cut!

- Given the military's unfunded liabilities, including $1.1 trillion reported "missing" since 1999 (which money they've been unable to account for) according to former defense analyst Chuck Spinney in an August, 2002, PBS NOW appearance, and their free ride via no tax support, the actual numbers show they've seized 58 cents of every federal dollar since 2001. Further, they've increased their share of GDP (unpaid for via taxes btw) to nearly 4.2% or in the words of Chuck Spinney: "Ensuring a war on Medicare".

- The "cuts" being bruited about for the military, that Samuelson has his panties in a twist over, are actually not direct military-defense cuts but ancillary cuts such as to VA funding including pensions, benefits, TSA support, and other security.....but not paring back on massive Pentagon boondoggles like the F-35 (estimated at $0.3 billion each) which provide jobs in mainly repup districts.

- The same "cuts", as numerous real world economists (e.g. Paul Krugman) have noted, do NOTHING to contain the GROWTH of Defense-Pentagon spending they only SLOW it! Given a whopping $750b a year budget (plus 'supplementals' for Afghanistan etc.) then the $98.7 b a year in proposed cuts Samuelson's yelping about appears for what it really is: a gnat in a snowstorm.

What this overpaid asshole really wants is simply to gut Social Security and Medicare, despite the fact that, according to the Economic Policy Inst., the average income for seniors on SOCIAL SECURITY is $12,000! Thus his yelping about "unfair defense cuts" is merely the ruse and smokescreen to try to justify it and protect the interests of the Military-Industrial complex! His "solution" then to the sequestration he maintains is exactly what we'd expect of a pro-defense establishment PR mutt (ibid.):

"Instead split the $1.2 trillion in automatic savings (to defense) between across the board tax increases and automatic across the board cuts in entitlements, including Social Security and Medicare"

In other words, this dork wants NO further cuts to his precious military, and only across the board cuts to the programs on which so many seniors depend (he has to know that any increase in taxes will NEVER be accepted by the Goopers). What is truly amazing is not so much that he could propose such an outrageous solution, but that the fucker still has a job, period! But then we know that in the modern world of pretend corporate journalism, there's always a place for public relations hacks and their hangers-on.

When Military Spending Cuts Aren't Really Cuts...

Now that the super committee (aka "Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction") has failed - which most of us expected, we are supposed to see about $1.2 trillion in spending cuts automatically triggered by 2013, $600b for military-defense spending and $600b for domestic spending. Even as the triggers were announced one heard the military -defense groupies squealing like stuck pigs. Little Pentagon puppet Leon Panetta (why I ever believed he had principles I'll never know!) has insisted it would "hollow out our military".

Meanwhile, another lackey, House Armed Services Chairman Howard "Buck" McKeon, has caterwauled and denounced any future possible reductions in defense spending. This he's done even as the Repuke candidates - especially Mitt Romney - label Obama some kind of evil doer for pulling out of Iraq (actually he didn't, and if this imbecile had any sense he'd have see it was part of an agreement between the BushCo gov't in 2008 and the Iraqis to withdraw when they demanded it). At the same time, asshole Mitch promises to "double" defense spending if he ever gets in the Oval Office.

Well, let's hope to hell he doesn't! (And btw, this is another warning to the 'Occupy Wall Street' movement that the biggest effect they can have between now and next year is to get out and VOTE in Nov. '12 and prevent a Repuke takeover of the whole government. No, the Dems aren't angels by any stretch, but think of how much worse you will all have it if a firmly 100% pro-corporate personhood, Wall St. party gets in and controls all the executive and legislative branches! The way I usually portray this political choice is simple: You are more likely to live if you get dysentery rather than cholera!)

Anyway, let's get back to the hype about tearing down our military to the bare bones, and leaving the planet at the mercy of modern day Huns. To hear these military defenders blabber, that's what you'd believe. The truth is somewhat different! Not counting the payment of interest on the debt, it means cuts of roughly $55b a year.

But are these really cuts? Consider first, that total or aggregate Pentagon spending has doubled since 2000, to $790 b a year. This number includes both yearly "supplementals" to fund the Afghan conflict and occupation, along with $553b for the base Pentagon budget. Over the past decade this translates into a pure growth factor of nearly $2 trillion. Thus, Repub Tom Coburn (OK) is correct that Pentagon spending today "is higher in constant dollars than at any time in the last 60 years, including the Korean War, Vietnam and all the Defense Dept. spending during the Reagan years ($2.2 trillion)".

It is also more than the next 25 nations' military spending combined. The gist of all this? In fact there are no real cuts to military spending in any absolute terms, but only an estimated "trim down" of roughly 23% in the projected INCREASES in Pentagon spending over the next ten years!

The point here? Contrary to the bloviators' bollocks of "jeopardizing national security", just the opposite is true: the Pentagon base budget will still be larger than it is today by 2021! This necessarily means, given the zero sum resources we have, everyone else will be much poorer. That means an even more shattered and useless infrastructure with crumbling roads, cracking sewer and water mains and collapsing bridges....and a much more likely intolerable domestic environment over all. That's because the primary focus of the immediate domestic spending triggers will be on reducing air traffic controllers, and also regulatory departments in charge of overseeing the quality of our food and water.

In other words, we are on the cusp - unless something is done- of approving an undermining of our domestic security in terms of health and national welfare, at the expense of padding the pockets of the defense contractors, their lobbyists and all the whore congress critters that support them!

Meanwhile also, as the yen to further bloat the military curries more favor from political Jacobins, traitors and numbskulls, the target of austerity hawks will continue to be "entitlements". They won't be satisfied until we're all homeless, sick, dead or maybe ....walking dead.

A country in decline or not?

You figure it out!