Tag Archives: debt ceiling

Political Rants

Six of one, half-dozen of the other.

Consider this an open letter to the Congressional “Super Committee,” or gang of twelve – whatever you may wish to call them. (Keep it clean out there!) While you are considering how best to shaft poor, elderly, and working people (employed and unemployed) to bring greater benefits to our nation’s rich, I ask – nay, demand – that you consider these items:

How we got here. I’ve heard a lot of people in Congress, as well as various talking heads, putting their spin on the orgy of ignorance that led us to the creation of your Committee, as well as the series of missteps that led us to Standard and Poor’s decision to downgrade the nation’s debt rating. The factual answer to those questions is simple – the Republican party, a wholly owned subsidiary of corporate America, was driven by its most radical faction (the so-called “tea party”) to manipulate the once mundane process of raising the debt ceiling for political gain. S&P’s judgment that our government can no longer make rational decisions about its debt is based on their recognition that, from now on, raising the debt ceiling will involve a similar political standoff.

The decision to politicize the debt ceiling legislation – really just an authorization to accommodate borrowing already mandated by Congress through the budget process –  has done perhaps irreparable damage to the faith and credit of the U.S. But even more importantly, it has backed us into a political process that is practically guaranteed to deliver to the G.O.P. precisely what they want: the gutting of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

Who owes what. I’m not happy with president Obama, but the notion that he and the Democrats are responsible for exploding deficit spending is ludicrous. As the New York Times reported recently, based on figures from the CBO and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, $1.44 trillion of the national debt can be laid at Obama’s door; more than $5 trillion is attributable to his predecessor, including the FY 2009 deficit of $1.44 trillion, set before Obama took office.  The Bush tax cuts have contributed $1.8 trillion; unfunded wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have pitched in more than $1.4 trillion. How is this an issue of “entitlements” … unless that term can be used to describe tax cuts for wealthy people?

Seriously… (and apologies to Barney Frank) … are we going to ask 90-year-old ladies living on less than $20k to do without cost of living raises while allowing those who clear more than $250,000 a year to keep an extra $30 per thousand? I think not.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Barry’s hand.

The ongoing debate over raising the debt ceiling has dominated another week’s worth of news coverage. Now Moody’s has put the U.S. government “on notice” – something I thought only Stephen Colbert could do – that our debt rating may be downgraded if the current impasse continues. As I mentioned in my last rant, this is a manufactured crisis. It’s a standoff not over debt yet to be incurred, but debt already booked by Congress by virtue of budget items already agreed to. There is no reason for this threatened default other than to make political points… and yet it continues, even though the downside risks are substantial.

How substantial? Default – or even near-default – could cause a global financial disruption on a scale that would dwarf that of late 2008. At the very least, a downgrade of the investment rating of U.S. Treasury bonds would be not only unprecedented but extremely costly, making service on our existing debt far more costly, blowing an even bigger hole in the federal budget. If that alone were to happen it would be bad enough. But these facts just don’t seem to register on Capitol Hill.

It’s often been said that, in a Democracy, we get the government we truly deserve. Last fall, the American people – by voting or by abstaining to do so – sent to the House of Representatives a class of Republicans that amount to the American version of the Taliban. The core of this class are fanatical believers in their own delusions; they see reality as a nefarious socialist plot. Fueled by tea party faux-populism, the new G.O.P. goes beyond their party’s traditional obsession about cutting taxes. Anything – anything – that brings more revenue to the Federal government is to them an unacceptable burden on the American taxpayer. (i.e. rich people. They apparently don’t consider burdensome the enormous costs displaced to workers, pensioners, etc. as a result of the massive cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and other programs they demand.) That much is a given. The only wild card is in the president’s hand – what will he sacrifice to appease them?

This is what we voted for, whether we realize it or not. More likely not, since the Republicans did not advertise this part of their program. (It was going to be jobs, jobs, jobs, remember?) While it’s far from the only thing we need to do as citizens, it’s obvious that voting is essential… just as it’s clear that we need to hold our leaders – namely Obama – accountable when they give away the store.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Fighting ground.

Okay, let’s get one thing out of the way at the start: very few people enjoy paying taxes. To that I can only add my own personal observation that the people who seem to complain the loudest about taxes are the ones who can most afford to pay them. They have an excellent means of making their complaints heard, too – it’s called the Republican Party. In fact, in service to those who would pay not a single dime more than the historic low rates they’re paying today, the G.O.P. is creating a default crisis out of whole cloth by linking the authorization of additional borrowing to the conclusion of a draconian budget agreement that will gut the essential social programs they have always sought to defund, privatize, etc.

The two things, of course, have nothing to do with one another in the real world. Raising the debt ceiling is merely addressing financial commitments that have already been agreed upon. It is something the Republicans have gladly passed many times before under their own presidents, as well as under Democrats. They have seized upon it because it offers an opportunity to, in effect, put the entire nation up against a wall until we give up on the idea of not spending our elderly years in penury. (That’s sooooo 1960’s of us.) The Republicans see an opportunity here to realize what they could never accomplish during George W. Bush’s tenure – privatization of Medicare, pirating Social Security, and locking in massive tax cuts from now until perdition. And they sense, perhaps correctly, that the Democrats don’t have enough fight in them to stop it.

I will gladly crib Bernie Sanders, Keith Ellison, and Dean Baker on this – Social Security is not – repeat, not – part of any budgetary problem. It is fully self-funding for the next 25 years with no changes whatsoever. How many programs can make that claim? The G.O.P. and spineless Democrats merely want to pirate the fund to pay for extending Bush tax cuts for the richest people in the country. Regarding Medicare and Medicaid, they are single-payer systems dedicated to the elderly, poor, disabled, and stricken amongst us. The rest of us – those who are relatively young, fit, and almost never need a doctor – are reserved for the profit of private insurers. Single payers systems only pay for themselves when everyone – sick and well, old and young, rich and poor – participates in them. If we want to solve the funding problem, we need to decide whether we can continue to afford contriving a profitable market for companies like BlueCross.

In short, the deficit hawks in the Republican caucuses are blackmailing us into funding tax breaks for wealthy people – including the fuckers who caused the financial crisis – by crippling our already inadequate social safety net.  I say, call their bluff. This is ground worth fighting for.

luv u,

jp