The Republicans are in Heaven over the Recession THEY CAUSED by free market deregulation. The trillion in TARP (which was Republican in origin and voted for by Republicans) along with the trillion Stimulus – ALL ECONOMISTS who do not get paid by Republicans – say both were absolutely needed to avoid a world DEPRESSION worse than the one 80 years ago, which Republicans also caused by free market deregulation.
The debate seen in the media is which "ENTITLEMENTS" will be cut most. Food for children, schools, education, health care for seniors pregnant mothers and children, laying off thousands of state and federal employees, nixing bridges, tunnels, roads and trains and buses. Nothing about raising taxes from any ELECTED official we see on TV.
Gobbling up all the END OF THE WORLD DEBT CRISIS crap everywhere we look, we find there is only one real issue at play. They will cut a bit of the military and cut to the core any help directed at those Americans without large UNearned income portfolios. Social Security will be fixed easily by raising the age a couple years and increasing the cap. All the horror stories on that are driven by Ayn Rand back from the dead and reincarnated as the Cato Institute.
So what’s left? It is plainly stated over and over again. MEDICARE AND MEDICAID, 50% of the budget.
The answer is more than obvious and not addressed. Like every other nation on Earth we should DO THE RIGHT THING and all pay into a payroll tax for universal single payer health care, whether it be private non profit or government run, or a mix, or a hybrid which we see used successfully by other nations throughout the world. Half the cost twice the coverage.
The road to that end of really solving our debt problem is the imperfect Health Care Reform bill passed last year. It is the foot in the door that will bring us out of debt and deficit. Which Republicans want to totally destroy.
The Republicans are not serious about debt, it’s a gimmick to do away with any and all government help for the American people in lieu of free market and free enterprise purity. Which they have corrupted and bastardized Christianity as the central advocate to Ayn Rand’s Virtue of Selfishness. I find that the most disgusting aspect of American Politics. Using religion to benefit the wealthy and hurt the poor. Truly disgusting.
Here the economics is explained by someone who not only understands it better than most, but also is not paid by Republicans, or elected by bozos, or sponsored by Twinkies.
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Willie Sutton Wept
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: February 17, 2011
There are three things you need to know about the current budget debate. First, it’s essentially fraudulent. Second, most people posing as deficit hawks are faking it. Third, while President Obama hasn’t fully avoided the fraudulence, he’s less bad than his opponents — and he deserves much more credit for fiscal responsibility than he’s getting.
About the fraudulence: Last month, Howard Gleckman of the Tax Policy Center described the president as the “anti-Willie Sutton,” after the holdup artist who reputedly said he robbed banks because that’s where the money is. Indeed, Mr. Obama has lately been going where the money isn’t, making a big deal out of a freeze on nonsecurity discretionary spending, which accounts for only 12 percent of the budget.
But that’s what everyone does. House Republicans talk big about spending cuts — but focus solely on that same small budget sliver.
And by proposing sharp spending cuts right away, Republicans aren’t just going where the money isn’t, they’re also going when the money isn’t. Slashing spending while the economy is still deeply depressed is a recipe for slower economic growth, which means lower tax receipts — so any deficit reduction from G.O.P. cuts would be at least partly offset by lower revenue.
The whole budget debate, then, is a sham. House Republicans, in particular, are literally stealing food from the mouths of babes — nutritional aid to pregnant women and very young children is one of the items on their cutting block — so they can pose, falsely, as deficit hawks.
What would a serious approach to our fiscal problems involve? I can summarize it in seven words: health care, health care, health care, revenue.
Notice that I said “health care,” not “entitlements.” People in Washington often talk as if there were a program called Socialsecuritymedicareandmedicaid, then focus on things like raising the retirement age. But that’s more anti-Willie Suttonism. Long-run projections suggest that spending on the major entitlement programs will rise sharply over the decades ahead, but the great bulk of that rise will come from the health insurance programs, not Social Security.
So anyone who is really serious about the budget should be focusing mainly on health care. And by focusing, I don’t mean writing down a number and expecting someone else to make that number happen — a dodge known in the trade as a “magic asterisk.” I mean getting behind specific actions to rein in costs.
By that standard, the Simpson-Bowles deficit commission, whose work is now being treated as if it were the gold standard of fiscal seriousness, was in fact deeply unserious. Its report “was one big magic asterisk,” Bob Greenstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities told The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein. So is the much-hyped proposal by Paul Ryan, the G.O.P.’s supposed deep thinker du jour, to replace Medicare with vouchers whose value would systematically lag behind health care costs. What’s supposed to happen when seniors find that they can’t afford insurance?
What would real action on health look like? Well, it might include things like giving an independent commission the power to ensure that Medicare only pays for procedures with real medical value; rewarding health care providers for delivering quality care rather than simply paying a fixed sum for every procedure; limiting the tax deductibility of private insurance plans; and so on.
And what do these things have in common? They’re all in last year’s health reform bill.
That’s why I say that Mr. Obama gets too little credit. He has done more to rein in long-run deficits than any previous president. And if his opponents were serious about those deficits, they’d be backing his actions and calling for more; instead, they’ve been screaming about death panels.
Now, even if we manage to rein in health costs, we’ll still have a long-run deficit problem — a fundamental gap between the government’s spending and the amount it collects in taxes. So what should be done?
This brings me to the seventh word of my summary of the real fiscal issues: if you’re serious about the deficit, you should be willing to consider closing at least part of this gap with higher taxes. True, higher taxes aren’t popular, but neither are cuts in government programs. So we should add to the roster of fundamentally unserious people anyone who talks about the deficit — as most of our prominent deficit scolds do — as if it were purely a spending issue.
The bottom line, then, is that while the budget is all over the news, we’re not having a real debate; it’s all sound, fury, and posturing, telling us a lot about the cynicism of politicians but signifying nothing in terms of actual deficit reduction. And we shouldn’t indulge those politicians by pretending otherwise.