WP: Almost Unnoticed, Bipartisan Budget Anxiety (U.S. will be Argentina)

[DeepModem Mom]

Almost Unnoticed, Bipartisan Budget Anxiety
By Dana Milbank
Wednesday, May 18, 2005; Page A04


The timing could not have been more apt. On the eve of a titanic partisan clash in the Senate, eggheads of the left and right got together yesterday to warn both parties that they are ignoring the country's most pressing problem: that the United States is turning into Argentina.

While Washington plunged into a procedural fight over a pair of judicial nominees, Stuart Butler, head of domestic policy at the conservative Heritage Foundation, and Isabel Sawhill, director of the left-leaning Brookings Institution's economic studies program, sat down with Comptroller General David M. Walker to bemoan what they jointly called the budget "nightmare."...

***

With startling unanimity, they agreed that without some combination of big tax increases and major cuts in Medicare, Social Security and most other spending, the country will fall victim to the huge debt and soaring interest rates that collapsed Argentina's economy and caused riots in its streets a few years ago.

"The only thing the United States is able to do a little after 2040 is pay interest on massive and growing federal debt," Walker said. "The model blows up in the mid-2040s. What does that mean? Argentina."...

***

"To do nothing," Butler added, "would lead to deficits of the scale we've never seen in this country or any major in industrialized country. We've seen them in Argentina. That's a chilling thought, but it would mean that."...


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/17/AR2005051701238.html

[4dsc]

1. Peak oil will take care this problem

well before 2040.. I don't hold my breath that the year 2040 is what we will have to worry about as oil production declines in the upcoming years.. Estimates now state that by 2020, we will have the energy equivalent we did in 1930's..

we live in interesting times..

[kzootalker]

36. I truly believe you are right!

There are many things that I pay attention to in the world, Peak Oil holds my attention!

[ixion]

2. so as the country goes crashing over a cliff

our 'leaders' sit there and bicker over extremist judges. :banghead:

Great. Way to go US 'leadership'. You'll go down in the annals of history as being vain and incompetent. :grr:

[Nite Owl]

3. This is just what the repukes

have always wanted. Spend, spend, spend. Create the huge deficits so that the social programs would have to be cut. If we became a peaceful nation and cut the military budget drastically, collected the taxes due from the very wealthy and corporations we could make it past 300yrs.

[mwb970]

4. At this rate we won't make it through *three* more years. (n/t)

[Festivito]

19. Oh the CONs want so much WORSE for US.

Grave debt leading to a large underclass. An angry destitute underclass ripe for military and unpatrolled like a large farm for sexual studs: male and female. All while a new American aristocracy fiddles from a safe and lavish distance passing their unobtainable wealth from spoiled generation to worsely spoiled generation.

[stevietheman]

42. Do you really think...

those weak gates and fences will protect them from the mobs? We know where the aristocrats live, and they had better not fuck over the American people.

[Festivito]

45. The gates are not weak.

It is different here than in South America. The architecture for one, there are romanesque walled home fortresses. But, walls are only one defence.

There the wealthy live in penthouses, walled homes, gated communities. Here the wealthy live in multiple homes, vacation homes, gated communities and condos -- not to mention hotels. If need be, under such insurection, moving from one home to another is easy and the second home, you don't know.

But, the defence is more than walls. There they buy the police and the military. A mob congregates in front of presidential house, not the wealthy condo or building entrance.

Here we'll have cameras, traceable passports, traceable clothing and credit cards. The police can be bought. The prisons filled. The disparity sufficient to see who belongs and who does not before the crowd can develope outside the gates.

Oh yes, we can end up like Argentina, even worse, much worse.

[stevietheman]

49. Well...

1) They can't put *everyone* in prison
2) If we have to have an insurrection, we can inflict a lot of damage on their property before we're stopped.

Just a thought. I hope this country doesn't come to this, but if the super-rich and uber-greedy corporatists keep socking it to the rest of us, we may not have a choice.

[stevietheman]

41. Axiom:

Democrats believe in big government. Republicans believe in acting like they don't believe in big government.

Remember that, and you'll keep your sanity. :)

[Mountainman]

5. Remember what Clinton left them to work with? Balanced budget,

Social Security Surplus.

I wish the MSM would tell it like it is. This administration has screwed up everything it has touched.

The ones who are doing well are the oil companies, those who got the tax cuts and the daddy warbucks.

Being 59, I'll probably be dead by 2040.

[rodeodance]

6. nominated. We need to track this for '06

[DeepModem Mom]

7. Thanks for the reminder, Mountainman...

of how things were when Clinton left office. And you're right -- our "free press" is useless, as the country and its citizens plunge headlong toward disaster on all fronts. The Bush cabal gets bolder with its misdeeds every day, with virtual impunity.

[AirAmFan]

18. There's still one part of the MSM not spewing WH talking points nonstop:

most of the financial media. So far, only Fox News (Neil Cavuto, etc) seems to be broadcasting mainly heavy-handed Republican propaganda as "financial news".

Recent reports about a dramatic drop last month in foreign purchases of US bonds may hint at how the WH finally will get its comeuppance from the media. All the blather from the WH about 'meaningless IOUs' in the Social Security Trust Fund may be making foreign investors nervous. When foreign investors stop financing Dubya's massive deficits at low interest rates, the four-year porty of prodigal spending, irresponsible borrowing, and slashing taxes for the idle rich will finally start to wind down. The financial press will be first to monitor departures of the "guests". But by that point, it will be too late to save the economy from the kind of destruction it faced under Gerald Ford: stubborn stagflation, sky-high interest rates, a worthless dollar, and unaffordable imported oil.

[stevietheman]

43. This sounds like a good way to get Bush out...

that is, actively campaign for people and foreign countries to *stop* buying our bonds. Force the spring!

[DeepModem Mom]

46. Thanks for that info, AAF!

I'm not as informed as I could be about the financial media --

[pokercat999]

8. Come-on you'll only be 94

eat right, exercise, have sex six times a day you'll make it.

[Atman]

9. Clearly there is only one solution...

More tax cuts, and $2,000,000,000,000 in new Social Security debt!

[Rose Siding]

15. Yes of course!

Salted with some heavy spending on crowd control tactics.

[triguy46]

10. 2040?

How about 2010? The repugs will hear the entitlement cuts, but not the taxation piece. Bush and the neocons will go down in history as the cause of the economic collapse of our country. Deficit? What deficit?

We will always have money for war. Rummy is touting the base closure recommendations that will save 50 billion over ten years. That is what we spend in Iraq in 3 months. Assholes.

[rfranklin]

11. Simple solution--cut military spending in half. The U.S. will still have

the biggest military and all the money problems will be solved.

[ClintonTyree]

13. Why do you hate America?

:sarcasm:

You are correct. The Pentagon is a bloated, overfed bureaucracy that could easily be trimmed down to half it's size, but then there is the question of all of the unemployed people that would create. in BushAmerika, there ARE NO jobs to speak of and those that are created are overwhelmingly minimum wage jobs with no benefits. The Pentagon has become a monster that is devouring it's benefactors.

Of course tax increases for the rich and corporations that incorporate offshore would solve this "little" problem in a minute, but you'll never see the party of greed and corporate welfare even consider that option. All of those annoying, wasteful social programs will have to be cut to the bone to feed our military monster.

Once again, problems that we at DU have been pointing out for years have finally been noticed and are now deemed to be at emergency status. If the MSM were to get it's news from DU instead of the White House propaganda machine, people would be informed immediately of these problems.

Don't expect the White House to take any action on this looming disaster. There are far more important things such as gay marriages and rabid radical court appointees to be handled. This is what the America people voted for last November, remember? :eyes:

[jwirr]

31. Not to mention the weakening of

all world governments so the corporations can truly rule the world. bushie and his ilk do not have allegiance to their country - their allegiance is to the multinational corporation. Down with the USA is their motto. One world government.

[cyberpj]

12. Let's keep this kicked and recommended ! eom.

[Massachusetts]

14. How many more years?

[nolabels]

16. That 100-0 vote for funding for that supplementary Iraq war spending

The senate could of debated it and kicked it back down to the house. They did not, they were too afraid of being caught on the outside.

They are all a bunch of cowards

Then later on in the week the CON's in the press puts out they are defying they chimp on some pork barrel road improvement bill

[ClintonTyree]

37. They wouldn't want to look.....

"unpatriotic" with re-election coming up next year. They think that if they don't rubber stamp everything bush wants, their republican opponents will label them as unpatriotic or obstructionist. Which they will, anyway.

They're all worried about their precious jobs while the country goes down the shitter.

[nolabels]

38. Yep, that sums it up

Their precious little stinking job, effing cowards

[shanti]

17. riots in the streets....

but of course. that's why the detention camps have been set up already. the plan has long been laid out.

[nolabels]

20. A lot them folks in the back woods can see it coming too

They will be waiting for it, the police state is here already.

Soon life imprisonment for spitting on the sidewalk

Really though, you can kind of feel the feds trying to wrest control of even the local cops with all the decrees they have been laying out

[kineneb]

48. lack of police/sherrif in rural areas now

Out where I live there is a lot of land, few people and fewer cops. And with all the budget cuts and hiring freezes, their ranks are thin. I don't think most of us will have to worry about "law enforcement" because there are not enough of them now. If the brown stuff hits the rapidly rotating object, I doubt any amount of police will be able to control the population, bought off or not. And remember, the National Guard is mostly overseas now.

[DS1]

21. Deficits are good for growth

/Bush
/Reagan
/Any other Rightwing scumf*ck you can think of

[pinerow]

22. We could never be Argentina...they have the tango...

what do we have...hip-hop???

[Chipper Chat]

33. Yeah, but what an opening for.............

Hillary Evita Peron Clinton!

[DinahMoeHum]

23. Like Argentina had decades ago, Bushco is giving us "Dirty War"

Wonder how long it will be until we get reports of troops throwing "terror suspects" here and abroad out of planes and helicopters?


:scared:

[meganmonkey]

24. Man oh man. Get ready now

I'm glad I spent a couple years learning how to grow food (assuming global warming doesn't bring on a new ice age, of course)

mistermonkey and I are shopping for some land with a clean, spring-fed water source. He is really good at building things, and he is studying how to live 'off the grid' as far as heat and water.

Partly we're doing this because of our general ideals, but part of me knows that it may be a necessity for survival in 10, 20, 30 years...

:scared:

[DireStrike]

26. It's not just what you can produce, but what you can defend.

Just pointing out something else you might need to consider. :(

[meganmonkey]

27. Don't remind me...

:(

I'm a lover, not a fighter! Can't we just share ? (please? )

[lastliberalintexas]

25. The republican dream come to fruition

A ruling class of the (economic) aristocracy, huge cuts in social and entitlement spending, and the serfs toiling long hours only to fall further and further behind. Welcome back to the years of the Gilded Age, and the presidency of Calvin Coolidge.

They never did like the New Deal, the Great Society or any other program which helped the poor and middle class. It's just taken them some time to figure out how to destroy them without being seen as doing so- deficits and debt will give them the excuse they've always wanted.

[iam]

28. That's the whole idea.

The only way to rebuild is to first destroy.

[jwirr]

32. How many of us do you think they will have to

destroy to be satisfied?:sarcasm:

[ckramer]

29. The solutions of course are following:

buy and drive a SUV, Buy a bigger house on 0% down, and cut more taxes! Spend spend and spend more, on Iraq.

Don't forget: invade Syria and Iran.

Oh, yeah, Blame Newsweek

Problem solved.

[Frederik]

35. "Go shopping"

[renaissanceguy]

30. Why should Bushie care?

He'll be dead by then.


http://www.cafepress.com/liberalissues.21326152

[reprobate]

34. The one thing this will guarantee.....Civil War II

[Orion The Hunter]

39. RE: A call for attention to real problems

I find it frightening that you can get two usually opposed think tanks to come together and basically agree that the U.S. government has more serious problems on he front burner. I just hope the staffers can lay off the political finger pointing and take this news back to their bosses in order to get some real focus on these important matters.

[DeepModem Mom]

47. It's frightening, indeed, OTH -- thanks for posting, and welcome to DU.

[killbotfactory]

40. "Starve the Beast" in action

An insane idea, from an insane man, that our insane president and GOP goons are following.

[Geek_Girl]

44. I hope to be out of the country by then.

Once my family obligations are done. I hope to leave the country and retire. I don't think they'll be much of a country left.