Perspective: This "debt crisis" is all a small move in a much bigger game (rant)

[Sparkly]

I'm old enough to remember all the decades Republicans RAN UP the debt, while claiming to be "conservative" on finances.

Democrats always fought deficit spending and the national debt; Republicans always grew them.

Reagan's great re-election campaign motto: "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?" My reply was always, "If I maxed out my MasterCard, I might feel better off too, but there's a bill to pay." The man CREATED the monster we've been fighting ever since.

Mondale had the guts to tell the truth: Tax cuts + massive military spending = debt. "Trickle-down economics" are fiction.
Here's some of Mondale on the debt: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rF-b9p0oe0
("I see this as a test of leadership, and I think the American people know the difference." We all know how that turned out. They didn't.)

Bush I was Reagan III, although even he had called Reaganomics "Voodoo Economics."
Here's Dukakis, Bush I's opponent, on the debt: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFoZBgFt_DQ&NR=1

Clinton, still blamed for "the largest tax increase in history" as they love to say (on the richest 2%) slowed the rate of the debt's growth, turned it around, and created a surplus we could use to start paying down -- FINALLY -- the debt!! Not ONE single Republican voted for his 1993 budget. They said "don't blame me" for what would happen as a result, and when things worked out well, they tried to take credit. (Clinton pointed this out many times.)

But do we all remember what happened in Bush the Lesser's campaign against Vice President Gore?? Bush II ran on a platform of "tax relief" -- the surplus meant we OVERPAID!! (Debt? What debt?) And everybody wanted their damn $300 check for their trip to WalMart -- meanwhile the fat cats would get enormous windfalls of cash.

People swallowed the same stupid lies again, hook line and sinker:
"Tax cuts always increase revenues!!"
"We have to make sure the rich are okay, because you never got a job from a poor person, did you??"
"And a new one: "We always have to have a debt. It isn't economically smart to pay it off."

Surely the history of BushCo's reign is recent enough that everyone can remember how they squandered the surplus and doubled the Reagan Monster of debt; how it was proven once AGAIN that Republicans aren't "conservative" with money at all; how it was proven once AGAIN that tax cuts do NOT "increase revenues;" how giving rich people more wealth does nothing to create jobs; how it's all about the buying power of the lower and middle classes; how the idea that wealth "trickles down" is utter nonsense; and so much more (including the popular idea that unfunded wars are super for the economy -- what budget?).

Does anyone else remember how hard Republicans fought balanced budgets when BushCo pushed massive tax cuts in 2001? Democrats offered amendment after amendment about "triggers" to roll back even .5% of the increase on 1% of the top tax bracket IN CASE of rising debt, war, national disaster, Social Security bankruptcy, Medicare cuts, etc. etc. etc... -- and one after another they were shot down. Nothing -- NOTHING -- mattered as much as those tax cuts for the wealthy.

Time after time they raised the debt limit. Time after time they kept up the massive spending along with massive tax cuts for the rich, insisting this was the way to go. Deficit spending was par for the course for Republicans.

So the popular saying, "I'm socially liberal but fiscally conservative" as a "moderate" stance, never made any sense to me. I've always considered myself "fiscally conservative" while saying I haven't seen a fiscally-conservative Republican in my lifetime. The fiscally-conservative Republican is a MYTH. They always labeled Democrats "tax-and-spend," and I always countered that they are "BORROW-and-spend." Which is worse?

I never imagined there'd be a time when I'd see "borrow and spend" as the way to go in this country, but I never thought we'd see the disaster of BushCo, and the ever-increasing misplaced rage and ignorance of nearly half the American people. NOW we need FDR-level solutions. NOW we really DO need to borrow and spend to invest in job creation. NOW we need to sink borrowed money into jobs to rebuild the country's infrastructure in the ways FDR did, to revive manufacturing, to get the lower and middle classes back on healthy financial footing.

And now THEY'RE all about debt?!????!!!

WHAT?!!

NOW, after spending the surplus like kids who couldn't wait to get their hands on the trust-fund money (to paraphrase President Clinton), they think it's a grand time to CUT the investments we desperately need to overcome the results of THEIR policies? NOW for the first time EVER their top priority is the debt THEY created, starting with Saint Ronald Reagan??!!!??

NOW not even borrow-and-spend is enough. NOW we need (gasp!) evil Government REGULATION, like never before. We need regulations to keep jobs here; regulations to limit the level of exploitation of our workers, like limiting what the guys at the top skim off of profits to merely 400 times what the lowest paid worker makes; and regulations to stop outright theft. We can't rebalance our place in the global "market" unless we rebalance those global corporate equations HERE, where the greed is.

Otherwise, as workers we're competing against slave wages elsewhere; as consumers, the prices we can afford are based on those slave wages (a la WalMart); and how can we even pretend to help people in other countries (except with lots and lots of expensive weapons).

NOW -- right now -- I honestly believe we're just at the edge of becoming the United Global-Corporations of America, a fascist state, owned by entities in other countries, all united by their financial interests.

They KNOW that a significant number of our citizens (and their offspring) are so willfully ignorant, and so easily manipulated by fear (anger), they will accept this thinning veil of democracy, with a permanent underclass, while keeping busy refighting the Civil War -- imagining they're fighting the "real" problem of "big government," and "lazy welfare cheats," and "liberals with social agendas," and whatever else they're afraid of...

(What more evidence was needed when they freaked out and gave up everything from fear of dying from a terrorist attack, way out of proportion with realistic risks -- smoking, not exercising, eating at McDonald's three times a week, etc.) (Not to mention the issue of healthcare.)

They're easily manipulated. How vehemently they recite the scripts written provided by powers they can't even conceive of; how quickly they'll say, "We have a surplus, so pay me back," and then, "We're in debt, so cut spending." Or, "Bill Clinton talking about Osama bin Laden is inventing a terrorist bogeyman to wag the dog and distract us about the REAL issue -- Monica Lewinsky" and then, "Bill Clinton was handed bin Laden on a silver platter and just didn't take the deal." Word for word. "Terrorist bogeyman" became "Silver platter."

Today's script is right where they want it -- "Cut spending, not Medicare!!" "Raising the debt ceiling?!? WhoEVER heard of that??!?"

There's one straight line to where they want to go. Any deviance from that line is called "compromise."

Compromise is just a little curve in the road leading straight to the cliff ahead. It's like Thelma and Louise, except it's "Dumb and Dumber," flying past all the warning signs with idiotic right-wing bumper stickers all over the car.

The last one applied: "Keep your Big Government Tax Increases off my Medicare and Social Security."

And there -- over the cliff -- go the United States of America.

[jannyk]

1. Kick & Rec!

[Sparkly]

3. Thanks...

Watch as everybody argues the little details, as if they mattered in the big scheme of things.

("Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!")

[Union Thug]

2. You've nailed it. Bravo!

[BeFree]

4. Nice history lesson

Full of the bad histrionics of the republicans.

I hope this goes viral. 5th rec here and it should be recc'd at least 500 before it is done.

Thank you, sparkly.

[Sparkly]

7. Thanks, BeFree.

We go a long way back, huh? :)

It's like the whole forum is playing on the lace of the edges, arguing over little distracting details, missing the bigger reality -- seen in recent history (and predicting the future).

[BeFree]

10. The forum is as you say

And you have laid out how the country got to where it is today. Hope a lot of the good folks here get a chance to read this history of recent American politics.

[Agony]

5. Another one for the toolbag.

kick/rec and all that nonsense

A special Cheers! for Sparkly

Best
Agony

[tularetom]

6. Great rant!

You should probably toss in cheney's famous quote: "Reagan proved that deficits don't matter".

That says everything you need to know about where these people are coming from.

[The Doctor.]

8. And they won't believe a word of it. They're that damned thick.

Doesn't matter that everything here is based on sound reason, or that you could connect the dots with even wingnut crayons.

Nope, they're going to forever believe only what they want to.

Then, after we go off the cliff we've been screaming they've headed us all for, guess who they'll blame?


Great rant, I wish nearly half the country wasn't so stupid.

[Horse with no Name]

9. Very nicely done. K&R. n/t

[muriel_volestrangler]

11. Well put.

It's another stage in "drown the government" - but, without the government, there isn't a USA. The federal government is what does the uniting.

[alsame]

12. k&r

[indurancevile]

13. capitalists get rich by arbitraging difference; they also control the masses using the same method.

therefore, state boundaries are important to them.

but the states should all be weak.

that is, if they own private militaries.

if not, at least one state needs to have overwhelming force that they can control.

[chervilant]

14. Durn, Sparkly!

Well put, and spot on!

Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine and Marilyn French's Beyond Power have helped me understand how capitalism promotes greed and entrenches its sycophants in a financially stultifying hierarchy, which concentrates power and wealth in the hands of a VERY few at the expense of the VERY many. I am never surprised when someone born and raised in capitalism fights tooth and nail to defend it, because that is how the system works: dangle the proverbial wealth carrot so that the hoi polloi is deluded into believing 'we too can be wealthy if we just work hard enough and live frugally.' And, the 'almost half' of us who are functionally illiterate and easily manipulated will have a pure-dee conniption if you remind them they're just as likely unlikely to win the lottery as they are to get rich.

The vast majority of 'both parties' are now aligned with the Corporate Megalomaniacs who've usurped our media, our politics, and our global economy. For these obscenely wealthy hedonists, hegemony is sacrosanct. They will use EVERY means available to safeguard their hegemony, including (but not limited to) destroying Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unions, and public education.

When even the 'left leaning' folk (the naysayers here on DU who are thus far absent from your OP) buy the corporate lies, it's highly unlikely we'll avoid our own extinction event.

It couldn't happen to a more deserving bunch...

[DesertFlower]

15. K&R. nt

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

16. The problem is that Democrats have a major problem: they tend to blame

the Democratic president and/or Congress when tough decisions are required.

Republicans mess shit up.
Democrats have to come in and clean the ship up.

In the process, the Democrats are forced to make very tough decisions, a la raising taxes.

Meanwhile, the Republicans unleash their messaging dogs and talking points, while Americans eat 'em up.

Americans become angry and frustrated and turn on the Democrats.

They elect--and often "re-elect"--the very same Republicans who created the shitty mess in the first place.

Americans are angry, again, blaming a Democratic president who is forced to compromise with a wingnut, bat-shit crazy House of Representatives.

They refuse to vote.

Republicans win, run up more deficits, wreck the economy...


....and the cycle continues, and continues, and continues...

[nbsmom]

17. Just a question; hoping someone on this thread knows

Is a rollback on the first $20K of payroll taxes part of this stinker? Having trouble categorizing what is considered a tax increase and what is considered 'spending'.

[savannah43]

22. Itt's not going to continue. Everything has a limit, and

this purposely ignorant country is about to reach its limit. Raise the debt ceiling and allow more borrowing when we cannot pay back what we owe now? How stupid is that? It's not a GOP vs. DEM problem. If we raised taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals and ended subsidies for profitable corporations, there wouldn't be a crisis. How intellectually lazy can humans be? Pay attention! Those who do not will be greatly surprised when they find themselves unemployed, homeless, and hungry. I am continually amazed at the number of people who refuse to even think about politics. THEY are the problem.

[BobbyBoring]

18. K+R!!

I'll take tax and spend any day over Spend and pray the rethug way~

[tcaudilllg]

19. Their agenda is a new aristocracy.

To turn back the clock to feudalism.

[blkmusclmachine]

20. This is what drowning America in a bathtub looks like:

Mission (soon to be) Accomplished.

[Lesleymo]

21. Another "rec" - well put!!

I hear the crazy talk constantly from ultra-conservative friends and family. One friend, who makes less than $20,000 a year, relies on his wife's equally miserable paycheck to get by, and is literally counting the years till he qualifies for Medicare, posted a link on facebook to Exxon Mobil's blog, where the most profitable company on earth wrote a post arguing that they need their tax subsidies. They pay plenty of taxes already. We should all leave them alone.

What the heck?? Why does my friend care about Exxon Mobil? Why is he convinced that our horrible economy has NOTHING to do with Bush The Lesser (my new favorite nickname!) and everything to do with Obama, who is a secret Muslim terrorist?

I swear to god, people are insane.

Hello, cliff. Here we come.

[nxylas]

23. CLIFF!!!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozjN_bmfI5c

[saras]

24. "Tax and spend" is EXACTLY what governments do. The ONLY thing they do.

Everything a government - ANY government larger than an authoritarian father - does is paid for by taxes. Everything a government does involves paying somebody to do something, whether soldiers, ditchdiggers, or bankers, hence spending money.

The only way a government can accomplish anything without taxing and spending is by conscripting slaves. Would you prefer that?

Why the fuck can't we kill this meme off completely, permanently, once and for all?

Guns shoot. Birds fly. Governments tax and spend. If you don't like it, then go live in Somalia. There's a nice example of a country without a government.