CUTTING OUR WAY TO PROSPERITY?

From one of my daily reads that make me smarter, so of course you'll never hear from her on the TV, for sure. 



Raising revenue without raising taxes

"Now it's possible that cutting these "tax expenditures" really will bring in some money. But let's just say that the idea that this means they can lower tax rates while insisting on harsh cuts in "entitlements" makes no sense at all. Either we are raising revenue or we are not raising revenue. But I'm fairly sure that old Saxby reaching back to Reagan and Bush (Jr or Sr, it doesn't matter) gives away the game. They left huge deficits behind which subsequent Democratic presidents had tied around their necks like a flaming tire. Indeed, for the past 30 years the defining feature of our economics has been Republicans insisting on huge tax cuts which they insist will pay for themselves, running up massive deficits and then demagogueing the hell out of them when a Democrat takes over. And so, here we are.

I do not believe that any "deficit reduction plan" agreed upon under these circumstances will ever do anything but fill the coffers of the wealthy by stealing from the poor. That's how this con is played. In this case it's especially cunning --- the people will blame the Democrats for their lousy financial prospects and attribute it to an unwillingness to cut even more. That's the Republican version of winning the future."

This is standard protocol since the Great Depression, Republicans totally screw up the economy with their latest version of enrich the rich and snarl at the rest, while the Democrats (before they sold their soul to Wall Street after Buckley V Valeo demanded it), merely raised the living standards of hundreds of millions - including the rich - while being demonized by those responsible for two Great Depressions and most of the recessions and who, by the way, ran up 90% of our debt. Sigh.

But let's head the economic illiterates off at the pass and propose our own Democratic Party cuts to spending and the programs that defined The Democratic Party as the party of average every day patriotic, by God I'm good as you no matter my station Americans.  
 
And this from one of my favorite economists that you hardly ever hear on corporate TV discussing actual economic factual data and history, Dean Baker.

"It would be hard to understand how ostensibly serious people could be concerned about the deficit right now, unless we realize that they stand apart from the economic calamity that has engulfed most of the country. The suffering caused by this recession simply does not register on their radar screens.

This is not just a moral complaint, although it is troubling that the people most responsible for the economic wreckage are doing just fine. More important is that there is no evidence that Simpson, Bowles, and the rest of the deficit cutters have the slightest understanding of the economy. If they did they would be looking at the deficit in a completely different way.

First, the current deficit should not even be viewed as a problem. Yes, a deficit of $1.4 trillion is big, but this is a direct result of the loss of demand stemming from the collapse of an $8 trillion housing bubble. This bubble was driving the economy until its collapse. There were two channels through which the bubble generated demand in the economy: bubble-inflated house prices led to a boom in construction, bubble-inflated wealth led consumers to increase their spending, pushing saving rates to almost zero.

This demand has disappeared now that the bubble has deflated. The economy has lost more than $600 billion in annual construction demand as builders cut back in response to an enormous over-supply of both residential and non-residential property. Similarly, consumption has plummeted. This left an enormous gap in demand that, at least in the near-term, can only be filled by the government. If the government were to spend less—say it instantly balanced its budget—the primary result would be a further decline in demand and more job loss."

That doesn't bode well for us!

Someday history may record that the "old U.S.A." destroyed itself and was broken apart due to repeatedly implementing previously tried and failed economic policies, made possible by corporations that control the media simultaneously censoring what information the American people are exposed to, i.e., almost anything that reflects badly on the lassiez faire trickle down economic cancer that's eating our ostensibly democratic republic, while at the same time their army of lobbyists and corporate judges attack the foundations of institutions and laws that exist to protect the masses from the predations of an oligarchic elite unequaled in human history.

This reminds me of the sheriff in Blazing Saddles holding his own gun to his head and threatening to shoot himself if the crowd doesn't back off. Go, Democrats!