Let's visit the deficit again. Here is a graph of the major factors behind next year's projected deficit (click on graph to enlarge).
Ask any Tea Partier what caused the deficit and they will tell you "Obama's out of control spending!" They are either stupid or they are liars. The major reason we have a large deficit is the crash of our economy in 2008, and the recovery measures this administration has taken to ameliorate it. This explains a full 64% of the deficit alone. The economy crashed after 7 years of Bush's Presidency and 6 years of the Republicans in charge of Congress.
Next cause? Bush's Tax cuts which will add 19% more to the deficit. Next? Bush's war spending, which he refused to pay for, putting it on our national "credit card" for our kids to off instead! Together this adds up to 98% of the deficit, and it is a direct result of Republican policies or neglect.
The economic downturn (48%) has been devastating to the middle and working classes. Millions are still out of work or underemployed. It has reduced the combined wealth of our middle class by billions of dollars and it is STILL draining us, but the Republicans are now busily using the deficit - the very deficit THEY created - as an excuse to dismantle Medicare, slash Medicaid, cut government programs at all levels of government, throwing thousands of government employees out of their jobs, and for busting unions.
Okay, that's what Republicans do, right? No big surprise. Republicans have one goal and only one goal: smash government.
So why are the Democrats letting them do this? All of the programs being dismantled, cut, smashed, are Democratic programs that were put in place to help people, and protect the poor and the elderly. They are under attack by the Republicans and what are the Democrats doing? Wringing their hands and moaning about how the deficits are wrecking America. NO, GODDAMN IT, unemployment is wrecking America! Put people back to work in jobs that pay a living wage, and the resulting increase in taxes on their wages will cut the deficit significantly, not only at the federal level but at the state and local level as well.
Sure, cutting spending and cutting safety nets is a lot easier than creating jobs, so the Dems are taking the easy damn way out. For shame!
Our nation is falling apart, our infrastructure is decaying. We're falling behind the rest of the world in so many things. We must create a huge new national program of infrastructure improvements, while start a training program to train the unemployed in construction techniques. We need to hire people to clean up parks and rehabilitate the inner cities, tutor kids who need help in school, create after school programs in music, art, and physical ed. There is so much we need in this country and so many unemployed who need work. So I think it's time for the Democrats to rise up and kick the clowns in the Republican Party off the train and get America moving forward again. And if the Dems won't, we need to form a new party that will.
UPDATE: Here's another example of something the Republicans have been wrong about, and anyone with a brain knew it was bunkum, but "everyone knows the private sector can alway do it cheaper." Right, even though the private sector has to add a huge profit margin to everything they do, they can always do it cheaper.
PHOENIX — The conviction that private prisons save money helped drive more than 30 states to turn to them for housing inmates. But Arizona shows that popular wisdom might be wrong: Data there suggest that privately operated prisons can cost more to operate than state-run prisons — even though they often steer clear of the sickest, costliest inmates.
--Trakker
What makes me angrier than anything else is that zero republicans voted to end oil subsidies. This single act negates ALL of their stupid arguments. Any time I hear anyone spouting republican ideology I want to shove this little fact down their throat and watch them get waterboarded by their own hypocrisy. Sorry for the vehemence, but I am truly outraged by this.
On a similar thread, did you know that Ayn Rand received Social Security and probably Medicare starting at age 59? Ayn Rand and everyone who worships her are full of shit, and their only real philosophy is "fuck everyone who is not me."
Posted by: Andy | May 20, 2011 at 10:22 AM
Andy, vehemence is welcome here. It was my vehemence that made me start this blog to keep me from exploding.
I honestly don't understand how Republicans get away with shit like voting against ending subsidies for the top five oil companies, which gives increases the deficit. They hate the government which quietly provides countless benefits to all of us everyday, but they worship corporations who have sent our jobs overseas and gouge us at the gas pump and the checkout counter. Do they have a death wish? Maybe they're suffering from Stockholm syndrome? I just don't know, but I'm sick of them always getting their way.
As for Ayn Rand. Republicans love fairy tales (Atlas Shrugged, Bible). It's reality that they can't handle.
Posted by: Trakker | May 20, 2011 at 01:12 PM
I'm alright, Jack.
Posted by: horsec | May 21, 2011 at 10:49 AM
Heh, good one!
Posted by: Trakker | May 21, 2011 at 12:32 PM