Deficits

"Reagan proved deficits don't matter" Dick Cheney 2002
"If you’re worried about the deficit, pay attention to the fact that it’s almost all attributable to military spending and the totally dysfunctional health program." Noam Chomsky

Donald Trump Built a National Debt So Big (Even Before the Pandemic) That It’ll Weigh Down the Economy for Years (1/14/2021)

Return of the Phony Deficit Hawks (12/17/2020)

Peacocks and Vultures Are Circling the Deficit (4/27/2020)

Did America Learn Anything From the Last Economic Crisis? (4/24/2020)

The Triumph of Fiscal Hypocrisy (2/6/2020)

The Legacy of Destructive Austerity (12/30/2019)

Deficit Man and the 2020 Election (7/18/2019)

It is important to get the problem right. As soon as it is about the money, you play into the arguments of Republicans and their wrong-headed compulsion to austerity.

As Dick Cheney said: “ deficits don’t matter”.

The deficit is a problem only when Republicans are not in the majority. If they are not, they refuse to raise the debt ceiling, threaten to shut down the government, play chicken with the dollar and threaten default on the national debt.

After WWII the highest marginal tax rate was over 90%. The US had a thriving economy, government had an adequate revenue stream.

Republican tax cuts over decades mostly benefited the wealthy paid for by deficit increase and service reductions. IRS funding cuts not only increase the deficit but enable tax cheating. Privatization, tax cuts, deregulation motivated profitable ‘small government’ with few social benefits.

The GOP has a long history of attempts to reduce Social Security, Medicare, opposition to unions and women’s rights. US healthcare is the the world’s most expensive, doesn’t cover everyone, bankrupts the sick, but created a reported 35 billionaires. Other problems include hordes of homeless, students in lifetime debt, unaffordable child care, substandard eldercare, poor maternal health, deaths of despair, wealth disparities at record highs.

It takes a sociopath to reward the rich at the expense of the poor, the opposite of Christian values.

When Republicans were in power, Vice President Cheney famously said deficits didn't matter. Since the Clinton economy was good, we were headed for surpluses. But then we embarked on two wars without paying for them, the Bush tax cuts exacerbated the cost of those two wars, drug legislation gave huge breaks to pharma, after 9/11 we created a bloated homeland security bureaucracy, the economy went into a downward spiral, and maybe worst of all, we experienced huge climate disasters, sure to increase in the future.

The Budget should reflect people's wishes, but it does not. It's more in line with the wealthy funders who increasingly influence Congress direction.

Money is not a good measure of our well being, Republicans are using it for extortion. We are not dealing with real challenges.

Our dysfunctional institutions do not deal with slowly developing threats: peak oil; glacier melt; droughts; rising sea levels; violent storms; overpopulation; and income inequality. We are headed for resource wars, food shortages, violent unrest, mass migrations, and the likely mother of all market crashes, climate collapse.

Many species are going extinct, next could be us.

Republicans are largely to blame. They will do one thing for us though, they will be sure we are well armed.

Change tax policy:

  • Why is it that unearned income is taxed at a much lower rate than wage income from hard work ? Tax unearned income instead of payroll taxes. Eliminate Payroll taxes to put more money into the hands of lower income people and improve demand. Without sufficient demand, business doesn't hire.
  • New financial transactions taxes on high-speed trading, a Tobin Tax, and others to reduce speculation and its associated volatility.
  • Considering the dire warnings of climate scientists, we need to rapidly reduce use of fossil fuels. Impose a carbon tax. Do the Green New Deal.
  • Calibrate a wealth and inheritance tax so that we don't get an aristocracy.
  • A stiff graduated income tax would damp down income inequality. We had a marginal tax rate of over 90% under Ike, and the economy did well.
  • Stop corporate welfare. The fossil fuel industry should not be subsidized.

Reduce Government expenses

  • Slim down our worlds largest military. If there is justification for international war, then there should be international support.
  • Pre-emptive war is a crime. Stop gratuitous wars.
  • Solve problems with diplomacy, not the military. Live up to international agreements. Since we are faced with global problems, quit undermining the UN.
  • Stop building the nuclear arsenal. Live up to the NPT (Non Proliferation Treaty).
  • Stop spending money on star wars. MIT experts don't think it will ever work.
  • Shut down the NSA and other black operations that have demonstrated the corrosiveness of secrecy in government: Surveillance, like unjustified secrecy, threatens freedom, civil liberties, journalism, privacy rights, and can only lead to totalitarianism.
  • Shut down secret prisons, stop renditions, recognize torture for the crime that it is, and bring some transparency to government activities.
  • Close the “School of the Americas”. The US has a shabby history of supporting dictatorships in much of the world. Start supporting democracy instead of corporate interests.
  • Wind down the empire. The economy is no longer healthy enough to support it.

Reforms:

  • We should have high speed Internet as good as South Korea's. To do that there should be fiber to the curb. Private entities, like a combined Comcast and Time/Warner, will not do it, and anyway it should be public infrastructure not subject to Corporate policies. Continuing business as usual, corporations will slowly eat away at net neutrality.
  • Support and encourage the use of Free Software. It is crowd-sourced, open, and therefor more trustworthy. It is essential for the integrity of voting machines.
  • Most of our problems with healthcare are directly attributable to private entities like pharma and the insurance companies. We pay twice as much as any other country for healthcare. Single payer would be best. There would be massive savings if we had a system comparable to other advanced countries.
  • The US is number one in incarcerations. Surely there is money to be saved by reducing the prison population. It would be cost effective to stop the “War on Drugs”. Our black agencies have a history of actually running drugs. They are out of control.
  • The fix is in now that the Supreme Court consistently sides with Corporations and against the public interest. Campaign finance law is the foundation of all other law and it can only function if Citizen's United is overturned. There needs to be reform of the Supreme Court, it should be held to the same ethical standards as are the lower courts.

Bibliography

The Deficit Myth by Stephanie Kelton