It is fantastically incredible to see the convulsions the left is getting themselves into because “we” managed to cut federal spending by $39 billion. Folks, this is obscene. Federal spending has increased by over a trillion in just two years. This is not news to anyone with a brain. But here is a typical lefty response to it (my two cents in blue):
An Offensive Response to the Budget ‘Crisis’
By Katrina vanden Heuvel
A budget is more than a passel of numbers. It is a statement of a country’s values and priorities. And the priorities in the budget deal struck Friday night offend.
Really? A statement of values? How about this picture as a statement of values.
Republicans have doubled down on their reverse Robin Hood agenda. When they speak of “fiscal responsibility,” get out your decoder ring. Because what they really mean is that middle-class and working Americans should shoulder the responsibility of tackling debts and deficits. And—natch—in this budget, the toughest cuts will come from education and health.
OK. Would there be ANY cut in the government that you would claim is not being shouldered by the middle class and working Americans? And do I count as a working American? Or do I only count if I am on the assembly line in a city you approve of? If you decided to steal every single penny of wealth among the richest Americans, you still would not solve your spending problem. And is it any surprise that the largest cuts come from places where discretionary spending is large? Or where spending and outcomes are not related?
President Obama has succeeded in limiting the damage. But so far, the president has failed to challenge the inside-the-beltway narrative of debt and deficit “crisis,” or lay out a vision of a government working for the common good. It’s time to reset the debate and focus on rebuilding an already frayed social contract. Poll after poll shows that majorities of Americans put jobs ahead of deficit reduction.
And poll after poll also shows that Americans wished unicorns would exist. In any case, there is no social contract. And government does not create jobs. Sorry.
An honest discussion would address the real source of our long-term debt: not Social Security and Medicare, not so-called entitlements, but a broken health-care system dominated by powerful drug, insurance and hospital lobbies. A people’s budget would champion a fair tax system and call for an end to costly wars that are breeding insecurity.
So, we have the most progressive tax system in the western world. We have the highest corporate tax in the western world. We have the most inefficient tax system in the western world. Over 50 million Americans have no federal income tax liability. What do you propose to make it “fairer?” Oh, right, you want to strip the wealthy of any property they have managed to accumulate. Call it something else, but that ain’t fair. And did you not get ObamaCare passed to deal with this very problem? What a hilarious indictment of the very policies you support. So what we have here is a baldface admission that ObamaCare will not lower costs as promised, but will increase government medical expenditures. Nice. And here’s a question, what makes insurance companies and drug and hospital lobbies, “powerful?” It must be all that market competition.
Deficit hawks across the political spectrum and the tea partiers claim America is broke. It isn’t. We are a rich nation. Our trouble is that Washington (with a few exceptions) is bankrupt intellectually.
Agreed.
It’s time to tax what we have too much of—financial speculation and extreme concentration of wealth—and invest in what we have too little of—education programs like Head Start, infrastructure, renewable energy and jobs.
OK lady. We spend $6 trillion per year in total in government. Yet you claim we cannot even manage to invest in the things that are most important. Indeed, the social contract is broken. Indeed government is broken. And it ain’t for the reasons you lay out above. $6 trillion and crumbling infrastructure? $6 trillion and too little Head Start? That ain’t because the deficit hawks. How about this, you propose $1 trillion in spending cuts that you think are feasible and reasonable? I’ll be purple before I see that happen.
Ms. vanden Heuvel is the editor and publisher of the Nation.
Well, Wintercow won that debate.
Ms VanDenHeuvel missed one of the cliches, namely, the big tax breaks Exxon gets like deductions for expenses. Progressives wish they could tax every dime of worldwide gross revenue of every company.