“Rest
assured, whatever the Rescumlicans say they are, they aren't.”
----from
“The Quotations of Chairman Joe”
Economist
Paul Krugman, about whom Caesar Disgustus has nothing but contempt
and is, therefore, worth reading, wrote an opinion published in
Friday's New York Times about the fraudulence that now
permeates the party of Lincoln. (1)
In
2011, as the country was reeling from the financial meltdown
occurring under the last Rescumlican maladministration, Paul Ryan and
his Rescumlicans “issued a report full of dire warnings about
the dangers of budget deficits. 'The United States is facing a
crushing burden of debt,' it declared, warning of a looming fiscal
crisis that might soon 'capsize' the economy”.(2)
The
Scums then went about refusing to raise the debt ceiling creating
financial and political turmoil “effectively blackmailing
President Barack Obama into cutting spending on domestic programs.”
(3)
My
daughter once told me that she wanted to study economics. I told her
to ask the department at the university if they taught Keynesian
economics pointing out that if they did not, then the department was
staffed with a faculty that simply does not understand the subject.
I had been introduced to Keynes in high school and the lessons were
reinforced in my college instruction. Of late, the conservatives
have been waging war upon John Maynard Keynes citing the fraudulence
of Milton Friedman and, following corporate sponsorship at many of
the business schools in this country, the error has spread into the
media whereupon the idiot wrong have adopted the mantra.
Keynes
famously taught that during recession the government should run
deficits so that purchasing power would rise fueling production and
recovery. With recovery comes increased government revenue which, as
the economy improves over time, leads to reduced deficits and then
surplus. Government should run deficits in time of recession,
surplus in time of prosperity.
But
the 'deficit hawks', about whom the Rescumlican Party claims a
monopoly have, it has become apparent, never met a surplus they
didn't hate and never met a deficit they didn't love—except, of
course if the deficits occur under Democratic presidents. It is
worth noting, as a side note, that the only budget surpluses ever
achieved since World War II have been under Democratic presidents.
Lyndon Johnson left Nixon a budget surplus in 1969, and Bill
Clinton's budget surpluses during the last years of his presidency.
The
budget deficit that caused Ryan and his 'hawks' such animated
histrionics was 1.09 trillion in 2012 (4). “This week
Republicans, having just enacted a huge tax cut, cheerfully agreed to
a budget deal that, according to independent experts, will push next
year's deficit up to 1.15 trillion—bigger than in 2012. True, this
won't quite match 2012's red ink as a percentage of G.D.P., but this
time none of the deficit will be a result of a depressed economy.”
(5)
Indeed
the economy, now at near full employment, is performing at such a
level as to cause the Fed to increase interest rates in an attempt to
dampen down economic activity lest that great bug-a-boo inflation
once again emerges from under the collective bed.
Krugman
points out that with unemployment at about 8 per cent there were
sound reasons to run deficits in 2012, now with near full employment
at about 4 per cent we should be nearly balancing the budget, if not
creating a budget surplus and paying down the debt—as Clinton had
done at the end of his business cycle. But as, in 2001, when the
scums returned to power, the first casualty is fiscal responsibility.
It is worth noting that the deficits under 'Ol Two-Cows' George W.
Bush were created two months before the attacks on the World Trade
Center. Indeed by June 2001, Bush had instituted—you guessed
it—tax cuts, mostly on the wealthy, and made them retroactive to
January 1 of 2001 so the scums could later claim that Clinton's last
budget had left the scums with a deficit (the first fiscal budget of
any incoming administration is the one passed in the last year of the
outgoing administration. Hence, Disgustus' fiscal and economic
policies do not take effect until his second year in office, laying
false his claim that he is responsible for, for instance, low
unemployment).
Indeed,
Krugman points out that the Rescumlicans were never sincere
concerning deficit spending. How do we know this? “It was
obvious, even at the time, to anyone who looked at their fiscal
proposals. These proposals always involved giant tax cuts for the
wealthy—funny how that worked—offset by savage cuts in social
benefits. Even so, assertions that deficits would go down depended
entirely on assuming lots of revenue from closing unspecified
loopholes and huge savings from cutting unspecified government
programs. In other words, even at the peak of their deficit-hawk
posturing, all Republican really had to offer was redistribution from
the poor to the rich” (6).
The
deficit scare, as Krugman points out, prove a useful as a bludgeon
with which the Rescumlicans would pummel Obama into cutting social
and infrastructure rebuilding programs and hobble his presidency.
And,
Krugman continued: “I don't think it's unfair to suggest that
there was an element of deliberate economic sabotage. After all,
Republicans weren't just vehemently opposed to fiscal stimulus; they
were also opposed to monetary stimulus. Basically they were against
anything that might help the economy on President Obama's watch”
(7). Indeed, former Ohio Senator George Voinovich (Rescumlican)
said, just before he died, that the Rescumlican senate caucus was
ordered to oppose everything that Obama proposed, even if it hurt the
country for Mitch McConnell was determined that Obama be a one-term
president the country be damned.
“Now”
Krugman rightly observes, “Obama
is gone, and suddenly deficits don't matter.” (8)
“This
is about Republican bad faith. Everything they said about budgets,
every step of the way, was fraudulent. And nobody should believe
what they say now.” (9)
Indeed,
Disgustus pledged to eliminate the so-called “carried interest”
loophole, where investors—especially real estate investors—get
what amounts to a long term interest free loan, but the loophole is
still there. Indeed, the last tax cut included nearly a half
trillion dollars, over ten years, in tax benefits to real estate
investors. This explains the enthusiasm overwhelmed Disgustus and why
Senator Corker—who had vowed to oppose any tax measure that added a
cent to the deficit—himself a real estate tycoon, was moved to
support it. Not eliminated either were the loopholes in the tax code
that rewards companies for outsourcing jobs overseas, indeed the
latest Rescumlican creation created even more such loopholes. No
they were never serious about this.
What
this demonstrates is that once again Disgustus cannot be seen as an
aberration. The animus of Disgustus toward all things Obama predates
his arrival by 8 years. The same mendacity, the same resistance,
motivated by an all-too-transparent racism as well as unlimited
political expediency, was deeply entrenched well before the orange
slime slithered up Pennsylvania Avenue.
“An'
Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh'
Impeach
and Imprison
______________________
- Krugman, Paul. “Fraudulence Of the Fiscal Hawks” The New York Times. Friday, February 9, 2018. Page A25
- ibid
- ibid
- ibid
- ibid
- ibid
- ibid
- ibid
- ibid
No comments:
Post a Comment