Let us speak kindly of George W. Bush and call him "George W.".
George W. was a disaster for our economy. He inherited a massive
surplus from the Clinton administration. George W. spent it all,
and a lot more. He also inherited the goofy notion from the Reagan
era that cutting taxes would increase revenue for the government.
That only works under one specific, short-term condition
not worth explaining here. Reagan knew that. He, very soon,
started raising taxes. About eleven times he did so.
George W. did a lot of economically irresponsible things.
He really, really wanted a war against Iraq. We can omit
those lamentable reasons, too: they have been spelled out.
But he refused to pay for that war, just as he had refused
to pay for the war in Afghanistan, which did not please
him as much as the war in Iraq: Iraq has more oil. George W.
simply spent the money, but never arranged to get the money,
anywhere. The costs of the war never made it into the budget.
More, George W., and almost the entire Republican party,
together with a mindless lot of Democrats, too, convinced
themselves that the best way to get rich was to turn Wall Street
loose on gullible investors. "Get rid of regulations! Turn the
Capitalistic system loose! Trust your giant banker! Who can
you trust if you do not trust your giant banker? Maybe even
give all of our Social Security funds to Wall Street investors!"
Yowser! Down the tubes! A world-wide giant recession!
Our Belle, Michele Bachmann, tried to show a chart during
her State of the Union Rebuttal to the Republican Rebuttal
that blamed the whole catastrophe on Obama, who had not yet
been elected to pick up the pieces. "See," she said, "right when
George W. left office, and when Obama came in, shit happened!"
Well, she said something like that. Our Belle does not say "shit".
Now we have a huge national budgetary problem. Not enough
income, and too many loans (two wars, massive tax cuts, thieves
on Wall Street, and ash borer beatles. There are two things we
can do: increase our income, and reduce our expenditures.
What is clear is that reducing our expenditures--apart from those
two wars and military bases all over the world--will result in
massive lay-offs, higher unemployment, a stuttering ecomomy,
a loss of confidence that we are getting anywhere, cuts in education,
social programs, health care, road maintenance, and so on.
What we could do, any time we decided to, would be to raise
taxes on the only group of people in the whole country who
have been making money hand-over-fist during this whole crisis:
the very rich! But Republicans have convinced the whole middle
class that we really, really need really, really rich people. Our Belle
says we are running out of rich people!
While right in the heart of a fragile, but real, recovery is not the time
to throw ordinary people to the wolves, and cut their jobs, their
health care, their education, and their sense that we are getting there.
We have to nurture that recovery, so we will not find much to cut.
What we can do is to augment our national income. We have lost
our sense of everyone pitching in and paying their share. Our
wealthiest citizens are not paying their share. Not only do they
accumulate more and more of our national assets, they pay taxes
at a lower rate than people who earn a whole lot less. It is insane!
I do not understand how anyone elected to public office
can defend this system, unless a whole lot of voters are insane, too.
That would be a real problem.
George W. was a disaster for our economy. He inherited a massive
surplus from the Clinton administration. George W. spent it all,
and a lot more. He also inherited the goofy notion from the Reagan
era that cutting taxes would increase revenue for the government.
That only works under one specific, short-term condition
not worth explaining here. Reagan knew that. He, very soon,
started raising taxes. About eleven times he did so.
George W. did a lot of economically irresponsible things.
He really, really wanted a war against Iraq. We can omit
those lamentable reasons, too: they have been spelled out.
But he refused to pay for that war, just as he had refused
to pay for the war in Afghanistan, which did not please
him as much as the war in Iraq: Iraq has more oil. George W.
simply spent the money, but never arranged to get the money,
anywhere. The costs of the war never made it into the budget.
More, George W., and almost the entire Republican party,
together with a mindless lot of Democrats, too, convinced
themselves that the best way to get rich was to turn Wall Street
loose on gullible investors. "Get rid of regulations! Turn the
Capitalistic system loose! Trust your giant banker! Who can
you trust if you do not trust your giant banker? Maybe even
give all of our Social Security funds to Wall Street investors!"
Yowser! Down the tubes! A world-wide giant recession!
Our Belle, Michele Bachmann, tried to show a chart during
her State of the Union Rebuttal to the Republican Rebuttal
that blamed the whole catastrophe on Obama, who had not yet
been elected to pick up the pieces. "See," she said, "right when
George W. left office, and when Obama came in, shit happened!"
Well, she said something like that. Our Belle does not say "shit".
Now we have a huge national budgetary problem. Not enough
income, and too many loans (two wars, massive tax cuts, thieves
on Wall Street, and ash borer beatles. There are two things we
can do: increase our income, and reduce our expenditures.
What is clear is that reducing our expenditures--apart from those
two wars and military bases all over the world--will result in
massive lay-offs, higher unemployment, a stuttering ecomomy,
a loss of confidence that we are getting anywhere, cuts in education,
social programs, health care, road maintenance, and so on.
What we could do, any time we decided to, would be to raise
taxes on the only group of people in the whole country who
have been making money hand-over-fist during this whole crisis:
the very rich! But Republicans have convinced the whole middle
class that we really, really need really, really rich people. Our Belle
says we are running out of rich people!
While right in the heart of a fragile, but real, recovery is not the time
to throw ordinary people to the wolves, and cut their jobs, their
health care, their education, and their sense that we are getting there.
We have to nurture that recovery, so we will not find much to cut.
What we can do is to augment our national income. We have lost
our sense of everyone pitching in and paying their share. Our
wealthiest citizens are not paying their share. Not only do they
accumulate more and more of our national assets, they pay taxes
at a lower rate than people who earn a whole lot less. It is insane!
I do not understand how anyone elected to public office
can defend this system, unless a whole lot of voters are insane, too.
That would be a real problem.
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