The Doomsday Clock

To virtually no one’s surprise the Congressional Super Committee has frittered away the months they had to come up with a measly 1.6 trillion dollars (over ten years) worth of deficit reduction. That’s about 10% of only the current annual budget deficit each year for the next decade. One would think a dozen professional political horse traders could drop a 160 billion out of an annual budget of 4.6 trillion bucks (which includes 1.6 trillion in deficit spending) without breaking a sweat.

They just needed to do a little trimming of pork here, a little reducing of subsidies there, throw in a small amount of reduction of plain old fraud or and elimination of useless programs, plus eliminating the waste (and if necessary) slightly lower benefits in some programs, a bit of tightening the old belt at the Pentagon and a tad more taxes for the uber wealthy making over a million buck per year; and there you have it. No real strain and almost no big pain for anybody inside or outside the beltway. But oh-no, it didn’t go that way at all.

It seems that the Dems wouldn’t give in to another nickel being deducted from Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid or even some discretionary programs on the spending cut side of the ledger; without some increase on the revenue side through an increase in the tax rate for the wealthiest top 1% of money earners. It also seems that the Republicans wouldn’t allow a single penny’s worth of tax increases for no one, no way and no how; no matter what else was on the table cut-wise. Thus an impasse which was impossible to get around was formed; with both sides blaming the other for creating it.

Which makes one ask the question; Who put Grover Norquist in charge of running American economic and political policy? And when did they do it? And most importantly; Why did they do it? Most all the Republicans, T-Publicans and other assorted members of the GOP appear to have accepted the notion that the “Not to Raise Taxes – No Matter What” pledge that Norquist extracted from them takes precedence over their swearing on the book of faith of their choice, to work in the best interest of the their constituents; the 300+ million American people who are not Grover Norquist. Just how an unelected lobbyist has positioned himself to inspire such blind, deaf and dumb loyalty through fear from some members of the U.S. Congress defies comprehension.

Virtually all T & Re Pubs are so afraid that someone further to the right then they are will challenge them in their next primary, that they dig in their heels, shake their heads violently from side to side and through gritting teeth say “No No No”, whenever the subject of taxes comes up. It doesn’t matter that the tax may be less than 1% on people making a million dollars a year and up. It doesn’t matter even if there is an unnecessary and unfair subsidy being given to multimillion dollar multinational conglomerates; to eliminate the subsidy is seen as a tax increase and the answer is the same “No No No”.

The claim from the right that the Democrats won’t give in or give up on “entitlements” is a lie designed by the T-Pubs to justify their intransigency. The Dems have given up some things on the entitlement front (in terms of cuts) and understandably say they won’t give any more unless there is some quid pro quo by the Reps on the tax front (to raise revenue). The Reps phrase the budget problem exclusively in terms of cutting spending. But it is fact a problem of bringing the budget into balance, which can be done by either reducing spending or increasing revenue (primarily through taxes). Or with appropriate cooperation from both sides; the achieving of a dynamically balanced budget would, at its best, be accomplished by a fair combination of the two approaches.

Certainly some changes in the funding and benefits payments of Social Security, which should have been made all along during its history, will need to be made now and in the future. A massive clean-up of all the fraud and waste in the Medicare and Medicaid systems must be undertaken. There is also the need for significant enforcement of cost controls over the medical and pharmaceutical industries, which have been increasing their cost at 2 and 3 times the rest of the costs of living in this country. This has resulted in the U.S. spending almost twice the amount per capita of all the other industrialized countries; without any better (and sometimes worse) patient outcomes or life expectancy.

The third leg of the automatic and ever increasing expense for the Federal government is military spending. Which even many “Hawks” agree; must be reduced. This can most certainly be done in light of the fact that the Pentagon always has a list of systems, projects and bases they no longer need or want. If all that is stopping the Congress from ending this needless military spending is that it is creating jobs and making pork in their home districts; we can switch the defense contractors from making unnecessary military equipment, etc. to making very necessary mass transit equipment, etc. We can pay them out of what we save by cutting useless and costly things that are wasting tons of money in the Transportation, Commerce, Agriculture and other cabinet department budgets. This will allow us to save the money not needed by the Defense Department while still keeping and perhaps even increasing the truly productive jobs in the private sector.

Along with the good governance of appropriate spending controls, the revenue side of the ledger must also be reconstructed so that everyone fairly contributes to balancing the budget. To do this an increase on the taxes paid (if any) by those not now paying their fair share), (which they can easily afford to pay), must be legislated into place. This should be accomplished as part of a complete restructuring of the entire U.S. tax code to eliminate virtually all the special deals and loopholes which allow a wealthy few to evade and avoid paying their part of the cost in running this country.

Corporations and executives who pay no or almost no taxes, still expect the fire department to come if their house is burning, or the police to make sure the streets in their neighborhood are safe. Yet they refuse to allow their bribed representatives in the U.S. Congress to legislate any kind of a tax increase on their enormous incomes to help increase the revenue which can be used by the Federal government to help states and local communities have enough funding to keep the firefighters and police at full strength and on the job. They want all the benefits of citizenship without making an appropriate contribution to the funding required to provide the benefits. This is in contrast to all the working Americans who justifiably think they are entitled to benefits; because they have paid into their benefit providing systems for their entire working lives.

It is well past time that our elected officials in Washington, who have fought tooth and nail to keep the wealthiest getting wealthier; gave up that fight and raise their voices and their hands (in votes) to take the lion’s share of the budget burden off the backs of the working and middle class in this country and have the wealthiest 1% of earners shoulder a fairer share of the burden.

If our elected officials can get over their fear for their future that drives most politicians to pander to the wealthy campaign supporters; they can learn to ask for and offer a more transparent and functional relationship between themselves and their constituents. With a little faith that the American people can and will do the right thing by supporting an honest effort to create a fair spending and revenue balance in the budget because it is right for the vast majority of American citizens; politicians can do their jobs in a straight forward honest way. Honest politicians won’t need the money from, or have to do the dirty work of special interests, if they truly work in the best interest the American people. The American citizens will give their true and honest representatives the votes they need to put them in office; if their representatives can be counted on to do the right thing in the citizen’s best interest. Then none of us will have to fear any doomsday clock.


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