Monday, October 21, 2013

After Budget Deal, Time to Move Forward

The Republicans claim that the United States has a spending problem. They are right. The only thing they have wrong is that we need more federal spending in order to put our economic growth back on track. Cutting spending is exactly the wrong thing to do. The Republicans want, more than anything else, to hold the line on tax revenues. What is needed are more tax revenues to fund programs that this country desperately needs. Restoring all the Clinton era tax rates on high incomes and broadening the tax base to include some income that is currently sheltered, such as those that allowed Mitt Romney to pay very little on his very high annual income. That would go a long way toward funding important and necessary government spending programs. Dean Baker listed many of those things in his great column above. Food aid to low income families was missing from his list but it was a good start on addressing the pressing need to restore economic health to the American economy. The Republicans have resisted the spending to accomplish those important programs. People refer to the Republicans as conservatives, but the truth is that they are not conservative; they are reactionaries who fight tooth and nail against progress.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Monday, October 14, 2013

Republicans Are Shutting Down the Government Because They Want to Stop Obamacare

Dean Baker has nailed. It does not make sense to cut Social Security by using the chained CPI. As he points out, that would hurt seniors and reduce their purchasing power. That impact would reduce economic activity throughout the economy and slow job growth.



The Republicans become deficit hawks every time that a Democrat is in the White House but spend like drunken sailors when there is a republican occupying the Oval Office. Ronald Reagan tripled the national debt in 8 years, Bush 1 added even more and Bush 2 doubled the national debt and left the country in a deep recession and huge deficits. It is time that the general public woke up to the fact that they are only trying to protect the rich from further tax increases which we would need if we really want to balance the budget.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost