Bill Boyarsky hits the nail on the head on this one. Why is our country propping
up Karzai? That he is a crook is well known. He rigged the last election. He’s an
old crony of Dick Cheney. Enough said. Attacking teachers and firefighters will
backfire on the Tea Baggers, just as it did on Arnold when he sponsored a
group of initiatives that would have crippled nurses, teachers and firefighters
that are on the public payroll. Gee, given that half the state erupts into flames
every years, one would think he’d fund the organization that would keep all his
expensive properties here in California from burning down. In a sense this
exposes the self-destructive nature of the Tea Baggers (formerly the
Republican Party). Give them enough rope and they will hang themselves. The
problem is, the last time this happened, during 6 of the 8 years of Bush 2’s
term, he and his operatives were able to drag the country through the mud and
leave it gasping for air at his exit. Anyone who thinks Bush 2 was a decent
president should read “his” book, Decision Points. What a load of crap! It’s
almost as if they found the one monkey in front of a typewriter who would
eventually type a semi-coherent tome. The tea baggers are all too wealthy to
send their children to public school, so they are fine with cutting education.
They are too rich to worry about medical bills or retirement, so cut, cut, cut and
let the middle class sink into penury while the upper 2 percent continue to
accumulate the limited amount of wealth left in this country.

So Afghanistan is running us about $2 billion/week,
most of it being funneled into the coffers of the
black marketeers and the pockets of the 167,657
private contractors working the angles. So that’s
about $104 billion/year going nowhere but out the
window.

(Nor are they mentioning this little fact about the
health care consortia racket:  According to the
latest Harpers, “Amount Massachusetts has allocated
since 2000 to decrease class size and increase
teacher pay: $1,200,000,000.  Percentage of that
allocation that has gone to cover rising health-care
costs: 100.”)

Raylan,

Corporate profits have soared since the crash to well beyond record levels and they are sitting on over a trillion in cash. They are sitting on it because there is no demand. Your comment about lack of capital, cash is 100% economically void of reality. War, defense spending is over half of US total spending, so it is absolutely true that while this spending could fund so many above mentioned programs, halting the military industrial complex would totally and immediately erase the US economy and beyond, just as would halting oil dependence. These are inextricably connected until death due them part, and it will. That is why the US depends on war - without it there basically is no US, sad but true.

rollzone
“the whole deficit stinks. it
did not cause the recession, it only profited from
it;:
The deficit profits?
The corporations profited because government carried them. But most of these hand outs were paid back. Social services are a subsidy program. Our children will have their services paid for by past taxes. Social Security is paid by those currently paying FICA.
Just as the seniors who are collecting it were paying for those who were collecting at the time.
SS is paid for by personal income tax - it is not just an entitlement any more than unemployment insurance.

slick
TDoff’s post was satirical.

TDoff your comment is so hopelessly full of bullshit that to comment on everything in it would take to much time.

hello again. handing debt to our children is
conscripting them into supporting federal programs of
our choosing. they will have their own needs, and
will be less able to progress because of us. bankers
making money off debt fees from national finance is
unnecessarily becoming standard practice, to the sole
benefit of Wall Street. the whole deficit stinks. it
did not cause the recession, it only profited from
it; and yachts and mansions do not fuel job growth.
the deficit is a misuse of tax payer dollars. we do
not entrust government with our monies to abuse the
privilege. taxes may need dramatic corrective
adjustments. government can go back to operating from
donations.

There is a good argument to be made that the crash was not a government deficit/spending crisis but a private sector monetary crisis.

The global economic downturn had a negative impact on the world economy to a great extent. During the global financial crunch, the situations across all business sectors across the globe were not good at all. The world economy was affected negatively and the sectors were striving to come up from the deep financial troubles. The meltdown had ruined people’s monetary position to a large extent. People were berserk about their liquidity problems and did not know how to overcome these problems. Even the big business houses struggled hard to stay afloat in the market.

There was huge monetary deficiency across all the business segments. Low funds and less cash reserves led many to take loans and pay back their creditors. Thus, the credit rates increased significantly. The defaulters tried hard to overcome their position, however, situations were too unfavorable to establish a monetary strength. There were many who ran into heavy debts and did not know how to return them back to their credit card companies. In the meanwhile, the creditors went on pestering them for their payments within the stipulated time period.
http://tuvankinhte.com/tag/fiscal-incapacity/

That being the case, how is the adjustment of a long term government deficit (given that such deficit is as serious as is doomed) supposed to grow GDP and solve what is essentially the unavailability of capital in the form of ready cash ? Also the global economy is NOT waiting on tender hooks for the US to balance its budget.

hello. our leader is not present. all animus is
directed towards Republicants. Tea Partiers have gone
back to their jobs. we gear up for the next non-
election with an improving economy, and less control
over politics than before the last go ‘round with
Republicants shouldering the blame. but now,
government trampling our liberties and freedoms is
all we have left to fight for. government has damaged
everything else, and in doing so grows impotent, and
weak. this is what a present vote signifies:
unaccountability. he just wants to get along, get
through it, not take any more stands, party on. we
could ignore him, were he not our President. he is
not even accounted for; present in title, absent in
direction: a rudderless stooge of wimpy words. thank
God he is not alone. war masters demand, he complies.

The republicans ARE FASCISTS inching continuously towards the madness that was in the past known as Nazism and it’s variations later under Franco and Pinochet as well as the numerous Central American Reichs we created to keep “democracy” safe from those Commies! Where Hitler was obsessed with physical Liebenstraum our goose-steppers are more for that of the economic variety but employ the same strategy to achieve their ends, i.e. militarism! The whole point of their budget cutting is not to save our economy but to redirect ever dwindling resources to their avaricious pet, the MIC.

What is with Klugman the economist, he stated cutting defense would not solve the budget problem? I may have misunderstood his comments?

To this bunch of Republicans, these military escapades are sacred cows and must never be mentioned in the negative, and most certainly shouldn’t be curtailed.
One always wonders who is paying for such loyalty?

[“the Republicans aim to starve government, destroy protections that created a middle class and leave us with a country of rich and poor and a powerless middle class.”]

Yeah, not to mention that hedge fund managers are only taxed 11% on their earning because of some lawyered clause in the tax structure and they go off laughing to buy gold-flaked hamburgers at $500 a pop. What a bunch of criminals. They won’t go after them. “Expletive” that.

The Rethug’s most important product is misdirection.

What can be said to an economically - illiterate populace that buys that the immediate problem is the deficit? -
It’s already accounting/macro-economic nonsense - so the Reps leaving out a huge useless expense like a war of choice - is a detail of the larger ignorance.

On an income statement a loss is incurred from two sides of the ledger - expenses and revenue.
That is, income/loss = revenue - expenses.

It is hardly unprecedented for corporations to operate at a loss because the periodic loss is absorbed by their overall equity.

But the asset side of the balance sheet ought to include such things as tax revenues - which have been cut also.

The principle that one shouldn’t raise taxes during a recession also applies to cutting public sector expenses - as the consumer of last resort.

Otherwise the GDP shrinks due to the resulting reduction of consumption.

It’s stupid to focus only on one account, one side of the ledger at just one period.

What can you do when the people vote for stupid. Or is there such a thing as a smart vote?

All those strategic minerals there. 

No way we’re leaving until there’s blood in the streets of Washington.

Hey, it’s essential to the US national security that we keep the Afghan war going, full blast.

Can you imagine what might happen if we brought all our brain-washed soldiers home to the US? Not to mention the legions of ‘privatized’ mercenary ‘security forces’, owned and led by corporations like ‘Xe’, and ‘Boo’, many of whom are armed with tactical nukes. (Some of those nukes were privately purchased on the open world market with petty cash vouchers backed by the US government and AIPAC, some given by a grateful Israeli government for keeping the ‘Arab Hordes’ in check).

Hell, those folks get back here in civvie-land, cut-off from most of their dope supplies, no telling what might break-out. Surely a lot of STD’s, and HPV and HIV and AIDS cases, but they’re trained to fight, so they’ll be fighting. And since their commanders are all christian soldiers and preachers, they’ll probably start knocking-off ‘No Faithers’, the atheists, and agnostics, and Muslims, and Jews, and Buddhists, and Quakers and the like.

A word to the wise. If, by some chance, our powers-that-be or fate decides to stop the nonsense in Afghanistan, be aware of what you’re gonna be in for, all you ‘No-Faithers’.