John M.
“We ARE broke folks, we really are.”
As I’ve commented previously - who is this tragic ‘we’ that are broke?

The statement is strategically and infuriatingly vague, insinuating everything in general and telling us nothing in particular, except to instill confusion and panic.

There will most always be a deficit.

There was a huge deficit during the Bush gulags of ridiculous war.

Capitalism runs on debt-financing - it is all a big Promise To Pay. The wheels of the capitalist industry turn on what is called ‘leverage’ which is the debt to equity ratio.

The reason it doesn’t keel over is that most leveraging has been regulated to require collateral -or capital to back it up.

The real estate bubble was built on ‘derivatives’ which are securities that didn’t need captilization because the servants of corporate America like Reagan and Greenspan worked at removing that regulatory requirement.

We have been pillaged by Wall Street and have insanely bailed out the Robber Barons who have blown the leverage beyond anything previously tried.
They are not broke - the government, that is the taxpayers have purchased their debt.

The other malaprop about ‘entitlements’ lumps a paid for benefit like Social Security with Medicare.

Medicare is only an ‘entitlement’ because the hot capitalist system of the US has coldly decided that health care should be a for-profit industry of the private sector - unlike any other developed civilized nation on the planet thus far.

The blah about ‘entitlements’ is an apparently successful ploy to draw attention away from the cause to the symptom.

The cause is de-regulated run-away capitalism.

Until that is addressed and fixed, cutting spending will only bandage an economy that is chronically diseased only to erupt again.

Cutting Medicare is like giving aspirin to a leper.
It is a dangerous indulgence in denial and wishful thinking.

A deficit without defense

How much is entitlement spending the real source of
our budgetary woes? Here’s a stat for you: In
President Obama’s proposed 2012 budget, the White
House Office of Management and Budget estimates (in
Table S-4) that mandatory spending this year (2011)
will be $2.194 trillion, while total federal receipts
will be $2.174 trillion.

That’s right: Even if we were to spend every dime of
federal revenue on mandatory programs (Medicare,
Medicaid, Social Security, and the like), we would
still have a $20 billion deficit. When you add in
interest payments on the debt ($207 billion), we
would have a $227 billion deficit. That’s even if we
didn’t spend anything at all on discretionary
programs, the category of spending that includes
homeland security, interstate highways, national
parks, and, of course, national defense.

We ARE broke folks, we really are.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-
confidential/2011/03/deficit-without-defense

Bravo Gary Rose!

bill said
“So what’s more important—meaningless currency
comparisons or the ultimate purchasing power of your
currency”

Well I suppose if you can continue to buy a bunch of false needs for the cheap at Walmart (much cheaper indeed than you can in Australia) than the US is in fine shape relatively speaking. However, the accumulation of false needs for cheap does not reflect a higher standard of living.

If America was really broke, it wouldn’t be involved in so many areas of the World, and it most certainly would not be able to finance the military escapades that are currently taking place, especially in the Middle East and Afghanistan.
What it really means is that your limited resources are being badly directed and the American people are being misinformed, as usual.
Wealth, unfortunately, is finite, but wars are a real drain and always very expensive.
You have the power to make a real difference, so choose what you want!

The only thing going broke in America, beyond what’s left of the middle class and our ever growing numbers in poor, is the moral character of our leadership. It’s a lot cheaper for billionaires to buy politicians than it is to pay taxes.

Technically I don’t think you can say that this country is broke (maybe broken, though).  The real question is though: from where do we get the funds to get us out of the red?  Until everybody, and I mean everybody, including the rich, the middle class, the elderly, the military, etc. gives up something, preferably according to their ability to pay, we will never solve this problem.  Balancing the budget on the backs of those least able to pay is monstruous and immoral and, I believe, in the long run it will be bad politics.  Be careful what you wish for, Republicans.

The column is right.  But why won’t Obama and other
Democrats stand up and tell the Republicans and Tea
Party people that they are spewing nonsense?  Their
mystifying enabling of those folks is frustrating and
makes me think my vote for the Democrats was a waste. 
I didn’t think I was getting a me-too party, but it
looks like that’s exactly what I got.

Most of us commenters seem to agree that the people and the SYSTEM are broke, if not our governments’ budgets.  But I disagree with peterjkraus (and with Mr. D Jr’s implication), it’s not just the Republicans—BOTH parties are to blame because they’re both funded by Wall Street and Big Business. 

The only way that fact will change is if We the People do something about it, not expect those bought-and-paid-for politicians to destroy their feed trough.  We can work to change how politicians get elected. Because corporations are considered “people,” and money is considered free speech, it’s “One dollar (or $1 million), one vote”, not “One person, one vote.” We first need a constitutional amendment that states only people are people and money is not speech. Then, have all elections run with a set, finite amount of money given to all candidates who collect enough signatures on a petition.  The money would come out of our taxes.  IMO, that would be one of the best uses of taxes!  Also have strict term limits and don’t allow pols or their staff to work for lobbying firms after they leave office. 

I believe left, right, and center can agree on this, if we keep our sights and our rhetoric on the “bottom line,” rather than bickering across the political spectrum. There are several websites that are dedicated to this goal. For example, try http://movetoamend.org/news/

Another option is to change the Supreme Court.  We can work to impeach Justice Roberts and those who are twisting the intent of our Constitution from its protection of People to its new goal to protect corporations.

The incendiary fallacy about ‘broke-ness’ leaves out an essential component of ‘we’.

‘We’ must include the middle to working class poor - Yes they are being empoverished and dis-enfranchised by the very rhetoric that wants to cut back the social services that have prevented them from sinking even lower into ‘broke-ness’.
So that level of ‘broke-ness’, therefore, does not justify the draconian reductions of public expense.

‘We’ does NOT include the upper 2 -5 % of the orporate-enriched private sector class who purchased the loyalty of the public sector and under whom the fiscal ‘austerity’ that the lower classes but be subjected to, is promoted.

We must also clarify just exactly ‘what’ is broke. The economy is doing much better - if you are a corporation - if you are a worker looking for that corporation - the economy is still bleak.

So deficit-ranting is nowhere justified on the basis of the above ‘we’ who are broke.

Lies, lies and corruption served over and over again like yesterday’s pork.

It is with great amusement that I see the macro-economics analyses of those who know nothing about macro economics all to prove a point that they should have lower wages, pensions and less social benefit from living in the country that possesses the greatest economic wealthmaking engine in the world. These are the dangerous ones, they can throw around meaningless drivel posing as macroeconomic “analyses” on taxes and debt, and GDP and all that crap to fool those who have even less of a clue.  They parrot terms and words and don’t think for themselves, then try to rant about their perfect knowledge in places like this comment page.  The amusement ends when I consider how the wealthy few have turned the corner on creating enough of these dupes geographically dispersed throughout the population sufficent to hijack the alleged democracy we are supposed to be living in, which will destroy what is left for those who are not duped.

I see some of you expressing the misplaced anger of the tea party - an argument that runs something like this - “rich liberals like Mr Dionne aren’t broke, but working folks like me are, thanks to high spending liberals in government.

Guess again, tea partiers. The reason you’re broke isn’t high taxes. It’s because your darling right wing politicians have busted your unions and cut the funding from the public services and facilities you used to depend on.

Now those same right wing politicians are getting you to blame the liberals for making you poor and powerless, when it is the Republicans who did that.

If you have anything to blame the liberals for, it is this: for the past 30 years, instead of directly confronting the right wing, calling them out for being the elitist swine that they are, and aggressively promoting the rights of working people, the liberals have tried to persuade the right wing to soften their policies, and gradually compromised away everything working people gained from 1930 to 1960. Above all, liberals have been afraid of openly saying that rich people have to pay higher taxes if we are going to have a society that functions for the benefit of all.

Liberals have been weak, pathetic representatives and advocates for the working people of this country.

But that doesn’t mean the Republicans are on your side if you’re an ordinary working American.

no worries.  US secretary of Treasury genius economist will institue the “Print more money!” clause.  To be damned with inflation!  Australia dollar has just recenly surpassed US dollar.  Who is next Canada (if it hasnt already)?  Just a matter of time.

Here´s a good way to keep your head above water:
listen to the Republicans, then do the exact
opposite. You´ll make tons of money and help
folks along the way. Doing well to do good.

Remember: Republicans lie. That´s what they do.
They lie.