Such fiascos have little or nothing to do with “understanding economics.”  They have everything to do with manipulating the ignorant and lethargic public so they are unable to participate in the “debate.”  Such prolonged political wrangling is totally destructive, not only of resources but of truth and morality.

Any country that spends the enormous amount of public money on killing people in other countries, as a mere matter of business, deserves to run into big trouble.  That money would have been more than enough to keep the US economy on an even keel and at the same time help deprived areas of the world “level up” to a minimum standard that supports decent human existence.  Every penny spent on war is stolen from legitimate human needs.  A plague on such a system!
  The entire “debt crisis” was and is a huge smoke screen to support privilege and waste.

Excerpt From Harvard Graduate Alan Grayson’s Truthdig Radio
Interview with Peter Scheer:

Alan Grayson:  “It’s farcical to say that the war in Iraq is somehow over when we still have 50,000 troops there. The one ray of hope is that the Iraqis are starting to put their foot down; they don’t want to be an occupied country any longer, and they’ve told the U.S. troops that they have to get out, and somehow or other we feel like arguing with them about it. So the Iraqis have said all troops have to be gone by the end of the year, and the Defense Department and the State Department are both sort of trying to weasel out of it. We’ll see what happens. We’re still paying the bills; we spent $157 billion last year on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, at a time when unemployment was close to 10 percent. In Florida it’s, oh, it’s about 13 percent. We spend $500 for every single man, woman and child in America on the war in Iraq. And that’s just the appropriated funds; the non-appropriated funds are even more than that. They’re more than the appropriated funds. Joe Stiglitz, who’s a Nobel Prize winner, calculated the cost of the war in Iraq already at $4 trillion. That’s $13,000 for every man, woman and child in America; and you know, for my family of seven, that’s almost $100,000. I want my money back.”

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/alan_grayson_tells_it_like_it_is_20110721/

The problem with the American economy is that the American people are so
caught up in achieving what they believe to be the American dream: material
things will buy happiness along with make a statement to the world that I can
afford such luxuries so as a result i will do whatever job makes the most money
in the shortest amount of time. Unfortunately, the majority who follow this
dream are only dreaming. The American dream is about having the freedom
and support of your government to acquire the ability to be able to obtain a
career, not a “job”, that makes a person happy about his/her self.

Today, there are too many people in “jobs” they hate which prevents people
who have a talent/interest in that career field to have more difficulty entering
the career field they desire which causes them to lose interest and settle for any
job. Therefore, if Americans would stop demanding lower taxes and
government aid to save money for their personal obsessions with obtaining
material items and instead devote their whole life to what makes them
personally happy, perhaps they’re feelings about themselves will improve and
people will actually exceed in their careers causing the economy to slowly
revamp itself. Then, with society more focused on their career that fills their
happiness void, less focus will be on the demand of money which would slowly
allow the government to do away with welfare programs without the majority of
people on welfare programs even realizing the programs are gone since the
love of their career would distract them. Government funds could be
redistributed to aid lower income people in achieving the career they’re best at
that fulfills their happiness level.

Additionally, the US Department of Education needs to be dramatically reduced
and give the power back to the states. All students are different and learn in
different ways. There is no such thing as a standardized test. The national
education should only focus on making sure children receive the basics in
primary school and then in the middle grades begin to slowly refocus them on
what skills they’re good at and like to perform so that they can be the most
beneficial to society and still fill encouraged to continue pursuing their
education. The national education should only demand that history and political
science be stressed every year of school so that society will actually begin to
understand what the government does and why taxes and such are needed.

Americans are too focused on the individual instead of the collective good.
Eventually American patriotism is going to fall because more and more young
adults are losing faith in their government. Once citizens no longer feel a pride
towards their country and fellow Americans, there is no longer a team of people
to call themselves a nation.

It will take a united political party to accomplish this, not one person over the
course of four years. If a political party can provide the electorate with true
happiness and help them to understand the situation, then campaigning would
not be such b.s.

It does not surprise that ‘American politicians, with a very small number of exceptions, don’t know anything about economics’. Neither does the American public.

Nor, for that matter, do economists.

ITW said it all, and said it correctly.

Inherit the Wind - You couldn’t be more correct. Nicely said.

I’ve said this time and time again: The wealthy and their puppets (congress) don’t give a shit about solving our problems. Period.

What’s so absurd is that regular folk have simply rolled-over and allowed this to happen. As George Carlin so brilliantly put it: “Never underestimate the stupidity of the American people.”

Richard,
I disagree. I think the Republicans understand economics perfectly.  But the object of the game is to win unlimited power that cannot be stemmed and to ensure the continued backing of the pseudo-nations, the multinational corporations. 

What they SAY is nothing but propaganda.  I don’t think Boehner or McConnell believe one word they are spouting.  They don’t give a shit about jobs. They don’t give a shit about the welfare of the American people.  They want what Tom DeLay called “a perpetual majority”—in other words, absolute power.

It doesn’t matter if the economy is strong or weak: Just make sure the C-levels and banks get richer and become more and more impervious to challenges.  For them, the IDEAL society is a “capitalist” version of Stalinism:  Orwell’s 1984, with them at the top.

You assume they want the same things you and I and, I think most Republican voters want but don’t understand: A healthy economy full of jobs that allows people to prosper on their own merit.

But they don’t.  McConnell and Hatch in rare moments of honesty have told us that the wealthiest need to be protected, we need to subsidize Exxon/Mobil, the richest corporation on earth, and that the poor have to sacrifice.

Their goal is a 21st century version of feudal society where the “Gentry”, the “Elite” live in unimaginable luxury for themselves and their families, and the rest live to serve them.  They understand this perfectly, and will say ANYTHING, no matter how outrageous and absurd and contradictory, to get it.

I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired of our
stupid country and the idiots we elect to public
office. The founders rebelled against George III for
insults far less extreme than what is being hurled at
the American public by the so called Tea Party and
their corporate enablers.