It's Bush's Economy, Stupid

Mikaela says:
While the article explaining Bush's glee at the decline of the dollar mentioned in my post below gives credit where credit is due -- acknowledging the strategy apparent in the Bush administration's recent policy decisions -- another article on the same website glaringly and naively does not. Check out the article with the already-suspicious title, "Fiscal Responsibility & Budget Discipline."

The author exclaims with some alarm and indignation:

"If you look out beyond the next 10 years or so, there will be virtually no money for anything other than national defense, Social Security, Medicare and interest payments. So, unless you think that national parks are a waste, that we don't need interstate highways, that student loans should be eliminated, that we should shut down the Department of Education, and close NASA, there will indeed be some pain. And this pain will show up in our nation's economic performance as our national human and physical infrastructure goes into decline."

AND HE SAYS THAT LIKE REPUBLICANS WOULD AGREE THAT'S A BAD THING.

But I read it as a shopping list for the most conservative Republicans, who want to privatize everything and get the government out of everything but the military business (and even they are being privatized -- just look at all the mercenary "soldiers" in Iraq -- not to mention the Iraqi soldiers being trained to take over for American soldiers).

The author goes on to chastise the President's budget approach:
"If the administration ever takes off their rosy glasses, we will likely be told that we need to make 'tough choices' with the budget. However, the choices they offer will certainly not include any revenue increases – and thus not everyone will be asked to sacrifice equally.

To make their choices explicit, it's OK to cut research funding for the National Science Foundation, while just a couple months ago Congress managed to find over $100 billion worth of new tax breaks for corporations. We're being told to sacrifice student loans, and we do not have money for low-income heating assistance, but we can still phase in tax cuts that favor multimillionaires."

Again, the author makes the dangerous mistake of "misunderestimating" the President's policy approaches. It's not that his glasses are rosy; they're like night-vision goggles allowing him to see the future that his policy will conjure.

The rest of the article seems to miss the point entirely:
"And somehow we're expected to buy the line that we now need to sacrifice, that we now need to exert some budget discipline?

The current budget and deficit situation did not occur accidentally. Tax changes that provided cuts for the wealthy and little to nothing for everyone else have caused revenue to decline and the deficit to explode. At just 16.2 percent of gross domestic product, federal revenue is at its lowest level since the 1950s.

If there are sacrifices that need to be made, let us share them together – not increase the tax giveaways for some while asking the rest of us to pick up the slack. Already, those at the very top of the income distribution got the bulk of benefit from recent tax changes – do they really need more? Budget discipline means discipline on all sides, on spending and on taxes – not partisan politics using 'discipline' as an excuse to roll back society's gains."


It's not that those at the top need more tax cuts; the point is that there's nothing to stop them from getting them. They have the power; they have the money; they frame the issues.

Let's wake up. Leave off the incredulousness and call a spade a spade. If federal revenue is at its lowest level, it's because Bush wants it that way. We can trust that it plays into his hands in a dire and malicious way. What progressives laud as society's gains are Bush's first priority for budget cuts.

It's as if this author (and in a larger sense, most of the Left) is expecting Bush to change his policies when we point out the consequences of their enactment. "Mr. Bush, did you realize that your budget practices are leaving less money for the government and will lead to the end of social programs? You might want to do something about that."

How Karl Rove must laugh at us!