America is not broke

[stilltrucking]

[mnaz]

"america is not broke"...

going broke?

[stilltrucking]

cutting and pasting

Contrary to what those in power would like you to believe so that you'll give up your pension, cut your wages, and settle for the life your great-grandparents had, America is not broke. Not by a long shot. The country is awash in wealth and cash. It's just that it's not in your hands. It has been transferred, in the greatest heist in history, from the workers and consumers to the banks and the portfolios of the uber-rich.

“We’re broke.”

You can practically break a search engine if you start looking around the Internet for those words. They’re used repeatedly with reference to our local, state and federal governments, almost always to make a case for slashing programs — and, lately, to go after public-employee unions. The phrase is designed to create a sense of crisis that justifies rapid and radical actions before citizens have a chance to debate the consequences.

America ain't broke! The only thing that's broke is the moral compass of the rulers. And we aim to fix that compass and steer the ship ourselves from now on. Never forget, as long as that Constitution of ours still stands, it's one person, one vote, and it's the thing the rich hate most about America -- because even though they seem to hold all the money and all the cards, they begrudgingly know this one unshakeable basic fact: There are more of us than there are of them!

Just one problem: We’re not broke. Yes, nearly all levels of government face fiscal problems because of the economic downturn. But there is no crisis. There are many different paths open to fixing public budgets. And we will come up with wiser and more sustainable solutions if we approach fiscal problems calmly, realizing that we’re still a very rich country and that the wealthiest among us are doing exceptionally well.

Consider two of the most prominent we’re-brokers, House Speaker John Boehner and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.

“We’re broke, broke going on bankrupt,” Boehner said in a Feb. 28 Nashville speech. For Boehner, this “fact” justifies the $61 billion in domestic spending cuts House Republicans passed (cuts that would have a negligible impact on the long-term deficit). Boehner’s GOP colleagues want reductions in Head Start, student loans and scores of other programs voters like, and the only way to sell them is to cry catastrophe.

Bloomberg News looked at Boehner’s statement and declared simply: “It’s wrong.” As Bloomberg’s David J. Lynch wrote: “The U.S. today is able to borrow at historically low interest rates, paying 0.68 percent on a two-year note that it had to offer at 5.1 percent before the financial crisis began in 2007. Financial products that pay off if Uncle Sam defaults aren’t attracting unusual investor demand. And tax revenue as a percentage of the economy is at a 60-year low, meaning if the government needs to raise cash and can summon the political will, it could do so.”

Precisely. A phony metaphor is being used to hijack the nation’s political conversation and skew public policies to benefit better-off Americans and hurt most others.

We have an 8.9 percent unemployment rate, yet further measures to spur job creation are off the table. We’re broke, you see. We have a $15 trillion economy, yet we pretend to be an impoverished nation with no room for public investments in our future or efforts to ease the pain of a deep recession on those Americans who didn’t profit from it or cause it in the first place.

As Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) pointed out in a little-noticed but powerful speech on the economy in December, “during the past 20 years, 56 percent of all income growth went to the top 1 percent of households. Even more unbelievably, a third of all income growth went to just the top one-tenth of 1 percent.” Some people are definitely not broke, yet we can’t even think about raising their taxes.

By contrast, Franken noted that “when you adjust for inflation, the median household income actually declined over the last decade.” Many of those folks are going broke, yet because “we’re broke,” we’re told we can’t possibly help them.

Give Boehner, Walker and their allies full credit for diverting our attention with an arresting metaphor. The rest of us are dupes if we fall for it.

[mnaz]

you're right. the nation isn't broke, but the government(s) are going broke in the grip of corporatist policy and wealth transfer. "we the people" have been getting robbed. here are some comments i made on another site:

poli-sci theory aside, to me, our deep political divide is not so much the classic "left-right" debate as it is a deeper debate on the roles of private sector vs. public-- the fundamental way forward, a debate on government itself, and its wide scope of social and regulatory functions.

corporatism has been the driving force in d.c. since reagan in particular-- a "private sector counter-attack" to the government social and regulatory reforms made in the decades before that, post-depression. and if pure corporatism had its way, government would be stripped of these reforms/functions in favor of privatization and corporate self-oversight.

we see this in such things as the relentless, long push for more deregulation, the heavy, big-money resistance to new regulation, the large corporate tax cuts and subsidies, the repeated efforts to privatize everything from social security to large segments of our (now permanent?) foreign wars, and the ongoing assault on the government social safety net in general--- usually by draining the treasury and claiming no other way to fix the budget except social cuts. medicare for everyone? are you kidding? that is d.o.a. in congress. has been for at least 30 years. (there is already far too much socialized medicine as far as the insurance juggernaut is concerned).

and of course, democrats, to stay in the game, with the insane amounts of money it costs to be elected, have been pulled past center to the right--- only not quite as far right as the repubs (usually). the most vilified "liberal" politician in america might qualify as something right-of-center in most european nations.

i understand the ineptitude and waste of bureaucracy at times (not always-- e.g. studies show medicare is quite effficient), and this waste should be addressed, but that doesn't mean everything should be privatized and government functions decimated. we still need a balance between the public and private sectors. (and we need to remove as much big money corruption from the system as possible, in the election cycle and at all times in between-- yeah, good luck with that). neither pure capitalism nor pure socialism work well--- the trick is to find the right balance point. like many other things in life.

and...

so wash. d.c. has apparently decided that the only way to close the gap is from the spending side, with no real consideration given to the revenue side. and since the debt was already a big concern when obama took office, and we had a democratic majority for two years, it would appear we have little reason to expect this might change any time soon.

the obvious questions (for me):

1) given the size of the debt, is this one-sided approach reasonable?

2) how is it that revenue adjustment was never seriously entertained, even with a democratic majority? if i'm not mistaken, a slight upward adjustment to high-wealth and corporate-level tax rates was even part of obama's campaign.

and...

... i'm taking a hard line on this rationalization from now on, little or no exception (politicians shying away from raising the top tax rates). it is up to a leader to explain why taxes need to be raised, and on whom, and to hammer home this message. e.g. bush sr., as much as i despised many aspects of his presidency, figured this out. (of course he also didn't get reelected, but that was mostly due to the recession, which had already taken root even before he went back on "read my lips").

and it is up to us to figure out the swindle of extreme trickle-down fiscal policy to the point of fiscal irresponsibility, and reject it. that is not "conservatism," right? no more being duped by the standard big lobby scare tactics and falling for the "joe the plumber" ruse. it is taking far too long for us to figure this out, seems to me.

[mtmynd]

well said, mnaz... i see nothing here I'd be averse to. The problem is pure greed over common sense, lies and deceit over facts and truth, but the public is so fed up with all of it, i.e. the government that anything our government says or does immediately comes under suspicion.... is that due to years of lies strewn about by the (R)? Methinks so... they have so muddied the waters that all fear to even take a dip much less a sip of these political waters. Wouldn't that encourage those who muddied these waters? You know the answer - absolutely! It further increases their agenda for corporate takeover of the Government... and it is getting closer each month, or so it seems.

nice read, Mark.

[saw]

thanx for the link, truck.....he makes some good points.....and a positive populist message can't be a bad thing....I've felt for some time that the lies need to be confronted aggressively and have been disappointed the prez hasn't really done that enough.....he needs to get out of this kowtowing mentality and start playing some hardball.....as citizens we need to do the same.....

[stilltrucking]

Obama sometimes reminds me of Chamberlain at Munich with his kowtowing.

I am reminded of a bit from the bible about how the children of this world are smarter than the children of light. I can't remember the actual wording but it is close to it I think. Why are democrats so stupid?

Why are repulicans able to get away with so many lies? Because the free press is on their side? Who the hell calls them on anything anymore? If you tell a lie often enough it becomes truth I suppose. That is right out of Goebbels.

[SadLuckDame]

If we're broke, only it's there, we just can't have it
then the power is in our hands to tack an importance on something else instead...
prolly more than likely something they can't get their hands on.

[Atehequa]

Ever figure that most humans are living in a manner in no way befitting to the
Good Earth Mother ?

Ahhh, the discomfort of a sickness.