Acrid mockery of the Congress

7.22.2011 Leave a comment

The Onion helps to correctly frame the debt debate:

WASHINGTON — Members of the U.S. Congress reported Wednesday they were continuing to carefully debate the issue of whether or not they should allow the country to descend into a roiling economic meltdown of historically dire proportions. “It is a question that, I think, is worthy of serious consideration: Should we take steps to avoid a crippling, decades-long depression that would lead to disastrous consequences on a worldwide scale? Or should we not do that?” asked House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), adding that arguments could be made for both sides, and that the debate over ensuring America’s financial solvency versus allowing the nation to default on its debt — which would torpedo stock markets, cause mortgage and interests rates to skyrocket, and decimate the value of the U.S. dollar — is “certainly a conversation worth having.” “Obviously, we don’t want to rush to consensus on whether it is or isn’t a good idea to save the American economy and all our respective livelihoods from certain peril until we’ve examined this thorny dilemma from every angle. And if we’re still discussing this matter on Aug. 2, well, then, so be it.” At press time, President Obama said he personally believed the country should not be economically ruined.

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Reactionary politics and the deficit

6.23.2011 Leave a comment

Chad Stone, the chief economist for The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, informs us that “…the Bush-era tax cuts and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars — including their associated interest costs — account for almost half of the projected public debt in 2019 (measured as a share of the economy) if we continue current policies.”

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

This debt projection is instructive, although, as Kathy Ruffing and James R. Horney, also members of The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, point out, “Some lawmakers, pundits, and others continue to say that President George W. Bush’s policies did not drive the projected federal deficits of the coming decade — that, instead, it was the policies of President Obama and Congress in 2009 and 2010. But, the fact remains: the economic downturn, President Bush’s tax cuts and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq explain virtually the entire deficit over the next ten years ….” The debt projection may be instructive, but only those willing to evaluate the facts of the matter and then soundly draw conclusions from their evaluations will learn something pertinent about America’s economic predicament.

I guess the Washington elite along with their finance capital paymasters are not among those individuals capable of learning anything about the economy they regulate.

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