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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsPaul Krugman on more GOP dickishness
Republicans just can't seem to find a sewer deep enough. Here's an excerpt from Paul Krugman's column in today's New York Times.
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The modern G.O.P.s raw fiscal dishonesty is something new in American politics. And thats telling us something important about what has happened to half of our political spectrum.
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(B)oth (budgets) claim drastic reductions in federal spending. Some of those spending reductions are specified: There would be savage cuts in food stamps, similarly savage cuts in Medicaid over and above reversing the recent expansion, and an end to Obamacares health insurance subsidies. Rough estimates suggest that either plan would roughly double the number of Americans without health insurance. But both also claim more than a trillion dollars in further cuts to mandatory spending, which would almost surely have to come out of Medicare or Social Security. What form would these further cuts take? We get no hint.
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... Republicans really believe that tax cuts for the rich would generate a huge boom and a surge in revenue, but theyre afraid that the public wont find such claims credible. So magic asterisks are really stand-ins for their belief in the magic of supply-side economics, a belief that remains intact even though proponents in that doctrine have been wrong about everything for decades.
But Im partial to a more cynical explanation. Think about what these budgets would do if you ignore the mysterious trillions in unspecified spending cuts and revenue enhancements. What youre left with is huge transfers of income from the poor and the working class, who would see severe benefit cuts, to the rich, who would see big tax cuts. And the simplest way to understand these budgets is surely to suppose that they are intended to do what they would, in fact, actually do: make the rich richer and ordinary families poorer.
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Look, I know that its hard to keep up the outrage after so many years of fiscal fraudulence. But please try. Were looking at an enormous, destructive con job, and you should be very, very angry.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/20/opinion/paul-krugman-trillion-dollar-fraudsters.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-top-span-region®ion=c-column-top-span-region&W
Mc Mike
(9,111 posts)ladjf
(17,320 posts)Cyrano
(15,027 posts)don't know how to relate to reality.
Krugman is great and on days when I'm feeling down, I feel that he's only writing a chronicle on the fall of the American empire.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)jwirr
(39,215 posts)important one. We often wonder how they can be so dumb. They are true believers. They believe that cutting taxes for the rich and the corporations will create American jobs. They believe that those of us who are poor are really just lazy. They believe that the wealth from the rich will actually trickle down to those who deserve it. They believe that it is the end times and that our nation is falling to pieces because it is evil.
I wonder what it would take to educate them?
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)But we shouldn't allow them to reach office where they govern according to their crazy belief system.
If someone believes cutting taxes will increase revenue they are just plain wrong. It's right there in black and white for anyone that cares to look.
freebrew
(1,917 posts)a BIG increase in revenue for the rich.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)Well, they seem to have a perverse desire to see the disabled and elderly starving and homeless.
I cannot understand the motivation for harming others.
Cyrano
(15,027 posts)I'm usually skeptical about good/evil distinctions. But regarding Republicans, they are either incredibly stupid, or incredibly evil. -- Either fools or knaves.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)hifiguy
(33,688 posts)of the American rich ever since FDR broke them over the knee of the New Deal.
Cyrano
(15,027 posts)I seems the current GOP has raised propaganda to a high art form.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)But it isn't too much of a challenge for them when they control virtually all radio, TV and Newspapers.
sammythecat
(3,568 posts)they're motivated by their greed. Nothing else really matters. Harm to others is considered, by some, to be an unfortunate consequence. To some of the others, it isn't even considered. All that matters is getting more, and more is never enough. Greed is an addiction and it is never satisfied. Sounds cliche, but it is absolutely true. How else to explain what's described in the article except to say it is all about rich and powerful people in a never ending pursuit of more and more.
Just wait and see. They'll probably get most of what they want this time around, but in a little while they'll be right back at it trying to get even more. Rinse and repeat. As well as I can understand, this seems to be the default setting for human civilization and it doesn't change except through some sort of calamity. WWII led to about thirty years of a thriving middle class, but, like all such periods, it was a short-lived aberration and we've been descending back to the default state of feudalism and oligarchy ever since.
Martin Eden
(12,847 posts)Their long term goal is to erase FDR's New Deal and LBJ's Great Society; in other words, SHRINK GOVERNMENT TO A SIZE THAT CAN BE DROWNED IN THE BATHTUB.
But if they actually campaigned on eliminating Social Security & Medicare they couldn't win elections because the vast majority of the public benefits from and wants these programs. The R's may seem stupid, but they're smart enough to understand these programs will never be eliminated as long as there is funding to keep them going. The only way to achieve their long term goal is to STARVE THE BEAST. This means starving the government of funds with tax cuts for the wealthy and jacked-up military spending, both of which benefit those who financed their political campaigns.
Bottom Line:
The long term Republican agenda absolutely requires Huge. Budget. Deficits.
When you realize that, it's not too difficult to understand why the budgets they propose are so at odds with their rhetoric and the actual consequences of their fiscal policies.
Snarkoleptic
(5,997 posts)1) Blow hole in budget with tax cuts.
2) Sorry, we're broke and need to hack away at government programs/services.
3) Blame organized labor.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
The whole operation is designed to enrich the 1% and the stooges that do their bidding.