How I Learned To Start Worrying And Loathe Supply Side Economics
Let's talk about debt.
Recent statistics tell us that since George W. Bush came into office and squandered the treasury surplus that the "pay as you go" Clinton years left, every child in America from here on out will be born with essentially $30,000 in debt. Those of us who have student loans, credit bills, and/or health care problems are no strangers to manageable debt, but a new report this week from the Congressional Auditor from the Office of Government Accountability throws even more fuel onto George W's insane fiscal fire.
Closing the fiscal gap over will cost us 26 Trillion Dollars over the next 75 years, or roughly $300,000 per full-time worker for the next six decades. That's me. That's my friends, my sister, my cousins. Thank you President Bush. Thank you Republican Party. What's $300,000 over the course of my life, really, if it means Ronald Reagan gets his face on a coin?
A combination of future costs from entitlement programs (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid) combined with Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy; deficit spending; tax breaks for corporations; slashing of the estate tax; borrowing from China, Japan, and Saudi Arabia to keep the Treasury afloat; decrease of real wages combined with the largest gap between the rich and poor since the Depression; our ridiculous trade deficits from the WTO and NAFTA; and Bush's multi-billion dollar mistake in Iraq.
All of these factors combine to leave my generation with a bleak financial outlook for the future. If China topped buying out debt, our economy would sink. The same goes for India, Japan, and Saudi Arabia. The Republican Party believes that in the long run, the free market will work itself out, but on a global level there is no real free market, just a planet-wide race to the bottom for wages and living conditions. Even Adam Smith, who praised the free market and capitalism as a great good, wrote extensively for the need of governments to regulate it, lest it subsume itself. As it did in the 1930's. As it's threatening to do again. We left the 90's with a budget surplus, but thanks to tax cuts, unfunded entitlements, and corporate deregulation since Bush took office, the rich are richer than ever, and everyone else is trying to skate by. We tried this in the early 80's, and in his second term Reagan had to pass maybe the largest tax hike in U.S. history to keep the country afloat.
There are currently sixteen million Americans living in poverty, plus more than 700,000 Americans homeless. These are the facts.
I believe in the free market. I believe in regulation. I believe that everyone should pay their fair share. I believe in making money. I don't believe in making money on the backs of a huge class of working poor. When Japan moves auto plants to Canada for no other reason than they have single payer health care (one-third of the price of a car made in America is figured in from our outrageously costly and ineffective free market health care system) something is wrong. When we buy over $234 billion a year more from China than they do from us, when our manufacturing base is so fractured and sold off, I worry. About my future. Our future. We talk every day about the human costs of the war in Iraq. We fret about elections that are years off. We rush to the radio for breaking news about Anna Nicole Smith. I worry about my kids someday. We saw what can happen this week when slight market adjustment in China dropped the Dow Jones 400 points, and nearly sank the dollar. This is the tip of the iceberg.
Recent statistics tell us that since George W. Bush came into office and squandered the treasury surplus that the "pay as you go" Clinton years left, every child in America from here on out will be born with essentially $30,000 in debt. Those of us who have student loans, credit bills, and/or health care problems are no strangers to manageable debt, but a new report this week from the Congressional Auditor from the Office of Government Accountability throws even more fuel onto George W's insane fiscal fire.
Closing the fiscal gap over will cost us 26 Trillion Dollars over the next 75 years, or roughly $300,000 per full-time worker for the next six decades. That's me. That's my friends, my sister, my cousins. Thank you President Bush. Thank you Republican Party. What's $300,000 over the course of my life, really, if it means Ronald Reagan gets his face on a coin?
A combination of future costs from entitlement programs (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid) combined with Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy; deficit spending; tax breaks for corporations; slashing of the estate tax; borrowing from China, Japan, and Saudi Arabia to keep the Treasury afloat; decrease of real wages combined with the largest gap between the rich and poor since the Depression; our ridiculous trade deficits from the WTO and NAFTA; and Bush's multi-billion dollar mistake in Iraq.
All of these factors combine to leave my generation with a bleak financial outlook for the future. If China topped buying out debt, our economy would sink. The same goes for India, Japan, and Saudi Arabia. The Republican Party believes that in the long run, the free market will work itself out, but on a global level there is no real free market, just a planet-wide race to the bottom for wages and living conditions. Even Adam Smith, who praised the free market and capitalism as a great good, wrote extensively for the need of governments to regulate it, lest it subsume itself. As it did in the 1930's. As it's threatening to do again. We left the 90's with a budget surplus, but thanks to tax cuts, unfunded entitlements, and corporate deregulation since Bush took office, the rich are richer than ever, and everyone else is trying to skate by. We tried this in the early 80's, and in his second term Reagan had to pass maybe the largest tax hike in U.S. history to keep the country afloat.
There are currently sixteen million Americans living in poverty, plus more than 700,000 Americans homeless. These are the facts.
I believe in the free market. I believe in regulation. I believe that everyone should pay their fair share. I believe in making money. I don't believe in making money on the backs of a huge class of working poor. When Japan moves auto plants to Canada for no other reason than they have single payer health care (one-third of the price of a car made in America is figured in from our outrageously costly and ineffective free market health care system) something is wrong. When we buy over $234 billion a year more from China than they do from us, when our manufacturing base is so fractured and sold off, I worry. About my future. Our future. We talk every day about the human costs of the war in Iraq. We fret about elections that are years off. We rush to the radio for breaking news about Anna Nicole Smith. I worry about my kids someday. We saw what can happen this week when slight market adjustment in China dropped the Dow Jones 400 points, and nearly sank the dollar. This is the tip of the iceberg.
posted by Patrick at Thursday, March 01, 2007
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