Reading this post, kind of got me thinking...
Of course, by now, we all know that under republican economic policies, the rich get much much richer, and the poor subsidize them. Tired of budget deficits which starve us of needed services? No money for schools, no money for infrastructure maintenance, no money for health care... these are not side-effects, these are primary goals of the republican party. The Bushies have just honed these principles to a fine art. They run a government with people who genuinely want to make the government grind to a halt. "Brownie", Gonzales, Chertoff... these people are not aberrations - incompetence is a goal, not an accident. You see, it is hard to extoll the virtues of privatization of inherently governmental functions when people are happy with how the government runs things. It is much better to fill the government with incompetent hacks, so that you can point to its incompetence when you propose to contract out all those functions to private contractors (who then donate handsomely to your re-election campaign).
Of course on other goal of these guys is to make life even easier for those who sit at the tippy top of the income ladder. Under Bush, marginal tax rates for the very top are the lowest they have been since the 1930's. Though those people are something like 5% of the population, they make up something like 30% of the national wealth. So lowering their taxes even a little bit, punches a huge hole in the budget because they make so much money. The big problem with whacking such a large portion of the Federal budget is that there really isn't anywhere to make up the money. Most of the budget outlays are set aside for the Pentagon war machine, and for paying interest on the national debt. Everything else is small.
One of the ways that the budget deficit is measured is by comparing the number to the gross domestic product. As the chart on the right notes, though the deficit is large in absolute number terms, it is roughly 1% of GDP. Naturally, over the long haul, even a debt that is a small percentage of the GDP adds up, and the interest can be crushing, which is why it isn't a good idea to have the government run a debt for long periods of time. Basic economics. If you look at the chart, the red line is the projected deficit if the Bush tax cuts remain in effect into the future, and the blue line is if they are repealed. Scary...
Now, something else to consider. Bush tried to complete the dream of the conservatives a few years ago when he tried to shred social security. You see, the right has hated the whole concept of Social Security since it was instituted. It is really hard to understand why. Whether or not it makes any sense, we were faced with the prospect of the destruction of one of the country's most successful social programs. Bush failed spectacularly in his bid, but you often hear pundits and politicians on the right describe the "crisis" in Social Security and Medicare. Of course they pull a fast one when they put Social Security and Medicare together as being in crisis. Social Security is actually in fine shape, is self-financing through payroll taxes, and some very minor tinkering will keep it going essentially forever. Medicare on the other hand has some major costs, which is mainly due to the spiraling costs of medical care in general in this country. Medicare's troubles won't be solved until we get some sort of national healthcare system going.
What the republican's won't tell you however, is that they really aren't that concerned with "saving" Social Security, Medicare, and dealing with the budget deficit. You see, what they do care about is making the fabulously rich, even richer. It is pretty clear when you look at the graph on the right. The cost of Bush's tax cuts for the rich are even more than the increased costs associated with Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid put together as a percentage of GDP.
The second chart shows projected
growth in Social Security,* Medicare, and Medicaid spending as a
percent of GDP between 2007 and 2017. The second bar shows the cost of
Bush tax cuts and related revenue policies in 2017, not including
associated interest costs. Growth in "entitlements" is said to be out
of control, but the extent of projected growth to 2017 is dwarfed by
revenue losses implied by Bush administration policy. Without
significant adjustments elsewhere in the budget, benefit costs and
revenue shortfalls will have to be reconciled somehow over the next 10
years.
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