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Budget Balancing: Axe & Blindold Vs. Scalpel & Lasers
Author: Raine    Date: 02/14/2011 13:52:18

The President will be offering his Budget proposal this morning. The Washington Post reports:
Obama also would raise hundreds of billions of dollars in fresh revenue, which Republicans adamantly oppose. He would increase taxes on the wealthy by limiting the value of their itemized deductions and by allowing the recently extended George W. Bush-era tax breaks to expire in 2012. He would end subsidies for oil and gas companies, and would eliminate certain tax breaks for corporations that do business overseas. And he assumes that Congress will develop a plan to pay for a $556 billion transportation bill, a measure traditionally funded by increasing the federal tax on gasoline.

Let's hope he and Congress can get this done. This looks like a serious way to go toward balancing the budget. It is time for a mature and realistic discussion to happen with regard to our nation's economic woes. This proposal, at first glance, makes sense, even if there are some difficult decisions to be made. There's a little bit of everything to make pretty much everyone unhappy with something. As I wrote before, it's a Simple Unspoken Truth:
You cannot cut debt without paying the debt down. For those that say Government should be able to balance a budget just like Americans have to, we say this, from personal experience:
In order to balance a budget, you must be able to pay off debt as well as save money. One cannot cut personal debt without money to pay the debt off. Cutting taxes when we have such debt and deficits is akin to a regular American family taking a pay cut in order to balance a budget, because they think it will mean they are paying less taxes, and thus saving money. The logic is seriously flawed. In the real world, people increase their revenue stream by taking 2nd job, and cutting their expenses. For the Federal government, increasing the revenue stream means increasing taxes (or rolling back tax cuts).

You can't get out of debt without paying it down. The federal government must pay down the debt -- lowering taxes even more than we are is not an answer. If one truly loves their country they way they love their family and its budgeting process, they should know that you need to pay the bills and THEN pay extra in order to get out of debt. It’s not enough to just reduce the deficit – it must be eliminated and a surplus generated to pay off some of the principal.
The GOP will --and has -- proposed slashing social programs of all types, including the much beloved AmeriCorps. From E.J. Dionne:
A telling example: The party that purports to love community- and church-based efforts to help the poor and downtrodden even zeroed out AmeriCorps, the national service program that has long enjoyed support across party lines. AmeriCorps, remember, gives out small grants that leverage an enormous amount of voluntary work for the groups George W. Bush used to praise as “the armies of compassion.
On top of all this, they still insist upon even more tax cuts. It needs to be said once again, you cannot cut down debt with no money. It's one thing to cut spending, but it is also possible to go too far. Yesterday the Speaker of the House did just that with the GOP hyperbole.
"He's going to present a budget tomorrow that's going to continue to destroy jobs by spending too much, borrowing too much, taxing too much," Boehner said on NBC's "Meet the Press." [snip]

"We're broke," said Boehner. "What's really dangerous is if we continue to do nothing and allow the status quo to stay in place."

Boehner said Republicans are delivering on their campaign pledge to cut $100 billion in spending, but called it just a start.

"While we believe we've met our committments that we made in the pledge to America, I've said there's no limit to the amount of money that our members want to cut," Boehner said.
From Steve Benen at the Washington Monthly:
Consider the cuts the House GOP wants to make this fiscal year. We're talking about deep reductions in education, transportation, law enforcement, food safety, environmental protections, and community health centers, among many other areas. The result -- indeed, the intended result -- is to lay off thousands of teachers, police officers, medical professionals, food inspectors, etc.

It is, to borrow a phrase, the epitome of a "job-killing" plan. Given the GOP agenda, this is a feature, not a bug -- the whole point is to reduce the public-sector workforce, and push these thousands of workers into unemployment.

With this in mind, it's almost amusing to see the House Speaker tell a national television audience that we need to avoid an agenda that would "destroy jobs." Is he not aware of what he's proposed?

In effect, Boehner is arguing, "Obama's agenda might put more Americans out of work. It's better to go with my agenda, which will definitely put more Americans out of work."
To date, the GOP-led House has not put forth one single bill to create jobs in the private OR public sector. I would like to know who the "We" is that the House speaker is referring to. If it is the country, as I suspect, I would like to know how one can cut spending the way they are proposing. You can't cut what does not exist. The GOP is proposing to eliminate jobs from both the Public and private Sector, this is a fact. They want to cut spending for the rest of THIS fiscal year, which would eliminate many infrastructure projects that have already been started, and not yet completed. Take a look:
Now, Republican leaders are coalescing around a proposal to “cancel unused spending authority in the 2009 stimulus bill” that could block funds from flowing to ongoing stimulus projects. However, Republicans have failed to fully explain the repercussions for such a radical budget proposal. <...>

HALF-FINISHED PROJECT IN MISSOURI: $44.5 million in stimulus funds was committed to an expansion of Highway 141 in St. Louis County. Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO), who claimed the stimulus failed and is part of the Republican caucus calling for an end to already-committed stimulus funds, attended the ground breaking ceremony for the project (watch a video of his remarks here). The project will not be completed until summer of 2012. The picture to the right was taken in January, and shows ongoing construction on Highway 141 that will be frozen if Akin’s budget proposal is successful.
http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/mostimulus1.jpg


HALF-FINISHED PROJECT IN SOUTH CAROLINA: The stimulus provided $1.6 billion for decommissioning a Cold War-era Heavy Water Components Test Reactor at the Savannah River Site. The project, which has created over 3,356 direct jobs, was primarily championed by Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC). However, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), another vocal opponent of the stimulus, said he helped Clyburn obtain the project because it will “set the stage for the state to benefit from nuclear jobs in the future.” A revealing story by Yvonne Wenger of the Post and Courier newspaper details the vast economic benefits of the effort, and how the program is helping local workers care for their families in an economically-depressed region of the country. Representatives for the firm handling the Savannah River Site project told ThinkProgress that the project is still reliant on stimulus funds and that it is still ongoing. The picture above was taken in January and shows recent construction efforts.
http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/scstimulus1.jpg


HALF-FINISHED PROJECT IN IOWA: The stimulus provided $25 million in funds for a project to replace the vertical lift bridge in Burlington near the Illinois border. Authorities had long complained about safety hazards regarding the 119-year-old swing-span bridge, and were eager for the 100 jobs the project was expected to create. According to the railway company BNSF, stimulus-opponent Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) joined area Democrats in supporting the project. Last month, BNSF posted a video of the bridge construction project, which will not be completed until later this year.
http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/iowastimulus1.jpg


That will not help the economy at all, and the Speaker of the House AND the GOP knows this. The problem is that no one is telling the American people that support them. It's a sham shame.

and
Raine


 

51 comments (Latest Comment: 02/15/2011 01:12:06 by TriSec)
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