Elephant Tricks

In case you were in a drug-induced state or otherwise not paying attention in the 1980s, be very aware that Reagonomics did not work then, the pathetic variation that Massachusetts gubernatorial candidate Kerry Healey is trying won't work here, and borrow-and-spend policies of current President George the Lesser are at this moment destroying the futures of our children and grandchildren.

Vastly oversimplified, yet still frighteningly accurate, the theory is that you can spend more money as a government and pay lower taxes as a (wealthy) citizen. On the federal level, the key is to give the richest 1% of us tax cuts and subsidies. They will then create new jobs and the spending of the lackeys working for them will pay for the difference and then some.

There's lots of hemming and hawing by Republican legislators, by conservative, if you pardon the expression, think tanks, and even by some Democrats sucked into the fantasy. We're not supposed to well on the obvious drawbacks. We're not supposed to think of borrowed money as a deficit. We're not supposed to confuse borrowing as any form of taxation.

The excellent Rolling Stone piece, The Deficit Lie, details how it's working for Americans with annual incomes over $1 million and not working for the homeless and for students. In addition, the proposed $2.77 trillion federal budget can only justify further increasing tax cuts for the rich by eliminating and reducing social programs for the working poor, veterans and other non-wealthy subgroups. A Washington Post column, Fantasy Budget, nails it by quoting newspaper writers nationwide calling George the Lesser on his lies and omissions.

This has come home this week with news of the highest trade deficit of all time. Then on Wednesday, the real accounting to date for the Iraq invasion passed $300 billion.

Blood and Bucks Note: Having backed the nation into a corner from which we cannot retreat, Bush and chums leave debt and death. Not even considering the tens of thousands of Iraqis, we have a current U.S. body count of 2,257 as of yesterday.

As for the White House's financial responsibility, the New York Daily News recalls that the $300 billion figure had come up before:

...White House officials said there were no regrets about humiliating two top aides who had accurately predicted the war's cost.

Retired Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki and White House economic adviser Larry Lindsey had pegged the cost of the war at $200 billion. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said it would cost only $50 billion.

Lindsey was fired and Shinseki was shunted aside. Budget director Josh Bolten paused yesterday when asked if they were owed an apology. " I don't think so. The costs of the war are what they are," he said.

There you have it, boys and girls. Don't worry you silly heads about it.

Even adjusted for inflation, we have the largest government per capita of all time. We have the greatest debt of all time. Billions of those newly borrowed bucks are going to efforts to reduce the liberties that the terrorists want to take from us. We don't need terrorists to do that to us; we have an executive branch in Washington to do it for them.

It took a decade to undo Ronny Reagan's disastrous borrow-and-spend, borrow-and-spend practices. But he was an amateur compared with Bush.

The only good that can come of this is if the majority of Americans comes to and realizes that endless spending while decreasing income doesn't work, hasn't worked and can't work. It is the fantasy of borrow-and-spend Republicans.

The bills are due. There is no one else to blame it on. Say it with me, borrrow-and-spend Republicans are wrong.