Debt Hawkishness

Lets take an overview for a moment. Republicans far and wide are making the argument that we need to pay attention to and take care of the debt and deficit and as such, many of the Obama spending programs are completely unaffordable. Leaving aside for a moment how this worry over the debt was nowhere to be seen during the duration of the most recent Bush Administration while the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit Act and other laws like it as well as two off the record wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were put into effect, this is a very convenient argument.

Republicans say they are worried about the deficit to the point that any action on the part of the President to continue and expand the current, shaky recovery is unacceptable. They stop short however, at any action that affects Republican pet projects that might make an actual impact on America's debt.

Simply by allowing the 2001 and 2003 Bush Tax Cuts to expire along with his hold on the Estate Tax and allowing the Capital Gains and Dividends taxes to revert to the levels they were during President Clinton's administration as proposed in S. 722 in the 111th Congress  as well as H.R. 470 and other similar bills we could save $3.5 Trillion through fiscal year  2017. That's simply by letting all of these tax advantage for the rich put in place by the Bush Administration to lapse. For those of you who are unaware, $3.5 Trillion is actually a dent in the federal debt of about $13.5 Trillion currently. Allowing any of these provision to be extended, as Republicans at large are running on, ADDS $3.5 Trillion to the federal debt over the next 7 years. Check out Florida Senate Candidate Marco Rubio's own website. He details his 12 ideas for helping the economy. Extending the Bush Tax Cuts permanently is his first plank! Remember that's $3.5 Trillion dollars through 2017. But the deficit and debt are just too much! Or watch this clip from Rachel Maddow. She covers all the salient facts. Carly Fiorina's discussion about how the tax cuts "pay for themselves" as well as each president's total debt increase running back to the Carter Administration. Spoiler, every Republican runs up the debt more than any Democrat.

Now that I've beaten that dead horse for a while, lets take a look at actual changes to the budget. I've written before about American defense spending and its relationship to our budget as a whole. But let me go over it again. We spend roughly $600 billion annually through the Department of Defense. That's more than the rest of the world combined. I'll advocate cutting the defense budget by half to $300 billion. If we get out of Iraq and Afghanistan that should be doable. All of this is with the understanding that such a cut would be implemented after going over the defense budget line by line with people who understand it better than I do, that is any such cuts would need military input.

The Federal Highway Administration got a budget of $40.1 billion in FY 2009. I understand that much of this goes to maintain existing roadways and that is a good thing. But we are still building new highways. The era of the car is over. Gas prices will only continue to climb as we move past peak oil. We need to look at ways to save in the FHWA and if not save, at least to redirect much of the funds dedicated to new road construction to other projects including intra-city light rail and HSR lines between cities. The administration has started doing this with the bailout funds but the percentages were far from adequate.

This post could go on and on. But it's intended to point out the pure hypocrisy of the GOP talking points as of late. If you are going to harp on the debt and deficit you can't keep advocating tax cuts for the rich and a 100% opposition to raising rates ever. The simple fact is that if the American people desire the continuation of services they have come to expect from their government including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare programs, and federal funding of Schools and Transportation along with a capable military and a growing middle class, the cash will have to come from somewhere. Because it sure isn't coming from anywhere now.

Let Me Begin...

Let me begin by saying that I intend to start all this off on the right foot. I'm going to do a big "Inaugural Post" following the State of the Union speech this evening. I will not, however be live blogging it, or micro blogging it or any sort of such thing, mostly because I will be at work. I work an hourly wage job part time in addition to going to school and so, this blog, as excited as I am about it, comes after those responsibilties. I ask that all of you out there on the internets bear with me. This is an ongoing project and I will try to be as prompt with discussions as possible. So at least let me tell you where else you can go to get the political discourse you so thoroughly desire. Let me, for the record say that I would try The Rachel Maddow Show or Nate Silver's 538 for discussions on big national issues. Both do an excellent job of analysis. The former of those resources is, as I am, an entity with a leftward spin to it, the latter tries to be objective and, I believe, does a fair job of it. I will most certainly link to both of these sites as well as many others regularly to help make my points, but I will also strive to add my own bit to the discussion as well.

Before we do anything of any real depth (which I will save for the breakdown of the State of the Union Address) I will say that the things that are coming out of the White House before the speech don't encourage me. The President is, as many of you probably already know, proposing a "Spending Freeze" for all discretionary spending exclusive of Defense, Intelligence, State and the like. I think this is a terrible plan. First, it is purely reactionary when the President needs to be proactive. He is seeing his numbers slide, as one would and should expect with an economy as it is, and is trying to do something to create a turnaround. However, adopting the economic strategy of the opponent you soundly defeated 14 months earlier is just poor policy. If the idea is to make Republicans, and possibly more importantly Tea Baggers, like him because he's suddently being mindful of the deficit, the idea is poorly thought out. When the deficit is brought up as it is regularly by the President's political opponents, the answer is to remind them of the deficits that they irresponsibly (and against their "Small Government" cries) ran up fighting two unnecessary and reactionary wars. And then to point out that the Federal Government is one of the only entities capable of spending currently, and that spending is exactly what is needed to keep this Great Recession from becoming a second Great Depression.

Secondly, I want to challenge the wisdom of excluding the Pentagon from this spending freeze. If it really IS the right thing to do, why not include one of the biggest budgets in Washington? It looks to me like the President is trying to avoid being accused of being "soft on terror" and "not giving the troops the backing they need" when the Republicans in Congress are always going to accuse him of this anyway. I think it is high time that the Defense Department budget was looked at as a main contributor to our debt and deficit problem. Looking at American defense spending versus the Entire rest of the world would seem to support that we are spending way too much on defense. When there is so much talk in Washington about "trimming the fat" why is it that the DoD budget is viewed as 100% lean? The pie graph on the privious link would seem to support that we very nearly spend more on defense than the rest of the world put together. If we can't defend ourselves with, say, half that, or $300 billion dollars, it's time to ask what we are doing wrong.

More is to come after the State of the Union this evening. I think I've soapboxed enough for now.