Eyeballs hurt, again...
Aug. 8th, 2011 09:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexpgpNew work in the morning, old work in the afternoon. Little progress. Same old stuff. I'll get over it.
Checking out the Web during my lunch was probably a mistake, though. I couldn't help but laugh when I read about how the credit downgrade is now being attributed by The Usual Suspects to the "Tea Party." That doesn't quite jive with my reading of the reasoning behind the S&P decision, which was that the latest agreement to came out of DC did nothing—by design, not by oversight of any kind—to address the looming issue of entitlements, and that making a promise to slightly reduce the rate at which our government increases its spending is basically just more of the same-old-same-old. I'm not sure how you wrap the "Tea Party" around that.
That kind of promise brings to mind old '50 comedy sketches, like the one where Gracie comes home copiously laden with packages from an all-day shopping spree and proceeds to reassure George by telling him about all the money she's "saved" that day, because the stuff she bought was all on sale at reduced prices.
At the time, we felt sorry for George, laughed at Gracie's matter-of-fact manner, and thought she was completely nuts. Today, politicians pull basically the same stunt—with us in the position of George—and expect adulation (or at least re-election). And let's face it, given the track records of the people—both Republican and Democrat—who wander (and have wandered) the halls of Congress, do you think any of the professional politicians in D.C. really believes in reducing the debt? Or is that the kind of thing one merely talks about in grave tones but then leaves to one's successor to face?
Think about it: If one of the super-rich were to decide to contribute all of his or her assets to the government, do you think any part of it would go to reducing the debt? or would it all be spent—one way or another—on new baubles, mostly made of pork? (Recall that when states were lobbying citizens to let them institute lotteries, one of the big selling points was how the profits would go entirely toward education? Sounds good, right? Well, in Florida at least, what happened was that whatever pittance was left over as profit resulted in the education budget being reduced by exactly that amount, thus freeing the state to apply the difference on increasing spending in other areas.)
During the debt ceiling discussions, Obama invoked the name of Reagan, suggesting that today's Republicans hearken to what The Gipper did back in the day: agree to three dollars of future spending cuts to go along with one dollar of immediate new revenue. What got left out of the narrative was the fact that the revenue was collected, in the form of new taxes, and the spending cuts never... really... materialized. Reagan later acknowledged his concurrence in the plan as a mistake.
That National Debt—it just kept (and keeps) rolling along, like a snowball.
Cheers...
Checking out the Web during my lunch was probably a mistake, though. I couldn't help but laugh when I read about how the credit downgrade is now being attributed by The Usual Suspects to the "Tea Party." That doesn't quite jive with my reading of the reasoning behind the S&P decision, which was that the latest agreement to came out of DC did nothing—by design, not by oversight of any kind—to address the looming issue of entitlements, and that making a promise to slightly reduce the rate at which our government increases its spending is basically just more of the same-old-same-old. I'm not sure how you wrap the "Tea Party" around that.
That kind of promise brings to mind old '50 comedy sketches, like the one where Gracie comes home copiously laden with packages from an all-day shopping spree and proceeds to reassure George by telling him about all the money she's "saved" that day, because the stuff she bought was all on sale at reduced prices.
At the time, we felt sorry for George, laughed at Gracie's matter-of-fact manner, and thought she was completely nuts. Today, politicians pull basically the same stunt—with us in the position of George—and expect adulation (or at least re-election). And let's face it, given the track records of the people—both Republican and Democrat—who wander (and have wandered) the halls of Congress, do you think any of the professional politicians in D.C. really believes in reducing the debt? Or is that the kind of thing one merely talks about in grave tones but then leaves to one's successor to face?
Think about it: If one of the super-rich were to decide to contribute all of his or her assets to the government, do you think any part of it would go to reducing the debt? or would it all be spent—one way or another—on new baubles, mostly made of pork? (Recall that when states were lobbying citizens to let them institute lotteries, one of the big selling points was how the profits would go entirely toward education? Sounds good, right? Well, in Florida at least, what happened was that whatever pittance was left over as profit resulted in the education budget being reduced by exactly that amount, thus freeing the state to apply the difference on increasing spending in other areas.)
During the debt ceiling discussions, Obama invoked the name of Reagan, suggesting that today's Republicans hearken to what The Gipper did back in the day: agree to three dollars of future spending cuts to go along with one dollar of immediate new revenue. What got left out of the narrative was the fact that the revenue was collected, in the form of new taxes, and the spending cuts never... really... materialized. Reagan later acknowledged his concurrence in the plan as a mistake.
That National Debt—it just kept (and keeps) rolling along, like a snowball.
Cheers...
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no subject
Date: 2011-08-10 11:10 pm (UTC)The problem with the US national debt...... within the next few years there won't be enough money in the rest of the world to support our borrowing. Its like paying credit card bills with funds from another card, eventually there is no credit left! At which point the debate about the height/size of the ceiling becomes moot, and the US hits a wall.