The deficit
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2009/10/620000005/1
First off, you can’t compare what is going on today with what happened during the Regan years. It’s not applicable anymore. The entire economy of the US went from building products to selling services. Republicans keep saying that we need to do something about the deficit so as not to saddle their children and grandchildren with massive debt, but a tax cut is just creates a larger deficit because it is really a loan that will be passed on.
It is not so much republicans or democrats at fault as much as it is the Boomer (instant gratification) generation. They created this mess by never stopping to consider the long term ramifications of their actions. The safeguards put into place after the first depression was chipped away at by both parties allowing banks to offer brokerage services and insurance companies to offer banking and investment services. Investment banks became so large that they were considered too large to fail and sold risky investments that were not legislated and everything was fine while the money was flowing. But then after years of a stock market that saw very little adjustment for decades, the bottom fell out.
And because the Boomer want everything this instant, they voted in President Obama and provided him with a majority in both houses of Congress. But even though the last two years have been some of the most ambitious and productive legislatively, the Boomers are unhappy because the current administration couldn’t fix everything in the first two years. They forgot that during the campaign they were told that it was going to take time to fix the economy and that job creation comes towards the end of the recovery.
It was reported today that Google Inc. using tax loopholes, had a 2.4% tax rate which cost the US government 60 billion dollars. And they are just one of countless numbers of large multinational corporations. And the sad part of it is that the methods used were totally legal.
The key to getting the economy moving is to provide more money for small business creation. Small business is the economic force that creates the jobs domestically. Eliminate tax breaks for corporations that manufacture goods in other countries. Cut the defense department budget by 5% and end corporate welfare for defense contractors. Eliminate earmarks from the federal budget process.
Before the disaffected go out and vote for the Tea Party or the Republican party candidates (really about the same difference), they should be reminded that eight years of republican administration and congress led the country from having a surplus to a trillion dollar deficit. That deficit was caused by increasing the size of government, providing tax breaks to the wealthy, starting a war and then wasting billions of dollars using defense contractors with little or no accountability, provided monetary assistance to the banking industry without providing for accountability. If the right wing wants to look in the past for a better economic example, they should look to Eisenhower. But then, that would mean having to pay more taxes.
