10 Reasons Why Conservatives' Fiscal Ideas Are Dangerous
Belief:
Nobel Laureate Slams the Bible, Calls It "A Catalogue of Cruelties"
Mario de Queiroz
Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace:
As Foreclosure Nightmares Increase, Will More Homeowners Pay Off Their Bankers in Violence?
Scott Thill
DrugReporter:
Lies About Marijuana Drive People to a Much More Harmful Drug -- Booze
Steve Fox
Environment:
Why Max Baucus' 'No' Vote on the Climate Bill May Really Help Its Passage
Jeff Mcmahon
Food:
Despite Censorship By Beef Magnate, Michael Pollan Spreads Message About the Real Price of Cheap Food
Health and Wellness:
Do We Really Want to Enshrine Insurance Monopoly into Law? This and 5 Other Complaints About the Health Bill
John Nichols
Immigration:
NYC Marathon Raises Question of Who Is American Enough?
James E. Johnson, Jr.
Media and Technology:
How Biased Media Can Brainwash You
Melinda Burns
Movie Mix:
The Yes Men: Pranksters Out to Fix the World
Mark Engler
Politics:
4 Ways the Stupak Amendment Deprives Women of Access to Abortion
Jessica Arons
Reproductive Justice and Gender:
Fetus-Shaped Potatoes? Going Undercover Inside the Weird World of Right-Wing Abortion Foes
Ann Neumann
Rights and Liberties:
"My Kids Want to Hide Their Identity; They're Scared Someone Will Attack Us": U.S. Muslims Being Targeted
Jaisal Noor
Sex and Relationships:
Instant Sex: Has the Digital Age Destroyed Relationships or Made Them Better?
Vanessa Richmond
Take Action:
G-20 Meetings: Nothing Much Happened in the Suites, and There Was Too Much Punch in the Streets
Laura Flanders
Water:
Why Natural Gas Is Not a Clean Energy Panacea
Stan Cox
World:
With Unemployment at 40 Percent, Afghan Teens Enlist in Army, Police
Lal Aqa Sherin
Yes, it's true. The conservatives -- that's right, the very same folks who just dragged us along on an eight-year drunken binge during which they borrowed-and-spent us into the deepest financial catastrophe in nearly a century -- are now standing there, faces full of moral rectitude, fingers pointing and shaking in our faces, righteously lecturing the rest of us on the topic of "fiscal responsibility."
I didn't think it was possible. I mean, they were mean enough drunk -- but hung over, in the clear light of morning, it turns out they're even worse.
I know. The choice is hard. Laugh? Cry? Scream? All three at once? It would almost be funny, if it weren't such clear evidence of a complete break with objective reality -- and their ideas of what that "fiscal responsibility" means weren't so dangerous to the future of the country.
The next episode in this surreal moral drama is set to take place next Monday, when President Obama will convene a "fiscal responsibility summit" at the White House to discuss the right's bright new idea for getting us out of this hole: let's just dismantle Social Security and Medicare.
As usual, this proposal is encrusted with a thick layer of diversions, misconceptions, factual errors and out-and-out lies. Here are some of the most pungent ones, along with the facts you need to fire back.
The comeback to the first assertion is easy: Just point and laugh. Any party that thought giving cost-plus, no-bid contracts to Halliburton was fiscally responsible (and let's not even get started on handing Hank Paulson $700 billion, no questions asked) deserves to be made fun of for using words that are simply beyond its limited comprehension.
And a quick look back at actual history makes them into even bigger fools. For decades now, liberal presidents have been far and away more restrained in their spending, and more likely to turn in balanced budgets. Part of this is that they've got a good grasp of Keynes, and know that the best way out of bad financial times is to make some up-front investments in the American people -- investments which have almost always, in the end, returned far more than we put in.
Conservatives believe wholeheartedly in investment and wealth-building when individuals, families, and corporations do it. But their faith in the power of money well-spent -- and the value of accumulated capital -- completely vanishes when it comes to government spending. They think it's morally wrong for government to ever invest or hold capital -- despite the long trail of successes that have enriched us all and transformed the face of the nation.
Under the conservative definition of "fiscal responsibility, " we'd have never set up the GI Bill and the FHA, which between them launched the post-war middle class (and made possible the consumer culture that generated so much private profit for so many). We wouldn't have 150 years of investment in public education, which for most of the 20th century gave American business access to the smartest workers in the world; or the interstate highway system, which broadened trade and tourism; or research investment via NASA and DARPA, the defense research agency that gave us the microchip and the Internet and made a whole new world of commerce possible. There wouldn't be the consumer protection infrastructure that allowed us to accept new products with easy confidence; or building and food inspectors who guarantee that you're not taking your life in your hands when you flip on a light or sit down to dinner.
What we're proposing now is not "spending." It's the next round of investment that will create the next great chapter in the American future. And the most fiscally irresponsible thing we can do right now is lose our nerve, and fail to prepare for what's ahead.
The only remaining "everybodys" who "know" this are the ones who are simply impervious to facts.
Ronald Reagan came into office with a national debt of less than $1 trillion. Mostly by cutting taxes on the rich, he grew that debt to $2.6 trillion. George H.W. Bush broke his "no new taxes" pledge, but it wasn't enough to keep the debt from ballooning another 50 percent, to $4.2 trillion.
See more stories tagged with: republicans, gop, obama, taxes, tax cuts, economic crisis, econopocalypse, fiscal responsibility, bullshit
Sara Robinson is a Fellow at the Campaign for America's Future, and a consulting partner with the Cognitive Policy Works in Seattle. One of the few trained social futurists in North America, she has blogged on authoritarian and extremist movements at Orcinus since 2006, and is a founding member of Group News Blog.
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