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| In economic jargon this is called, "DUH!!!" |
If there's one fact folks need to understand in the current "deficit debate," it's that the GOP doesn't care about the deficits. They care about cutting taxes...primarily for the very wealthy - no matter what the cost or the impact on the country or on responsible government.
That's the bottom line of these alleged "conservatives" of the GOP. Their obsessive clinging to a "policy" of tax-cuts-over-everything became obvious during the GOP temper tantrum over letting the Bush tax cuts expire for the top 1% - the super-wealthy folks whose incomes have grown exponentially over the past thirty years, at a rate about 15 times more than the majority in the lower & middle income groups have seen.
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| Congs. Heckle & Jekyll |
So, if the allegedly "conservative" GOP has devolved into a bunch of shills for cutting taxes on the economic elite and on corporations (or in many cases, simply giving a platform to nut-jobs and demagogues who can't even do the math but are feeding on cultural & racial resentments), what does real "fiscal conservatism" look like?
Well, one might begin with a report just out from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. They've got some rational approaches to keeping deficits under control over the long term. They've also got some good charts! Nothing like a chart to make this stuff (stuff that, frankly - were it not so critical to decent public policy - bores me to tears) comprehensible and easy to grasp without wading through a sea of numbers.
Let's start with the chart above at the top right (Fig2.) It's pretty obvious. Bottom line, according to the CBPP report, "letting all the Bush tax cuts expire...is likely to be the only way to stabilize the debt as a share of the economy over the coming decade without draconian cuts that would cause serious damage..."
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| Senator Sanders, Proudly Inependent-VT |
Uh...yeah. But try telling that to these "conservative" clowns in Congress. Apparently the only "fiscal conservatives" to be found in the Beltway these days are among the liberals and moderates of the Democratic Party. For that matter the "real-live-socialist" in the Senate, Bernie Sanders from Vermont, is a more authentic fiscal conservative than that Ayn Rand acolyte, Cong. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, or the Minnesota Tea Partier Michelle Bachmann (who apparently gives voice in Congress to the unfortunate folks who forgot to take their medication) because he's not selling the fiscal patent medicine of tax-cuts while yammering incoherently about "budget balancing."
The CBPP has more, which I'll excerpt - along with their great charts:
