Why NOT $87,000,000,000 more???????

[Els' 3 Ones]

BECAUSE WE CAN'T AFFORD IT !!!!!!!!

We are on the precipice of economic collapse and all the Shrub cartel can do is spend more and tax less.....................

Mr Briss and Ms Arabia were kind enough to forward this to me.....I've been poking thru it all evening (in between celebrating #44 ) and it is worth discussing imo.



Tim Russert, September 6, 2003

RUSSERT: Our budget deficit for the year is now projected to be close to $500 billion.

Prof. KRUGMAN: Yeah, and that's--of course, that's counting in the surplus that Social Security runs, which it needs to run to pay for the future. So if you take Social Security off the picture, what we've got is a situation where now more than one-third of federal spending is borrowed money. So we would have to have a--roughly a 60 percent increase in revenues to balance the budget in a real sense now, and probably more, if you take other--other liabilities into account. So we're really--this is Banana Republic territory. You know, we--we--we think we're America, but we're looking more and more like Argentina, if you actually look at the numbers.

<snip>

RUSSERT: The president, in your book, you describe him as a radical.

Prof. KRUGMAN: Yeah.

RUSSERT: Why?

Prof. KRUGMAN: Well, I mean, you can look at all the various policy measures, and they really are much further to the right than anyone would have expected. And I think if you look at it more broadly, what he's doing on economic policy is, whether he knows it or not--I mean, one never knows quite what he understands--but he is in effect following the--the line, the--the--the path suggested by the really, really hard right, by people like Grover Norquist who say what we need to do is we basically need to create a fiscal crisis. We need to starve the government of revenue, and that's the way we can get those New Deal and Great Society programs off the table. We can--by creating a--a situation where there just isn't enough money we can shrink the government down to where we can drown it in the bathtub. And that's--that's essentially what Bush is doing, although, again, I'm not sure he knows that.

Thoughts?

I'm off to watch Whoopi now. But I'll come back with some more food for thought..........


El

edit for copyright.....

[Marlena]

You'll come back with food for thought after watching Whoopi? :LOL

I'll confess, I read only the snippets you provided in your post. After reading those, it was too depressing to continue. I mean, it sounds like poor Krugman was reduced to near-speechlessness due to his incredulity over what this administration is doing to the economy (and the environment, and...). And I found myself nodding "yup yup yup" as I read.

Too depressing. i think it's time to return to Hilary's gonzovolcano thread, to put things in perspective.

[Els' 3 Ones]

Whoopi was not as funny as I hoped. (I can't watch sitcoms anymore..........).

I actually had the thoughts b4 the show, M! And I'm with you on the depression meter......it's hitting the danger zone! But, I'll stick over here with the subjects I *can* do something abt - don't want to add worry abt a volcano to the list (ya know I live in IL, we have a huge fault line here.....)

REASON #2

What good is throwing $87,000,000,000 (do I have enough zeroes there?) into Iraq (read military budget) going to do?


THIS IS THE MILITARY WE ARE TALKING ABT - you know- the Pentagon. The ppl who can't account for a few trillion dollars already ( and for the past 30+ yrs at least) !!!

What it will do is feed those in the Shrub cartel, read on.............


Transcript: Bill Moyers interviews Chuck Spinney

SPINNEY: Well, you raise a very good point. The President is holding education people accountable for standards. He says, "I want to have measures, performance measures for accountability." He also has tried to do the same for foreign aid if you recall.

Over in the Pentagon, we're not holding people accountable.

<snip>

MOYERS: Have you seen these figures that CEO pay at Lockheed Martin went up from $5.8 million in 2000 to $25.3 million in 2002. I mean, that's five times increase in less than three years. CEO pay went up at General Dynamics from $5.7 million in 2001 to $15.2 million in 2002. It went up at Honeywell from $12.9 million in 2000 to $45 million in 2002. It went up from Northrop Grumman from $7.3 million in 2000 to $9.2 million in 2002. What do those figures say to you? ( El here - AND they get a tax cut while 2.7 million are out of work)

<snip>

SPINNEY: ........ Well, the Pentagon has never passed an audit. They have 13 or 15, I forget the exact number, of major accounting categories. That each one has it's own audit. The only one of those categories that's ever been passed is the retirement account.

..................Now what they do is try to track transactions. And in one of the last audits that was done the transactions were like… there were like $7 trillion in transactions. And they couldn't account for about four trillion of those transactions. Two trillion were unaccountable and two trillion they didn't do, and they accounted for two trillion. emphasis mine

Thoughts?


El

edit for copyright

[Els' 3 Ones]

Anyone else?

Should we just throw 87 billion more at this????

Contact your

Congress and tell them "NO more $$ for Iraq" and "Vote YES for the Department of Peace".



El

[Hilary Briss]

This is insane...

We can't afford to have Bush and company running this country much longer. They are proving to be even bigger f*ck-ups then I had imagined. My FIL has always said that these people are not capable of governing, they simply don't have the intelligence to do it. What's really frightening is how blind so many people are to what's going on. People have been so seduced by the thought of additional terror attacks, that they've missed the fact that the incompetence of the SCA is so monumental, that the SCA is doing more to harm the country than a hundred terrorists could hope to do.

War on terrorism? It's already over. The terrorists won. They unleashed our unelected president on us, and we are toast.

[Marlena]

So there you go: the additional $87 billion is just a "down payment":

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2003Sep12.html

The toll the war is taking on the Army's troops and equipment will lock in much higher military spending for years to come, regardless of how the occupation goes from here, defense experts say.

"This $87 billion is really just a down payment," said Scott Lilly, the Democratic staff director of the House Appropriations Committee and a military procurement expert.

It is a point that military officials emphasize.

"We assumed that operations would cease a lot earlier than they have," said an Army official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "They haven't ceased. The planning process was always to downsize, for the operational tempo to drop dramatically by now. The surprise is, we continue to operate at a very, very high op tempo with a very, very large force."

[Cynthia Mosher]

Returned for editing and continuation of discussion.
Thank you El.

[Els' 3 Ones]

Glad to have it back.




This is a huge problem. One of the biggest reasons I voted for Ross Perot was his determination to get rid of the debt (get it managable). So this state of affairs just makes me shake in my boots....... We are currently over $6,800,000,000,000 (check those zeros, more than above...........TRILLION, that is, 1000 billion!)

But, in the end, I'm afraid it is just another one of those things that my fellow citizens do not wish to acknowledge............

I will tell you this..............

"It's going to get much worse before it gets better"


El

[Marlena]

Ah, but if we cut all those fluffy, New Deal & Great Society welfare programs and leave it up to private citizens to either sink or swim on their own, then dontcha know, we'll be out of debt in no time flat! Hey, we'll also be able to kiss goodbye all those welfare moochers and impoverished old folks who'll either die of starvation or lack of health care or lack of shelter or heating assistance!! Woohoo - and the rich can continue getting even richer!!! Oh halleluja!! :

[AmyB]

OK, I just mailed a letter to my Republican congressman telling him:

The "tax cut" didn't do my family one bit of good since my husband is unemployed due to the bad economy and
We need that $87 billion dollars here at home. Also that Congress needs to start exercising some oversight of this war mess, and they could start by passing HR 2625 "To establish the Independent Commission on Intelligence about Iraq".

If you aren't sure who your congerssperson is, try the Project Vote-Smart website: http://www.vote-smart.org/

--AmyB

[Marlena]

Good job, AmyB! I've also sent similar letters, to all my congresspeople (also all Republican - feh).

[Hilary Briss]

I voted for Ross Perot

Hey, I voted for Ross, too. Oh, and happy 44th.

[DaryLLL]

$87 Billion dollars. It's a noble expenditure of mere pocket change – and it's all for Iraq. Of course, in around six months, I'll need to adjust that figure upward to $140 Billion or so, but for now, just stay focused on the paltry $87 Billion, which Halliburton will burn through while repeatedly patching up all that stuff we used to bomb over there, but now the Iraqazoids like bombing themselves.

http://www.whitehouse.org/news/2003/090703.asp

[3boys4us]

Quite frankly I thoroughly disgussted by the admin. They couldn't have had a comprehansive plan for this whole mess without predicting the costs (unless they are really are idiots).

And what about Afghanistan? Remember this is the admin that forgot to put aid to Afghanistan in its budget this year and had to cover it (by putting in quick $300 mill). Afghanistan has already cost about $800 mill.

And yet my property taxes went up, my fire tax went up, my sales tax is going up and I suppose by next year my state taxes will go up. And our school is overcrowded.