Monthly Archives: July 2011

The Obvious: Why have Republicans suddenly found religion on the national debt?

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First, let’s start with the obvious:

From January 20, 2001 to January 20, 2009 the national debt increased from $5,727,776,738,304.64 to $10,626,877,048,913.08.  For those that still believe in arithmetic this is an 85% increase in the debt over the Bush administration’s term ((10,626,877,048,913.08 / 5,727,776,738,304.64) * 100) = 185% or an 85% increase).

From January 20, 2009 to today July 12, 2011 the national debt increased from $10,626,877,048,913.08 to $14,343,010,710,537.58.  This is a 35% increase in debt over President Obama’s term ((14,343,010,710,537.58 / 10,626,877,048,913.08) * 100) = 135% or a 35% increase).

Don’t take my word for it, check it out on the US Treasury Department site at: http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np

So, in light of the simple math, why would anyone suggest that President Obama is big government and the Republicans are not?  This is patently absurd.  President Bush and the 6 year majority of Republicans  in the House of Representatives and the Senate went from the 4 year surplus that President Clinton left to record deficits and an 85% increase in the national debt.

No amount of groveling can erase this FACT so “man up” Repubs.

Myth 1: Republicans do not favor BIG Government.

Myth 2: Republicans favor tax cuts to create jobs.

Myth 3: Deregulation increases jobs

The first part of Myth 2 is true.  Bush cut the marginal tax rates across the income spectrum.  For those making over 1 million dollars a year the income taxed over $373,650 went from a marginal tax rate of 39.6% to 35%.  The lowest income bracket marginal tax rate went from 15% to 10%.  What is not true in Myth 2 is that the Bush tax cuts increased jobs.  It increased unemployment dramatically 98% as this post documents:

http://mixermuse.com/blog/2011/07/08/the-obama-administration-raises-unemployment-25-really/

The national debt went up 85%.  We lost the four years of budget surplus that the Clinton administration gave us AND gained the stock market and mortgage market crashed as this post documents:

http://mixermuse.com/blog/2010/10/14/how-george-bush-and-the-private-mortgage-market-created-the-perfect-storm/

The deregulation of the financial industry, oil and gas and product safety (and almost every other government regulatory function) was a disaster.  The private sector, unregulated market for credit default swaps went from 900 billion to 30 trillion dollars under President Bush.  The financial collapse under President Bush was the result of a 30 trillion dollar unregulated market based on junk mortgages.

Now, after the first African-American president the Republicans deem as “socialist” has actually turned the Republican nightmare of the Bush years around, Republicans are popping out of the the wood work with newly found religion on the national debt.  Where were these disciples during the Bush years?  Could it be that spending was ok when a Republican was doing it, at least judging from the rhetorical decibel level of their party, and now that Democrats “have the checkbook” they are fuming with moral debt rage?  This is two-faced and hypocritical.  It is a laughable elitism that was deferred in part by Dick Armey’s creation of the TEA party.  It was smart to off-load the most intense Republican anger with the Bush administration with a thinly veiled, far right wing group that will still vastly vote Republican.  They can in effect be Republican in their voting habits but fantasize that they are neither Republican nor Democrat.

In any case, I am encouraged by the rising sentiment in the Republican ranks against absurd wars and wish they had joined us during the most costly wars started in the Bush administration.

Across the board, Republican ideology has failed to live up to its essential claims AND historically proven themselves to have opposite consequences.  Their counter claims about what Democrats do to the economy have also proven themselves to be fabrications and historically unfound…oh for the days of the budget surplus and the 4.7% unemployment rate of the Clinton administration. ..I would also take the 2% decrease of unemployment under President Obama to the 98% increase under President Bush.

The only way to understand how the Republicans have succeeded in their claims is to understand how “marketing” or better yet “propaganda” can be used effectively to control voters.  They are the masters of propaganda, revisionist history and sophistry.  Their ideology of “free market based” survival of the fittest gives them the latitude to employ these techniques freely.  Democrats are much less adept at these practices.  They have more resistance to lying and manipulation built into their ideology and are generally awful at it when they try.  If the Republicans succeed, the crony capitalism that results will be disastrous for the masses that gave them the votes to do it and the “middle class” will continue to disappear.

As for me, I still maintain that there are facts that are not private and some statements can be deemed more historically accurate than others.  I hope I am not in the minority.

The Obama Administration Raises Unemployment 25% – REALLY?

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When Bush Junior took office on January 20, 2001, the national unemployment rate was 4.7%.  When he left office on January 20, 2009 and President Obama took office the national unemployment rate was 9.3% ( http://www.bls.gov/cps/prev_yrs.htm ).  The current unemployment rate as of June 2001 is 9.2% ( http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm ). Doing the math, the increase during the Bush administration was (9.3 / 4.7) * 100 = 198% or a 98% increase in unemployment.  For the Obama administration the math is (9.2 / 9.3) * 100 = 98% or a 2% decrease in unemployment.  The latest Karl Rove, Crossroads, national ad states that the national unemployment rate increased 25% during the Obama administration.  Since unemployment data by definition is published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, no amount of “private facts” or bold face lies can explain away the real facts.  The Republican lie machine has no problem spending millions of dollars spewing forth unadulterated lies. 

Do these folks really think that sane voters would prefer a 98% unemployment rate increase to 2% percent decrease in unemployment?

Well, what about the long held theory that taxes cuts create jobs and help the economy.  We had 8 years to try this theory out.  Not only did it result in a 98% increase in unemployment but it also resulted in an economic crash and the greatest recession since the Great Depression.  Did it work?  Didn’t the Clinton administration end up with 4 years of a Federal surplus and a 4.7% unemployment rate?  Do voters really want to believe that if we try the Republican’s economic solution again it will work this time?  Are voters that stupid?

Well, what about health care and lassie faire?  We have tried decades of letting the market decide in the Republican promise that the market would solve the problem.  Did it work?  How much longer do we need to TRY the market based approach?  Ok, so let’s get rid of “Obama-care”…is the solution to go back to what we had before?  Was it so much better?  How many more decades do we need to try the market approach?  If we cut everyone off and get rid of the debt, are we willing to let men, women and children die in the streets from lack of health care while we satiate ourselves in our country clubs?  What is the solution?  Is there one?

The more interesting questions are:

1)      What kind of folks continue to spin out lies decade after decade to get and keep political power?

2)      Why does it seem to work?

When an ideology continually repeats lies to sustain and get power the word that describes it is “propaganda”.  The main purpose of propaganda is to manipulate.  There are two assumptions that propaganda proves out:

1)      Those that are have the money and power to create this marketing blitz are the elite “knowers”.  They are willing to do anything to obfuscate their true motives.  Their apparent contradictions are smoking mirrors cleverly designed to play on folk’s emotions and trick folks into supporting their true agenda – protecting the rich and powerful.  At the bottom of this machine is a pure Darwinian belief that power needs no justification, logic or truth.  Power is its own virtue.  Conquest proves who the blessed are and who the cursed are. 

2)      People are stupid.  They are “herdal” and cow-like.  They cannot remember the past and have no sense of logic and rationality.  They are zombies that can be manipulated and controlled by the elite.  They can be made to run straight off a cliff to their own demise and believe the whole time that it is in their best interest.

While the elite would never make such an explicit statement of their intentions, their actions leave no doubt as to what their game really is.  

I hope and want to believe they are wrong.  I want to believe in logic, rationality and history.  I would like to think that there is an intrinsic good in people that will overcome these schemes.  I can’t say that I do not have doubts and maybe the Darwinian instinct is correct.  However, if I were to believe this ideology I would find a certain meaninglessness and futility in existence.  Maybe we should “make friends with the enemy” as Apocalypse Now” maintains.  Maybe we should head straight of the cliffs and thank the wolves that made us believe we were doing it for our own good.  Well, as for me, I am willing to hope against hope, if that is what it takes, to adopt a more optimistic approach to human existence.  I suppose that this may be a kind of Kierkegaardian, existential staking out my “eternal happiness” on an absolute paradox…at least as thought from the dialectic of power.  These choices are left to us individually whether we explicitly know it or tacitly “do it”.  I find the belief that one is the “blessed” and “all-powerful” to be a comic tragedy of one’s own making in which the hero becomes the blind fool and forgets his end will be in the dust with his cows while the only thing that really mattered was humanity and concern, optimism and belief, the virtue of work – of harmony and balance with nature and logic, the scorned simplicity that faces us in the other.