It’s the Economy, Stupid!
My good friend Jazz Shaw, of Middle East Journal, talked to King Banian yesterday, an economist who runs SCSU Scholars for his Blog Talk Radio show. It’s an interesting conversation about both the state the US economy is in, and about what to expect from an economic perspective from the different candidates. Listen to it: it’s truly very interesting. They’re later joined by Joe Gandelman of The Moderate Voice who lets his light shine, from an independent perspective, over the US elections; King’s on first, but it’s wise to continue to listen throughout the full hour so you can also listen to what Joe has to says.
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With all the billions being wasted on needless wars and tax cuts for the wealthy, the economy will crash completely before it recovers.
Im not sure the budget can ever be balanced. Bill Clinton whom I strongly supported did so with an economy that was booming during the internet frenzy. This booming economy gave them a lot of tax money to play with. In addition the first Bush started drastically cutting the military and was continued by Bill which also shed a lot of outlay to apply towards a balanced budget. The easiest way to balance the budget is to recognize that our national debt is a national security issue that must be dealt with. To do so we need to not only balance the budget but that we need to raise taxes, raise corporate taxes. Raise taxes on Big Oil and Gas. In addition we need to institute a national sales tax that will be used exclusively to pay down the debt. However I am a pragmatist and I understand the repercussions of such actions. It will guaranteed stagflation. It will guarantee a prolonged period of economic malaise. Yet we have to come to grips with this. We have to ask our nation to sacrifice to solve one of the nations most serious national security issues. There is always something coming up that requires money. Once our government treats the budget like you and I have to treat ours then we will see some real results. The Debt. Healthcare and welfare and jobs and income and taxes and the environment are all important issues but they are all so huge of a problem in themselves that this nation is just not in a position to deal with all of them at once. So as a nation we must start with the most important problem that will lead to financial viability in the future to deal with all the other problems much easier. We cannot borrow forever to pay for stuff we cannot as a nation afford. That is a pipe dream. More then health care, more then the environment, more then any other problem facing this country, the debt and a absurd budget is our biggest problem and most serious threat to our continued viability as a nation.
Larry,
I don’t even feel up to tackling the silly "tax cuts for the wealthy" argument, but let’s look at your other one (war spending.)
First of all, you said, "needless wars" (plural.) Just to clarify, does this mean that you feel that Afghanistan is a needless war as well as Iraq? Just checking.
If you’re really only speaking about Iraq, then try this: the Iraq War budget allocation represents 4% of our federal spending. Meanwhile entitlements (SS, Medicare and Medicaid) represent 40% and that amount is about to explode over the next few years as baby boomers begin joining the ranks of retirees.
If you were having trouble with your household budget, and you looked at your outlays and noted that you were spending 4% on groceries and 40% on your house note (and you have an ARM note which means the rate’s about to increase and your payment’s going to go up exponentially), which one would you be wise to focus on in order to reduce your expenditures? Perhaps you can change your eating habits and reduce your 4% grocery bill to 2%- is that going to really affect your overall economic stability?
abrisaham,
The budget doesn’t really need to be balanced, we just need to have reasonable debt ceiling and we need to stop pretending that the borrowing from the trust fund was a valid way to pay for all sorts of other discretionary spending. The bill is coming due, and various other economic factors are going to make it even harder to pay the fiddler.
Your proposed solution makes little sense to me. Why would we throw the economy into a tailspin purposely in order to prevent the economy going into a tailspin on it’s own? Why would you address the problem through more taxation instead of addressing spending problems?
Here’s something that I think every American should read and should then look at every presidential candidate’s policy proposals through this lens of understanding (read this and then watch Hillary’s Christmas present ad, for example!) I agree with you, abri, that people should have a more realistic view of the sacrifices we need to make, but I strongly believe that those sacrifices need to come in regard to what we expect in handouts from our government rather than saying that Americans should sacrifice the health of our economy.
Wow, thanks for the very nice link and write-up, Michael. Hope you enjoyed the show.