House speaker John Boehner telling the press he plans to cut $100 billion in discretionary spending from the Federal budgetPhoto: Speaker John Boehner
The spending bill wending its way through congress would gut the Environmental Protection Agency, and also cuts a whole bunch of other things you might be a fan of. (The efforts of one brave little unborn fetus notwithstanding.)
Luckily, a commenter on Gawker with a degree in economics has written the For Dummies guide to the current phony ‘deficit reduction’ debate:
james_from_cambridge 03/02/11
Seriously, everybody needs to stop panicking over this ridiculous Republican bullsh*t about the deficit. They create this panic to fool y’all into cutting the New Deal programs we all know and love and that they’ve had a grudge against for the past 80 years (a-holes never forgive, nor forget and Republicans are the biggest a-holes that ever were.) Republicans themselves created these huge deficits, which started after their huge tax cuts for gazillionaires in the 80’s, and they never went away. They figured the tax cuts would force government to cut spending. Never happened, never will happen because the only way to make a dent in the deficit without raising taxes to the level they were at pre-Reagan, is to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, brutally. Again, NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN, because the Middle Classes love their Social Security and Medicare. But these deficits, and the massive debt, don’t matter anyway.
We will never go under as a country for two reasons. 1) We can print money. 2) We’re vampires. That’s right, we’re the Edward Cullen of planet Earth. When Reagan the infirm created those huge deficits and the dollar plunged, the Japanese started investing heavily in the U.S., buying property and our debt. We sucked them dry and when they collapsed, we then moved on to European and Asian investors in the 90’s. Now we have the Chinese, who think they’re being smart by not going on a buying spree of American infrastructure like the Japanese but instead buying up our good old Government bonds. They’re bigger idiots than the Japanese because we’re gonna inflate our way out of this particular debt, and they’ll get back half of what they invested. When we’re done with them and they collapse, which I promise you they will, we’ll move on to the next group of suckers. Probably the Indians (and after that, we’re coming for you South America [I’m looking at you Brazil!], probably around 2025, so get ready!)
We’re too big to fail folks, way too big to fail, ’cause if we do, we’ll take the entire world economy down with us and all other countries know it and will therefore prop us up indefinitely. So stop panicking like little schoolboys in a rectory. Pick up a friggin’ Economics book and stop swallowing Republican lies about what caused the deficit and how important it is anyway (Republican tax cuts that drove down the top marginal rate from 70% in the 1970’s to 35% now is the only cause. How the hell can the Federal govt. function when they’ve completely deprived it of oxygen?)
**Thank God I finally got to use my Economics degree!!**
Phew! As @chrislike said:
now, do I think this is true because it passes logic tests or because it lines up with what I want to be true?
Chris Tolles, CEO of Topix, agrees:
I’m a Republican, but this Gawker comment totally nails US economy & deficits (we steal our way out)
Discuss!
