As usual, missing the point, Republicans think that the answer is not education or aid te failing states, but tax cuts. Yes, lets keep the bailout the same amount of money, but instead of having that money go to helpful things, lets just make that money TAX CUTS and pay for it WITH DEBT. -$75 billion in aid for states, education and individuals, +$100 billion in tax breaks, = +$100 billion in debt. Or if we kept that $100 billion in taxes, -$75 billion in aid, = $25 billion in taxes to pay for other parts of the stimulus, then we’d only have approximately a net $700 billion loss to debt (which will be $1.4 trillion or so by the time it’s paid back, yay interest!) instead, we’re going to have a $900 billion+ loss due to debt because we’re making that $100 billion tax refund out of debt. Whee!!!
Meanwhile, Republicans still argue that it’s illogical to pull out of Iraq, where $10 billion or so of our dollars (debt) goes EVERY. FUCKING. MONTH. $120 billion a year – Oh, that’s where that tax refund COULD come from except we’re busy throwing it down the latrine. And have been, every month since this ill-conceived invasion took place. For those of us keeping score, at 3 months to the 6 year anniversary of our invasion, that’s $720 BILLION DOLLARS. That is the size of Bush II, The Child-Like Emperor’s bailout package. Kind of makes you wonder how much economic stimulus and bailing out we might need if we hadn’t wiped our ass on three quarters of a trillion dollars these past 6 years. Actually, the Pentagon’s annual budget with all the hidden wartime appropriations and emergency spending war bills is now above $700 billion dollars a year. Kind of makes you wonder how much economic stimulus and bailing out we might need if we WEREN’T WIPING OUR ASSES ON 3/4TH OF A TRILLION DOLLARS EVERY YEAR for technology to kill people with.
Tax cuts don’t help the needy, because the poorest people don’t pay that much in taxes. Taxes help the wealthy, and if trickle down economics worked I”d be a millionaire by now.
STEPHANOPOULOS: This week, two economists, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, Janet Yellen, said, “I think we do have the same type of dynamics taking place that do happen in a depression.” The managing director of the IMF, Dominique Strauss- Kahn, was quoted in Bloomberg News as saying, “Advanced economies are already in a depression, and the financial crisis may deepen unless the banking system is fixed. The worst cannot be ruled out.”
Already in a depression?
SUMMERS: We’re in a very serious situation, George. This is worse than any time since the Second World War. It’s worse than I think most economists like me ever thought we would see.
But let’s remember. In the Depression, the unemployment rate was 25 percent. GDP had fallen in half. We were really in a very different situation than that.
But all of this concern — the risks of deflation, for example — points up the importance of acting as aggressively as we can. That’s why the president’s economic recovery program is so important. That’s why it needs to be twinned, as it will be this week, with the financial recovery program directed at shoring up the flow of credit so that people can get the loan to buy a car…
They’re still talking about unemployment as if it were actually only 7.6%, not the more realistic 13+% – And ignoring the fact that unemployment is rising HALF A PERCET PER MONTH and GAINING SPEED. Depression 1.0 was not an overnight phenomenon. It took a lot of denying reality on the ground to let things get that bad. We are most likely in the early stages of Depression 2.0, but I will GLADLY eat my words if that turns out not to be true or if by some miracle Obama gets past the partisanship (tax cuts are totally a partisan issue since only Republicans are asking for them. By definition something only your side wants and the other doesn’t is inherently partisan) and gets us out of this.
Oh yeah, and the best thing about the Senate’s hacking of this stimulus bill? They’re cutting shit out bitching about wasting money on shit… and their plan is $7 billion more than the original bill they got.
Tags: bitching, depression 2.0, republicans, wasted money