According to this poll by Reuters and IPSOS, a solid majority of Americans want the deficit cut. Their minds must have been embedded with the idea that magically cutting the deficit will solve all our economic woes.
With economic worries dominating the run-up to the elections, 57 percent of Americans want the U.S. government to cut the deficit in hard economic times while 39 percent support deficit spending to stimulate the economy.
The trouble is where do you cut the Federal Deficit? The most obvious place is the Department of Defense, since the largest slice of deficit spending comes from spending related to the military and for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But I doubt those who favor spending cuts wants military spending to go down. Indeed, military spending is expected to grow next year (once it passes the filibuster) and I seriously doubt either Republicans or the Democrats will push for major cuts.
I suppose we could eliminate all those “useless” and “pesky” Federal agencies such as the FDIC, EPA, FDA, SEC, USDA, OSHA, FEC, EEOC, DEA, FBI, ICE (which includes the Border Patrol), NASA, Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, the Veterans’ Administration, the Small Business Administration, etc. The implications of that, though, would be catastrophic for the health, financial security and safety of most Americans, and those agencies and departments don’t represent all that much of the budget in any event.
And despite the Tea Party desire to remove government from their lives no one who receives Social Security or Medicare wants those ‘government bailouts” to end (except for Wall Street, Republican and conservative ideologues and the Super Rich like the Koch Brothers, for example).
We could, I suppose, end subsidies for Big Agriculture, Big Oil, Big Pharma, etc., while also eliminating corporate tax breaks and loopholes that allow many corporations to avoid paying their fair share of taxes, etc. However, the cacophonous squealing of all those who would lose their precious “government handouts” which would be emitted from the mouths of their well paid lobbyists would resound in the halls of Congress for weeks and months until, as always, those prized subsidies for America’s corporations would be spared the ax.
Which leaves tax hikes, or more specifically allowing the Bush administration tax cuts to expire. Problem is, that while a majority of Americans favor allowing taxes to rise on earned income over $200,000 (or on amounts over $250,000 for families) very few support allowing the Bush tax cuts for all Americans to end. Yet that would be the easiest fix for lowering the deficit, though it would do little to benefit the economy as a whole.
The truth is that the Republicans had eight years to lower deficits if they had really wanted to do so. Instead they chose to dramatically increase deficits, increase our national debt and eliminate the budget surpluses President Clinton left them when he stepped down in January 2001. When Wall Street looked like it was going to crater because of Bush’s lax enforcement of the few remaining laws that governed Wall Street and because of the elimination of financial regulations, it was Bush’s Treasury Secretary and his Federal Reserve Chairman that opened the floodgates of cash to bail out the Too Big to Fail Banks with little if any accountability for how that money was used by those banks.
Yet, somehow the Republicans have convinced many people that this result was all the fault of Obama and Congressional Democrats. The mess left by the outgoing Bush administration and the National Republicans own unwillingness to compromise on legislation that could have helped the economy is completely glossed over or conveniently forgotten.
So there are now all these people who believe the GOP narrative that reducing the deficit will solve all our problems while simultaneously believing that tax increases are a bad idea.
The poll found 68 percent of registered voters think lowering taxes creates jobs, and 60 percent think reducing the budget deficit creates jobs. Only 50 percent believe government spending creates jobs.
They have been sold a bill of goods by Republicans and the corporate media. The Republicans and other deficit hawks talk a good game, but I’d like to know how they expect to do one without the other. I’d like to hear which federal programs and departments will be slashed or eliminated and which spending cuts the GOP deems necessary.
The Republicans won’t provide us with their plan to reduce the deficit because they don’t have one. Yet somehow many of the same people who have been conned into thinking there is a magic deficit cutting wand that will cure all our ills also often believe that returning Republicans to power is the right thing to do because Obama “overreached” with an “agenda” that was “too liberal.”
IF THE Republicans regain control of the Congress they will not cut the deficit. Past history shows that to be true. They have promised to shut the government down and investigate the hell out of the Obama administration (and perhaps start impeachment proceedings), and I do believe they will follow through on those promises. However, they will not pass any laws or take any action to restore our economy or benefit the ever shrinking middle class.
Meanwhile critical infrastructure needs go unmet. More jobs are lost. We continue to fall behind Europe and China in the technologies and industries that will be critical to our future economic well being. The Party of NO! and of “Know Nothings” is not the answer. But, as this poll demonstrates, too many people are falling for the disinformation campaign by the GOP and Big Business aided by a clueless and willing news media.
If these people turn out to vote the Republicans back into control of Congress in November, God help us. Nothing good will come from such an outcome, and much misery for the vast majority of Americans that could be ameliorated by the government will continue or worsen.
And it will be all good for John McCain.