Category Archives: Deficit

Teapublican Lie #16.

Posted on by

“Cutting Medicaid and Medicare will save money.”

Anyone who would say this is either lying or doesn’t understand how the healthcare industry works. 

If you kick millions of people off of Medicaid and raise the cost to seniors for Medicare, they will put off going to the doctor as long as they can. Minor ailments then become major ailments. When they’re finally forced to seek help, they have no place to go except the Emergency Room where the costs of treatment can be as much as 100 times that of a doctor’s office or clinic. Since most hospitals are mandated by law to accept all patients, regardless of their ability to pay, the costs are passed along to patients who have health insurance.

So the Teapublicans who don’t want to help pay for someone else’s healthcare treatments through an efficient, well-managed government program will actually wind up paying much more through the rise in premiums for their health insurance policies, through increased taxes, or both.

Our nation’s healthcare costs are already four times the cost of healthcare in other advanced nations. Cutting Medicaid and Medicare will only make things worse.

“Obamacare” (more precisely, Nixoncare, Dolecare or Romneycare, since they proposed the program first) will definitely help. It will offer healthcare insurance to 55 million people who are currently uninsured, and it will institute some cost containment measures to an industry that has seen costs rise at a rate more than ten times the rate of inflation.

But it doesn’t go far enough.

According to a hospital CEO whose opinion I respect, this nation needs to return to a form of managed care (Health Maintenance Organizations). Under the system, the healthcare providers would be charged with keeping us healthy. The providers would also be charged with following best practices, which have been shown to produce the best outcomes, and limiting unnecessary or unproven care.  (Or, in Teapublican terms, “death panels” with the responsibility to review extreme procedures that are proposed for patients with terminal diseases.)

This is one of the most important steps in solving our healthcare crisis as noted in a 1990s study by the MIT Sloan School of Management.  That study showed that, in the US, more than 70 percent of all healthcare expenditures occur in the last six months of a patient’s life. In other words, we tend to ignore our health until something goes drastically wrong.  Then we spare no expense to prove that the diagnosis of a fatal condition is essentially correct.

It’s clear that we need an entirely new approach to healthcare and “Obamacare” is an important first step.  Repealing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will only make things worse. So will the other Teapublican proposals.  We can’t throw the poor off of Medicaid, cut Medicare for the elderly, maintain our out-of-control health insurance system and cut the deficit.

The healthcare industry and the economy are like a large, overinflated balloon. If you push one place, it expands somewhere else.  To make improvements, you have to change the entire entity at once.

Teapublican Lie #12.

Posted on by

“The US government is going broke.”

In May 25, 2001, Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform told National Public Radio’s Mara Liasson, “I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.”

Teapublicans have been trying to bankrupt the government ever since.

Yet, despite their efforts, the United States still has the world’s largest economy with a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) estimated at nearly $14.7 trillion in 2010. That represents approximately one quarter of the global GDP.

Our current problem, as economist Paul Krugman has stated, is “insufficent aggregate demand.” As a result, we do not have enough revenue to cover our spending.  Moreover, much of the money spent is misallocated. To fix our economy, we need to increase tax revenue from those who can most afford it. And we need to create jobs by spending on necessary projects while interest rates are at all-time lows.

But, instead of dealing with the real issues, Teapublicans are using the debt crisis they created to destroy labor unions, to eliminate employee benefits, to depress salaries and eliminate our safety nets (the so-called entitlements).

Contrary to Teapublican accusations, these programs are not responsible for our growing national debt. Social Security and Medicare are funded by payroll taxes while our defense spending is not. 

According to estimates, our annual military/security budget is $1.1-$1.2 trillion, or 70-75 percent of the federal budget deficit. It has doubled since 9/11. And much of the defense budget is squandered through poor oversight, lack of planning and corruption. In fact, the Commission on Wartime Contracting stated that as much as $60 billion was lost to waste and fraud in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past decade!

The US is not broke.  But if we keep electing Teapublicans, we soon may be.

Teapublican Lie #8.

Posted on by

“Most Americans don’t pay taxes.”

Lately, Teapublicans have been saying that 51% of Americans don’t pay any taxes at all. They say that those Americans should be forced to “have some skin in the game.” They call them the “Freeloader Class.” And they blame them for the nation’s economic woes.

While it is true that 51 percent of Americans did not pay federal income taxes for tax year 2009, it is not true that they did not pay taxes. It’s not even true (as Teapublicans suggest) that they are lazy, welfare recipients content to sponge off society. In fact, many of those who paid no federal income taxes in 2009 were among the wealthy and the upper middle class!

From an article by PolitiFact.com, Bob Williams, a tax policy specialist at the nonpartisan Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center, said there are lots of popular tax breaks, which are sometimes called tax expenditures. “We estimate they total more than a trillion dollars a year in reduced taxes and, in fact, the bulk of those go to the top end of the income distribution,” said Williams.

As for the rest, they are mostly the elderly living on Social Security and those working at minimum wage jobs that don’t make enough to pay federal income taxes. (According to the 2010 Census, one in six Americans now lives below the poverty line.) Yet these people still pay taxes. Many pay payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare. All pay sales taxes. Many pay state income taxes and property taxes (even if they rent). And most pay gasoline taxes, beer and liquor taxes, etc. So they do, indeed, “have some skin in the game.”

The real freeloaders are those who are living off the hard work of others – those who have inherited fortunes from their ancestors, Wall Street bankers who are paid enormous bonuses to gamble with others’ money, and those who, by a stroke of luck, have found themselves in a position of power – and taking advantage of a host of tax shelters created by politicians to protect their benefactors.

Teapublican Lie #7.

Posted on by

“Raising taxes on millionaires will hurt small business.”

After all, most small businesses are owned by millionaires, right? Rrrrright!

This whopper seems to stem from the Teapublican definition of small business. You see, they define small business by ownership rather than brands, offices, employees or income. In other words, since Cargill is a closely held, privately-owned company, Teapublicans define it as a “small” business. Similarly, they define Koch Industries as a “small” business. In case you don’t already know, these are the two largest privately-held corporations in the world! Both measure their profits by the billions. Yet Teapublicans lump them into the same category as the owners of the small clothing store on Main Street or the corner café!

In the interest of full disclosure, I’ve been a small business owner since 1987. Moreover, I’ve served hundreds of small businesses as clients. As it happens, I have also completed projects for Cargill and Koch Industries. I can tell you beyond the shadow of a doubt that those companies have absolutely nothing in common with small businesses. And I can tell you that 99 percent of the other clients are not owned by millionaires, let alone billionaires.

So, President Obama and Congress, go ahead, raise taxes on millionaires and billionaires. Most small business owners will thank you for it.

Teapublican Lie #6.

Posted on by

“President Obama’s economic stimulus failed.”

You’ve heard this over and over again from the mouths of virtually every Teapublican. They all loudly proclaim President Obama’s stimulus plan “a complete and utter failure.” They make it sound as if Democrats wasted $787 billion of taxpayer money. But as you’ll see, it’s just another Teapublican lie. To learn the truth, I turned to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

In the second quarter of 2010 (one year after it’s passage), CBO estimated that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) had:

– Raised the level of real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product (GDP) by between 1.7 percent and 4.5 percent
– Lowered the unemployment rate by between 0.7 percentage points and 1.8 percentage points
– Increased the number of people employed by between 1.4 million and 3.3 million
– Increased the number of full-time-equivalent (FTE) jobs by 2.0 million to 4.8 million

Similarly, in the second quarter of 2011, the CBO estimated that ARRA’s policies had the following effects compared with what would have occurred otherwise:

– Raised real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product by between 0.8 percent and 2.5 percent
– Lowered the unemployment rate by between 0.5 percentage points and 1.6 percentage points
– Increased the number of people employed by between 1.0 million and 2.9 million
– Increased the number of full-time-equivalent (FTE) jobs by 1.4 million to 4.0 million

And even though CBO has said that the employment effects will wane in 2012, it estimates “ARRA will raise real GDP in 2012 by between 0.3 percent and 0.8 percent and will increase the number of people employed in 2012 by between 0.4 million and 1.1 million.”

Some failure!

The real question about the economic stimulus is, “Where would we now be without it?”

Teapublican Lie #4.

Posted on by

“The national debt was created by President Obama.”

I’ve addressed this figment of the Teapublican imagination before. They know it’s a lie, but they’re fond of saying it anyway. Indeed, they’re fond of blaming President Obama for everything bad and taking credit for everything good.

Who created the Great Recession? According to Teapublicans, it wasn’t Bush. It was Obama.

Who’s responsible for the high unemployment rate? Why Obama, of course, even though 8 million jobs were lost on Bush’s watch while the Obama administration has overseen a net increase in jobs.

Who was responsible for tracking down Osama bin Laden? According to Teapublicans it was certainly not Obama. Bin Laden’s death was the direct result of Bush/Cheney policies. You’ve heard all these lies and more.

Now, back to the national debt:

No less an authority than Bruce Bartlett, Ronald Reagan’s former policy adviser, has said that of the more than $14 trillion national debt, more than $7 trillion is a direct result of George W. Bush’s policies – most especially his tax cuts and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Only $1.4 trillion is the result of President Obama’s attempts to get our economy moving in the right direction! The remainder can be credited to all of the presidents prior to Bush.

I’ll finish by quoting David Stockman, Reagan’s Director of the Office of Management and Budget who began a NY Times op-ed by stating, “How my GOP destroyed the US economy.”

Apparently, at least some Republicans are willing to speak the truth.

Teapublican Lie #3.

Posted on by

“Cutting deficits and the national debt will create jobs.”

This is the most fashionable load of bull excrement being sold by Teapublicans. But nothing could be further from the truth.

Certainly, the debt has a chilling effect on the long-term prospects of our economy. But the debt does not constitute a crisis. In fact, the total debt equals roughly one year of the US GDP. To relate that to a family’s finances (as Teapublicans are so fond of doing), it’s akin to a family earning $100,000 per year holding a $100,000 mortgage.

Now let’s look at what severe cuts to our deficit and debt will do to our economy in the short term.

When the government cuts spending it cuts the budgets of government agencies. That forces those agencies to lay off many of their employees. So, inevitably, there’s a net loss of jobs. Further, the decrease in employees results in less oversight of banks, food and drugs, Medicare payments, etc. – all of which make our economy and taxpayers less safe. 

Moreover, government cuts can have a negative effect on private companies that act as vendors to those agencies. For example, large cuts to the Department of Defense will cause the DOD to suspend weapons acquisition and development. That means defense contractors will have to make dramatic cuts to their payroll.

Part of the reason for our jobless recovery from Bush’s Great Recession is that state and local governments are experiencing a loss of revenue from taxpayers. As a result, those governments have been laying off workers even faster than private companies can hire them.

So, in the short term, what do you expect a $1 trillion cut to our deficit will do to our economy? Obviously, it will cost tens of thousands of people their jobs. Maybe yours!

What If FDR, Truman Or Eisenhower Faced This Congress?

Posted on by

Despite the fact that our economy was in freefall when President Obama entered office, people are fond of blaming him for our current misery.  Instead of supporting Obama’s attempts to right our sinking ship, Teapublicans have chosen to fight him every step of the way. 

No matter that the record number of Senate filibusters paralyzed our government.  No matter that the cries of “Socialist” have further divided our nation.  Teapublicans seem only to care about ensuring that Obama is a one-term president.

And just when it appeared that the economy was growing again, Teapublicans chose to turn the debt ceiling into a “crisis” resulting in a downgrade of US Treasury Securities and further despair.

All this got me wondering: What if today’s Teapublicans had been around following the Great Depression? Would they have been willing to fund Social Security? Would they have opened the US Treasury to build our infrastructure? Would our nation’s most iconic structures have ever been funded? Would there be a Hoover Dam? Would the Tennessee Valley Authority exist?

What if Teapublicans had been around following WWII? Would they have approved the post WWII-era top tax rate of 91 perecent? Would they have approved of the billions spent to expand our Universities? Would they have supported the GI Bill? Would they have approved of Eisenhower’s interstate highway system?

Looking at more recent history, would they have approved of raising the debt ceiling as Reagan was tripling the national debt? Would they have approved of his tax increases?

I think you know the answers. 

Now ask yourself this: What would have become of the US if today’s Teapublicans had been around during the founding of our nation? Would they even have been willing to spend their money to fund the Revolution?

It Is Now Clear That S&P’s Downgrade Was Political.

Posted on by

Now that the Fitch rating service has confirmed the AAA rating for US Treasury bonds, it raises questions about the real motives for the downgrade by S&P. Of the three rating agencies, both Moody’s and Fitch have maintained the AAA rating. Fitch even called the outlook for US Treasury bonds positive.

Why the different outlooks?

It is possible that it merely represents a difference of opinion. It’s also possible that S&P wanted to flex its political muscle. When you read the full analysis by S&P, two statements stand out:

1 – “The political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America’s governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable than what we previously believed. The statutory debt ceiling and the threat of default have become political bargaining chips in the debate over fiscal policy. Despite this year’s wide-ranging debate, in our view, the differences between political parties have proven to be extraordinarily difficult to bridge, and, as we see it, the resulting agreement fell well short of the comprehensive fiscal consolidation program that some proponents had envisaged until quite recently.”

2 – “Compared with previous projections, our revised base case scenario now assumes that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, due to expire by the end of 2012, remain in place. We have changed our assumption on this because the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues, a position we believe Congress reinforced by passing the act.”

Certainly, each party has rushed to blame the other for S&P’s downgrade. However, since only one party (The Democratic Party) was publicly willing to compromise, and since the other party (The Republican Party) chose to create a crisis in order to get its way, it’s abundantly clear which party is truly to blame for the US Treasury bonds being downgraded for the first time in history. It’s also clear that the Republican position of maintaining the Bush tax cuts is fiscally irresponsible.

A Question of Compromise.

Posted on by

When Democrats and Teapublicans named their members of the so-called Super Congress, the media immediately asked, “Will Senators Patty Murray, John Kerry and Max Baucus be willing to compromise with their Teapublican counterparts? What about Representatives James Clyburn, Xavier Becerra and Chris Van Hollen?”

Say what?

During the last three and a half years, Democrats have amply demonstrated a willingness to compromise.  During the negotiations for health reform, they caved on the most important component – the public option. Last Fall, they gave in to Teapublicans by extending the Bush-era tax cuts despite the growing deficit. And in the recent negotiations to raise the debt ceiling, Democrats gave up on increased revenue from closing tax loopholes and raising taxes on the wealthy. 

What compomises have Teapublicans been willing to make?

One can’t help but wonder why the media failed to ask if the Teapublican representatives on the Super Congress committee will be willing to compromise. After all, Mitch McConnell said he would not appoint anyone to the committee who would vote for increased tax revenue. Could it be that the so-called “mainstream, liberal-biased” media are now biased toward Teapublicans?

The Democrats can’t afford to negotiate away their principles again. If they do, Democratic support for the administration and Congress will likely collapse. Of course, that’s what Teapublicans are counting on.