Tuesday, April 5, 2011

GOP BUDGET PROPOSAL ... DIGGING US INTO A BIGGER HOLE

House Republicans claim that their 2012 Budget Proposal will help dig America out of a financial hole. Their claims are both misleading and based on faulty assumptions. In fact, if the GOP's "digging-us-out-of-a-hole" budget proposals were implemented their actual impact would look like this ...


That's right. When it comes to digging us out of our current budget mess the GOP would effectively bury us in more debt.

How do we know this? First, we have a decades long history of the GOP's trickle-down promises and subsequent budget disasters. Second, the Republicans don't have a clue about "cause and effect" when it comes to understanding the sources of our current budget mess.

What's really driving our "out of control" deficit spending ($1.3 trillion this year) and soaring national debt ($14 trillion) are: (1) the costs associated with Wall Street's bailout in perpetuity program (which will cost us trillions); (2) the costs of funding President Bush's tax cuts for the rich (almost $2.5 trillion through 2010); (3) President Bush's blundering wars project (tied into growing defense related expenditures);  and (4) the losses associated with the economic down turn, which cuts hundreds of billions in income and tax receipts from our nation's economy. Check it out here:



The frustrating thing is that this isn't really "new" news. Citing CBO data, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reported as far back as 2005 that the biggest factors contributing to growing debt loads during the Bush administration were war and Bush era tax cuts. In fact, if we continue the Bush era tax cuts for the rich they will add an additional $1.3 trillion to $3.28 trillion to our national debt by 2018. Nice.

What this means is that if we didn't have to pay for Wall Street's bailout in perpetuity program, the costs associated with the economic down turn, and President Bush's bungling wars project and unfunded tax cuts for the rich policies, we could be running budget deficits approaching zero.



Better yet, if we went after tax deductions and write-offs that benefit only a select few, and pursued corporate tax dodgers, we could be running budget surpluses! Let me repeat: We could be running budget surpluses if we focused on the real sources of our budget mess.

Yet the House GOP doesn't want to discuss any of these issues. Instead, the GOP's 2012 Budget Proposal - which is essentially "trickle-down" on steroids - focuses on cutting social programs, as if war, market collapse, Wall Street's bailout in perpetuity programs, and unfunded tax favors have nothing to do with budget deficits.

Oh, and the GOP also wants to continue cutting taxes on the rich.

Ignoring reality, my friends, is how we dig ourselves a bigger budget hole.

- Mark

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