The new American reality that conservative Republicans must face
As I’ve written here before, I think Republicans are mostly in the right when they suggest that Federal tax rates are already in line with the “normal” range of revenue over the last half century.
This chart, from the liberal website Crooks and Liars, shows the trajectory of tax rates as a percentage of GDP.
Yes, revenues have dipped below “mean” tax rates for a few of the years since 2002, and they plunged during the Great Recession.
But the more dramatic and pervasive trend is the surge of spending above historic norms that began in 2008.
The logical conclusion here is that spending must come down and tax rates must be stabilized, and perhaps even lowered, if we are to avoid a significantly higher long-term burden on taxpayers than Americans have accepted.
What appears obvious in the abstract, however, is confounded by a very different reality on the ground. The truth is that the American economic landscape has shifted tectonically.
The truth is that our citizens rely on government more and more, not because we’re lazy or ideologically confused or charmed by socialism, but because hard work in our country no longer produces a stable, secure livelihood.
This video (which Ellen Rocco shared earlier in the week) illustrates dramatically the growing income disparity in the US, which expanded dismally during the last four decades.
What’s clear here is that the old “rising tide lifts all boats” scenario no longer applies. It used to be true that everybody was getting richer in America — some faster, some slower.
But these days, a sizable percentage of our neighbors — even many so-called “middle class” Americans — just don’t earn enough to go it alone. They’re actually moving backwards. Their boats are sinking.
They don’t have the steady, reliable income needed to pay for good healthcare, to buy even a modest home, to pay for college tuition, or set aside money for retirement.
More and more seniors face an end-game that looks more like true poverty and less like the “golden” years.
Before the Great Recession, there were two factors concealing this implosion of the American dream. The first was massive debt, both personal and governmental. We borrowed our way out of reality.
The second was government spending. The public sector provided the backstop, both in terms of employment for the middle class and “safety net” programs for people drifting toward the bottom end of the economic ladder.
Already — and this is an important point — local, state and Federal agencies nationwide have slashed hundreds of thousands of public sector jobs, eliminating one of the last stabilizers of middle class economic expectation.
More job cuts are on the way, as institutions like the US postal service and the military prep for deep cuts in employment that will target tens if not hundreds of thousands of workers over the next decade.
Now, conservatives want equally deep cuts to the social safety net programs that help those Americans dropping off the bottom of the ladder, aiming to slash “entitlement” programs for the unemployed, the elderly, and the poor.
Which brings us to the reality that Republicans aren’t facing. A growing slice of America is now poor. Bluntly and unambiguously impoverished.
And even many in the middle class have no debt-free assets, no job security, no emergency savings, no margin for error.
With income and wealth inequality rising — with the top 1% harvesting more and more of the country’s economic gains — it is mathematically certain that this trend will continue unless something is done.
So here’s what the GOP has to address, in policy terms and politically: What do we do about the “real poor” America? What do we do about full-time employed, two-worker families who have no health insurance, no equity, no assets and no security?
Thus far, the answer to this question from conservatives has been simple. Cut taxes, cut regulation, and jobs will come surging back.
But we’ve tried that for a generation and only a tiny fraction of the country has benefited. And much of the country is measurably, substantially worse off.
It may well be that the Democratic Party’s approach is wrong-headed. Fine. That’s why we have two parties, to offer different ideas and answers.
But to win the political fight over the future of the economy, the GOP will have to go beyond blocking tax increases for the wealthy, beyond promises that vast wealth at the top will somehow, eventually, maybe-next-year begin to trickle down.
They have to move beyond an ideological and abstract posture that makes zero sense to the 20% of full-time American workers who are earning less than $22,000 a year.
Frankly, without better alternatives, the Democratic Party’s solution begins to look more logical, less like socialism and more like fairness and common sense.
If our economy is now structured fundamentally so that everybody’s working really hard but only a tiny percentage of families really benefit, maybe it makes sense to use taxation to redistribute some of that opportunity?
I don’t mean money giveaways.
I mean maybe it makes sense to use higher taxes on the wealthy to fund things like low-cost higher education, job training, infrastructure building, entrepreneurial programs, more affordable healthcare and so on, all designed to boost America’s vast bottom-end economy.
I know, I know. Republicans really want to avoid that model. They don’t believe in the government stimulating economic activity. And they don’t want significantly higher taxes to become the new normal.
Again, fair enough.
But in the long run, blocking that agenda will take more than parliamentary gimmicks and tea party rallies and Ayn Randian magical thinking. It will take fresh, new and better thinking aimed at helping the country’s working poor.
“The graph shows evidence that the stimulus saved the economy from collapse.” Maybe it was the Wall Street bailout? Maybe Bush “saved the economy”?
It was probably the combination of the Wall Street bailout stabilizing the markets and the tax cuts that were a large portion of the stimulus. Both men deserve some of the credit probably.
I do not want to move to Germany, or become a German, but the following is worth noting because it shows what can be done when a country puts it’s citizens above it’s corporations and billionaires. Most of it can be found in “2013 World Almanac” using index, like I did.
-Germany has a lower per capita GDP than the US, meaning, roughly, the average German is less productive than the average American (American per capita GDP and productivity exceeds that of any serious (meaning not Singapore or Luxembourg-sized) nation.
-Germans, nevertheless, are have substantially higher personal incomes than do Americans.
-Germany has substantially higher level of government social welfare protections than does the US.
-No German was bankrupted or substantially impoverished by health care costs because health care is guaranteed by the government. The program is almost universally approved of in German polls.
-Germans are guaranteed 6 weeks annual vacation per year by law; Americans, are guaranteed 0 days.
-Germany balanced it’s Federal budget this year.
-Germany has a substantial balance of trade surplus, it’s 80 million people were only recently passed by China’s 1.5 billion in total balance of trade surplus.
-Germany has no oil, and is not now fracking, is in the process of deactivating it’s nuclear plants, but is nevertheless approaching energy self-sufficiency through green technology.
I could go on, but the point is a nation that has substantial government involvement the economy and welfare of it’s citizens can prosper. They think Americans are crazy for not doing as well, and they are correct.
Newt- “Brian- What kind of head protection do you wear when reading and responding to all those continue to cite lazy , welfare-dependent Americans as the cause of economic inequality…”.
That’s not the argument being made. That’s the argument YOU say we are making. Not so. The income “inequality” is a function of a combination of a free market economy, manipulation in that market by private and public forces and the simple fact that it takes money (or political influence) to make money. That’s a different thing than Brians refusal to deal with the reality of the lack of altruistic sainthood he holds for the poor and working poor. Income “inequality”…so we should all make the same and then everything will be roses and lemonade.
RC –
No. I fundamentally reject your argument. Call me biased, fine. But Americans are not ‘by and large” lazy.
The statistics don’t bear it out, the per capita GDP numbers don’t bear it out, and my experience as someone who spent ten years working blue collar before become a journalist doesn’t bear it out.
The simple fact is this: In America today, a huge percentage of adults are working more than 40 hours a week and still not earning enough to live.
Those are the jobs that are available to many of our neighbors.
But why is it that we pay people who have worked an entire day for us less than they need to sustain their basic needs? How is that supposed to work?
And how does it make sense, after injuring them with a patently unfair arrangement, that you add the insult of calling them lazy animals?
Here’s the answer to my own question:
You have a comfortable, and fairly simple, ideological set of ideas, and they don’t seem to be working very well, and coming up with awful stuff like this is easier than the alternative.
Again, I’m not suggesting that Democrats have the right ideas. Their policies are, in many instance, laughable. I’ve written here before many times about those shortcomings.
But at least they’re not pretending that poor Americans are lazy…bears? Sheesh.
–Brian, NCPR
“The truth is that our citizens rely on government more and more, not because we’re lazy or ideologically confused or charmed by socialism, but because hard work in our country no longer produces a stable, secure livelihood.”
And why is it that our country no longer produces a stable, secure livelihood?
Kathy I think our country does produce stable secure occupations for a good livelihood. However they require education. There are many in our society who have been unable, unwilling, unmotivated, etc etc to get the education required for our new economy and choose(or have it choosen for them maybe) to hope for a “good” job by luck. Waiting for your ship to come in seldom works, try swimming out and meeting it, but please wear a life-jacket.
Because the post war heyday is over. Our competitors (like Germany mentioned above) are no longer at a major disadvantage trying re-build their counties that were totally destroyed. As we all know our country was left basically unharmed. We were able to use all of our intact factories and other infrastructure to gain a huge advantage. Much of that was squandered by paying workers the kinds of higher wages that we are all craving for again in blue collar positions. The good old days are over. The government can’t fix that. Shareholders demand a high return on their investments. This includes shareholders like large union and state pension funds who also want higher wages. You can’t have everything.
Jeez RC and JDM, you guys sure do hate Americans.
RC: BTW- Americans by and large are lazy. Man is a lazy animal if he can be. No one works harder than he has to to achieve his goals. If your goals are to get by and not much more then that’s what you do. If your goals are to build a business then you are going to work towards that. But don’t even try to make the case Americans are just looking for the chance to work 18 hour days, 7 days a week. It’s not true.
Brian: The statistics don’t bear it out, the per capita GDP numbers don’t bear it out.
Generally speaking, society has become lazy. How can this not be true? We have more given to us today than in any other time in American History. Numbers mean something, yes. But it’s not the whole picture.
I am so glad my older children were raised on a dairy farm until the oldest was 12. We continued with the maple syrup business. It has developed a work ethic in my adult children which has made their employers (even when they were teenagers) stand in amazement. My brother and sister were managers and supervisors of a two major companies. The stories they’ve told me about the lack of work ethic in the age 30 (give or take) and below group shocks me.
As I write, my 11 year old home schooled son wants the calculator to divide an improper fraction. I say no. No pain no gain.
There are people who will not take a 2nd or 3rd job to make ends meet. There are young people who will not work at McDonald’s. It’s easier to get government assistance.
When my 18 year old daughter had a minor accident, the hospital recommended she get Medicaid since we didn’t have insurance. This is the mentality. Thank-you very much but we’ll pay it off monthly.
A whole society has grown up on many short-cuts and conveniences. Yes, it has made us lazy.
Granted, there are many hard working people out there who shouldn’t take this observation personally. But to not admit what is obvious is ridiculous.
So. How do we deal with laziness, which is part of the problem? One huge way is tighter restrictions on government assistance.
The truly poor will always be with us and we should help them. But there are far too many who are draining the system.
There are two painful arguments being made here. One is that Americans are lazy and not very productive. The other is that the world has changed and we all just need to curb our expectations.
Maybe being poor is the new normal.
The problem with these arguments is that we know the facts. We know that per capita GDP in America has been rising.
Americans are more productive, per person, now than they were in 1963 or 1973 or 1983 or 1993 or 2003. More productive, not less.
We work longer hours, producing more goods per person, than any other set of workers on earth.
We also know that America continues to generate massive levels of wealth.
Perhaps not on par with the boom times of the Post-War era, but overall GDP and wealth in America has been rising steadily, with only a brief lag during the Great Recession.
The problem is that increasing shares of that total productivity are now concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer people.
Six members of the family that owns Wal-Mart now possess more wealth than the bottom 40% of American combined, according to a Politifact investigation conducted last year.
One family — with more wealth on hand than about 150,000,000 other citizens, the vast majority of them working families, trying to build savings, trying to build equity in their homes.
So yes, there are lazy people in America. Sure. And it is harder for America to compete with the world.
But that’s clearly not what’s tilting more and more of the country into hard-edged poverty.
–Brian, NCPR
So, how is it that a country like Germany, which has much, much, more in the way of government aid and social welfare programs, able to compete successfully on the world market, pay it’s workers on average $9/hr more than we do (2013 World Almanac p.737), achieve 6% unemployment (I think I read somewhere it was lower now) in a world recession, and so forth?
They are, according to you guys, much worse than even us, yet they do so much better!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Here’s a partial answer: Germany, and all other developed countries, pay only about 11% of GDP for (government guaranteed) health care, where has we(private-govt mix) pay 18%. That’s like taking home 50 K a year, and shelling out 9K for health care when your neighbors are paying about $5.5 K. Yes that nasty old social health insurance turns out to be both cheaper and better than the good old free enterprise stuff. Would be kinda nice to have that extra $4.5 K to in our pockets, as individuals, or a nation, but that would be SOCIALISM!, which never works, ’cause we say so.
I’ll answer my own question: “And why is it that our country no longer produces a stable, secure livelihood?”
We are the land of opportunity. With all of our problems, we still are. This is the result of personal sacrifices made in order to create and preserve this freedom.
There are many complexities which are involved for providing a stable, secure livelihood. But it takes a reasonably stable, secure country and government. While there are the logistics of economy, GDP, stock market, etc. (which I don’t pretend to understand them all), here is a list of some of my observations:
1) Division. A house divided cannot stand. I realize there has been division since the conception of our nation. Yet, there seemed to be a concluding factor that brought people together. Today, the bickering and blaming goes on endlessly, producing a poor environment when our elected officials argue like children. It’s like an argumentative home. Not much stability or security even if people are still eating, sleeping, and bringing home a paycheck there.
Point being, the country is in chaos. What will it take to bring order? Time will tell.
2) <b)Agendas. Every American citizen has the right to his/her opinion. Yet, we must acknowledge something to reign us in. That’s why we have speed limits. Left to ourselves, we would progress and progress and progress. Is too much progress bad? It is if there are no limits. Is too little progress bad? It is if we are not willing to make changes. But in both cases, it requires something to guide us – the Constitution.
Point being, the country is changing too rapidly, pushing through laws without responsible foresight and thinking. What’s the hurry? Doesn’t haste make waste?
3) Abundance. We have too much. Whether you are an individual, a school district, business, or government, without good and common sense oversight, we tend to ride the wave of prosperity and not prepare. Abundance can make us lazy. Read the story of the grasshopper and the ant.
Point being, our country is on over-drive abundance, creating instability. The prosperity wave has been ridden and now panic is setting in. However, some are still riding the wave and are too high to see the inevitable crash. That’s because either a) they live in a bubble; b) they have lost their common sense and/or conscience of reaping what is sown.
But the abundance creates more than numbers. It creates something detrimental in a society. It has to. When everything is available with little effort, you get lazy and feel entitled. How many of us are frustrated when the drive through is too long and we have to actually go into the bank or Taco Bell?
My observations deal with who we are as people. What’s inside. Collectively, it affects the whole.
source for healthcare % GDP http://247wallst.com/2012/03/29/countries-that-spend-the-most-on-health-care/3/
Time Magazine has a whole issue on healthcare a couple of weeks ago. At one point they quoted a surgeon who said he had just performed a operation on a 63-year-old (privately insured )guy, for which he had charged about $30,000. The next day he would perform an identical op on a 65-year-old (medicare-insured) guy, for which he would get $1,500. Medicare does a better job of cost control than the free market.
The article also disputes the idea that providers are fleeing Medicare.
Our conservative friends provide a good example of the tactics that are so effective in diverting the discussion away from the real problems. Pundits and politicians love to say our security net system is being abused by low-income individuals – even if the examples don’t really exist, like Reagan’s imaginary “welfare queens”. They know the outrage that will result and poof, the real rip-off is obscured. Think about it, the actual cost to the government of people getting benefits they don’t deserve is infinitesimal compared to the government costs from criminal bankers and corporate fraud. The politicians rile up lynch mob mentality in the name of personal responsibility for miniscule abuses by the poor while ignoring massive illegal activity by those at the top and holding no one accountable.
This is both a Republican and Democrat problem. How many financial executives have been prosecuted by the Obama administration for the gross variety of fraudulent activity that plunged us into the Great Recession? Too big to fail means too big to jail. We have created two very different systems of justice and economic distribution. Yes, many Democrats don’t get it either. They do not realize that Obama is more like Romney than either are to the average person. They are two sides of same coin that sits in the pocket of those at the top.
Hugo Chavez did for his people what Brian and others want for this country.
He nationalized the oil industries.
He took the money from evil corporation and told the people it was theirs.
The low information voters in Venezuela loved him.
They were so happy he said he would give them all that money.
He did not.
He was worth $2billion when he died.
The poor in Venezuela are poorer now than then.
But they were told they would be rich.
And they believed him.
That’s what counts.
Correct as usual, myown.
JDM-
Maybe Brian would like someone to do for the United States what Willy Brandt and his successors (and mostly, it’s own citizens) did for Germany.
WHY DO YOU GUYS IGNORE THE EXAMPLE OF GERMANY!
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Germany also provides a great example of an educational system that is taylored to the new economy.
Brian, I think I see your disconnect. You are equating GDP rising with effort put forth by workers. No. It doesn’t work that way anymore. I don’t know if you’ve ever worked in a union shop, but rising income does not equal more effort put forth by employees. In the service sector it’s about the same. I think you confuse hours of work with effort too. People work longer hours today than they did 20 or 40 years back. True, no doubt. Does that mean they are working harder at their jobs? I don’t think that is even remotely assured. “Putting in your hours” is not the same as producing more of something. That’s where I feel I am justified in my statements that man is as lazy as he’s allowed to be.
Now, “But why is it that we pay people who have worked an entire day for us less than they need to sustain their basic needs? How is that supposed to work?” Brian it’s been like that for just about forever. The answer is to work towards a better job or skill level or else to take a different job or additional job. I’ve done that my whole life. Part two of that question is just what defines “basic needs”? I can assure you that what seems to constitute “basic needs” to a 25 year old average male is a whole to different than what constitutes “basic needs” to a 25 year old Amish male. I think there is a huge difference between “needs” and “wants”. All we need is food, shelter and clothing. Everything else is a want. Health insurance, transportation, entertainment, nifty duds, eating out or prepared foods, sports tickets, cable TV, computers……those are not needs. Those are wants, things to make life easier. I wish everyone could have them all, but we can’t. I can’t. And I don’t feel anyone has the right to take something from someone else and give it to me or from and give it to someone else just to satisfy my or their wants.
Part 3 of that is that when we do work towards a better job so that we can start getting those things we want we get punished for it with higher taxes. How much of an incentive is there to try to get the nice home and invest and make a secure living for yourself and your family when as soon as you get up into the top 25% or so you suddenly become a no good sob that deserves to be taxed at 90%?!!!
I think Kathy laid out some wonderful points. Read them and re-read them. Kudos Kathy!
Newt, it’s wonderful that Germany, which we rebuilt, protected, still protect and help sustain the economy of, is doing well. We should learn from them and see what might be appropriate for us to consider- like their flat taxes and lack of capital gains tax. There is no doubt we can learn form many other nations, but that doesn’t mean what worked there will be assured to work here. Democracy didn’t work so well in Russia or Iraq. Different strokes?
Germany provides a great example of an educational system that isn’t tailored to lowering the bar so no ones feelings get hurt either.
Myown, I agree somewhat with the 2nd para of your post. But welfare abuse was and is a problem despite Mr Clintons “ending welfare as we know it”. I’d much rather see the Barney Franks and Chris Dodds doing time for their criminal actions in the mortgage scandal than Bub the guy down the road that’s never even tried to work a day in his life. But politicians and corporate CEOs don’t go to jail very often. And lets face it, it would take a real revolution in this country to get to the big time players. They got the gov’t they bought and paid for.
Rancid writes: “the poor kid with the latest $1500.00 laptop with the gaming package, the cable or sat TV with the $120.00 a month package and the 60″ flat screen. Those people are out there Brian, lots’ and lots of them. To deny they make up a considerable amount of that population is insulting. Where is the money coming from? Where does the part time min wage worker get the funding for the $100.00 sneakers, the latest games, the smart phone, etc, all while eating out 3 meals a day?”
Rancid, all I can say is that if you know of such people, turn them in, they’re clearly breaking the law. My guess is that you’re talking through your hat.
“Does that mean they are working harder at their jobs? I don’t think that is even remotely assured. “Putting in your hours” is not the same as producing more of something. That’s where I feel I am justified in my statements that man is as lazy as he’s allowed to be.”
Oh, I see, the fact that you don’t think they’re working hard is why you feel you’re justified. A bit circular, perhaps, and lacking in anything remotely like evidence?
I know that I have never worked a job where I just put in the absolute minimum effort, and I have no doubt that you would say the same of yourself. I guess that would make us both freaks.
I have known some people who were just coasting on the job, but I can’t say that most people I have worked with or encounter every day strike me that way. So where do you get your certainty that “man is as lazy as he’s allowed to be”? It’s nonsense!
RC “Part 3 of that is that when we do work towards a better job so that we can start getting those things we want we get punished for it with higher taxes. How much of an incentive is there to try to get the nice home and invest and make a secure living for yourself and your family when as soon as you get up into the top 25% or so you suddenly become a no good sob that deserves to be taxed at 90%?!!!”
I don’t think, of late anyone has suggested fed taxation go to 90% on anyone. It has been suggested it be upped from 36% and it is as if we were going to cut off a body part.
newt: Now there’s a guy who was so great, he’s practically a household name…
somewhere…
maybe…
Newt on the German numbers I am not seeing that outcome? The median family income in the US, not the average, but the median is still higher by a decent amount than Germany. The average is a lot higher but it is skewed for looking at how the middle family really is getting by.
Which is the strange part about this, we do have poverty and far to much poverty, but we still have higher incomes than most Europeans or other industrialized countries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_household_income
I think the deeper issue is indeed what we get for our government dollars. We are spending a LOT right now, where is it going? At least if I could go get my government provided health care even if I was against it in principle, I would understand. But now we seem to have bad roads, bad schools, bad infrastructure, increasing poverty and are spending more and more on government.
I guess I could go over and look look at a C-5 Cargo plane and feel good about that.
What a weird discussion. People are not inherently lazy. Quite the opposite.
” The other is that the world has changed and we all just need to curb our expectations.”
Brian, I hope you are not referring to my comment. Yes the world has changed and we need to adapt but that doesn’t mean we need to curb our expectations.
Newt, on Germany just because the hourly wage is higher does not mean that the mean disposable salary (after tax) is higher. In fact for Germany I think it is lower than in the US. And since on average things cost more in Germany that means they have even less.
I think this is a better way to measure it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_wage
You will see that the US is number one and Germany ranks 20th.
I also would like to ask where is the savings for Iraq? Where did that money go that we are no longer spending? At a minimum; we should be able to take the yearly expenditures from Iraq and cut the total budget by that amount.
The measure that Mervel has here is good as well. I should have refreshed before I sent in my comment since it is somewhat redundant.
The President is NOT ready to talk about spending cuts and neither are the Democrats, the Republicans gave in in Janruary on taxes, this round was supposed to be talking about how to cut spending; what does Obama and the Democrats do? They come in and want to talk about raising more revenue as a condition for any cuts.
Mervel war is not a normal budget item (at least in constitutional theory) so it is not accounted for in the budget. That is all supplemental spending. In my opinion it is fine to fund a war with debt which is what we did but now you have to adjust your spending to pay off the debt that is the problem. Look most people didn’t want to even cut a small portion of our spending. The real issue is that the budget needs to be balanced. Let’s hope that when, and if, the president presents a budget that he at least has enough revenue in the budget to cover our expenses. A budget like that would be a reasonable alternative to the GOP budget and one that may actually get some serious consideration.
Americans work really hard compared to other countries on almost all measures.
I think there are some things we could take from the German experience however. Health care could and should be provided for far less than we are paying. We over-pay for all of our medical services across the board. It would be a huge burden lifted from the economy, from the government and from employers to really sort out why we have such an expensive system. The second part would be their training/education and vocational system, it does work its a good model and I think we should look at it.
But also Germany is just a different culture than the US. Their families are stronger, they stick together don’t move around a lot, are much less mobile and much more community minded. They are also mucy less diverse than we are and have a smaller more compacted population. They also are fine with owning one car and living in smaller homes than we are. Sometimes you can’t simply replicate a system the system itself may be a by-product of culture.
Paul, so the total budget number for 2009-2010 when we were going full strength in Iraq include supplemental spending? When we look at the charts for Vietnam and WWII they do include the war spending, when they calculate total Government spending as a % of GDP. I mean it must show up somewhere right?
“I also would like to ask where is the savings for Iraq?”
There are no savings from Iraq. Money spent there was in the Defense budget already and it’s still there. It is a popular misconception (and liberal misinformation) that the money spent on the war in Iraq was over and above the Defense budget. Blaming Bush for “putting the war on a credit card” is a lot more fun for liberals than addressing overall budget mismanagement, which is a feature of all recent administrations, including the current one.
Absolutely wrong Larry. Read this:
Appropriations
See also: Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund
FY2003 Supplemental: Operation Iraqi Freedom: Passed April 2003; Total $78.5 billion, $54.4 billion Iraq War
FY2004 Supplemental: Iraq and Afghanistan Ongoing Operations/Reconstruction: Passed November 2003; Total $87.5 billion, $70.6 billion Iraq War
FY2004 DoD Budget Amendment: $25 billion Emergency Reserve Fund (Iraq Freedom Fund): Passed July 2004, Total $25 billion, $21.5 billion (estimated) Iraq War
FY2005 Emergency Supplemental: Operations in the War on Terror; Activities in Afghanistan; Tsunami Relief: Passed April 2005, Total $82 billion, $58 billion (estimated) Iraq War
FY2006 Department of Defense appropriations: Total $50 billion, $40 billion (estimated) Iraq War.
FY2006 Emergency Supplemental: Operations Global War on Terror; Activities in Iraq & Afghanistan: Passed February 2006, Total $72.4 billion, $60 billion (estimated) Iraq War
FY2007 Department of Defense appropriations: $70 billion(estimated) for Iraq War-related costs[5][6]
FY2007 Emergency Supplemental (proposed) $100 billion
FY2008 Bush administration has proposed around $190 billion for the Iraq War and Afghanistan[7]
FY2009 Obama administration has proposed around $130 billion in additional funding for the Iraq War and Afghanistan.[8]
FY2011 Obama administration proposes around $159.3 billion for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.[9]
It is unclear why no breakdowns are offered on the basis of each war.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_War
Paul, thanks for making it clear to everyone that the bank bailout belongs to Bush – as many of us were trying to let people know before the last election but the people (who are wrong again) here like RC and JDM were telling us Obama’s doing.
And I guess I have to reiterate my periodic statement that I don’t necessarily support everything Obama does but his position on the economy and the budget stands a better chance of turning the economy around than the clear disaster the Republicans propose.
Kathy writes “Point being, the country is changing too rapidly, pushing through laws without responsible foresight and thinking. What’s the hurry? Doesn’t haste make waste?”
I bet you’re thinking of the Affordable Care Act, right Kathy?
“Knuckle, re your 7:48- Uh, not sure if you knew this but that big drop was due to 9/11 and the spending was too. Over 10 years later and you’re still trying to blame Obamas mess on Bush.”
No RC, most of the drop in gov’t revenue in 2001 was a direct result of Bush’s $1.35 TRILLION tax cut.
Read more:
http://www.ibtimes.com/us-still-trying-recover-three-2001-2008-public-policy-mistakes-705676
“The Bush administration, 2001-2008, fiscal 2002 to fiscal 2009, then ran the following deficits:
Fiscal 2003: $374 billion deficit
Fiscal 2004: $413 billion deficit
Fiscal 2005: $319 billion deficit
Fiscal 2006: $248 billion deficit
Fiscal 2007: $162 billion deficit
Fiscal 2008: $455 billion deficit”
Same link as my post above. Remember that these deficits were being run up before the Great Recession. There was no reason to run those sorts of deficits except to give tax cuts to inordinately wealthy people and many of us on the Left were complaining at the time about deficit spending. Where were the Tea Party people then? Why didn’t you support us?
Well we see brave Democrats tonight standing up with Rand Paul against using drones to kill Americans on US soil, which is INSANE that under ANY circumstances that would be even contemplated. So yes I agree, where were the Republicans on these deficits and on the spending under Bush? I agree.
To his credit people like Ron Paul and Pat Buchanan were very much against all of these Iraq wars, one and two. So there have been some conservatives who have been consistent.
But now lets face this is Obama’s time, the deficits are his now we will see how they end up comparing to Bush or Clinton etc.
Well OL that is even worse if it is true that the Iraq war was in the Defense budget. That means the Defense Department needs to CUT those dollars out now, you don’t need to be on war footing when we are not at war, unless the new plan is to be perpetually at war? I guess if we have the people we might as well go find some war to engage in.
The whole thing is unconstitutional we never declared war on Iraq. All of the excuses I have seen have been bogus.
We have a basic problem and that is that we spend 7 times more than our closest military opponent, China on our military, we spend vastly more than any other country on the face of the earth on our military and our military empire around the globe. I hear these guys whining about these very small cuts in percentage terms now. We need a fundamental shift in our military’s role and priorities. I would look at cutting at least 25% of our military’s budget we would still have by far the most expensive military in the world, by far.
The cold war is over; yet we never stopped spending we found a new enemy, radical Muslims with cell phone bombs, at least the Soviet Union was a real threat.
The comparisons of income Mervel and Paul provide seems to support the US being substantially ahead of Germany in household personal. Mervel’s especially, since the chart specifies, as he says, the median, so the CEO who makes in an hour and his average employee who works more than a month for this amount are counted equally.
I am very suspicious of Germany this far down both lists, and the footnotes to Paul’s source provides a clue, saying apprentices and trainees are sometimes counted as full-time members of the work force – Germany being cited as a specific example. This would count as some of the difference, certainly not all.
I wish I had seen these before my post, but it is still meaningful that German “workers” (whatever that means) in my source still make more than American “workers” do, that Germans, and virtually all developed world outside of the US have guaranteed medical care costing them and their nations 6.5% less in GDP, Germany’s balanced budget, trade surplus, etc.
Bedtime
Correct, KHL. New rule: no posting during happy hour. What I was trying to say is that no savings will be seen in the Defense budget because the war has been dialed down.
Correct, KHL. New rule: no posting during happy hour. What I was trying to say is that no savings will be seen in the Defense budget because the war has been dialed down.
Quite a lively discussion Brian. One only hopes that everyone working in an elected office has seen the chart and watched the video. One would hope that a substantial portion of the voters could watch too, but most will not. We will be too busy with worrying about abortion, gun control, illegal immigrants, and who the next Pope will be, and we will not notice until, until, as Ken says “TSHTF”.
Extreme income disparity is a model that has been tried in lots of other places. When it all comes un-glued, people start shooting each other. Refugees cross borders and wait until the shooting stops. We’ve got enough guns here to shoot for a long time, and every part of the economy will grind to a halt. When the entire country reaches fourth world status, the one percent guys will be somewhere else.
That’s pretty grim…or we could do something else.
I’d like to know where all these nose to the grindstone workers are you people think you see. Perhaps you have a different definition of “hard working” than I do. I know some hard working people but the other 95% are doing just what their required to so and not one thing more. OTOH, find those people after work and they’re bundles of energy doing whatever it is that they do.
If your claims were true I’d have people lined up down the road just frothing at the mouth for a chance to work at min wage with me on the farm. As it is you can’t find a soul willing to do farm work at min wage. That’s why we have the illegal alien problem.
We actually got off on a tangent. The question is how do we create jobs that people will work at and keep prices at a level that makes it possible for the average person to live at a decent standard? I haven’t seen anyone address that other than suggestions of enormous Federal spending. That entails more debt added to our already overwhelming debt.
Well, I have work to do. Good luck folks.
“If your claims were true I’d have people lined up down the road just frothing at the mouth for a chance to work at min wage with me on the farm.”
Why would you expect people to work maximum effort for minimum wage? Offering minimum wage sends a message: “If I could pay you less, I would, but it would be illegal.”
RC-
Well, the discussion I had with several of you indicates that Americans, on average, are enormously productive, and I don’t think the majority 80% whose real incomes have stagnated or declined over the past 40 years are being carried by by the 19% who’ve gotten financially ahead, and the 1% who’ve done spectacularly well, and own 40% of the national wealth.
I don’t think things would be horribly worse for them, or for anyone, were taxes, but mostly loopholes, adjusted so the 1% kept only 20% (for example), and the other 20% went into education (especially so all worthy HS grads would be guaranteed a shot at college), rebuilding and upgrading infrastructure, and protecting the truly needy ( see story on NPR this morning that US ranked # 19 in the world in guaranteeing old age benefits, behind Slovakia and the Czech Republic, among others). USA: #1 in avg income, #19 in retirement protection. Again, history shows that such reforms usually benefit the wealthy as much or more than others.
I find it difficult to believe that a society that leaves so many behind while allowing so few to prosper beyond comprehension and go on indefinitely.
“CAN go on indefinitely”