“America is not broke.”
Speech delivered at Wisconsin Capitol in Madison, March 5, 2011
America is not broke.
Contrary to what those in power would like you to believe so that you’ll give up your pension, cut your wages, and settle for the life your great-grandparents had, America is not broke. Not by a long shot. The country is awash in wealth and cash. It’s just that it’s not in your hands. It has been transferred, in the greatest heist in history, from the workers and consumers to the banks and the portfolios of the uber-rich.
Today just 400 Americans have more wealth than half of all Americans combined.
Let me say that again. 400 obscenely rich people, most of whom benefited in some way from the multi-trillion dollar taxpayer “bailout” of 2008, now have more loot, stock and property than the assets of 155 million Americans combined. If you can’t bring yourself to call that a financial coup d’état, then you are simply not being honest about what you know in your heart to be true.
And I can see why. For us to admit that we have let a small group of men abscond with and hoard the bulk of the wealth that runs our economy, would mean that we’d have to accept the humiliating acknowledgment that we have indeed surrendered our precious Democracy to the moneyed elite. Wall Street, the banks and the Fortune 500 now run this Republic — and, until this past month, the rest of us have felt completely helpless, unable to find a way to do anything about it.
I have nothing more than a high school degree. But back when I was in school, every student had to take one semester of economics in order to graduate. And here’s what I learned: Money doesn’t grow on trees. It grows when we make things. It grows when we have good jobs with good wages that we use to buy the things we need and thus create more jobs. It grows when we provide an outstanding educational system that then grows a new generation of inventers, entrepreneurs, artists, scientists and thinkers who come up with the next great idea for the planet. And that new idea creates new jobs and that creates revenue for the state. But if those who have the most money don’t pay their fair share of taxes, the state can’t function. The schools can’t produce the best and the brightest who will go on to create those jobs. If the wealthy get to keep most of their money, we have seen what they will do with it: recklessly gamble it on crazy Wall Street schemes and crash our economy. The crash they created cost us millions of jobs. That too caused a reduction in revenue. And the population ended up suffering because they reduced their taxes, reduced our jobs and took wealth out of the system, removing it from circulation.
The nation is not broke, my friends. Wisconsin is not broke. It’s part of the Big Lie. It’s one of the three biggest lies of the decade: America/Wisconsin is broke, Iraq has WMD, the Packers can’t win the Super Bowl without Brett Favre.
The truth is, there’s lots of money to go around. LOTS. It’s just that those in charge have diverted that wealth into a deep well that sits on their well-guarded estates. They know they have committed crimes to make this happen and they know that someday you may want to see some of that money that used to be yours. So they have bought and paid for hundreds of politicians across the country to do their bidding for them. But just in case that doesn’t work, they’ve got their gated communities, and the luxury jet is always fully fueled, the engines running, waiting for that day they hope never comes. To help prevent that day when the people demand their country back, the wealthy have done two very smart things:
1. They control the message. By owning most of the media they have expertly convinced many Americans of few means to buy their version of the American Dream and to vote for their politicians. Their version of the Dream says that you, too, might be rich some day – this is America, where anything can happen if you just apply yourself! They have conveniently provided you with believable examples to show you how a poor boy can become a rich man, how the child of a single mother in Hawaii can become president, how a guy with a high school education can become a successful filmmaker. They will play these stories for you over and over again all day long so that the last thing you will want to do is upset the apple cart — because you — yes, you, too! — might be rich/president/an Oscar-winner some day! The message is clear: keep you head down, your nose to the grindstone, don’t rock the boat and be sure to vote for the party that protects the rich man that you might be some day.
2. They have created a poison pill that they know you will never want to take. It is their version of mutually assured destruction. And when they threatened to release this weapon of mass economic annihilation in September of 2008, we blinked. As the economy and the stock market went into a tailspin, and the banks were caught conducting a worldwide Ponzi scheme, Wall Street issued this threat: Either hand over trillions of dollars from the American taxpayers or we will crash this economy straight into the ground. Fork it over or it’s Goodbye savings accounts. Goodbye pensions. Goodbye United States Treasury. Goodbye jobs and homes and future. It was friggin’ awesome and it scared the shit out of everyone. “Here! Take our money! We don’t care. We’ll even print more for you! Just take it! But, please, leave our lives alone, PLEASE!”
The executives in the board rooms and hedge funds could not contain their laughter, their glee, and within three months they were writing each other huge bonus checks and marveling at how perfectly they had played a nation full of suckers. Millions lost their jobs anyway, and millions lost their homes. But there was no revolt (see #1).
Until now. On Wisconsin! Never has a Michigander been more happy to share a big, great lake with you! You have aroused the sleeping giant know as the working people of the United States of America. Right now the earth is shaking and the ground is shifting under the feet of those who are in charge. Your message has inspired people in all 50 states and that message is: WE HAVE HAD IT! We reject anyone tells us America is broke and broken. It’s just the opposite! We are rich with talent and ideas and hard work and, yes, love. Love and compassion toward those who have, through no fault of their own, ended up as the least among us. But they still crave what we all crave: Our country back! Our democracy back! Our good name back! The United States of America. NOT the Corporate States of America. The United States of America!
So how do we get this? Well, we do it with a little bit of Egypt here, a little bit of Madison there. And let us pause for a moment and remember that it was a poor man with a fruit stand in Tunisia who gave his life so that the world might focus its attention on how a government run by billionaires for billionaires is an affront to freedom and morality and humanity.
Thank you, Wisconsin. You have made people realize this was our last best chance to grab the final thread of what was left of who we are as Americans. For three weeks you have stood in the cold, slept on the floor, skipped out of town to Illinois — whatever it took, you have done it, and one thing is for certain: Madison is only the beginning. The smug rich have overplayed their hand. They couldn’t have just been content with the money they raided from the treasury. They couldn’t be satiated by simply removing millions of jobs and shipping them overseas to exploit the poor elsewhere. No, they had to have more – something more than all the riches in the world. They had to have our soul. They had to strip us of our dignity. They had to shut us up and shut us down so that we could not even sit at a table with them and bargain about simple things like classroom size or bulletproof vests for everyone on the police force or letting a pilot just get a few extra hours sleep so he or she can do their job — their $19,000 a year job. That’s how much some rookie pilots on commuter airlines make, maybe even the rookie pilots flying people here to Madison. But he’s stopped trying to get better pay. All he asks is that he doesn’t have to sleep in his car between shifts at O’Hare airport. That’s how despicably low we have sunk. The wealthy couldn’t be content with just paying this man $19,000 a year. They wanted to take away his sleep. They wanted to demean and dehumanize him. After all, he’s just another slob.
And that, my friends, is Corporate America’s fatal mistake. But trying to destroy us they have given birth to a movement — a movement that is becoming a massive, nonviolent revolt across the country. We all knew there had to be a breaking point some day, and that point is upon us. Many people in the media don’t understand this. They say they were caught off guard about Egypt, never saw it coming. Now they act surprised and flummoxed about why so many hundreds of thousands have come to Madison over the last three weeks during brutal winter weather. “Why are they all standing out there in the cold? I mean there was that election in November and that was supposed to be that!
“There’s something happening here, and you don’t know what it is, do you …?”
America ain’t broke! The only thing that’s broke is the moral compass of the rulers. And we aim to fix that compass and steer the ship ourselves from now on. Never forget, as long as that Constitution of ours still stands, it’s one person, one vote, and it’s the thing the rich hate most about America — because even though they seem to hold all the money and all the cards, they begrudgingly know this one unshakeable basic fact: There are more of us than there are of them!
Madison, do not retreat. We are with you. We will win together.
Thanks for the posting.
It’s outstanding.
I am a super fan of Michael Moore.
If the Democrats had kept on the message, distilled above by Michael seemingly alone for the last two years, their losses in 2010 would have been insignificant.
Yet, due to the President’s tasking the same people, Geitner, Summers etc. to run his economic team, the same people intimately involved with the crashing of our economy and now only trying to cover their OWN asses, Democrats were effectively silenced.They believed in the President. And the message was lost.
NOW look who’s being blamed by the Republican Media Machine.
Workers!
You better believe the BLUNT-SKULLS will stay ON MESSAGE! Even though it’s a lie.
And Michael Moore will tilt at windmills unless we rise as multitudes of Sancho Panza’s to be his seconds.
But the wealthy are oh so good at playing this game. With their department of propaganda (Fox News) they’ve got the middle class fighting the lower class, and the educated class fighting the uneducated class..
It reminds me of the 100 cookies story. The rich guy grabs 99 cookies and then says to the working class guy “Look out!… that poor kid over there is trying to take some of YOUR cookie!!”
With their department of propaganda (Fox News)…
You mean…With their department of propaganda (Every Newspaper, radio station and TV network)
There it is, Jason. There it is.
Wow! Mr. Moore has nothing but a high school degree, and apparently worked very hard and smart for his $25,000,000+ net worth, so I can suppose I can almost understand his reluctance to give it away to his fellow man. Wonder why he is missing a great opportunity to set an example?
Because it’s not about setting an example. An example won’t make the uber-rich pay their share. Only the law can do that.
The facts can be found at Forbes: the 25 largest corporations who pay no taxes. GE $10.3 billion paid no tax, and received $l.l billion in tax incentives.
Tax Economist Martin Sullivan states, companies are keeping at minimum $28 billion/yr out of the Treasury by engaging in so called priceing arrangements. Microsoft has overseas subsidiaries to license software to US parent company so they get taxed at a lower overseas rate.
There has been a financil coup’detat! My question since Delaware is the corporate State, when was the last time the State Treasurer, the Governor and the Task Force asked the State Revenue Dept, for a list of all corporations incorporated here owe us in taxes? Whats the problem here! If we have to pay our taxes every year, why are corporations permitted not to pay theirs on a yearly basis. We need some leadership in this state. Michael Moore is correct, America is not broke and neither is Delaware.
Nope. I’d say it’s more about putting his money where his mouth is, and his blatant hypocrisy. That would have been a poignant diatribe from almost anyone but the likes of Mr. Moore.
It’s not hypocrisy for a rich person to call for a higher tax rate for rich people; if one were adopted, he would pay the higher rate. Voluntarily donating his money won’t do a thing to address the disparity. You’re usually not this wrong. For whatever reason, you just don’t like the guy. It has nothing to do with hypocrisy.
If low class Tea Party members can demand tax cuts for the rich, then the rich can demand that they pay their fare share. Fair is fair.
“It’s not hypocrisy for a rich person to call for a higher tax rate for rich people; if one were adopted, he would pay the higher rate. Voluntarily donating his money won’t do a thing to address the disparity. You’re usually not this wrong. For whatever reason, you just don’t like the guy. It has nothing to do with hypocrisy.”
Suggesting that he set an example, by voluntarily sharing some of his vast wealth with his fellow man, is not unlike suggesting that someone, who protests obscene government spending on welfare, and myriad other social programs, voluntarily give up their Social Security and Medicare, etc., as is frequently done by some on DL.
True, I don’t like Mr. Moore… but only because he’s a hypocrite.
Ad hominem in 4… 3… 2… 1…
How do you know he doesn’t pay some extra? I have no idea whether he does or doesn’t.
Moore is not the only rich guy asking for a revision of tax policy (and we *are* talking about policy here, not just the various resentments on display) — Buffett, Gates père, and 700 other wealthy people have been weighing in on a more fair tax policy for sometime. But the price of weighing in on fairer tax policy isn’t just sending in an extra check to the government.
That’s a defensible position, but it’s not hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is asking others to do what you yourself are unwilling to. For example, if he called for higher taxes and fewer loopholes for the rich, then used loopholes to lower his taxes, that would be hypocrisy. Or if he called for more rich people to voluntarily give more money to the government but failed to do so (as you allege), then it’s hypocrisy. But calling for higher taxes on the 400 richest people in the country — not a very good idea, IMHO, because the target group is too small — obviously excludes him from the equation.
What you might be able to call hyprocrisy is restricting his criticism to only those 400 richest people so that he’s left out of the equation. If one were to raise taxes on the top 0.1% — the top 150,000 households — he’d be in the target group. So it can be construed as hypocrisy that he draws the line so he’s excluded.
As you note, one doesn’t have to give up Social Security to argue against it. It’s pretty dumb to do so, but nearly half the people in the world have below-average intelligence.
“Ad hominem in 4… 3… 2… 1…”
Written with no sense of irony?? Your attack of MM is quintessential ad hominem.
Do you even know the meaning of “ad hominem”? http://philosophy.lander.edu/logic/person.html
One also wonders why social spending is labeled “obscene” but other spending — military spending, for example — is not.
Good catch. It is only “obscene” if some poor person could benefit.
Miscreatnt wrote:
To which some Geezer replied:
Well, some of us would call Mr Moore a hypocrite.
On the sidebar of my poor site, I have an icon which you can use to contact the Treasury directly, and voluntarily pay more in taxes. Just click here and it’ll take you to Treasury Direct.
If anyone has ever used that icon, I don’t know about it. When I hear that His Rotundity has done so, I’ll be a bit more impressed with what he says.
Cassandra added:
Why not? If they believe they ought to be taxed another million bucks, then we’d actually believe that they are serious if they make that contribution before taxes are increased, just to show us how fornicating dedicated they are to the cause.
But the real problem isn’t that we are taxed too little; the problem is that we spend way too much. Total federal spending is higher, as a percent of GDP, now than any time since 1946. If you look at President Obama’s own FY2012 budget proposal, you’ll see that he wants to spend between 22.3% and 23.6% of GDP (ignoring his call for 25.3% for FY2011), much more than we spent under President Bush and more than we spent under President Clinton. President Obama is figuring in big tax increases for as far as he can project (increasing every year, from 16.6% of GDP in FY2012 to 19.3% in FY2016), but still plans on spending way more, on having a huge deficit every year.
And if you look at the years when the top marginal rate was as high as 92%, we still never took in as much as 20% of GDP in taxes those years.
Hmmm: three hyperlinks: this’ll probably go into moderation or spam.
The problem with your spending scenario is that it specifically includes the BushCo structural deficits — the tax cuts that your boys never paid for, Medicare Part D that your boys never paid for and two wars that your boys never paid for. There are few tax increases included in the President’s budget.
The %GDP of taxes isn’t especially material to the fact that no one is dealing with the structural deficits created by BushCo. No one. You can let those tax cuts expire and the deficit problem gets pretty small, pretty fast. Bringing troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan pronto does not have the same bang for the buck, but it is still Real Money. Way more Real Money than the cuts being proposed by your House Boys. But as long as everyone pretends that the BushCo tax cuts aren’t ground zero of the problem, you’ll never get to a fix. Never.
If they believe they ought to be taxed another million bucks, then we’d actually believe that they are serious if they make that contribution before taxes are increased, just to show us how fornicating dedicated they are to the cause.
And — again — you have no idea if they are doing this. But whether they do or not doesn’t preclude any advocacy they may make on the subject. If that rule was in effect, then only people who have opted out of the SS system get to talk about privatizing it. Or, people who were willing to signup get to advocate for wars. Or people who were willing to adopt unwanted babies get to advocate against abortion.
Sure there’s plenty of money out there. All government has to do is tax it or otherwise take it from the ones who made safer and luckier bets than the pension funds, banks, insurance companies, other institutional investers, and individuals (like me) who made bad and unlucky bets. Take from those who made it – however they made it – and give to those who squandered, gambled and lost, or just sat back waiting for a handout. That’s the American way. Never mind the fact that your federal government was the prime cause of the whole credit/mortgage mess by, over the period of a decade, relaxing the mortgage lending standards that were implemented back in the 1930s to avoid exactly the situation we all have witnessed. Not everyone should own a home, dummies; just like not everyone should finish high school.
“Well, some of us would call Mr Moore a hypocrite.”
And you would be wrong, for the reasons I stated above. You don’t get to alter the definitions of words just because you feel like it.
As to your percentage of GDP arguments, that’s an inevitable result of a deep recession. But I’m willing to listen to your arguments for cutting the spending you consider important — after all, if you want to cut only the spending someone else considers important you’re just a … what’s that word again? … oh, yeah. A hypocrite.
“Take from those who made it – however they made it – and give to those who squandered, gambled and lost, or just sat back waiting for a handout. That’s the American way. … not everyone should finish high school.”
Not everyone, perhaps, but those who think they’re clever should before they post comments. At the least, you should take remedial course in how to construct a straw man. Those who “made it” have “made it” in the last 30 years by changing the rules so they get to make it without having it taxed.
Cassandra totally missed the point:
Taxes have nothing to do with it: the problem is that we have increased the size and scope of government, and spending as a percentage of GDP reflects that. You’re right in one regard: Medicare Part D should never have been passed, and it adds to the deficit, but President Obama wants to spend more than President Bush, more than President Clinton, more than anybody since the end of World War II.
Sure we do, ’cause they’d be right out front telling us that they did, to bolster their arguments.
Geezer wrote:
Trouble is, President Obama’s own numbers are based on solid growth FY2012-2016 — look at how much he projects GDP to increase — yet he still projects a substantial, permanent increase in the size of the budget.
There was a recession in 1991-1993; federal spending never reached the levels it has now. There was a recession in 2001-2; federal spending never reached the levels it has now. There was a serious recession in 1981-2; federal spending never reached the levels that President Obama has projected for what he sees as a period of significant growth.
That would just be a wingnut talking point. The size and scope of government is not radically bigger than the BushCo area. But I gather you don’t know what a structural deficit is. But you can’t look at the deficits that BushCo left and the current deficits and decide that the difference is growth in government — as if the structural problems went away with Bush.
More innumeracy from the so-called Party of Business.
The Geezer wrote:
I want to cut spending on everything. I’ve written before about how we should never have passed the Porkulus Plan, but my company made money selling concrete to Porkulus Plan projects.
But, my plan is really simple: no person or company or organization should ever receive a check from the federal government for anything other than contracted goods or services provided, wages earned or retirement paid for.
In that comment I think we all see that Dana is a pretty fair representation of the intellectual level of the Republicans currently serving in Congress.
Cassandra doesn’t know what she’s talking about:
Really? Total federal expenditures, as a percentage of GDP, during the Bush Administration, starting with FY2001 (part of which was passed under President Clinton): 18.2, 19.1, 19.7, 19.6, 19.9, 20.1, 19.6, 20.7, and, in FY2009, part of which was passed under President Bush, but a big part was added under President Obama, 25.0. Under President Obama, starting with FY2009: 25.0, 23.8, 25.3, 23.6, 22.5, 22.4, 22.3, and 22.6 in FY2016, the last year he projects.
That President Bush spent too much is undeniable; why do you think Republican voters didn’t support the party in 2006 and 2008? But President Obama wants to spend even more.
President Obama is anticipating a nearly-complete withdrawal from Iraq reasonably shortly — and our military operations there are already almost over — and withdrawal from Afghanistan in the next couple of years, yet he still projects a far larger share of GDP consumed by the federal government after we’re done fighting.
He also projects federal revenues to continue to rise, to levels around what they were when President Clinton was in office, but he doesn’t project anything like a balanced budget, which we at least had in the late 1990s, and it’s all because we spend too much money.
During the four balanced budget years we had (FY1998, 1999, 2000 and 2001) the federal government spent 19.1, 18.5, 18.2 ans 18.2% of GDP. President Obama wants to spend more than 22% every year; that is where the deficit comes from.
Jason wrote:
Would that be the Republicans who were voted in by a majority of the voters?
The Republicans won bigger in 2010 than they did in 1994, Jason, especially when state legislative seats are considered. And if the statement you didn’t like (no person or company or organization should ever receive a check from the federal government for anything other than contracted goods or services provided, wages earned or retirement paid for) were put directly to the voters, it would pass overwhelmingly.
under bush, the wars were not mentioned in the budget. The reason it appears so much higher under obama is because it is …. more honest.
But why would facts get in the way of teabags.
we would also have much MUCH more TO spend if the people who have been redistributing our wealth from all of us to the few of “them” would do their part and pay their fair share.
The federal government posted its largest monthly deficit in history in February at $223 billion, according to preliminary numbers the Congressional Budget Office released Monday morning. “That figure tops last February’s record of $220.9 billion, and marks the 29th straight month the government has run in the red — a modern record.
And where is the link to the CBO data? Because the government has been in the red since the first round of BushCo tax cuts, which adds up to way more than 29 months.
Oh there has been a redistribution of wealth. From the working clas to the corporate class. Not since the 1920’s have the robber barron class had all the money and the workers have less. I was doing some research on corporations in Delaware the tax haven. It appears 50% of corporations are incorporated here. Corporations are so protected in Delaware they don’t have to reveal who their corporate owners are. Michael Moore has given lots of money to poor and projects for the poor. Why would anyone attack the guy who has exposed the banksters, the for profit insurance companies, car companies etc. Michael Moore is the poster child for the working class.
I didn’t mean to blow anyone’s mind by posting this, but I’m not apologizing. It happens. Sudden exposure to reality does pose a hazard to those who have ceded their critical thinking capacities to Glen Beck. I can only suggest that people who have had their minds blown should read the entire post one more time and find a quiet place to think about what you’ve read. Let it sink in a bit.
Good luck.
Really? Total federal expenditures, as a percentage of GDP, during the Bush Administration, starting with FY2001 (part of which was passed under President Clinton): 18.2, 19.1, 19.7, 19.6, 19.9, 20.1, 19.6, 20.7, and, in FY2009, part of which was passed under President Bush, but a big part was added under President Obama, 25.0. Under President Obama, starting with FY2009: 25.0, 23.8, 25.3, 23.6, 22.5, 22.4, 22.3, and 22.6 in FY2016, the last year he projects.
If you are going to be here telling people what they know and don’t know, you should have the grace to have an argument that doesn’t come from wingnut central. Where people don’t know how Math Works.
Even if I assume your numbers are correct (and since you are a conservative, it is a given that you are numbers challenged), the fact that expenditures have risen does not equal a larger government. Expenditures are going up for a great many reasons — including the wars we have ongoing that are not paid for, debt service is up, and so on. And your figures as a percentage of GDP don’t allow for the fact that GDP is *down* and has been since the end days of BushCo. So your percentages give you the fear factor you so very much want, without giving you an especially good way to comparing figures. For instance, if the tax cuts for the wealthy had just been allowed to expire, that percentage would go down and go down FAST. Which should tell you everything you need to know about a *structural* deficit.
Cassandra, You are a saint for trying to sort out these block heads, and doing it with such elan.
“For instance, if the tax cuts for the wealthy had just been allowed to expire, that percentage would go down and go down FAST.”
wrong, check your math.
raising taxes would not affect the spending/GDP equation.
(if the higher tax rates yielded higher tax revenue, it would reduce the operating defficit)
Universal Declaration of Human Rights: passed the UN in 1948 in response to the barborous acts of the Nazis, whcih included outlawing unions.
Art. 23, Section 4: “Everyone has the right to form and join trade unions for the protection of their interests”.
Pretty simple right, “union rights are human rights”!
It says so right there in the most important human rights document on the books. I guess the teabaggers never read it or if they did couldnt comprehend what they read.
raising taxes would not affect the spending/GDP equation.
Except for the spending involved with patching over the deficit hole, which still counts as spending.
Which points out the other problem with using the GDP ratio — since GDP fell off of a cliff during the BushCo crash, that number is reflective of the damage done by conservative policies as well as the additional spending to fix it and to service all of the spending leftover.
Anon,
You seem to be missing the point of political nuance/semantics.
“everyone has the right to form and join trade unions” unfortunately in teaparty lexicon there is no specific spelling out that those “unions” will be allowed to collectively bargain for their membership. Quite frankly you may wish to contain your enthusiasm for any human rights declaration made by the U.N. or forfeit your rights to serve at the altar of unfettered and unadulterated capitalism.
It’s sorta like saying there is no separation of church and state in the constitution or that it is a fact that Adam and Eve lived in an apple orchard only a couple thousand years ago.
John Kowalko
Socialist Ben wrote:
Had you actually looked, you’d note that I used the figures from President Obama’s FY2012 budget request, from the totals columns, not the on-budget or off-budget sections. It doesn’t matter whether President Bush ran the wars off-budget; the costs were included in the totals columns.
You have a right to form your union — that is obvious under the First Amendment.
You do not have a right to force a business owner to negotiate with your union, nor do you have a right to work for a particular employer — after all, he has a First Amendment right to not associate with you.
For that matter, a union which truly respects the constitutional and human rights of workers would also recognize that it had no right to extort union dues or fees from those who do not wish to associate with the union. After all, there is that whole freedom of association thing.
Cassandra wrote:
Well, Cassandra, I already cited my source: President Obama’s FY2012 Budget Request, Historical Tables, and I provided the hyperlink. This page combines two charts (it was made by me) in an easier to read format, but the charts combined are the one linked above plus Table 1.1—Summary of Receipts, Outlays, and Surpluses or Deficits (-): 1789–2016. The two columns furthest to the right are calculation functions, all worked out on Microsoft Excel. Feel free to check the originals to see if I have messed up anything.
I use percentage of GDP because that washes out complaints that inflation is not taken into account, which does give you a good way to compare figures.
Further, GDP is not down. It declined in only one year (FY2009 saw a decline from $14,394 billion to $14,098 billion (a 2.06% decline), but was back up again in FY2010 to $14,508 billion, and the figures President Obama used in his budget proposal assumes GDP increases of 3.94% in FY2011, and continuing on at 4.86%, 5.94%, 6.15%, 5.75% and 5.25% as far as he projects into the future.
The extension of the 2001/2003 tax cuts for the top producers works out to a projected $81.5 billion over the next two years. Even if you assume that would be evenly divided, that’s only $40.75 billion a year, not exactly chump change, but certainly nothing that would make much of an impact on the projected deficit of $1.645 trillion; just how you come up with “that percentage would go down and go down FAST” requires a form of mathematics with which I am unfamiliar. ($1,645 billion – $41 billion = $1,604 billion.)
Heck, even if we had let all of the 2001/2003 tax cuts expire, we’d be talking about $544 billion over two years; that $272 billion would have reduced the projected FY2011 deficit from $1,645 billion to $1,373 billion.
Of course, if you are worrying about the “structural” deficit, federal debt service costs for FY2010 were $185 billion. That’s a lot of money, but if you exclude the cost of extending the 2001/2003 tax cuts for everybody (shown in my previous comment) of $272 billion, and the debt service if $185 billion, the budget deficit would still be $1,188 billion, still be over a trillion dollars. As much as you want to blame President Bush, with the estimated cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan together for FY2011 at $171 billion, debt service for the entire national debt (not just what was accrued under President Bush) at $185 billion, and the total 2001/2003 tax cut costs of $272 billion, zero them all out and you still have a deficit for FY2011 of $1,017 billion, over a trillion dollars.
“For all the anger at Bush’s budget deficits, a single month of Obama’s red ink now equals federal borrowing for the entire 2007 budget year. A better way of looking at it might be in terms of the Democrats’ offer to cut $6 billion from the annual budget — or 1/37th of what the U.S. Treasury is now borrowing each month.”
Y’all can crunch all the numbers you want, but the scoreboard remains the same: Huge gains for top 1%, no gains for the bottom 80%. The fix remains the same, too: Tax the rich.
The U.S. budget situation has deteriorated significantly since 2001, when the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) forecast average annual surpluses of approximately $850 billion from 2009-2012. The average deficit forecast in each of those years as of June 2009 was approximately $1,215 billion. The New York Times analyzed this roughly $2 trillion “swing,” separating the causes into four major categories along with their share:
* Recessions or the business cycle (37%);
* Policies enacted by President Bush (33%);
* Policies enacted by President Bush and supported or extended by President Obama (20%); and
* New policies from President Obama (10%).
The Geezer wrote:
Some people don’t think it’s the government’s business or proper purpose to adjust the differences in rewards between the high and low producers.
The rich became rich because, in the end, someone worked harder and smarter than other people. If you are jealous of the success of the high producers, then the obvious solution is for you to work harder and smarter and be more productive. But I am singularly unimpressed by those who believe that other people somehow owe them a living.
The rich became rich because, in the end, someone worked harder and smarter than other people. If you are jealous of the success of the high producers, then the obvious solution is for you to work harder and smarter and be more productive. But I am singularly unimpressed by those who believe that other people somehow owe them a living.
Complete and utter nonsense.
If everyone followed your advice we wouldn’t have nurses, teachers, trash collectors, waiters, or the people who work for you – unless you’re advocating paying more for these services? Which, of course, I doubt. Perhaps you don’t think we need these lower paid workers?
Plenty of people work hard all their lives, some catch some breaks others do not. To claim superiority over everyone not as well off financially as you is the height of arrogance and a real screw up of priorities.
The CEO mentality grows tiresome. None of them are indispensable despite what they tell themselves as they look in the mirror. And the claim of how important they are because they create jobs? Well, reread Dana’s comment. He looks down on those lazy, less intelligent workers.
There is a balance in a functioning society, and we’d miss trash collectors faster than we’d miss a handful of businessmen.
the rich became rich because other people worked for them and made them successful. The day i see a truly “self made man” who did it with no employees, advice from anyone, customers to pay for their product and service, roads to get to their magical money fountain, etc… i will vote total Tea.
The conservative/libertarian/bagger world views remind me of Steve Martin at the end of the Jerk…
All i need is my dog…. and this lamp…. and my robe……
If people were paid according to how hard they worked, chicken processors would be the richest people in Delaware. Charlie Copeland would be the poorest.
jason, it is hard work inheriting money. you have to grow up your whole life given being given everything and wait for someone to die.
“Some people don’t think it’s the government’s business or proper purpose to adjust the differences in rewards between the high and low producers.”
And some do. Framing the debate in moralistic terms is an old and tired trick. It’s been working for 30 years, but it’s unsustainable.
“The rich became rich because, in the end, someone worked harder and smarter than other people.”
How sad that you actually believe this. Does rigging the rules and cutting their own taxes count as “working harder and smarter”?
“If you are jealous of the success of the high producers, then the obvious solution is for you to work harder and smarter and be more productive.”
Again, how sad. Why must I be jealous to point out the economic disparity in our society? It’s simply a fact.
“I am singularly unimpressed by those who believe that other people somehow owe them a living.”
Who are these people you are unimpressed by? This is the most ramshackle straw man you’ve constructed yet. It describes nobody I know or have met.
“Some people don’t think it’s the government’s business or proper purpose to adjust the differences in rewards between the high and low producers.”
But that’s exactly what the Bush administration did…. major shift in wealth towards the rich… corporate welfare… cut taxes for rich… deregulation (i.e. let the rich screw the poor)…
And what happened is that the gini index skyrocketed to be one of the highest in the world.
The rich got the mine and the middle class gets the shaft.
You’re right. The government should not have done this.
Michael Moore isn’t the only one pointing out we’re not broke. Bloomberg’s David J. Lynch talks to lots of financial experts who say the same thing:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-07/bonds-show-why-boehner-saying-we-re-broke-is-figure-of-speech.html
Wow. There is so much fail in Dana’s comments here that it is really hard to know where to start. But start we must — kavips posted up a good summary of where the deficits came from. You need to add the 900+/- deal signed by the President as Obama’s contribution, but there is little about that deal that is expansionary of government. Nor was the stimulus that he added. If hand Jason330 $5M to build a new parking lot for my office,I certainly haven’t expanded my company. I just have a new parking lot. And for most of what Obama has added to the deficit, it has been stimulus spent employing companies like mine (who aren’t part of the government At All) and on tax cuts (which added to the deficit you are pretending to care so much about) and on unemployment benefits. None of which represent expansionary government.
Those tax cuts — endorsed by and pushed by your guys — DO add to the deficit, which puts the lie to their story of being interested in reducing deficits.
Real GDP growth. Quite anemic over the BushCo term. Showing that the business cycle has indeed been a driver of the current deficits.
This is a great couple of charts putting the government expenditures vs GDP in some perspective. The percentages have been relatively static for quite some time. The recent increases are related to fixing the BushCo recession. But as long as conservatives insist on cutting taxes and pretending that you never have to balance expenditures accordingly, there will be deficits and they will get bigger. Because that means that you are still buying the groceries on a credit card. You continue to spend and you continue to add the carrying costs, while never paying that back.
What the debt would look like if the Bush tax cuts had just expired OR had been paid for. That is about 30% or so of the projections and THAT is real money. I don’t know how much you would save if we stood down all operations in Iraq and Afghanistan this year, but that would be real money too. Assuming that we no longer are providing supports to the economy after 2014 or so what is left is the problem is health care.
you still have a deficit for FY2011 of $1,017 billion, over a trillion dollars. Since BushCo left a $1.3T deficit on the books when he left office, I’d say that there is modest progress towards reducing that deficit.