Counter Balancing the Budget

Paul Ryan’s budget proposal “Path to Prosperity” is being hailed as courageous, which is an understatement, because it takes a strong man to balance a lop sided budget on the backs of the old, the sick, the poor and the jobless.

The budget has been designed to benefit the defense corporations and banks over the people. Former Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson said, ”You need to get rid of the 250,000 contractors in the Defense Department where you can really pick up some small change…We have a defense budget now which is larger than all 14 countries. That ought to get you somewhere.” Blackwater Security makes 94 percent of its profit from the federal government, according to the book Pinstripe Patronage.

William Greider writes in the Nation magazine Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner didn’t help struggling homeowners modify their mortgages but instead gave hundreds of billions to big banks “with no strings attached”.

The reasoning behind not helping millions of Americans facing foreclosure is that the Treasury didn’t want to create moral hazard amongst the citizens by letting them think they can get something for nothing like the mega banks did.

The Republicans are concerned with lulling citizens into complacency and laziness with the humane safety net this country provides to the terminally ill, severely disabled and the jobless.

It should be clear why the budget is lop sided and laced with huge deficit deceit. But yet it isn’t, because the corporations and their minions have convinced many that they are an example of the best free market capitalism has to offer, except they didn’t get to where they are due to hard work and effort rewarded by free market capitalism; they got to where they are because they bought control of our nation’s economy and the federal budget and were allowed by our elected officials to change the rules enabling them to funnel our nation‘s wealth into the hands of the few, while creating huge deficits for the rest of us.

From the Nation magazine: “The House voted to repeal healthcare reform after taking millions of dollars in campaign contributions from medical and insurance interests. Tea Party favorite Jim DeMint, along with eighteen other colleagues, introduced a Senate bill to repeal the tepid financial reform bill passed last year. Collectively, the senators backing repeal of those reforms have taken nearly $50 million in campaign contributions from the very Wall Street interests who were going to be affected by the law, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics.”

No wonder their budget concern is the laziness and immorality of the common people and not the abusive crookedness of our politicians and how spending really works in Washington.

Budget Battle

Even though a government shut down has been averted for the time being, it just goes to show the how the tyranny of the minority governs us, making millions sweat it out while addressing ideological issues rather than the seriously harmful issue like trillions for perpetual war on foreign soil.

The budget battle and the threat of a government shut down is an example of the tyranny of the minority. Six hundred and thirty five legislators made millions of Americans sweat it out. Military families wouldn’t receive their pay and 800,000 government workers would be furloughed.

Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus stated “What the Republicans are looking for is to take the general federal-funding program for family planning known as Title X, to turn that into a block grant, to give it to states, many of which, you may recall, have Republican governors and perhaps give those Republican governors the flexibility to administer the program in a way that, guess who, Planned Parenthood, might not be able to get the funds.”

This is what they’re fighting about, exemplifying the tyranny of the minority, where keeping the government functioning turns into a battle over abortion.

And while on the subject of battles, just last week Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said the US might stay in Iraq if the Iraqis asked us to stay. How much more will that cost us and where is the concern to get out of that country and cut spending? There isn’t any.

At one time there were more contractors on the ground in Iraq than there were US soldiers. Contractors cost up to $250,000, so four contractors is a million dollars, eight is two million and so forth. So what does hundreds of thousands of contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan cost us? Big enough to rival funding to Planned Parenthood. But this is how the minority misleads us, by attaching heated emotions to all aspects of governing.

Speaker of the House John Boehner said he’s “damn serious” about spending cuts and wants to know when the President and Congressional Democrats will get serious about cutting spending.

Yes, just when will John Boehner, and the rest of the politicians get serious about cutting trillion dollar spending on expenses like war rather than million dollar expenses like Planned Parenthood?

Controlling Food Costs

John Boehner said-“…Washington needs to do a lot more to end the uncertainty and get our economy moving again. It's clear that we need to cut spending, we need to stop unnecessary regulations, end the threat of tax hikes…. ” The Speaker has his talking point, to end uncertainty. But just whose uncertainty is he concerned with?

ExxonMobil pays nothing in taxes, yet the Speaker insists we end the threat of tax hikes. It doesn’t make sense, but neither does the fact that the oil companies are the ones receiving the pay raise Americans received from the lowered Social Security tax deductions the working class pays. Is he talking about righting this tax hike on the little people for the sake of Big Oil to get the economy going again?

Where is the end of constantly rising prices for oil and food? The Nation magazine states-“Now, with oil prices again on the rise, the price of food is likely to surpass all previous records and spark additional upheavals around the world. What we are seeing, in effect, is a vicious cycle in which rising oil prices drive up the cost of food, which triggers political disorder in the oil-producing countries, which in turn pushes oil to still higher prices, propelling food costs even higher, and so forth---with no end in sight.” And here in the U.S., food prices have risen thirty percent just since January.

And talk about spending, where is the certainty of cutting huge government subsides to Big Oil and Agri Business? According to Republicans “farm cuts’ are off the table. Whatever happened with the president’s pledge during his State of the Union Speech to cut subsidies to Big Oil? We haven’t heard a word about it, while they proclaim unbelievable profits. But we’ve heard plenty on spending cuts for the old and the sick, and those of the “Greatest Generation” living on fixed incomes. We’re just not hearing about the kind of spending cuts which could make a real difference, just the ones that harm the unprotected.

The double speak on all sides is blatant, while we’re left with the certainty that oil and food prices will continue to rise with no one wanting to stop them. All we really hear are the actors repeating their lines in a well rehearsed play. And it is a play, it’s called the history of the world; oppression rules while the actors tell the masses what they want them to hear, and what they should think.