Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former Congressional Budget Office director was interviewed on the PBSNewsHour and said, “It’s been noted for 10 years by the CBO among others that we cannot grow our way out of this, we can't tax our way out of this. It's an entitlement spending problem that has to be brought under control.”
If this has been noted for the past ten years, then that brings us back to the Bush years when deficits resulting from tax cuts didn’t matter. The point of tax cuts was to shrink government, a decades old Republican ideology promoted throughout the sixties and seventies by economists like Milton Friedman. Reduce taxes, reduce government and let the free market reign. Doing so will being economic harmony and success for the country.
After decades of letting the “free market reign” with tax cuts and sub prime junk bonds wrecking the economy, now, the new scapegoat on the block is: it’s the “people” and their entitlement programs causing all the budget woes.
Focusing solely on cutting entitlement programs blinds them from focusing on jobs creation. So far, the only action Republicans have taken on creating jobs, has been tax cuts for the filthy rich “jobs creators” with very few protections for the workers. Has anyone given any thought to the long term damage high unemployment will bring to the future?
High unemployment is a concern for the Federal Reserve, the central Bank. Maybe the bankers, the real money people, understand high unemployment is the biggest threat to the future, not “entitlement spending”.
Banks and corporations are sitting on trillions, refusing to invest in the future, while billionaires like hedge funder Pete Peterson peddle propaganda to convince a majority that economic salvation is not through jobs, but cuts in Social Security. The real objective behind their focus on the “entitlement spending problem” is the elimination of Social Security; which has been a Republican goal since the Reagan era.
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