A Liberal Dose Of Reality #2
I according to a recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) study, if the Bush Tax Cuts are made permanent, 100% of the US Federal Budget will go towards paying for interest on the National Debt by the year 2042. You want a crisis....How's that for a crisis!
The Daily Kos has published a Guide to the Proposed 2005 Federal Budget. The proposed budget, including a deficit of $364 Billion dollars, does not include spending on the Iraq war, the war in Afghanistan, the cost of the proposed plan for social security privatization, or the money already earmarked for the Social Security trust fund.
The United Nations recently issued a plea to the world to help the struggling US economy. It is theorized that a struggling US economy could destabilize and risk damage the global economy. The plea was prompted by the massive fiscal debt, along with massive trade deficits, caused by idiotic Bush Administration policies. The United States has become a charity case - a liability to the rest of the world - thanks to the policies of President Bush.
And yet the Neoconservatives insist that the only path forward is an ownership society - Where every man or woman fends for themselves. Take a look at the rest of the world. Canada, with a universal health care system, has a balanced budget, a healthy population, and among the best living conditions in the world. In Europe, the Euro continues to make gains on the US dollar month after month, and threatens to replace the American Dollar as the world standard currency. Meanwhile, here in the US, we struggle with higher levels of poverty, homeless, lower standards of living, poorer quality of life, and higher infant mortality rates than most of major industrialized country in the world. Ask yourself why that is -- Why is that the United States fails to recognize that in order to continue to grow as a nation, we must adopt more progressive social, economic, and environmental policies. Why is an administration intent on dragging us back into the stone ages in power?
How did we manage to go from a projected $5.8 Trillion budget surplus to the worst deficits in history. Of course, 9/11 is partially to blame. The true source of this fiscal nightmare is increased defense spending on the War in Iraq, and a massive tax cut for the rich. Take a look at this chart, outlining discretionary spending for proposed 2005 Federal Budget:
(Source: Frogs and Ravens)
Ask yourself why we are spending $300 Billion dollars on a War in Iraq. To bring freedom to the Iraqi people? The Bush Administration is worried about spending $300 billion on his own people 40 years in the future...Do you really think they care about Iraqi people? To a certain extent, yes...Who wasn't inspired and momentarily touched by the images of the Iraqi election. If the administration was really interested in fighting for freedom, they should be in Sudan....a country ravaged by genocide, where over 2 million people have been slaughtered by the Khmir Rouge in the past decade.
There are many far more noble causes we could be fighting with this money. $300 Billion US would go a long way to eradicating third world poverty. If this money was used to dig wells, provide mosquito nets to fight malaria, dig irregation trenches, build farms, and help promote sustainable lifestyles in third world countries, literally hundreds of millions of lives could be saved and forever changed.
Instead, we are fighting the supposed "war on terror" We didn't even get the man responsible for 9/11...Osama "Been Forgetten", who hasn't even mentioned by President Bush in the past
few months. The man who Bush mistakingly renamed "Saddam" during the televised pre-election debates. This is not a war on terror ... This is a war to keep the oil flowing, and the economy purring.
If anything, the Bush Administration has turned the entire middle east into a breeding ground for Anti-American sentiment, where polls show people with more favorable opinions of Osama Bin Laden than President Bush. Just look at the US history in the middle east - George H.W. Bush actually trained Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban. Donald Rumsfeld meet with Saddam Hussein, provided him with chemical weapons, and later smiled for a photo op with Saddam even after he had used the weapons on his own people. The Bush-led CIA later sold drugs and weapons to Iran during the Iran-Contra affairs. The current major players in the Bush Administration have a two-decade long history of meddling in the United States.
Now, the Bush Administration wants to sell the citizens of this nation onto the idea of mortgaging the future of Social Security on a crapshoot. By taking away the guaranteed returns offered by Social Security, the Bush Administration plans to cover the fact that they robbed the lockbox of social security and permanently damaged the fiscal certainty of this nation to provide a tax cut for the rich. The Bush Administration plans for Social Security privatization require $ 4.5 Trillion in additional spending over the next twenty years to get off the ground -- If this money is instead used directly to fund Social Security, the so-called crisis is solved.
The Social Security problem has many potential solutions -- The easiest is to re-implement the estate tax, and use the proceeds to fund social security. The neocons somehow sold the nation on repealing the estate tax by calling it a "death tax". The fact remains that the estate tax affects only those with over two million dollars in assets. The repealment of this tax goes one step closer towards promoting an aristocratic society -- there is simply no good argument that can be made for repealing the estate tax.
I will always fight injustice and imbalances of power --It is time for a more progressive and fairer America - one that represents the true promises of Democracy - a country of the people, for the people, and by the people - not a country for the corporation, by the corporation and of the corporation.
The Daily Kos has published a Guide to the Proposed 2005 Federal Budget. The proposed budget, including a deficit of $364 Billion dollars, does not include spending on the Iraq war, the war in Afghanistan, the cost of the proposed plan for social security privatization, or the money already earmarked for the Social Security trust fund.
The United Nations recently issued a plea to the world to help the struggling US economy. It is theorized that a struggling US economy could destabilize and risk damage the global economy. The plea was prompted by the massive fiscal debt, along with massive trade deficits, caused by idiotic Bush Administration policies. The United States has become a charity case - a liability to the rest of the world - thanks to the policies of President Bush.
And yet the Neoconservatives insist that the only path forward is an ownership society - Where every man or woman fends for themselves. Take a look at the rest of the world. Canada, with a universal health care system, has a balanced budget, a healthy population, and among the best living conditions in the world. In Europe, the Euro continues to make gains on the US dollar month after month, and threatens to replace the American Dollar as the world standard currency. Meanwhile, here in the US, we struggle with higher levels of poverty, homeless, lower standards of living, poorer quality of life, and higher infant mortality rates than most of major industrialized country in the world. Ask yourself why that is -- Why is that the United States fails to recognize that in order to continue to grow as a nation, we must adopt more progressive social, economic, and environmental policies. Why is an administration intent on dragging us back into the stone ages in power?
How did we manage to go from a projected $5.8 Trillion budget surplus to the worst deficits in history. Of course, 9/11 is partially to blame. The true source of this fiscal nightmare is increased defense spending on the War in Iraq, and a massive tax cut for the rich. Take a look at this chart, outlining discretionary spending for proposed 2005 Federal Budget:
(Source: Frogs and Ravens)
Ask yourself why we are spending $300 Billion dollars on a War in Iraq. To bring freedom to the Iraqi people? The Bush Administration is worried about spending $300 billion on his own people 40 years in the future...Do you really think they care about Iraqi people? To a certain extent, yes...Who wasn't inspired and momentarily touched by the images of the Iraqi election. If the administration was really interested in fighting for freedom, they should be in Sudan....a country ravaged by genocide, where over 2 million people have been slaughtered by the Khmir Rouge in the past decade.
There are many far more noble causes we could be fighting with this money. $300 Billion US would go a long way to eradicating third world poverty. If this money was used to dig wells, provide mosquito nets to fight malaria, dig irregation trenches, build farms, and help promote sustainable lifestyles in third world countries, literally hundreds of millions of lives could be saved and forever changed.
Instead, we are fighting the supposed "war on terror" We didn't even get the man responsible for 9/11...Osama "Been Forgetten", who hasn't even mentioned by President Bush in the past
few months. The man who Bush mistakingly renamed "Saddam" during the televised pre-election debates. This is not a war on terror ... This is a war to keep the oil flowing, and the economy purring.
If anything, the Bush Administration has turned the entire middle east into a breeding ground for Anti-American sentiment, where polls show people with more favorable opinions of Osama Bin Laden than President Bush. Just look at the US history in the middle east - George H.W. Bush actually trained Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban. Donald Rumsfeld meet with Saddam Hussein, provided him with chemical weapons, and later smiled for a photo op with Saddam even after he had used the weapons on his own people. The Bush-led CIA later sold drugs and weapons to Iran during the Iran-Contra affairs. The current major players in the Bush Administration have a two-decade long history of meddling in the United States.
Now, the Bush Administration wants to sell the citizens of this nation onto the idea of mortgaging the future of Social Security on a crapshoot. By taking away the guaranteed returns offered by Social Security, the Bush Administration plans to cover the fact that they robbed the lockbox of social security and permanently damaged the fiscal certainty of this nation to provide a tax cut for the rich. The Bush Administration plans for Social Security privatization require $ 4.5 Trillion in additional spending over the next twenty years to get off the ground -- If this money is instead used directly to fund Social Security, the so-called crisis is solved.
The Social Security problem has many potential solutions -- The easiest is to re-implement the estate tax, and use the proceeds to fund social security. The neocons somehow sold the nation on repealing the estate tax by calling it a "death tax". The fact remains that the estate tax affects only those with over two million dollars in assets. The repealment of this tax goes one step closer towards promoting an aristocratic society -- there is simply no good argument that can be made for repealing the estate tax.
I will always fight injustice and imbalances of power --It is time for a more progressive and fairer America - one that represents the true promises of Democracy - a country of the people, for the people, and by the people - not a country for the corporation, by the corporation and of the corporation.
posted by markh100 at
10:08 PM
