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Monday, October 18, 2010

Let's hear how they plan to cut over a trillion dollars in spending
Posted by Jill | 6:21 AM
Paul Krugman pointed out yesterday that when you have a recession and people are out of work, government revenues drop vs. expenditures:

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The Republicans would have you believe that if we "cut spending" and reduce tax revenue even further, the budget will be balanced. According to this graph, spending right now is about $5.3 trillion. Revenue is about $3.95 trillion. I wish someone would ask Republican candidates how they plan to cut over $1.3 trillion in spending. The Republican so-called "Pledge to America" pledges to cut spending back to 2008 levels, which still puts us at about $4.7 trillion. This pledge also comes with promises of FURTHER tax cuts, reducing revenue even more. Not even the most radical Republican plans, such as eliminating the Department of Education, will make a dent in that gap. Only dramatic cutbacks in military spending (which we never hear about, not even in the context of trying to find the billions that went missing in Iraq) AND the elimination of Social Security and Medicare (which ARE part of the Republican agenda) will.

Let's see how well candidates do who vocalize the Michele Bachmann line of setting age 60 as an arbitrary line in the sand and everyone else is shit out of luck. People like me who are 55 and have paid in for 38 years so that Republican presidents could steal the money and give it to their wealthy friends and patrons are really screwed. But even my younger co-workers aren't advocating for this.

I'm not surprised that teabag voters aren't asking their candidates where these "cuts" will come from. They really don't want to know.

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3 Comments:
Blogger lisahgolden said...
Jill - I rarely comment on yours or JPs posts because I am so frustrated by our current mess, but I want to thank you both for continuing to provide such great commentary on politics.

Regarding this post - I occasionally ask my Let's Cut Spending friends which programs, services and agencies they'd cut and besides the Arts and Education, they can't come up with much else. But they hate Obamacare and taxes.

head desk, head desk
10/18/10, 7:36 AM  
Blogger The New York Crank said...
Social Security recipients are already getting screwed. This is the second year in a row they haven't gotten a cost of living increase.

The cost of meat is up. The cost of groceries is up. The cost of healthcare is up. Which means that, effectively, Social Security benefits are down.

Yours crankily,
The New York Crank
10/18/10, 5:13 PM  
Anonymous mandt said...
Following through on Michelle Bachmann's theories, we (The Taxpayers) should hence forth refuse to pay any congressional insurance and retirement benefits.
10/19/10, 8:38 PM  
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