Krugman How 30 years of Anti-Government Ideology Have Ruined Us

Sad but true. And we are also choosing to kill brown people in far away places at exorbitant costs in lieu of basic societal functions. We spend far and away more money on the MIC than almost anything else, but Gates is getting reamed for trying to push through a 100MM (100MM!!!) savings in the defense budget that might cost some jobs is defunct and useless bases.

 

Just to clarify, it's actually $100 billion (over 5 years). But yeah, it's ridiculous that when the military says things aren't needed, Congresspeople and Senators argue that the military doesn't know what it's talking about - as though they are just in the habit of giving back money for no good reason.

 

the article does not mention the single biggest drain on our treasury, which is the military. you can have all the tax cuts you want and slash all the domestic programs you want, but we will never get our financial house in order until we are willing to talk about reducing our global empire. neither party is willing to go there.

as ron paul says, when republicans talk about cutting spending they talk about cutting 10% out of a childrens health care fund, but they will not address the real problem, which is military spending.

 

Thanks - I must have misheard NPR this morning. It's like no one even listens to themselves anymore - you can't cut costs and trim back the federal debt without impacting facilities and people that hang on the proverbial government tit. It's having your cake and eating it too, over and over and over.

Americans seems to really be obsessed with the paradoxical notion that you can have everything you want from the government without somebody paying for it.

 

Oddly enough, those lights were not turned off equally across different neighborhoods. The hood got darker and more dangerous while some of the nicer areas stayed brightly lit until someone finally said...hmmm wtf. Then there was a minor ****storm, the obligatory hand-slap, media gloss over and back to business as usual.

 

Glynch

I understand its your M.O. to never agree with anyting libertarian, but ron paul is right about military spending, and furthermore, you have to give the guy credit for a least being consistent

 

Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

 

If I was to say the Rockets shouldn't give a max contract to Chuck Hayes but that they should instead give one to Jared Jeffries, would it be helpful to point out that I was right about Chuck Hayes and ignore how wrong I was about Jeffries? Would you "have to give" me credit for that?

Libertarian philosophy calls for the elimination of virtually all government spending except for the military. No public schools, no access to health care (even emergency care) for the indigent. And on and on. Why shouldn't glynch (or anyone) point out the flaws in the Libertarian platform at every opportunity?

What's the value in Paul calling for reducing military spending if he only wants to give the money to the rich in the form of tax cuts?

 

Paul doesn't want to put money in the hands of the rich, he generally doesn't believe in believe in excessive gov't spending, or unfortunately what he deems to be excessive which can be borderline ridiculous admittedly.

but just because you don't agree with his overall philosophy doesn't mean he's never correct, and its no point in being like basso, refusing to ever agree with your political opposite, you know I've even seen basso agree with something obama did, even if its a truly rare occassion.

 

Libertarians are capitalists on steroid-laden crack.

 

I agree with some stuff that Paul is for. I also agreed with some of the stuff that Nixon or Reagan or GWB were for. Am I supposed to include that information every time I criticize the many things I don't agree with?

And of course Paul wants to put money in the hands of the rich. He is fundamentally anti-tax and anti-government services. If you can't draw the correlation between that and handing money to the rich, I don't know what else to tell you.

The Libertarian philosophy is understandable until you think about its implications. Its net effect would be to take services directly from the poor and return the money disproportionately to the rich.

Paul's main talking point may be reducing spending but its main effect is reverse Robin Hood.

 

You have a strange definition of giving/handing. Giving is not simply the absence of taking. People are not giving you a car by not carjacking you. Paul wants to allow the rich to keep more of what they "earn", but I have never heard him support corporate welfare. If anything, the Democrat congress, Obama and Bush have demonstrated that they wanted to putmoney in the hands of the rich with TARP and the subsequent "stimulus".

 

Since the beginning of taxation, which has existed for this country's entire history, there has been a form of rent for living here because the things the government does cost money and those things benefit the citizenry. They need to be paid for so you pay a portion of your earnings for basic services. And the rich pay more because they can afford to and because we have a social contract in this country (and in every Western country, I believe) that calls for a progressive tax system.

If I am your landlord, you pay me for basic services. If I reduce your rent, am I not effectively "giving" you money? Or am I just not robbing you as much?

The carjacking thing is especially silly. Carjackers don't take your car and provide roads, police, military defense, firemen and public schools (to name a few) in return.

 

you have a very peculiar notion of Rousseau.

 

Rousseau is, to me, nothing more than the name of the crazy French lady on LOST. But I defer to you here as you are without question the local expert on peculiar notions.

 

Nice class warfare piece. Bravo. So our country is collapsing because the richest 2 percent isn't paying its fair share of taxes? Then why is it so that the government continues to outspend its revenue at a rate of 2 to 1? I thought the government had no money to build highways or pave roads because the rich were hoarding all the cash. Do you honestly believe that taxing the top 2 percent will somehow pay for a $1.54 trillion deficit? Furthermore, if the government continues to spend twice as much as it makes in a given year and still can't provide for basic necessities like roads, then what does that really say about the competence level of our government?



Also Individual Income Taxes only account for 43% of the Federal Receipts.



So now lets say we raise the taxes on the top 2% of income earners to a confiscatory rate of you choice between 50 and 90%, how does that provide for the above mentioned $1.54 trillion in deficit? This is where fraudulent hacks like Krugman fail at simple math and logic. It sounds really good on paper to stir the mindless masses into believing the rich are the cause of their nation's decline because they refuse to pony up a few extra dollars in taxes. In reality, the math says even if we were to tax the rich at the highest possible percentage, there still won't be enough revenue to pay for all the out of control government spending.

The problem with our government isn't a lack of revenue. Heck, the government has bypassed that idea for decades now with deficit spending and borrowing to pay for all the spending and programs. The real problem is the mismanagement of money which is something no amount of tax revenue can solve. So we can either continue to play class warfare or we can look at the actual revenue and spending to determine where else can we make changes to produce a more efficiently managed government.

Since the "taxing the rich solves everything" myth has been busted, would pro-government folks prefer to discuss what other parts of the federal receipts can be changed to make up for the lack of revenue? Behind income taxes, Social Security is the second largest source of revenue. Would the pro-government block support an increase in SS as well as an increase income taxes for the rich to make up for the trillion dollar deficit?

 

Actually, this is where you fail. No one claims that that tax alone will cover the deficit, nor is it meant to. The fact that you resort to that argument is simply a strawman. It is one component of fixing the problem. Using the $1.54 trillion as your target figure is also a strawman, because it is widely accepted that that number is a temporary blip - the structural deficit over the next several years is projected closer in the $500-$700B range.

This also is nonsense. Your own chart shows that government revenues today are lower than they were 10 years ago - that's a significant revenue problem, and one that has not occurred anytime in our modern history.