Old Enough To Know Better

There is a quote that I often recall from Bill Maher - I don't know for sure that he is the first to make this observation but he is certainly the person I associate the comment with:

Don't become so tolerant that you tolerate intolerance.

I think when he uses it, it would often be used in the context of making sure liberals (in particular American liberals) don't accept, for example, something like Muslim oppression of women as just a legitimate part of their culture. I consider that good advice (for me) considering I am someone who took several classes in anthropology and have a natural tendency to accept cultural differences and view them all as equally valid. It's good to keep in my mind that, in some instances, cultural norms can be judged as "better" or "worse".

I thought of that comment yesterday while watching The Daily Show and seeing Jon Stewart casually defending a UCLA student who posted a racist rant on YouTube. Jon referred to her as an "18 or 19 year old kid (who) maybe doesn't understand what she was saying".

Come on! That is rubbish.

How does someone reach age 18 or 19 and not realize that racism is frowned upon and that even if you do have those feelings, it's probably a bad idea to broadcast them on the internet unless you can do so anonymously (and preferably in an "appropriate" forum)? (Which is to say that I assume there are racist websites all over the internet for people who want to bitch about minorities and immigrants... for example, www.foxnews.com.)

Also, by the way, UCLA is not necessarily a place for idiots. Although I concede I am hesitant to guarantee someone is as smart as their alma mater might suggest considering a mental midget like George W. Bush earned degrees from both Yale AND Harvard.

So, while I agree with Jon that the young lady is not necessarily "unredeemable"... how the hell would I know? In my opinion, Jon is going a little easy on her considering how repugnant her opinions are.

Power to the appropriations

My colleague Mako pointed out that Section 14 of the Shopping Reform and Modernization Act does not remove the power of the people to move forward with a citizen referendum to challenge the law. His statements are 100% accurate. The only problem is that is not the provision that I was referring to when I suggested that this bill is voter proof. Section 11 of the bill turns this bill into an appropriations bill and appropriations bills cannot be touched using a citizen referendum.

While I certainly appreciate the response from Mako and the Chicken Little portrait painted in it, the article I reference and the information therein are accurate.

Power to the...Government?

In his continuing attempts to make Michigan more attractive for business Governor Snyder has signed a bill to end the item pricing law in Michigan. For those of you who don’t know, most stores were required to put a purchase price on each item in the store so consumers could easily determine the cost of the item they were purchasing.

I personally don’t care about this law. I think the supposed savings that changing the law will create are an industry generated pipe dream but repealing the law doesn’t bother me. Unfortunately for Governor Snyder the public is against repealing this law by quite a wide margin. Polls like this typically lead a politician to start a campaign to convince the voters that this is a good idea. While the Governor has taken a few minutes to give some sound bites about the value of repealing this law this will most likely be the last time he talks about it. Thanks to a provision inserted in the bill the voting public cannot put this bill on the ballot. The Governor has decided that he knows best and the democratic process of democracy is not an inalienable right of the people. We the people are welcome to vote on any issues as long as the Governor allows us to.

What I really don’t get is the lack of concern over this blatant power grab. The Detroit News article on the repeal doesn’t even mention the fact that the law is voter proof. What happened to the liberal media I keep hearing about? I thought we were against big government telling us what we can and cannot do? Our state constitution guarantees us the right to citizen referendum so why is this bill exempt?

Again I really don’t care about this particular bill but if it is OK for our legislator to make one law that the citizens of Michigan cannot challenge then it is OK for the legislator to take the power away from the people for any law they create.

That is a scary interpretation of democracy.

In Defense Of Rick Snyder... sort of

Let me be clear, I really do not want to do a full-throated defense of Governor Snyder. I did not vote for him and I do not consider myself a supporter. However, I have been hearing a lot of "hair on fire" rhetoric from the Left about what he is doing - particularly with regards to a recent bill that authorizes so-called Emergency Financial Managers (EFMs) with broad authority to intervene in financially struggling communities. For example, the brilliant Rachel Maddow did a segment on it and while I did find her to be persuasive... I am not necessarily persuaded.

And perhaps shockingly, I would use logic recently expressed by conservative pundit Michael Medved - who don't know well enough to rank on the Conservative Reasonableness Scale (see below) - in pushing back against whack jobs on the Right saying Obama was purposefully ruining the country. Medved argued that it was a nonsensical argument because President Obama has the same motivation as any other (non-lame duck) politician... he wants to get re-elected! And hence he was pursuing policies that would, in his analysis, help that occur.

Similarly, I fully expect Governor Snyder to to try to responsibly deal with financial crises (within the scope of his own ideological parameters) - not to use EFMs to subvert democracy and establish "monarchial rule" (something I heard a caller on Sirius Left suggest was the end game).

CONSERVATIVE REASONABLENESS SCALE:

Always Reasonable: David Brooks
Typically Reasonable: David Frum
More Often Reasonable: George Will, Peggy Noonan
More Often Unreasonable: Charles Krauthammer
Completely Unreasonable: Michelle Malkin (ideological), Rush Limbaugh (cynical ratings whore)
Bat-Shit Crazy: Pamela Gellar (insane?), Glenn Beck (motivation is unclear... could have psychological problems and lack a firm grasp on reality. He might just a complete idiot who can not analyze facts. Then again, he might just be a Rush Limbaugh-esque ratings whore who is actually very successful if his goal is only to make money.

Misinformation leads to Equity Gap

In a recent survey Michael Norton, an associate professor at the Harvard Business School, and his colleague Dan Ariely examined Americans thoughts on the equality gap. The results indicate that Americans think the gap is much smaller than it really is and they would like to see it reduced.

Mr. Norton and his colleague suggest that perhaps Americans are not well informed on this particular topic. I don’t think a lack of information is the issue here. I think Americans are informed but the information they are getting is wrong. The ultra rich spend all sorts of money to convince the poor to fight against their own interests. They do this because having the poor fight against their own interests directly benefits the ultra rich. It seems to me that Americans are informed on a bunch of economic ideas but thanks to the ultra rich that information is misinformation.

The ultra rich sell the idea of upward mobility to keep taxes low by convincing the poor that they too can be rich someday. The best part is that if you fail to become rich they will claim is has nothing to do with the old boys club or the situation you were born into, but you just didn’t work hard enough. Research shows America is not a particularly good place for upward mobility and that the whole idea is flawed but that doesn’t stop 54% of 18-29 years olds from thinking they will someday be rich.

The ultra rich sell the idea that unions are bad when in fact unions are the major reason we have safe working conditions, child labor laws and eight hour work days instead of the twelve that companies preferred. Labor Unions were an American invention and are as good of symbols of patriotism as baseball and apple pie. Instead the ultra rich would have you believe they ruin America and are the devils work. The current attack on teachers unions is an example of the benefit to the ultra rich from this belief. Education is one of the major determiners of income level and by eliminating money from the education process in the name of deficits not only do the rich keep their taxes low but it lessens the chances of poor and middle class kids achieving any form of upward mobility. The ultra rich don’t send their kids to public school so a lower class of education in the general populous just assures an easier path for their kids to become ultra rich.

The ultra rich sell the idea that they, the top 1% of wage earners pay more than their fair share of taxes when the reality is they hold 38% of the wealth while only paying 34% of the taxes. In fact the lower we make taxes on the ultra rich the higher their portion of the tax bill becomes. How convenient that the solution to the problem they have fabricated leads to the problem itself. They have set up their own self fulfilling prophecy.

The same is true with the inequity that exists in our country. The ultra rich act like they are so overburdened and that they are being taxed to death. The data shows that the gap is getting bigger and it gets bigger every time we cut taxes. If, as Norton and Ariely suggest, Americans want to see the equity gap closed the graphs below indicate that the best way to close the gap is to increase the top marginal tax rate. Unfortunately people have been so conditioned to loath tax hikes that closing the equity gap is nearly impossible. Luckily for the ultra rich they have also convinced Americans that the rich getting richer is good for all of us and that the Trickle Down Theory actually works.

At some point the class warfare that is being waged by the ultra rich will be exposed and demonstrations like those in Wisconsin will become more prevalent as the middle class stands up for themselves and demand to be treated fairly.

The Business of Government

Mitt Romney recently stated “I don’t know who else is going to get in the race but I do believe that it would be helpful if at least one of the people who’s running in the Republican field had extensive experience in the private sector, in small business, in big business, working with the economy."

This seems to be a prevailing theme of both Mitt Romney as well as many conservatives. The idea being that government should be run like a business because conservatives tend to tie free market ideology to cost effectiveness. While I don't think this approach recognizes the differences between the two entities and the diverging interests of each, I am interested in how this belief is being represented in the current budget debate.

When a business is deep in the hole and needs to make drastic changes to avoid bankruptcy they don't spend all of their time dissecting their budget for savings on pens, white out and staples. Unfortunately that is the approach that is being taken by Republicans. They are going after very small items that have almost no impact on the national debt or budget deficit.

Additionally you don't cut from areas where the savings from the cuts result in a loss in revenue greater than the savings. If saving a dollar means you lose two dollars in revenue you are worse off than making no cuts at all. Republicans are offering cuts to the IRS even though every dollar spent by the IRS on audits, liens and property seizures bring in $10 to the government. Not only are you catching people breaking the law but you are getting a great return. What business wouldn't take a 10 to 1 return on their investment.

While there may be some value to running the government like a business the practical application of this ideology by Republicans indicates this is just rhetoric used to dupe people. They are using the good will of those who actually care about the national debt to make politically motivated cuts against programs they don't like.

NPR, Planned Parenthood, Unions, and the IRS are the staplers and copy paper of the national budget - they offer more for values voters than real deficit reduction. While politically targeted cuts are standard fare in our corporate sponsored version of Democracy, hiding behind real concerns to make these cuts is very disappointing.

Your pain is their gain

In a purely political move some Republican legislators are blaming President Obama for the recent rise in gas prices. They claim that thanks to the President, domestic oil production is down; except that production is at its highest levels since 2003. They blame the President for putting a moratorium on new deep water oil drilling instead of acknowledging that it was a multitude of failures by big business that lead to this freeze. In essence the charge from Republicans is that the President is to blame for a reduction in oil supply in the US and that is affecting global pricing. Unfortunately for this argument the US supplies a very small percentage of the world’s oil and any reduction or increase is drop in the bucket of world oil supply.

The reality of the situation is that actual supply has nothing to do with the increases in pricing we have experienced over the past few weeks. The problem here is the free market system that determines oil prices. The buyers of oil buy in advance and this requires that they act as prognosticators of future oil supply and demand. The steep increase in oil prices is tied to concerns of the oil buyers that future supply might decrease. Rather than wait until supply is actually affected they are raising prices now to eliminate their risk in the upcoming weeks and months. The only people affected in this equation are the consumers since the oil buyers have passed along all of the uncertainty.

It is estimated that this free market speculation has artificially increased the cost by $20 per barrel. According to the US Energy Information Administration an increase of $10 per barrel of crude oil translates to an increase of around $0.24 per gallon for the consumer. This means that we are paying almost $0.50 per gallon more than the real value of gasoline.

Some legislators such as Jay Rockefeller have suggested that the President should release oil from our reserves. With all due respect to the Senator Rockefeller the unusually high cost of gas is a function of oil speculation not supply. While a new supply of oil might quell fears of some oil buyers, this line of thinking gives a free pass to the real cause of the increased prices at the pump, corporate greed. Rather than use the power of our government to push for accountability in the private sector like we do with the insurance industry we let the big oil companies cover their risk on the backs of hard working Americans. Unfortunately when you take the risk out of the risk - reward equation, all you are left with is reward. For Big Oil this is a heads they win tales we lose situations and instead of discussing the real issue our politicians are tossing around baseless rhetoric they hope to parlay into political gains.

Amy Holmes Fail!

It is always annoying when a pundit says something that, as a viewer, you know is flatly untrue but the host of the show apparently is not aware of the error. (And I don't mean statistics that can be interpreted in multiple ways - even if a certain party stretches credibility for the sake of their interpretation.)

A noteworthy example from last year was when Newt Gingrich said on The Daily Show that Richard Reid (the "Shoe Bomber") was read his Miranda rights (by the Bush Justice Dept) only because "he was an American citizen" - when, in fact, Richard Reid is NOT an American citizen and, in that way, his situation was no different than the "Underwear Bomber". This showed the hypocrisy of the GOP (and the political Right) as they were blasting A.G. Eric Holder and the Obama Administration despite the fact they were following the same protocol that the Bush Administration had (when the GOP had not raised any objection to the reading of Miranda rights). (Note: While Jon Stewart did not correct Newt Gingrich during the interview - he did acknowledge Newt's factual error after they came back from commercial break).

Well, on last Friday's Dylan Ratigan Show, there was a factual error stated by conservative pundit Amy Holmes. There was a discussion of the budget and the need to make significant alterations to the entitlement programs when Ms. Holmes said:

Back in 2005, George Bush tried to do this and some say he wasted an entire year of his presidency and that's when Harry Reid was Majority Leader and Harry Reid didn't want to do it... so as long as Harry Reid is in charge of the United States Senate and the Democratic Party, I don't think you're going to see real progress.

I heard that and Dylan Ratigan just let it go. The fact is that Harry Reid was NOT Majority Leader in 2005! The Republican Party had 55 seats in the 109th congress and the Majority Leader was Bill Frist. George W. Bush could not get his privatization of Social Security plans through the Congress controlled by his own party. The public hated the proposal... according to the Brookings Institute:

Observors noticed that the more the President talked about Social Security, the more support for his plan declined. According to the Gallup organization, public disapproval of President Bush's handling of Social Security rose by 16 points from 48 to 64 percent--between his State of the Union address and June.

Anyway, I didn't want to do this post to re-debate the Bush plan. I just wanted to point out the inaccuracy of Amy Holmes and the failure to correct by Dylan Ratigan. And, in the bigger picture, the hugely relevant point is that as Republicans try to re-write history (again!) with regards to their fiscal discipline --- it is important to always keep in mind the famous quote typically attributed to the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynahan:

Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.

Does certainty really matter?

One problem that we find in politics is that people stake out a position and then look for arguments to support their stance. This leads to convenient rhetoric. One example of this is the push by Republican legislators to extend the Bush tax cuts because this would create certainty. John Engler said "We've got to provide businesses some certainty about what their tax landscape is going to look like, and we've got to provide families certainty,". "That's critical to maintain our recovery."

If we assume that this narrative is correct and that certainty is important to job growth then it follows that extending the Bush tax cuts should have a positive economic impact. It also follows that when families have a level of certainty they would feel more comfortable spending their discretionary earnings instead of saving them. If this is the case then the vast levels of uncertainty that Republicans are creating for public employees is detrimental to the economy.

Nationally the public sector has lost 435,000 jobs since 2008 and is estimated to lose between 25,000 and 30,000 a month in the second half of this year. In Michigan Governor Snyders proposed cuts that would cost public employees $180 million while increaing taxes by 1.1% for households making under $17,000 a year. Add in the current union busting tactics and public employees have anything but certainty.

If certainty is good for the economy it is good for every sector of the economy not just the sectors you support. Giving Michigan businesses $2 billion in tax breaks that the state can only afford if it slashes wages, and cuts jobs does not create certainty. If anything it creates more uncertainty. Henry Ford knew that paying his employees twice what other companies were paying would help his business because his employees could then afford to buy his cars. Similarly as a Michigan businiess a tax cut adds no value if that tax cut comes at the cost of shrinking the cosumer base.

Businesses already have a record amount of cash on hand. The problem is not the lack of certainty regarding taxes but the lack of certainty among consumers and public empoyees are consumers.

Either certainty matters or it doesn't and politicing to make certainty an excuse for massive give aways to big business on the backs of the middle class helps no one.

Bomani Jones & His Strawman Argument

Don't we all hate strawman arguments? It seems like it's the stock-n-trade argument of the GOP. But this is not about those loons.

This is about Bomani Jones, ESPN.com columnist and guest panelist this week on Jim Rome is Burning. Yesterday, they were discussing the draft prospects of Cam Newton and Mr. Jones said this:

Look at the names you're going to hear come out (about being the) #1 pick. You're gonna hear some talk probably about A.J. Green by the time it's all over. A wide receiver. Somebody will bring this up before it's all over. If we have a draft where you can consider taking a wide receiver at #1, that tells you there is no guy out there that's just this can't miss definite star player.

Now, technically, he may be correct. Somebody probably will bring up A.J. Green. This person will not be a credible person (for example: see this and this). Are you supposed to factor in every crackpot with an opinion when evaluating this draft?

By the way, Bomani also said:

The only quarterback in this draft that has#1 pick potential is Cam Newton just because of what the upside could possibly be.

Of course, Mel Kiper released Mock Draft 3.0 this week with Missouri quarterback Blaine Gabbert as the #1 pick. I am going to say Kiper is a more reliable source - although this a guy who seemed to advocate teams using a Top 10 pick on Jimmy Clausen, so I am willing to concede that Mr. Kiper's opinion is not the least bit infallible.

Another dissenting opinion comes from New York Giant defensive lineman Justin Tuck. He said:

Would I take (Newton) at #1? Absolutely not. In this league, the athletic quarterbacks don't last long. It's the quarterbacks that can sit in the pocket and take the picture of whatever defense we're in. It's those guys that teams are looking for and I don't think Cam is that player yet.

I like... I like. Sounds like a better evaluator of talent than Matt Millen for sure. And I don't mean that to damn him with faint praise - I mean, quite frankly, who isn't better than Matt Millen?

All that said, I admit I don't know what make of Newton at the NFL level. It really could go either way. (Consider that my CYA addendum so some a-hole with a blog won't link to this in three years if Cam Newton does turn out to be good!)

National Debt concern in Budget debate is all for show

One of the biggest debates raging in Washington DC this week is how much to cut from the Federal Budget. The three offers on the table right now are $100 billion from the Tea Party, $61 billion from the Republicans and $50 billion from Democrats. While I would argue that none of these proposals are good for the US right now due to their impact on the economy, Republicans are pressing forward as though the economy will collapse if we make no cuts.

With that in mind it should be noted that the Republican cuts would have an immediate impact of reducing the national debt by a 0.4% and a reduction of around 4% in the 2011 deficit. I thought Republicans were concerned about the national debt? Maybe we should listen to the Tea Party and finally put a stop to out of control government spending. If we implement their plan and reduce the budget by $100 billion we would put a massive dent into our national debt by reducing it by 0.7% this year.

I guess this is that adult conversation that Republicans have been talking about for all these months. Ironically Republicans would have already cut the budget by around $61 billion if they had just let the Bush tax cuts for the rich expire.

What I really don’t get is why a cut of 0.4% to 0.7% is important to Republicans. When debating global warming data many Republicans point to information suggesting that man made contributions to green house gases only account for an increase of 0.45% per year. The implication is that we might as well do nothing since the actual change is so insignificant. If 0.45% is insignificant when talking about green house gases then a reduction of 0.45% in the national debt, compared with doing nothing, can’t be the center piece of your legislative accomplishments. Especially when that cut will also cost jobs and slow growth.

If eliminating deficits and reducing the national debt are really priorities the current cuts being offered are woefully inadequate and when you take into account who suffers most from these cuts it only adds fuel to the fire that Republicans are only interested in propping up the rich on the backs of the poor.

The good news is that the Republicans aren’t serious about reducing the national debt and while these cuts are a bad idea they could be much, much worse. I for one will be happy when the whole dog and pony show of the budget debate is over so both sides can stand up and proclaim victory. At least then we can get back to doing what Republicans elected in the first place and focusing on job creation by debating DOMA.

Why Stop at Union Dues?

It’s nice to see that the media has finally stopped referring to the attacks on collective bargaining as a debate about deficit reduction and started identifying it as the political power grab that it is. Given that the RNC’s intentions have been exposed they have shifted to a different argument.

Below is an excerpt from NPR describing the new tactic.

So we come to where the rubber meets the road: the money unions spend on politicking. This money originates with taxpayers, who pay public employees' salaries, a portion of which is deducted in the form of union dues and then used by the unions to support, almost exclusively, the Democratic party. The public, in effect, subsidizes a powerful demand for bigger government and higher taxes.

So according to Republicans the wages earned by a public employee are not theirs to do with as they please. Apparently the taxpaying public still has a say in how a public employee chooses to spend the money they earned as a public employee. If this is the case why would you stop at union dues? Public employees should be required to only purchase American made cars, after all why should my taxpaying dollars go to a company that isn’t 100% American. Maybe we should limit the ability of public employees to vacation outside of the United States. Why should my taxpaying dollars end up in any country other than the United States? Perhaps we should also limit the public employee’s food consumption to only healthy food since a public employee who is in poor health will incur higher medical costs and live a shorter life. Ultimately by living an unhealthy lifestyle the public employee costs me more money as a taxpayer.

Luckily unions are a form of a corporation so the Citizens United Supreme Court decision allowing unlimited undisclosed contributions by companies, unions and non profits means that the union may or may not be using the dues they collect for political gain. Either way the American public has no right to know what unions are doing with their dues and subsequently no right to attack union dues based on political contributions.

I Call B.S. - Amy K. Nelson Edition

To be perfectly honest, this post probably does not really belong in the "I Call B.S." catalogue. This is more of a potentially shitty prediction from Jim Rome is Burning that I wanted to call attention to. And I guess I could add this to the B.S. Watch List on the right of your monitor.

Here we go:

Jim Rome: The Yankees. Nevermind a World Championship, with their pitching staff the way it is right now, do they even have enough to make the post-season?

Amy K. Nelson: I say 'no shot'... I see them having a lot of problems.

Jim Rome: They need something. They need somebody to help them win. The way they're set up right now, it's not enough.

Now as much as I want this to be true. I think one is WAY over-stepping to say "no shot". Do we not expect the Devil Rays (not a mistake - to me they are the Devil Rays... and University of Hawaii are still the Rainbow Warriors... if you change your name for a stupid reason, I will ignore you) to take a step back? You're telling me that the Yankees have 'no shot' at even a wild card?!?

I'm gonna dog-ear this one.

The problem with focusing on deficit reduction now.

With Republicans pushing for deficit reduction they are not only ignoring the number one issue in America right now, jobs, but they are actually making it worse. Recent reports by Mark Zandi and Goldman Sachs show that the Republican cuts would lower growth and cost jobs. Given that lower unemployment and higher growth are two important tools in reducing the deficit this legislative priority seems like cutting off ones nose to spite ones face.

Since he disagrees with them Republicans are suggesting that Mark Zandi has no credibility. They base this claim off of his support for the stimulus package however many of these same Republicans touted Zandi’s support of the Bush era tax cuts just months ago. So Zandi went from being credible as the lead economic advisor for John McCain to discredited during the stimulus debate, to credible when discussing the Bush tax cuts and again discredited for pointing out the flaws in the Republican legislative priorities. Talk about flip flopping.

I would argue that the credibility issue here lies with the politicians who pick and choose what economic report they believe based on their opinion, not with the economists. As an example of this, Republicans are pushing analysis of their budget cuts by John Taylor because his model relies on the belief that the reason businesses are holding historic amount of cash and not creating new jobs is because of uncertainty. If you recall this was the same excuse used to pass the Bush tax cuts. So how did these companies react to the certainty created by extending the Bush tax cuts for two years? The economy added a total of only 36,000 new jobs in January which was well below earlier estimates.

At some point this claim has to become the boy who cried wolf. Businesses are not in business to create jobs. If they were they have plenty of money to do so. They are in the business of making money and hiring people to create more products makes no sense when no one is buying the product.

There is a great fallacy at play here in the John Taylor model and that is the belief that Reaganomics worked because of Trickle Down Economics when in reality it worked because of the stimulus spending that followed. Reagan poured billions of tax payer dollars into defense and that spending and subsequent debt, created jobs and those jobs helped the economy. If you understand this you see where Zandi and Goldman Sachs are coming from. They believe lower taxes AND government spending are stimulators because they both create jobs. This doesn’t necessarily fit with the narrative from either the left or the right. Economics has no political party and no constituents which mean that sometimes doing what’s best for the economy will run counter to political ideology. Unfortunately our current political system is set up to value ideology over reality. Placing deficit reduction over job creation is a clear example of this and in the end it will be the American public that suffers from this political demagoguery.

What if we ran the government like the average household?

So you want to run the Federal Government like the typical American household. After all why should the Federal Government get to run up huge debt and not pay it off? In the recent debt commission report Erskine Bowles stated that “This Debt is like a Cancer”. With all due respect to Mr. Bowles the problem here is not the debt but the solutions or rather the lack thereof.

Setting that aside for the moment, let’s assume that this narrative is correct. We can then show that the typical US household owns a home and with the purchase of the house the average American takes on a large amount of debt. If we consider our current debt of around $14.1 trillion and our current revenue of around $2.16 trillion in terms of the standard mortgage and salary respectively, we could take out a 30 year mortgage at the current interest rate and pay it off at $63.7 billion a month. This would put our payments at around 35% of revenue or “monthly salary”. If Republicans had been as concerned about National Debt when they were in control of both the Legislative and Executive branches of the government as they are now, we could have cut our national mortgage nearly in half with a monthly payment of only $33.5 billion. Instead, over their six years in control, they increased spending by over 48% while only increasing revenue by around 18% leading to a 50% increase in our national debt over 6 years and doubling it in less than 9 years.
Regardless, as a household our current national debt is a completely manageable number since it fits in the standard 30 year fixed mortgage model. What are not manageable in this scenario are our current spending habits. To pay off our current national mortgage (national debt) in 30 years we need to spend around $764 billion a year on the debt. Unfortunately our mandatory spending only leaves us with only $315 billion available to pay our national mortgage. This means even if we cut all of our discretionary spending which includes things like Defense, Homeland Security, Education, Health and Human services, Transportation, and Veterans Affairs, we would still come up $449 billion a year short of making or mortgage payment.

While Republicans walked into office claiming that we needed to have an adult conversation, the programs that they are offering to cut and the money these cuts would “save” is putting us on the fast track to foreclosure. This is also true of the President’s proposal. Any serious conversations would include huge cuts to Defense spending, changes in the Social Security system, cost controls for health care, and an increase in taxes. The only other possible solution is to increase GDP and unfortunately busting unions, redefining the word rape, and scaling back the family medical leave act, do nothing to improve the economy or reduce unemployment, but these are the legislative priorities that Republicans have presented so far.

Luckily governments don’t have to act like households since that line of thinking is exactly the opposite of how government spending works for the public good. The best model of government spending requires that a government spends money in a bear market and increases taxes to stock the rainy day fund during a bull market. We should be focusing on long term deficits and economic growth since the current obsession with deficits is short sighted and will only further exasperate the economic issues that currently plague this country. But that doesn’t seem to stop huge segments of the population from fighting against their own best interests.