There is nothing really new with me today, just a usual work day on Monday with a dapple of art in the evening. Unfortunately for you that means I don’t have much to write about today, so I will have to fall back to the never ending topic of the National Debt, (14 trillion-ish)
In Iowa we are getting TV ads from the GOP candidates already.... boy this will be a long year ahead of the 2012 elections. Pawlenty's ad stated "Obama is drowning us in debt".......guess he forgot about the 10 trillion debt we had at the end of GW's term as President. Funny how that last 4 trillion was what to took to get some people to notice.
I'm no expert, but Congress just seems to be plain crazy, especially the freshman GOP who have sworn never to raise taxes. This illustrates the harm of black and white (rigid) thinking, there is no room to compromise or adapt to changes.
This information comes from zfacts.com
This graph shows that $9.2 Trillion of the $12 Trillion supply-sider increase in national debt is considered problematic by economists. They say it is fine to increase the debt in step with national income. Republicans say the whole $12 Trillion is a problem.
The green line shows what would have happened if Reagan and the Bushes had just kept the debt growing at the same rate as the economy. That would make their parts flat. Many conservatives claim Congress increased Reagan's budgets, but this is not the case.
WWII caused the debt to shoot up, starting in 1942, and reach 30% higher relative to the country's wealth than it is today. The economic stimulus of that government spending pulled us out of the great depression and into high gear to win the war.
So how did Reagan, the great debt-slasher, go so far wrong? Partly it was his belief in supply-side "economics." This "theory" claims that when the government cuts taxes, especially taxes on corporations and the rich, it makes them so happy to keep more of their money that they work much harder, get richer, and pay even more taxes than before the tax cut. So the lower the tax rate, the more money the government collects to pay down the debt! Believe that happy talk, and you can run up quite debt.
Of course the rich loved this "theory" and fed the press many stories about the wonders of the new supply-side "economics" (cooked up by Laffer, as a graduate student). Money talks, and a lot of people listened. It's time to rethink what radical conservatives have done and are doing to our country. The Reagan-Bushes National Debt now totals $9.2 trillion. That's the lions share of our present debt.
Are you confused yet? Well on Monday there was a short and simple Letter to the Editor in the Des Moines Register which spoke to me, submitted by a guy from Ames Iowa, Ken Schumacher:
“A simple lesson in supply-side economics”
Logic, and I am not referring to the so-called logic of supply side economic theory, suggests that jobs are created by people who buy stuff, and not by people who sell stuff. -Ken Schumacher.
I agree that the middle class is the engine that drives spending that creates jobs. Too bad over the last few decades we have helped created jobs over in China and not in USA. I blame the Corporate "citizens" for that! They seem to care less about the good of our country, but love to buy and own our politicians.
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