Weekly Issue #9 - 9/24/11 - The Media Bias over the Wall Street Occupation

Anybody who wants to support PEACEFUL civil demonstration can go to this website or if you are in NY, Wall Street itself:

https://occupywallst.org/

Starting last weekend a group of protesters, numbering between 200 and at some times over 2000, has taken up non-violent protest on wall street. The protest is focused upon the corruption of corporate lobbying, the expanding wealth gap, and the bailouts of wall street even after they blew up the economy. Unlike many protests (read: tea party) the attendees are not homogeneous, spanning all ages and races, but there is a progressive slant to their views; perhaps this explains several of the unusual events surrounding this protest's coverage in the news.

A large number of protesters has essentially run a sit in on wall street for the last week, but where is the media? Twenty tea partiers show up at the white house and not only Fox news (read: faux news) but every other major media outlet covers it. Where has the media coverage of this protest been, and what possible reason could there be for the media  to blackout this event. I for one follow numerous news sources, both liberal leaning and neutral, but the "neutral" media has near totally ignored this event. I don't care what they are  protesting, hundreds of people in a sit in is news, even when you discount the disturbances at the rally by the police.

The right wing always talk about the "liberal media", but as this situation demonstrates, the media is corporatized and thus not liberal. The mainstream media has become focused upon profit rather than truth, thus the story which gets the most ratings runs even if it is irrelevant. Put plainly, right wing agitation over insane and incorrect issues is more interesting than a bunch of liberals protesting wall street. In addition to the profit motive overshadowing good reporting, the media is now biased for the rights of corporations. 

Media sources which are corporate are effected by policy just like any other corporate interest. If wall street protests effect corporations, then media empires have a vested interest in suppressing the protests (or at least minimizing them). The other side of this issue is that right wing protests are covered more because they often support the rights of the corporations to do whatever they want.

Unlike the right wing tea parties and corporate funded protests, the occupation of wall street is a true populist movement without any interest string attached. If the mass media refuses to cover this event then the people must.

IF YOU CARE ABOUT THE FUTURE OF THIS COUNTRY, PLEASE TRY TO SPREAD THE WORD BY EMAIL OR WORD OF MOUTH.

Weekly Issue #7 - 9/10/11 - The Obama Job Plan

Finally, Obama is addressing the real catastrophe of the job crisis rather than the false catastrophe of the national debt. I am of mixed feeling of Obama's actions during his presidency due to the dichotomy between his policy choices and his politics. Obama supports good policies but is willing to compromise to the point of capitulation in all but a few issues. Obama is a very nice person, but for a president this can often lead to a weak leader who will bend in the face of his insane adversaries. The jobs plan that Obama has just unveiled is a very good start on solving the jobs crisis that has plagued the USA in recent years, just as long as the Democrats can prevent it from being corrupted by the right wing lunatics.

The plan proposed by Obama is composed of a combination of infrastructure investment, tax cuts to incentivize hiring, and increased jobless benefits. All three of these initiatives have been proven to assist an ailing economy by increasing the buying power of the population as a whole, thus increasing demand for goods, and making it more likely that companies will hire domestically.

Investing in infrastructure is vital in the current economic climate both to stimulate the economy and to get the best value for cost on infrastructure projects. The private sector isn't hiring, thus reducing the buying power of the unemployed and demand for products. When the government spends money to hire people the buying power of the people rises, thus fueling demand for goods and hiring in the private sector. Our infrastructure is vital to society, thus government investment on infrastructure in this economic climate will facilitate the economy in the future and get people back to work now. Construction and labor costs are both very low currently due to lack of demand, leading to a decrease in the price of investment in infrastructure. If we waited for the economy to recover before fixing our infrastructure it would cost more and the jobs created by the investment would not improve the economy as much as they could.

Simply giving tax breaks to businesses no longer increases the amounts of jobs that they create. Globalization and automation have led to a decrease in demand for labor domestically, and thus many tax breaks for corporations are completely wasted or intended to shelter fragile industries (such as green energy). The small business tax cuts proposed in the Obama job plan are specifically targeted towards decreasing the payroll taxes of American workers and companies that hire Americans. By reducing the taxes on companies that hire American workers, companies have an increased incentive to hire people, which bolsters the economy. These cuts only benefit those who hire in this country and the workers that they hire, concentrating the positive effects of the cuts on American small businesses. A relatively new and untested aspect of the tax portion of the Obama job plan is the implementation of cuts based upon the number of people ion the company being paid a reasonable (above average) wage for their work. Hopefully this tax break will entice more employers to pay their workers a living wage as well as to hire some new workers.

Increasing jobless benefits in times of economic hardship both helps people survive when they would otherwise be unable to, and increases the buying power of the population. As a purely moral argument, we are the richest country and for people to be starving even in our recent economic hardship is simply wrong. By increasing jobless benefits, those without work will have enough money to survive and feed their family at least until they can find work. In economic depressions "the death spiral" is a phenomenon where joblessness leads to a reduction in consumption, which decreases demand and destroys more jobs. By giving people without buying power money for vital goods, their buying power is increased and demand is bolstered. Whether a moral or economic rationalization is used, the increase in jobless benefits is a good idea in the current economic climate.

While the Obama jobs plan is on the whole a good start, there are several issues that I believe may reduce its effectiveness. The first issue with the Obama plan is that the Obama white house and the Democratic party can compromise out of any advantageous position. If the plan is corrupted before it is passed through capitulation to the right wing, it may do no good at all. The Democrats must fight any interference in this plan tooth and nail, or they will fail even if a watered down plan is eventually passed. it may simply not do enough of a good thing. I would suggest much more (at least $1 trillion) infrastructure spending now in order to reap the most benefit for our investment in the long term. The deficit would increase in the short term, but these projects will get done eventually and this is the best time to do them. If the infrastructure spending isn't great enough, the plan may have a reduced effect. The tax breaks included in the Obama plan are stimulative, but they will reduce the input into social security and could imbalance the program and allow the right wing to attack it on insolvency grounds. The most nebulous, but potentially largest, problem with the Obama plan is that the cuts that will pay for the plan will be controlled by the super congress. The super congress is a hotbed of lobbying and potential corruption, which could allow the right wing to attack the poor under the banner of cutting spending. The Obama plan should go on the government credit card or paid for by defense cuts and tax increases on the rich. We should stabilize the economy and job markets before we worry about the national debt.

The Sarcastic Liberal

Weekly Issue #6 - 9/3/11 - Perry pulls ahead

The Republican field of the coming presidential election cycle has long been divided into two major catagories: Romney, and the Anti-Romney. Romney is the most established and well funded candidate of all of the Republican field, having deep pockets and previous executive experience, but is absolutely hated by a large portion of the right wing. Romney is seen as being too liberal or not genuine (for good reason) thus the Republicans are left with the quandary where they must choose between someone they hate or someone they believe to be incompetent. Many different candidates have been fighting for the position of the Anti-Romney but all have been found lacking: Paul is too libertarian; Bachmann is clearly insane; Gingrich is too far past his expiration date; Santorum and Pawlenty lack big money support.

Rick Perry could very well be the answer to the wishes of even the craziest edges of the Republican party, with confirmed fiscal, social and religious conservative accolades. Perry is fiscally conservative enough that he can claim to have both cut taxes on the rich and cut services to the poor. The "Texas miracle" Perry brought about during his terms as governor has led to high employment numbers in TX compared to the rest of the country but unfortunately if you even scratch the surface of the miracle, it begins to look much less miraculous. A majority of the jobs created in Texas were either due to the oil companies which have been making record profits or in the service industry at minimum wage. Needless to say, not all of the country is sitting on top of a deposit of oil and creating jobs by forming a two class society is not the recovery that we have been hoping for. Perry's is fiscally conservative, but his policies have not helped the Texas people as much as he may claim. Socially, Perry holds every expected position for an American conservative: He is pro-life, pro-gun, anti-gay, and ignorant of anything even resembling science. The right wing will find Perry's social views impeccable and by far superior to those of the competition. Perry's religious views support his hard line social conservative stances on most of the issues but his mixing of politics and religion go much farther than that. I have no real problem with a person using their personal views, such as religion, to inform their political positions but there comes a point where some attempt to fuse religion and politics. It is unrealistic to ask politicians to check their views at the door of the white house, but they must be careful so as not to impose those views on others. Perry holds the absolute most extreme view on the melding of church and state, which means essentially that he believes that the Evangelical views should be imposed upon everybody else and it is his religious duty to bring about this imposition (if they were Muslim, the media would be screaming Sharia).

As shown by several recent polls, Perry is rapidly overtaking all of the competition, Romney included. Bachmann is stuttering on behind Perry, but in my opinion she is to obviously stupid to compete against a candidate who hides his stupidity as well as Perry. With the ascension of Perry as the possible front-runner of the Republican presidential race, I only think one thing: "Is it truly possible that after only 3 years, the country is either stupid or forgetful enough to allow Bush 3.0 into the race?" Don't people remember what happened the last time the country elected a mental defective Texas governor into the White House and if they do, are they willing to let history repeat itself?

Perry is for all intents and purposes Bush; every major policy position that Bush held, Perry holds the exact same views. If anything, I think that Perry may be even dumber than Bush, and he wouldn't even have Darth Cheney pulling his strings to compensate for his stupidity. I can't even imagine what will happen to the USA if Perry were elected President and the Democrats lost control of congress.

If you must choose between the weak but sane or the effective lunatics, you must by default pick the person who won't blow up the country on a whim. Democrats for 2012.


The Sarcastic Liberal

Weekly Issue #5 - 8/27/11 - Hurricane Irene and Disaster Politics

Hurricane Irene carved a path of destruction up the east coast just last week, leaving billions of dollars in damage and over 20 dead. living in MA, I saw only the tail end of the storm, way past the point where it was truly dangerous, but even this far north there was flooding and massive damage to trees. The infrastructure in the central and southern portions of the east coast were battered and are in need of immediate repair; power lines fell, entire sections of road were damaged, and coastal structures suffered heavy damage. In the aftermath of Irene, I feel it necessary comment on two political situations which have been illuminated by the storm.

1. The denial of global climate change is longer simply a manifestation of ignorance and the denial of science; there are severe real-world consequences of not preparing for or trying to address the process of global climate change. Irene is a taste of what is to come in the coming years.
2. The refusal by many GOP politicians to allocate disaster relief funds to help those harmed by the storm illustrates just what the right wing's world would look like given half a chance to create it.

CLIMATE CHANGE

The subject of global climate change is only a political issue in the USA, where an entire political party has dedicated themselves to obfuscate and politicize the issue. The Republicans either don't believe in the existence of global climate change because of religious beliefs, or are paid enough by the oil companies not to see the obvious. Regardless of the reason, simply refusing to believe in an unnatural disaster doesn't mitigate the consequences of it when it arrives. Global climate change will lead to increased volatility of weather patterns as a function of a climate shift. More powerful hurricanes such as Katrina or Irene coupled with extreme weather conditions such as the Joplin tornadoes will continue to plague the country with increasing frequency as the process of global climate change advances. Whether or not an entire segment of the political landscape believes in the process or not, all of us will experience the effects of global climate change. The ignorance of a few will prevent us from preparing for future disasters and by the time that the ignorant come to their senses, the damage could already be done.

At this point it is essentially impossible to completely revert the coming climate shift, but we can stop adding to the problem in order to mitigate the severity of the shift. Non-believers will always go back to the "natural cycle" of climate in order to argue against the existence of man made climate change. It is true that the world climate has a natural cycle of warming and cooling but, as shown by all legitimate research on the subject, the current shift has been artificially precipitated by human use of fossil fuels and is far more extreme than the previous natural shifts. Humans have essentially pushed the natural cycle of climate change from merry-go-round speeds to roller coaster speeds; in both situations the ride goes up and down but the speed and elevation changes are much higher on the roller coaster than on the merry-go-round. Hurricane Irene was unavoidable, but we do have the power to prevent several Irene power hurricanes per year in the future by addressing global climate change.

DISASTER POLICY

In the past year there have been several natural disasters which have damaged large amounts of property and killed several dozen people; the most notable of these disasters are: the southern wildfires, the Joplin tornadoes, the east coast earthquake, and hurricane Irene. All of the recent disasters left extreme damage in the areas which they occurred leading to the political argument of "Who is responsible for the cleanup and repair?". A strictly partisan divide has opened in the policy positions of handling natural disaster damage: Even though many of the disasters happened in Republican controlled areas, the Republican party has championed the point that the federal government has little to no stake in the cleanup after natural disasters. Even where the Republicans have considered government intervention in the wake of disasters there have been calls to couple cuts in spending to match aid spending. On the other side of the political spectrum, the Democrats have proposed providing assistance to those who were harmed by disaster without requiring conditions or cuts elsewhere. 

Put plainly, "What the hell do these right wingers think the government is for if not to help those who are living within our border when they are harmed by outside forces, whether war or natural disaster?". I find it amazing that the political discourse of the USA has become so insane that the suggestion that disaster victims IN THE USA should simply fend for themselves is not met with a mixture of disgust and disbelief. We live in a society and that means that we sometimes need to support one another when disaster strikes. The right wing has stopped caring about the people which has led to attacks on every social safety program, from education to disaster relief. Recent policy choices in the Republican party are aimed to bring about a fractured society based entirely in the free market. If you don't pay for a service, you don't get it, even if you need it to survive. Social programs are not the undesirable results of liberal overspending, but rather what makes a society a society. The right wing has lost sight of the fact that the purpose of government is not the upward distribution of wealth and that they are not representatives of the corporations. 

Eric Cantor is the perfect illustration of disaster politics gone wrong. A house representative's job is to represent the interests of the people living in their district, but Cantor has failed in his duty because of his loyalty to an ideal. The recent earthquake's epicenter was in Cantor's district, which was then followed by the landfall of hurricane Irene. Logic would dictate that a politician representing a district that had been hit by two severe disasters in a month would be requesting assistance for the citizens that he represents, but Cantor has been one of the largest proponents of withholding relief after disasters. Under the banner of "preventing overspending", Cantor has leveraged even his own constituents' health in an attempt to extort even larger cuts to the government. Even if I don't agree with a politician's political views, I don't see them as truly bad unless they are betraying the interests of the people who elected them. Our politicians should represent us, not the ideal of the free market or a faceless corporation, and the right wing has completely betrayed the country in the interest of serving the rich.

I only have one suggestion: Disaster relief is dwarfed by oil subsidies, thus if we channeled the subsidy money to the disaster victims rather than multinational corporations we could rebuild after disasters and still have more left over for future disasters; judging by the current trend in the climate, we will need it.

The Sarcastic Liberal

Weekly Issue #4 - 8/20/2011 - When the Lunatics Take Over the Asylum

Watching the current political prospects of the Republican party, I only see three different categories of politician:

1. The Insane: (Bachmann, Santorum)
2. The Corrupt: (Romney, Perry)
3. The Irrelevant: (Paul, Huntsman)

To be completely fair, I am biased against the Republican party (in case you didn't read the title of my blog), but what happened to the all of the "moderate" Republicans and "Compassionate Conservatives" that previously dominated the party. Even the patron saint of the tax break, Reagan, would look at the current Republicans with distaste, probably while they boo him for being too liberal. 

The Insane

There has been a distilling of the crazy elements of the right wing which has led to the dominance of the religious right and the Ayn Randian factions of the right wing to dominate the politics of the Republicans. Bachmann is the perfect example of a religious conservative that represents the crazy right wing, while Ryan is a good example of the crazy libertarian fringe of the right wing.

I find it particularly ironic that the religious right and the extreme free market Ayn Randians have coalesced into a single, extreme faction because they should be diametrically opposed. The free marketers are obsessed with maintaining their rights and not having any social obligations to the point that we start to resemble Somalia.  The religious extremist elements of the right wing wish to impose their rights on the rest of us through restricting action that they deem immoral. The Republican party can hold these factions together due to the fact that they don't have control over anything in the government.

The Republican party currently has control over no branches of government (maybe the Supreme court but they are more corporate than partisan) and thus has the luxury of not actually doing any governing. Whether their agenda is religious or extreme free market, the Republicans in power now are unable to actually push anything through the legislature, thus they can promise everything and deliver nothing. The two diametrically opposed elements of their extreme constituency have vastly different views on the role of government, but until  the Republicans have to jettison one side of their ideology by pushing the other' ideology, they can get support from both sides. One side WILL get screwed over by the politicians when there is a time where the Republicans must pick whether they want to push for an anarchic, minimalist government ruled by the free market, or a theocratic autocracy where the state pushes their views into everybody else's lives.

I fear for the country when these extremist candidates push their fact-free policy onto the country. Any religion or belief system which completely disregards the rules of cause and effect should simply stay out of politics.

News link

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/18/rick-perry-evolution-video_n_930802.html

The Corrupt

In addition to the insane elements of the Republican party, there is a group of corrupt politicians that have risen in the ranks to leadership positions. Politicians have great power to affect change in order to improve the good of many, but in some cases, our politicians use their office for public gain. Romney and Perry are great examples of how corrupt politicians can work their way up to positions of power through leveraging their office for gain. Perry has literally sold public contracts and policy positions for campaign cash and has used his government connections to make a fortune. The use of public service to enrich oneself is not a Republican trait but from what I can see, the current Republicans have embraced corruption to a degree never seen before in the USA. The pervasive influence of the Koch brothers and right wing think tanks funded by billionaires has, in my opinion, led to the wholesale buying of the Republicans by the interest groups. Half of our country's political system has been perverted by money to serve the interests of the rich few. 

Corruption in any form should not be tolerated in our system and the goal of governing should not be to get rich. The blatant corruption of the Republican party eclipses even the worst corruption of the past Republicans or Democrats.

News link

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/21/us/politics/21donate.html?_r=1&ref=politics

The Irrelevant

There are several candidates who simply have no chance and only serve to muddle the waters. Paul, Huntsman, Trump, Cain, and their ilk all fall into this category. These candidates are serving as distractions from the actual race and are only seen as relevant by the national media.

The Sarcastic Liberal

Weekly Issue #3 - 8/13/2011 - The Iowa Republican Debate

A singularity is an astrophysical definition for an area of space where gravity and space have collapsed in upon themselves to create a point of infinite gravity and density (essentially a black hole). The Republican debate was a singularity of ignorance and falsehood, where all of the Republican talking points have coalesced into an area where the facts of an issue simply no longer matter.

While this debate has little to no actual effect on the USA's policy, I believe that it is very important to analyze the views expressed by the candidates because one of them may just run the country. I can come to only one conclusion when watching this debate: These people are either ignorant, deluded, or intentionally misleading on EVERY issue relevant to the running of this country. The sheer magnitude of false comments and logical fallacies espoused by the candidates leads me to worry about any of them running against Obama; to be fair, Huntsman was much more reasonable and sane than the others but, as pointed out by the moderator, he is almost running in the wrong party. If any of these candidates are elected, the results on policy in the government will be catastrophic, because ignorance about the effects of a policy in no way mitigates the possible harm that can be caused by their decisions.


Rachel Maddow show: "Debunction Junction". WATCH THIS, it is amusing yet entirely accurate.

Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/12/gop-iowa-debate-fact-check_n_925085.html

As with the last debate there was a very clear hierarchy in the candidates. Mitt Romney and Michele Bachmann were both the very clear winners of this debate with all of the other candidates trailing behind by a wide margin. As I have previously written, I believe that there are only three potential candidates for the Republican nomination to president of the United States of 2012: Romney Bachmann and Perry. All of the other candidates really have no chance of actually getting the nomination but are participating either for financial or future political gain Gingrich and Paul have both previously run for the Republican nomination for president and I believe are not actually expecting to get the nomination, but have other goals in mind. Gingrich is simply attempting to remain a legitimate political entity so that he can capitalize on his position financially. I believe Ron Paul means well and while not expecting to get the nomination, is trying to advocate for his libertarian philosophy in the public spotlight. Candidates Santorum, Pawlenty, Cain, and Huntsman simply do not have the support numbers to believe that they should be able to get the nomination; all of them are below 10% in Republican polls and I believe our running simply to advance their political careers.

One interesting development in this debate that has nothing to do with policy is that there seem to be cracks in Republican solidarity. In the first debate all of the candidates played nicely and simply attacked Obama rather than each other. In this debate there were marked signs of strain between several of the candidates, most overtly Pawlenty, Bachmann and Romney. Pawlenty spend a significant portion of his debate time attacking Bachmann in what I believe is an attempt to wrest some of the right wing extremist vote away from her in time to survive the Iowa straw poll. The Republican candidates still most often attacked Obama, but the increase in attacks between each other is a good sign for the Democrats. Republican campaigns tend to be significantly more dirty and negative than Democratic campaigns, thus the eventual winner could potentially be weakened by the other Republicans to the point where they cannot compete with Obama. Ultimately, I see the potential political consequences of what is said in the debate less important than the potential policy consequences if one of those candidates is elected.

As demonstrated by the sheer number of falsehoods espoused in this debate, as well as the minimal challenge to said falsehoods by the Republican moderator, ignorance and delusion have become so commonplace in right wing policy that even the most egregious lack of knowledge is accepted. Good policy and governance cannot be based upon incorrect facts and logical fallacies. When the people who are expected to run this country well cannot determine even basic causal relationships, there is little hope that the country will run efficiently and provide all of the services promised to the population. The single most pervasive logical fallacy of this debate as well as much of the Republican platform is that of tax policy and the effects of altering tax rates.

I truly wonder who the first person to say "every time we lower taxes revenues go up" was, and whether they were a right wing propagandists, or simply ignorant of even the most basic economic theory. While it is true that lowering some taxes at sometimes is capable of stimulating the economy, starving the federal government to the point where it cannot function is simply not in the best interest of the country. As demonstrated in recent years, the money that is given back to the wealthy and corporations is invested somewhere else, such as China or India. The globalization of the United States economy has led to a situation where tax breaks for corporations and “job creators" have little to no feedback or multiplication effects. Of all the Republican candidates in the last debate, only John Huntsman believes that increasing taxes on those who can afford it and instituting stimulus rather than austerity is the way out of our current recession. The failure of trickle down economics is an empirically verifiable fact yet, like global warming, is completely disregarded by half of the political field, which leads to adverse policy decisions.

Simply put, if any candidate who believes in trickle down economic theory is elected, I predict a collapse of the social safety net, increase in income inequality, and decrease in jobs. Everybody who heard the debate last night should keep in mind that these candidates' views are the exact same ones instituted by George Bush when he managed to turn a booming economy and a surplus into record high deficits and a recession.

The Sarcastic Liberal

Weekly Issue #2 - 8/6/2011 - The USA Credit Downgrade

By Josh Sager

Republicans and Tea Party supporters learned a very important lesson this week: The problem with being willing to take hostages is that sometimes, you accidentally shoot them. While the wound inflicted on the USA this week is only superficial, not only does it still sting, but it was entirely avoidable. Standard and Poors, one of the major credit rating agencies has decided to downgrade the US rating from AAA to AA+.

In recent weeks, the Republicans manufactured a massive crisis over the increasing of the debt ceiling so as to force massive cuts in line with their ideology. In the past, the increase of the debt ceiling has been an uncontroversial, housecleaning, measure in the legislature for two reasons: The first reason is that the increase of the debt ceiling does not increase spending but rather an authorization for payment of expenditures already made. The second reason was that no politician was stupid or ignorant enough to try to stop the increase and destroy the full faith and credit of the USA; politicians (such as Obama) would vote against the majority while increasing the debt ceiling as a protest to how the government is spending, but they knew that the increase would pass.

Enter the Tea Party and radical Republicans, who are a perfect storm of extreme, stupid, and crazy while being completely ignorant of economic theory. Finally we had just what we needed to cure the economy: A bunch of crazy new politicians, who are ideologically opposed to a functioning government, were elected into government (Not hypocritical at all). These freshmen politicians used the tried and true tactic of threatening to blow something vital up if they don't get everything that they want immediately. Unfortunately, as is common with extremists, they didn't take into account the larger effects of their actions on society: Unsurprisingly, when the people running a country threaten to blow up the economy of said country, it makes the people invested in that country a little nervous.

S&P's credit rating is an evaluation of the stability of an entity's currency combined with their ability and willingness to pay; essentially, are they willing and able to pay back loans that are given to them. The debt ceiling crisis was wholly engineered by the right wing, not a genuine crisis like the housing or bank crises. In their statement, the S&P analysts said that they took into account the fact that an extreme segment of the government is risking a crash of the economy if they don't get what they want; a factor that seriously degrades our stability as an investment? Political insanity is a perfectly rational reason to raise the risk level in a country because it casts doubt on the ability of the country to make good economic choices.

This entire situation absolutely disgusts me. The right wing not only got what they want in terms of the debt ceiling bill, but they also were incompetent enough to destroy our credit rating in the process. This is the first time in history that the full faith and credit of the USA has been brought into question; not even during the great depression did we default.

A group of insane right wingers have managed to cause historic harm to the recovering economy while the Democrats let them. I only hope that three things result from this awful and unnecessary situation:

1. The damage to the economy will be limited to a small increase in bond interest rates, which will be expensive, but not fatal to our recovery.
2. The Republicans are brought to task over their recklessness. They are squarely to blame for the first credit downgrade in US history and hopefully they will suffer for it in the next election.
3. The Democrats will learn that you can't negotiate with political hostage takers and terrorists because not only will they come back for more, but their actions often harm the hostage even if they are appeased.

The Sarcastic Liberal

THE DEBT CEILING DEBATE

DEBT CEILING DECISION

OOPS (COULDN'T SEE THIS COMING)

Weekly Issue #1 - 7/30/2011 - The Debt Ceiling

This is the first posting in my Weekly Issue section of my blog. Every Saturday I plan on writing a piece giving my take on the largest or most pertinent issue in domestic politics. In each weekly posting I plan to give a general overview of the issue at large and then my take on the subject. At the end of every post I will include links to sites which I used when informing myself on the issues and from which I formed my opinion.

The most talked about issue in domestic politics this week is that of the federal debt ceiling and potential default of the USA. The basic facts of this issue are as such:

1) The US government has surpassed the present debt ceiling as of May this year and thus need to raise it in order to avoid default.

2) If we default, in addition to losing our AAA credit rating, we will see a rise in interest rates which will increase all of our debts (even a 1% rise = many billions of dollars). A default would also cause catastrophic cuts to vital services such as military salaries and entitlement programs.

3) In the past, debt ceiling votes have been largely symbolic because in reality it is simply a statement that we will pay for the things which we have already bought. 4) The unbelievable level of dysfunction in the federal government, particularly in the legislative branch has led to a stalemate and thus a lack of progress on the debt ceiling debate.

4) The final due date for the debt ceiling extension is August 2nd but legislation must be prepared earlier in order to be brought through the House, Senate, and White house.

My opinion on the debt ceiling issue is very simple; raise the damn debt ceiling before you create a completely engineered crisis and deal immense harm to the entire world economy. In my opinion, this entire debate should be moot because the debt ceiling is both unnecessary and completely illogical. The House holds the purse-strings of the federal government and such is able to decide funding for programs, but the debt ceiling exists independantly of the budget as an artificial cap on what the governement can spend. If you think about it in terms of the real world, the debt ceiling debate is akin to a group of people going to a resteraunt, eating a lot of food, and then refusing to pay the full bill because it costs more than they wanted to spend when the entered the resteraunt. The economics of running a government simply doesn't work in a manner consistant with such arbitrary spending limits. If the government "buys" something then it simply must pay for it even if it puts us over the debt ceiling. Even if you believe that there is wast in the system, you cannot simply not pay because you believe there is too much spending. I believe that there is waste in the government that can be cut, but pushing the country into default and destroying the full faith in credit of the USA is not the way to go about cutting.

In addition to the policy aspect of the debt ceiling there is a massive partisan politics component to the debt ceiling negotiations. Put plainly: What the hell has happened to the Washington politicians; the Republicans are going Kamikaze with the entire world economy stirring up a tempest out of nothing, and the Democrats are showing the spine of the average jellyfish. Even the most modest and moderate Republicans in Washington are making the John Birch society look well adjusted. House Republicans manufactured a crisis in order to push an agenda, but then the tea baggers got a deathgrip on the dept debate and the "mainstream" Republicans lost control of the issue. What began as an exercise to embarrass Obama and gain some right wing goodies for their votes has snowballed into a world economic crisis. Even John Boehner's right wing proposal required three tries to get out of the House where he is supposedly in control. Any bill extreme enough in the House is DOA in the Senate and would be vetoed by Obama anyway but similarly, any bill without extreme right wing provisions in it cannot pass the house. This situation is similar to those irritating bamboo finger cuffs where the herder you pull to either side, the tighter it gets in holding you. As with the cuffs, the only way to get out of them is to stop pulling to the sides and instead push towards the middle.

In my opinion the Ideal way to get out of the debate morass would be to pass a clean one sentence bill extending the debt limit (or abolishing it in the future, but suggesting that publicly would have the Republicans bringing the tar and the Democrats the feather and dunce cap). While the Republicans are wholly at fault for the creation of the debt crisis both in spending and in politics, the Democrats couldn't possibly have handled the situation worse.

The Democratic response to the Republican insanity in the debt crisis has been worse than if they just did nothing. Both by compromising on debt ceiling negotiations and not standing up and yelling "your policies and wars created the debt and now you want to skip out on the check". The Democrats should have come to the table and said on the first day "Whatever we agree to will not cut entitlement s because they have nothing to do with the debt, and tax increases for the rich and corporations will be matching any cuts we make". By gradually edging towards the Republicans, who refuse to budge, Democrats will always end up on the wrong side of the bargain. Ironically, polls show that the Democratic proposals have massive (>60%) support by the public but this is drowned out by the D.C. echo chamber. In addition to the policy debate, Democrats have utterly failed to pin the debt on the Republicans. Republican policy created the debt and Republicans still constantly blame Obama with no response from the other side. Taking the high road only works when the population isn't composed of sheeple who actually believe what Fox news spews out. Unless the Democrats fight back, the Republicans will always control the agenda.

Obama is either the worst negotiator in the history of politics or has a very intelligent agenda, but only after the final bell will we be able to figure out which is the truth. Throughout the debate, Obama has been taking the high road and refusing the involve himself in the animal-house that the negotiations have become. His proposal or "grand bargain" cut $4 trillion and included both tax cuts and entitlement cuts. In many ways his proposal was completely centrist, earning ire from just about everybody, but the plan could be a genius political ploy. By acting as the grownup and offering a balanced plan, Obama gets credit from the independents, and by offering the trillions in debt reduction, he attacks the Republicans from the right. If Obama predicted that the Republicans would shoot down the plan due to its tax aspect, he could project himself as more of a deficit cutter  then the Republicans, willing to make a deal, and without actually having to cut any entitlements. In the coming election Obama can now say "I wanted to cut $4 trillion out of the deficit but the Republicans wanted to protect tax breaks for the jet owners and they wouldn't let me" every time the Republicans say that he is a big spender. Because the plan was never enacted Obama wouldn't suffer the political damage of being the one to cut social security or medicare while at the same time appearing to be a deficit cutter.

In the end, I predict one of two things will happen; either the Reid plan will be amended to include some Republican goodies and thus will pass the house and fix the debt crisis, or Obama will pull the 14th amendment card in the 11th hour thus evading the issue entirely. While I hope that Obama simply declares the debt ceiling unconstitutional and disposes of the entire issue without tying cutting spending to the debate, it would undoubtedly lead to a massive court case and possible impeachment. The legal challenges would probably die in the corporately controlled supreme court and a successful impeachment is unlikely because of the 14th amendment's wording, but the issue would be a huge distraction and likely would eat up time that we could use to work on our failing job market.

The Sarcastic Liberal

Internet Links

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMhRPNHpTEE

http://thinkprogress.org/security/2011/07/29/283703/world-reacts-to-debt-ceiling-debacle-irresponsible-worst-kind-of-absurd-theatrics-u-s-politicians-a-laughing-stock/

http://money.cnn.com/2011/07/28/markets/default_stocks_gdp/

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/07/27/280218/flashback-geithner-debt-ceiling/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/29/bernie-sanders-blasts-democrats-boehner-debt-plan_n_913298.html