Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for October 24, 2010

GT’s a little late with this one.

For people who might vote for the Republican/Tea Party, don’t give any part of the government back to the “Party” that put this country into this mess in the first place.

pouncingtiger: Agreed; vote Republican instead.

All of that presumes that we’re still in charge of the international monetary system, that the dollar is still the currency of choice.

The USA owes out trillions in debt. We also fund a lot of weapons manufacturers and invade countries and keep a lot of nuclear weapons around…4000 or so, IIRC.

If we weren’t so into funding all of these weapons, would the dollar still be the currency of choice? Would our economy not crash?

The currency one must buy first, in order for a country to buy oil? Dollars, I’ve read. Has that changed?

I used to hate economics, thought it boring. Then I realized that if you don’t understand international economics, you really cannot understand what’s going on. At all.

I still hate economics. But I now recognize the importance of trying to understand it.

It’s AMAZING how you guys can always blame the other party. I think it’s called fiddling while Rome burns.

Substitute professional empty suit Ron Johnson for Representative Boehner, and you have the Wisconsin senatorial election!

Senator Feingold is doing better, but we only have nine days to get our act together!

You guys are kidding, right?

Choosing between the Republicans and Democrats to cure this recession is like choosing between vitamin C and chicken soup if you have a cold: with one it will last for a week, with the other it will only last seven days. Neither one could have kept you from catching cold, and neither one can make it go away faster – all you can do is whatever makes you more comfortable while you wait.

There have been recessions and depressions as far back into history as you care to look, here and in other nations – caused by human greed and shortsightedness, and simple bad luck. In this context, political parties are just window dressing.

Vote for whom you please, but don’t kid yourself that there’s a magic bullet out there with some party’s label on it.

Money controls everything in politics. That is money spent in advertising not money saved. Only during the Clinton years was money applied to the national debt since the 1940s. I am sick of the Republican mantra of - Democrats are Tax and Spend. Well, Republicans are No Tax yet Spend bigger.

Vote Democrat! If you can find a decent Republican, vote for that person. Promises mean nothing to a politician.

For those who knock National Healthcare, remember that one of the reasons our manufacturing has moved offshore is to cut the cost of healthcare. The medicare cuts are to eliminate unnecessary procedures which run up medicare costs. I had a doctor who, once I had completed a diagnostic test, would schedule me for another unnecessary test. Testing is paid at a higher rate than regular office visits so he was making up for being underpaid by medicare in the first place. — I changed doctors.

To SCATTY_423 You are correct. I can not see how people can be either Democrats or Republicans or how they can put each others parties down. I will go to the polls and take a ballot and turn around and put it in the box. This will show them that I was willing to take the time to vote, but there wasn’t any one on the ballot worth voting for.

…SCAATY_423. brings up some good points..the vitamin C/chicken soup analogy is quite clever and to a large degree mostly true.But his/her comment,”… caused by human greed and shortsightedness, and simple bad luck.” got me a thinking.Manipulating the stock market until it is nothing but a stack of cards destined to fall did and does have something to do with the process.

International thieves should face punishments when caught.Which in turn,has to be justified by having laws which when broken can be deemed the cause of the punishments..No laws or loose laws is simple shortsightedness.

Ergo…de-regulation and lax laws are as much of the problem as the criminals…we need government to step up to the plate and do it’s job,not back away from it’s responsibities to it’s peoples.

There may not be much difference between the GOP and the Dems but when one is preaching less government and the other fiscal resposibility,I for one,have to vote for the one that at least gives me ‘hope’ of a fighting chance.

I find it refreshing that folks here are posting more and more “I can’t stand politicians regardless of party” kind of offerings. Certainly a candid, non-party biased look at American politics since the inception of the Republic justifies that attitude. While we have no choice outside of anarchy about having these people, we don’t have to believe what they say. Therein lies the rub. One has to understand the issues and the politicians themselves, but we simply are unwilling or unable to take the time to do that. Politicians at the national level are almost always the result of coming up through the ranks and paying the price necessary to advance. How many folks actually pay that close of attention to those on the rise? Who is running for road commissioner, say, in your district, and what does he/she stand for?

Would like to see just one tea party supporter to say they’d vote for a congressman who’d cut medicare.

Scatty423: Are you cut-and-pasting that chicken soup analogy and posting it at various comments pages (ie:Candorville) ?

I would ask BOTH sides that question…

Farming and ranching in my state is LARGELY Republican…and boy, won’t they be surprised if the people they vote in start WHACKING away at the subsidies they’re had all of their lives!

“Hey–I meant cut the OTHER guy’s benefits!”

Whoever gets into office will be credited with turning the recession around without doing a thing to make it happen.

PRESIDENT Obama gets no respect for averting another Great Depression:

For saving 3.3 million jobs with stimulus spending For salvaging GM and Chrysler from the junkyard

Some deeds are even going unremembered…

NY Times/CBS News poll in September:

Only 8 percent (!) of Americans know that he gave 95 percent of American taxpayers a tax cut.

(The above from the Sunday NY Times column by Frank Rich.)

That QUADRUPLED and DOUBLED is important, and ignored by the TEA party and Republicans who also don’t not that the “Stimulus” was mostly tax breaks, has worked, and the hole dug by and for the bush, will still take a while to fill. Obama gets no credit, because the “media” in control won’t have it. Speaking of which, politicians AND the “media” mold themselves to respond to or control a “public”. Anger at politicians and media should maybe be aimed at that IGNORANT “public” that enjoys that status??

Who could believe that deficit financing is sustainable forever? Somewhere, somehow, they have to charge more for something or quit paying for something or both. I’ll vote for someone with specifics. I’m not hearing it. To put up or shut up, I’d start by cutting corporate welfare, especially to factory farms & big pharma.

Where to cut? NPR.

ben, I’m glad someone else has found a sober analysis of the measures taken to mitigate the crisis. With all the problems our government has, they did learn from the lessons of the 1920’s and 30’s, and took action when it was needed.

The nightmare scenario resulting from no government action is an eye-opener, and should be required reading for anyone screaming about the bailouts and stimulus. 8 to 10 million additonal unemployed, for a rate of 15-16%.

http://www.economy.com/mark-zandi/documents/End-of-Great-Recession.pdf

Perhaps even more stunning are the scenario’s deficit estimates. For 2011, the deficit is a trillion dollars greater than it would have been without bailouts or stimulus due to a large drop in collected revenue.

These policies weren’t about helping the greedy jerks who caused the crisis; it was about saving the rest of us from the worst results of their mistakes.

Most of the un/misinformed public think Obama has raised their taxes in spite of the cut they got.

Chuk, Obama tried to cut farm subsidies, but ran into stiff opposition in Congress. I’m sure the billions in subsidies to the highly profitable oil industry will be on the table again soon, but there are hundreds of millions spent on lobbying and contributions to prevent cuts.

Re: the Great Recession and Obama’s deficits

The neolib line that Obama’s stimulus has saved us from a depression—-or even put an end to the recession, as Blinder & Zandi claimed four months ago in their article (see Spaghettus)—-misses the point entirely.

The recession continues. It is NOT caused by the deficit spending that Bush II started and Obama has sustained. Only 10% of the growth in this year’s deficit comes from spending increases. The bulk of it—-90%—-comes from loss of revenues, i.e. the income taxes needed to keep government running. You can’t tax nonexistent wages.

Clowns like Boehner in this strip promise to freeze “discretionary spending at 2008 levels” and thereby save $108 billion (I quote Boehner from today’s NYT). That would amount to less than 5%of our $2-$3 trillion deficit.

And even this modest promise is a lie. Boehner knows that three-quarters of discretionary spending is for the military, so the actual savings from cutting non-defense discretionary spending back to 2008 levels would be a paltry $25 billion, or about 1% of this year’s deficit.

It’s hard to say who is more self-deceived: the Teapartier who calls for spending cuts, or the Republican who promises to make them. Both are intellectually dishonest, just like the neolib who pretends that the glass must be filling up so long as it isn’t empty.

@ michaelwme:

“Could Obama have really done anything useful?” Let me anticipate Neolib and answer, “Yes, he could and did: he brought the budget problem to light.

“Whereas Bush kept war expenditures off-budget and, like Clinton before him, justified loss of revenues (the tax cuts that expire this year) by projecting a huge jump in productivity, Obama immediately reported to us the truth that nondiscretionary spending—-Social Security and especially Medicare—-are on course to bankrupt us.

“Obama’s most ‘useful’ accomplishment has been to tackle this entitlement spending. Unluckily, the electorate cannot appreciate the real effects of his budget policy until 2014, when health care kicks in, or at least not before his commission on Social Security reports to him Dec. 1st”

Hey folks, I’m on Medicare, and the “cutting” has already started. My Dr. is with a nationally recognized non-profit hospital/clinic. They can’t “break even” seeing Medicare patients, so they are cutting the number of visits per year, i.e. I have Diabetes and I’ve gone from 4 to 3 to 2 times a year for a checkup and blood work.

HHS has already “taken” 5% of their gross from Medicare to fund other parts of the program and the Organization is toying with the idea of not accepting Medicare at all; they already don’t accept Medicaid. In succeeding years HHS will decrease their reimbursement every year, and this is not “fraud” or “waste”, but a reputable, non-profit teaching Clinic/Hospital. HHS is basically putting them out of business for Medicare Patients.

My Dr. has already planned his retirement and tells me he knows many, many others who are following suit. They don’t want to work for nothing. They can’t go into Private Practice because the Malpractice Premiums are 50% of their Annual Gross and they can’t pay their other expenses.

My former employer who paid me less for 30+ years in return for “lifetime medical” has already jacked up prices and lowered coverage for what little they still cover, Drugs and such.

We are screwed. Both political parties are to blame, but you can’t “socialize” medicine without hurting everyone regardless of the “rosy pictures” painted by bureaucrats and political crooks.

quit the tap-dancing. the budgets were all rammed through by congress, congress got us into this mess. W had a democrat congress. we’re now in even more horrible shape with a demo pres whooping it up with them. vote republican for godsake.

I hadn’t read Rich’s article. I found the report I linked to days ago, and used it because the authors are credible and aren’t “minions” of Obama. I believe one was a McCain advisor. Note that the 8-10 million figure assumes no stimulus or bailout of any kind, including Bush’s TARP.

Spending is the tough nut to crack. Some of the problem is systemic, some is human nature. Campaign finance reform might help a bit. It would be nice if we could stop that “You cut my subsidy/loophole, I give your opponent a few millions” leverage.

Take THAT, Republicans!

Like Boehner, Spaghettus avoids specifics or numbers: “Some of the [spending] problem is systemic, some is human nature.”

As I pointed out above, 90% is “systemic” and that means neither party can crack this nut without finding more wages to tax. Starving the system or depriving it of oxygen (revenues) will kill it, not make it whole.

I enjoy it when GT raises good questions and then puts bad answers in other peoples’ mouths.

The real answer, of course, is all of them. Reduce the US government payroll by 10% across all agencies for starters, and then real cuts can be considered. My organization cut by 5% across the board a few years ago, and productivity increased significantly as a result. Why not the government, or is productivity a dirty word in DC?

The point about spending going up in all administrations is valid, but contradicts GT’s own slanders of the Tea Party message. Plenty of good-ol-boy GOP tax and spenders have been ousted by Tea Party candidates, whose real terror to their left-leaning opposition is that they really do take fiscal conservatism seriously. If it’s valid to slam Bush for increasing spending, then doesn’t that make you a Tea Partier too?

Don’t cut NPR. Cut Fox News (a.k.a. Fix News, Fox Noise, Fix Noise or ClusterFOX) or cut the Defense budget (most of it is wasteful spending anyway).

Neocon, I agree on the revenue side. With Bush’s cuts, the cuts in the stimulus, and the drop in revenue due to the sagging economy, it’s no wonder we are way into the red right now. It will take increased revenue to balance the budget anytime soon; there is no way we can cut that much spending that fast.

I wasn’t clear, but by systemic I meant that the current way Congress operates makes spending cuts difficult. Once an industry or group gets a special break, they protect their vested interest with lobbyists and contributions. Subsidies and credits tend to remain in force even when their original purpose is gone, like the cotton and wool subsidies. Oil and gas subsidies would fit in that catagory, especially with gas near $3. The public at large is angry about spending, but more apathetic to each particular payout. Those who recieve the largesse are informed and active, and find one of the many ways Congress provides to kill any threat to their sweet deal.

@Spaghettus

You’re right that “those who receive the largesse are informed and active” enough to persuade Congress not to shut off the spigot.

Any Congressman who takes the budget seriously has to address revenues. For ten years now, they’ve avoided this by borrowing instead and now the Fed is promising to lend them all the (printed) money they need.

Do you think a Teapartier is any more likely than a Republican to resist making up the lost revenues with borrowing? When the late Senator Bunning tried that, he was isolated by his own party. If Rand Paul becomes his successor, he’ll soon be blackballed, too.

Many of the Congressional borrowers are knaves, but all these deficit-slashers are fools. Like Nemesys, they pretend the Federal budget can be managed just like the budget of a private, essentially autocratic organization. Even the states in our democracy are too big to increase “productivity” by cutting, yet Nemesys stupidly asks “why not the government?” He seems not to have grasped the connection between “productivity” and the GDP.

Elect these fools to Congress, and the knaves will eat them up.

The truth in this ‘toon hurts those that can see it. For those who don’t, I’m sure they will be voting Republican.