Tom Toles for July 02, 2018

Republicans already have a name for their new safety net.

It’s called “Alms for the poor”.

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They say it’s been tested in non-Socialist countries and has a consistent record of success.

#CompassionateConservatism

Up front, I’m not an economist, OK? But it appears to me that what the RichThugliKlans have been up to for decades now is monetizing the full faith and credit of the U. S. government and transferring the cash to their sundry friends, wealthy patrons, and other large creditors. They’re doing this both by lowering taxes on the wealthy and running up the national debt, which is then sold to those same wealthy entities, and others including banks and sovereign wealth funds. This is also necessarily accommodated and accomplished by the Federal Reserve “expanding the money supply.” If it’s a bit hard to wrap one’s head around this, it’s supposed to be. But one can think of it as a slow motion leveraged buyout of our United(?) States, with the mega-wealthy walking off with the cash while leaving the rest of us to make the payments on the debt. Clever, methinks.

Discuss…

The only two presidents to achieve balanced budgets with year-to-year budget SURPLUSES in the last FIFTY YEARS were LBJ (despite the costs of the Vietnam War, Apollo Space program and War on Poverty, while he had a 70% top marginal tax rate) and Bill Clinton, who had four straight surplus budgets after he passed Reinventing Government (REIGO) without one single Republican vote.

By the end of his presidency, Obama had slashed the deficit by two thirds, so it was one third of what he inherited from Bush, which was an astounding achievement considering the enormity of Bush’s deficit (more than all previous deficits combined), but Bush was so far in the hole that even Obama could not get it all the way into positive territory.

But the bottom line is that, in the last fifty years, two presidents (Clinton and Obama) reduced the deficit over the course of their presidencies, two presidents (Clinton and LBJ) achieved budget surpluses) and three presidents (Clinton, Obama and LBJ) achieved year-to-year deficit reductions — and all of them were Democrats.

RepubliCONs have a lot of never calling themselves the party of “fiscal responsibility.”

Marginal Man has the strategy right.

The GOP is the primary reason why our debt and deficits have exploded they way they have. When they are in charge, they run up the debt as much as they can so that when the Dems take over, they can constantly bludgeon them over it, preventing the Dems from doing what needs to be done. I would prefer “tax & spend” over the “dine & dash” we get from the GOP….

That’s all right, just leave it for the Dems to clear away. Meanwhile you lot (i have more appropriate words but this is a family website) can continue calling yourselves the party of fiscal responsibility based on your willingness, no delight, in slashing programs for the worse off in society. Forget the Nast elephant symbol, it should be a wolf except that it would be an insult to wolves.

Money for the rich and babies for the poor. When the bomb goes off this current cabal will be voted out, and the right can blame Democrats for Republican policies.

Our two “trickle down”, supply side (neoliberal) economic advocating parties have done nothing for the middle class for decades. Since the Citizen United decision that money is speech, both parties seek sponsorship from the wealthy and do only token legislation for the middle class. Through targeted propaganda the wealthy have worked to portray the Democrats as enemies of both capitalism and the middle class. For whatever unknown reason the DNC has done little to counter this image and focused on finding “leaders” while avoiding detailed implementation plans to correct inequities.

Remember, “Deficits don’t matter”! Darth Cheney SAID SO!!

As long as the legislators provide Socialism for themselves and the oligarchs, what does it matter

George Harmon, nice job promoting the lies about the debt from BUSH. The debt APPEARED to increase under Obama because Bush did not put the war costs into the budget, they were on a separate ledger.

It’s a global class war; top .1% of wealth vs. all the rest. Want to guess who is winning?

Most Republicans don`t realize what they created.

Most Republicans DO know what they have created. and they just keep exempting themselves from reality. Hence I give you the Corker Cut out. a means of infusing a personal stake for Bob Corker to sure up a non-committal vote for the disastrous tax cut package.

Trump Threatens Americans Who Disagree with Him in Slobbering FOX News Interview

It’s called Starve the Beast. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast

Alan Greenspan cynically explained the idea in 1978,

“Let us remember that the basic purpose of any tax cut program in today’s environment is to reduce the momentum of expenditure growth by restraining the amount of revenue available and trust that there is a political limit to deficit spending.”

and somebody in the Reagan administration came up with the name. Republicans are furious that the Beast (government programs to actually help people and save the environment) is alive and well despite all of their avowed cruelty.

Light that flippin’ fuse!

Alexander the Good Enough’s basic point is valid enough: not the “leveraged buyout of the United States” so much as the “carving out of fiefdoms.” Our current ultra-rich people want to become heriditary nobles: earls, barons, dukes, and so forth. And all they need to achieve their goals are the national parks and monuments that are just kind of sitting there empty!

The past is prolog, here, as it has been done in the past. For the Republicans huge National Debt and Deficit is not an issue if it’s for a good cause, like: Tax Cuts for the uber-wealthy (witch includes Trump).

Nah! It would only be a problem if P.T. Barnum had been wrong!

It has seemed to me that Toles draws his elephants benign, and not menacing enough. Right now they look like Babar and his clan.

Toles is wonderful. What a good image!!!

Cheney Has already said that Reagan proved deficits don’t matter and now it is Republican gospel.

Resist the Republican attack on American culture and values.