Moderates have common ground with fiscal conservatives in a couple of areas. We do not tend to have common ground in various areas of social concern, because many of today’s political conservatives argue that the government should not be involved in areas of social concern. But, we do tend to have common ground in the area of fiscal control, because most moderates agree with political conservatives that a governmental budget should be a balanced budget. That is, let Father Orthoduck make it clear, many moderates and conservatives will disagree on spending priorities, but will agree on the necessity of fiscal sanity.
Sadly, both during the Bush years and now during the Obama years, there were and are many Congresspeople who call themselves fiscal conservatives, but clearly voted in ways that showed massive amounts of hypocrisy because they voted for expenditures which they had no intention of funding. But, every so often a Congressperson gets elected who actually begins to behave like what he/she claims to be. In this case, it is a fiscal conservative. His name is Sen. Tom Coburn (R) of Oklahoma. Father Orthoduck does not agree with various of his spending priorities, but Father does tend to agree with his straight speaking. Here is some of what he has said:
“Apocalyptic pain” from an out-of-control debt could cause 18 percent unemployment and a massive contraction in the economy that would destroy the middle class, a leading Republican deficit hawk said in an interview that aired Sunday.
Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., who recently issued a report on government waste, warned that the U.S. only has about three or four years to get its fiscal house in order or it could find itself facing austerity measures seen in Greece, Ireland, Spain, Portugal and earlier in Japan. …
“I think you’ll see a 15 to 18 percent unemployment rate. I think you will see an 8 to 9 percent decline in GDP. I think you’ll see the middle class just destroyed if we don’t do this. And the people that it will harm the most will be the poorest of the poor, because we’ll print money to try to debase our currency and get out of it and what you will see is hyperinflation,” Coburn said.
“If we didn’t take some pain now, we’re going to experience apocalyptic pain, and it’s going to be out of our control. The idea should be that we control it,” he said. …
“I don’t care if you’re rich or poor, liberal or conservative. If we don’t fix the problems in front of us, everybody is going to pay a significant price,” he said.
Father Orthoduck strongly disagrees with some of the programs he wishes to cut. And, he thinks that Sen. Coburn is unnecessarily afraid of tax increases. Those increases will either come now or come later. This is where the political conservatives continue to make a dreadful mistake. They are still wedded to an economic philosophy that claims that lowering both intake and expenditures will somehow miraculously bring in more tax revenues that will fix our budget problems. There is no such beast and, after the terms of Reagan and Bush in which that philosophy did not work, one would think they would get it. And, no, Father Orthoduck does not buy the argument that if only we would fully apply the supply-side economic program that miracles would happen. Do you realize that the true Marxists argue exactly the same thing? “Put our program completely into effect and we will not ruin any more economies like the ones that we have ruined so far.” Same argument as political conservatives. Despite the fact that we have ruined two economies during two conservative presidential terms, facts will not change the mind of a political conservative anymore than facts have changed the mind of a Hugo Chávez.
The only balanced budget that we have had since the 1980’s has been the Clinton budget, a budget with a moderate economic approach. But, as Father Orthoduck commented, facts do not matter, and the fact that the nation was handed over to President “W” Bush with a budget surplus, which he promptly squandered, is consistently ignored by political conservatives. Or, it is explained away by a post-facto excommunication of President Bush as a true fiscal conservative. Again, when faced with facts, claim that the person never really applied the economic theory correctly.
But, Father Orthoduck does heartily agree with Sen. Coburn that the first priority must be to balance the budget, and that to balance the budget some difficult decisions to cut expenditures must be made. Father Orthoduck would simply add that among those difficult decisions must be that to raise taxes in order to pay for our national spending spree. Please note, however, that most moderates would say that implementing new programs that have a strong possibility of lowering costs in the long run is not necessarily anti-economic. And, most moderates would agree with progressives that cuts that simply target the most needy may appear fiscally sound but may actually be neither socially nor morally sound.
If we do not get a handle on cutting expenditures and raising taxes, Father Orthoduck believes that the the mid-terms of 2014 may very well be about survival and that by 2016 we may simply be another Spain or Greece, a place where tourists can visit because of the favorable rate of exchange.
[Late note: The other problem is that executive salaries have gone up while worker salaries have stagnated. The removal of fiscal regulations and worker protectiosn has led to a market in which outsize profits are made by companies, some shareholders, and executives, while worker salaries have been suppressed and stagnated. The solution over the last decade was to encourage debt in order to keep fueling the economic engine. But now the debt burden of many workers in the USA no longer allows them to keep buying. One cannot keep expecting expenditures in a stagnant or decreasing wage market. As long as the only orientation is towards shareholders, the market will not recover. Expenditures need to come from production-earned wages, not from paper-traded profits. Conservatives will argue that we need to return to a gold-backed dollar. They fail to realize that it is significantly more important to argue for production-wage-backed expenditures.]
I suspect that ANY president handed 9-11 would have needed to “squander” the budget surplus. Be fair. I didn’t agree with everything Bush did in the wake of the attack, but I DO give him credit for trying as best he knew how to protect the country and her citizens. And that cost a lot of money. He didn’t spend it on art or dubious social programs or bridges to nowhere….
…or a war in Iraq without just cause, or tax cuts for the rich, or bailout of the bankers…
Oh, Ellen, you should have checked your facts. The “bridge to nowhere” was approved on a first version on 20 October 2005 during President Bush’s SECOND TERM. It was part of the 2006 National Appropriations Bill and became an example of REPUBLICAN failure to live up to their claims of being fiscal conservatives. And, Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska was a REPUBLICAN. Actually, the bridge to nowhere is the classic example that helps to back up my point that those who most preached fiscal conservatism were the most hypocritical, which was also the point made by Sen. Coburn.
Father Orthoduck was being fair to President Bush. But, it was not the war spending that got Republicans in trouble in 2008. It was all the other unnecessary earmark spending, and the failure to control the budget, and the failure to have any plan for covering war spending eventually, and so on and so on. President Bush did not use his veto powers in the way he should have.
However, please re-read the article. It is not in particular the former President that Father Orthoduck was taking on; it is the Congress as his main target. Mentioning President Bush is every bit as fair as those who insist on calling the healthcare bill Obamacare. Either President Bush has the main responsibility for those years, or current conservatives need to stop calling the healthcare bill Obamacare, since it was not produced by him per se. One cannot have it both ways. One cannot insulate President Bush from responsibility while putting all responsibility on President Obama.
If we do not get a handle on cutting expenditures and raising taxes, Father Orthoduck believes that the the mid-terms of 2014 may very well be about survival and that by 2016 we may simply be another Spain or Greece, a place where tourists can visit because of the favorable rate of exchange.
And our only choice is how best to suck up to our new Lords and Masters — learn proper Putonghua Calligraphy or reverently recite the Koran.
One of my contacts is waiting for the first American Military Coup. Tick tick tick tick tick…
“Sadly, both during the Bush years and now during the Obama years, there were and are many Congresspeople who call themselves fiscal conservatives, but clearly voted in ways that showed massive amounts of hypocrisy because they voted for expenditures which they had no intention of funding. ”
Which was a key reason for the growth of the Tea Party.
So, for thirty years, we cut taxes. This results, overall, in larger and larger deficits. And now, we are told that there is no choice but to further cut government services and even, Social Security and Medicare, which are funded separately.
The idea of raising taxes, even on those at the very top of the economic foodchain, is anathema, even as economic inequality in this country reaches levels not seen since the eve of the stock market crash of 1929..
Looks like the Reaganite strategy of “starving the beast” has worked fantastically well. It is supremely unfortunate that the ultimate result of this will be a period of time that will make the Great Depression look like an era of great prosperity.
“So, for thirty years, we cut taxes. This results, overall, in larger and larger deficits.”
You are forgetting the out-of-control spending.
This issue of overspending is way overstated, but there are two areas in which spending needs to controlled. The first is in terms of the military. The second has to do with the fact that in the United States, the government pays top dollar for anything and everything. A major example: the refusal to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies to bring medication prices down, especially for Medicare recipients. Therefore, we Americans in general pay about 40% of our income in taxes (when all taxes to all levels of government are included). In Europe, the average total is around 50%. Well, let me ask you: who gets the better deal? Us or the Europeans? If you don’t know the answer, check out the following:
http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/149324
Although what/how much needs to be cut is certainly a topic of debate, poor (or shall we say “clever”) methods of spending are a problem. As mentioned by Michael Kruse (Kruse Kronicle) in quoting a NY Times article, some are trying to get to the heart of some of these practices:
“SHOULD the government cut spending or raise taxes to deal with its long-term fiscal imbalance? As President Obama’s deficit commission rolls out its final report in the coming weeks, this issue will most likely divide the political right and left. But, in many ways, the question is the wrong one. The distinction between spending and taxation is often murky and sometimes meaningless. …
… Economists call the Blowhard plan a “tax expenditure.” The tax code is filled with them — although not yet one for snipe hunting. Every time a politician promises a “targeted tax cut,” he or she is probably offering up a form of government spending in disguise.
Erskine B. Bowles and Alan K. Simpson, the chairmen of President Obama’s deficit reduction commission, have taken at hard look at these tax expenditures — and they don’t like what they see. In their draft proposal, released earlier this month, they proposed doing away with tax expenditures, which together cost the Treasury over $1 trillion a year.”
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/12/27/931846/-New-GOP-House-rules-pave-the-way-for-more-tax-cuts-for-wealthy,-slashing-spending
Yes, I feel very strongly about this. I do NOT want another Great Depression and I do NOT want the United States to become either Fascist or Leninist.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-sachs/americas-political-class_b_801663.html