It is Time for A Little Common Sense

 The Gang of Six, or however many there are part of that cabal at this time, has come to save the day with a package to deal with the budget, deficits and raising the debt limit.  They propose spending cuts, raising revenues and plan on presenting this to Congress to pass and forward to the President for his signature and hope to avert the catastrophe of defaulting on our debt obligations.  This plan contains two huge problems.

First problem, is that it doesn't even come close to getting the budget process for the next fiscal year close to completion.  That is where the discussions of spending priorities should have occurred, but Obama let the Republicans in Congress link spending and the debt ceiling raise as one issue.  Look for all the talk of government shutdowns, and cataclysmic impasses to resume come September when we are facing the start of the new Fiscal year without a budget in place.

Second, their approach to bringing our nation's fiscal state under control fails to account for what has driven our deficits and debt increases over the last decade.  The Center for Budget and Priorities has examined the issues at length and their reports point to two issues that are largely responsible.  The first is the Bush Tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, which by most estimates cost our treasury $2.5 trillion. Think Progress, outlined all of the ways which our nation could have spent this money: such as funding education and scholarships, hire millions of teachers, firefighters and policemen across the country.

The second biggest driver of our debt and deficit are the wars in Afghanistan Iraq and now Libya.  The Bush Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, were never included in the Bush budgets, and costs our nation billions per day to keep troops there.  The mission in Afghanistan, i.e. the rooting out of Al-Queda has been largely accomplished, and the handful of operatives still there do not warrant the presence of tens of thousands of American troops.  Operations like the one that resulted in the killing of Osama bin Laden, do not require that massive presence, since those troops can deploy anywhere in the world within hours and be onsite in a day or less in most cases. Declaring victory, bringing the troops home and remind the leaders of the region that we have the will and capability to deal with terrorists and bring them to justice and will not hesitate to take action in the future. The more these conflicts drag on, the closer we get to the quagmire that was Vietnam.

Before you sit by and meekly accept cuts to programs that benefit the vast majority of our society to protect the wealth of a privileged few, challenge your representatives in no uncertain terms to show where these programs drove the debt.  Challenge them to show how trickle-down, voodoo economics 2.0 fostered a climate of domestic job creation.  Truth is that there is no evidence to support either claim.  If we make our elected representatives accountable to the people rather than corporate interests we can make great strides in reclaiming our nation back from the forces that seek to return us to 1800s.