Oil, Politics and More Interesting Observations

One of the news stories yesterday was about our national debt, now at 13 trillion and counting. You'd think it was Obama's fault the way right wing talk radio has it. Make no mistake it is a Beltway problem of both Democrats and Republicans. Congress should be taking a lot of the blame as they think the taxpayers are an open cash machine. Only they think they won't see it. Ronald Reagan said deficits don't matter. True in his lifetime, because he's not around to see the end results of his tax cuts coupled with his spending spree. In the 1970s a republican strategist named Jude Wanniski came up with what he called the two Santa Clause theory. In it he strategies that when in power Republicans should cut taxes and increase spending to alarming rates, putting it all on the national credit card (The National Debt). This allows two things. One it makes the Republicans look good to the citizens for cutting taxes, and two they spend, which increases jobs across both the private and public sectors. The citizens get the best of both worlds. When the Democrats get into power, the Republicans then use every media outlet available, (Newspapers, Magazines, Sunday Morning T.V. shows, and Right Wing Radio) to scream about the deficit and demand cutting spending immediately. The Democrats then raise taxes, and cut spending to balance the budget. That way the Democrats look like the bad guys. That's what Clinton did, just look at history. Even though we had a balanced budget under Clinton, Republicans take credit for it, saying they were the majority in congress and it was they who balanced the budget. Out of the 13 trillion dollar debt this country has, Obama inherited about 11 trillion of it. The Wall Street bailouts during the Bush administration totaled around 6 Trillion alone. 700 billion to TARP, 300 billion to Citigroup, 200 billion to Fannie Mae, 1.3 trillion to non financial companies for working capitol because the banks we bailed out were unwilling to lend, another trillion in credit for banks to lend out to each other, 600 billion to buy troubled mortgages, 300 billion for the FHA to insure mortgages close to foreclosure, 1.4 trillion for interbank loans from the FHA. That's just the banking part. We also have 3 trillion for Iraq and Afghanistan wars, 1.7 trillion in tax cuts, and 130 billion in medicare drug benefits. That's just the highlights. So the next time you hear Rush or Beck talking about the deficit, ask them where it came from. Not including Medicare and Social Security entitlement programs only account for around twelve percent of the budget and ask any Republican over 65 years old if they are willing to give up those two things and you will certainly hear a no from them. We need to raise taxes on large businesses who pay no tax at all, (BP, Halliburton, and Trans Ocean) and give tax breaks to the mom and pop business owners who are being driven out of business by the large offshore companies that pay no tax, and the tax burden forced upon them to make up for. Don't think so, thirty years of trickle down economics got us to this point. It wasn't any one President, or any one Congress, it was all of them, both Democratic and Republican. Beltway at its best, America at its worst.