new meme compares government and household budgets as "simple English" explanation

[alp227]

Last edited Mon Jan 30, 2012, 12:09 AM - Edit history (1)

one of my friends retweeted this. I tweeted back the Paul Krugman article "Nobody Understands Debt" and this Thom Hartmann debate with Ken Klukowski about balanced budget amendment. Never got a response. Have you seen this image anywhere?

[baldguy]

1. This went around about a month ago.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/100279836

The National Debt is your credit card, your car loan and your mortgage combined.

And rich Uncle Moneybags, who spends most of your money & takes up most of your house, doesn't contribute anything to the family income.

The US doesn't have a spending problem, we have a taxation problem. Make Uncle Moneybags pay his fair share.


You might want to update/correct your links, too:

Nobody Understands Debt
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/02/opinion/krugman-nobody-understands-debt.html?_r=1

Thom Hartmann vs Ken Klukowski - Balanced Budget Amendments ?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x611852

[girl gone mad]

9. We spend too little and tax too much..

and spend on the wrong things.

Those are our problems.

We should be expanding our deficit right now until our unemployment rate is closer to historical norms.

[baldguy]

11. We tax too much? The US has the second lowest average income tax rate in the industrialized word.

Only Switzerland is lower. We certainly don't tax too much; we just tax to wrong people.

[girl gone mad]

12. Our middle class is taxed too heavily.

The comparison you're making is not valid since most other industrialized nations provide far more in services for the middle class, including health care, college education and infant care. Our middle class is stressed to the breaking point, relying on extreme levels of private debt creation to pay for things which are considered a public good elsewhere. One way to make up for the lack of public services in America would be to reduce the tax burden, thereby reducing our dependence on debt financing.

[baldguy]

14. Of course they are, and they feel it more because *THEY DON'T HAVE THE MONEY!!*

The top 1% have the money, yet their tax rate is half of what the middle class & poor pay.



And this income disparity has been getting worse:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/01/United_States_Income_Distribution_1947-2007.svg

America as a whole has plenty of money, and can certainly afford to increase the average tax rate, but we should dramatically increase the tax on the 1% who have all the money, and cut taxes on the rest of us who don't.

The RW just LOVES to promise tax cuts. THAT'S WHAT GOT US INTO THIS MESS! REMEMBER? The Bushies promised everyone a tax cut: The average working stiff got enough cash back to buy an extra cup of coffee each day. OTOH, the richest people on the planet GOT ENOUGH TO BUY AN EXTRA MILLION DOLLAR MANSION EACH DAY!

More tax cuts (which are advocated by the GOP and benefit rich parasites disproportionally) are NOT a solution - they're insanity.

[Gormy Cuss]

13. Those debts and education loans, IMHO.

Why add education loans? Because that kind of out-of-whack debt to income ratio is pretty typical for people in medical school and some law and business school programs so on paper they look hopelessly mired in debt. That debt however was taken on because of the prospects of being able not only to pay it off but to come out in a better earnings level than if they had not taken it on.

[Bluerthanblue]

2. a "friend" posted this on FB the other day-

this person is a rabid Ron Paul supporter.

The comparison is bogus imo, because if my family budget included people like Mitt Romney and Warren Buffett, we wouldn't have the debt that exists.

And last I checked, there are quite a few people like them living in this country- which would equate to them living in my family and being able to contribute to ensuring that our budget was balanced.

[NAO]

3. belongs in "My Right Wing Dad: an interpretive center and archive of right wing forwards"

My Right Wing Dad
http://myrightwingdad.blogspot.com/

[alp227]

4. thanks for the link!

[Bigmack]

5. I see a large balance on the credit card...

.. but how about a mortgage?

That's a biggie for many families.

Not any more, but I used to have a mortgage, car payments, and credit card debts. At one point, those were about $325K.... I was making about $50K per year.

No problem.

Personal vs. national debt... false equivalency.

[jwirr]

6. Isn't a balanced budget Norquist's idea? Isn't that why California is not able to do anything that

is not austerity?

[Prophet 451]

7. There is no comparison

This kind of simplified-to-the-point-of-absurdity "explanation" is part of the problem.

[girl gone mad]

8. Please tell your friend to learn the difference between a currency user and a currency issuer.

Families, corporations, small businesses, individuals, even state and local governments are all currency users.

The Federal Government is a currency issuer. Federal debt is not true debt.

Moreover, if the Federal Government ever decided to "balance the budget", we would instantly fall into a severe economic depression.

[JCMach1]

10. Wrong! We can give our household a raise any time we want...

In fact, our household is willfully taking jobs that pay less.

[librechik]

15. gee we not only had a balanced budget under Clinton, but a surplus. I wonder what happened to that?

morons


Why the fuck didn't we stay with Clinton's plan? Becasue Bush thought that was "your" money so he took it and spent it on what he wanted: Wall Street cronies and a couple of bloody and unnecessary wars. That's what you get with Repubs, not budgetary common sense.