The Sequester is Good for You, and Other GOP Lies by Will Pitt

[sinkingfeeling]

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/14983-the-sequester-is-good-for-you-and-other-gop-lies

A generation of GOP trickle-down economic thievery depth-charged the American economy and set the nation trembling on the edge of collapse, combined a decade ago with massive GOP-supported tax cuts and two brutally expensive GOP-supported wars that eviscerated the Clinton budget surplus. This was followed by five years of the GOP filibustering everything and the sink in the men's room in order to thwart any genuine economic recovery, because they did not want the president to get the credit, and be damned to the people. Today, that same GOP has forced the country into this sequester nonsense because, according to their bastard gospel, closing tax loopholes for rich people and corporations in order to curb the debt they accrued makes the Baby Jesus cry.

This is all happening because the GOP - in particular, the majority in the House of Representatives - would have us all believe that the country is broke, and so government must be starved and pruned in order to bring balance to things. If they have their way in this thing, they will implement the Paul Ryan budget plan, which essentially calls for the annihilation of the social contract that has been the single most civilizing influence on the country in its history.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that we have spent $767 billion in Iraq since the invasion. The National Priorities Project, a US-based research firm, puts the number at $811 billion.

Make no mistake: Iraq was a Republican war, championed by Republicans, advocated by Republicans, defended by Republicans, which paid out vast sums of taxpayer dollars to corporate friends of Republicans.

And now these same Republicans have delivered us into this sequester because they say we can't afford things like Medicare, Social Security, clean air, safe food, the Post Office, staffed control towers, jobs, and adequate hospital care.