Economic Prosperity and the Fiscal 'Speed Bump'

[unhappycamper]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/11/22-0




Economic Prosperity and the Fiscal 'Speed Bump'
by Thom Hartmann
Published on Thursday, November 22, 2012 by Common Dreams

An incredible opportunity is coming for America, starting in just a few weeks. The Bush tax cuts will expire. Pentagon spending will be slashed – although still hugely larger than it was just a decade ago. And, to make conservatives smile, funding for programs that keep poor and unemployed people alive and healthy will be cut.

~snip~

First, when the Bush tax cuts expire, everybody’s taxes will go up, particularly taxes on the rich and the very rich. Which means that if Democrats propose cutting taxes on working class people while ignoring the new rates for the rich, Republicans can sign on and vote for the legislation without violating their blood oath to multimillionaire K-Street lobbyist Grover Norquist. While it goes nowhere as far as it should – which would be to roll back the Reagan tax cuts – it’s a start on moving America in a more egalitarian direction.

Second, most of the cuts to the Pentagon budget are good things. The Pentagon has lost over $2 trillion that they can’t account for – it’s a good guess that you’ll find a lot of it in the 20-bedroom mansions owned by defense contractors and lobbyists that ring Washington DC – and this nation needs a healthy and robust debate on our role as empire. As President Obama said during the campaign, it’s time to do some nation-building right here at home.

And, third, by breaking out the social spending cuts and requiring Republicans – particularly in the House of Representatives – to go on record on their position to them, the American people will get to see Paul Ryan’s and Mitt Romney’s “47 percent are moochers” philosophy played out writ large. Americans will see, in a way that’s absolutely irrefutable, that the Republican Party is only out for the interests of the top one percent and doesn’t give a rat’s ass about working people or the poor. That could also set the stage for a Democratic victory in the House of Representatives in two years.