Bush and Uncle Dick walking away from the Pay-Day Loan Store.

[mojowork_n]

Henry Paulson, Bush's treasury secretary, was on C-SPAN earlier this morning, facing off with a couple of Democratic Senators. He was still defending the 'tax cuts only' economic stimulus proposal passed in the House.

On the one hand it's the same old snake oil 'tax-cut trickle-down creates jobs and grows the economy' nonsense. On the other hand, Bush's 3 trillion dollar budget proposal just submitted has a stated increase for *defense spending* of 7 %.

Paulson didn't want to address a single one of the 25 separate "revenue increases" in that budget proposal. He didn't want to talk about increases for infrastructure spending that were left out of the proposal, that might have had a chance to provide an actual domestic kick to the economy.

Instead we're exporting new job growth to Iraq, for the benefit of Halliburton, Blackwater, and Kellog, Brown and Root (or whatever they're calling themselves these days), and to Big Government. Growth in the government jobs sector is out-pacing every other part of the domestic economy.

With a 400 billion dollar annual deficit, the only way those war increases are being paid for is through the good graces of foreigners, who are buying up our debt at the same time that they're cherry-picking purchases of major American domestic infrastructure assets. Prime real estate, financial institutions, and the bluest of blue chip assets.

It's not just me and you holding garage sales, or going to the PayDay Loan Store to get the car fixed. Bush and Cheney are using the same pay-as-you-go strategy, to keep their war going.

The U.S. has less than 5 percent of the world's population.

We use 25 percent of the planet's oil.

We spend 50 percent (as much as the rest of the planet, combined), on "defense." (At least that's what they said in the movie, Syriana.)

The actual three billion dollar budget proposal just submitted to Congress doesn't include any money, at all, for Iraq next year. As if our troops will be marching home with flowers in their rifle barrels, any time soon. (When we wake up in the morning -- tomorrow, maybe -- and the nightmare is over and the Boogeyman is gone.)

The accounting dollars for "Defense Spending" aren't combined with any of the numbers for the "War on Terror", or "Homeland Security", or any of the other growth areas of the economy. So it is really hard to tell how many cumulative resources are dedicated to "defending America, our highest priority" as Bush referred to it on Monday.

That's even more reckless and irresponsible than anything you or I have ever done, to get the rent or mortgage paid, to help granddad pay for his prescription, or to pay off Paulie Walnuts and Tony Soprano, for that load of copper pipes Johnny boosted from that foreclosed, abandoned house, last month.

At the same time, oil company profits are off the charts and capital flight out of the country, to offshore accounts (as the derivative markets are tanking), is a crime against future generations of Americans.

Nobody can stop the dollar/oil back and forth flow, between the Oil-Have's and Oil-Have-Not's.

As Arthur Jensen (Ned Beatty) said in the movie, Network:

You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it!! Is that clear?! You think you've merely stopped a business deal. That is not the case. The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back! It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity! It is ecological balance! You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multi-national dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, Reichmarks, Yen, Rubles, Pounds, and Shekels. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and YOU WILL ATONE! Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale? You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today. What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state — Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that perfect world in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality — one vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock, all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused.

Too bad Henry Paulson -- or any of the all-tax-cuts-all-the-time guys -- aren't nearly as direct, articulate, or forthcoming as Paddy Chayefski's character.

The debate in the Senate, in the next few days, should be fascinating.

This is where things were at, last night:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=3169430&mesg_id=3169430


No wonder the top two issues in the Super-Tuesday primaries were "The War", and "The Economy."

But what if that's really just the same, single, colossal, combined issue?

As I'm typing this, CNN is saying "credit card rates are rising, and borrowers are more cautious."

[Ishoutandscream2]

1. I read that 40% of our federal taxes we pay go to the MIC

Absolutely, positively insane. Our whole military establishment needs one big fucking audit.

[mojowork_n]

2. And the segment of the manufacturing economy that's still doing well is

also all the 'defense-related' manufacturers. We don't make TV's anymore. We build tanks, submarines, and fighter jets. Also "Bradley Fighting Vehicles" (troop carriers) and SUV's.

[Ishoutandscream2]

3. Just like the old Soviet Union

Consumer goods replaced by armaments. Not good at all.

[Submariner]

4. We spend 50 percent on "defense."

To give this some scale, Iran's GNP only equals one-fifth of the U.S. defense budget.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

5. Is the Dow still down 300?

anybody taking odds on whether or not it will rally by close?

[mojowork_n]

7. 300 + drop as of 2 pm (eastern), but the guy on CNBC

is touting McDonald's, CVS, and pharmaceuticals.

McNuggets to clog your arteries and raise your cholesterol and blood pressure, and the painless, no-exercise remedies in pill form that 'cure' those problems.

I'm just really pissed off because I'm personally about as affected by all this as anyone I know. (How wonderful to be so representative of the country at large.) If the Senate version of the stimulus bill doesn't go through with extended unemployment benefits intact, and my phone doesn't ring soon, I'm afraid that I'm going to be in deep, deep trouble.

[flordehinojos]

6. tax cuts (lack of federal funds coupled with state, cities and counties tax cuts) here in florida

have meant:

cuts in community services throughout paired with loss of jobs for many county, city and state employees.

these community services include lunch programs for the elderly, head start programs for children, it has included cuts in some sanitation programs ... rat infestation is on the increase ...

tax cuts have also meant that all state colleges are considering cutting programs, professors, (if the professors go and the classes go, you know that the support staff: secretaries, maintenance workers etc., will also go).

tax cuts have also meant a slow down in the economy and an increase in crime.

it has meant an increase in property taxes for counties trying to make up for the loss of federal/state revenues.

there is no such thing as a tax cut --- except perhaps for the very wealthiest who do not need to depend on government programs to survive.

bush and his republicans have made a mockery out of us and ...

[mojowork_n]

8. On the other side of the ledger, budget numbers are a joke.

Where the money from all those tax cuts ends up, subtracting whatever doesn't get off-shored by those taking a chunk:

Link:

http://www.counterpunch.org/wheeler02052008.html

Excerpt:

The new 2009 defense budget has just been released. The more you look into the numbers, the more things become unclear, very unclear. Most of the numbers being released today are inaccurate or incomplete, or both. Other numbers will change as the year progresses, but we do not know if they will go up or down.

The Department of Defense (DOD) says its budget request for the next fiscal year--2009 - is $515.4 billion. George W. Bush's budget as shown today by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) says the Pentagon request is $518.3 billion, a $2.9 billion difference. OMB is right; the Pentagon "forgot" to include some permanent appropriations (also called "entitlements" or "mandatory" spending) for retirement and some other non-hardware spending.

The $518.3 billion is incomplete; it does not include $70 billion requested to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But that number too is inaccurate. It does not include enough money to fight the wars for more than a few months in 2009. If the violence in Iraq stays at its recently reduced levels--or even declines - that $70 billion should be about doubled to get through the entire year. If things fall apart in Iraq and continue to deteriorate in Afghanistan, as is very likely, that 70 billion should be about tripled. In either case, the amount requested in the budget for the wars is off by $70 to $140 billion.

This barely scratches the surface of the numbers in the Pentagon's budget that are cooked by the military services, civilian managers, and budget personnel. But, to add to the confusion and obfuscation, there are other national security costs, and uncertainties, in other agency budget requests.


http://www.counterpunch.org/wheeler02052008.html