Moment of Lies: Galbraith Attacks Lack of Evidence for Frantic Deficit Fear Mongering

[laughingliberal]

The sky is falling, but not enough to tax the rich apparently.
December 3, 2010 |

The report of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, issued on December 1, 2010 by Chairmen Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, is entitled “The Moment of Truth.” The words appear in block caps on the second page, weighty and portentous. They reappear in the first paragraph of the preamble:

“Throughout our nation’s history, Americans have found the courage to do right by our children’s future. Deep down, every American knows that we face a moment of truth once again.”

These sentences set the tone. The first is a bald-faced lie, as a Westerner like Senator Simpson knows perfectly well. To the contrary, we have often fallen under the sway of robber barons, water barons, oil barons, bison-killers, clear-cutters and strip-miners, hell-bent on maximum pillage in the shortest time. Only occasionally have a few heroes like Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt, Gifford Pinchot and Harold Ickes Sr. emerged to battle for the most precious physical elements <snip>

Read more: http://www.alternet.org/story/149075/moment_of_lies:_galbraith_attacks_lack_of_evidence_for_frantic_deficit_fear_mongering

[KeepItReal]

1. "Reagan proved deficits don't matter" - Richard B. Cheney

It's a pretty big f-ing deal only when Democrats are in power, though?

[laughingliberal]

2. Yes. An ongoing dance. Republicans explode the deficit then scream about it when Democrats get in...

power. What the Republicans mean is deficits don't matter as long as the money is being funneled to the top. They only become a problem if we're trying to feed the hungry or house the homeless.

[girl gone mad]

3. I've said it before..

Republicans accept modern monetary theory, they simply abuse our fiat system to enrich their favored class at the expense of the rest of us.

Alan Simpson has been whining about the ersatz Social Security crisis for decades, but not one peep about the very real impending financial crisis, which actually did massively expand our deficit.

[Greyhound]

4. K&R for more of that "change".