Don't forget, this is exactly the WRONG time to cut back on govt spending.

[Bake]

Econ 101, folks. We're in a fragile "recovery" (if you can call it that). Cutting trillions of dollars of government spending will gut the economy and tank the recovery. Consumer spending has yet to come back. C and G are two huge elements of GDP. Cut G, what happens? GDP goes down, and we're back in recession.

Of course, that's what the GOP wants.

Obama was a fool to let the GOP manufacture this "debt crisis" and frame it as a "spending problem" at this time.

Bake

[OHdem10]

1. Are the Congress Critters aware that Cisco Systems is laying off

(firing) 1150 workers. Other Companies are contemplating
layoffs. Cavuto, Business Fox.

This "Depression Baby" thinks Hoover on Steroids as
they puff up their chest in DC and see which party can
out cut the other.

Washington must be the only place in the world whcere
conditions on the ground do not phaze the Congress.

[Enrique]

2. and that's what Obama is telling everyone to demand from Congress

yes, it's not as much as the GOP, but it's still huge spending cuts, and like you say, it's exactly the wrong time for that.

Myself, I'm going to call them and tell them to raise the debt ceiling like they always do, without any spending cuts. And then get to work on a stimulus plan to get people back to work.

[wiggs]

3. Except for Bernie Sanders, dem leaders have been bad

at pointing this out.

[CreekDog]

4. Excellent Post!

K&R!

:banghead:

[ProSense]

5. It's exactly the right time to cut back on govt spending

on wars, tax cuts for the rich and tax breaks for oil companies.

[Enrique]

6. that's the emo agenda

:-)

[Bake]

7. Tax cuts for the rich and tax breaks for oil companies do not put money into the economy

Why? Because the rich don't spend any more than they would anyway.

Defense spending, on the other hand, does contribute to employment by defense contractors. That could easily be offset, however, by domstic spending on things like infrastructure -- which is crumbling, by the way.

Bake

[ProSense]

9. Huh?

So if the government ends the tax cuts for the rich, no revenues are raised?

"Tax cuts for the rich and tax breaks for oil companies do not put money into the economy"

What does that have to do with my point?

[Bake]

10. Government spending puts money into the economy.

Tax cuts for the rich don't. End them. Raise revenues. Tax breaks for Big Oil don't put money into the economy. End them. Raise rvenues. Neither of those things adds one dime to GDP.

Econ 101.

Bake

[ProSense]

11. Yes, that

" End them. Raise revenues. "

...was my point. The other point is government spending on wars, should also be eliminated.

There is some government spending that needs to end. Reid's plan calls for cutting $1 trillion from the defense budget. That's a good thing.

Raising revenues and ending wasteful spending (and war spending is a huge waste in terms of dollars and lives) would make more funds available for infrastructure and social programs.

[Yavin4]

8. Exhibit A: Great Britain's GDP Post-Austerity

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/jul/26/gdp-figures-economic-growth-targets


What world leaders fail to understand again and again is that by slanting their policies towards the super wealthy in their country puts a major drag on their economies.

[unblock]

12. obama was a fool to let the gop...

exactly how is obama supposed to prevent a republican party, hell-bent on destroying his presidency and obstructing anything and everything he does (even if it's exactly what they once proposed), from deciding to be obstructionists regarding an otherwise routine debt ceiling vote?

and exactly how is obama supposed to prevent a right-wing media, bought and paid for (literally) by ultra-rich right-wingers serving the interests of more ultra-rich right-wingers from portraying the fiscally insane republican party as a model of fiscal rectitude and from portraying deficit levels that are too SMALL to properly stimulate the economy out of this mess as a spending problem?

of course, obama could have done things differently, but given the state of the media and the state of the republican party, do you HONESTLY think we would be in a different place today?

[Name removed]

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