The Deficit is not a mistake. [View All]

[txaslftist]

I recently read Lakoff's "Don't think of an elephant", and he makes an interesting observation in there. After Clinton balanced the budget (and he did it in the face of Republican opposition, which is what they want you to forget), he kept the social programs, like medicare and social security and such, largely intact, and in fact managed to find money to increase some programs.

The Republicans were furious. They'd been advocating killing those programs since they were created. Bush's tax cuts were intentional, but the intent was not just to cut taxes and shift the tax burden to the middle class, but also to resurrect the deficit. The idea being that if the deficit got large enough, it would create an emergency in the bond market and with inflation so great that the Republicans could justify cutting those programs.

In other words, the fiscal irresponsibility of the Bush administration is not an accident or a failing, but rather a deliberate ploy to create a justification for cutting these popular programs which otherwise could never be cut.

To put it more simply, the idea is to deliberately mismanage the budget and LIHOP a crisis, then respond to the crisis by doing what they wanted to do in the first place, but never could have gotten away with. Just like ANWAR.

To put it even more simply, the Republicans have deliberately fucked up our economy. They've hurt the country on purpose to get what they want and thwart the will of the people.

They are our enemies.