GOP Belly Flops Budget Talks While Trade Deficit Soars

Elaine Meinel Supkis

The tax cutting/cutting citizen's programs GOP Jihad machine is grinding its gears as the USA faces the biggest budget deficits along with the biggest trade deficits in our history. Frist won't allow on the floor debates on these topics. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking and the debt ceiling hasn't been raised to $9 trillion.

Associated Press:

It's a busy, unhappy budget week on Capitol Hill. At a time when Republicans are eager to prove their mettle on spending restraint, their deeds are falling far short of their election-year promises.

The House is poised to pad the deficit by passing $91 billion in debt-financed funding for the war in Iraq and for hurricane relief, while the Senate is working on a budget plan shorn of tax and spending cuts wanted by President Bush.

To top it all off, by week's end the Senate must vote on permitting the federal debt to grow by $781 billion to avoid a disastrous government default. The measure would allow the debt to grow to almost $9 trillion — $3 trillion more than when Bush took office.

Come on, guys! Impeach Bush! When Feingold tried to get Bush censored, everyone ran off. This profoundly unpopular guy will be worse off than the very much hated Cheney if the economic issues go where they will end up going: into the toilet.

As I keep on saying, anyone who thinks this mess will end with a birthday party for us is the sort of person who believes in Santa Claus. Well, capitalism is supposed to be pure Darwin "red in tooth and claw" and the twin to this creature is called "revolution and war" which shadows capitalist expansions and contractions.

This is why FDR and his crew were so very desperate to iron out the peaks and valleys of raw capitalism. They were very aware of the downside. Alas, as the last survivors of the Great Depression die off, the younger generations, pretty old ourselves, will have to relearn all those harsh, nasty lessons.

Specter chairs the Appropriations subcommittee that funds education and health programs. He is pushing to add $7 billion to the budget to bring such funding back to the levels of two years ago, and he's threatened to oppose the budget altogether over Bush's cuts to programs like education and health research.

"We have done more than cut the fat. We have done more than cut through the muscle. We have done more than cut through to the bone," Specter said. "We have cut into the marrow. It is that serious."

Amendment cosponsor Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said he's confident Specter's measure will pass, a view shared by top Frist budget aide G. William Hoagland.

Were is the money for this coming from? This is the riddle Americans refuse to explore.

Hint: the people funding us don't speak English as a first language.

Associated Press:

America's deficit in the broadest measure of international trade surged to an all-time high of $804.9 billion last year as the country went deeper into debt to foreigners.

The Commerce Department said the deficit in the current account was up 20.4 percent from the previous record of $668.1 billion set in 2004. The current account is the best measure of trade because it tracks not only goods and services but also investment flows between countries.

I have drawn so many cartoons illustrating red ink I feel like I live in the Suez Canal. This is way beyond out of control. Everyone I know is fearful that their jobs will be outsourced, frearful of ever finding any work at all, fear is everywhere. The young people I know are not happy about their futures, they are scared and getting increasingly angry.

Fear of this sort can and will explode suddenly. All factory workers, across all industries, are being forced back and back and back. They are rapidly losing ground now even if they can't get their jobs exported, the owners of our country simply import more labor, more and more, it just pours in, unstoppable.

This is deliberate. The red ink is deliberate. All Congress has to do is vote for the taxes to be put back to the levels under Clinton. Period. Seems terribly simple, doesn't it?

Then they can vote for tariffs and barriers. Why?

Because they WORK. Since all countries are trying and succeeding in overwhelming us in trade, we have to cut back...let them trade with each other for a while. Meanwhile, to cut down on our energy imports, we impose draconian gas rationing. People with gas guzzlers will just have to bite a bullet. Better than biting real bullets which is what will overtake us if we continue this path.

Incidentally, this will fix a lot of our CO2 problems, too. But our rash, self-centered "me-me-me" culture won't allow any of these things to happen due to choice. Only when the IMF and the oil Sheiks begin to order us around, will we be forced to change and it won't be pleasant, I assure everyone.

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Comments

[Iowan]

"All factory workers, across all industries, are being forced back and back and back. They are rapidly losing ground now even if they can't get their jobs exported, the owners of our country simply import more labor, more and more, it just pours in, unstoppable."

Capitalism needs either cheap labor or cheap energy to function. There can be no surplus with which to "reward" the capitalist without one or the other. Of course, they would prefer both. They realize that the age of cheap energy is over and they are doing everything they can to drive down the cost of labor. The Reactionaries (I refuse to call them Conservatives) now in power are doing everything they can to ensure the ability of capitalists to extract value from labor. The Reactionaries will drive down the cost of labor to the point where wages are equal the to cost of sustenance. You will only be able to earn enough to keep you alive. Surplus labor won't even be able to earn that--they will die off.

Nothing will be done about outsourcing, illegal immigration, or low-wage legal immigration until the American worker is reduced to penury and is happy to get any wage at all.

[Elaine Meinel Supkis]

You are correct, sir.

Thank you for being so clear about it. I try different ways of expressing the same idea, you see, if people see something in a different light it might illuminate something.