Deficit Does Not Mean Default

by Dick Mac

Every statement, every plan, every nuance of the so-called "conservative" movement in the United States is false. I am beginning to think that people on the right aren't just clueless, I now believe they are pathological liars: from the Presidential candidates, down to the individual tea party supporter.

The history of the 20th Century shows that the way of life created by the New Deal and further enhanced by the Great Society was a major success. Our way of life before 1980, created the middle class, generated more wealth and more opportunity, created more millionaires and more billionaires than any other way of life, system of government, or economic policy in the history of mankind.

Then, a very small number of very wealthy people realized that msot Americans are without the ability to reason for themselves (see, Tea Party Express, Tea Party Patriots, Tea Party), and could be easily manipulated to undermine their own well-being.

Starting with Ronald Reagan as their front man, supply-siders got Americans signed-up. After decades of prosperity, Reagan convinced America that their streets, schools, hospitals, space program, regulatory commissions, research institutes, and global diplomatic control were folly, a waste of money, and were actually hurting them.

Reagan then led us down the primrose path back to the good-old days of 1929. Now, the same people who made Reagan the first American Government Saint have convinced us that deficit spending is the problem.

Well, America was founded on a deficit and our entire economic system (the one that is being destroyed by the supply-siders) is founded on maintaining deficits. It's how you create and build wealth. These supply-siders have told us that they are eliminating the deficit, when in reality the supply-siders are the people who have created the largest deficits in the history of mankind.

Under the governance of supply-siders (on both sides of the aisle), America has generated a public debt that is 100% of our gross domestic product, yet we are unable to maintain our country! We only spend 16% of our GDP on social programs, so the problem is not social programs! Yet the supply-siders have convinced us that we do not need health care, education, research, or anything else that makes a society a society. They tell us we need to spend the equivalent of more than half our GDP on defense contractors and corporate welfare; because if you push the money to the top, it will trickle-down and create jobs (this has never been true and will never be true).

They have been promising since 1980 that by pushing all the money to the people at the top we would become even wealthier than ever before. In reality, we have gotten nothing from the people at the top, even though we keep giving them more, and the only time we have seen growth was when we stopped doing that for a few minutes. In fact, since embracing supply-side economic theory, we have watched our economy crumble.

There are a few people in Congress who are not afraid to tell the truth, and none of them are affiliated with the tea party. My favorite, and the man I voted for in the last Democratic primary, is Dennis Kucinich. Yesterday, he said this about the debt crisis created by the House of Representatives:

We are the United States of America, the greatest country on Earth! We envision wealth, we do not default; we create wealth, we do not default; we build wealth, we do not default.

The tea party and the supply-siders (is there a difference?) will allow our nation to default. Some of them have them have invested their personal wealth so they will profit handsomely from a default (Eric Cantor), some are just power-hungry (John Boehner), and some are just so clueless and bigoted they are entertaining (Michelle Bachmann). No matter their standing in God's world, they are wrong and they are destroying America for their own gain.