printAnother obstetrician who says “no” to spending is Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla. The good doctor has warned of “apocalyptic pain’ from an out-of-control debt that could cause 18 percent unemployment and a massive contraction in the economy that would destroy the middle class.” This is what this “leading Republican deficit hawk said in an interview that aired Sunday” on Fox News.
Sen. Coburn, who recently issued a report on government waste, warned that the U.S. only has about three or four years to get its fiscal house in order or it could find itself facing austerity measures seen in Greece, Ireland, Spain, Portugal and earlier in Japan.
For one, we already have that level of unemployment:
The real unemployment rate is 16.3 percent. The discrepancy between the official and the awful numbers has arisen because the former count, conveniently, “only those who have looked for work in the last four weeks.” “Hundreds of thousands of people, some discouraged by their failed job searches, left the labor force. The labor force includes only those who are either employed or are looking for work.”
Coburn is a good man. But hitherto there have been too few good men like him. The band (of fools) has played on for too long. “WE ARE DOOMED.”
I would give a little more credence to these Republican Cassandras if they would follow up their pontification by walking the walk (vs. just talking the talk). That hypocrite Fimian who ran in the 11th Congressional District of VA was beating his chest like Tarzan about the deficit until it came to anything concrete – then he refused to name anything he would cut (other than taxes which only makes the debt worse in the short term).
How many Republicans will rise up and end the War in Afghanistan and the War on Drugs and the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities? I’ll spare the rest of the laundry list but it is an immense list (of stupid and/or unconstitutional spending). Until then, it is mere political posturing.
It was Bush and the Republicans who took over in 2001 and took the Clinton-GOP nearly balanced budget and put the country into a wild bubble of deficits and housing speculation. Obama has emulated Bush in wars, bailouts, and spending. Meanwhile, the baby boom retirements are going cause the pension-retirement system to completely explode. WE ARE DOOMED.
I caught a little bit of the Senator’s interview yesterday myself. Of course, he was talking about how Americans were going to have to be ready to make sacrifices and “tighten the belt” etc. In typical Republican fashion however, no mention of saving money via stopping the never ending wars. In fact, after the interview I got the usual treat of the neocons (Bill Krystol and ilk) talking about cutting social security, medicare, etc. and rubbing his hands that he was looking forward to Obama expanding the wars. Oh yay! Had to turn it off before urping my coffee.
Dan
Dan, Ilana, et al: No doubt that Grandpa and us-eventual-grandpas will have to get stiffed one way or another (demographics dictates so) but I would think that dropping bombs on random Pushtuns 12000 miles away is not as high a priority as trying to not completely screw all the old people who (idiotically) believed the Social Security Medicare “promises”. It is why I have a hard time finding much good to say about the Republicans – they have a few good ideas but their priorities might even be worse than the (mistakenly “compassionate”) Democrats.
At least the SS/Medicare we give to Grandpa might help the American economy instead of the Afghan economy.
Aha, 16.3% sounds alot more reasonable. Most of these are from probably from private industry getting crushed under government weight…in which case, we can expect the economy to plummet even more rapidly – it’s probably already in a runaway condition.
Lets not forget, the inflation is still coming our way from the trillions the fed recently dumped into the economy. If it wasn’t for the fact that the US can print money at a whim, it would already be “bankrupt” like Greece, Ireland, etc.
A True Confession: I get cheery when I think about the looming federal fiscal blowup. I don’t enjoy the idea of elderly or poor people facing difficult times. I do like the idea of a bankrupt federal government losing its power to rain destruction and murder on helpless foreign people.
Of course, no one will escape the Great Unraveling unscathed. En route, we’ll slog through terrible inflation and uncontrolled deflation–events that wreck lives. So there’s no reason to get giddy over this.
But when Washington DC loses the power of the purse, the 50 states will stop marching to its deadly drumbeat. When federal subsidy checks stop arriving, or pay pennies on the dollar, people will look to local politicans to resolve their pain.
Most localities will adopt hegemonic politics, restrained mainly by their limited ability to extract taxes. However, a few areas may move toward individual freedom and limited government.
That’s a realistic and happy thought.