Oh, How We Owe!

Conventional wisdom these days says that our debt is too large. 

And indeed it is. But the real question is, "compared to what?"

The following chart shows that as a portion of GDP, our debt is actually lower than it was after World War II.

Note that in the above chart, the drop that comes after WWII was due to a giant government spending program called the "New Deal".

Yes, we actually spent public sector funds in the face of a huge Debt-to-GDP ratio, and the result was to spur such economic growth that we grew a strong middle class, and our economy grew at such a rate that we lowered our Debt-to-GDP ratio and became the world's strongest economy.


In order to lower the deficit, we can either choose to cut spending or increase revenues.  Only one of these will work, however, because we are in a depression. Cutting spending will give the middle class and poorer people even less money to spend, further reducing Demand's ability to keep up with Supply.

So, we need to invest public funds to spur economic growth, so that the majority of people in the USA will have enough money to buy things, which in turn will be an incentive for investment on the supply side.

Our debt ratio is far less than many other countries, and less than the hole we dug in WWII. We have seen what happens when countries cut spending too rapidly, the austerity programs in Italy, Greece and Ireland have drastically hurt those countries, while our government spending programs pulled us out of the debt following WWII so that we grew a strong middle class and became the strongest economy in the world.

We should learn a lesson from history and invest public sector money in order to spur demand.

Economic growth and controlled spending will lower our debt.

Obama Cares! Tax Cut 4 MIddle Class!

This infographic from Talking Points Memo gives important information about the Affordable Care Act.

Get the facts, here...

Tax, or Penalty? Doesn't Much Matter

IN an ongoing effort to inject some rational, evidence-based thinking into the Healthcare debate, here are a couple of facts about how the tax/penalty could affect you

First, it must be mentioned that the penalty only applies to people who can afford to have insurance, but choose not to, so they can continue to 'free-ride' on the backs of American taxpayers.


Taxpayers who are required to purchase health insurance and do not will receive a notice from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) with the amount of the penalty they owe. Individuals who fail to pay the penalty are not subject to criminal prosecutions and the government cannot file notice of lein or levy any property for a taxpayer who doesn’t pay the penalty. 

The obligation for individuals to purchase health insurance beginning in 2014 was included as part of the Affordable Care Act.  The provision requires individuals to maintain minimum essential coverage for themselves and their dependents or pay a penalty of $95 in 2014. ($95!) Families would pay half the amount for children, and the requirement includes a cap on the total allowable fine per family. If affordable health insurance coverage is not available to an individual, then the penalty would be waived.  Along with the individual responsibility requirement, the Affordable Care Act also provides subsidies to some individuals beginning in 2014 to help pay for their health insurance premiums and other costs associated with their health insurance.

Taxpayers who are required to pay a fine but fail to do so will receive a notice from Internal Revenue Service (IRS). If an individual still neglects to pay the fine, the IRS can attempt to collect the funds by reducing the amount of their tax refund in the future.  Individuals who fail to pay the penalty, however, will not be subject to criminal prosecution. The government cannot file notice of lien or levy on any property for a taxpayer who does not pay the penalty.

I urge everyone to learn the facts before they adopt a position on the ACA. It is already working in massachusetts, and people ther are overwhelmingly in favor of it.

Don't believe the malarkey of the Tea Partisan Obama-haters.

BEST Reason to Re-Eleft Obama

Here is the critical reason to re-elect President Obama.

As my previous posts have shown, the country is A LOT BETTER OFF since Obama was elected, despite ludicrous claims by ignorant Republican Tea-Party partisans.

Just as Bush was able to move the Supreme Court to the Right with his appointments, there will be opportunity for the next President to appoint up to 3 new Justices.

With Justice Roberts proving to be a more reasonable person than most people thought, the Court could get back to a more centrist position where they make judgements according to the Constitution, rather than the hyper-partisan rulings by 4 or 5 of the current justices.

Phast, Phurious and Phony!

Well well, it turns out that the Republican witch-hunt that snared A.G. Eric Holder was even more manufactured than it has long appeared to reasonable people.

Thanks to well-documented reporting by Fortune Magazines' Katherine Eban, we have learned that the so-called 'gun-walking' program Fast & Furious was a fiction from get-to-go.  ATF agents didn't intentionally allow2000 guns to 'walk' to Mexico in order to track them, instead it turns out that federal prosecutors felt that the gun purchases were legal according to current gun laws, and the agents had no legal standing to interdict the guns.

Issa's kangaroo-court has been making the claim that ATF agents lost track of 2000 guns that they let go to Mexico, resulting in the death of one agent.  But his investigation didn't pursue the F n F program, nor the people responsible for the first gun-walking operation from the Bush administration. Issa didn't interview anyone related to the actual operation, instead he focused solely on Eric Holder, demanding and receiving more than 7000 documents until he came to some that, by law, Holder wasn't allowed to release.

That was what Issa was waiting for as he badgered Holder relentlessly. No matter how much the A.G. cooperated it wasn't enough for the Tea Partisan,  who are now making the insulting and ludicrous claim that President Obama intentionally let the program go forward in hopes that the resulting violence would give him public backing to enact new gun laws and get rid of the 2nd amendment.

This is completely idiotic. Obama has made no attempt to further restrict guns, and if he had such a desire he didn't need any more evidence to justify doing so. Thanks to the NRA, the United States is awash with semi-automatic weapons, and the result is exactly what Issa accuses the President of...thousands of weapons causing millions of deaths in Mexico and the USA.

As the Issa farce went forward, several ATf  'whistle-blowers' came forth to tell their side of the story. They knew of purchasers who were buying hundreds of weapons each week, and wanted to pursue these buyers to make arrests. However, as mentioned, prosecutors recognized that this type of sale is legal, and the ATF agents had no choice unless they wanted to break the law by arresting the buyers in question.

The truth is that the GOP has been following the plan they created on Obama's very first day in office, continue to attack him with coordinated accusation regardless of the truth value of such claims. The result of that plan has been to convince some otherwise intelligent people that the Obama administration is rife with scandal. Those people watching other news sources besides Fox and the Wall Street journal, however, are aware that none of the trumped up charges against Obama add up to anything other than a man trying his best to work across the aisle and pass legislation to improve the economy.

Readers of this blog know that every single economic indicator is better now than it was before Obama took office, and that the economy is improving despite the fierce opposition to such by a recalcitrant congress more interested in voting on abortion bills than jobs or other legislation. Case in point, the US Flood Insurance bill was just stalled in congress due to "personhood" amendments being added to it by the GOP. What, you might ask, does a  flood insurance bill have to do with  abortion?" Nothing. 
Despite Issa's rationale for pursuing Holder being laid bare and revealed as a large load of partisan crap, the Tea party congress held Holder in contempt.

The irony here is that the only real case of contempt is the contempt that this congress has for the American people, as witnessed by their willingness to throw the country under the bus in order to get rid of Obama.

Disgusting.