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Fox
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The Federal Budget
Crisis Hoax
By Sally Kohn
Published April 06, 2011
There’s a reason why it’s illegal to unjustifiably yell “Fire!” in a
crowded theater. Motivated by fear, crowds can do very dangerous things.
And yet here we are allowing Congress to dangerously cut federal
spending on which we all rely because, when Wall Street lobbyists
yelled, “Fire!” about the state of our nation’s budget, we believed
them. And now we are letting Congress literally trample on our future.
There is no Social Security crisis. And the extent of the federal
budget crisis as a whole is being wildly overblown to scare us toward
drastic measures rather than rational solutions.
We are being manipulated to give government handouts to the very same
big banks and corporate scam artists that crashed our economy in the
first place. We are told that what is good for big business is good for
America. But these so-called “job creators” are only creating jobs for
yacht manufacturers and maids. Check the math. The profits of our
nation’s (and the world’s) largest corporations are rising, as are the
salaries and bonuses paid to executives. Are they creating jobs? No.
Well, that’s not exactly true. I think Wal-Mart is hiring if you’re
willing to work for $7.78 and hour.
Yet big corporations and their lobbyists have literally been
manipulating our government --- both Republicans and Democrats --- to
grease the wheels for big business while putting up more and more
obstacles for working families, small business owners, homeowners, etc.
Yes, working families’ taxes are too high and yes, small business
owners struggle under too much bureaucracy. But not big business and
the super rich. No, our government is literally designed for their
advantage.
And so, at their behest, politicians of both parties --- as well as the
media owned by the very same big businesses --- tell us that the
government is broke and our debt level is unsustainable and, therefore,
we’re going to have to cut things like unemployment benefits and
funding for public school teachers. Wall Street doesn’t care. They can
afford private schools. But what are you going to do when your child
literally doesn’t have a classroom?
There’s a reason the Founding Fathers designed things so that the
federal government can borrow money and carry debt --- because, at
times like these, that’s precisely what’s needed. When the economy
recovers, the debt is resolved. For instance, economist Dean Baker
writes:
“In spite of the deficit hawks’ whining, history and financial markets
tell us that the deficit and debt levels that we are currently seeing
are not a serious problem. The current projections show that even ten
years out on our current course the ratio of debt to GDP will be just
over 90 percent. The ratio of debt to GDP was over 110 percent after
World War II. Instead of impoverishing the children of that era, the
three decades following World War II saw the most rapid increase in
living standards in the country’s history.”
Instead, big business interests lobbied for the extension of monstrous
tax giveaways to the super rich, which literally starved the
government. And then they turn around and say government is broke and
can’t afford to help poor and working families who are really
struggling. It’s like Wall Street took a bat to our collective head and
then turned around and said, “Oh, you look hurt!”
Similarly, Social Security isn’t in crisis. If you ignore the “sky is
falling” fear-mongering long enough, you’ll quickly learn that Social
Security is fully paid for through the next 30 years and considered
sustainably solvent beyond that based on current revenue levels. If
revenues go up (meaning, if the economy improves), Social Security will
be in an even better position.
Yet there are some who want to manufacture a crisis to ram through an
ideological agenda. Wall Street has wanted to privatize Social Security
for years --- not because they give a damn about improving our quality
of life in retirement but because they want to get rich off the fees
they could charge. For decades, big business has wanted to gauge
workers of wages and benefits and undermine the right to collectively
bargain. From Wisconsin to Ohio and elsewhere, they’re using the
“fiscal crisis” as a fig leaf excuse to do so.
It’s a simple formula: Make a big fuss that the system is broken and
that “reform” is needed to fix it. But in case after case, monied
interests are using that formula to actually break things that were
never broken --- to help themselves and hurt you.
Wall Street could tell the truth --- that they royally and recklessly
screwed up and are too busy continuing to hoard profits rather than
stimulate growth, and the only way to recharge our economy is with
robust, public spending that creates demand. Ah, but that would only
help people like you and me, who could get small business loans or jobs
repairing roads, who could send our kids to good public schools and
maybe even pay less to private health insurance companies. In other
words, government actually doing what it takes to spend money and fix
the economy would cut into the power and profits of big business.
If at this point you are arguing with me in your head, please note that
you are literally siding with Wall Street fraud artists and against the
interest of not only yourself and your neighbors but your children and
your grandchildren for generations to come.
Those who are trying to convince us that our government is broke and
cannot afford to borrow more are, consciously or unwittingly,
reinforcing the vastly unequal society that we have become, where the
size of the silver spoon in your mouth when you’re born matters
infinitely more than how hard you work.
Yes, our level of national debt is in the long-term untenable. And yes,
the fact that large swaths of that debt is owned by China and Saudi
Arabia is deeply problematic. The solution, however, is to use
government spending on innovation and new industries not only to kick
start a private sector that has been reluctant to create jobs but also
retool the American economy so we actually make things again and have a
broad middle class with good wages and benefits who can afford to buy
the stuff we make, creating the kind of demand we need for long-term
sustainability. But Wall Street and big business lobbyists don’t want
you to own your own business, make a good salary and have a nice house
with a reasonable mortgage. How would they make money on that?
After enough times running scared, maybe soon we’ll figure out big
business is really just crying wolf.
Sally Kohn is the Founder and Chief Education Officer of the Movement
Vision Lab, a grassroots popular education organization.
Read it at Fox News Best of Opinion
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