http://www.cbpp.org/...
Why not pound this fact home over and over and over again.
The very people that are calling the unemployed "funemployed" are enjoying the very same tax cuts that sunk us into deficit spending and who beat the war drums that also played/play a major role in creating/increasing our deficits.
http://www.warresisters.org/...
11% General Government, how much smaller can government get?
The GOP policies caused the deficit and prolongs long-term unemployment.
We need to call them on their lies 24/7.
The first chart above is from a 2004 report by the Center for Budget and Priorities
Tax Returns: A Comprehensive Assessment of the Bush Administration's Record on Cutting Taxes...
Executive Summary
The Bush Administration has stood in favor of tax cuts through thick and thin. In the midst of a booming economy and large projected budget surpluses, President Bush’s top economic policy initiative — both as a candidate in 2000 and upon taking office — was to cut taxes. When the economy slowed, the Bush Administration’s response also was dominated by tax cuts. Now, in the face of yawning deficits and its own pledge to reduce them, the Administration has again put forward large, permanent tax cuts as part of its most recent budget.
http://www.cbpp.org/...
Emphasis, mine.
IMO, this chart demonstrates that tax cuts increase the deficit because we know who implemented the tax cuts: Reagan and Bush II
http://zfacts.com/...
ibid.
And that Trickle Down Theory, Bogus! During the Bush administration, the country had the weakest economic expansion since WWII
For six of the seven indicators, the average annual growth rate between 2001 and 2007 was below the average growth rate for the comparable periods of other post-World War II economic expansions.
Notably, this expansion was among the weakest since World War II with respect to both overall economic growth and growth in fixed non-residential investment. These two indicators should have captured any positive “growth effects” of the tax cuts.
The labor market also was weaker during the 2001-2007 expansion. Both employment growth and wage and salary growth were weaker during this expansion as a whole than in any prior expansion since the end of World War II.
The 2001-2007 expansion outperformed the average post-World War II expansion in only one area: corporate profits, which grew much more rapidly than average.
http://www.cbpp.org/...
Conclusion: Republicans bad for economy, good for corporate profits.
The true cause of our deficits is reported by The Center on budget and Policy Priorities. The GOP lies are exposed.
The events and policies that have pushed deficits to these high levels in the near term, however, were largely outside the new Administration’s control. If not for the tax cuts enacted during the presidency of George W. Bush that Congress did not pay for, the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that were initiated during that period, and the effects of the worst economic slump since the Great Depression (including the cost of steps necessary to combat it), we would not be facing these huge deficits in the near term.
While President Obama inherited a dismal fiscal legacy, that does not diminish his responsibility to propose policies to address our fiscal imbalance and put the weight of his office behind them. Although policymakers should not tighten fiscal policy in the near term while the economy remains fragile, they and the nation at large must come to grips with the nation’s long-term deficit problem. But we should not mistake the causes of our predicament.
Here's a chart from the same source article, dated 1/17/2010 as the above quote:
http://www.cbpp.org/...
One more time:
THE BUSH TAX CUTS AND THE WARS CREATED THE DEFICITS, THE RECESSION MADE THEM A BIT WORSE.
Listen to the words of the grand daughter whose grandfather installed the Times Square debt clock:
And many of these very same screeching deficit hawks run and sit on the boards of many of the companies that fired.....laid off millions of Americans and are now receiving larger dividends on their investments in the very same companies that FIRED US.
For empirical evidence, you can read details here:
http://www.dailykos.com/...
How sick is this!
We need to rub the FACTS in their faces over and over and over again.
Even the teabag people should be outraged by the facts, but not if they don't know them.
THIS IS WHY THERE IS LONG-TERM UNEMPLOYMENT! imho
These two charts whisper to my intuition. Corporate cash-on-hand has risen to its highest increased levels since 1952, from 2007-Present at the same time long-term employment has done the same and the CURVE IS ALMOST IDENTICAL. Shareholders' dividends/stock values benefit while long-term employment rises.
Is this contributing to long-term unemployment? The charts seem to indicate it does:
http://online.wsj.com/...
Yell the facts from the roof tops.
The GOP, no surprise, is once again speaking with forked tongues, trying to make their victims look like the perps.
It really upsets me. How about you?
AN ASIDE OF SORTS
Here's an interesting David Hume quote from
Nothing appears more surprising.....than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few, and the implicit submission, with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers.
When we inquire by what means this wonder is effected, we shall find that, as force is always on the side of the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion.
It is therefore, on opinion only that government is founded; and this maxim extends to the most despotic and most military governments as well as the most free and popular.
Which is why Fox News was brought on board: To Dictate Opinion
Shared as food for thought. Although, with all the military technology developed with our tax dollars over the past ten years, I wonder if, in truth, force is on our side?
The force we have is the "power of the purse".
How I would love to see us, united as a country, take down one multi-national at a time via boycotts. It would have to be something with no real use or purpose like.....Soda Pop. Just stop buying it. It's really bad for your health anyway.
But even this is probably more then we can bare. All those jobs depending on soda pop.
Have we just become sitting ducks?