"It makes no sense to me why if you and I have to balance our own budgets at home why government isn't forced to do the same..."
This little nugget - bandied about endlessly by Rand Paul and numerous other Tea Partiers and Republicans has become nearly a brand for the new wave of legislators heading to Washington in 60 days.
While it makes for a good sound byte and campaign slogan, it is so easily refutable, and downright laughable, when framed in reality -- even for the most non-thinking American among us...
When I started my small business, a business that now employs four and provides a livlihood for my family, I borrowed to get it off the ground.
When I purchased my home - the foundation of my family's worth and our single most prized asset - we took out a substantial mortgage to own it. We still pay on that debt, with interest, as do hundreds of millions of Americans.
In 2007, America's farmers, the industrial and economic backbone of the country since its inception, held a total of over $114.2 billion of operating and capital debt, much of which may never be repaid without government relief.
In 2009, America's auto industry, another core industry behind the emergence of America as an economic leader throughout the last century, nearly drowned in nearly a trillion dollars of cumulative debt, debt which was serviced by - you guessed it - the US Government so that the automakers are now turning a profit and growing at their fastest rates in nearly two decades.
Indeed, even at home, despite the romantic notions forwarded by the likes of Rand Paul, Eric Cantor and other sudden deficit hawks, personal debt and credit spending exploded during the past decade, leaving Americans' personal savings rates the lowest since the Depression, and nearly 1 in 7 homes on the foreclosure block. And think again if you assume those debtors were just stupid, lazy low income overspenders binging on credit -- the foreclosure rates are among the highest when you look at homes of $750,000 or more during the past 12 months.
Indeed, whether it's for sound reasons, such as a new restaurant owner seeking to get her new business over the hump at opening, or for less "noble" reasons like a recent college grad with mountains of unpaid loans who also had the "audacity" to purchase a new home on credit before losing his job two months later, the premise that "we have to balance our budgets at home" is absurd across all walks of American life. Businesses must borrow to grow. Industries must borrow to adapt to change and survive ecomonic swings, and yes, you and I must and DO borrow to get a home, go to college, build a deck, survive unemployment, shoulder the cost of a severe illness in the family, get married with all the trappings, or so on and so forth. Without deficits in our lives, there would be far less homeowners, college grads, small businesses off the ground, and I guess - decks.
Someone needs to remind Ron Johnson from Wisconsin how Bemis got off the ground and grew bigger. In the end, the unemployed college grad with a new home and massive debt can cut out every ounce of spending she incurs, including food, showers, and heat, and unless she finds a way to generate more income and stimulate personal revenue growth, that approach isn't even going to make a dent in the problem. College grad - enjoy your box and overpass...go find a dumpster. So too for my company and bigger companies like Bemis or Halliburton...debt is issued and deficit spending takes place all of the time - to build new product lines, to reposition companies in new industries, and to drive future growth. Americans know this - they see it and live it every day. To reduce their own debt, they cut out firvolous spending AND seek new ways to build wage growth and generate income.
And they certainly don't give away a huge chunk of what they could make back to the employer in the name of "stimulating future earnings", nor should our government pass taxes back to the wealthiest hoping they'll parlay it into new ways to funnel it back into the government or society. It's pure nonsense.
Once again, campaign slogans and empty logic seem poised to become policy and ideology. But instead of taking a confrontational tack and ramming our own policies down the throats of Americans, we first need to redefine the argument, manuever Republicans and the impotent media into standing behind laughably poor logic and flase premises, and getting to the root of the weed - empty promises and nonsensical rhetoric. When Obama cornered overconfident and empty handed Republicans in a public debate on HCR before us all, the tide swung so quickly and decisively in our favor that the GOP was caught flatfooted. Over the next two years, instead of declaring "war" on the GOP, maybe we can embrace a bipartisan tact, if only to let the GOP set the table with their own empty and faulty "ideas" and then own the narrative and message that resonates with the people when the logic is so openly and logicly refuted.
That is how you attack the attacker. Rush and Glenn and Hannity thrive and count on flooding the air with so much rhetoric and noise that listeners and "fans" have no time nor need to boil it down to a reality based in fact. Fact that resonates because it is how they live, what they understand, and how they think of things.
Most voters don't know a thing about passing reform through reconciliation, or filibuster reform.
Almost all know firsthand that it's the raise and the bonus that pays off the debt, and not cutting out the cable bill.
Mitch, you want "bipartisanship" on your terms? Bring it on. You see, when you know the facts are on your side, and the truth is on your side, and right versus wrong is in your favor, you can absolutely let the other side set the table and pick the terms. As long as you know that when the manuevering and posturing is over, that you will be ready to boil down the facts and the truth around a narrative your average voter and critic can understand. You fight on your own terms, directly to your audience, and not through the press, against Rush Limbaugh, or by legislating in a world and around logic the average voter can't or won't understand.
I, for one, am more than willing to let Obama set an initial conciliatory tone and extend a hand toward cooperation. Let the GOP get cozy and confident about the fight. For we all know that the rhetoric and election season posturing was empty and hollow, and that as soon as we once again box the GOP in with their own untruths and on their own misguided priorties, the stale meme that our side is out of touch with Americans and behind bad policy will falter as steadily as the Bush era auto industry....
...before the debt came pouring in that saved the industry and prompted a new road to profitability.