Plenty of whining during the past few years; some here over the Public Option, TeaBaggers, Bush Tax Cuts, and Debt Ceiling. Not effective, but ... A couple of differences this time. First, Obama and Geithner are whining with us. Second, S&P isn't wrong. Allow Richard Wolff (who you should be reading) to explain why:
The S&P downgrade is important because it clarifies and underscores two key dimensions of today’s economic reality that most commentators have ignored or downplayed. The first dimension concerns exactly why the US national debt is rising fast. There are three major reasons for this: (1) major tax cuts especially on corporations and the rich since the 1970s and especially since 2000 have reduced revenues flowing into Washington, (2) costly global wars especially since 2000 have increased government spending dramatically, and (3) costly bailouts of dysfunctional banks, insurance companies, large corporations and the economic system generally since 2007 have likewise sharply expanded government spending. With less tax revenue coming in from corporations and the rich and more spending on defense/wars and bailouts, the government had to borrow the difference. Duh!
To Wolff's list, I would add our out of control for-profit health care system. The OECD report only tells part of the story. Comparing the US annual per capita spending of $7,960 to France's $3,978 leaves out two important elements. 1) France has UHC; the US doesn't. 2) The age 65 and over population in France is 16.4% and in the US it's 12.8%. (Also note that the US spends MORE tax dollars on a per capita basis for health care than France, Germany, and the UK.)
To put some of this in perspective and in 2010 dollars, FDR added $2,840 trillion to the national debt over twelve years. In the past almost ten years, GWB and Obama have added $8,640 trillion. Somehow I can't wrap my brain around the notion that Osama bin Laden and Wall St. were three times as damaging and threatening as Germany, Japan and the Great Depression.
The difference is that WE manufactured our current wars without end, throw massive amounts of money at the crooked and incompetent bansters and brokers, deny the necessity of strict financial institution regulation (or even that it WORKED for over half a century), and demand more and not less income/wealth inequality.
When the job of government is to respond to "the markets" -- to coddle and mollify "the markets" -- and fund an ever expanding and privatized global military, "the people" will be damned.