A sober summary of our country's policy
David Cay Johnston reviewed the last McCain/Obama debate regarding their economic stances yesterday, but what I would like to point out is the summary he gave on the US' economic policy in general. This points out many of the threads of economic ideas that I have been discussing in much clearer and more precise terms:
Faltering Economy Takes Center Stage in McCain-Obama Debate (emphasis added)
The fact is that we have a government-we were promised in 1980 by Ronald Reagan: “Elect me, and I’ll get you very quickly to balanced budgets.” Instead, we have four times the amount of government debt that we had back in 1980.
The taxes that Americans have paid in advance for Social Security benefits in the future were spent, principally to finance tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. Right now, with the bailout in effect next year, all of the tax-the equivalent of all the income taxes that you pay in January, February, March, April and a good chunk of May just go to pay interest on the national debt, you know, and that money goes to China, foreign sovereign funds, wealthy individuals, insurance companies. It is a transfer from working people to those who are already wealthy.
...
There is a fundamental flaw in the economic theory that we have been operating on for years. And that theory doesn’t address (what) matters, what you spend your tax dollars on. We are not spending our tax dollars on greasing the wheels of commerce, building a stable society, educating people and removing the shocks from things like accidents and disease. We are spending it on income transfers to the rich, on war, on interest on the national debt. And it’s impoverishing us steadily.
That is really it in a nutshell. The status quo is transferring income to the wealthy, and it is eating the foundations of this country out from under us.
Faltering Economy Takes Center Stage in McCain-Obama Debate (emphasis added)
The fact is that we have a government-we were promised in 1980 by Ronald Reagan: “Elect me, and I’ll get you very quickly to balanced budgets.” Instead, we have four times the amount of government debt that we had back in 1980.
The taxes that Americans have paid in advance for Social Security benefits in the future were spent, principally to finance tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. Right now, with the bailout in effect next year, all of the tax-the equivalent of all the income taxes that you pay in January, February, March, April and a good chunk of May just go to pay interest on the national debt, you know, and that money goes to China, foreign sovereign funds, wealthy individuals, insurance companies. It is a transfer from working people to those who are already wealthy.
...
There is a fundamental flaw in the economic theory that we have been operating on for years. And that theory doesn’t address (what) matters, what you spend your tax dollars on. We are not spending our tax dollars on greasing the wheels of commerce, building a stable society, educating people and removing the shocks from things like accidents and disease. We are spending it on income transfers to the rich, on war, on interest on the national debt. And it’s impoverishing us steadily.
That is really it in a nutshell. The status quo is transferring income to the wealthy, and it is eating the foundations of this country out from under us.