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Pink Slime Economics and the Most Fraudulent Budget in US History
The big bad event of last week was, of course, the Supreme Court hearing on health reform. In the course of that hearing it became clear that several of the justices, and possibly a majority, are political creatures pure and simple, willing to embrace any argument, no matter how absurd, that serves the interests of Team Republican.
From ridiculous economics to 'beef parts,' Republicans will eat anything. From left, Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, and Nebraska Lt. Gov. Rick Sheehy eat hamburgers which contain the beef product known as pink slime, or lean finely textured beef, following a news conference in South Sioux City, Neb., March 29, 2012. (Credit: CBS/AP)
But we should not allow events in the court to completely overshadow another, almost equally disturbing spectacle. For on Thursday Republicans in the House of Representatives passed what was surely the most fraudulent budget in American history.
And when I say fraudulent, I mean just that. The trouble with the budget devised by Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, isn’t just its almost inconceivably cruel priorities, the way it slashes taxes for corporations and the rich while drastically cutting food and medical aid to the needy. Even aside from all that, the Ryan budget purports to reduce the deficit — but the alleged deficit reduction depends on the completely unsupported assertion that trillions of dollars in revenue can be found by closing tax loopholes.
And we’re talking about a lot of loophole-closing. As Howard Gleckman of the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center points out, to make his numbers work Mr. Ryan would, by 2022, have to close enough loopholes to yield an extra $700 billion in revenue every year. That’s a lot of money, even in an economy as big as ours. So which specific loopholes has Mr. Ryan, who issued a 98-page manifesto on behalf of his budget, said he would close?
None. Not one. He has, however, categorically ruled out any move to close the major loophole that benefits the rich, namely the ultra-low tax rates on income from capital. (That’s the loophole that lets Mitt Romney pay only 14 percent of his income in taxes, a lower tax rate than that faced by many middle-class families.)
So what are we to make of this proposal? Mr. Gleckman calls it a “mystery meat budget,” but he’s being unfair to mystery meat. The truth is that the filler modern food manufacturers add to their products may be disgusting — think pink slime — but it nonetheless has nutritional value. Mr. Ryan’s empty promises don’t. You should think of those promises, instead, as a kind of throwback to the 19th century, when unregulated corporations bulked out their bread with plaster of paris and flavored their beer with sulfuric acid.
Come to think of it, that’s precisely the policy era Mr. Ryan and his colleagues are trying to bring back.
So the Ryan budget is a fraud; Mr. Ryan talks loudly about the evils of debt and deficits, but his plan would actually make the deficit bigger even as it inflicted huge pain in the name of deficit reduction. But is his budget really the most fraudulent in American history? Yes, it is.
To be sure, we’ve had irresponsible and/or deceptive budgets in the past. Ronald Reagan’s budgets relied on voodoo, on the claim that cutting taxes on the rich would somehow lead to an explosion of economic growth. George W. Bush’s budget officials liked to play bait and switch, low-balling the cost of tax cuts by pretending that they were only temporary, then demanding that they be made permanent. But has any major political figure ever premised his entire fiscal platform not just on totally implausible spending projections but on claims that he has a secret plan to raise trillions of dollars in revenue, a plan that he refuses to share with the public?
What’s going on here? The answer, presumably, is that this is what happens when extremists gain complete control of a party’s discourse: all the rules get thrown out the window. Indeed, the hard right’s grip on the G.O.P. is now so strong that the party is sticking with Mr. Ryan even though it’s paying a significant political price for his assault on Medicare.
Now, the House Republican budget isn’t about to become law as long as President Obama is sitting in the White House. But it has been endorsed by Mr. Romney. And even if Mr. Obama is reelected, the fraudulence of this budget has important implications for future political negotiations.
Bear in mind that the Obama administration spent much of 2011 trying to negotiate a so-called Grand Bargain with Republicans, a bipartisan plan for deficit reduction over the long term. Those negotiations ended up breaking down, and a minor journalistic industry has emerged as reporters try to figure out how the breakdown occurred and who was responsible.
But what we learn from the latest Republican budget is that the whole pursuit of a Grand Bargain was a waste of time and political capital. For a lasting budget deal can only work if both parties can be counted on to be both responsible and honest — and House Republicans have just demonstrated, as clearly as anyone could wish, that they are neither.
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53 Comments so far
Show AllOh, give me a break. Most of us hope the Supreme Court strikes down Obamacare. Just knock it off. No one's buying the ol' "if Democrats are for it, it must be good" propaganda, anymore.
Furthermore, you're the one being political, pretending the President, who declares himself to be so freaking powerful he can detain and/or assassinate us at whim and declare wars without input from Congress, is cowed by Paul Ryan and the Republicans:
"Bear in mind that the Obama administration spent much of 2011 trying to negotiate a so-called Grand Bargain with Republicans, a bipartisan plan for deficit reduction over the long term. Those negotiations ended up breaking down..."
"Deficit reduction over the long term." What does that mean? They'll take away our Social Security bit by bit? Republicans and Democrats have the same plan, Krugman. They want the same thing, and that is whatever their corporate benefactors want. Save your pro-Obama breath.
I thank Paul Krugman for uncovering some of the fraudulent aspects of the Ryan budget. But I am completely with you. lefttown, in condemning the implication that the Obama and Democrats are not complicit. They are the salespeople, the enablers, and the hypnotists who figure out clever ways to disguise the poison (for example the slow bleed of social security = payroll tax cut) and to get us to swallow the poison.
Right on.
Look, folks, if American voters were not so stupid as to elect the worst tea party corporate shills, then the democrats might not feel like they have to act reasonably (?) and meet the fools half way. Blame the American voter. Blame the corporate media. Blame rich lobby interests. Blame republicans. These are where the true blame should migrate. Why do we have to have to act like the democrats are just as bad? They just want to keep their jobs. Sure, they suck. That is a requirement of politicians.
Greg R -- I know you feel the compulsion to shill for the Demoknots... but do I sense your heart is really not into it? You must feel a bit like Sisyphus trying to roll that Democratic boulder uphill every day....
Maybe if Obama and the Dims had offered some serious changes -- as promised -- that actually improved the lives of Americans when they CONTROLLED both Houses and the White House -- then they wouldn't have gotten their asses handed to them in 2010.
Instead, Obama was focused on making sure that his Wall Street/bankster pals were flush again ... and darn if he hasn't succeeded.
Then he decided that we needed a health care plan that would make the health insurance industry even wealthier... without the threat of competition from a public option. And darn if he hasn't succeeded.
And of course he felt the need to expand the war in Afghanistan and increase the drone assassination program ... at the cost of hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of lives... and darn if hasn't succeeded at that, too.
Of course, he hasn't quite succeeded in turning Afghanistan into a stable puppet state but not for lack of effort. Even the Repugs are on board for a good ole colonial war against the Muslim heathens.
And it turns out that the fascist clowns on the Supreme Court might undermine his Rube Goldberg 'health care' plan ... darn aren't they a pain.
Imagine what else Obama might accomplish if the Repugs were not so outright contrary.
One, of many things, that continually surprises me is that so many people assume that every democrat is what, a good guy? unable to be bought? Politicians are pretty much assholes by definition. Many people don't seem to understand this. But fools who think democrats and republicans (especially today's bunch) are the same are setting up the US for something truly awful. And BAD luck with that.
The Dems repackage and rebrand the worst of the core economic Republican policies. That includes war and the awful mandate within the health care bill. And the NDAA. And putting Goldman Sachs in charge of the economy and letting bankers walk.
Then the Republican nuts condemn their own Party's policies because they are in an Obama wrapper. The only differences are with identity politics that do not cut into the bottom line. Yes - let gay people kill and die for empire. Yes, do lip sesrvice for Trayvon, but send millions of Black men to feed the prison monster. I could go on.
I do agree with you that most politicians in both parties are assholes. But if you can imagine a violent, cold, kleptocratic asshole, that's what you have. Not appealing.
There was either a mandate or there was nothing, because some of the democrats were too spineless or bought to give us a public option or anything to avoid the mandate. Get real. The richest always 'walk' except for the extremely rare perp walk of a semi-wealthy person to show that justice is fair. Please get used to the idea that Obama is not a liberal. At BEST he will do things that we like half the time, but even if he does it will seem like about 10% of the time.
" Please get used to the idea that Obama is not a liberal."
Please get used to the idea that Obama is part of the Corporatocracy.
I do not completely understand your point of view. Are you saying that the voters made a bad choice (of two bad choices) and are not sufficiently informed and activated to make a difference? If that is it, I agree. Nonetheless, I feel that exposing the complicity of the D party in the corporate coup is part of informing and activating the public and not letting them wallow in the sludge of passively accepting the situation as it stands by voting for the "sucks less" party and leaving it at that. In fact, I am not sure that the D is the "sucks less" party. I feel they are actually more skilled and effective in pushing forward the corporatist agenda, while defusing opposition at the same time.
Admittedly it is a bad time for the US public and politics, the worst I have seen in my lifetime, and there are NO EASY ANSWERS. However, understanding that in its full dimension is part of the start of the remedy. The traditional options are so blocked, I feel the remedy will have to include some very new methods of opposition, some new kinds of organization.
Look, it's a corporate world in the US. We liberals are a minority. Yes, many of our ideas and hopes have majority support, but overall, no, we're a minority. As I see it, politics from my point of view have sucked for a long time. We can take heart with small victories, or we can pound our heads against the wall. For me, my skin is too thin too pound my head. I support the democrats and hope to help push them to do better.
"most of us"?
and who would the "us" be that you are referring to
He might be referring to all those of us who want actual access to health care, as enjoyed as a matter of human rights in almost every other country on earth. Where people can see doctors and receive treatment without going bankrupt or dying because care was denied.
"Obamacare" is a cynical health-insurance-company enrichment program that requires us to give our money to insurance companies whose primary goal is to deny payment for the health care we need.
Most of us are hoping for it to be struck down? I sure hope that's not true, because then most of us are fools. I think single-payer becomes nearly inevitable if it's struck down, but a lot of people are going to suffer needlessly because they can't get access to health care until that great day finally comes, maybe a generation from now.
Stop putting words in Krugman's mouth. He didn't say "cowed by Paul Ryan and the Republicans" You said that. Krugman correctly pointed out that Obama tried to negotiate a long-term solution both sides could live with. Obama was foolish, and tragically wrong in that belief, but he wasn't "cowed".
I can't fathom how anyone could look at that budget, or the political hackery on the supreme court, the campaign to attack Iran, or the campaigns by Republicans to take away women's rights, voting rights, the right to organize and so on, and still pretend the parties are the same. Whoever thinks that is wilfully ignorant.
I've been convinced by Obama's cadre that I must, and so, will, vote for the lesser of two evils this November. I'm not yet decided which third party or other write in candidate that will be.
How will you tell which evil is the lesser one? Obama has done far more to reduce civil liberties and the social safety net than any republican could have done.
Look at Ryan's budget and then imagine him as President in 2016. If you don't think that is god awful, then you are a fool.
Look at Obama's record in office and then imagine his second term. If you don't think that is god awful, then you are a fool.
Hector, on re-reading your comment I see I entirely missed your point. Sorry.
Just to tie this story to another one on CD today, there is some investigations going on to see if prions similar to the ones that cause mad cow disease might have something to do with Autism and other diseases of the mind. Pink slime contains spinal tissue and prions are know to be found in that tissue along with cow brains.
Something to think about while you still can...
http://betaamyloidcjd.blogspot.com/2010/09/alzheimers-autism-amyotrophic-lateral.html
"This project proposes to link the chemistry of the prion protein to the new territory of other nervous system diseases, such as ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) and the socialization disorder autism-diseases which are at least one thousand times more common than prion diseases. It is believed that a different type or prion protein may operate in other types of brain diseases, which could lead to new ways of thinking about incurable disorders. "
On a related note, maybe if Perry had laid off the pink slime hamburg he might have done better in the debates? No?
Our best chance of defeating the elite may not be OWS.
Perhaps instead we should work to ensure a never ending supply of pink slime burgers to every forever war/free market politician.
Then we can sit back and watch as their bodies and minds atrophy into a pile of goo.
NC Tom -- Interesting link.
Fascinating implications if many additional neurological disorders are linked to our consumption of soylent green... er... pink slime from our corporate overlords.
Who could've predicted that the "R" team would present a fraudulent budget?
Now Obama can begin his negotiations somewhere only slightly less to the right of Ryan's proposal.
This will allow gatekeepers like Krugman and Reich to claim Obama is taking a practical centrist position from which he will inch even further to the right.
In the end Obama will substantively given Ryan and the "R's" virtually everything they demanded but rhetorically claim bi-partisan consensus victory (whatever that means).
The whole cadre of sellout economists and left wing talkers will stand up and cheer while name call those on the left who refuse to join them.
"In the end Obama will substantively given Ryan and the "R's" virtually everything they demanded but rhetorically claim bi-partisan consensus victory (whatever that means)."
That will probably be the outcome.
Like the pot calling the kettle black, ol' Kruggy thinks we can borrow our way back to virginity. I can't wait for the budget or 2016 and the promise of WorkCampFare.
I don't get your post. Are you one of the austerity nuts?
Austerity will quickly finish the country off. More debt will also finish the country off. If dollars are seconds, a million bucks will equal 12 days, a billion bucks equals 30 years and a trillion bucks equals 30,000 years. Even without the off-balance sheet debt, the annual deficit is about a trillion bucks per year. How long can that go on? Either way, there are no easy answers. Krugman likes to pretend even more debt is acceptable, but what if interest rates shoot up? The country will quickly be found dead in the water.
First, at the moment America's debt is highly manageable. Second, the likelihood of interest rates shooting up in the next few years is very unlikely. If and when interest rates ever do go up substantially, we can inflate away some debt. At the moment we need to get people back to work, paying taxes instead of collecting unemployment doing nothing. The government should spend money when interest rates are near zero. This is a good deal for taxpayers. The idea that governments that have their own currency, should tighten their belts and not spend in times of slow economic activity and high unemployment is simply ludicrous.
So is this Rome, as Gaius Julius Caesar moves toward becoming dictator in perpetuum, or is it Germany as Weimar moves toward collapse? In any event, it is not good, and whoever "wins" in November will, in my judgment, make it worse.
Hector, did you change your original post because you were embarassed by its stupidity?
Are you joking? Do you have a clue concerning reality?
Republicans believe deficits don't matter as their last VP admitted. That is why Krugman points out that their "budget" doesn't specify cuts, just spending. As a member of their club I'm afraid you won't be receiving any benefits. You are considered a patsy by the GOP club but are very welcome for that reason. They need your vote so that genuine budget-cutters don't get in the way of their clients.
Your comment might make sense if "responsibly" had a very different meaning than any I'm acquainted with.
Americans are consumers. Fast food, fast talking shills and plastic junk, fill our bodies, homes and minds. We complain but continue to tithe. The noose tightens, we clutch the remote. Alas
Pink slime it is--but oh so tasty and so effective in masking the taste of otherwise rotting parts of the carcass that have been ground up and mixed in with it. And who is to tell us that we should not gorge on the offering if that is what we crave our fill of. Warnings at this point are useless. The only solution is a purgative. Eat his budget up America and when it sickens and disables you hope the you have enough strength to vomit it up, to purge yourself of the poison because that is the only way an entity as collectively stupid and deluded as you are will ever learn its lesson.
Glad to say that I'm only visiting this planet! You people are Nucking Futs! Morons voting for morons, what a F***ing concept! Where the hell is Clatto and especially Gort when you need them!
Interesting to see how the right wing trolls lie in wait for Krugman's column to appear. I have to admire their organizational skill. Do you guys have a phone tree going or something? Or am I wrong, and what I am actually seeing is the famous left-wing circular firing squad?
The great leap forward
...still waiting
If you truly are "reallycurious," then why not do a little studying, try to actually learn something, instead of lame jokiness.
Krugman worked in the Reagan White House, for the Bill Clinton campaign and was widely regarded as an "apologist" for Hillary Clinton during her prez primary run.
Clearly, he knows all about fraudulent budgets.
Clearly, you understand how to toss some worthless bs into the conversation.
Greg R. Comment cop?
As I read the article I do not see any pro democrat spin. Krugman slams the republican bill and states that a grand bargin was attempted. I did not see any endorsement of that bargin and do not see where he wrong to state there is no dealing with the GOP. The GOP has been taken over by a group so right wing they make Nixon look red. What does not change is his basic premis that the ryan budget is for the 1 % and the rest of us are on our own (till it comes to fighting one of their wars for them that is). Many of thepeople who post here seem to be devotes of Fox news and continually attempt to change the narative.
You are what you eat, boys!
One thing that never seems to be in the discussion of deficit and Medicare reduction is the effect of law enforcement, a favorite political football. What does law enforcement have to do with the deficit and Medicare? According to a "60 Minutes" investigation fraud costs Medicare $60 billion annually. Public Citizen puts it at up to $250 billion. Ralph Nader says the government recovers $17 for every dollar it spends in pursuing fraud. In 10 years the govt could recover, prevent the loss of or save up to $2.5 trillion, precisely the amount the special committee was looking for in 2011. Most of those people on the Hill are lawyers and many were prosecutors, so why don't they use their expertise and go after the organized fraud? As Katherine Austin Fitts says "Crime that pays is crime that stays" Just a concerted pursuit of the criminals would prevent much of the fraud. Instead much energy is spent investigating small time providers. I have a chiropractor friend who is considering not taking Medicare patients because the harassment costs her so much in time and accountant's fees. If the fraud was prevented, Medicare wouldn't be in the financial circumstances it is in. Whatever that is. The next time you are told that Medicare is such a burden on the economy you can respond with the fact that that is because of criminal negligence on the part of Congress and the Justice Dept.
Okay. that's about all that I can stomach from you guys...In the last three and a half years the current administration has had their share of troubles, but to stay silent and allow you trolls to describe the repeated attacks by the "other" corporate controlled party to remain unanswered would be a cowardly act. So here goes. Who was it that walked away from the debates on Healthcare?, on Wealth redistribution, or how about the void left in Congress when the president called for ideas from Congress on the Wall Street "Drive-by", Well you know who it was. And while we're on the subject of economic engines, why is the president still waiting for a response from the "other"corporate owned political party on the question of getting the country back to work? It's because the corporate side of wall Street can't wait to get to work with an administration that will guarantee them the business deal that they really want. Like slashing Capital gains, or a cease fire on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.and the pending legislation that another four years of financial regulation could bring to the table. I don't think that the idea of sitting around and wishing for an administration that would conform to your idea of being a quintessential form of politics will bring you any satisfaction. I would like to see some useful discussion about what you think would be a good alternative. I'm waiting...
" I would like to see some useful discussion about what you think would be a good alternative. I'm waiting..."
Democracy.
We already know that nothing good can come out of the asylum known as the congruss, with a lower approval rating than death itself. But it's good that Krugman distracts his fellow elites' attention away from the people's movement with his theatrical lies of omission. It makes achieving our agenda that much easier.
"Theatrical lies of omission" is so very, very informative, rtdrury. I hope you can come up with some more witty adjectives and phrases in the future. You add so very, very much to the discussion.
"but the alleged deficit reduction depends on the completely unsupported assertion that trillions of dollars in revenue can be found by closing tax loophole"
Actually i hear the corporate tax rate in the US is the highest in the industrialized world. It is loopholes that bring the tax burden of corporations down to almost nothing. So Prof. Krugman might be in error as far as the truth is concerned.