Excerpt: "The federal budget deficit has no economic relationship to the debt limit. Republicans have linked the two, and the Administration has played along, but they are entirely separate."

Portrait, Robert Reich, 08/16/09. (photo: Perian Flaherty)

Don't Fall for the GOP Lie

By Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog

29 July 11

Don't fall for the GOP lie: There is no budget crisis. There's a job and growth crisis.

friend who's been watching the absurd machinations in Congress asked me "what happens if we don't solve the budget crisis and we run out of money to pay the nation's bills?"

It was only then I realized how effective Republicans lies have been. That we're calling it a "budget crisis" and worrying that if we don't "solve" it we can't pay our nation's bills is testament to how successful Republicans have been distorting the truth.

The federal budget deficit has no economic relationship to the debt limit. Republicans have linked the two, and the Administration has played along, but they are entirely separate. Republicans are using what would otherwise be a routine, legally technical vote to raise the debt limit as a means of holding the nation hostage to their own political goal of shrinking the size of the federal government.

In economic terms, we will not "run out of money" next week. We're still the richest nation in the world, and the Federal Reserve has unlimited capacity to print money.

Nor is there any economic imperative to reach an agreement on how to fix the budget deficit by Tuesday. It's not even clear the federal budget needs that much fixing anyway.

Yes, the ratio of the national debt to the total economy is high relative to what it's been. But it's not nearly as high as it was after World War II - when it reached 120 percent of the economy's total output.

If and when the economy begins to grow faster - if more Americans get jobs, and we move toward a full recovery - the debt/GDP ratio will fall, as it did in the 1950s, and as it does in every solid recovery. Revenues will pour into the Treasury, and much of the current "budget crisis" will be evaporate.

Get it? We're really in a "jobs and growth" crisis - not a budget crisis.

And the best way to get jobs and growth back is for the federal government to spend more right now, not less - for example, by exempting the first $20,000 of income from payroll taxes this year and next, recreating a WPA and Civilian Conservation Corps, creating an infrastructure bank, providing tax incentives for small businesses to hire, expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit, and so on.

But what happens next week if Congress can't or won't deliver the President a bill to raise the debt ceiling? Remember: This is all politics, mixed in with legal technicalities. Economics has nothing to do with it.

One possibility, therefore, is for the Treasury to keep paying the nation's bills regardless. It would continue to issue Treasury bills, which are our nation's IOUs. When those IOUs are cashed at the Federal Reserve Board, the Fed would do what it has always done: Honor them.

How long could this go on without the debt ceiling being lifted? That's a legal question. Republicans in Congress could mount a legal challenge, but no court in its right mind would stop the Fed from honoring the full faith and credit of the United States.

The wild card is what the three big credit-rating agencies will do. As long as the Fed keeps honoring the nation's IOUs, America's credit should be deemed sound. We're not Greece or Portugal, after all. We'll still be the richest nation in the world, whose currency is the basis for most business transactions in the world.

Standard & Poor's has warned it will downgrade the nation's debt from a triple-A to a double-A rating if we don't tend to the long-term deficit. But, as I've noted, S&P has no business meddling in American politics - especially since its own non-feasance was partly responsible for the current size of the federal debt (had it done its job the debt and housing bubbles wouldn't have precipitated the terrible recession, and the federal outlays it required).

As long as we pay our debts on time, our global creditors should be satisfied. And if they're satisfied, S&P, Moody's, and Fitch should be, too.

Repeat after me: The federal deficit is not the nation's biggest problem. The anemic recovery, huge unemployment, falling wages, and declining home prices are bigger problems. We don't have a budget crisis. We have a jobs and growth crisis.

The GOP has manufactured a budget crisis out of the Republicans' extortionate demands over raising the debt limit. They have succeeded in hoodwinking the public, including my friend.

Robert Reich is Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. He has written thirteen books, including "The Work of Nations," "Locked in the Cabinet," "Supercapitalism" and his latest book, "AFTERSHOCK: The Next Economy and America's Future." His 'Marketplace' commentaries can be found on publicradio.com and iTunes.

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+55 # Kayjay 2011-07-29 18:09

We can hope that the "jobs crisis" will become a plank in at least one of our "honorable" parties platforms, come convention time next summer. And we should use next year's election season to address our dysfunctional congressional "leaders." Simply, remember the Alamo and then remember this moment, and give those tea party rats the boot!

+34 # Virginia 2011-07-30 00:53

If we don't focus on the cause of the economic collapse it won't matter how hard we try to create jobs - the problems will still be lurking until Congress regulates derivatives. The Wall Street securitization Ponzi scheme collapsed the economy and flattened at least 2 tires on the truck of the economy. Construction and manufacturing and labor and housing. Until we stabilize the economy by stopping foreclosures - the truck is not about to move and the investors will not be coming back to the market.

The banks wrote more mortgages than they can hold. Strip the loans from the banks, take them over and reconstruct them with the borrowers at 2% for 30 years - and create new revenue streams for federal and state governments.

67 Million MERS mortgages X $900 month payments X 1 year = $723,600,000,000 new annual revenue - and that's conservative.

Until the government is ready to face the fact that displacement of millions of Americans by foreclosure is only adding to the plummeting economy - jobs won't be enough to start stabilization.

+9 # ritaague 2011-07-30 15:22

Kayjay, if only party politics, including Dem., were that honest and easy, and if only we, across the country, we could realisticly count on our votes being honestly counted.

For examle,in 2008 at the El Paso Dem. County Assembly, a large number of delegates, myself included, were elected by the assmbly to go onto a platform committee at the 2008 Dem. State Assembly. We were a progressive bunch, and would have pushed for justice (i.e. fair taxation, workers' rights, healthcare, etc.) for all, and peace vs. war promotion.

But, within a few days, the Dem. party chair (same man who had worked with an N.S.A. agent, then head of the local ACLU, to keep elected dels. and alts. out in the bitter cold for hours, then intimidated and turned some away, both without cause) had us notified that he, the chair, had done away with the platform committee.

Infiltration by govt. operatives (now over 80,000 in number, at an unknown cost to U.S. taxpayers) and mass election fraud and buyouts ain't pretty, but our greed amd power addicted villainaire rulers sure do love and quash us with both.

Not much else to hope for now but a real McCoy American Revolution II (Wisconsin is leading the way), vs. Tea Party caca and their Kochsucking pols., and phoney baloney Dems. getting 'elected' (scammed) into office.

+28 # mcartri 2011-07-29 20:14

From a comment to Krugman's NYT article today: "Obama. a smart man. not a Democrat, who has chosen to dive from his boat to persuade the circling sharks to behave, when he should have thrown sticks of dynamite first to get their attention." That's the presidency of moderate, Republican Barack Obama.

+46 # Wolfchen 2011-07-29 20:24

Call to Arms...Never Leave our Wounded Behind

PART 1: As all military personnel know, we must never leave our wounded behind. Bear in mind that the wounded among us do not only redden a military battlefield. Rather, the wounded are all around us in our everyday lives. They include those injured in combat...many dying and others returning home maimed in body and mind. Often they must again fight to receive the proper medical care they are due for defending our country. Compounding their problems, some of our VA medical facilities are crumbling or being closed due to lack of proper funding. Many others have difficulty finding jobs that pay living wages and benefits so as to support their families.

Complicit with such maladies, corporations (many international in nature) are sending ever more jobs overseas. They often pay little or no taxes and are given tax incentives to further outsource our industrial base. CEOs of such “patriotic” institutions tax dodge via off-shore banking accounts.

+13 # deadhead 2011-07-30 13:37

That's business as usual in America today. There is no more "capitalism". There is only off-shore greed. These pigs are not mythical "job-creators" -- they are strictly money grubbers who could care less what happens to average blue collar or middle class or elderly Americans. They've got theirs so screw the rest. And the idiots who support Republicans and the tea-baggers are being led, blindfolded and willing, to the slaughterhous, oblivious.

+46 # Wolfchen 2011-07-29 20:25

PART 2: As is obvious to all who want to address reality (rather than snort the gospel according to Limbaugh and Fox), the wounded among us are not just casualties on the military battlefields. Among the wounded vets, there are those who are physically and mentally impaired from birth defects, accidents and industrial injuries. There are also those whose skills and employment opportunities have not kept up with the ever changing economic landscape.

In addition to the systematic dismantling of our industrial base by economically treasonous corporations (facilitated by the likes of the US Supreme Court majority in Citizens United), we have bought-and-paid for politicians and their supporters who want to further defund education, healthcare and social security. Those responsible brazenly declare their allegiance to the likes of Grover Norquist and the other sociopaths inflicting our nation with grave wounds.

+38 # Wolfchen 2011-07-29 20:26

PART 3: Yes, these are among the profiles of reality, and the wounded are all around us…civilian as well as military casualties in a nation and world too often polluted by callous indifference, ignorance, greed and crimes against society. If we’re worth our own salt, our spit, we’ll not leave any of our wounded behind…no matter the nature and causation of their wounds. Rather than opposing one another, we should be joining forces so as to rebuild our national means of production, our roads and bridges, our halls of education et al.

Transformation of our nation into a plutocracy, with a race to the bottom for the lower and middle classes, is not acceptable. Enlightened preservation of our freedoms and democracy requires individual and cooperative efforts as well as the participation of progressive government. The alternative to progress is decay and ultimately death. Of course taxes are required to accomplish such goals. They are the dues for living in a justly cooperative and creative society rather than in a wilderness of rabid and snarling wolves.

+43 # giraffee2012 2011-07-29 20:30

Robert Reich - thank you for a crisp definition of the "problem" -- which I will send to my Republican relatives/friends (although I'm not speaking with most of them these days)

I just knew the turtle was playing games and posturing with Senator Reid. After he reneged at the end of the day (7-29-2011) - I will continue to call his office and read his "oath" to the clerk -- stating that is the message to give to the turtle -- And that this oath trumps his "promise" (whatever) to Norquist. I think the promise to Norquist is unconstitutiona l, treason, and violates my rights for a CongressPerson to uphold the constitution FIRST

They did not get elected bc they signed up with a Norquist

+37 # Wolfchen 2011-07-29 20:31

4: If we want the wounded and sickly to be given proper medical care, we need to demand Universal Single Payer Healthcare. Not only would it be available to all, it’s more cost effective to provide. It would also decrease the duplicative medical component costs included in premiums for multiple forms of insurance such as Workers’ Compensation, auto and liability insurance. There’s no need for discriminatory premium gouging health insurance companies to be in the equation.

Some will decry such an implementation as being socialized medicine. Nonsense...it’s a system of healthcare that allows medical treatment and disease prevention to be provided by private facilities chosen by the patients. Pharmaceuticals are kept at reasonable prices by bulk purchases (you know, like in most of the civilized world). Call it Medicare for All, if we so choose. Much of the framework already exists, and such a universal approach can even further improve healthcare delivery.

We must also keep politicians from raiding Healthcare for All funds for other purposes such as their pork-belly bridges to nowhere. That’s how to keep it cost effective, solvent and safe from corrupt and prevaricating politicians. So you vets out there...join hands with all citizens. Don’t leave the wounded behind.

+44 # Kiwikid 2011-07-30 01:08

In New Zealand (where I live) we have a state run Phamaceuticals purchasing agent called Pharmac which buys drugs for the whole country by negotitiating bulk deals with the big phamaceutical companies, which (who?), needless to say, hate it. So much so that when the NZ Govt started negotiating a free trade deal with the US, a bevy of republican senators wrote objecting and demanding that before any such free trade deal could be signed off, one of the conditions needed to be that Pharmac had to be disbanded so that the Pharmaceutical companies would have much smaller customers to pick off and rort. Charming, the way you're elected officials are in the pockets of your big business. As an aside our health care is primarily provided by the State (funded by taxes and administered through a series of publicly elected regional health boards) - it is not run by or through insurance companies, and private hospitals have a secondary role in the healthcare system. Call it socialism if you like - it works just fine. It' s half the cost per capita of the American system and everybody is covered with good quality healthcare. It's not perfect - for some proceedures there are quite long waiting lists, but it works, and people are not dying due to lack of access to adequate care.

+6 # deadhead 2011-07-30 13:32

You know -- your comment "it works just fine" is excellent. That's pretty much how well our system works, too, in spite of the propaganda that it's the best in the world. Some procedures require a wait, yet some people (unlike systems like yours), receive no care at all. Which, in today's world and in a society supposedly as "enlightened" and (gag) "Christian", (advanced) as ours, is abominable.

0 # sonrisa 2011-08-02 16:02

how do I emigrate?

+3 # Richard Fischer 2011-07-29 20:53

Thank you Bob for clarifying the situation!

+28 # Mickeyfilm 2011-07-29 20:55

One of the greatest problems alluded to is the lack of education of the American public. Based on the current drop out rate, the population has on average a 10th grade education. A large amount of the uneducated Americans are Republican or Tea Party.

The Republican party knows this and appeals to this element of ignorance. They unfortunately have done this a long time. Under Reagan, the decline of the intelligence of the American Republican began. Why? Because the Republican party had convinced many people that the Republican party was the party of the average person, not only average but on top of that Christian. This game plan has been highly documented.

I'm always shocked when I meet a black Republican. For many years the main institution that kept blacks in back of the bus, was the Republican party. When I see poor people who have become Republicans, I'm just as shocked.

Mickey Grant, documentary director

-21 # xpatjock 2011-07-29 23:37

There's a lot of truth in this, however, altho GOP are pushing the link between budget defecit and debt ceiling, what they are doing in the US is only slightly different from the view American and other economists and bankers take of the operation of other economies across the world.... Like Greece, Argentine etc

And at a personal level, I'm sure loads of people out there would love to be able to uniltarellay raise their debt ceiling every year rather than tighten their belts..

+9 # Kiwikid 2011-07-30 11:03

The point that repeatedly seems to be getting missed by the Republicans is that there are two ways of dealing with a debt crisis: 1. Reduce your expenditure; 2. Increase your income. Obama has recognised this and has been determined that those who can afford to pay (the rich) need to be pulling their weight rather than leaving all the liability to be paid for by the most vulnerable. Oddly enough the free enterprise party seem to have missed this two way principle altogether. One would have thought that increasing income would have been their first option :-)

+22 # Patricia Chang 2011-07-29 23:43

I blame not only the Rethuglicans for the current debacle, but Obama. He has gone along with the charade; refused to take the measures necessary to improve the joblessness and foreclosure situations; caved to the Rethuglicans at every opportunity; and catered to Wall Street. The current numbers on job growth and the GDP show that his anemic measures are failing. Yet, he refuses to listen to Professor Reich, Dr. Krugman or Dr. Stiglitz. He continues with Wall Street insiders like Geithner. Obama's arrogance and pig-headedness are appalling. He sees himself as "the only adult in the room", when, in fact, he doesnt see at all. He has gone through the last 3 years with blinders on. Having folded more times than lawn chairs at an ice cream social, the Teanuts are simply expecting him to follow his usual pattern. They see no need to compromise. Neither do most of the other Rethuglicans. Obama, instead of using his Bully Pulpit to re-educate the public, uses it to reinforce Rethuglican nonsense. He is not the leader we need. We need another candidate for 2012. As his numbers tank, those of us who are able to preceive reality, must speak up and demand a new candidate with courage, insight into our problems, honesty, integrity, dependability and rational plans. Otherwise, we may end up with Romney or worse yet, a nutter like Bachmann.

+12 # dfvboulder 2011-07-30 01:18

We keep hearing speculation about how the courts would handle Obama invoking his 14th Amendment powers. Reich says that "Republicans...could mount a legal challenge." But could they? Not just anyone can bring an action in court. To sue in court, you have to have "standing." That is, you have to be a legally proper plaintiff. And my understanding of "standing" in this area is that it typically has required that both houses of Congress bring a suit. That is not likely, to say the least.

I certainly could be wrong on that, but that would most certainly where the first major legal issue would be raised. And a court would be sorely tempted to bail out on deciding such a case, by just saying that the party suing lacked standing.

+17 # Ken Hall 2011-07-30 04:42

"And a court would be sorely tempted to bail out on deciding such a case, by just saying that the party suing lacked standing."
Not this SCOTUS, the 5 RW activist judges go out of their way to promulgate their corporate agenda. See "Citizens United".
Still, it could be a powerful tactic, one that conservative administrations use all the time. Do something blatantly illegal (such as torture and wars of aggression) and by the time the issue wends its way through the judicial system, you're out of there and scot free because the next administration will give you a free pass : "Do Not Go To Jail, Collect $200 million and Take a High Paying Job in Corporate America". So goes our once great nation...

+1 # Wolfchen 2011-07-30 09:36

Interesting analysis. The Court could also refuse to hear it on the theory of it being a political issue.

+3 # deadhead 2011-07-30 13:20

The courts are stacked anyway, so it wouldn't matter. Hell, based on recent supreme court decisions, they could easily recognize Bachmann, Cantor, Boehner or any one of them as a person of standing. Since corporations have been recognized as "persons", it's only a matter of time before Republicans are judged to have hearts.

+17 # MidwestTom 2011-07-30 04:36

What if Congressmen and women had a staff of three people, paid Social Security, had no pensions, and could only serve for 12 years? Would we be in this mess? I doubt it. We have a Congress that is far more interested in being re-elected than in solving the nations problems. However, this is resolved it will please Wall Street, or Wall Street will replace them next year.

+4 # deadhead 2011-07-30 14:30

Let's not forget their "automatic Pension", even if only having served one term.

+12 # umkcsteph 2011-07-30 05:43

Prof. Reich,

Your position on the deficit is improving, biput I think you would strengthen the progressive cause significantly if you would break sharply from the deficit dove position. You're almost there, but you're still waffling a bit with statements like these:

" It's not even clear the federal budget needs that much fixing anyway."

"The federal deficit is not the nation's biggest problem."

Please join your friend Jamie Galbraith and go all the way in explaining that the ISSUER of the currency can never become insolvent; that the US government can afford to keep it's promises to the elderly, disabled, sick, poor and unemployed without cutting benefits or raising anyone's taxes; that federal budget deficits imply private sector surpluses and are therefore a GOOD thing; and that we do not need the blessings of the Chinese or the Ratings Agencies in order to keep interest rates low and employment high.

There is a lot if macro firepower out there to support you if you will take an even bolder stance on these issues.

-S. Kelton
http://neweconomicperspectives.blogspot.com

+7 # umkcsteph 2011-07-30 05:48

Also, remember that Japan was downgraded to a rating below that of Botswana, and the Bank of Japan never lost control of the short-term rate, and 10-yr rates stayed right arourn 3 percent. A downgrading wouldn't matter.

And China is perfectly free to hold dollars at the Fed insteading of converting them to Treasuries. But they won't, because Treasuries pay interest and they aren't stupid. We don't "need" them to buy Treasuries, but they will.

S. Kelton

+6 # David Driesen 2011-07-30 06:30

It follows that Senate Democratsshould pass a clean bill lifting the debt ceiling, with great fanfare and careful explanations of your point. This would, I'm sure, force the Republicans to capitulate. By making this about the budget deficit our supposed representatives not only endanger the economy, they also obscure who's responsible for the endangerment, since both sides share responsibility for not addressing deficit reduction. Once it's clear that the issue is, the crisis will dissolve and responsibility will fall where it belongs.

+1 # FLeFlore 2011-07-30 08:37

As others have said, describing how we got here is helpful; getting out of the mess is critical. I agree the focus now needs to be: What can be done to restore the USA to democracy? Two new books are encouraging, with suggested actions for individuals to improve our world based on taking responsibility for our own personal, spiritual and community well-being and growth: "How to Be Compassionate: A Handbook for Creating Inner Peace and a Happier World," by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and "Twelve Steps Toward Political Revelation," by Walter Mosley. Both were published in 2011 and are complementary in their messages.

+7 # brianf 2011-07-30 16:31

Why do Obama, Reid, and many other Democrats continually fall for the Republican lies?

+4 # fredboy 2011-07-30 18:13

The blind allegiance of GOP fanaticism is clear evidence of ideology becoming pathology.

They have destroyed and continue to attack and abuse so much that is America.

When the public finally awakens and sees we are nearing the edge I believe the backlash will be swift and most powerful.

0 # billy bob 2011-07-30 22:30

Great article.

-4 # chas 2011-07-31 13:04

robert reich, like Obama works for his wall street masters....they do not care if america crashes (neither does it seem obama cares) they will run this nation as they see fit....not to the benefit of americans but for themselves.....watch for massive inflation...Obama and his friends are the cause....

+3 # Chas III 2011-07-31 14:44

Quoting

robert reich, like Obama works for his wall street masters....they do not care if america crashes (neither does it seem obama cares) they will run this nation as they see fit....not to the benefit of americans but for themselves.....watch for massive inflation...Obama and his friends are the cause....

And...... GWshrub had NOTHING TO DO WITH IT? "they who will not learn from history are doomed to repeat it!"

+4 # Toni Mueller 2011-07-31 13:31

I don't see that We, the People, can do anything about the insanity that's occurring as we speak. Never in my 77 yrs have I seen such utter disregard for us, especially the seniors who are scared to pieces. I wonder how many suicides have occured because of Congress playing with their lives.

+1 # Mira Talbott-Pope 2011-08-01 05:15

While I agree with most of these comments, my question is how do we educated these supposedly un-educated Republicans....that is, our neighbors if not our friends? How can we get articles like this out in the public sphere?

+1 # Kayjay 2011-08-01 09:57

Hey.... I'm back following a working weekend. Anyway, I just wanted to respond to Ritaague's post. I agree that it will not be SIMPLE to make any changes. the GOP and their greedy sponsors have been moving the nation in this direction for more than 40 years. I 'm not oblivious to all the games and stacked deck to keep the greedy in control. I just believe that we need a simple and embraceable message for change. It's gonna take a whole lotta time. But empowerment and involvement by more Americans is the key ingredient. I kinda doubt a armed revolution would be embraced by many Americans. I guess things have not gotten bad enough yet. I mean people still have American Idol.... got talent.... and football on their boob tube. Thus revolt? revolution? Most Americans are unnerved by loud protests. When's the last time we really had a revolution? Oh....about 23 decades ago. I too am desperate for the change Obama promised. We all know it's gonna take time. The key is to stay in the game, cause it's nine innings long, maybe even extra frames as well. Phew!

+2 # VSweet 2011-08-01 10:04

Your editorial is well noted and factual. The Republicans is holding this nation poor people as hostage that has nothing to do with a decent and reasonable budget to meet the Aug. 2, 2011 deadline. The Republicans have defiantly and with the T Party are going to crushed this nation to total devestation and despair. Right now it seems our President and the Democratic Party are very weak from news editorials that I have been reviewing. The Poor and Working Class are the most vulnerable citizens in this nation. They are willing to do their fair share to keep our nation stabilized. It is an unreasonalbe to expect for us to continue to receive cuts and the wealthy and rich are exempted. I am truly disappointed with current government, Democratics and Republicans. Democrats for not asking that the Rich and Corporate America pay their fair share, the Republicans and T Party asking for much more from our vulnerable citizens and it seems they are getting their demands met. I wonder how our Military men and women view our nation, with no hopes for them or their families when they come home.

+1 # DrB 2011-08-01 15:04

I generally agree with Robert Reich about most everything - and I truly wish he had not chosen to leave Washington to pursue private life. I can certainly understand why someone might choose to do that. One question I have about the essay above - I'm not that up on Great Depression era politics - Did Roosevelt have the same sort of rabid, foaming at the mouth conservatives opposing him as Obama? I know he had opposition - but I don't remember them being quite so vicious as this bunch. One observation - Roosevelt, unlike Obama, was of the American Upper Class. As such, I think he was perhaps better able to deal with his UC peers. He also seemed to have a very large set of cajones (to use the polite term) and wasn't afraid of a scrap. I wish Mr. Obama would learn from that example - and not be so reluctant to stand up to the right. These facts presented by Dr. Reich are not original to him or any other economist - Obama's advisors must know this - so why not preach the truth and refuse to back away from it. This process of conservatives taking over the nation's dialogue - with no equally loud opposition - has been going on for too many years. When will there be a liberal backlash - or have we all lost our collective cajones?

+1 # Reneam 2011-08-01 17:22

While I agree almost 100% with Prof. Reich, I believe he should consider the following points: 1) Our debt problems needs to be address now. But not the way Republicans would have us which would cut entitlements and programs critical to middle and upper middle income families: the SEC, the EPA, the Interior, Energy & Education Departments to name a few. We should eliminate the Bush tax cuts and increase the tax rate from 15% to 39 % for for hedgefund managers; I recall the highest paid manager made about 3.1 Billion dollars in one year alone! To further reduce the debt, end the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan, stop any programs to offshore American jobs and place high tariffs on products imported by American corporations. 2) While I agree that we should have significant public works programs to create local jobs, let's remember that the biggest beneficiaries of the projects are the wealthy individuals and corporations, but they do not want to pay for these investments. You wouldn't have Las Vegas without the Hoover Dam! We need a public relations effort to show how the wealthy benefit from our infrastructure investmens but like parasites, they want a free meal and a free ride.

+1 # Blast Dorrough 2011-08-02 11:54

Actually,DrB, FDR held his own with his wealthy counterparts by simply bringing true meaning to the letter and spirit of the Preamble to the Constitution. Here's a series of FDR quotes from speeches and radio broadcasts:

"The test of progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, it is whether we provide enough for those who have little."
"A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car, but if he has a university education he may steal the whole railroad."

"These unhappy times call for plans that build from the bottom up and not from the top down, that put their faith once more in the forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid."

"These economic royalists [the parasitical greedy wealthy of imagined nobility] complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power. These economic royalists are unanimous in their hate for me---and I welcome their hatred."

"We know that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as government by organized mob....I should like to have it said of my first Administration that in it the forces of selfishness and lust for power met their match. I should like to have it said of my second Administration that in it these forces met their master."

+1 # Blast Dorrough 2011-08-02 12:45

Apparently BHO's true self has shown up so far via his actions in contradiction to campaign promises. He promised a revival of FDR's "NEW Deal" and thus suggested that he would be a spiritual clone of FDR. What audacity!!! No one is more disappointed in the cave-in artist than I am. Patricia Chang might be facing reality with others while the rest of us are still dreaming and fail to see that he's been spinning Corporatecraft of Machiavellian deceit and deception all along. I'm almost there for going all out to draft a true egalitarian candidate for 2012. I will not again waste a vote on BHO if failing to show up as promised, a spiritual clone of FDR. All he's shown so far is that he's great at capitulation. He must become an aggressive leader and set the political agenda based on principle as dictated by his political base and never waver. Had he done that he would be enjoying a 90% approval rating by his base, Independents like myself and even Republican voters. His failure to realize this shows that he may not be fit to be our president.

0 # whatreallyhappened 2011-08-02 17:23

End the privately held Federal Reserve.

Stick to the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Put the banksters in jail.

Put media barons in jail who dessiminate their propaganda amongst the masses.

End tax payer funded foreign aid to countries with severe human rights abuses like Israel.

Stop AIPAC bribing congress. Make AIPAC sign on as a lobby. Make Israel sign the nuclear proliferation act now. Its terrible what is going on in the world.

Nathan Rothschild said (1777-1836): "I care not what puppet is placed on the throne of England to rule the Empire. The man who controls Britain's money supply controls the British Empire and I control the British money supply." Rothschild owns associated press,, reuters, bank of england, federal reserve via massive conglomerate banks, on and on....

You can not be in govt and serve two masters.

United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379, adopted on November 10, 1975 by a vote of 72 to 35 "determine[d] that Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination".

RON PAUL REPUBLICAN 2012 (do your due diligence and wake the flock up)

Lavon Affair = 9/11

0 # Blast Dorrough 2011-08-03 05:56

"What really happened" with the GOP masked as "Republicans" is that they, to the man and woman, despise the Constitution as our Moral Compass and only Authority under our constitutional Republic. The Constitution mandates a "Republican Form of government"--not Libertarian,or capitalistic or Chinese communistic capitalism of cheap labor or any other usurped form of government being imposed on the American people by the GOP hirelings of the mega-corpo-profiteers of evil politics that blatantly make mockery of the U.S. Constitution. The letter and spirit of the Preamble to the Constitution clearly mandates egalitarian and economic justice for the U.S. working class, small business owners and the retired Seniors of those classes under a true/pure "Republican Form of government." Monarchy,fascis m,theocracies of man-revealed religions/"faiths", present-day communistic capitalism of cheap labor, American communistic capitalism based on cheap labor and monopolistic fixed-enterprise are direct opposites of our constitutionall y mandated "Republican Form of government." We must begin exposing the treason of all politicians who clearly make mockery of our Constitution and despise it as our Moral Compass and only Authority under our constitutional Republic. We must support politicians in the ilk of Senator Bernie Sanders who inspires us with political deeds of principle.

0 # Blast Dorrough 2011-08-03 06:09

A "Republican Form of government" "is wholly characteristica l of the purport, matter, or object for which government ought to be instituted, and on which it is to be employed, RES-PUBLICA, the public affairs, or the public good, or, literally translated, the public thing. It is a word of a good original, referring to what ought to be the character and business of government, and in this sense it is naturally opposed to the word monarchy, which has a base original signification. It means arbitrary power in an individual person [or fascist faction of individuals], in the exercise of which, himself [themselves], and not the res-publica, is the object."---Thomas Paine, "Rights of Man."

0 # Jeanine 2011-08-03 08:25

Read these pieces by Jeanine Molloff:

1.) "Lies Linking Social Security to the National Debt."
2.) "Rep. Conyers : Obama Demanded Social Security Cuts--Not GOP."
3.) "Social Security Tax Holiday--What's Your 'Grinch' Factor?"
They explain various aspects of the planned fraud against all of us.

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