Republican Hypocrisy on the Deficit

Republicans continue to harangue about the deficit but are hypocritical. Many of the continuing causes of the current Federal deficit are the direct result of actions espoused and supported by the Republicans.  These include the actions taken by the Bush Administration to wage 2 wars without new funding, pass new legislation to help people pay for prescription drugs without providing any new funding, pass  tax cuts for the wealthy that did not produce new revenue or jobs as a result and support a bailout for the economy in the final months of the Bush Administration.

Now they want to say it’s all Obama’s fault. The Republican game plan if elected will not be to make taxes fairer or increase revenue to cover existing programs.  It will be to use the deficit to further cut Federal programs that help the needy, the poor and less fortunate.  For example, they want to roll back the newly passed health care legislation which will reduce the donut hole on prescription drugs, prohibit health care companies from denying health care based on pre-existing conditions and roll back a program to have your children on your insurance through age 25.

But more importantly they want to re institute the Bush tax cuts which helped the rich keep more money in their bank accounts but did not increase jobs or income for most middle class Americans.  As Paul Krugman says in today’s  New York Times,

“… flirting with crisis is arguably part of the plan. There has always been a sense in which voodoo economics was a cover story for the real doctrine, which was “starve the beast”: slash revenue with tax cuts, then demand spending cuts to close the resulting budget gap. The point is that starve the beast basically amounts to deliberately creating a fiscal crisis, in the belief that the crisis can be used to push through unpopular policies, like dismantling Social Security.

Reinstating the Bush tax cuts would cost another $650 billion or more according to Paul Krugman. He quotes Senator John Kyl of Arizona as saying that “… you should never have to offset the cost of a deliberate decision to reduce taxes on Americans.”. Senator Kyl is the second highest ranking Republican in the US Senate. The Bush tax cuts benefiedt the very wealthy, not middle class Americans. I guess Kyl would rather raise the age on social security recipients or cut health care for senior citizens instead. Or privitize your social security account so that corporations can profit at your expense. Who really thinks that average citizens can depend on the stock market for security?

Don’t be fooled by the Republican noise machine. We know what life was like under the Republicans. Unless you’re a millionaire or a corporation, history shows they are not going to help middle and lower income Americans. Voters would make a big mistake this November voting to return to the failed economic policies of the Bush years.