I AM A JEW (PART XXII - American Defenders of Israel Display a Double Standard)

As the title shows this is the 22nd part (actually the 23^rd, if you count the Special Bulletin) of the series. If you haven’t read the other parts, I urge you to do so. They are, after all a continuum. Easy access to the others can be obtained by clicking on Part I and then scrolling upwards or by accessing the label I Am A Jew.

If I were writing about the United States instead of about Israel, and I pointed out its continuing racism, despite the fact that we now have the first African-American President, few would disagree.

If I pointed out that our laws are not evenly enforced regardless of race, with far more African-Americans being arrested, for example, for marijuana possession than Whites, despite the fact that violations occur at about the same frequency, would they jump to defend the U.S.? I doubt it! But when anyone criticizes Israel for far worse human rights abuses, they cry anti-Semitism; they cry it is a smear and they point out some of the good things that can be found about Israel. But why do they have a double standard?

I have been writing these articles about the sins committed by the government of Israel that succeeded that of its founders, that came to power over the dead body of Yitzhak Rabin and has been taking Israel in a totally different direction ever since, both economically, where its policies resemble much more the agenda of the U.S. Tea Party, and in foreign affairs where they resemble the ideas of the U.S. former Vice-President, Dick Cheney.

But how is my criticism rebutted?

  

These and many more came from Albert Nekimken of Vienna, Virginia. But what do they prove? We certainly could not produce similar pictures for, say Saudi Arabia, but neither I, nor anyone that I know equates Israel with Saudi Arabia. But just because there are examples of some good things in Israel, they hardly rebut, or even alleviate, the things I have been writing about.

For example, above there is a picture of what appears to be a Muslim women riding on a bus with an orthodox man. That may be true in some places but it doesn’t change the fact described in Part XXI of my series:

Our task was to observe and record gender segregation on bus line 56. On this bus line and others both in Jerusalem and between Jerusalem and other cities Haredim insist that women sit in the back of the bus and when possible only enter through the back door.

Or the picture of the Arab Druse Colonel shown contrasted against the description set forth in an article that recently was posted on Bloomberg View entitled "Cana ‘Jewish State’ Be a Democracy" where the author points out:

Access to housing (for Arabs) is not always equal. Spending on infrastructure in Arab towns is much lower than in Jewish towns.

Some things never seem to change. I still have an exchange that I had in November of 2010 with a very liberal woman in American politics, in fact, the mother-in-law of a prominent African-American journalist.

She wrote:

I don't feel quite as negative about Israel as you do, especially since its Arab citizens are far better off in Israel than most Arabs in their own countries, to say nothing of how Jews fare in Arab lands.

My response in part was:

You may or may not remember that during the Civil Rights battles of the '60s we oft heard the argument that American Blacks were much better off than most in Africa. Arabs in Israel are Israeli citizens and they are entitled to be as well off as Jews. Whether they are better off than Arabs in other lands is irrelevant. As for Jews in Arabs lands, I think that is as irrelevant as the argument about American Muslims being entitled to no more rights than Christians in Saudi Arabia. Palestinians are not responsible for the policies of other states nor should Israel imitate oppressive states.

But the excuses for Israeli discriminatory policies go on and on, as can be seen from the photos above. At best they are saying Israel is not all that bad. Well, that may be, but it just isn’t good enough.

I welcome comments, but will not publish any, unless they have a unique relevance to the segment under discussion, until this series is complete.

I AM A JEW (PART VII - A Defense of Israel’s Policies and a Rebuttal)

As the title shows this is the seventh part (actually the 8^th, if you count the Special Bulletin) of the series. If you haven’t read the other parts I urge you to do so. They are, after all a continuum. Easy access to the others can be obtained by clicking on the titles: "I AM A JEW (Part I)," "I AM A JEW (Part II)," "I AM A JEW (Part III)," I AM A JEW (Special Bulletin)," "I AM A JEW (Part IV - The Torah & The Talmud)," "I AM A JEW (Part V - Gaza Is A Huge Prison)" and "I AM A JEW (PART VI - The Palestinians)."

As the reader is well aware by now, I am very critical of Israeli policies toward the Palestinians. However, I do want to give some space toward the opposite viewpoint, though, obviously, not equal space. My problem with the arguments defending Israeli policy is that the bulk of those come from the Right Wing media, and I call attention to those who consider themselves liberals, or progressives, which is the more popular term these days, that they frequently circulate articles from sources that they would never rely on for any other purpose.

However, there is one voice that is unquestionably progressive and yet a staunch defender of Israeli policies and that is Alan Dershowitz. Wikipedia describes him as “A political liberal."

In his article, which appeared in the Jerusalem Post dated July 7, 2014 entitled The current conflict between Israel and Hamas shatters myths (Those who want to read the article in full can find it here.), he makes a number of arguments or what he calls myths.

Myth 1: The primary cause of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is the occupation of the West Bank and Israel’s settlement policy.

He then goes on to rebut this hypothesis. This, it seems to me is setting up a straw man for I am not aware that this has been put forth as the casus belli for the recent conflict in Gaza. Instead, as I have pointed out, the cause for the rocket attacks form Gaza were triggered by Israel’s rounding up and imprisoning without trial 500 members of Hamas in response to the murder of three teenage Israelis by members of Hamas, without the approval, or even knowledge, of the Hamas leadership. (Emphasis added.)

He argues that the attacks from Gaza on Israel:

...are incited by the Muslim Brotherhood, Iran, Syria and others opposed to the very concept of the nationstate for the Jewish people. The best proof of this reality is that these attacks began as soon as Israel ended its occupation of Gaza and uprooted all the civilian settlements from that area. Israel left behind agricultural hothouses and other equipment that the residents of Gaza could have used to build a decent society.

This is a damming charge. For it puts forth that Gaza had been given its full freedom to govern itself and to build a prosperous economy and it rewards Israel with attacks upon it. What are the facts?

According to the Washington Post:  

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said the withdrawal was to increase security of residents of Israel, relieve pressure on the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and reduce friction between Israelis and Palestinians. Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement, claims that the withdrawal is the result of violent Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation. (Emphasis added)

But what about Dershowitz’s charge?:

… that these attacks began as soon as Israel ended its occupation of Gaza…(and) left behind agricultural hothouses and other equipment that the residents of Gaza could have used to build a decent society.

Here we must look to Peter Beinart, another Jewish liberal. In his article Gaza myths and Facts (I urge you to read the article in full) he writes:

If you’ve been anywhere near the American Jewish community over the past few weeks, you’ve heard the following morality tale: Israel left the Gaza Strip in 2005, hoping the newly independent country would become the Singapore of the Middle East. Instead, Hamas seized power, ransacked greenhouses, threw its opponents off rooftops and began launching thousands of rockets at Israel.

… But at no point did Gaza become its own country. Had Gaza become its own country, it would have gained control over its borders. It never did. As the Israeli human rights group Gisha has detailed, even before the election of Hamas, Israel controlled whether Gazans could enter or exit the Strip (In conjunction with Egypt, which controlled the Rafah checkpoint in Gaza's south). Israel controlled the population registry through which Gazans were issued identification cards. Upon evacuating its settlers and soldiers from Gaza, Israel even created a security perimeter inside the Strip from which Gazans were barred from entry. (Unfortunately for Gazans, this perimeter included some of the Strip’s best farmland). (Emphasis added.)

He adds: 

Pro-Israel” commentators claim Israel had legitimate security reasons for all this. But that concedes the point. A necessary occupation is still an occupation. That’s why it’s silly to analogize Hamas’ rockets—repugnant as they are—to Mexico or Canada attacking the United States. The United States is not occupying Mexico or Canada. Israel — according to the United States government has been occupying Gaza without interruption since 1967.

He goes on to point out: 

To grasp the perversity of using Gaza as an explanation for why Israel can’t risk a Palestinian state, it helps to realize that Sharon withdrew Gaza’s settlers in large measure because he didn’t want a Palestinian state.

Now when we look to Dershowitz’s allegations such as: 

…these attacks began as soon as Israel ended its occupation of Gaza…

Beinart corrects the record by pointing out:

…militants in Gaza didn’t start launching rockets at Israel after the settlers left. They began a half-decade earlier, at the start of the second intifada. The Gaza disengagement did not stop this rocket fire. But it did not cause it either.

Returning to Dershowitz’s allegations: 

Moreover, there was no siege of Gaza at that time. Gaza was free to become a Singapore on the Mediterranean. Instead, Hamas engaged in a coup d’état, murdering many members of the PA, seizing control of all of Gaza, and turning it into a militant theocracy. It used the material left behind by the Israelis not to feed its citizens but to build rockets with which to attack Israeli civilians. It was only after these rocket attacks that Israel began a siege of Gaza designed to prevent the importation of rockets and material used to build terrorist kidnap tunnels. 

I have already addressed the claim that there was no siege of Gaza at the time above. There was! As to the claim that “Hamas engaged in a coup d’état” Beinart points out: 

But Hamas didn’t seize power. It won an election. In January 2006, four months after the last settlers left, Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem chose representatives to the Palestinian Authority’s parliament. (The previous year, they had separately elected Abbas to be the Palestinian Authority’s President). Hamas won a plurality of the vote - forty-five percent - but because of the PA’s voting system, and Fatah’s idiotic decision to run more than one candidate in several districts, Hamas garnered 58 percent of the seats in parliament.

Beinart goes on to say:

So yes, members of Hamas did throw their Fatah opponents off rooftops. Some of that may have been payback because Dahlan was widely believed to have overseen the torture of Hamas members in the 1990s. Regardless, in winning the battle for Gaza, Hamas—which had already shed much Israeli blood - shed Palestinian blood too. But to suggest that Hamas “seized power” - as American Jewish leaders often do - ignores the fact that Hamas’ brutal takeover occurred in response to an attempted Fatah coup backed by the United States and Israel. In the words of David Wurmser, who resigned as Dick Cheney’s Middle East advisor a month after Hamas’ takeover, “what happened wasn’t so much a coup by Hamas but an attempted coup by Fatah that was pre-empted before it could happen.”

As for the greenhouses Beinart writes:

Israel responded to Hamas’ election victory by further restricting access in and out of Gaza. As it happens, these restrictions played a key role in explaining why Gaza’s greenhouses did not help it become Singapore. American Jewish leaders usually tell the story this way: When the settlers left, Israel handed over their greenhouses to the Palestinians, hoping they would use them to create jobs. Instead, Palestinians tore them down in an anti-Jewish rage.

But one person who does not endorse that narrative is the prime mover behind the greenhouse deal, Australian-Jewish businessman James Wolfensohn, who served as the Quartet’s Special Envoy for Gaza Disengagement. In his memoir, Wolfensohn notes that “some damage was done to the greenhouses [as the result of post-disengagement looting] but they came through essentially intact” and were subsequently guarded by Palestinian Authority police. What really doomed the greenhouse initiative, Wolfensohn argues, were Israeli restrictions on Gazan exports. “In early December [2005], he writes, “the much-awaited first harvest of quality cash crops—strawberries, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet peppers and flowers—began. These crops were intended for export via Israel for Europe. But their success relied upon the Karni crossing [between Gaza and Israel], which, beginning in mid-January 2006, was closed more than not. The Palestine Economic Development Corporation, which was managing the greenhouses taken over from the settlers, said that it was experiencing losses in excess of $120,000 per day…It was excruciating.

Facts, facts, facts;. They do get in the way of our pre-conceptions. But if we are to objectively analyze a problem, a conflict, or find a solution, we must start with the facts, and Beinart sets them forth without distortion and without bias.

I am only excerpting Beinart’s analysis here, but those who really want to see what the facts are should read both Dershowitz’s article and Beinart’s in full.

I welcome comments, but will not publish any until this series is complete. 

The President’s Re-election (More Discussion III)

In my December 4 blog post, I set forth the views of Albert Nekimken PhD of Vienna, Virginia. I urge my readers to go to that post here and re-read Albert’s comments.

My response follows:

Please read the following with care and refer to the source materials as shown by URLs. The theology of the Left is no better than that of the Right. No, I don't mean that. It is far better, but I prefer to be fact-based and realistic, and not live in any world that ignores unpleasant facts.

                       

Thanks for your input. I may be wrong, but the way I see our divergence, is that he (i.e. Roger Streit) and Paul Krugman seem to believe that in a depression or even a recession, deficits are good and the larger the deficit the better.

                       

Also that no changes should be made in entitlements, certainly not any that reduce spending. That seems to be the position of the Left, and I draw a distinction between the Left, which seems to be almost as disinterested in facts and evidence as the Right and Liberals, like myself, who are fact and evidence oriented. There is a reason why I spend so much of my time doing research in an effort to ascertain relevant facts. Krugman increasingly comes across as a shrill polemicist.

                       

I believe that deficits matter, and I reject equally the claim made by our former Vice-President Dick Cheney, that "Reagan proved deficits don't matter," and those made by Krugman. (That does not mean that I favor a balanced budget) Interestingly enough one should note that Cheney is being consistent, even now arguing against what Krugman calls "the deficit scolds.” Or as the Washington Post reported: 

"Cheney, said lawmakers in the closed-door meetings, urged Republicans to continue high levels of military spending, warning them to resist automatic cuts that were put in place in last summer’s bipartisan budget deal. He offered not a word about how to fix the enormous budget deficits and soaring federal debt....The vice president talked only about the pros of appropriate investments in defense,” reported Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who worried that lawmakers might respond to such advice by abandoning attempts to restrain spending." 

                       

But I digress. Your point is well taken. Krugman has said in so many ways that he wants to inflate our way out of the recession. He ignores history on this point and pays no attention to the terrible time we had when having let loose inflation through excessive deficit spending in the Johnson Administration, that led not only to inflation, but what came to be known as stagflation. Carter and his appointment of Paul Volker to be chair of the Fed, broke the back of that by raising interest rates, stopping the inflation, but increasing the recession, which cost Carter the election, and I have to admit that Reagan got us out of that malaise, by deficit spending. The funny thing is that if we look at the history of deficit spending, it is the Republicans who consistently do it, and the Democrats who are always balancing. 

                       

See the tables below:

(Please double click on either image to enlarge.)

The addition of the Presidents in office at the time of each deficit as a % of GDP are mine.

Please note that while during the war years '41-'45 Roosevelt (and his Congress) increased our debt as a % of GDP by a whopping 67.1%, the Truman Administration substantially reduced it by a whopping 46%, Eisenhower also reduced it, but by only 16.2% Kennedy/Johnson equaled that reducing it by 16.6% Nixon/Ford basically kept it flat, Carter resumed the reduction in deficit spending by 3.3% and then came the new Republicans screaming for balanced budgets, but under Reagan the deficit was increased  by 20.6%, further increased by H.W. Bush by 13%, decreased by the Clinton Administration by 9.7% (while having a booming economy by the way) only to have G.W. Bush increase the deficit by 25.3%, which despite all the noise is a hell of a lot less than Obama's 1st term of increasing the deficit by 10.3% of GDP in the face of a recession that is close to a depression.

If we add up all Republican and Democratic records on the deficit, exempting Roosevelt's war time spending, we get Republican - increase in deficit spending of 76.1% as against Democratic Administration decrease in deficit spending of 71.4%, and since the beginning of the Reagan era Republican increase in deficit spending of 58.9% as against Democratic increase in deficit spending of .60% even counting Obama's recession stimulus.

Which shows how easily the public is fooled into believing that Republicans are the party of balanced budgets, while the Democrats are the wild spenders. See the Pew Research Center poll which shows that the budget deficit was of the greatest concern to 69% of voters as of January 2012 and those: "... favor Romney over Obama by a 52% to 42% margin." Would they have had these views if they knew the facts? Those views are informed long before the campaign begins.

Which brings me once again to Krugman's contention that we can inflate our way out of recession by deficit spending. First as I have said before this runs the risk of run-away inflation and even stagflation as history informs us.

In addition Krugman and those who are likeminded show their inconsistency, because if the crux of getting out of the recession is deficit spending, then logically they ought to be satisfied to increase the deficit by any means, including extending all the Bush tax cuts and increase defense spending. That would have the advantage of being politically viable. But they are against this because they recognize, though they are reluctant to say so, that deficits are not the solution. Redistribution of wealth is. Recessions are caused by many factors, but one that is a primary cause is an imbalance between producers and consumers, as Henry Ford recognized, when he doubled his workers pay and started building the middle class. When producers have more resources than consumers, we get recessions and in a worldwide economy worldwide recessions. When consumers have more capacity to buy than producers to produce, we get inflation. That is a simple creed that I would think a Nobel peace prizewinner in economics, should be expounding, instead of focusing on the merits of unsustainable deficits.

That is the fundamental difference between the views of Krugman/Roger Streit and myself.

In addition Krugman/Streit want no changes in entitlements, while I believe that changes are absolutely necessary, not primarily because of the deficit, but because without changes these programs are not sustainable. As I said in my post "Social Security – An Honest Evaluation":

"But that means that even without any changes full payments of Social Security benefits would be paid to all those who are now 44 years old or older, which is better than the guarantee offered by the Ryan budget by one year, and unlike the Ryan budget benefits at a reduced rate would continue to be paid. 

"However I don’t believe that is good enough. We need to make sufficient changes so that people who are now 24 years old and are paying into the trust fund for the benefit of older generations are guaranteed full benefits. If we don’t do that, these younger generations will see little reason to support the system, and it will be doomed much earlier, simply because young people will insist that they not pay into a system from which they will not draw the full benefits of older generations."

As far as your comment below on this subject is concerned, you have to check the math and the political feasibility. You are right that SS should not be part of the budget deficit negotiations because they are not a cause for the deficit. That is the position of the President. But that doesn't change the fact that whether part of those negotiations, or separate from them, changes have to be made. Your suggestion that "making 90% of all income subject to SS tax withholding contributions," has two problems with it. By itself it will not solve the shortfall. I cannot at this moment give you chapter and verse, but I have researched this in the past and it wouldn't be enough. Secondly, it has to be politically feasible. Republicans will never allow it. So do we accept a stalemate and let SS die, or do we make such reasonable compromises as will save it.

Arguing that we need this or that if we don't have the money to pay for it is futile.

I believe that the solution I suggested in my post entitled "The President’s re-election (More Discussion)" is the right one: 

"Or we could consider changing it altogether, to kick in after 40 years of work. This would have the advantage that those who start work earlier, usually the under class, could draw earlier than those going to college, who earn more and are more advantaged. The figure for women as of 1940 are 14.7 and for 1990 19.6, so at the risk of being sexist, it might make sense to have an older eligibility age for women than for men." 

On second thought 45 years would be more realistic.

You say: As for rising life expectancies, where do you find evidence for this myth? This is downright insulting!!! You should know better than to ask me a question like that!!!! I don't deal in myths. I attack them No matter where they come from. I source everything. I wish you and others would look at my sources. I got my figures from the Social Security Administration. I am afraid that you like most others, Right or Left, reject unpleasant facts.

Now to Medicare you talk about the, "potential for legislating lower prices from vendors in the healthcare industry" but you don't say who these vendors are. Are you talking about physicians and hospitals? I can't comment without knowing who these vendors are.

As for your suggestion that we should "establish a national health service that provides services directly" while a fine thing to dream about, there is no point in belaboring that which is not politically viable.

We must live in the real world. We must focus on that which is possible, not "The Impossible Dream.” Ditto for the rest of your comments. The President is working on the possible. Obama Care, which has already extended the life of Medicare by seven years (See here and here) has the capacity through efficiencies in the delivery of health care, to further reduce the cost, particularly through the Medicare Independent Payment Advisory Board, 

As for your comments on the Defense budget, are you advocating that we let the sequester stand, even though it would decimate a whole range of vital services? I once again refer you to the excellent New York Times article entitled: "White House Details Potential Effects If Automatic Budget Cuts Go Through"  (You really have to read my source material.)

In our dreams we win great victories. In the real world we compromise when we must, rather than watching as everything we value goes down the drain but we have the satisfaction of remaining pure.

The Inscrutable Center Keeps Moving Rightward

Let us suppose we were watching a sporting event and the referees, or the umpires, depending on the sport, called far more fouls on one team then on the other. Very likely we would conclude that the team that had the most fouls called on it was violating the rules more frequently. Now let us suppose that the team that kept violating the rules started complaining that the referees were unfair and that they ought to call an equal number of fouls on both teams, and the referees complied. Would anybody think that was a good thing? Now let us suppose that the team that that had been committing the most fouls wasn’t satisfied with the evenness of foul calls regardless of actual behavior, then called for the abolition of all rules, and people wanting to seek a middle ground started saying, well lets get rid of half of them, would that be a good thing? But that is exactly what is happening.

The media, which I have criticized again and again, ought to be fearless, but they are craven. They are always seeking to call an equal number of fouls on the two political parties regardless of actual behavior.

Everything in the media has become one side says and the other says. What about facts? The media has abandoned its role as the ultimate fact finder. Thus evolution has been an established fact for many decades, but because one of our major parties has denied it, the media reports it as though it were a partisan issue.

Man-made global warming is an established scientific fact, with more than 90% of climatologists agreeing with this finding, but out of fear from the Republican deniers, the word “global warming” is rarely mentioned in our media and a so-called scientific TV channel, The Discovery Channel, runs a series on Climate Change, without ever mentioning its established causes.

If one of our parties decided that the earth was flat, or that the sun moves around the earth, these established facts, would, in the treatment by our media, become, “Republicans say…and Democrats say…” That makes our media no better than my hypothetical referees. John Huntsman, may be a good Republican in so far as he support its regressive approach to taxes and the safety net, but he says: “I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming” and warns against his party becoming the “anti-science party”.

But the question is how has the Republican Party’s Rightward drift moved the Middle so far Right.

If we start with Reagan we find that while his rhetoric laid the groundwork for the present rightward drift, his actual policies were moderate by comparison. Thus while present Republican orthodoxy is no increase in taxes or revenue to close the huge budget deficit, Reagan, when faced with a growing deficit introduced TEFRA, which is described by the Right Wing blog The Free Market as “the largest tax increase in American history” and his supply-side economic plan was described by his Vice President, George H.W. Bush as “Voodoo Economics." It was not until the Presidency of George W. Bush that the groundwork was laid for actually destroying all that had been accomplished by both Republican and Democratic Administrations since FDR, and under the guidance of V-P Cheney the plan was set in motion.

Bush tried to abolish Social Security and substitute for it “individual investment accounts," but that was met with so much opposition across the political spectrum that it was soon abandoned. But it is not opposed by the Tea Party, which is now synonymous with the Republican Party.

Instead a plan was put into action that called for creating a large deficit, taking the country from the surplus that was inherited from the Democratic Clinton Administration of  $236 billion and a projected 10-year surplus of $5.6 trillion, and turned it into a $1.3 trillion deficit and a projected 10-year shortfall of $8 trillion, while at the same time leaving the country in the worst economic downturn since the great depression of 1929.

(I believe that turning a huge surplus into a huge deficit was part of the plan. The recession was not, and Bush should not be tasked with the deficit from the TARP, because given the threat of a meltdown of the financial system, this step was essential, as was the rescue of the auto industry, and the stimulus, which had the almost immediate effect of ending the economic recession.)           

In the last year of Republican dominance (2008) the US lost 2.6 million jobs. Almost an equal number were lost in the first year of the Obama Administration, but the difference can be seen from this graph: 

I urge the reader to access and examine in enlarged size. During 2008, the last year of Republican control, the trend was constantly downward, going from minute job creation in the first two month, to a constant decline, with only two month bucking the trend slightly. After President Obama took office, and before he could take any action on job creation, the job losses remained stagnant at over 800 thousand a month. At the beginning of February 2009, the President signed the Recovery Act, (also known as the stimulus, which has been denounced as ineffective, causing the public to believe this to be true) and for the next two month job creation continued to tank, while the stimulus worked itself into the economy. But the following month the decline went from 800,000 jobs lost to 300,000 jobs lost. The following month there is a set back causing the job losses to increase by just under 100,000, and then there is a steady decline in jobs lost, until beginning in 2010 there is job creation in every single month through 2011 and continuing into 2012, but according to US News & World Report, the total job creation would be much greater, but for the constant decline of public sector jobs, e.g. in June of 2011 a disappointing 18,000  total jobs were added. But actually 57,000 private sector jobs were created, offset by the loss of 39,000 public sector jobs. 464,000 public services employees have found themselves jobless since local government employment peaked in September 2008 under the Republican Bush Administration.

Republicans would argue that what happens in the public sector is irrelevant, since in their view the more public sector jobs are eliminated the better. But I would suggest that the people who need jobs, care little whether it is a public or a private sector job, and as for the economy, every job in whatever sector adds to consumer purchasing power, the engine that ultimately drives the economy, or at least 70% of it. Certainly, wasteful jobs in the public sector (or for that matter in the private sector) are never desirable, but all statistics show that the jobs lost are not patronage jobs, but rather teachers, firemen, policemen, and other public servants providing vital services to their communities. Why are they being laid off in such large numbers? The answer is mostly the necessity of falling off revenues due to the recession, but partly due to political fanaticism, which seems to believe government and all its employees are ipso fact bad.

Nothing can be done about the political fanaticism, but as for budgetary constraints this could have been avoided if the price for support of the stimulus by Republican Senators Snowe (ME), Collins (ME) and Specter (PA) were not the elimination from the bill of roughly $40 billion in aid to states. But for that price, which had to be paid, total job creation would now be much greater, resulting in more purchasing power, and a more robust recovery. But even moderate Republicans, and not many are left, are, after all, Republicans, and if they are to cooperate, they must have their pound of flesh. See here.

But I digress!!!

As I have said many times before in my posts, it is not about the deficit. That is a phony stalking horse. Republican budgets, including the latest Ryan budget, do not lead to a balanced budget. The purpose of having created, (and I am convinced it was deliberate), a large budget deficit, was because they were hoping to use it as a cudgel to achieve what they always wanted to achieve, the abolition not only of the entitlements, but of all federal programs other than defense. This would include ending financial support to women’s health programs, abolishing the Environmental Protection Agency, formed in the Republican Nixon Administration to protect our health from the contaminants in the air that we breathe and water that we drink, to keep our food and our children’s toys safe, to make sure our drugs are efficacious and safe, and that we not return to the days when snake oil was the order of the day, etc. The list is far too long to enumerate here.

They claim that they only want to push these functions to the states, but anyone who follows state politics knows that the industrial interests that want carte blanch to run rough shot over consumers, find it much easier to do so at the state level, where far fewer people vote, where media coverage is much less intensive, and where as a result, their lobbying efforts are even more effective than they are at the federal level.

Even as I write this the Republican Party continues to drift further rightward, as Senator Lugar, who was rated by the very Right Wing Club for Growth in 2006  as having voted according to their dictates 52% of the time, and under pressure moved rightward so that in 2007 it was 57%, in 2009 it was 76% and 2011 it was 80%, goes down to defeat in the Republican primary.

No wonder Susan Collins went from an approval voting record in 2008 of 30%  to one in 2009 of 60% though she has since gotten some backbone, voting 51% and 44% in 2010 and 2011 respectively, still much more Right-wing than in 2009, and her colleague from Maine Olympia Snowe, after having gone from an approval rating from the Club for Growth of 12% in 2008  went to an approval rating of 55% in 2011, before being unwilling to give up even more of her independence, retired.

Next time I will focus on the so-called Ryan budget, which isn’t really a budget, and discuss how the so called Middle, in the face of this Rightward drift, or is it a Rightward dash, makes excuses and drifts further and further right in an effort to stay in the new Middle.

Comments, questions, or corrections, are welcome and will be responded to and distributed with attribution, unless the writer requests that he/she not be identified.

The Deficit – One Big Hoax or a Looming Catastrophe?

I have spent five blog postings discussing the deficit as one big hoax. I did so not because I think that it is something that can be ignored, but rather because as used by the Republican Party, (and their ostensible tail that wags the dog, the Tea Party) it was being used not because of a real concern about the consequences of the deficit, which after all they created with malice aforethought, but rather as a weapon with which to try to destroy our safety net, and I spent those many words demonstrating this.

To summarize, they inherited a huge surplus from the Democratic Clinton Administration and turned it into a huge deficit, one even larger than it appeared because so many expenditures, such as the wars in Iraq and in Afghanistan were taken off- budget, as was the drug enhancement in Medicare, which, by the way, President Obama has restored to the budget, making the deficit seem larger by comparison.

Their Vice-President, Dick Cheney, famously declared: "Reagan proved deficits don't matter."

And the famous Ryan budget, which provides for the abolition of Medicare ostensibly to reduce the deficit, in fact increases the deficit, something that our media has not, to my knowledge, even mentioned. I had to go the The Economist to get the shocking fact that the Ryan budget not only does not reduce the deficit, but in fact increases it by $6 trillion over the next decade.

It was for that reason, as well as an article in the financial advisory letter of Fidelity Monitor that I called the Deficit a Big Hoax.

But if the reader will return to my blog posting entitled "The Deficit – One Big Hoax (Part I)" they will find near its end the statement: “But let me be clear! The deficit does matter! It needs to be reduced over time. But there is no urgency about doing this, and it can, and should be done with some targeted cuts, which I will identify hereafter, and with mostly revenue enhancements.”

Here I must refer to a comment, which I received from Edwin S. Bernstein Esq. of Boynton Beach, Florida, who wrote in response to my post referred to above,

“I think that the deficit matters…. We do need to balance our budget…”

If Bernstein had read my post to the end, he would have found my comment quoted above that deficits matter, but more important I take exception to his statement that “We do need to balance our budget…”

The fact is that the last time we had a truly balanced budget was in 1969 (Clinton’s surplus depended on counting the Social Security surplus in the budget, though the projection of surpluses in future years was real) and during this whole time it was never a problem. However, at some point the size of the deficit matters, though where that point lies is problematic.

The idea of a Balanced Budget amendment is sheer lunacy and would put our economic policy into a straight jacket. In supporting this, proponents often try to compare the US Government either to a corporation or to family budget. It should be fairly obvious that neither comparison is apt, since the responsibilities of the government are entirely different from either. But even if we were to accept the comparison it must be noted that neither a business, nor a family, ever manages without debt. Large businesses borrow to acquire assets they need, or to expand, and small businesses often have to borrow just to meet their next payroll. In addition both businesses and families strive to increase their income, while Republican dogma prescribes a deliberate lowering of income or revenues, The extent of borrowing can easily be seen if one looks at the corporate bond market, and few families could buy a car, not to speak of a house, without borrowing. The municipal bond market shows the need for borrowing by municipalities. Our infrastructure, whether of highways or railroads, or for that matter our electric grid could not have been built without borrowing. And can anyone imagine an emergency, such as a major war, requiring large outlays, leaving us with a Constitutional restraint requiring unimaginable tax increases or abject surrender and the proposed Constitutional Amendment would make the imposition of tax increases blockable by a small minority.

The problem we face is not the size of our present deficit but the size of our debt projected into the future, if we had done nothing, (and the much criticized deficit reduction agreement the President has signed off on, has reduce this looming catastrophe) and if we do nothing, we face a non-sustainable deficit, which I will discuss in greater depth hereafter.

But before I do this, (and this will once again have to be a multi-part presentation) I want to examine the oft-repeated charge that the Obama Administration, while it may have inherited a large deficit, made it much larger through irresponsible policies. Thus if we compare the last Bush budget in 2008 with Obama’s first budget in 2009, we find that the 2008 budget had a deficit 460 billion. In 2009 Obama’s budget showed a deficit of 1.41 trillion or an increase of $950 billion, a staggering increase, and one that Republicans, and even some news organization, have been pointing to with disapproval. But rarely if ever have we seen a breakdown of how this increase occurred. Once again the media doesn’t give us the facts. But they can be found through hard work.

-$320 billion were due to declines in tax receipts due to the effects of the recession
-$245 billion—resulted from outlays for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and net payments to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
-$200 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA)
-$185 billion due to increases in primary budget categories such as Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, Social Security, and Defense – including the war effort in Afghanistan and Iraq, which had previously been off budget.
-While the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (also known as the stimulus bill) was estimated to be $787 Billion at the time of passage, only some of it kicked in 2009, with some in 2010 and later, which is why only $200 billion of the $787 billion are shown above.

See the Congressional Budget Office Monthly Budget Review .pdf and here.

For those who may be interested in how the stimulus bill broke down $288 Billion was in the form of tax incentives, $155.1 billion for Health Care, $100 billion for education, $82.2 billion was for Aid to low income workers, unemployed and retirees, $105.3 billion was for Infrastructure Investment, $7.2 billion was for Government buildings and facilities, $10.5 billion was for Communications, information, and security technologies, $21.5 billion was for Energy Infrastructure, $27.2 billion was for Energy efficiency and renewable energy research and investment, $14.7 billion was for Housing, $7.6 billion for Scientific research and $10.6 billion was for miscellaneous items. See here and footnotes therein.

The CBO estimated that enacting the bill would increase federal budget deficits by $185 billion over the remaining months of fiscal year 2009, by $399 billion in 2010, and by $134 billion in 2011, or $787 billion over the 2009-2019 period. Ibid.

As for its effectiveness several independent macroeconomic firms, including Moody's and IHS Global Insight, estimated that the stimulus saved or created 1.6 to 1.8 million jobs and forecasted a total impact of 2.5 million jobs saved by the time the stimulus is completed. The Congressional Budget Office considered these estimates conservative. The CBO estimated according to its model 2.1 million jobs saved in the last quarter of 2009, boosting the economy by up to 3.5 percent and lowering the unemployment rate by up to 2.1 percent. Congressional Budget Office Monthly Budget Review .pdf and Ibid.

For the 2010 fiscal year the spending came to $3.456 trillion with tax receipts of $2.162 trillion, or a deficit of $1.294 trillion, which is a decrease in the deficit $116 billion.

(For those who may not be used to such astronomical figures, a trillion is 1,000 billion)

Given these figures it is hard to fault the Obama Administration for creating either the present fiscal shortfall or the projected one.

However, a review of the Congressional Budget Office projections gives us pause about the future. The CBO gives us a number of projections, the rosiest of which, makes a number of assumptions, not the least of which is that none of the Bush tax cuts would be extended beyond 2012, which is when they are currently set to expire. Since they will expire unless Congress extends them this could not be blocked by Republicans. However, the President pledged in his campaign that only those making less than 250,000 would be exposed to higher taxes. If this campaign promise were kept a large chunk of revenue would be lost. Furthermore, for the purpose of this projection they assume that the alternative minimum tax, which is impacting more and more middle class voters would not be adjusted, which is almost inconceivable, because if allowed to continues in its present form, it would make a mockery of the graduated income tax. Assuming these unlikely scenarios the CBO projects that government spending on everything other than the major mandatory health care programs, Social Security, and interest on federal debt (emphasis added) would decline to the lowest percentage of GDP since before World War II. See the highlighted portion of CBO’S 2011 Long-Term Budget Outlook.

But not only are these projections based on some unlikely specific tax scenarios, they assume that the tax receipts would rise to 23% of GDP, a level that has not been seen in decades and much higher than the taxes under the Clinton Administration, and even than they do not include Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security spending. These are specifically excluded in the projections, which I believe is the correct approach. I believe that these programs should be taken out of the deficit projections, and should be treated as problems separate and distinct from the budget and the deficit.

In a way they already have been for the way the government budget is calculated masks the impact of these programs on the total budget or even on their own viability. An examination of the CBO’s paper entitled: "The Impact of Social Security and Medicare" shows the impact these programs have on the Federal budget. As the paper explains:

“Under the Congressional Budget Office's latest budget projections for the next 10 years, those trust funds are estimated to run sizable surpluses. However, those surpluses reflect more than an excess of dedicated revenues over spending. A substantial portion results from internal transfers between Treasury accounts--credits from the general fund of the Treasury to the trust funds. Thus, although the trust fund surpluses may accurately reflect the programs' spending authority, using them to gauge the programs' budgetary impact distorts their net effects..."

Similarly, from 2003 to 2026, instead of running a cumulative surplus totaling $6.5 trillion, as estimated by the Social Security and Medicare trustees, the programs would run a cumulative deficit totaling $6.6 trillion.

Therefore I will defer a discussion of these programs until my next post.

But before I close I feel it my duty to disclose the pessimistic projections by the CBO. Under what they consider the most likely scenario given the realities of the political process, the CBO projects that; “Debt as a share of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) would exceed its historical peak of 109 percent by 2023 and would approach 190 percent in 2035” See: CBO’s 2011 Long Term Budget Outlook .pdf a portion of which has been both highlighted and underlined in the document referred to.
Clearly the Bush Tax cuts must not be extended, and not just those for people earning over $250,000, and the cuts provided for in the Budget Control Act of 2011 (BCA), are an essential component of getting our deficit under control, without undermining our Social Safety net.

The Deficit – One Big Hoax (Part II)

In my recent post “The Deficit – One Big Hoax (Part I)” I pointed out that (1) the urgency of the deficit is a hoax (2) that the Republicans deliberately created it (3) that they created it as an excuse for decimating and even abolishing all the accomplishments of numerous Administrations, both Republican and Democratic and (4) that merely allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire would go a long way toward reducing the deficit.

Allow me to elaborate on this with additional facts.

As the Republican/Bush tax cuts turned the Democratic/Clinton surplus into a large Republican deficit our then Vice-President Dick Cheney said, "Deficits don't matter.”

On August 5, 2009 Forbes, hardly a liberal publication reported:

Still, Cheney was true to his word, as the White House of George W. Bush raised the federal deficit every year it was in office. When Bush started his presidency, the national debt as a percentage of gross domestic product hovered at 60%. By the time he exited, it was closer to 80%.

(The National Debt is the total amount of debt incurred since the founding of the Republic. The Federal Deficit is the amount of debt incurred during a given year.)

Well, I guess Republicans can change their minds, can’t they. Maybe they realized they were wrong and deficits are a threat to the American economy. Well, they came up with the Ryan budget, which abolishes Medicare, and with an almost straight party line vote passed their own budget, because that is necessary to balance the budget. Really!! Guess what?

On April 22, 2011 The Economist, hardly a liberal publication, had this to say:

Mr Ryan's plan adds (by its own claims) $6 trillion to the national debt over the next decade, but promises to balance the budget by sometime in the 2030s by cutting programmes for the poor and the elderly. The Progressive Caucus's plan would (by its own claims) balance the budget by 2021 by cutting defence spending and raising taxes, mainly on rich people. Mr Ryan has been fulsomely praised for his courage. The Progressive Caucus has not.

I'm not really sure what "courage" is supposed to mean here, but this seems precisely backwards. For 30 years, certainly since Walter Mondale got creamed by Ronald Reagan, the most dangerous thing a politician can do has been to call for tax hikes. Politicians who call for higher taxes are punished, which is why they don't do it. I'm curious to see what adjectives people would apply to the Progressive Congressional Caucus's budget proposal. But it's hard for me to imagine the media calling a proposal to raise taxes "courageous" and "honest". And my sense is that the disparate treatment here is a structural bias rooted in class.

Yes, the conservative Economist is more inclined to tell it the way it is than the so-called “liberal” and so called “un-biased press.”

Even Charles Krauthammer, that beacon of the Right, writing in the Washington Post:

You cannot govern this country from one house. Republicans should have learned that from the 1995-96 Gingrich-Clinton fight when the GOP controlled both houses and still lost.

If conservatives really want to get the nation’s spending under control, the only way is to win the presidency. Put the question to the country and let the people decide. To seriously jeopardize the election now in pursuit of a long-term, small-government, Ryan-like reform that is inherently unreachable without control of the White House may be good for the soul. But it could very well wreck the cause.

Please note that he is not worried about wrecking the country, only wrecking, “The Cause”

He then inadvertently exposes his own hypocrisy by advocating:

…tax reform along the lines of the Simpson-Bowles commission that, in one option, strips out annually $1.1 trillion of deductions, credits and loopholes while lowering tax rates across the board to a top rate of 23 percent.

Which is exactly what, among other things, Republicans have been opposing, because it would increase revenues, something they are adamantly opposed to.

In order to keep this post within reasonable length, I will address other aspects in my next post, which will be named “The Deficit – One Big Hoax (Part III)”