Subject: [big campaign] New Huff Post from Creamer- Deficit Hawks Have Amnesia
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To: [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2010 10:04:19 -0500 (EST)
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“Deficit Hawks” Have Amnesia 

Yesterday, the  Co-Chairs of the Bi-Partisan Commission on the Deficit 
proposed a package of  dramatic cuts in government expenditures and changes in 
the tax code that they  said were meant as “shock therapy” to force 
attention onto the growing Federal  deficit. 
The implication is  that putting the Federal Deficit represents a massive, 
intractable crisis – a  national emergency that requires all of us to 
sacrifice. For many “deficit  hawks” the federal deficit has morphed into an 
enemy that threatens the nation  like a foreign army.  They claim  that victory 
in their war on the deficit requires “shared sacrifice” -- that  “we” 
simply cannot afford to continue on the current path to fiscal  perdition. 
These people have lost their memories.  They seem to have forgotten what 
caused  the deficit.  And they have  certainly forgotten that we know how to 
eliminate the deficit without making the  middle class pay the bill. 
Recall that just ten  years ago, at the end of the Clinton Administration, 
the Federal budget was  generating a long-term surplus.  It  was in the 
black as far as the eye could see.  The big question of the day was, “what  do 
we do with the surplus?”     
Then George Bush and  the Republicans in Congress systematically eliminated 
the surplus and replaced  it with budgets that generated more debt in eight 
years than all of the debt  generated by all of the Presidents before him. 
How? 
·       They passed the Bush  tax cuts, with the lion’s share of benefit 
going to millionaires and  billionaires.  Who wouldn’t gladly  pay the tax 
rates of the 1990’s today and experience the benefit of the economy  of the 
late 1990’s? 
·       They initiated two wars  that were paid for entirely with borrowed 
money.  These two wars alone account for 25% of  the accumulated deficit 
since 2000. 
·       They allowed Wall  Street to wreck the economy and cause the 
greatest economic disaster since the  Great Depression.  That caused tax  revenue 
to the Government to collapse, and required massive federal spending to  
prevent the economy from going into free fall.  
Please note that none of the factors that  caused the Federal deficit 
involved profligate spending by middle class  Americans – or senior citizens.   
In fact, during this same period the incomes of middle class Americans  
shrunk and those of the very wealthy continued to soar.   
In fact, earlier in  the week it was announced that many of the big Wall 
Street Banks will give  record bonuses to their traders and CEO’s.  Yet, 
yesterday the Chairs of the Bi-Partisan Deficit Commission proposed  that to deal 
with our “fiscal problems”  we should reduce the incomes of seniors 
citizens on Social Security, make  cuts in Medicare, cut veteran’s health care and 
take innumerable other steps to  reduce the living standards of the middle 
class.  
Then you hear  some of the network commentators – all of whom make very 
comfortable incomes  (some in the multi-million dollar range) pontificating 
about how seniors with an  average income of $15,000 to $18,000 a year should 
take a twenty or thirty  percent cut in Social Security to solve our 
long-term deficit crisis.  How outrageous. 
Time for us to  remember seven key facts about the deficit debate: 
Social Security has  nothing to do with the deficit.  The Social Security 
program generates a surplus and will do so for many  decades to come.  To 
assure its  long-term solvency, all that is needed is to require that the 
wealthy are  subject to the same Social Security tax on all of their income – 
like most  everyday Americans. 
The budget deficit debate is  not mainly about numbers and budgets – it’s 
about who gets what.  For two decades the incomes of middle  class Americans 
have stagnated.  The  share of income and wealth in the hands of the top 
two percent of the population  is at its highest levels since 1928.  Federal 
budgets should be aimed at increasing the share of national  income that goes 
to the middle class and reducing the share going to  millionaires and 
billionaires.    
The budget debate is not just about  policies and programs.  It’s about  
right and wrong. Fixing the budget does not require “shared sacrifice.”  It 
requires that the millionaires  who had the economic party for the last 
decade – and whose greed caused the  financial collapse -- be required to pick up 
the tab.  The middle class did not benefit from  the Republican economic 
policies that lead to the current deficit – they were  the victims.   
Fixing the Federal deficit is not an end in  itself.  The goal of budget 
policy should be to  assure long-term – widely shared – economic growth.  
That requires more Federal stimulus now  – to fill the deficit that is really 
dangerous to America – the  “Demand Deficit,”  George Bush left  President 
Obama a three trillion dollar deficit in economic demand that resulted  in 
massive unemployment.  Idle  workers, plants and equipment are the real danger 
for our economy, because they  represented wasted output that will never be 
recovered.  The goods and services that they fail to  produce directly 
reduce the store of our country’s wealth.   
The primary goal of  our budget policy must be to get people back to work 
by generating economic  demand so they will produce more wealth.   
And sustained,  long-term economic demand requires that we end the 
long-term trend of  concentrating more and more wealth in the hands of the rich and 
less and less in  the hand of the middle class that will then buy the 
products and services that  will sustain long-term economic growth.  
Those who argue that we can’t “afford” to  maintain Social Security and 
Medicare are flat wrong.  We can’t afford not to.   
First, from a purely  economic standpoint reducing the standard of living 
for senior citizens – or  future retirees – will make our long-term economic 
prospects worse – not  better.  Our problem is how to  provide a larger 
share of income to the middle class, not less.  
Second, from a moral  standpoint, it is ridiculous.  We  can’t afford 
$14,000 in Social Security for a retired widow, but we can afford  to allow the 
barons of Wall Street to take home hundred million dollar  bonuses? 
Cuts in Medicare do nothing to reduce  health care costs.  They just shift  
who pays.  Increasing co-payment  for Medicare is not the same thing as “
reducing health care costs.”  To reduce health care costs you have to  reduce 
the cost of providing the services by providers.   
There are obvious solutions to reduce the  Federal deficit that benefit the 
middle class.  Here’s a start: 
·       Over the next  several years we need to completely end the wars in 
Iraq and Afghanistan that have been such a  drain on our nation’s wealth.   
·       We can end many of the  “defense” contracts that are simply 
boondoggles – such as the “star wars”  missile defense program.  It’s time  to 
end the programs aimed at defending America against the Soviet  Union that 
collapsed two decades ago. 
·       We must reject the  Republican proposal to give a new $700 billion 
tax break to the  wealthy. 
·       We should increase job  creation spending now and put the middle 
class back to work.  That will do more to generate long-term  growth in 
revenue over the long run than any other single policy. 
·       We should guarantee  that millionaires pay the same tax rates for 
Social Security and Medicare as the  middle class. 
·       We should change the  tax code to subject “capital gains” – 
virtually all of which goes to the wealthy  – to the same tax rates as income 
earned by people who work for a living.  
And finally, we need  to remember that the idea of fixing the Federal 
budget is to help create  prosperity for us all – not austerity for the middle 
class. 
Robert Creamer is  a long-time political organizer and strategist, and 
author of the book: Stand Up  Straight: How Progressives Can Win, available on 
_Amazon.com._ 
(http://www.amazon.com/Listen-Your-Mother-Straight-Progressives/dp/0979585295/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213241439&sr=8-1)

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