What is really behind the Budget Angst?

 

There are two elephants not mentioned in national expenditure. Neither has a specific line item in government budgets.

The first is expenditures to the military industrial complex. This is separate from the wars.  The military industrial complex receives multi-year funding for projects behind schedule and over budget that are speculative and futuristic. The money is huge, in the neighborhood of $500 billion dollars.

The other elephant is the business welfare state.  It is tax breaks, subsidies, and favorable legal and legislative rulings that enhance the bottom line of business primarily at consumer and tax payer expense. At the Local, State and Federal levels it equates to a trillion dollars a year.

 

The burden of these two elephants is not sustainable without increased revenue from other sources. The answer is take money from elsewhere, meaning collective bargaining agreements, social security and Medicare. The Budget Smoke and Mirrors is cloaking the real problem. But the gap needed to be closed with additional funds is so large and growing, that you would practically have to eliminate or completely privatize social security and Medicare.

Democracy works only with an alert and informed public. It works best with a culturally homogeneous public that has a shared set of goals. American society is a three tier political arrangement today. The first tier that runs everything and controls all three branches of government is the richest 1%. The next tier is the baby boomers [retirees]. The last, and by far largest tier, is everyone else. They have the least economic and political clout in America. It represents about 80% of the nation.

A final note of irony is the statement by Pete Domenci, the Republican from New Mexico that headed the Office of Management and Budget. He said we went from a surplus to a deficit based on choice. The forecast in early 2000 was a surplus indefinitely. The Administration and Congress used this as a spending opportunity that created a financial disaster. They initiated tax cuts and two unfunded wars paid for on borrowed money. I agree with Domenci and go a step further in analysis. I recognize the largest recipient of the tax cuts were the richest 1% and they also received wealth from "privateering" in the wars.

 

The Tea Party movement is an orchestrated effort of the richest 1% to gain greater control over tax payer money to funnel to its own ends. But the movement is dangerous even to them. It might gain a life of its own. Witness the rise of the savvy “wild card” Donald Trump.