[Peace-discuss] The money was there all along

[C. G. Estabrook]

I don't think narrowing the US trade deficit (exporting more and/or 
importing less) would substantially affect the national debt, but a 
change in tax policy certainly would.  (Remember that the Clinton 
administration ended with a budget surplus, despite an on-going trade gap.)

As it happens, the three presidents in the last fifty years who 
substantially raised the level of war-criminality during their 
adminsitrations all began with a massive tax cut for the wealthy -- Bush 
jr., Reagan and Kennedy. It wasn't an accident -- each was consciously 
imitating a predecessor.  (And of course their war crimes were a change 
in degree, not in kind: as Chomsky has pointed out, if the Nuremberg 
Principles were applied to the US government, *all* post-WWII US 
presidents would have to be hanged.)

They looted US society for war and to pay off the rich. If instead we 
want to stop that and use equivalent amounts for the progressive 
purposes Floyd describes -- without increasing the public debt -- we 
need a serious tax reform.

If per impossibile the USG were to take seriously Obama's pledge to 
"spread the wealth around," we'd start by taxing wealth, not income, and 
recapturing the government revenues that Bush jr. et al. gave to the 
rich.  --CGE


John W. wrote:
> The only flaw in Chris Floyd's argument is a lethal one.  With our
> ongoing trade deficit, we'd have to BORROW the money for better
> schools, infrastructure, health care, etc., just as we've had to
> BORROW it for the war in Iraq and for the Wall Street sellout...errr,
> bailout.  We'd have to live even further beyond our means, and leave
> it to our children and grandchildren to pay it back somehow.
> 
> Chris Floyd seems to think this was money that was just lying around.
> He sounds for all the world like Tim Johnson the time I got into an
> argument with him at Steak and Shake.  "We can do it ALL!" Tim
> shouted.  "I've seen the figures and I KNOW!"
> 
> John Wason
> 
> 
> On Wed, Oct 15, 2008 at 9:12 PM, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at uiuc.edu>
> wrote:
> 
> [From the excellent Chris Floyd, a text that might make up one side
> of a Main Event flyer.  --CGE]
>> 
>> *The money was there all along.*
>> 
>> Money to build and generously equip thousands and thousands of new
>> schools, with well-paid, exquisitely trained teachers, small
>> teacher-pupil ratios, a full range of enriching and inspiring
>> programs.
>> 
>> Money to revitalize the nation's crumbling inner cities, making
>> them safe and vibrant places for businesses and families and
>> communities to grow.
>> 
>> Money to provide decent, affordable and accessible health care to
>> every citizen, to provide dignity and comfort to the elderly, and
>> protection and humane treatment for the mentally ill.
>> 
>> Money to provide affordable higher education to everyone who wanted
>> it and could qualify for it. Money to help establish and sustain
>> local businesses and family farms, centered in and on the local
>> community, driven by the needs and knowledge of the people in the
>> area, and not by the dictates of distant corporations.
>> 
>> Money to strengthen crumbling infrastructure, to repair bridges,
>> shore up levies, maintain roads and electric grids and sewage
>> systems.
>> 
>> Money for affordable, workable public transport systems, for the
>> pursuit of alternative sources of energy, for sustainable, sensible
>> development, for environmental restoration.
>> 
>> Money to support free inquiry in science, technology, health and
>> other areas -- research unfettered from the war machine and the
>> drive for corporate profit, and instead devoted to the betterment
>> of human life.
>> 
>> Money to support culture, learning, continuing education,
>> libraries, theater, music and the endless manifestations of the
>> human quest to gain more meaning, more understanding, more
>> enlightenment, a deeper, spiritually richer life.
>> 
>> The money for all of this -- and much, much more -- was there, all
>> along. When they said we couldn't have these things, they were
>> lying -- or else allowing themselves to be profitably duped by the
>> high priests of the market cult. When they wanted a trillion
>> dollars -- or three trillion dollars -- to wage a war of aggression
>> in Iraq, they found it. Now, when they want trillions of dollars to
>>  save the speculators, fraudsters and profiteers of greed in the
>> global market, they suddenly have it.
>> 
>> Who then can believe that these governments could not have found
>> the money for good schools, health care, and all the rest, that
>> they could not have enhanced the well-being and livelihood of
>> millions of ordinary citizens, and helped create a more just and
>> equitable and stable world -- if they had wanted to?
>> 
>> <http://www.counterpunch.org/floyd10132008.html>