[Peace-discuss] Call Congress - defeat war supplemental

[C. G. Estabrook]

	"Put Wars and Banksters on PAYGO"
	http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/43454
	By David Swanson

On Tuesday President Obama proposed that any increases in federal 
spending on anything useful, such as healthcare or retirement security, 
must be balanced by cuts and savings to something else useful, such as 
healthcare or retirement security.

"The pay-as-you-go rule is very simple," Obama said. "Congress can only 
spend a dollar if it saves a dollar elsewhere." Except that it's not so 
simple. Obama would make an exception to allow Bush's tax cuts for 
millionaires to be extended past their 2010 expiration date, as well as 
to prevent the alternative-minimum tax from impacting the overclass. 
Still, the White House insists that everything is very simple:

"PAYGO would hold us to a simple but important principle: we should pay 
for new tax or *entitlement* legislation. Creating a new *non-emergency* 
tax cut or *entitlement* expansion would require offsetting revenue 
increases or spending reductions."

But, guess what? War supplementals and bankster bailouts are 
"emergencies" and the Pentagon and regular budget war funding are not 
"entitlements." (Someone will have to explain this to the CEOs over at 
Boeing, BAE, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, and 
Raytheon, but it's true). With roughly half of every dollar of income 
tax going to the military and wars and debt for military and wars, we 
again have a public discussion of "government spending" that ignores the 
military and wars. Contrary to popular myth, by the way, team Obama just 
increased -- and therefore did not decrease -- what had been the largest 
military budget in world history. And let's not forget the Bush-Obama 
bankster bailouts that suddenly made military spending look /small/.

As it happens, however, there is a perfect vehicle available right now 
for an expansion of PAYGO: the war supplemental cum IMF bailout now 
being debated in the House. Here's an extra $97 billion for wars and 
military that was not included in the regular budget. This is an 
expansion of spending, and nobody has explained where the money can come 
from. Then there's a $5 billion gift accompanied by $100 billion in 
loans to bailout European banksters through the IMF. Nobody has 
suggested where that money could possibly be found. And then there are 
the gimmicks being added in to bribe unscrupulous congress critters to 
vote for the thing: cash for clunkers programs and so forth. The 
drafters of the bill have not been reducing the money for airplanes the 
Pentagon doesn't want or for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in order 
to cover the cost of buying clunkers. Everything is just piled on top.

Now, in reality, the idea that you have to pay for what you purchase is 
as close as one comes to a "law" of economics that will take effect 
eventually whether or not it's made into what passes for a "law" in 
Washington, D.C. Every trillion dollars we throw at banksters and 
bombers is a trillion dollars we cannot use to provide free quality 
education from pre-school through college, high-speed trains, green 
energy, or healthcare. But, as long as we're making things explicit, it 
might be worth phoning Democrats in the House 
<http://www.democrats.com/progressives-and-bluedogs-can-defeat-war-supplemental> 
and asking them what they are going to cut to pay for the war 
supplemental. What useful "entitlement" or, for that matter, military 
waste are they prepared to slash by $97 billion plus all that money for 
the IMF to use in ruining other people's economies? If one word 
characterizes the responses you're likely to get (and please report on 
them <http://action.firedoglake.com/page/s/supplemental>) that word is: 
"elusive."

"Paying for what you spend is basic common sense," says President Obama. 
"Perhaps that's why, here in Washington, it's been so elusive."

But note that 15 House Democrats thus far have said they will vote No, 
and with all the Republicans voting No we only need a couple dozen more 
representatives of the party we keep electing to end the wars. We CAN 
win this one.





-- 

David Swanson is the author of the upcoming book "Daybreak: Undoing the 
Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union" by Seven Stories 
Press.  You can pre-order it for a discount price at 
http://tinyurl.com/daybreakbook

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