Ah, How Things Don’t Change

Once upon a time (meaning 35 years ago) a knight in Hollywood armor rode into the public arnea promising the people he could reduce the size of government, make the people pay less taxes, increase spending (for various vested interests) and lower the national debt. He would accomplish this magical feat by what is called supply side economic, meaning give great wealth to the wealthy and the wealth would trickle down through the economy and everybody would be better off.

Hurray! Yelled the people let it be so and they elected him President. And so he spent, and lower taxes for wealthy folk, so far so good. But then he increased spending for the things he liked and raised the national debt a whopping amount. Why, because you cannot do what he said he could do, even if you are an affable magician, it is still sleight of hand and not reality. However, for reason inexplicable to this writer, the same promises kept being made and the people kept accepting them. And now we are a great debtor nation, we spend humongous amounts on military stuff, which eventually goes boom and there is nothing left. But the rich folk made out like bandits.

Eventually the people when they realized there were less jobs for folk, the national and personal debt was really, I mean really big, middle class folk were working harder and harder but making less, and the poor folk were just screwed as they often are. Some folk then said, “Hey, this is bad, this is unfair, we don’t like it. And so the story goes.

Those of the party that created this ridiculous mess, vowed, “we will fix it. The Committee for a Responsible Budget has released a report showing how this is going to work according to the various proponents, at least the 4 remaining ones. All this assumes the Bush cuts will remain intact. Oops, it doesn’t work even if all of them promise to reduce spending. Romney has now promised to reduce taxes by 20%;  repeal the AMT, and repeal the estate tax. Santorum would reduce taxes by 6 trillion over the next decade. Gingrich would cut by 7 trillion. Only Paul would limit it by a mere 5 trillion.

Now they are all making these promises to appease the right, the Tea Party, the group which is against debt.

The Republicans are also the ones who claim they love balanced budgets. The only problem with that is that they keep increasing the budget.

So, let’s fix it with tax reforms they cry again. And again the tax cuts are for the rich.

Gee, doesn’t all of this sound familiar?

The Emperor still isn’t wearing any clothes but the people are still standing and cheering his wardrobe.