FEDERAL BUDGET DEAL: YOU DO THE MATH

From Think Progress courtesy of AlterNet:

But a look at those two deals suggests Republicans are not as interested in cutting the deficit as they claim. In both cases, Democrats made big concessions on key Republican agenda items — tax and spending cuts — in the face of intransigent opposition from the GOP. But while the appropriations deal from last night cuts $38.5 billion in spending over the next six months (through the end of the fiscal year in September), the tax cut deal deprives the government of roughly $150 billion in revenue over a similar period of time.

More here.

I don't get it. I don't understand how some twenty percent of the population is able to drive the national agenda. I mean, I get it: this all favors the super wealthy, who actually own and operate the country. And the twenty percent of die-hard conservative Americans who consistently vote Republican buy the bullshit ideology asserting that giving the rich everything they want, and more, is somehow good for everybody, which it is not. So democracy is dead. The very wealthy have set up what is in effect a plutocracy, and they have a large fraction of nation's voters supporting it, which gives our corporate overlords some democratic cover. I understand all that.

I also understand that corporate campaign cash and lobbying access has essentially brought most Democratic politicians into the plutocratic fold. They're all on the take.

What I don't get is the fucked up awkward way this shit plays out, the way politicians and pundits talk around what's really going on. I mean, this deficit "crisis" is entirely a construct of the imagination; it doesn't exist. Nobody believes in it. Certainly not the Republicans who just browbeat the Democrats into massive tax breaks for the rich last December. Certainly not the Democrats...well...maybe the Democrats because they're fucking stupid.

But this is all insane.

Why is everybody taking the conservative spin on everything? It makes no sense to freak out over the deficit and then demand massive tax cuts for the rich, which makes the deficit far worse. It makes no sense to cave in to those demands. It makes no sense to cut spending during a giant recession, or during times of mass unemployment. It makes no sense to cut deficit-irrelevant funding for Planned Parenthood, if deficit reduction is your goal. It makes no sense to not loudly point out that none of this makes any fucking sense.

I wish I had a more coherent response to this budget deal, but the absurdity of it all has reduced me to not much more than ranting and raving. I mean, how do you respond when somebody gets in your face screaming incoherent gibberish? More gibberish is as good a response as any.

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