After 5 Years, I'm Still Confused
So I went to the protests yesterday (Mike Gravel is shorter than you'd think), and I saw everything from dancing polar bears with bad Rage Against the Machine cover bands to DC Police Bike Brigades. I think there was one point where there were more police than protesters in McPherson Square.
It was the protest at the IRS that really got me thinking, though. Those IRS guys, the ones that were kept out of their office building yesterday, aren't really the ones funding the Iraq War. Sure, 43% of our tax dollars go to military spending (along with paying down the military portion of the debt), but the war is really being paid for by that shiny government credit card called the National Debt. Using "supplemental funding" measures, the government has really been able to shield the public from directly feeling the financial cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's really a clever (read: devious) way to increase support for your war...
I'm no economist, but here are my thoughts on the situation:
Instead of introducing taxes to pay for the war (which would probably make it quite a bit less popular), the current administration is trying to shift the financial burden of this war onto future administrations.
Looking the mountain of National Debt that keeps piling up, the declining value of the dollar, and the current uncertainty surrounding the US economy, it seems that the financial repercussions of amassing all this debt are going to hit us a lot sooner than President Bush expected. I'm guessing he hoped he'd be out of office for at least a term by this point, far enough removed from the situation to escape most of the blame.
Now, here's where my lack of knowledge about economics really puts me at a disadvantage. I don't know what the solution is. It does seem to me that Bush's solution (more tax cuts, bailouts for failing financial institutions) just serve to further increase the national debt and delay an actual resolution to the problem at hand.
One of Dan's friends explained the situation to me like this: Forest fires are necessary, because they help clear deadwood out and make room for new life to grow. People however, try to prevent forest fires because they're dangerous and, well, forests are so gosh darn pretty. The problem is that not allowing forests to burn once in a while leads to a massive accumulation of deadwood. Consequently, when a fire does start, it's harder to control and the damage can be devastating.
The economy, similarly, needs to burn a little every once in a while. What we have here is a massive forest fire waiting to happen.
Okay, I went way off topic... Protesting at the IRS:
The IRS isn't spending your tax dollars on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, just trying to pay down the government's debt on those wars, so give them a break. Next time, I recommend a protest at the Federal Reserve; they're the ones issuing the bonds and paying for war.
It was the protest at the IRS that really got me thinking, though. Those IRS guys, the ones that were kept out of their office building yesterday, aren't really the ones funding the Iraq War. Sure, 43% of our tax dollars go to military spending (along with paying down the military portion of the debt), but the war is really being paid for by that shiny government credit card called the National Debt. Using "supplemental funding" measures, the government has really been able to shield the public from directly feeling the financial cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's really a clever (read: devious) way to increase support for your war...
I'm no economist, but here are my thoughts on the situation:
Instead of introducing taxes to pay for the war (which would probably make it quite a bit less popular), the current administration is trying to shift the financial burden of this war onto future administrations.
Looking the mountain of National Debt that keeps piling up, the declining value of the dollar, and the current uncertainty surrounding the US economy, it seems that the financial repercussions of amassing all this debt are going to hit us a lot sooner than President Bush expected. I'm guessing he hoped he'd be out of office for at least a term by this point, far enough removed from the situation to escape most of the blame.
Now, here's where my lack of knowledge about economics really puts me at a disadvantage. I don't know what the solution is. It does seem to me that Bush's solution (more tax cuts, bailouts for failing financial institutions) just serve to further increase the national debt and delay an actual resolution to the problem at hand.
One of Dan's friends explained the situation to me like this: Forest fires are necessary, because they help clear deadwood out and make room for new life to grow. People however, try to prevent forest fires because they're dangerous and, well, forests are so gosh darn pretty. The problem is that not allowing forests to burn once in a while leads to a massive accumulation of deadwood. Consequently, when a fire does start, it's harder to control and the damage can be devastating.
The economy, similarly, needs to burn a little every once in a while. What we have here is a massive forest fire waiting to happen.
Okay, I went way off topic... Protesting at the IRS:
The IRS isn't spending your tax dollars on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, just trying to pay down the government's debt on those wars, so give them a break. Next time, I recommend a protest at the Federal Reserve; they're the ones issuing the bonds and paying for war.
posted by Nick at
9:08 AM
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