If Teabaggers Worry About Deficits, Then There's No Reason to Worry About Deficits

I made the mistake of tuning the television to MSNBC a few minutes before Countdown started at 8 p.m., thus subjecting myself to the end of Tweety's analpunditry on the deficit. Do I really have to explain how completely fact-free and misleading it was? Here's a hint: teabaggers are worth listening to because they're worried about the deficit.

Give. Me. Strength.

First, teabaggers thought deficits were just fine and dandy when repugs were using them to turn obscenely rich people into pornographically wealthy assholes and to wage war on annoying brown people who won't hand over their oil.

Second, teabaggers have an unbroken record of being wrong about every single thing under the sun.

Third, any fifth-grader who understands supply and demand knows that in a recession, deficits - if used to fund jobs - are the best possible thing you can have.

As Digby explained back in February:

Suddenly, you can't turn around without getting a panicked lecture about the deficit. But in all the discussions about the horrifying, worse-than-terrorism, scarier-than-nuclear-war threat to everything we hold near and dear, nobody ever seems to discuss the fact that much of the deficit is due to unemployment. (Gosh, it turns out that if everyone were working, they'd be paying more taxes and the government would have more money!) We are supposed to believe that the deficit stems from profligate spending on old people and undeserving little dark children who refuse to get a job.

The Pete Peterson crew have been poised for some time to make this move. They are very slick and they are sending out massive amounts of scare literature to everyone in the chattering and ruling classes. And they are working overtime to convince the American people that fixing the deficit is imperative if they want the economy to improve. And it's working. Not the economy --- the propaganda.

Sadly, part of the reason it's working is because the president and his people keep saying that the federal budget is just like the family budget and you have to pull in your belt at times like these, when the opposite is true. It's a terrible way to discuss this issue --- unless you really do want to hamstring your administration and keep it from being able to do the things it needs to do to bring employment back.

I appreciate the administration's desire to bring the Republicans' "plans" into the light, particularly those that want to privatize social security for people under 55 and give them "vouchers" for health care to keep costs down. (Out of vouchers? No dialysis for you!)If they do a good job of exposing the Republicans' true intentions, it could reap partisan loyalty from many, many millions of people. I sincerely hope that's what they plan to do.

But in the meantime, you have Tim Geithner begging the Republicans to help with deficit reduction in a bipartisan way. Here's what I would love to know: what does the administration think a reasonable bipartisan compromise on deficit reduction would look like?

If the Democrats could do one simple thing, it would be to repeatedly explain that deficits will never go down unless we put everyone in this country back to work --- it would go a long way to evening the Peterson Playing Field. As it stands, the alleged reason for the deficit is the "entitlements" which the conservative owners of America have been itching to eliminate from the moment they were conceived. If they manage to get it done at this moment of extreme insecurity, it will be one of the great propaganda and Shock Doctrine achievements of all time.

If ever people need the security of an old age pension and guaranteed medical care in their unhealthy golden years its now. It would be too ironic (and sad)if they were manipulated into giving that up under the misapprehension that the country's current woes can be fixed if they do.

(And the kids had better get that extra room ready because mom and dad are going to be moving in.)

This is seriously fucking dangerous. If President Obama and Congressional Democrats fall for the Deficit Scam and cut spending and entitlements, it'll send this country spinning at the speed of light into a bottomless pit we'll never climb out of.