Patriots Are Fed Up With The Anti-Americanism of The Wall Street Journal and Conservative Stephen Moore

Patriots Are Fed Up With The Anti-Americanism of The Wall Street Journal and Conservative Stephen Moore

The Wall Street Journal editorial board's Stephen Moore falsely claimed that the drastic budget cuts known as sequestration have had "none of the anticipated negative consequences," when in reality economists have explained that the cuts have had devastating effects on economic growth, jobs, and programs for low-income Americans.

Wall Street Journal's Stephen MooreIn an August 11 op-ed, Moore called the automatic budget cuts enacted March 1 -- which were designed to be so severe they would force Congress to adopt a more balanced approach to spending reduction -- an "underappreciated success" because they had resulted in "amazing progress" in reducing the deficit. Moore applauded the further deficit reduction that would come from "any normal acceleration of economic growth," and concluded by claiming that cuts to "military, education, transportation and other discretionary programs have also been an underappreciated success, with none of the anticipated negative consequences."

But economists were predicting major economic consequences, as The American Prospect noted on March 6:

    Private forecasting firm Macroeconomic Advisers estimates "sequestration would cost roughly 700,000 jobs (including reductions in armed forces)," while Moody's Analytics predicts a hit to real gross domestic product of 0.5 percent, just a hair below Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's prediction 0.6 percent fiscal drag.

And as predicted, the cuts are harming the economy. Sequestration is having a negative effect on GDP growth and causing job losses. According to a new analysis by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, canceling the sequestration cuts would raise GDP by 0.7 percent and increase employment by 900,000 new jobs by 2014, and would lead to greater output and higher employment in the next few years.

Furthermore, tens of thousands of individuals have already seen federal unemployment benefits cut by as much as 10.7 percent, Meals On Wheels programs have had to cut hundreds of meals from their regular service to low-income seniors, and Head Start programs have had to cancel sessions for at-risk children. According to the Department of Education, sequestration further cut $60 million from federal funding for schools that educate children who live on Indian reservations, military bases, or in low-income housing. In some cases, districts will be forced to close schools and reduce the number of courses offered.

Economist Jared Bernstein, former economic adviser to Vice President Biden, has tracked and documented the drastic effects that the cuts are having on everything from Medicare-funded cancer treatments and public safety, to scientific and medical research. Finally, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel announced on August 6 that furloughs to civilian defense workers caused by sequestration have created "a military whose readiness remains seriously degraded."

Most patriotic Americans know by now that anti-American Australian publisher Rupert Murdoch owns the Wall Street Journal, so the editorial page and his employees represent Murdoch's radical anti-democracy, anti-worker, anti-education and anti-American points of view. It is in their political interests for them and their conservative political friends to do as much damage to the economy as they can so they can use their newspaper, radio stations and television networks to blame it all on patriotic Democrats who care about the USA and American families.

Republicans Got Their Lessons in Sequester Propaganda From The Soviet Politburo

Republicans Got Their Lessons in Sequester Propaganda From The Soviet Politburo

Barring a miracle of bipartisan cooperation over the next 12 hours, the sequester — a series of across-the-board spending cuts — will kick in tonight.

Part of the Budget Control Act of 2011, the sequester will likely shave 700,000 jobs and 0.6 percent worth of growth off the economy. Its cuts were designed to be so crude and damaging they would incentivize all sides to replace it with more well-thought out deficit reduction.

But thanks to the GOP’s single-minded fixation on spending cuts over tax increases, that effort failed. Republicans spent the last two years treating every debate over the deficit as if it were occurring in a historical vacuum, accusing Obama of failing his own commitment to balance, repeatedly scoffing at new tax revenue, and insisting that “it’s finally time” to “get serious” about cutting spending, even as trillions of dollars in cuts mounted.

In short, the GOP has repeatedly thrown the spending cuts from each previous deal down the memory hole, demanding more and more while claiming that Obama and Democrats have unreasonably wanted to balance those cuts with new revenue.

Between the spring 2011 budget fight, the debt ceiling debacle, and the so-called “fiscal cliff,” the United States has cut almost $1.5 trillion in spending over the next decade, plus saving roughly $200 billion more in lower interest payments.

In fact, at the Wall Street Journal breakfast featured in the video, reporter Lori Montgomery brought up all these previous cuts point blank with Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI). Ryan’s rejoinder encapsulated the entire bizarre kabuki dance: “That was last session. We’re going forward now.” Montgomery and the other reporters literally busted out laughing in response. (Ryan’s logic doesn’t even work on its on terms. The new tax revenues in the fiscal cliff deal were part of the last congressional session as well, but he wants to count those.)

Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the budget ledger, the country will raise only $630 billion in new tax revenue over the next decade. That’s the context in which Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) insists “the tax issue is finished,” even as both he and Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) claim to be seeking a “balanced” agreement. As a result, everything from Medicare, to the military, food safety, air traffic control, nutritional support for women and infants, disaster relief, law enforcement, and health research looks likely to get the axe.

This is exactly what the old Soviet Politburo used to do, pretend what they just did or said never happened. They would literally, brazenly rewrite reality and accused anyone who disagreed with the new reality a traitor. Have you read the comments by conservatives on internet forums. They're all either too mentally deranged to be on the internet, too stupid to tie their shoes or the most blissfully uninformed people in history. And of course Faux News is always there to echo the propaganda from the Conservative Ministry of Disinformation.

5 Terrifying Things about the Sequester

5 Terrifying Things about the Sequester. Just my top two, the rest are at the link.

1. The sequester will hurt job-growth

As we pointed out during the debates raging in the run-up to the “fiscal cliff," the sequester was the second-most damaging component of the austerity bundle set to take effect on January 1, 2013. The worst component was the non-renewal of the payroll tax cut, which is already dragging substantially on the economy. All told, if the sequester kicks in the economy will likely end the year with roughly 500-600,000 fewer jobs than if it were repealed. These are jobs the economy desperately needs. To be clear, the sequester alone won’t drive the U.S. economy back into outright recession, but it surely will make the agonizingly slow recovery that much slower. Further, it’s worth noting that even a full repeal of it with no offset will still result in an economy growing much too slowly to quickly return to full-employment. In a nutshell, arguments over the sequester are roughly about whether we’d like to be $900 billion or a full $1 trillion below economic potential in the coming year.

....5. Entitlement are commitment devices. That’s scary.

Given that much of the negotiation over the sequester is how to “pay for” its repeal with other spending cuts, it should be noted that legislated changes to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the ACA do not need annual appropriations, and hence are likely to be much longer-lasting than any agreed-to discretionary cuts. Replacing the sequester with cuts to these valued programs would be a disaster. We have shown, for example, that Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid combined contributed ten times as much to income growth for middle-income households over the last generation than growth in hourly wages. These programs are, by far, the part of the U.S. economy that still manages to deliver some goods to low- and moderate-income households. Gutting them in the name of securing a better economic future is perverse indeed. Obviously, pure efficiencies that save these programs money—tougher drug bargaining for Medicare, or reforms to provider reimbursement that squeeze out economic rents and improve quality—are welcome. But simple cuts to these programs that shift costs onto households as a way to pay for the sequester is close to a worst-case outcome.

What is The Sequester

What is The Sequester

The United States is rapidly approaching March 1, the date on which the automatic spending cuts put in place by the summer 2011 debt ceiling deal will begin taking effect. There is little indication that Congress will avert the cuts as it did in January, as Republican leaders have thus far been unwilling to negotiate with President Obama and Senate Democrats.

Congress is currently on recess until next Monday, leaving just five legislative days until the automatic cuts — known as sequestration — will take effect. Here’s a breakdown of why the sequester was created and what it will mean for programs facing cuts and the nation’s overall economic recovery:

    Why the sequester was created. The sequester was a result of the GOP’s wrangling over the debt ceiling in the summer of 2011, when Republican leaders — who had previously passed clean debt increases 19 times under President Bush — demanded spending cuts as the price for averting a costly default. On the brink of default, Congress passed the Budget Control Act, which enacted immediate spending cuts and created a supercommittee tasked with striking a “grand bargain” to reduce the deficit. Republicans walked away from the committee after refusing to consider tax increases on the wealthy, setting sequestration into motion. The sequester, which cuts from both domestic and defense spending, was designed to be painful enough that both sides would negotiate to avert it.

    How to avoid it. The sequester was originally supposed to take effect on January 1, but it was avoided as part of the overall “fiscal cliff” deal that maintained most of the Bush-era tax cuts and enacted spending reductions to offset the first round of automatic cuts. In the past, Republicans offered plans to offset the sequester by cutting more spending, even though deficit reduction efforts have been heavily skewed toward spending cuts to domestic programs already. Democrats have offered multiple proposals that would bring more balance to efforts to reduce the deficit. A plan from the Congressional Progressive Caucus would replace the sequester largely with new revenue, evening the balance of spending cuts and revenue increases in overall deficit reduction efforts. Senate Democrats proposed a plan that reduced the deficit by $110 billion, enough to offset the sequester until next January. Half of the reduction comes from cuts, the other half from tax increases on the wealthy. Republicans, however, have again refused to negotiate over new revenues, even from tax reform that would close corporate loopholes.

    What it will mean. Because its cuts are across-the-board, the sequester will affect most domestic programs. Jobless workers will lose access to unemployment benefits, while safety net programs for women and children and early childhood education programs will face deep cuts. The sequester will cut funding for law enforcement and border security, food safety, airline travel security, Head Start, disaster relief, and health research. Defense programs will also see reductions. These cuts will have broad ramifications for the country’s recovering economy, pushing it down the austere path Europe has followed into second recessions. Independent reports predict that sequestration would reduce economic growth by 0.6 percent over the year while also leading to the loss of 700,000 jobs. The debt limit fight that created the sequester already pummeled the recovery, and allowing these spending cuts to take effect would cause even bigger problems.

Conservatives are hoping that either most Americas are idiots or have terrible short term memories, and are trying to blame Democrats for this childishness. They voted for the sequester, End of story. Now they want a new deal that punished the working poor and middle-class.