This story first appeared on theTomDispatch website.We're at the edge of the cliff of deficit disaster! National security spending is being, or will soon be, slashed to the bone! Obamacare will sink the ship of state!Spending Myth 1:Today's deficits have taken us to a historically unprecedented, economically catastrophic place.Each of these claims has grabbed national attention in a big way, sucking up years' worth of precious airtime. That's a serious bummer, since each of them is a spending myth of the first order. Let's pop them, one by one, and move on to the truly urgent business of a nation that is indeed on the edgeIn fact, we've been here before. In 2009, the federal budget deficit was a whopping 10.1% of the American economy and back in 1943, in the midst of World War II, it was three times that—30.3%. This fiscal year the deficit will total around 7.6%. Yes, that is big. But in the Congressional Budget Office's grimmest projections, that figure will fall to 6.3% next year, and 5.8% in fiscal 2014. In 1983, under President Reagan, the deficit hit 6% of the economy, and by 1998, that had turned into a surplus. So, while projected deficits remain large, they're neither historically unprecedented, nor insurmountable.A number of leading economists are now busyexplaining why the deficit this year actually ought to be a lot larger, not smaller; why there should be more government spending, including aid to state and local governments, which would create new jobs and prevent layoffs in areas like education and law enforcement. Such efforts, working in tandem with slow but positive job growth in the private sector, might indeed mean genuine recovery. Government budget cuts, on the other hand, offset private-sector gains with the huge anddepressing effect of public-sector layoffs, and have damaging ripple effects on the rest of the economy as well.
we should be used to and able to pick out the right wing scare tactics if it scares you and they won't vote to fix it's probably a republican embelishment.
Spending Myth 2: Military and other national security spending have already taken their lumps and future budget-cutting efforts will have to take aim at domestic programs instead.more scare BS THEY ARE SUCCESSFUL WITH THIS BECAUSE TO MANY ACCEPT IT AS GOSPELif you know someone's intent is to deceive you your guard should be up 24-7 when they are around. protect yourself
