Clinton proved that budget surplus or deficit is a matter of having the right combination of tax rates and FULL EMPLOYMENT.

It is silly to focus on the deficit when unemployment is too high. The best way to fix the deficit would be, Put more people to work & paying taxes. The Obama focus on deficit reduction is Misguided. Voters don’t give a RatsAss about the deficit. Voters want jobs.

That same post today might go for hundreds of thousands of dollars, even a million – far more than the job’s pay, and likely even more than one could collect with modest bribes received and saved for the elected term.

The result is that todsa candidates are bought before they even take office, not by bribes to pass legislation, but by legal contributions of immense sums that are the only path to election – a path strewn with television ads in a media that seldom condemns unlimited electioneering spending.

The result: only folks who take the money in advance are elected. We no longer have to wonder if our officials will be crooks after they take office.

Anyone bought by donors with money will rarely oppose the path to their next election. It’s “Upstairs, Downstairs” without a benevolent upper class, just a greedy class demanding austerity for the public and gluttony for themselves.

Campaign finance reform? Did voters think this would occur under the current WH leadership, and so they refused to vote for a John McCain, who championed that fundamental first step in government reform? (McCain had this one great virtue.)

Or did the Wall Street geniuses slickly decide to support a Democratic Party candidate with their money and cut much support to that GOP nominee – a Republican candidate who would have fought to reduce their campaign finance influence with politicians.

What is the likelihood of honest folks in office, making budget decisions to benefit the public, not their (financial) supporters? It seems a thin hope, when you imagine thousands of lobbyists in D.C., tossing coins and corrupting, a modern version of the moneylenders Christ tossed from the Temple in exasperation?

“It’s like refusing to give a dieter credit for all the weight she lost since she went on the weight-loss plan that you insisted she go on.”

You make economics and politics more easily understandable to those who aren’t wonks. If I were Pres. Obama, in fact, I’d have an “analogist-in-chief”. You and Robert Reich are the best communicators we liberals have. Keep up the good work.

Seems to me just a subterfuge to shift costs to the Middle and Working classes while at the same time reducing services.

THD

We have high unemployment, slow growth and stagnant middle class wages. Cutting spending reduces employment, reduces growth and does nothing to help middle class wages. It reduces employment both directly (fewer teachers, police, firemen, etc.) and indirectly (fewer others needed to provide goods and services to them). An effect is reduced employee bargaining power, holding down wages.

Our entire long-term deficit is due to healthcare costs that are about double those of the next most expensive country. These extra costs don’t lead to better healthcare.

We have rising inequality, which is exacerbated by spending cuts (cutting spending that benefits the middle class).

We’re at a time of record low interest rates. The government’s real (after inflation) cost of borrowing is about 0.4%. The market is not worried about deficits.

It’s yet more evidence that government serves the most fortunate (who benefit from these policies, e.g., corporate share of national income is high and rising) at the expense of the rest of the population.