Republicans are refusing to raise the debt ceiling unless Democrats agree to massively cut social programs for the elderly, poor and disabled.
In doing so, they have adopted the my-way-or-else “negotiating” style of Adolf Hitler.
If Congress fails to raise the borrowing limit of the federal government by August 2, the date when the U.S. will reach the limit of its borrowing abilities, it will likely begin defaulting on its loans.
As Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, explains the looming economic catastrophe:
“If you don’t send out Social Security checks, I would hate to think about the credit meeting at S&P and Moody’s the next morning.
“If you’re not paying millions and millions and millions of people that range in age from 65 on up, money you promised them, you’re not a AAA,” said Buffett.
A triple-A credit rating is the highest possible rating that can be received.
And while Republicans demand that the disadvantaged tighten their belts, they reject any raising of taxes on their foremost constituency–the wealthiest 1%.
To raise taxes on the wealthy, they insist, would be a “jobs-killer.” It would “discourage” corporations from creating tens of thousands of jobs that their CEOs “want” to create.
Lost in this crisis is a startling truth revealed on the January 7, 2010, broadcast of ABC’s “World News Tonight”:
While 25.7 million Americans were desperately searching for work, U.S. corporations reported their most profitable fourth quarter in 19 years–while they sat on nearly $2 trillion in cash.
In short: Giving even greater tax breaks to mega-corporations has not persuaded them to stop “outsourcing” jobs. Nor has it convinced them to start hiring.
So while hugely overpaid CEOs squander corporate wealth on themselves, millions of Americans can’t afford medical care or must depend on charity to feed their families.
Further proof of the folly of “trickle-down” economics came on June 8.
In its cover-story on “What U.S. Economic Recovery? Five Destructive Myths,” Time magazine warned that profit-seeking corporations can’t be relied on to “make it all better.”
Wrote Rana Foroohar, Time‘s assistant managing editor in charge of economics and business:
“There is a fundamental disconnect between the fortunes of American companies, which are doing quite well, and American workers, most of whom are earning a lower hourly wage now than they did during the recession.
“The thing is, companies make plenty of money; they just don’t spend it on workers here.
“There may be $2 trillion sitting on the balance sheets of American corporations globally, but firms show no signs of wanting to spend it in order to hire workers at home.”
Yet there is also a disconnect between the truth of this situation and the willingness of Americans to face up to that truth.
The reason:
“The Republicans have pulled off a major (some would say cynical) miracle,” writes Foroohar.
They have convinced “the majority of Americans that the way to jump-start the economy is to slash taxes on the wealthy and on cash-hoarding corporations while cutting benefits for millions of Americans.
“It’s fun-house math that can’t work. We’ll need both tax increases and sensible entitlement cuts to get back on track.
“Yet surveys show 50% of Americans think that not raising the debt ceiling is a good idea — that you can somehow starve your way to economic growth.”
How have Republicans achieved this? By adopting the principles of propaganda laid down by no less an authority on lying than Adolf Hitler:
According to Mein Kampf-–”My Struggle”–-Hitler’s autobiography and political treatise:
- The great majority of a nation is ruled by sentiment rather than by sober reasoning.
- This sentiment, however, is not complex, but simple and consistent. It is not highly differentiated, but has only the negative and positive notions of love and hatred, right and wrong, truth and falsehood.
- Propaganda must not investigate the truth objectively and must present only that aspect of the truth which is favorable to its own side.
- The receptive powers of the masses are very restricted, and their understanding is feeble. On the other hand, they quickly forget.
- All effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials and those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotyped formulas.
- These slogans should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward.
Following these principles, Republicans have proved hugely successful at persuading millions that truth is whatever their party claims it to be at any given moment.
For their disciples, the slogans penned by George Orwell for 1984, his then-futuristic novel about an all-powerful dictatorship, have become reality:
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
