Spending Is Not The Problem

Federal government spending is not the problem these days. Spending has already been massively cut since President Obama assumed office, and as a percentage of GDP (the only reasonable way to view spending) it will soon drop below spending at any time since 1970. This will happen without making any more cuts. The Republicans know this, but they don't want the American people to know it -- because they want to use spending as an excuse to cut programs they have never liked (like Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid).

The real problem is revenues. The rich are using loopholes to wind up paying a smaller percentage than the middle class workers (remember Romney paying 13% on more than $20 million in income -- that's not uncommon at all among the top 1%, and especially among the top 0.1%). And then you have the corporations. They receive many billions in subsidies, while paying a lower share of taxes than at any time since the 1950s.

The Republicans, on behalf of their rich friend on Wall Street and in corporate boardrooms, have tilted the economic playing field to favor the rich. It is time to fix that. Call it "class warfare" or "income redistribution" if you want, but it's really just economic justice. We need to return to the time before "trickle-down" economics was put in place by the GOP in the 1980s -- a time when everyone in our society benefitted from a rise in productivity, and not just the rich.