April 10, 2011 9:23 AM

Panem et circenses...Or, anyone care to explain this bit of creative financing to me?

The people that once bestowed commands, consulships, legions, and all else, now concerns itself no more, and longs eagerly for just two things - bread and circuses.

  • Juvenal

OK…so now matter how I try to wrap my head around this, I still can’t make it all add up. Of course, I was a History major, so perhaps I’m just too stupid and lacking in intellectual agility to grasp how this addresses the OHMYGODWHATABOUTOURRGRANDCHILDREN!!!! crisis that is our national deficit.

Let me see if I have this straight, though…. We ran the risk of a government shutdown, right up until virtually the last possible moment, over $38 billion in spending cuts (and Republican demands that we defund Planned Parenthood)…and yet extending the Bush tax cuts cost $150 billion? Correct me if I’m wrong here, but even my inner History major can do the math on this one…and no matter how you pencil the numbers out, $38 billion is STILL less than $150 billion. So…uh, is the something I’m missing here…or am I just looking for complexity where greed, incompetence, and arrogance intersect simply?

I’m wondering how it is that any sort of Republican creative accounting can square increasing the deficit by $150 billion…only to risk shutting the government down over $38 billion in spending cuts, all while acting as if it’s about tackling the 800-lb. gorilla that allegedly is the deficit? And it’s not as if Democrats have acquitted themselves gloriously in this struggle, either. Man, grow some balls, already….

I don’t pretend to have all the answers or to understand all the issues, personalities, and the mine-is-bigger-than-yours horsetrading that passes for principled leadership in Washington these days. Still, I do think that I can come to grips with one very basic mathematical reality (hat tip to my 4th grade math teacher, Mr. Solo):

$38 billion < $150 billion

Still, I can’t help but feel that I’m missing something. It can’t be that simple…can it??

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on April 10, 2011 9:23 AM.

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