Pay for Your God-Damned War

Think of this as Volume 16, Number 50 of A-Clue.com, the online newsletter I've written since 1997. Enjoy.

I have spent most of my professional career as a Democrat writing for Republicans, while coming back here to my typewriter in order to try and put all that into perspective.

What I have learned, through my study of American history and its cycles, is that disgraced Power, a combination of Myths and Values created in an earlier time, never takes responsibility for the excess that results from its abuse of that power.

There were never Confederates who could admit in their hearts that maybe Lincoln had a point. There were never Populists who accepted the idea that an organized, regulated economy would bring prosperity, that it was the right way to go. Republicans who opposed the New Deal went right into fascism, either excusing Hitler or embracing him, while few Democrats who fought Nixon ever saw that, maybe, he had a point about the Cold War and the need to maintain social peace through discipline.

So it should be no surprise to me that my readers at Seeking Alpha and TheStreet.Com, who are mostly firm believers in the Nixon Thesis, and who supported the excesses of George W. Bush each step of the way, are more than a little reluctant, even now, to see any error in their ways.

I was slapped in the face by this realization when the following was rejected by Seeking Alpha. Plenty of similar commentaries, from Republicans, about the "Fiscal Cliff" and the issues of the budget had been published. One, most memorably, was titled "Has Paul Krugman Gone Too Far?"  Yet this was deemed to be overly political.

Lesson learned. If you want to speak truth, do it on your own time. My view on the matter is contained in the headline at the top of this. The piece, as submitted, follows:

For the last few weeks CNBC has become
“Comedy Central,” with all guests expected to harrumph and act
troubled about the so-called “fiscal cliff.”

As I've written before,
this whole thing is a scam. It's designed by the ultra-wealthy to
pass the costs of the last decade's wars and tax cuts on the poor.
Nothing more, nothing less.

Look at who's represented on the
so-called “Fix the Debt”  group. Most are affiliated with Peter G. Peterson (left), a very rich man
and a long-time opponent of the social safety net. They got theirs,
they got a lot of it from the government in the form of defense
contracts, but even though you paid for yours, you're not going to
get it, because they're going to use the excuse of "the debt" to take it away from
you.

If debt were really the issue in the
“fiscal cliff” these guys would be in barrels lining up to go
over it. This is technically sequestration, a collection of tax increases and
spending cuts designed last year to do what Congress had found itself
manifestly unable to do, which was cut our debt.

So what are they wringing their hands
about? They don't like tax hikes – who does? They don't like their
own interests in government spending to be put at risk – who does?
They don't like the priorities here – we just had an election about
those priorities and their side lost.

Rise above what? Above partisan
politics? If that's the case, why isn't Peterson going along with
these tax increases as his own down payment, and those of his
friends? Why is he fighting so hard to rescind these tax increases?

What's really happening is that the
supply-siders and austerity fans who got us into this mess are trying
to win through negotiation what they lost in the election. And guess
what – Democrats are on to the game.

It's hysterical watching John Boehner
prance about, claiming he's going to prevent taxes from going up
January 1. Don't you get it – taxes are going up unless you do
something. Spending is going down unless you do something. The fiscal
cliff is what you wanted, what you voted for. This is all buyer's
remorse.

Eric Parnell is shocked, shocked, that
the total national debt has risen $5 trillion in the last five years.
Why did that happen? Did President Obama walk into office with a
healthy economy? Did he walk in with America at peace?

No. He walked into office with the
economy collapsing, falling at a 9% annual rate, not the 4% rate he
was given by the outgoing Administration. He also walked into a
political environment where Republicans were devoted to only two
goals – keeping the tax cuts and wars that were causing the
deficit, and doing all they could to prevent a recovery under a
Democratic President.

So we had the Recovery Act, which did
in fact pile almost $1 trillion onto the debt. But the fiscal impact
of that act has disappeared. What's left, in terms of driving the
debt, are mainly the tax cuts and the war. What I wanna know from
Peter G. Peterson, Rick Santelli, all the folks at CNBC, from Simpson
and Bowles and all their friends at Fix the Debt, is how they plan to
pay for the damned war they put on our credit card a decade ago.

Throw grandma from the train? Tell the
poor to pound sand? They really think that's going to repay the $10
trillion (with interest) these two wars have cost the American
people? Really? Really.

There is an economic reality to all
this. Too much austerity, too fast, and we go back into recession,
which puts off any effort to pay down the debt by any means we can
devise, other than literally eating grandma (nor raw, cooked) and
playing “Hunger Games” with those newly graduated from college.

But we don't have to deal with that
this month. We can have Obama tax cuts, and a new round of stimulus,
next year. That's what is probably going to happen, by the way,
although the Republicans may play the game of voting “present”
and letting the tax cuts on 98% of us continue. But how does that fix
the debt? It doesn't.

The plain, unvarnished truth is we
fought these wars for oil, and we should pay for them in oil. Tax
oil. Tax carbon. Tax fossil fuels. Repay the debt that way, get rid
of all existing programs for renewable energy, and over 10 years we
can pay that part of the debt our troops paid for with their blood in
Iraq, in a war based on lies.

After that, we'll talk Mr. Peterson.
Pay for your damnable war. Does this make the fiscal cliff a problem for you, Mr.
Peterson? Because I'll be glad to push you off it, personally.