From Bush Treasury Secy Paul O'Neill's book, "The Price of Loyalty" - "Reagan proved deficits don't matter,' Dick Cheney said during a Cabinet meeting. 'We won the (2002) midterms. [More tax cuts with deficit increases] is our due.'
"By 'due,' Cheney meant that because the GOP won the midterms on a platform of more tax cuts and deficit...increases, they could pass even more tax cuts and run up even higher deficits."
"Voters knew that a Clinton surplus of $200 billion had been transformed into a $200 billion deficit under Bush (it is now $450 billion), and voted for Republicans anyway. That's what Cheney meant by 'Reagan proved deficits don't matter.' For Cheney, Reagan proved there was no political cost to big deficits.
"Secretary O'Neill questioned the sagacity of giving more tax cuts to the wealthy. A month later, Cheney called O'Neill to suggest he announce his wish to retire. 'I'm too old to begin telling lies now,' said O'Neill, so Cheney fired him....
"Since Cheney had been responsible for bringing the 'straight shooter' O'Neill into the Bush administration, we can take O'Neill's words as the truth."
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0119-06.htm
[Ed. Note: Cheney? A "straight shooter?" Sounds like the Veep could have learned something from him.
The above comments are excerpts from an article that appeared in the San Diego Union-Tribune in 2004. The author also mentioned one more intriguing point:
Even Bush "briefly, showed some interest [in the deficit problem], asking if they hadn't already done enough for wealthy taxpayers."
Who talked him into changing his mind and continuing to support even more giveaways to the super wealthy??
You'll never guess ...
Okay, I lied, You could have guessed correctly in a heartbeat. (No, not one of Dick Cheney's. I meant a regular heartbeat]:
"Adviser Karl Rove admonished Bush to 'stick to principle,' the principle being that deficits were his due, and the debate was over."
More on Cheney's belief that the size of the deficit doesn't matter was in a March, 2010, edition of Salon. http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/feature/2010/03/23/dick_cheney_was_right_about_deficits
This article explained that "Republican strategy is based on the fact that the American public is deeply confused." In other words, most Americans are against govt spending in the abstract, but favor more spending when it comes to most govt programs that are specified by name. However, they also favor cutting taxes and balancing the budget.
"When asked whether they favor higher spending, lower taxes, or a balanced budget, Americans answer 'Yes."
In other words, people WANT continued spending, or MORE spending, on programs they've gotten used to, such as Social Security and Medicare. They also like tax cuts but only if those cuts apply to their own individual income brackets. And the LEAST important of the three to most Americans is the size of the federal deficit.
The Salon article also describes the original "Reagan revolutionaries" as having the same objective in mind as I have consistently attributed to the current crop of GOP crooks and liars:
"The original Reagan revolutionaries were small-government conservatives with a 'starve the beast' strategy. They would cut taxes first, and then TAKE ADVANTAGE OF the clamor over the resulting deficits to cut spending." Bingo!
So there you have it in a nutshell. The Salon column explained exactly why the lowest of the low among GOP governors (Scott Walker, John Kasich, Rick Scott, and of course, the real "Wicked With of the West," Jan Brewer), all presided over huge tax giveaways to the mega rich and corporations in each of their states, and only then, after these gratuitous, unnecessary tax cuts for their friends and campaign contributors had bled their respective treasuries substantially into negative territory, did they start bleating about their states' being broke and how, because of their states' burgeoning deficits, the governors were "forced" to save money somehow, somewhere.
And, of course, as always with Rethuglicans, that "somewhere" began and ended with f funding for critical services for the most vulnerable members of their constituencies: the sick, the poor, the elderly, the mentally challenged, and the involuntarily unemployed.
So please explain to me how the theory espoused by the first "Reagan revolutionaries" doesn't describe exactly what's going on right now all over this country?
Which should provide Democrats with one overriding lesson: The president and the Democratic Majority in the Senate would be crazy, not to mention extraordinarily self destructive, if they were to play right into the Rethuglicans' hands by participating in this wholly unnecessary and massive budget cutting debate that's based exclusively on a Republican shell game.
Since the President is certain to cave in, and more, to GOP demands, as he always does, I'm afraid our hopes rely entirely on the Senate Democrats, not the most courageous, hard hitting band of folks either. But I'm afraid they're all we've got. The ONLY appropriate stance for Democratic legislators to adopt now is: Not one cent of program cutting until the Bush tax cuts for the top 2% have been repealed. Period. Conversation over.
So lets hope against hope that enough Democrats in the Senate (at least the 41 necessary to sustain a FILIBUSTER against any GOP House bill that includes significant cuts to social spending) grow some spines for once and STAND UP to this latest, and quite possibly gravest, GOP effort to cut the moorings entirely from the poor and the other most hapless, helpless, defenseless and voiceless members of our society (who parenthetically are not known to make particularly large contributions to the coffers of Republican candidates) so that they will be left entirely to their own devices. Sink or swim (or starve to death or die from perfectly treatable illnesses. Today's breed of Republican could not care less.
If you think I'm exaggerating, check with some of those Arizonans who continue to desperately await lifesaving transplant surgeries that Jan Brewer refuses to let them have. Or that poor, crippled man who was on the ground in Ohio when he absorbed vicious taunts and insults from numerous Tea Baggers who showed him exactly how much they empathized with him last year)
Because, mark my words, the complete abolition of government aid to the disadvantaged in exactly what the Kochs and other GOP puppet masters want, and, like Major Strasse at Rick’s, they will be satisfied with no less.
