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Chris
05-04-2013, 01:43 PM
Keep in mind as you read this that there never was any austerity implemented in Europe.


...After four-years-going-on-five of such economic anemia, liberals sorely need a new culprit -- especially with their favorite whipping boy, George W. Bush, now far removed from office. Enter Europe, stage left. Or rather, Europe’s “austerity,” to be more precise.

That a continent of countries, spinning like a roulette wheel of fiscal failure, now could be suddenly afflicted by austerity -- after over-spending for decades -- is a puzzler in its own right. This is to misdiagnose cure for problem -- not unlike an addict blaming detox for the shakes.

Of course, such a move by America’s liberals serves two purposes. It shifts focus away from the $620 billion tax hike slapped on the nation at year’s beginning. And even more, it protects the sizable and sudden spending surge to which they have become quite accustomed.

...Juxtaposed with this profligacy, we find the following spending “austerity”: an $85 billion sequester that took effect just two months ago. That spending cut represents a 2.3 percent reduction from where spending otherwise would have been. In our $16 trillion economy, it is only a 0.5 percent slice.

So where is the “austerity” part of this austerity?

...

@ What Austerity? (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/05/04/what_austerity.html#ixzz2SLoGYHTU)

simpsonofpg
05-04-2013, 06:15 PM
Keep in mind as you read this that there never was any austerity implemented in Europe.



@ What Austerity? (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/05/04/what_austerity.html#ixzz2SLoGYHTU)

How would we possibility know we have never done it and have no knowledge of what it entails.

Chris
05-04-2013, 08:42 PM
How would we possibility know we have never done it and have no knowledge of what it entails.

We do know we have tried the opposite and it has failed.

We also know we have tried austerity and it has worked. One instance is immediately following WWII. We naturally went into a recession. FDR's fellow travelers wanted to keep the nation on a war footing, modelled on Keynesian advice. Congress said no, cut the budget, drastically. We came out of the recession quickly.

simpsonofpg
05-05-2013, 11:42 AM
With the history of our congress over the past 60 years who would know? They don't know the first meaning about being austere. It has been so long since this country practiced austreity that no one is alive.

Chris
05-05-2013, 12:41 PM
With the history of our congress over the past 60 years who would know? They don't know the first meaning about being austere. It has been so long since this country practiced austreity that no one is alive.

Exactly, they're so far out of touch with the people it's hopeless to expect change. Yet some say the government is the people. Are we out of touch with ourselves?

simpsonofpg
05-06-2013, 06:07 PM
I have said it before you can't practice what you don't know and this country hasn't understood austerity for over 60 years.

lynn
05-06-2013, 07:29 PM
The only way in to become a member of the political system is by the size of your bank account. The size of most Citizens in the U.S. bank account doesn't even come close to the ones getting elected to govern us. "Out of Touch" is putting it mildly to describe our governing system. None of them have walked in our shoes and it is obvious with the way they spend tax payers money as if they think the well will never go dry.