Is this weird?

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There is a site that I keep an eye on for what is happening in Washington D.C. It is GovExec. GovExec bills itself as:

(The) government's business news daily and the premier Web site for federal managers and executives.

I have found it to be a useful site, but there is an article that took me aback - Half the Deficit is All Spin. Check out the following (emphasis is mine):

President Bush's fiscal 2005 budget is supposed to be sent to Congress by the first Monday in February, so over the next four weeks we're going to be hearing a great deal about how the administration plans to cut the deficit in half by 2008.

For a large number of reasons, this talk should be discounted completely.

Yes, the premier web site for government managers and executives is stating unambiguously that the Bush claims to cut the deficit are all spin.

The argument for why the claims are pure hyperbole are:
1. Bush policies will have raised the deficit to $500 BILLION, and cutting that in half will not equal half of 2003's $374 Billion deficit which would be roughly $185 billion.

2. The administration has not said whether they are cutting this in dollars, or in percentage of the economy. If the economy grows then reducing the deficit as a percentage of GDP might require little cuts in programs. However, if the cuts are in real dollars, substantive program cuts have to be made.

3. The deficit cutting promise is based on current policies - some of which have already ended.

4. There is nothing in this budget for emergencies which will surely occur - not even natural disasters.

5. The deficit cuts are based on spending cuts that the congress has yet to approve - or in some cases even look at.

Some might question whether the deficit is important. It is for a variety of reasons. Internal to the US, the deficit is passed to the next generation of tax payers increasing the debt load on future generations. Addressing that deficit also means reducing (and perhaps reducing dramatically) government services and programs. In other words, people will pay more taxes for less - less education, less health care, less funding for security, less disaster support.

The deficit is also likely to pose a big problem internationally - which will come home to hit us domestically. The BBC (1/07/04) reports US deficit may pose 'global risk'. According to the article, the IMF (International Monetary Fund) is increasingly nervous about the ongoing US deficit. This situation poses not just economic risk to the US economy, but to the global economy. The failure of the US to address the balooning defict may shake international investor confidence. This would result in international investors switching from the US dollar, and the US market place, to other currencies and other market places. (Europe is pushing the euro as the new - more stable - currency base.)

Such a series of actions would have dramatically bad effects on the US economy, but it would also send the international economies into at least a massive transition/transformation. As quoted from the report:

"Episodes of rapid dollar adjustments failed to inflict significant damage in the past, but with US net external debt at record levels, an abrupt weakening of investor sentiments vis-a-vis the dollar could possibly lead to adverse consequences both domestically and abroad."

It also said the deficits could deter private investment within the US, impede long-term productivity growth, and endanger the vitality of social security and Medicare programs.

It is sadly interesting that at the same time US economic stability is going up in smoke, that plans for US global military dominance are proceeding at an alarming rate. Perhaps the plan is to collect tribute from the nations of the world with space-based laser cannons held to their heads.

This is seeming like a likely scenario. According to Bruce Gagnon in his article Bush Plays with Fire: Launching a Dangerous Space Policy (Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space), Bush is pushing a polciy to establish permanent bases on the moon (which goes against the 1979 Moon Treaty the US refused to sign) and to place humans on Mars. To pursue this goal, ongoing funding is in palce for "Project Prometheus" which is a nuclear powered rocket.

As has been discussed before on Uncommon Thought, the goal is total US dominance of space, and that is reiterated in the Gagnon article as well. SO perhaps the administration feels that as long as the US has military control of the world, economies are secondary.

Posted by rowan at January 8, 2004 07:32 PM | TrackBack | Printable Version | [eMail this article!] |