Public Budgets

I’m feeling pretty guilty. I hadn’t known I was causing billionaires so much suffering. The former co-chair of President Obama’s deficit (a.k.a. catfood) commission just asked me during a public event to stop going after rich people. Then he came up to me after the event to make sure I’d gotten the point. He seemed truly worried about it.

This was a panel discussion at the University of Virginia. The panelists were Simpson, David Walker (former U.S. comptroller, former read more

The White House has a handy website to mislead you about your tax dollars at http://www.whitehouse.gov/taxreceipt

It claims that only 26.3% goes to “National Defense”. This is similar to the claim in the 1040EZ US income tax form booklet (see pages 36-37). Here are those two pages in a PDF. There the claim is that the U.S. government only spends 22% of its money on “National defense, veterans, read more

2.21.11 Best-selling author David Swanson joins Coy to discuss the labor unrest in Wisconsin. Be sure to check out his most recent book War is a Lie.

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Pick up a copy of a 1040EZ US income tax form with all the instructions, particularly pages 36-37. Here are those two pages in a PDF. You’ll discover that the U.S. government only spends 22% of its money on “National defense, veterans, and foreign affairs.” The form admits that you could leave out the “foreign affairs” part and still be at 21%.

However, take a look now at the pie chart created by the War read more

Whether or not one recklessly and misleadingly includes Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid in discussions of the federal discretionary budget, the fact remains that over half of the discretionary budget (of everything other than Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid) is military. The primary talking point coming out of the White House is the need to freeze all non-military discretionary spending. And yet it is difficult to find a progressive analysis of the budget President Obama read more

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer spoke Tuesday morning in a large private room (the Columbus Room) at Union Station in Washington, D.C. and took questions. He had no answers for the questions I put to him.

Hoyer’s topic was fiscal responsibility, and he said that his proposals — which were all pure vagueness — would be appropriate to enact “as soon as the economy is fully recovered.” Don’t hold your breath.

Hoyer, as is the custom, bragged about cutting and trying read more