Mickey Walker

Deficits Don’t Matter? Tell That to the 47 Million Americans Without Healthcare

By Mickey Walker-September 20, 2009

Talk about THE chink in the armor of Conservatives.  Cheney said, “Reagan proved that deficits don’t’ matter.” They might never recover by talking trash like that.  When Reagan decided to upgrade our military hardware because the Evil Empire, Russia, needed defeating, I thought, no way would the American people buy an avowed staunch conservative president like Reagan BORROWING OVER 3 TRILLION DOLLARS!  Even the demonized big-spending Democrats never spent so much, so crazily. But Americans did.  I thought Reagan had fallen and hit his head.  But the camera loved Reagan, I guess.  He could have sold snake oil and people would have been happy to give him all their money even if it was just a bottle of water and not a real remedy.  All the planets line up back then.  Congress dared not oppose such a popular president so they gave him all the Trillions of dollars he needed because he made everybody "feel" so good and proud to be an American again.  At the time, I remember thinking, hell, I don't need Reagan to make me feel proud.........I already do, and don't need his help, thank you very much.  I would just as soon watch him in a rerun of “Kings Row.”

Some say Reagan forgot that he campaigned on fiscal conservative policies of reducing government spending and getting government off the back of the people.  But when he was elected president everything changed.  Borrowing and spending became the order of the day.  And it looks like he knew what he was doing all along. He knew very well that if he could move the fear factor in the American people, that the war corporations who were big donors of his, could flourish and get not only filthy richer, but get control of not only the government (as Ike warned us would happen), but of the money and power, too.  So while damning welfare, socialism, minimum wage, and unions, (you know, the working class, the poor) Reagan sold us this bill of goods that kept us looking the other way while the war corporation cronies of the rich and powerful did their thing.  America got punked!  Dude!  I have NEVER been against Capitalism, but Capitalism hooked up with government to turn a profit, stinks.  Where do you think all those $500 hammers and $600 toilet seats came from?  Not to mention all the bullets, planes, new devices of war to protect us against the Ruskie godless ones?  The Communists.  So indeed, Cheney was right when he said, "Reagan taught us that deficits don't matter."  You see, without deficit spending, we never could have built up the hardware so fast and kept the cash registers ringing up trillions that kept on showering into the pockets of the “Haves” while the union and other “Have Nots” would have to cut bait and lump it under such a popular president.  He was a great actor.  But what did Ronnie ever do for the working man?  Not much.  He said he created more jobs, but his own statistics had flipping hamburgers listed as a manufacturing job.  Geez, Louise.  America bought it and elected him for a second term.

Cheney was right.  Reagan tried to teach us that deficits don't matter. But hold your ass.  That Reagan wink and that crooked Cheney smile aren’t by happenstance.  You might wind up with an over-debted nation, trillions of dollars in debt, down the dark hole or no return, no real manufacturing jobs, the dollar in jeopardy against other world currencies (just give it another year or two), and now we are still ringing up the war corporation cash registers while we occupy two new countries, Iraq and Afghanistan.  Think that don't torpedo the Treasury and have us begging China to buy our bonds and the Saudis to please sell us oil at a decent price?  Was the Voodoo Economics of Reagan really the right thing to do?  Is Russia on her knees?  Did we really bring democracy to Iraq as we vowed to do after we realized that finding weapons of mass destruction was slim to none?  Was it worth all the lives and the Trillions of dollars off-budget we had to borrow and spend so Bush and his war-corporation Congress could keep showering coins into the pockets of the Neocon war corporations that Ike warned might get their hooks into our government someday?  In Reagan's own words, are we better off after 20 years of borrowing and spending under Reagan, Bush I and Bush II?  Just look around.  These days it’s popular to jump on Obama for all this financial ongoing bankrupt Treasury.  That really shines the light on us for who we really are.  Blaming Obama, just 7 months in office, shows the rest of the world how dumbass we are for not paying attention to our country, our homes, our jobs, and our families, you know, the land of the brave where the crooks say, "Deficits don't matter."

Enter the Tea Party demonstrators.  They bitch and complain about high taxes in 2008 and 2009, can you believe it?  But where were these great Americans when we needed them?  Where were they in 2003 when Bush said Iraq needed attacking and he did just that, and went OFF-BUDGET to pay for it by shaming Congress twice each year to give him 50, 80, and sometimes over an extra 100 Billion dollars each time?  Why weren’t Americans worried back then that bringing democracy to Iraq was to be a costly tragedy that also got people killed in the hundreds of thousands?  One would think that America’s borrowing and spending Trillions of dollars to finance wars to bring democracy to Iraq would have drawn real protests and massive demonstrations.  But not a peep.  It sure wasn’t chump change.  But no one cared. 

What Americans of late are into and  protesting with great outrage is the borrowing and spending they see happening if Barack Obama succeeds in getting a national healthcare plan passed through Congress that will bring healthcare to 47 Million Americans who don’t have it.  Hold up here.  Let’s go slow on this one just for drill.  Now, let’s see if I got it.  Many Americans are vocal and ticked off at Obama and the Democrats for pushing for a comprehensive healthcare plan that would benefit all Americans and keep them from going bankrupt if they get sick and have to pay out of their own pockets because they have NO healthcare coverage.  Including the 47 Million Americans who at present have NO coverage.  NOTHING.  I find myself having to take a deep breath just to get through this.  This same America then should really and truly be pissed off at our spending trillions and invading and occupying foreign sovereigns who never harmed America, right?  I mean, knowing full well that the Trillions we have been spending on attempting to bring democracy to Muslim countries required us to borrow and spend Trillions of dollars from the Chinese to pull it off; we would have gone berserk, right?  Not even close.  Nobody protested.  No Tea Party demonstrations on “How we gonna pay for it?”  Nothing.  If we could not get riled up and outraged enough about invading and occupying Iraq, then for sure, we would not get bent out of shape for wanting a National Healthcare Policy for all Americans, right?  Wrong. 

So what’s going on here?  Who are we, these new Americans, who seem to swallow Bush’s borrow-and-spend policies just fine that bankrupted us forever and ever!  But we back up when it comes to providing National Healthcare for all Americans?  Say what?  Are we for real?  Or has the fringe Right bought and paid for the collective consciousness of all America?  TV commercials, Hannity, Rush, O’Reilly, and even Kay Bailey Hutchison saying that National Healthcare will rob us of our great medical plans we already have?  Moreover is Senator Hutchinson saying maybe that she fears that our paying for All Americans in the decent tradition of England, France, Canada, all of which have government healthcare for all of their countrymen, might rob us not of our fine healthcare, but might rob select persons and companies of their hard-earned bucks through higher taxes?  Let’s face it.  Obama said all Americans earning more than $250M per year would see an increase in their income taxes.  Is this the selective voter Kay Bailey Hutchison seeks to protect?  The rich sumbitches?  I want her and her cronies who voted for and still approve of wars and borrowing and spending to fund them to tell us why wars are more important that a National Healthcare Plan for all Americans.  I would like to see her go on record as to what she thinks we should do with the 47 Million Americans who have NO healthcare coverage in this, the richest nation in the world.  Maybe she thinks we should kick them to the curb and let them fend for themselves.  Like we have been doing all along.  You can tell she is really out to help people who really need help.

Bottom line, if we had the money we borrowed and spent on nation-building wars of insanity; we would have enough to fund a National Healthcare Plan for all Americans.  If the 2 Trillion dollar Bush Tax Cuts for the Wealthy were rescinded, the money would be there to see that all Americans did not have to lose their jobs and then their houses due to a major illness.

Unless we choose to become a second-rate nation that kicks our people to the curb on a national healthcare plan for all Americans, we need to acknowledge that we have national priorities other than stupid wars based upon lies about mythological weapons of mass destruction.  If we are to spend our resources, our men, women, and children on the bloody altar of war instead of taking care of our own with a national healthcare plan for all, then we need to rethink and restructure our priorities.  We need to stop getting riled up at all the wrong things.  We need to grow up as a nation and help each other.  Now.  And kick our red-necked thinking to the curb.   TPJmagazine

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