Pray for gridlock!
by digby
Ezra reports something that I would hope every Village gasbag would be forced to read each morning before they open their mouths:
The Congressional Budget Office just released the latest edition of its long-term budget outlook (pdf), and it shows the same thing as always: If Congress lets the Bush tax cuts expire or offsets their extension, implements the Affordable Care Act as scheduled and makes or offset the Medicare cuts prescribed by the 1997 Balanced Budget Act — which CBO calls the “extended baseline scenario” — the national debt will be totally manageable. If Congress passes laws extending the Bush tax cuts without offsetting the cost, repealing the Affordable Care Act and its cost controls and protecting doctors from Medicare cuts without making up the savings elsewhere — the “alternative fiscal scenario” — the national debt will be totally out of control.
In other words there is no long term debt crisis unless the politicians decide to create one. Everything's already in place to keep it perfectly under control. So why are we talking about it?
I don't think there's any better evidence that this deficit fever is nothing more than a disaster capitalist boondoggle. The wealthy elites and their nihilist ideologue allies in both parties are flogging this debt crisis in order to enact favorable legislation and fill out their long term wish list. That they are doing it under a Democratic administration just makes it sweeter.
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