budget cuts we can all agree on

let's just cut through the BS. new york magazine had this tidbit picked up by the google news aggregator, which itself came from the WaPo/ABC news poll. it managed in just a couple of sentences to boil down the budgetary bollocks thus:

Even after weeks of serious debate over our serious debt crisis, a Washington Post/ABC News poll shows that cutting Medicare, Medicaid, or military spending — but especially Medicare — is still unpopular with the American public. The only measure getting majority approval? Raising taxes on people making over $250,000 a year, which received 72 percent support and is part of President Obama's debt-reduction 'framework.'

say this for the american public: even while the corporate media pitches the notion that the tea party movement represents its hopes and aspirations, when it comes to straight-up priorities, the voters are to the left of johnny boehner, eric cantor and michelle bachmann!

who'd a thunk it?

we the public are a notoriously fickle bunch, however. wrap it with bugaboos like fags, welfare queens, mexicans and terrorists, and the right wing can convince the average american of just about anything. cutting taxes on corporations will save us from the homosexual agenda, goddamn it! when it comes to elections, the shit never fails.

considering the level of income inequality in the US is higher than at any time since the market crashed in 1929, and that tax rates on the have-mores have plummeted since the reagan administration, it would seem to make some sense that the wealthy can easily contribute more to our collective well-being through taxation. this is especially true in light of S&P rather unsettling announcement that there is a one-in-three chance that the US will lose its excellent credit rating unless it brings its fiscal house in order.

beyond that, this fascination with the military is another ripe area for action. this sucks in more than half the discretionary spending by the government -- and is probably being understated at that. the GOP -- and now obama -- undertook two wars in the past decade, and refused to pay for them. we simply put them on the tab. the "garrisoning of the planet" that writers like chalmers johnson and andrew bacevich decry, is eating us alive -- until we'll not only implode the budget, but collapse altogether, if some radical cutting isn't undertaken. this pentagon bloat is not making us safer.

the public has never understood why the government obligated itself (and by extension, the taxpayers) to bail out the banks, and yet this is one immense portion of the deficit and national debt. it exploded upon the ascension of barack obama to the presidency, but he just happened to be the ambitious, craven politician who clawed his way into the oval office -- heedless of the gathering clusterfuck he was inheriting from his republican predecessor.

since the 2008 market crash and follow-on economic depression, deficits that were merely record-breaking under dubya bush suddenly went stratospheric -- and show no sign of coming down to earth any time soon. but this is simply a function of the government putting all the toxic assets of the banksters on its books, and forcing the taxpayer to make good on the debts by -- get ready for it -- paying the banksters for loaning us this money, at interest, that came from bailing them out!

the public, in the poll above, speaks very rationally except they don't yet comprehend the enormity of the scam that's been run against them. this has put the public's interest into a collision course with the insatiable appetite of the banksters. and the banksters will not be satisfied until they have the grand prize: your social security money!

it's the responsibility of voters to cut off the bankers before they can make good on their plans. there is no solution short of outright revolution, if the banksters using their financial stranglehold over politicians to run this game toward the conclusion they're gaming for.