Deficits Don’t Matter

Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill was told "deficits don't matter" when he warned of a looming fiscal crisis. O'Neill, fired in a shakeup of Bush's economic team in December 2002, raised objections to a new round of tax cuts and said the president balked at his more aggressive plan to combat corporate crime after a string of accounting scandals because of opposition from "the corporate crowd," a key constituency.

O'Neill said he tried to warn Vice President Dick Cheney that growing budget deficits-expected to top $500 billion this fiscal year alone-posed a threat to the economy. Cheney cut him off. "You know, Paul, Reagan proved deficits don't matter," he said, according to excerpts. Cheney continued: "We won the midterms (congressional elections). This is our due." A month later, Cheney told the Treasury secretary he was fired.

The vice president's office had no immediate comment, but John Snow, who replaced O'Neill, insisted that deficits "do matter" to the administration.
www.issues2000.org/2004/Dick_Cheney_Budget_+_Economy.htm

Some insist that Cheney had a point, but if that’s the case –why do we keep trying to get rid of them?!

Facts are stubborn things.
-Ronald Reagan

Does Debt Matter?
Over the last several years, health care, education, and gas prices have soared while real wages have fallen. The nation's working poor have been hit the hardest, having to pay much more than moderate- and high-income households for life's essentials. All these rising costs have left people with few savings and mountains of debt. According to a new poll sponsored by the Center for American Progress, 86 percent "insist the number of Americans having trouble with household debt has gone up in the last five years." The public is more worried about falling into debt, particularly from medical bills, than about being the victim of a terrorist attack or natural disaster.

The average savings rate in 2005 was negative 0.5 percent, "the lowest since the Great Depression." President Bush has pledged to help the working poor achieve the "American Dream." But until something is done about the current debt crisis, that dream will be elusive for millions of Americans. Debt matters. Typical expenses are going up, 46% of Americans hold a credit card balance, Predatory lending is at an all time high, Lets not even speak on College Tuition.. I guess that whole “deficits don’t matter” concept is one the American public has chosen to follow!

First Katrina, Now This?!
U.S. GOVERNMENT SLOW IN EVACUATING AMERICANS FROM LEBANON: Americans hoping to leave Lebanon amidst ongoing fighting between Hezbollah and Israel are finding the U.S. government's evacuation plan to be frustratingly "slow and chaotic." American efforts are "clearly lagging behind those of other countries," CNN reports. As of Tuesday night, only about 350 Americans of the 25,000 living in Lebanon had been evacuated to the nearby island of Cyprus, while Europeans and Lebanese with foreign passports already have fled by the thousands after their governments began moving them out in the first days of the hostilities. Many Americans fortunate enough to have already been evacuated are complaining about the lack of information being provided to them by the American embassy in Beirut, leading to rumors about that they will be forced to sleep on the streets of Cyprus. In addition, the U.S. government initially demanded that evacuees pay for their ride out of the country; the White House and State Department to backed off that policy last night after pressure from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and others. How much more proof do you need that this administration has no idea how to manage emergency situations? Then again…maybe it was the fault of the local (Lebanese) government. :-)

Quickies:
The Bush administration has reportedly given Israel a window of a week to inflict maximum damage on Hezbollah before weighing in behind international calls for a ceasefire in Lebanon, the Guardian reports.

Former Christian Coalition head Ralph Reed, who later worked as a lobbyist on gambling issues with "close associate" Jack Abramoff, suffered an embarrassing defeat in his effort to win the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor in Georgia on Tuesday.

"More than 14,000 civilians have been killed in Iraq in the first half of this year," a U.N. report says. Civilian deaths are on an upward trend, reflecting the fact that killings, kidnappings and torture remain widespread in the war-torn country.

Former Time Inc. Editor-in-Chief Norman Pearlstine is to join elite private equity firm the Carlyle Group as a senior advisor, indicating "greater involvement by Carlyle in deals involving publishing and media."

A new Government Accountability Office report found that because of “poor training, lax oversight and rampant confusion,” the “Homeland Security Department wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars last year on iPods, dog booties, beer-making equipment and designer jackets.”

The World Bank website contains many pictures of Paul Wolfowitz in markets, schools and clinics, nearly always surrounded by smiling children. Isn't it amazing how these opportunities just seem to present themselves wherever he goes? Not really. It turns out they're planned well in advance and tightly scripted.