Progressive failure in debt "crisis" debacle.

• Author: Scipes, Kim
• Position: Looking to the Future

The debt crisis brouhaha recently seen in Congress offered opportunities to the progressive forces of which we failed to take advantage. Both Democrats and Republicans have taken a beating in subsequent polls for their behavior, but to date there's been no noticeable turn to the left of the Democratic Party.

Moreover, the agreement that finally was passed and signed by President Obama actually did little to solve the problem. This charade will re-emerge later this year and will be even more disastrous. It will continue the attacks on the "middle class" and the "have-nots" below them across the board, leaving the rich and their allies basically untouched. This will give us another "opportunity," but only if we recognize why we did so poorly in this first round.

There are three issues that must be addressed: the debt situation itself, the scope of our analysis, and a program bold enough to confront the real issues.

The debt situation itself

The United States government really does have a debt problem. The reality is that the US has been politically unwilling to raise the revenues to cover its expenditures.

Every year, the Federal government proposes an annual budget, which sets government procedures and policies, which include expenditures and income. (It's basically no different than a family budget, yet with a lot more zeros!) After the end of the fiscal year on September 30, the government determines whether it ran a surplus or deficit for the year. Except for the last four years of the Clinton Administration, the government has been in deficit every year since 1970.

However, these surpluses and deficits are added into the cumulative account of surpluses and deficits, known as the National Debt, and that has been exploding over the past 30 years. From 1789 to 1981--from the beginning of George Washington's term to the end of Jimmy Carter's, a period of 192 years--our national debt did not reach SI trillion dollars: it actually was $907 billion, or roughly $.9 trillion (hereafter, T). This included debt from the War of 1812, the Civil War, World War I, World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, as well as everything else carried out by the government, such as rural electrification under the Tennessee Valley Authority. However, with the election of "fiscal conservative" Ronald Reagan and with no major wars, our National Debt grew from $.9 T to $2.7 T between 1981-89: the National Debt tripled in eight years! It has continued upward--with the major...