Archives 2004 [openmindandcodenews] The Bush Economic Plan: Born Again Economics
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John Churchilly
Feb 25, 2026, 5:56:32 PM (5 days ago) Feb 25
to themeritocracy
Sent: Thursday, December 23, 2004 at 07:24:04 AM GMT+3
Subject: [openmindandcodenews] The Bush Economic Plan: Born Again Economics
Published on Wednesday, December 22, 2004 by CommonDreams.org
The Bush Economic Plan: Born Again Economics
by Blaine Townsend
The burgeoning Federal budget deficit should have been the focus of
President Bush's economic conference last week. But inexplicably, it
was not. Perhaps the President really does take the Bible as literally
as his Christian Right base. After all, his cavalier approach to the
deficit bears an eerie resemblance to an Evangelical giving away his
possessions in anticipation of the Apocalypse. Maybe the party of
"Whip Inflation Now" and fiscal discipline has been hijacked by the
Christian Right. It is hard to imagine the Grand Old Party ignoring a
deficit this dangerous for something that looks this much like "Born
Again Economics."
The first pillar of Born Again Economics: the Apocalypse is coming, so
there is no point in saving for the future. Mission accomplished! When
George W. Bush entered the White House in 2001, the Congressional
Budget Office projected a $5 trillion reduction in federal debt over
ten years. When Bush is sworn into his second term next month, the CBO
will instead project a $2.3 trillion increase in the debt. Unless of
course, the Bush tax cuts are made permanent. Then the figure will
double.
This leads to the second pillar of Born Again Economics: the "left
behind" theory. In the widely successful and astronomically profitable
"Left Behind" series of Christian Right novels, all non-Christian
believers are left behind to suffer or die on Earth after true
believers ascend to Heaven. During the 2004 election, the GOP
mobilized millions of Evangelicals who take these Biblical apocalyptic
tales literally. And make no mistake; the GOP didn't pull that off by
selling traditional Republican values like fiscal responsibility or
States' rights. They did it by talking about Good and Evil and tacitly
endorsing the notion that the existence of the State of Israel, the
war in Iraq and 9/11 are in fact a prelude to a biblical event.
Well, this week President Bush offered his own "left behind" theory.
The Bush version works like this: if you are poor or middle class, you
will be left behind. This is because the vast majority of the
projected ten-year, $1.9 trillion dollar redistribution of government
revenues that President Bush advocates through permanent tax cuts will
go to the very richest Americans. By definition, this will drain
resources from desperately needed services used by the poor and middle
class, like public education, Medicare and the 911 Emergency Response
System.
President Bush will argue that the redistributed wealth will
eventually stimulate enough economic activity to make up for these
lost revenues. Unfortunately, it is having an immediate and exploding
effect on the deficit, which places added pressure on the structure of
the American economy and makes the possibility of this scenario a long
shot at best.
The final, but most important pillar of Born Again Economics: fear.
Charlatans, false prophets and the Bush political team know that fear
motivates. Vice President Dick Cheney stooped low enough to say
America stood a better chance of being attacked if people voted for
Senator John Kerry. President George W. Bush even sold the War on Iraq
by telling Congress and the country that Saddam Hussein had a nuclear
weapon. That was scary. It wasn't true. But it was scary.
Now Bush has opened his Evangelical tool kit to sell wholesale changes
in Social Security, doing everything but strapping on a poster board
that reads, "The end is near". Unfortunately, few outside the
Administration have concluded that the end is near enough to warrant
wholesale changes or that privatization will help workers in the long
run. Nearly everyone concludes, however, that privatization will make
Wall Street money in the short run, and add even more to the bloated
deficit.
And that is the key to Born Again Economics: it's the short-term
payoff that seems to matter. That would explain the President's
willingness to pass a massive debt burden onto future Americans. It's
not exactly the American dream or sound economic policy. But for some
reason, that doesn't seem to bother this President.
Blaine Townsend (blain...@yahoo.com) is a San Francisco-based
investment advisor.
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1222-33.htm
--
"Whom the gods would destroy they first give control of
both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue."
"Well, while I'm here I'll do the work and what's the work?
To ease the pain of living. Everything else, drunken dumbshow."
Allen Ginsberg
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The Bush Economic Plan: Born Again Economics
by Blaine Townsend
The burgeoning Federal budget deficit should have been the focus of
President Bush's economic conference last week. But inexplicably, it
was not. Perhaps the President really does take the Bible as literally
as his Christian Right base. After all, his cavalier approach to the
deficit bears an eerie resemblance to an Evangelical giving away his
possessions in anticipation of the Apocalypse. Maybe the party of
"Whip Inflation Now" and fiscal discipline has been hijacked by the
Christian Right. It is hard to imagine the Grand Old Party ignoring a
deficit this dangerous for something that looks this much like "Born
Again Economics."
The first pillar of Born Again Economics: the Apocalypse is coming, so
there is no point in saving for the future. Mission accomplished! When
George W. Bush entered the White House in 2001, the Congressional
Budget Office projected a $5 trillion reduction in federal debt over
ten years. When Bush is sworn into his second term next month, the CBO
will instead project a $2.3 trillion increase in the debt. Unless of
course, the Bush tax cuts are made permanent. Then the figure will
double.
This leads to the second pillar of Born Again Economics: the "left
behind" theory. In the widely successful and astronomically profitable
"Left Behind" series of Christian Right novels, all non-Christian
believers are left behind to suffer or die on Earth after true
believers ascend to Heaven. During the 2004 election, the GOP
mobilized millions of Evangelicals who take these Biblical apocalyptic
tales literally. And make no mistake; the GOP didn't pull that off by
selling traditional Republican values like fiscal responsibility or
States' rights. They did it by talking about Good and Evil and tacitly
endorsing the notion that the existence of the State of Israel, the
war in Iraq and 9/11 are in fact a prelude to a biblical event.
Well, this week President Bush offered his own "left behind" theory.
The Bush version works like this: if you are poor or middle class, you
will be left behind. This is because the vast majority of the
projected ten-year, $1.9 trillion dollar redistribution of government
revenues that President Bush advocates through permanent tax cuts will
go to the very richest Americans. By definition, this will drain
resources from desperately needed services used by the poor and middle
class, like public education, Medicare and the 911 Emergency Response
System.
President Bush will argue that the redistributed wealth will
eventually stimulate enough economic activity to make up for these
lost revenues. Unfortunately, it is having an immediate and exploding
effect on the deficit, which places added pressure on the structure of
the American economy and makes the possibility of this scenario a long
shot at best.
The final, but most important pillar of Born Again Economics: fear.
Charlatans, false prophets and the Bush political team know that fear
motivates. Vice President Dick Cheney stooped low enough to say
America stood a better chance of being attacked if people voted for
Senator John Kerry. President George W. Bush even sold the War on Iraq
by telling Congress and the country that Saddam Hussein had a nuclear
weapon. That was scary. It wasn't true. But it was scary.
Now Bush has opened his Evangelical tool kit to sell wholesale changes
in Social Security, doing everything but strapping on a poster board
that reads, "The end is near". Unfortunately, few outside the
Administration have concluded that the end is near enough to warrant
wholesale changes or that privatization will help workers in the long
run. Nearly everyone concludes, however, that privatization will make
Wall Street money in the short run, and add even more to the bloated
deficit.
And that is the key to Born Again Economics: it's the short-term
payoff that seems to matter. That would explain the President's
willingness to pass a massive debt burden onto future Americans. It's
not exactly the American dream or sound economic policy. But for some
reason, that doesn't seem to bother this President.
Blaine Townsend (blain...@yahoo.com) is a San Francisco-based
investment advisor.
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1222-33.htm
--
"Whom the gods would destroy they first give control of
both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue."
"Well, while I'm here I'll do the work and what's the work?
To ease the pain of living. Everything else, drunken dumbshow."
Allen Ginsberg
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