The Bush tax cuts, the war in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq, and the prescription drug plan. What do all of these things have in common? They were paid for on our credit card - in other words, they weren't included in the budget. The debt was always there, it just wasn't on the books because 'someone' didn't put it there. That should piss you off, and maybe it does, I don't know. These things didn't appear on the budget (or our debt) until the Obama administration.
Getting people back to work. What should we do about that? How about giving 'employers' (aka rich people) a bunch of money via tax cuts? Okay great. What about that makes them employ people, exactly? The kindness of their hearts? No. All of the people showing up buying stuff, leading them to have to hire people? No. The lack of customers is what's fucking businesses. Nobody's buying shit, so there's no need to hire people. This fundamental problem doesn't get solved from the top down. There instead needs to be people with actual buying power in place before we can jump start the economy. This includes government employees and even, gasp, welfare and unemployment. That's what gets money straight into the economy. It's like socialism making capitalism stronger in some freaky sort of way.
It's also not unprecedented. It's exactly what made the engine of the middle class that drove the US into prosperity from the 40's to the 70's. We gave people the means to buy shit, and then capitalism took over from there. This worked, until some people started to plot and scheme in the 80's to tip the scales in their own favor. We now live in the aftermath of those schemes, which came to a head in 2008. So is the answer to give those same people the reigns, or to go back to what actually worked for us for so long?
