Robert Reich notes that the media keep madly both-sidesing the debt ceiling story, making it a story about something "both sides" are doing — when it's ONLY Republicans who want to hold the nation hostage over the national debt.
He asks,
"How the hell can democracy work if The New York Times, CNN, and even National Public Radio obscure what’s really going on?"
#media #journalists #democracy #DebtCeiling #BothSidesism
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/five-truths-about-the-pending-debt
But Robert Reich is the one obscuring what's going on, as he's been flat out misleading his readers about how the US government finances actually operate.
The US Treasury is bringing in plenty of money to service its debts. It reports its balances continuously and publicly, so we can verify that for ourselves.
Robert Reich tries to say otherwise because it's convenient for him to push his politics.
There is no hostage holding here.
Democrats in the last Congress passed spending bills without passing any way to actually pay for them, and the debt limit is kicking in exactly as it's supposed to when things get so out of balanced.
I have!
And I notice that the US Treasury has plenty of revenues incoming to pay for it.
I was critical at the time of that deficit spending. Boo on them. But here we are, and the US probably shouldn't spend EVEN MORE money that it doesn't have.
@volkris Better yet, how about revoking the gross tax benefits Republicans keep lavishing on the already super-rich and ask the people who take the most economically from our society to pay something back in proportion to what they take?
Sure, and the FairTax proposal would do exactly that, doing away with all of the income tax carve outs and mailing checks to the poor to cover their tax burdens.
Republicans have proposed it, but it's never going to gain traction.
@volkris It's not going to gain traction because it's an inherently unfair (grossly so) taxation system that transfers the tax burden to those least economically equipped, while permitting those who benefit lavishly from a society to refuse to pay back in proportion to what they have taken. There's a reason this kind of tax system has been favored in the US South for a very long time.
It literally raises taxes on the rich and writes checks to the poor.
People who say it transfers to tax burden to those lease economically equipped sound like they don't know what they're talking about in light of how the proposal actually works.
@volkris Have you looked lately at the debt the nation incurred during the Trump years, with Republicans in charge, which was then passed on to Democrats with the intention of blaming them for the debt?
I suggest that you do so.