Under Status Quo, Deficit Would Decline, Budget Office Says. The deficit will be $1.1 trillion in the current fiscal year, about $200 billion less than in 2011, and will fall sharply in the next three years as a result of tax increases and spending cuts required by existing law, the agency said in its annual report on the budget and economic outlook.
However, it said, that same combination of higher taxes and caps on spending will crimp economic growth. As a result, it said, the unemployment rate, which was 8.5 percent in December, will climb to 8.9 percent in the last quarter of this year, which includes Election Day, and will rise to 9.2 percent in the final quarter of 2013. “We have not had a period of such persistently high unemployment since the Depression,” said Douglas W. Elmendorf, director of the Congressional Budget Office.
Mr. Assuming no change in current law, the budget office said, the economy — measured by the gross domestic product, adjusted for inflation — will grow 2 percent this year and just 1.1 percent in 2013. Mr. Mr. Ron Paul Profile - Ron Paul Quotes on Tea Party, President, 2012. Originally published in the May 2011 issue Now it's time to go backstage.
Down the narrow space between the back wall and the high blue curtain, washed by the white noise of eleven thousand overcaffeinated believers waiting in a huge ballroom filled to standing room, plus two overflow ballrooms where the man's message will be received on giant screens. Here's the door to the small drab room where assorted politicians wait to audition to be the future of America. And here's Ron Paul, smiling and holding out his hand. "Nice to see ya," he says. "You seem a little busy. " "Yeah, we're just about to get ready here. " On the other side of the cinder-block wall and high blue curtain, voices cry out one and two and then a sudden chorus, Ron Paul, Ron Paul, End the Fed, Ron Paul!
Now he sits back down, pulling a padded office chair up to a round linoleum table. Progressives and the Ron Paul fallacies. As I’ve written about before, America’s election season degrades mainstream political discourse even beyond its usual lowly state.
The worst attributes of our political culture — obsession with trivialities, the dominance of horserace “reporting,” and mindless partisan loyalties — become more pronounced than ever. Meanwhile, the actually consequential acts of the U.S. Government and the permanent power factions that control it — covert endless wars, consolidation of unchecked power, the rapid growth of the Surveillance State and the secrecy regime, massive inequalities in the legal system, continuous transfers of wealth from the disappearing middle class to large corporate conglomerates — drone on with even less attention paid than usual.
Because most of those policies are fully bipartisan in nature, the election season — in which only issues that bestow partisan advantage receive attention — places them even further outside the realm of mainstream debate and scrutiny. Due Process. Romney's Tax Plan: Coddle the 1% Chronicling Mitt's mendacity. ITS Tactical — Imminent Threat Solutions. Obama for America. OWS Stands With Farmers, Says Enough! to Monsanto.
Noam Chomsky: America's Decline Is Real. February 14, 2012 | Like this article?
Join our email list: Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email. To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com here. Read Part 2 of Chomsky's "Decline of America" series here. Significant anniversaries are solemnly commemorated -- Japan’s attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, for example. At the moment, we are failing to commemorate the 50th anniversary of President John F. The prime target was South Vietnam. When the invasion was launched 50 years ago, concern was so slight that there were few efforts at justification, hardly more than the president’s impassioned plea that “we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence” and if the conspiracy achieves its ends in Laos and Vietnam, “the gates will be opened wide.”