Lisa Benson for July 30, 2021

I am reading (actually rereading) a book entitled “The Body Economic” by D. Stuckler and S. Basu that examines the role of government economic policies on human health and well-being in the aftermath of a recession or depression. In contrast to the conservative belief that spending and social support structures are detrimental to recovery, they find that austerity policies reduce the rate and extent of recovery as well as taking a major toll on life expectancy. Bottom line: austerity kills and often kills in the age range of men between 30 and 50. Those kids that Lisa is worried about aren’t going to be hit with a big future bills but rather with the loss of father and future potential to thrive.

Lisa it’s time you came up with a new schtick. This was the line when Obama was president, curiously dropped when “W” and Trump were president.

Try some new ideas.

Racking up big irresponsible credit card debt is a personal fault – it is not the fault of politicians. If you need to find somebody to blame in order to try to justify yourself, start by looking in the mirror.

Let’s NOT mention the MASSIVE boost to the deficit that Twitler created by cutting taxes to the rich, right, Lyin’ Lisa???

If it means fixing the roads, bridges, freeways, safe water, etc. I am all for it. The kids will have a home. People will get jobs to do the repairs, spend money from their jobs and that will contribute to the taxes. Would you rather spend the money lining the pockets of the politicians that are doing nothing, weapons to kill other countries and giving tax breaks to the rich and corporations so they can get richer??!!?!?!

Surely no one was really expecting Lisa to produce a cartoon that demonstrates she has an operating logical thought process.

Not to worry, Lisa. When the Republican Party Of Trump regains total control (gerrymandering, vote suppression, destruction of democracy) all income tax will be eliminated for billionaires and a Russian style oligarchy will be implemented.

As if you give a sh!t about “our kids” anyway.

Neither party is going to do anything about it. The only difference is that Democrats might feel a little guilty about it. As long as 95% of the wealth goes to rich conservatives, Republicans will be fine with it.

Go learn some economics, Lisa.

What Benson knows about the U.S. economy would fit into the navel of a fruit fly!

But whatever we do let’s not give the IRS adequate funding so they can go after the mega-cheats and unclog our tax revenue stream. The GQP simply can’t abide by such logic.

Where was Loony Lisa when the last Occupant was creating $Trillions in debt in billionaires and corporate tax cuts? Here, we are investing in America’s future, which will give back.

House of cards

Stop having kids if you can’t afford them, the world is already over populated.

Voodoo economics strikes again.

So you are advancing the idea that taxing churches would help your children?

Reagan set the stage: Tax cuts and deregulation. Repubs have using his failed playbook ever since.

“You cut taxes, and the tax revenues increase.” —Voodoo Economics

Then you increase spending based on the phantom money tax cuts created.

https://zfacts.com/national-debt/

Dems are guilty too, but the key difference is what you buy with debt.R – Tax cuts and forever wars.D- health care, infrastructure and bailing out failed R policies.

Most people think that the big bank bailout was the $700 billion that the U.S. Treasury Department used to save the banks during the financial crash in September of 2008. But the bailout is ongoing. According to the Center for Media and Democracy, $4.6 trillion has been paid out by the government and trillions of dollars are still committed. Yes, trillions not billions, and the banks are now larger and still too big to fail.

The deregulation of Wall Street led to gambling and created a giant hole in our economy. In 2008, after the financial crash, eight million people lost their jobs and the U.S. fell into the greatest recession since the Great Depression.

https://www.industryweek.com/the-economy/regulations/article/22007281/did-deregulation-work

The right wingers live in a different world. This would be perfectly okay if their disconnect from reality affected only themselves, but alas, it has some effect here in the real world, and that affect is almost entirely negative. Dunno what can be done, though: You can lead a rightwinger to wonder but you cannot make them think.

Eliminate the Trump / Repub tax cuts of 2017. Increase the top tax rates even more. Increases the corporate tax rates; when those tax rates were bigger execs invested in the company and employees (e.g. training and benefits) to lower their tax liability. Remove the capital gains tax benefit – if it is income, tax it as income.

Increase the interest rate. Per ProPublica, many of the wealthy take their pay as stock, which is not taxed until it is sold. They borrow against this stock at the artifically low interest rate so they never have to sell the stock and never pay taxes on it.

Money invested in infrastructure returns more than is spent.

Yes, let’s NOT invest in the infrastructure that will make comfortable, modern world for our children. Let’s let them wallow in the waste we leave behind.

Oh Lisa, you are so right. All that debt rung up by Bush and Trump is very irresponsible. Then again, if you think that future generations are actually going to pay it back….LOL.

Good call there, Lisa ! I wonder what the Democrats will do when their kids can’t afford to move out of the house . . .until they’re what ? Maybe 40 years old ? MAYBE ?

Ho, hum. This is what Lisa found in the bottom of the barrel. Shows a complete lack of imagination, or any originality.

Pretty much. Our government is spending like they have an unlimited amount of money. It is frightening to see what kind of pork is in the “Infrastructure” bill. Pelosi especially is probably going to make millions off it.

Cognitive dissonance keeps the knuckle draggers from acknowledging it. I would say the government is spending like a drunken sailor, but that would insult the Navy. Sailors run out of money and stop spending. Our government just borrows more money. Not like anyone currently in office will be around later and be responsible for paying it back.

If Lisa-the-Shill’s message is that “U.S. Debt” is the issue, then our first four steps to remedy the problem are (1) reverse the $2 trillion corporate/1% tax break, which DOES NOTHING to grow our economy; (2) pass the INITIAL INFRASTRUCTURE BILL; (3) pass the larger, PENDING INFRASTRUCTURE BILL. We’ll be regaled by lying GOP Leadershiters & far too slowly gurgling Trumpsters that these bills will only bloat debt, but the fact is they will PUT THE US, 99%, TO WORK and, rather than INCREASE THE GOP DEBT, will make our economy both ROBUST and very, very ACTIVE, i.e., it will BENEFIT THOSE OF US WHO SPEND on mortgages, rent, fuel, electricity, natural gas, tuition, health care, transportation, & local purchases. If a GOP Leadershit dupe or benighted Trumpster objects, tell them that our spending will TRICKLE UP to the corporations/1% EVENTUALLY; and (4) abandon the federal income tax on EVERYONE and, instead, impose a 6% tax on all assets, tangible & intangible. Cancel ALL TAX LOOPHOLES, but ALLOW each NATURAL person a $125,000 standard deduction BEFORE ASSESSING the tax on assets, e.g., a family of four would have a $500,000 standard deduction, an UNNATURAL PERSON, i.e., a corporation, would have a $0.00 standard deduction. No person, natural or unnatural, would be liable for any income tax. Our nation’s debt/deficit issues would be resolved in no more than 15 years. The corporations & the 1% WOULD HATE IT. It would be a beginning and there will be a lot of damned fools who don’t have the intelligence, the education, or the experience to appreciate that their only burden will be to do what they do best: succeed in their career and take care of their loved ones. As for our parasitic corporations & the parasitic 1%, they’ll bitch & moan about the imposition of an unimaginably level marketplace & the absence of their ability to prey on the dim-wittedness, the gullibility, and the ignorance of the 99%. Stop neo-Serfdom before it entirely overwhelms us.

Funny how the right wing didn’t care at all about spending and debt when Trump was fucking the hell out of the country.

The largest two types of debt that are being left to children are environmental debt and social debt. Fixing up the environment after big-oil gets done with it will cost orders of magnitude more than it would have if we had dealt with it back when we first began to understand global warming. But big-oil didn’t want that to happen, so they muddied the science to make it possible to delay the mitigation while they made huge profits. The cost of failing to provide reasonable access to higher education and to provide health care for people with underlying conditins will continue to doom future generations to poverty. Each of the people in those lost generations might become a brilliant scientist like Einstein or a beloved musician like Louis Armstrong or an amazing artist like Rembrant or a visionary doctor and activist like James McCune Smith, or a great long distance runner like Thomas Longboat, and we doom them at our peril. The economy is meant to serve society, not the other way around.

Time to raise taxes on the rich. They are not paying for the society which has given them the chance to become so wealthy.

Have you noticed that when Democrats are in the White House (Clinton, Obama, Biden), the GOP shriek that they’re spending like a drunken sailor on shore leave. But when Republicans are in the White House (Reagan, Bush, Trump) it’s perfectly OK to spend like drunken sailors because a) it’s good for the economy and b) Jesus will come before the bill is due.

And why do families depend on credit so much Lisa? Could it be because they are not getting paid a living wage?

Lisa, today’s kids aren’t going to have to worry about debt, much less paying it back. They’ll be desperately trying to survive the results of global climate change and the resulting extremely changed weather. It won’t just be wildfires and floods, but the fact that many (most?) of our major food-producing regions will no longer be able to support the kind of farming we have come to depend on.

Debt seemed to be okay when trillions were gong to the wealthy.