- More Distortions from the Propaganda Machine
- A Slowing of the Military Buildup?
- Deficit, Deficit – Who’s Got the Deficit?
- Who’s trying to keep the Deficit under control? Not the Republicans!
Propaganda & the Military Budget #4
More Distortions from the Propaganda Machine
or
Decrease Equals Increase
“Bush budget seeks major deficit drop
By Robert Pear - The New York Times
WASHINGTON --President Bush is preparing to send to Congress a $1.2 trillion budget that envisions a dramatic decline in the federal deficit to roughly half its level in the current fiscal year.”
Masterful phrasing, George. Love the adjectives – great headlines – verbiage simply incredible. A $6 billion dollar rise in spending seems like a cut the way the New York Times phrases it. Beautiful propaganda techniques in the first paragraph. ‘Major Drop’ – ‘dramatic decline’ – ‘roughly half its level in the current fiscal year.’ You must have a genius for your press releases.
On first glance it makes it seem as if there have been some ‘dramatic’ budget cuts. People love to hear that kind of thing. It even sounds as if the Government is trying to balance the budget when they’re just trying to stay within the limits of that damned Gramm-Rudman bill – which mandated spending cuts to balance the budget.
Of course the budget will only be within those guidelines – if America’s growth rate is higher than it’s been for years – as we’re headed for a recession – and the interest rates on the $3 trillion dollars national debt falls to 4% – when it’s over 8% now – with no signs of falling. But no one will notice as that kind of information is always tucked away at the end of the article at the end of the section. Let’s see how people respond.
Headline Harry: “That’s what I like about the Republican Party, always trying to reduce spending. That’s why I voted for Reagan in 1980 & 1984 and then I voted for George Bush in 1988. They are my kind of people. Reduce spending while keeping America strong. Kick ass on small countries. It makes me feel proud to be an American. I don’t like those wimpy, free-spending Democrats, who keep raising taxes & giving it to able-bodied men not to work. It makes me mad just to think about it.”
Dim Dune: “Harry, didn’t you read past the headlines.”
Harry: “I never read past the headlines. It’s more detail than I need.”
Dune: “It says he is hoping to lower the deficit, which now stands at about 200 billion dollars to only 63 billion dollars – if things go well. He is only cutting the rate at which we go into debt – at least supposedly as all his numbers are based upon totally unrealistic expectations.”
Harry: “Who cares? I’ve got a big debt also – my mortgage.”
Dune: “I’m not talking debt, Harry. I’m talking income/outgo. We spend $6 for every $5 we earn as a country. Every month we’re going further into debt. And do you know who holds the loan papers to our three trillion dollar debt.”
Harry: “America banks?”
Dune: “Some, but 40% foreign investors. If this trend keeps going on the rest of the world will soon own us. They will be able to determine our policies.”
Harry: “Come on Dune. You’re such an alarmist. Inflation has been low and employment high – the best of economic times. What are you complaining about? Things go well. Besides Bush is using a Social Security integrity and debt reduction fund to finance this deficit. Whasamata wit you anyway? Are you against integrity and reducing the debt?”
Dimwitted Dune: “’Integrity and debt reduction fund’? What a euphemism. He is proposing to use our retirement savings to finance his military debt. It’s against the law for companies or unions to raid the retirement accounts for operating expenses.”
Harry: “Government and companies are far different.”
Dune: “They raised the Social Security taxes so that there would be some money left when we retired but the federal government is spending it faster than we save it.”
Harry: “No need to worry. Our Representatives will think of something.”
A Slowing of the Military Buildup?
or
The Verbiage of Deception
More SBNews Press:
“For the Pentagon, Bush’s proposal seeks less money than would be needed to keep pace with inflation, which represents a further slowing of the military buildup begun in the early 1980s.”
Headline Harry: “See Dune. Bush is reducing military spending.”
Dune: “No Harry. Read carefully. He ‘seeks less money than would be needed to keep pace with inflation’. Instead of cutting Defense spending he is raising it by 6 billion dollars – when they’re already spending $287 billion dollars a year, almost $1 billion dollars a day, 40 million dollars an hour, close to 1 million dollars a minute or 10 thousand dollars a second on guns, bombs and soldiers.”
Harry: “It’s a dangerous world out there. We need to protect ourselves.”
Dune: “From what? The Communist threat is disappearing. The Iron Curtain has come down. China is just trying to maintain order within its own borders and Russia is dealing with civil war. Yet Bush is requesting an increase in military spending, while disguising it as a reduction – as the amount requested doesn’t keep up with inflation. Poor baby. I guess I should be happy that he’s not increasing the rate at which the bloated Defense budget bloats itself.”
Harry: “I hear there’s a rising threat of Islamic terrorism. Besides the Government knows more than we do and defense spending is good for our economy. Where else would our tax dollars do as much good?”
Dune: “How about health, welfare, and the arts? We could use the gun money to fund health care programs to give the American citizenry more secure lives?”
Harry: “Horrors! That smacks of communism or socialism – no difference anyway.”
Dune: “Our European allies are all socialist, while Russia, China, and Cuba, ‘our enemies’ are Communist. Just a little difference like that.”
Harry: “Guns make me feel more secure. Then we are so powerful that we don’t need to kiss anyone’s butt. If there is something we need, we take it.”
Dune: “The ‘we’ that needs and takes are not people like you or I. The military-industrial complex is the ‘we’ that profits from Bush’s budget. People like us just pay the cost. The people at the top are never satisfied with their enormous wealth – always needing more – forever on the outside looking in. The curse of wealth.”
Deficit, Deficit – Who’s Got the Deficit?
If our liberal media is to be believed, those darn liberal Democrats are the freewheeling spenders, while the stable Republicans are the fiscal conservatives. Reagan, himself, campaigned on a platform of fiscal responsibility with one of his key planks being to balance the federal budget and reduce the growing federal deficit. Because our media is, in fact, not liberal at all and because it is indeed a propaganda source aligned with Big Business and Big Government, the facts tell an entirely different tale.
Any federal deficit before the 1970’s was minimal. The give-away 1930’s barely registers on the graph. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the first of the free-spending Democrats, only registered a major deficit during World War II & this was peanuts even adjusted for inflation. Truman’s & Eisenhower’s 1950’s barely register on the graph. Then comes our classic free-spending liberal Presidents Kennedy & Johnson with the Vietnam War and The Great Society. Again there is a minor rise but minuscule compared with later developments.
Then comes the fiscally conservative Republicans Nixon & Ford. Cutbacks in the social legislation of the 1960’s the end of the Vietnam War and yet suddenly record breaking deficits, averaging 26 billion from 1971-1974 and then jumping to the astronomical levels of 75 billion dollar average from 1975-1977*. Next comes that liberal Jimmy Carter throwing his money away on those poor people, plagued by high inflation due to soaring energy costs, and yet, miracle of miracles, the federal deficit drops, then averages $75 billion from 1978-1981*.
Finally come the fiscally conservative Republicans, Reagan & Bush, with no declared wars, a low rate of inflation & high employment generating record-breaking revenues. Surprise! From 1982-1984 the deficit averaged just under $200,000,000,000 dollars, a rise of almost 300 percent, triple, the Carter years. Then from 1985-1988 we averaged over $250 billion dollar deficit, four times the Carter era and a 30% increase from the previous 3 years. We are being sold down the river to the military industrial establishment.
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