[Timber Loftis]

BTW I'm reading Back to Work (auth. B. Clinton) right now, about 90 pages in, and it's some incredibly informative stuff. Despite being enigmatic to me during his presidency (having voted for him once and against him once), this man is as far as I can recollect probably the smartest president we've had that I can remember (I vaguely remember Carter) and in retrospect our country was in our best heyday during his time (possibly not better than the 50's, 60's highest-standard-of-living era, but it's arguable), with all things balanced as best they ever were.

Anyway, a good read. I've thought of posting some passages, and perhaps I will when I get time. But, in all honesty, I have never seen anyone so good at congealing history to assimilate where the nation has been and where it's going. He's also bang-on the most knowledgeable person about the minutae of politics (like, as in: who won X district in Y state during Z year, and why), which is something that is very DC insider stuff and has always eluding my understanding.

I will say this. Annually, about 85% of the US budget is "non-discretionary." That means that 85% is pre-determined based on, in order of magnitude, (1) interest on the debt, (2) medicaid/medicare/social security, and (3) defense. What that means is about 15% is really out there and available for cutting, but frankly those programs (SBA, Student Loans, Welfare, work training, etc. -- it's a long list) have been being cut and forced to prove their worth for about 30 years, so most all of them are more efficient than a private-sector alternative. For instance, the VA Hospitals and medicaid/medicare run with less than a 15% overhead/management cost, yet the private sector insurance runs at sometimes upward of a 30% overhead cost. Nevertheless, if you cut them ALL to ZERO, you'd still only be able to make up 15% of the annual budget. But we borrow 50% of the budget annually. So, 15% < 50%, so there is, quite frankly NO POSSIBLE WAY that the deficit can be reduced solely through cutting government, even if you cut it all -- new revenues are not an option here, folks, and you just have to know that.

Oh, and on the list above, out of GW's 1.8T in tax cuts, well over 60% of those went to the top 1%. Considering the amount spent on Afgh/Iraq wars, those tax cuts to the top 1% could have almost fully funded those affairs. Oh, and 90% of that 1.8T went to the top 10%, with next to nothing going to our almost-extinct-and-needing-saving-like-the-bald-eagle middle class.

More later? Maybe.

But I am beginning to learn how our overall state of affairs is not a mere happenstance based on market whimsy and bubble-bursting (like the dot-com), but is something that is a product of national policy and its effect over the years. Market fluctuations aside, there are things other countries, who are also living amid fluctuating markets, did that over a couple of decades drove them up on the lists of "good happy social things" and opposing things we did that drove us down on those same lists.