Democracy Uprising
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Democracy Uprising

  • About
    • About Mark Engler
    • About Democracy Uprising
  • Books
    • This Is An Uprising
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    • All Latin America Social Movements Religion U.S. Politics / Elections War / Militarism Book Reviews Environment Essays / First Person Global Economy Immigration Labor
      Latest Articles

      Could we be entering a ‘movement moment’ against…

      Social Movements

      Trump’s backpedaling shows he’s not invincible

      Blog

      It’s going to take multiple strategies to win…

      Social Movements

      A new wave of movements against Trumpism is…

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      How to make sure your disruptive protest helps…

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      Why protests work, even when not everybody likes…

      Latest Articles

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      Strategy is a Craft

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      How movements can maintain their radical vision while winning…

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      Lessons from the Pledge of Resistance

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      The Children of Intervention

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      Against Shithole Nationalism

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      Kissinger Is Not Our Friend

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      Even If You Have Nothing to Hide

      Social Movements

      Could we be entering a ‘movement moment’ against…

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      Trump’s backpedaling shows he’s not invincible

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      It’s going to take multiple strategies to win…

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      A new wave of movements against Trumpism is…

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      How to make sure your disruptive protest helps…

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      The Pope and the Poor

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      Will the Next Pope Embrace Liberation Theology?

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      Remembering Romero

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      John Paul II’s Economic Ethics

      Religion

      Against the God of Free Trade

      U.S. Politics / Elections

      Could we be entering a ‘movement moment’ against…

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      Trump’s backpedaling shows he’s not invincible

      U.S. Politics / Elections

      It’s going to take multiple strategies to win…

      U.S. Politics / Elections

      A new wave of movements against Trumpism is…

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      This new model for upholding labor law may…

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      Does It Make Sense to Protest a President…

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      Is Rambo Still A Republican?

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      War: The Wrong Jobs Program

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      The Ascent of Niall Ferguson

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      Those Who Don’t Count

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      Six Essays About War and About Peace

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      The Dangerous Dignity of War

      Book Reviews

      The Pan American

      Book Reviews

      The Godfather of Microcredit

      Book Reviews

      Capitalism as Catastrophe

      Book Reviews

      Four Ways of Looking at an Aztec Eagle

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      The Ascent of Niall Ferguson

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      No Better Place

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      Why Wendell Matters

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      Meet the Bailout’s New Slush Fund for Corporate…

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      The Seattle Protests Showed That Another World Is…

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      The Amazon Effect: Sweat, Surveillance, Exploitation

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      The Godfather of Microcredit

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      Capitalism as Catastrophe

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      Immigration Economics: An Interview with Professor Giovanni Peri

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      The World Is Not Flat

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      When Undocumented Activists Infiltrated ICE

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      Science Fiction From Below

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      Treated Like a Criminal

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      When Sanctuary is Resistance

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      This new model for upholding labor law may…

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      Democrats Won Power in Several States. Will They…

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      The Case for a Social Distancing Wage

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      The Seattle Protests Showed That Another World Is…

      Labor

      Reviving the General Strike

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      Jeff Bezos Has Enough! It’s Time for a…

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      There’s Still Power in a Strike

      Labor

      The Amazon Effect: Sweat, Surveillance, Exploitation

  • Translations
    • All Italiano Japanese Português Arabic Thai Chinese Deutsch Español Français
      Translations

      Jordlösa kombinerar radikala visioner med praktiska reformer (Swedish)

      Español

      Hacer Que Nuestras Demandas Sean Tanto Orácticas Como…

      Italiano

      C’è più di un modo per colpire il…

      Português

      As reformas não reformistas de André Gorz mostram…

      Español

      Las reformas no reformistas de André Gorz

      Deutsch

      Die nicht-reformistischen Reformen von André Gorz

      Italiano

      Richieste dei movimenti: sia pratiche che visionarie

      Chinese

      泛美洲人 爱德华多·加莱亚诺的世界 (Chinese)

      Italiano

      C’è più di un modo per colpire il…

      Italiano

      Richieste dei movimenti: sia pratiche che visionarie

      Italiano

      La strategia di Gandhi per il successo –…

      Italiano

      Le promesse infrante di Obama

      Italiano

      Guantanamo deve sparire

      Italiano

      IL BANK TRANSFER DAY: UN SUCCESSO

      Italiano

      Come il movimento Occupiamo Wall Street si sta…

      Italiano

      Economia tabù

      Japanese

      ガンジーはどのように勝利したのか? (Japanese)

      Japanese

      Truth Versus Superpower (Japanese)

      Japanese

      Bush’s Bad Business Empire (Japanese)

      Japanese

      Revenge of the Combat Cartoonist (Japanese)

      Japanese

      Bush’s Uneasy Mexican Visita (Japanese)

      Japanese

      Mark Twain in Iraq (Japanese)

      Japanese

      Globalization’s “Lost Decade” (Japanese)

      Japanese

      Hawks Say the Damnedest Things (Japanese)

      Português

      As reformas não reformistas de André Gorz mostram…

      Português

      A vida na Nação Prisão

      Português

      Outro pretexto?

      Português

      Imigração tem efeito positivo sobre emprego e salários

      Português

      O império hipotecado

      Arabic

      Abandoning the World Bank (in Arabic)

      Arabic

      The Return of Daniel Ortega (in Arabic)

      Arabic

      Where’s The Jubilee? (in Arabic)

      Arabic

      The Last Porto Alegre (in Arabic)

      Arabic

      Seattle At Five (in Arabic)

      Arabic

      Is Market Access the Answer to Poverty? (in…

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      Mexico’s Democratic Transition Still Incomplete (in Arabic)

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      Progressive Good Tidings of 2007 (in Thai)

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      2006: A Global Justice Year in Review (In…

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      WTO: Best Left For Dead? (In Thai)

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      Die nicht-reformistischen Reformen von André Gorz

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      Als Martin Luther King seine Feuerwaffen aufgab

      Deutsch

      Mikrokredite: Die Entlassung eines Nobelpreisträgers

      Deutsch

      CAFTA – am besten stillschweigend beerdigen

      Deutsch

      Bush in Mexiko

      Deutsch

      Das globale Duell in Evian

      Deutsch

      Die Rückkehr des Daniel Ortega

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      Hacer Que Nuestras Demandas Sean Tanto Orácticas Como…

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      Las reformas no reformistas de André Gorz

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      Wall Street quiere que les estemos agradecidos

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      ALEC retrocede; a la derecha le da un…

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      Bush Nuit Même Aux Compagnies U.S.

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      Le dynamisme du mouvement pour la paix

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      La déroute de l’ALCA dans une Miami en…

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      La guerre en Irak : une expo des…

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U.S. Politics / Elections2003-2004

Fiscal Fantasy

by Mark Engler April 16, 2003
written by Mark Engler April 16, 2003
Fiscal Fantasy

When it comes to the costs of war and tax cuts, Bush is living in a dream world.

Published in The American Prospect On-Line.


By now most Americans have been hit hard by the reality of recession. The economic news from early April—indicating that payroll employment has fallen sharply in past months and that unemployment insurance claims are up—dampened hope for an economic upturn in the near future. Yet President Bush holds to his State of the Union pronouncement that we are in a recovery and conducts his affairs as if he has no financial care in the world.

So what gives?

No doubt the Bush administration’s attitude is in part public relations—a bet that calculated statements from on high will shore up consumer confidence and become self-fulfilling prophesies. But a closer look shows that the president’s “What, Me Worry?” attitude masks a refusal to take responsibility for the costs of his policies.

The war in Iraq and tax cuts provide two key examples.

In December 2002, the administration assured legislators and taxpayers that a potential war in Iraq would cost $50 billion to $60 billion. These lowball estimates were meant to temper other projections, including those made by Lawrence Lindsey when he was the president’s chief economic adviser, that saw costs running as high as $200 billion.

Announcements by officials such as Office of Management and Budget Director Mitch Daniels suggested that the lower numbers were in line with the costs of the Gulf War. Of course the functionaries failed to mention that our allies paid for around 80 percent of the costs of that previous engagement, leaving the United States with a relatively small tab of $9 billion.

Soon after the start of the Iraq War last month, the low price tag was revealed to be a political fiction. As soon as public opinion shifted in support of the troops in the Persian Gulf, the administration fudged its budget and requested $75 billion for the military engagement. Distressingly, the $75 billion allocation currently passing through Congress covers only six months. It does not pay for the multiyear occupation of Iraq that will undoubtedly be necessary—and that could cost $3.8 billion per month, according to a September 2002 estimate by the Congressional Budget Office.

That’s a lot of money for conservatives who want tight government spending and are currently resurrecting the Reagan-era strategy of “starving the states” to force cuts in social services at the local level.

Even these billions pale next to the revenues that will be squandered should the White House succeed in securing another massive tax cut. Some people might consider a time of war, recession and national emergency an appropriate occasion to suspend ideology and scale back expensive favors for the rich. But George W. Bush sees these three conditions as excuses to free himself from promises of fiscal responsibility. “Lucky me,” he said in famously poor taste last September, referring to the three crises of his administration. “I hit the trifecta.”

If the president employed a delicate balance of optimism and self-delusion to argue that the Iraq war could be paid for painlessly, his fantasies about tax cuts are outrageous, indeed. As a recent editorial in the Financial Times put it, “Wars usually involve sacrifices. In Mr. Bush’s dream-world, you can fight an enemy and hand out tax relief at the same time.”

The justification for this remarkable feat relies on a creative accounting strategy known as “dynamic scoring,” where the presumed benefits of tax “relief” are factored into calculations about the economic impact of the cuts. “Magically, the deficits will melt as the economy reaches the sunlit uplands of ever-deeper tax cuts,” the Times explained. However, “back in the real world, the long-term budget outlook worsens fast.”

While many contend that budget deficits are not necessarily bad, economists widely agree that the Bush tax cuts—most of which won’t phase in for years—will do little or nothing to stimulate recovery now. A key argument against the first round of cuts—that they favor the rich too heavily to ensure quick consumer spending—still holds true. And new cuts would lack even the economic benefits of the $300-per-worker tax rebate that members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus promoted as an alternative to Bush’s plan.

In the White House, war is cheap, tax cuts pay for themselves and recovery has already arrived. Late March’s surprise 51-to-48 vote in the Senate to more than halve the size of the new tax cuts from $725 billion to $350 billion shows that not everyone shares the president’s economic fantasies. That stance was strengthened this past weekend, when Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) joined Republican moderates in the Senate who vowed to prevent a larger cut. Unfortunately, House leaders will fight for a compromise in committee that would leave intact a package benefiting wealthy investors—and carry a price tag of more than $500 billion.

The question now is whether the president is actually deluded enough to believe the White House’s rosy predictions about the economic costs of war and tax cuts. Or is this administration of class warriors too isolated from the American people to even care?

__________

Research assistance for this article provided by Katie Griffiths. Photo credit: Public Domain Textures / Wikipedia Commons.

Mark Engler

Mark Engler is a writer based in Philadelphia and an editorial board member at Dissent magazine. His latest book, written with Paul Engler, is entitled This Is an Uprising: How Nonviolent Revolt Is Shaping the Twenty-First Century.

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The Author

Mark Engler is a writer based in Philadelphia and an editorial board member at Dissent magazine. His latest book, written with Paul Engler, is entitled This Is an Uprising: How Nonviolent Revolt Is Shaping the Twenty-First Century (Nation Books). Mark’s full bio is available here.

Latest Articles

  • Could we be entering a ‘movement moment’ against Trump?

    April 10, 2025
  • Trump’s backpedaling shows he’s not invincible

    March 19, 2025
  • It’s going to take multiple strategies to win under Trump 2.0

    January 31, 2025
  • A new wave of movements against Trumpism is coming

    November 9, 2024
  • How to make sure your disruptive protest helps your cause

    August 9, 2024

Mark’s Articles Appear In:

  • Dissent
  • The Nation
  • The New Republic
  • N+1
  • Salon.com
  • The Los Angeles Times
  • Waging Nonviolence
  • Boston Review
  • The Atlantic
  • Rolling Stone
  • The Guardian
  • In These Times
  • TomDispatch
  • New Internationalist
  • Yes! Magazine
  • Audubon Magazine
  • Jacobin
  • Mother Jones
  • Le Monde diplomatique
  • Grist Magazine
  • Rebelión
  • The San Francisco Chronicle
  • The Progressive
  • Newsday
  • openDemocracy
  • Truthout
  • Christian Science Monitor
  • Dollars & Sense
  • Progreso Semanal
  • Chicago Reader
  • Sin Permiso
  • Baltimore Sun
  • The Ecologist
  • TruthDig
  • Asia Times
  • Sierra Magazine
  • Labor Notes
  • New Politics
  • The Catholic Worker
  • The Des Moines Register
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Email

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