Ilya Shambat

Ilya Shambat
Location
Melbourne, VIC, Australia
Birthday
November 21
Title
Partner
Company
Adda Enterprises
Bio
Born in Russia, family moved to America when I was 12. Got a degree from University of Virginia at 18. Worked for Oracle, translated four books of classical Russian poety, was part of San Francisco and Washington, DC poetry and music scene. Good friends with San Francisco's own Persephone's Bees and acquainted with Patch Adams. Currently married with children, residing in Australia and working on a clean energy technology implementation.

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Salon.com
OCTOBER 23, 2012 12:22AM

Debt, Health Care and Credibility of Republican Politicians

Rate: 1 Flag

Again and again we see Republican candidates shout about the federal debt. A typical statement, made by Republican Congressional candidate in California Ben Campos, reads,

Stop the deficit spending, eliminate the waste, balance the budget and restore accountability.  Why is it that we as citizens are required to live within our means and if we don’t we face consequences such as the inability to attain credit or even worse the loss of our property?  The United States as a country is no different.  It cannot defy the laws of economics before it too will face similar consequences.

I am confused. Where were these people during the Bush administration, when $6 trillion of that debt was accumulated before the baby boomers even started to retire?

America's debt problem was fixed by the Clinton administration. At the end of the Clinton administration, not only was the federal government not running deficits but it was also running sizeable surpluses. Bush destroyed that accomplishment through irresponsible tax cuts on highest incomes. The result was not only vast and unnecessary debt, before baby boomers even started retiring, but also a contraction of private sector and a huge financial crisis.

The Republicans were very quiet about this accumulation of debt when one of their own was in power. And now that a Democrat is in the White House, suddenly federal debt is a life-and-death issue for America.

I am reminded of the Republican proposals for alternative health care measures than the Affordable Care Act. Where were these proposals before? For many decades Republicans acted as if nothing was wrong with America's medical system. And now that a Democratic president passed a bill to correct the problems with America's medical system, suddenly the Republicans supposedly care about health care and have all these proposals to deal with the issue.

The reality is that these Republican politicans care neither about federal debt nor about health care. They care about one thing and one thing only: Political gain. When one of their own is in power, then anything goes. When someone who is not one of their own is in power, the sky is falling and America is dying and Tali-commies are taking over the world.

In fact, Republicans have no credibility either on debt or on health care. The giant deficits began under Reagan, were corrected under Clinton, and then ballooned under Bush, with Republican Congress for six years of his rule. As for medicine, the Republicans have done nothing about it for decades and are only interested in the issue now because a Democratic president has passed a bill.

These people do not have the integrity necessary to govern America. And America deserves better than having such conmen in power.

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All the cry-baby talk about the national debt (boo hoo!) is totally phony & hypocritical. We had a much, much larger national debt at the end of WWII and at no time in US history has the debt been a "crushing burden, crippling the next generation." That line is a conscious fraud. In practice, Republicans like Reagan and Bush were the biggest spendthrifts in American history. Truth, facts, evidence, reason, reality, & history mean nothing to these professional liars. Their motive is to invent an excuse to gut and eliminate any and all programs that benefit the poorer half of the population, like Medicaid, Medicare, and Sociial Security, because the truly rich don't need them and therefore think their taxes, if any, should not contribute a nickel towards them. The only astonishing thing is their level of cyncism & lack of any sense of social responsibility. [r]