“I can’t wait for the blood bath in April. ... When debt limit time comes, they’re going to look around and say, ‘What in the hell do we do now? We’ve got guys who will not approve the debt limit extension unless we give ’em a piece of meat, real meat,’ ” (meaning spending cuts). “And boy, the blood bath will be extraordinary,”
-- Alan Simpson, served from 1979 to 1997 as a United States senator from Wyoming as a member of the Republican Party, and was appointed by President Obama to lead the deficit reduction effort.
Simpson is clearly of the radical branch of Republicans who live to "Starve the Beast." Their idea is that bad little government is better than good large government, especially if it is of the kind that today guides Sweden. That kind negotiated a bank failure without giving any taxpayer money to banks, a socialist government that did not socialize debt but took the banks over, just as FDIC in this country does almost every day (it seems), told the stockholders and managers to go home or to jail, and not take any taxpayer money with them. Then Sweden sold the banks to new investors willing to put their own money up and the Swedish government got out of the banking industry. That is one of the governments types that Simpson does not like.
He does not like the government in the Netherlands, they set the standards for medical care, and full care costs less than $150 per person, per month. Not only does Simpson not like that kind of government, he does not like the democratic governments of France, Switzerland, England, Japan, Germany, Norway, Finland, or Taiwan, all of which provide good low cost medical care that their citizens are happy with, and costs that would save American citizens at least $1 trillion a year.
What Simpson and his ilk really hate is good government doing well, and providing better value to its citizens After all, he was elected to make government better, not to poison it.In fact, while he was a senator, he did not work to end lobbyists writing legislation, he did not work to end the practice for lobbyists contributing to the campaign funds of senators and representatives that they would later approach to ask that taxes on the wealthy be cut, or that some other favor or earmark be included in some bill.
He was part of conspiracy to hollow out agencies so they appear to be working for the American citizens who pay their salaries, but they are staffed by industry insiders who will hand the agency over to the worst instincts of the industry and then go back to better pay, as a reward for betraying the American people. Simpson help convert agencies that were supposed to be protecting citizens, to hollow shells,like movie set buildings, a "Potemkin village" of agencies that never carried out their their obligation to protect the voters from risky business like deep water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.
Simpson did not think that banks or people like Bernie Madoff needed to be regulated or forced to meet any standards, he voted to deregulate banks. He learned nothing from the savings and loan bailouts in 1980's and 1990's which saw 747 S&Ls fail and cost the U.S. taxpayer $25 billion (out of $160 billion lost). Although it was "only" $25 billion paid directly by the taxpayers, they paid the rest in higher bank fees over a period of time; banks don't go into business to give money away, the consumer has to pay the fees. What Simpson learned from that is that banks will fail, and when they do, the consumer will bail them out.
Simpson's entire service was during the period after 1970, when rich campaign contributors were supporting politicians that cut taxes on the super rich by more than 50% and writing laws to keep unions from representing people that wanted a voice in government, but didn't have enough to buy their own politician. Simpson didn't think that your taxes needed to be cut by 50%, as Republican Senate leader Bob Dole said during this time, the work of people who can not hire lobbyists does not get done by congress.
Today, with so many people out of work, through no fault of their own, Simpson wants to lay off more teachers, police, and firefighters, and add to number of people losing their homes. It is kind of blood that he mentions (quote above) that he is eager to see. Good luck to any country has has people like he is, for politicians.
Now that government is starving, Simpson is glad to be able help kill all the programs, like social security, that the have-mores don't need. After all, the rich have what they want, they used government to get it, a government they bought, the best you can buy. Whose fault is it that the poor, perhaps born poor, or denied good wages by government and laws that denied union workers the benefits of organizing? They should have planned ahead and been born rich.
The good news is that nothing is actually going to happen. The fact that is the good news is sad when we are in some much trouble, but there can be no rape of working families unless some Democrats vote with the Republicans, and that will not happen; all the moderate Democrats are gone. There will be no bipartisan cover for lower taxes for the rich and passing all the bills for a failed banking system to the poor.
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