And next year, when it's time again to extend the Bush tax cuts for billionaires or make them permanent, you may be sure that we will not be broke. Just ask any Republican.

Dionne: The phrase is designed to create a sense of crisis that justifies rapid and radical actions before citizens have a chance to debate the consequences.

Shorter Dionne: Republicans deploy the Shock Doctrine again. Film at 11.

There's a Communist under every bed. Iraqis will greet us as liberators. We're broke.

The Big Lie. Works every time.

"We're broke" is a line frequently repeated by Republicans. It is a line that fits in with their obvious agenda. It is incorrect, but one that feels truthy.

Have you ever noticed that the Republicans have an actual agenda. They have a series of identifiable goals. They have an ideology.

Why can't Democrats have an ideology, identifiable goals and an actual agenda? Why can't we be organized enough to say if we don't get our way, Republicans are going to suffer?

Sorry, but I am sick and tired of playing defense. When does our side get the ball?

What's so hard about this. When you want a cookie, the jar is empty. When I want a cookie, there's plenty...

What if cuts to studying the weather and oceans leaves us unable to measure accurately where radiation, belching from Japanese nuke plants, falls on our soil?

It's times like these when I really want the best of the best monitoring my atmosphere.

How about the fish caught in the ocean? Do we worry about the radiation?

I am tired of science and education bashing and dumbing down.

It ain't witch doctors that are trying to solve and monitor Japan's nuclear nightmare, but rather (I hope) extrememly intelligent and trained scientists.

Cut funding for tsunami warnings???

Ron, the Democrats' "ideology" is pragmatism, which is, of course, no ideology at all. There's a virtue in that but there's also a cost in that we have a difficult time making a philosophical case for government action. Citizens have been flattered by Republicans into thinking of themselves as self-reliant and rugged individualists. Of course it's bullshit but flattery usually is. Democrats have a much harder task: to make a case for collective action when many voters don't want anything "collective" with people who don't look like them.

From time to time, the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants. . .

-or is that "Second Amendment Remedy" limited to conservative Republicans?

We have become bankrupt. Morally.

But... but... They said that the tax cuts pay for themselves.

Something tells me not to hold my breath waiting for that to come true.

As for liberals going on offense, I am deeply heartened by the protesters who are spending their valuable time and money to fight in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana and other states. They make me feel so proud to be an American.

How can anyone be surprised by this? For years, Republicans have had a "starve the beast" strategy. Cut taxes, then say we have insufficient revenues to pay for necessary government. Distract the masses by telling them their taxes are too high (which jibes with their perceived loss of spending power), and cut their taxes by a dollar for every ten you chop off the taxes of the richest. If you can't cut taxes, then just pass popular spending measures without paying for them. Plus, more war. When you get caught, say that tax cuts pay for themselves, a happy lie that people want to believe, and ignore the fact that the tax burden as percent of GDP is the lowest its been in 50 years. Count on the media to report your bogus figures as if they're one side of the truth.

Just why do Republicans want to starve the beast? So that instead of paying taxes to spread expenses around, have predictable income for the state and so on, they want you to be hit, at EVERY turn, with some new fee, some fine, some new public service you now have to pay through the nose for to some conKochted entity that came into business just to gouge you.

People really want that???

It's absolutely true that the best way out of the 'deficit' is growing the economy. The deficit is one of a whole array of Republican fright words that they always resort to: 'reds' or 'commies' or 'Muslims' or 'terrorists' or blah blah blah.

They are the party of the Broken Record. Where is the original thinking among Republicans? All of their mental energy goes into creating more and greater fantasms for us to fear. Some among us just don't scare that easily. The other thing they put their mental energy into is obscuring anything that is true or factual. Go figure.

Broken record, broken record, broken record.

Anyone (Steve) who did not see this coming had their blinders on!

This all dovetails quite nicely with the Hayek plan of spend and borrow which leads to austerity programs to pay creditors.

The repub logic is we need to cut taxes because we are broke. That way the "producers" will have more resources to produce more and the "takers" will have to get off welfare and get to work.

Its just more of the Ayn Randian BS.

Wisconsin is a state that invented Progressive Era Republican rule in the 19th and early 20th centuries under such progressive populists as Robert LaFollette. Under their tenure, rent-seeking from the public domain and similar insider corruption were checked by a strong public sector anchored in integrity. The state's long history of reforms nurtured a prosperous middle class and made it a model of clean government, solid infrastructure, trade unionism and high value-added industry managed by socialists and the LaFollette Progressives.
http://www.counterpunch.org/hudson03112011.html

I KNEW there was a reason I always enjoy Kill Bill's comments! (www.counterpunch.org)

The solution I expect to see proposed is to get rid of the minimum wage and collective bargaining as well as defunding all health and safety agencies in the name of job creation. Then the entire budget can go to the defense against scary people.

Once the lesser people are desperate enough to work for a crust and a pallet on the floor the free market will make us all rich and godly. Or something like that.

A Wisconsin teacher did the math. If every adult Wisconsin resident paid the state an extra $6.91 there would be no budget shortfall.

But, as everyone knows, this was never about a budget shortfall.

Ut seems that American news programming is run by the marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation.

I am certain that not everyone here is as stupid as I am.

I try very hard to keep factual information from you. To wit, here is some bad analysis of our fiscal situation.

Of course, I could be wrong and I'm not this dumb. But probably not.

[fixed it for you. If you're not even going to acknowledge our good faith attempts to allow you to comment while simply requiring that you not insinuate everyone's stupidity then we can only assume you don't mind the same treatment in return - mod.

Republican voters: either rich, or stupid. No middle ground.