Why there will be a shutdown.

“So be it.” Why the government will shut down.

With these words John Boehner summed up his attitude toward what his budget plan will do to the economy. On 15 February he was asked about the jobs that his budget would eliminate, and he responded with “If some of those jobs are lost so be it. We're broke.” He stated that the federal government had added 200,000 jobs, and it those to which he was allegedly referring. He was wrong, the government had increased civilian employees by 58,000. (This was in part due to layoffs at the Post Office, the new hires were 140,800 without Post Office layoffs, still well short of 200,000.) So maybe he's just willing to eliminate 58,000 jobs. (Facts from PolitiFact, using figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.) With unemployment so low, our economy can absorb that loss easily, right?

Ah, but here's the rub. $61 billion divided by 200,000 jobs would mean each worker earns $305,000 a year. (Calculator, iPad.) So even his initial incorrect figure must be wrong, how many jobs will this actually cost? According to Dana Milbank at the Washington Post, a lot. Her words, which I found on Daily Kos. “I checked with budget expert Scott Lilly of the Center for American Progress, and, using the usual multipliers, he calculated that the cuts - a net of $59 billion in the last half of fiscal 2011 - would lead to the loss of 650,000 government jobs, and the indirect loss of 325,000 more jobs as fewer government workers travel and buy things. That's nearly 1 million jobs - possibly enough to tip the economy back into recession.”

So Boehner doesn't care at all about your job, or the economy. None. He can look up these figures as easily as I can. Bear in mind that he's really passionate about huge tax cuts for the wealthy. We have to remember that as we consider his priorities and our own. If you're reading this and happen to be a doctor or lawyer, by the way, remember that unless you make over $250,000 you got a tax cut under Obama, and even if you make more than that the first $250,000 you make is taxed less heavily than under Bush. When I say rich I mean rich, not upper middle class or comfortable.

President Obama, in keeping with what he always does, has been trying to extend the olive branch of compromise. He should realize by now that it doesn't work. They want $60 billion in cuts, he offers $30 billion in hard cuts, they say no. They want all or nothing. No negotiating will help. The Democrats in the last decade almost always give up and roll over, so Boehner expects to win the showdown. He can't wait to cut federal jobs, but in order to cut that much money he'll have to cut programs too. What kinds of programs? Paul Ryan has been saying that no program will remain untouched, so the Department of Education, National Park Service, EPA, law enforcement, the Interstate highway system, food stamps, education loans, and anything else you can think of that the government does to help its citizenry will be cut. And that's just a start.

Paul Ryan has already presented a budget proposal for next year. Maybe you've read about it in Time or the New York Times, or on the Huffington Post where it's been vilified as a horrible idea. The gist of the idea is this. Mr. Ryan wants to cut trillions of dollars from the budget. Trillions. His plan seeks to do this in several ways. First, by limiting Medicaid and Medicare payments. In the future. He looked at a way to save billions, and made it effective only for people currently under 55 years old, so the AARP doesn't riot in the streets. (From Fareed Zakaria's Time article on the Ryan budget, except for the AARP editorial comment.) But do you really believe a 55 year old man will pay taxes to prop up Medicare and then not riot in the streets when Paul Ryan hands him a voucher and tells him to go buy some private insurance? The voucher will either increase costs to the government or to the retiree. Probably the retiree, and probably to a degree that will financially cripple the retiree.

Another way he predicts the deficit balance is by predicting that his bold tax policies will lead to 4% unemployment, for the first time in well over half a century. Some of Europe's more conservative countries recently enacted austerity measures that resemble the Tea Party proposals. In Britain, austerity measures were predicted to increase confidence, leading to consumer spending, hiring, and an economic golden era. But, their economy stalled and government deficits are going up. Ireland had accumulated unsustainable debt trying to bail out banks, which sounds familiar. So they imposed massive budget cuts. The following quote, and much of this information, comes from the Paul Krugman article referenced here. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/25/opinion/25krugman.html?_r=2&smid=fb-nytimes&WT.mc_id=OP-SM-E-FB-SM-LIN-AD-032511-NYT-NA&WT.mc_ev=click

“Ireland offers an admirable lesson in fiscal responsibility,” declared Alan Reynolds of the Cato Institute, who said that the spending cuts had removed fears over Irish solvency and predicted rapid economic recovery.

So how did that work out for Ireland? Simple. Their interest rate has doubled, and their unemployment stands at 13.5%. And Boehner wants to follow that lead.

So that's why the Republican budget is bad enough for Democrats to grow some backbone and say no. Well, to some degree, they're still giving in to $30 billion. I really don't want a shutdown, I need to feed my family. And if there's no government to pay me, they can't very well go get food stamps either. But this extremist budget plan needs to be stopped. I'll have to skip this month's car payment for sure, and credit card too. We do what we can. So be it.

Thanks for reading.