Day: July 31, 2011

Republican Austerity Ploys Depressed Growth by 1.2 Percent in First Quarter

Jon Ponder

You want evidence that the cuts-only austerity programs pushed by Republicans are actually designed to cause the economy to fail?

Here you go:

All things being equal, lower spending translates into slower economic growth, since it means cuts in payments to contractors, layoffs of government employees, and smaller entitlement checks. Already in 2011, softer government spending has sapped growth.

Cuts by federal, state, and local governments lowered gross domestic product — a broad measure of the total output of the economy — by 1.2 percentage points in the first quarter of 2011, according to the Commerce Department. Goldman Sachs economists estimate that the first quarter showed the biggest negative effect of government spending on GDP growth since the mid-1980s. The Commerce Department will release its estimate of second-quarter GDP today.

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Beck Compares Norway Camp to Hitler Youth

Trish

YouthCampMaybe we should thank Glenn Beck for comparing the Utøya, Norway camp where rightwing zealot Anders Behring Breivik killed 68 people and wounded many more to a Hilter youth camp.

“There was a shooting at a political camp, which sounds a little like the Hitler youth, or, whatever. I mean, who does a camp for kids that’s all about politics. Disturbing,”

Tea party camp counselor: ‘Some of the kids will fall for it. Others kids will wise up.’

We should thank him because – ignoring the American Legion’s Boys State and Girls State summer camps, which have provided civics leadership to such alumni as Neil Armstrong, Tom Brokaw, Bill Clinton, Mike Huckabee, Michael Jordan, George Pataki, Jane Pauley, Harry Reid, and even Rush Limbaugh since 1935 – his incendiary and ignorant comment allows us to shine a light on a far more disturbing phenomenon.

Tea party groups are holding their own camps this summer, where children and young people are being indoctrinated with anti-social and scarcity-based beliefs. Take this Florida camp.

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