Republican Media Hero Rupert Murdoch Mission Is To Debase Democracy

Republican Media Hero Rupert Murdoch Mission Is To Debase Democracy

We are swimming in a gloop of scuttlebutt and tittle-tattle, driven by “unnamed sources” who always represent themselves as “close to the investigation” yet who speak only “on condition of anonymity.” Those deceptively anodyne descriptors have moved us down an ethical spectrum from transparent reporting to stories that are “underwritten,” bribed, extorted or outright lies.

Consider, for example, the insidious model of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire. Fox News Channel is a subsidiary of the Fox Entertainment Group, which in turn is a subsidiary of Murdoch’s conglomerate News Corporation. It’s a perfect circle, a consciously structured looping between news and entertainment, a business model premised on positing the amorality of “anything goes” as the civic equivalent of “freedom of the press.”

In Britain, Murdoch’s devouring influence is finally being challenged with revelations that his employees compromised a murder investigation by hacking into the voicemail of the victim and erasing her last messages; tapped the phones of politicians with whom Murdoch took issue; and paid police officers and government officials “in the six figures” for information about ongoing investigations. It is perhaps only in America that any enterprise of Murdoch’s labeled “fair and balanced” is still received as anything but laughable. We know, too, that paying for information has become broad practice among American tabloids like the Post; but we seem inured to the concern that tabloid sensibility is not just unreliable but corrupting.

The Anglo-American justice system constructs criminal cases as singular—as particular to named individuals and specifically delineated indictments. Social narratives, norms and values can never be entirely absent, but the system attempts to regulate their influence through mechanisms like the rules of evidence (barring rumor and unsubstantiated opinion) and standards of proof (like “reasonable person” and “reasonable doubt”). To keep from destroying reputations unnecessarily, we adhere to a presumption of innocence. Police are supposed to keep certain aspects of investigations closed until there is at least “probable cause.” Similarly, both sides screen and filter evidence for probity. In some cases, judges have the discretion to sequester juries from outside or inflammatory input. And we trust lawyers, prosecutors and judges to keep confidences as a matter of professional ethics.

But none of these structural buffers can operate as they should if a Murdoch-like empire runs the world, carelessly spitting out the home addresses of those it wishes to skewer, hacking into the phones of unlucky witnesses, pursuing stories into sealed records, private homes and bathroom stalls. Our democracy depends on a free press to discuss the issues of the day without interference from government. What that noble ideal does not account for is the existence of media monopolies able to exercise national and international control over civic spaces—even to the degree that their power vies with that of governments. Their careless, nonempirical, even fictionalized narratives invade privacy, ruin careers, mythologize racial stereotypes, exploit class divisions, exacerbate ideological discord, unleash mobs, wreak vengeance, assemble armies and annihilate the common good.

Today’s media chatter is beholden not to truth but rather to profit, fear and fantasy. What becomes of the duty to listen that is at the heart of free expression? What becomes of the shared mulling of ideas that allows us to think of one another as equals who exist in society with one another? What becomes of the measured thought exchange that is the essence of due process?

by Patricia J. Williams

Fox News is the embodiment of dumping down the news. making the truth merely a matter of opinion. Its defenders in parrot like fashion claim Rupert Murdochs Fox News tells it like it is. Meaning they tell their low information viewers who live in a mental bubble what they want to hear. many of them actually believe that Steve Doocy, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and the other talking heads would never look into the camera and tell lies. Isn't it illegal to lie anyway. Fox tells lies daily and no it is not against the law to tell the kind of twisted lies Rupert Murdoch 's Fox News tells. All they have to do is claim what they said was true to the best of their knowledge. Their knowledge extends as far as their radical right-wing agenda tells them. Tell the truth or push their anti-American agenda? Republicans, Murdoch and Fox News have made their choice - an anti-American, anti-Democracy agenda.

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley(R) Signs On To Republican Plan to Destroy Democracy One Step At a Time

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley(R) Signs On To Republican Plan to Destroy Democracy One Step At a Time

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley(R) has a unique solution to the problem she created by signing a law in May that will require voters to present a government-issued photo ID at the polls — she will personally drive you to the DMV. As with any voter ID requirement, Haley’s law could have the effect of suppressing the vote of thousands of people who don’t currently have South Carolina IDs, especially minorities, college students, rural voters, and the elderly. For these people, it is often difficult or impossible to travel to the DMV to obtain a license, so many wind up not being able to cast a ballot come Election Day.

But Haley isn’t worried because she has a plan. “Find me those people that think that this is invading their rights,” she told a local Fox affiliate, “And I will go take them to the DMV myself and help them get that picture ID.”

So, assuming Haley’s offer is genuine, how many rides will the governor be giving? South Carolina’s election commission estimates that 178,000 of the state’s voters lack the ID necessary to allow them to exercise their right to vote. Google Maps estimates that it will take 11 minutes for Nikki Haley to drive from the governor’s mansion to the nearest branch of the state DMV:

That DMV branch is open five days a week for 8.5 hours a day. Assuming Haley wants to save some time and gas, we’ll assume that her car can fit four passengers. That means that if every single one of these 178,000 voters were to present themselves to the governor’s mansion and request the free ride Haley just offered them, it would take just over 7 years, 4 months, 3 weeks and 5 days if she spends every single minute that the DMV is open doing nothing but playing taxi driver. That’s nearly two full terms — assuming there’s no traffic.

A simpler solution: Don’t jeopardize peoples’ right to vote in the first place.

Haley belongs to the correct party. She is neck deep in corruption and along with the South Carolina's conservative legislature is determined to have government by and for the elite and special interests.

More Than Ever We Need Revenue Increases Not Deficit Reduction

This article is prescient about our current situation, written just before the elections of 2008, Read My Lips: We Need These Taxes (Sunday, June 15, 2008)

Let's imagine an alternate universe. The U.S. government is running a large and growing deficit. Not far down the road it faces huge increases in Social Security and Medicare costs. Naturally, the candidates for president want to remedy this by raising revenue. They don't want us to bequeath bigger deficits to our children or stake our future on foreigners' willingness to keep lending us money.

But have you heard this speech? "My fellow Americans, I have a plan to raise taxes so that the budget will be closer to balance and future Americans won't have to worry about their retirement security." Neither have I.

Somebody, though, should be giving it. The U.S. budget deficit will be $400 billion -- or 3 percent of the gross domestic product -- this year, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. And it's growing. A gas-tax "holiday" (as advocated by John McCain) or a middle-class cut in the payroll tax (candy from Barack Obama) are pandering and will only make things worse. How would a conscientious president deal with the deficit and also make the system fairer? Here are five relatively painless ways.

1. End preferential treatment for private equity fund managers.

When you and I earn ordinary income, we pay a maximum rate of 35 percent in taxes. The max for private equity fund managers is 15 percent. This includes folks like Stephen Schwarzman, the head of Blackstone, whose net worth has been estimated at $7.8 billion and who (when he's not in St. Tropez or sundry other vacation digs) lives in the former Park Avenue apartment of John D. Rockefeller Jr.

Why do fund managers pay less? To encourage investment, the tax system charges a lower rate -- 15 percent -- on capital gains. No one objects to fund managers paying that rate on the profits they earn on their own capital. But here's the rub: Most of their profits come from investing other people's money. Typically, for every dollar their investors earn, the managers take a 20 percent cut. This is, in effect, a fee -- or ordinary income. Why shouldn't a Schwarzman or a Henry Kravis of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. be assessed the same rate on their fee income as anyone else? And since this wouldn't affect the people putting up the money, it would have no effect on total investment or economic growth. This change would raise only $3 billion a year, but on simple fairness, it's a must.

2. Raise the cap on the payroll tax.

Social Security is financed by a 12.4 percent tax, but it's assessed only on the first $102,000 of income. So people who earn more than that amount pay a lesser share of their total income. Warren Buffett, currently the richest American, has noted that his secretary is taxed at a higher effective rate than he is. Since income disparities are growing (the top 1 percent of earners took home 23 percent of all income in 2006, the highest total since just before the 1929 stock market crash), more and more income is escaping the tax. And Social Security needs the money: Its benefits will eclipse payroll tax revenues by 2017 (after that, the system will have to reclaim money it has lent to the rest of the government; eventually it won't have enough). Raising the cap would help preserve benefits. There are many ways to do this. Obama favors extending the tax on the wealthy -- perhaps on incomes above $200,000. More simply, we could raise the current ceiling.

3. Reinstate a meaningful
inheritance tax.

The Republicans won a rhetorical debate by labeling the inheritance tax a "death tax" -- the very phrase conjures up an image of heartless bureaucrats dragging the elderly from their beds to settle up, depriving them of their final moments of peace. In reality, the tax is paid not by the dying but by their living heirs. Prior to President Bush's tax cuts, which called for a gradual phaseout, the inheritance tax was levied only on estates worth more than $600,000, or 2 percent of the total. By next year, the floor will rise to $3.5 million -- at which point only one-third of 1 percent of estates will be taxed.

The tax is due to be repealed in 2010 -- and then restored in 2011 (a gimmicky flip-flop that Congress approved so that the projected deficit wouldn't seem astronomical). Congress is certain to revise the inheritance tax during the next administration. Reverting to half the pre-Bush level, as compared with total repeal, would net the government $40 billion a year.

The justification for this tax is that while the country allows -- and encourages -- citizens to accumulate great wealth on Earth, some of that fortune should be redirected to society once they enter the hereafter. The practical argument is also important: Repeal of the estate tax would be a death knell to charitable contributions and to this country's unique network of private foundations.

4. End unfair deductions.

First, the mortgage deduction. Sounds crazy, like banishing apple pie, right? But why should the government subsidize homeowners, who on average are far wealthier than people who rent? The home-mortgage deduction costs the United States more than $75 billion a year -- with half going to the richest 12 percent of taxpayers. And the evidence that it leads to higher home ownership is sketchy. More likely, it marginally raises home values. Given the real estate slump, propping up prices may seem like a good thing. But sooner or later -- as the recent crash should make clear -- prices return to their economic value anyway.

The mortgage deduction's true effect is to encourage people to borrow more on their homes. Haven't we had enough of that? A similarly unfair deduction, which McCain favors repealing, involves corporate health-care plans. If your company has a plan, you don't get taxed on the benefits. This costs the Treasury a whopping $125 billion a year and unfairly penalizes people whose employers don't have plans. Repealing these two deductions would eliminate almost half the deficit. Or the Treasury could replace them with a credit distributed evenly to all residents and all health-care consumers.

5. (Best for last): Repeal the Bush cuts in income and capital gains taxes.

They mostly benefited the wealthiest Americans, and this would save $2.5 trillion or so over a decade. The argument against the cuts hasn't changed, but now the evidence is in. In the 1990s, the U.S. economy boomed, and the government achieved a budget surplus. In this decade, growth has been slower; the surplus -- which the tax-cutters predicted would last indefinitely -- was gone within a year. Reversing the cuts (a step Obama and Clinton favor) would raise the top rate on ordinary income to 39.6 percent from 35 percent. It would also raise the capital gains rate to 20 percent. Wall Street frets that the latter would stymie investment. But the rate was 20 percent in the '90s -- probably the stock market's best decade ever.

I said that these hikes would be relatively painless. Since all taxes cost somebody money, you could say that every hike is painful. But not having money for retirement benefits or for health care for kids or for cities leveled by hurricanes or for defense and national security is also painful. The real questions should be: Would these hikes cause unfair pain to those being taxed, and would they cause more than marginal distress to the overall economy? The overwhelming answer is no.

The argument generally goes that these people who have astronomical high incomes did some did of special work to earn it. Really the guy who takes in a few million a year works harder than a scientists who discovers a treatment for heart disease. When we get above the working class in terms of pay, you have people who get more wealth simply because they already have wealth - working and earning the money is no longer part of the equation. Work produced is no longer how we measure productivity - at least for millionaires - each of us is different and uniquely talented, but our situations in life are only sometimes because of individual effort, the monetary rewards are frequently determined by as much by the structures and social conditions which the the rich and powerful have set in place. Taxes are a small compensation to pay for all the infrastructure and labor that helped make the rich rich.

Republican Determined to Cause Their Second Great Recession. When Will America Learn

Republican Determined to Cause Their Second Great Recession. When Will America Learn

Call it what you will: punt, cave, Machiavellian genius; there's no question that Mitch McConnell's proposal to abandon the GOP's attempt to extract major spending cuts in return for a vote to raise the debt ceiling has drastically upset Washington's political calculus. There has been an an explosion of chatter about how McConnell's move is a tacit acknowledgement of a debt ceiling stalemate: Republicans won't agree to any deal that increases revenues; Democrats won't agree to any significant cuts in entitlements that don't include at least some new taxes.

Suddenly, there's a new conventional wisdom: Since the economic consequences of not raising the debt ceiling are supposedly unthinkable, something like the McConnell plan must eventually carry the day.

There's just one problem here: the House GOP.

The Wall Street Journal's David Wessell puts it nicely:

[T]he most contentious strikes (in the days when the U.S. had strikes) came when company executives and union leaders reached agreement, only to discover that union leaders couldn't deliver the membership. That's the House today. The Republican rank-and-file is distrustful of the leadership, and the leaders don't completely trust each other. Hence the president and Republican leaders are having trouble cutting a deal.

I don't normally believe much of what House Majority Leader Eric Cantor has to say, but his comments captured in a Politico story today seem to be an accurate description of the current reality:

"Nothing can get through the House right now," the Virginia Republican said. "Nothing."

Consider how we have arrived at this point. Cantor walked out of negotiations with the White House team led by Vice President Joe Biden, because, he said, the House would not accept any deal that resulted in revenue increases -- even if those increases were the result of ending tax breaks and closing loopholes. Then the "grand bargain" fell apart because House Republicans revolted en masse against the notion of sanctioning even $4 trillion in spending cuts if it required $1 trillion in tax hikes. Now we are supposed to believe that the same people who have rejected two big deals that would have resulted in real spending cuts are going to go along with a plan that might not result in any spending cuts at all. It's very difficult to see how that happens.

I've believed for a long time that pressure from Wall Street would ensure that the debt ceiling would be raised before the deadline -- and evidence is amassing that exactly such pressure explains why McConnell broached his "contingency" solution on Tuesday. But it now seems to me that the chances of a real disaster are even higher than they were before the McConnell stunner. As Robert Draper's Sunday New York Times Magazine story profiling the House Republican freshman class suggests, many members of the newest crop of representatives do not seem to understand, or care, about the potential fallout from their actions.

As Tim Griffin, a freshman from Arkansas, put it to me, "A lot of us feel that we're here on a mission, and the mission is now, and we're not that concerned about the political consequences." That mission -- to throttle the role of the federal government in general and Obama's progressive initiatives specifically -- may seem more like a kamikaze pursuit to some of the freshmen as the 2012 elections get closer and their constituents become increasingly impatient for government solutions. For now, however, they and their Tea Party backers constitute the most formidable power bloc on Capitol Hill.

Or, as Jon Chait puts it less politely: "The more we find out about the House Republican caucus, the more obvious it becomes that they're not just trying to maximize their leverage by pretending to be crazy. They're crazy."

Just look at Michele Bachmann, the chair of the House's Tea Party caucus. David Weigel reports her version of reality, delivered Wednesday morning, and it's a doozy:

It was Bachmann, at the end of the event, who captured the emerging GOP sentiment best: "President Obama is holding the full, faith and credit of the United States hostage so he can continue his spending spree!"

In Bachmann's world, Obama, the president who offered Republicans terms that disgust and horrify his own party, is holding the United States hostage. But Bachmann has long maintained that she would vote against raising the debt ceiling under almost any circumstances (unless attached to something completely unworkable as far as dealing with the nation's current economic situation, like a balanced-budget amendment.) Does Bachmann understand the meaning of the word "hostage"?

The Republicans are holding the economy hostage for the second time. Obama has agreed to every spending cut - weather its the $2 trillion dollar plan or the $4 trillion dollar spending cut plan. In exchange for paying Republican to release the hostage he has asked to close some tax loopholes and write-offs ( no tax increases). Republican have declared they're going to shoot the hostage anyway. Criminals who act like Republicans - who must have everything they want with NO Compromises are usually called sociopaths. The only reason we're at this point is because Republicans will not raise taxes to what they were during the peace and prosperity years of the Clinton administration.

Like Other Elitist in the Out of Touch Republican Party Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) Wants Sacrifice From Middle-class and None From the Wealthy

Like Other Elitist in the Out of Touch Republican Party Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) Wants Sacrifice From Middle-class and None From the Wealthy

Just days after the nation’s unemployment rate hit 9.2 percent, Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) said on CNBC that it’s a problem that the federal government isn’t “sacrificing” by laying off workers like the private sector. Last week’s dismal jobs report showed that the recovery has stalled and 14.1 million Americans are out of work, but Brady complained that government isn’t doing its part to “get our financial house in order” because it’s hiring workers while private companies lay them off:

BRADY: Truth is, when’s the government going to sacrifice? Everyone’s been pinching pennies, the government budgets have almost doubled the last couple years. Most companies are laying off workers, especially small businesses, the federal government’s hiring federal workers. So my question is, when is the government going to sacrifice in order to help us get our financial house in order?


Brady’s suggestion that the government needs to lay off more workers during a time of high unemployment is not only disturbingly out-of-touch, it’s also untrue. Last month marked the sharpest decline in state and local jobs since the 1982, and most job growth at the moment is coming from private companies.

As Matt Yglesias has documented, over 500,000 government workers have lost their jobs since January 2009. State and local government employees have been particularly hard hit: nearly 100,000 have lost their jobs so far this year, and 464,000 have found themselves jobless since September 2008. Forecasts say another 110,000 could soon lose their jobs as states begin their new fiscal years.

Federal payrolls have been mostly flat for years, even as the population has been growing. In November, President Obama announced a two-year pay freeze for 1.9 million federal workers.

According to David Leonhardt, if state and local governments had continued to hire at their previous pace, they would have added half a million jobs to the economy. In other words, government austerity over the past two years “has cost the economy about one million jobs.”

It should go without saying, but apparently doesn’t, that it’s a bad thing that some small businesses are laying off workers and the public sector should not try to emulate them. It’s also callous and ignorant to suggest that government workers aren’t shouldering their fair share of economic pain.

Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) has declared there is no way he will vote to raise taxes on the wealthiest 5% of Americans who make in one day what the average American makes in one year. We all know who Brady and his Republican miscreants are looking out for.

The Ultra Conservative Republican Honeymoon is Over

The Ultra Conservative Republican Honeymoon is Over

Across America voters are having buyers regret.

Republicans swept last year's elections. The GOP captured more than 675 state legislative seats, flipped 10 governor's mansions, gained control of over 20 state legislative chambers, and won more than 60 seats in Congress previously occupied by Democrats.

Elections this lopsided have consequences for the victors and vanquished alike. Usually these consequences come in the form of a honeymoon, with the winning party able to pursue its ideological agenda.

But now, almost before it started, the honeymoon is over. Voters — Democrats, independents, and yes, growing numbers of Republicans — are concerned about tax breaks for corporations and the wealthiest Americans while working and middle-income Americans struggle to make ends meet.

In Florida, police officers in Broward County are planning a mass rally on July 16 to officially switch their party registration from Republican to Democrat. They are tired of Gov. Rick Scott's attacks on workers.

In Maine, Democrats and some Republican legislators are pushing back against an overreaching tea party governor who has insulted labor and minorities and signed bills rolling back health care reform and eliminating the state’s 38-year-old law allowing people to register to vote on Election Day. In New Hampshire, after the Democratic governor vetoed an anti-union, anti-worker bill, Republicans are working furiously to try to corral the two-thirds majority needed for an override.

In Arizona, Republican Gov. Jan Brewer has pushed back against Republican efforts to deny benefits to unemployed workers. "You don't balance the federal budget by turning your back on Arizonans in their time of need," she said. "That's not principled fiscal conservatism. It's just cruel. And we are better than this."

And in a number of key electoral battleground states, GOP governors are suffering from dismal approval ratings. Florida's Scott stands at 29 percent. Michigan's Rick Snyder and Ohio's John Kasich each top out at 33 percent. Wisconsin's Scott Walker's 43 percent, while slightly higher, is still lackluster and incredibly polarized. His approval rating from Republicans is 87 percent and just 9 percent from Democrats.

So why has the public lost that loving feeling? And where do we go from here?

The reason behind the disenchantment is clear. The GOP has not only attacked essential services popular with the public, like public education, Medicare, and Medicaid. Republican politicians have also made scapegoats of the public employees who provide these services. Yet every one of us knows someone who works in the public sector — the police officer or firefighter risking his life to protect us, the schoolteacher grappling with crowded classrooms, the public nurse in fear of losing her job. And we don't like seeing our family, friends, and neighbors attacked. Voters across the country are demanding an annulment from the GOP.

The good news? Across the country, people are fighting back. This July, activists are organizing more than 1,000 "house meetings" that will focus attention on the economy and the need for job creation. These "Rebuild the Dream" house meetings are being organized by national groups like Center for Community Change, MoveOn, and USAction. But the force driving them will be local, in places from Peoria, Illinois to Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Other activists plan to mark the July 30th anniversary of Medicare and Medicaid and to attend congressional recess town hall events in August. Still others will turn out for a nationwide "jobs tour" sponsored by ProgressiveCongress.org.

To be sure, we face difficult choices as we figure out how to rebuild our economy, spread the necessary burden of taxation, and avoid debilitating cuts to the important services our families and communities depend on.

But Americans of all ideologies and political parties know the way forward. Instead of rewarding companies for shipping good jobs overseas, Americans want to close corporate loopholes and invest in good jobs right here in the USA. Instead of slashing Medicare and Medicaid, Americans want the rich to pay their fair share of taxes. Instead of attacking and scapegoating workers, Americans want working and middle-income families to be able to bargain for good American wages and benefits.

That's what we're organizing for this summer. This is a fight to take back our country and rebuild the American dream — good jobs and strong communities, with liberty and justice for all. Our country deserves no less.


David Elliot is communications director for USAction, a grassroots advocacy group with affiliates and partners in 24 states.

What happened in 2010 is not difficult to figure out. Republicans went into full fanatic mode - spreading lies about how health care reform was going to kill grandma, Obama was going to go house to house and take everyone's gun, the country was slipping into a Marxist state. It did not matter how big or ridiculous the lie conservatives told them over and over again as loudly as possible. Some of the tea baggers at health care reform town hall meetings looked like they were going to give themselves a heart attack. Now they have had a chance to show their agenda and America says that agenda sucks. They have created tax cuts for corporations making millions in profits and paying little to no taxes already, then turned around and cut bargaining rights for workers and cut jobs for teachers. It turns out the tea baggers had their grass roots lips firmly glued to the backsides of billionaires and corporate special interests. America wants government for the people not greedy plutocrats like the Koch brothers, for whom billions are not enough.

The Big Republican Lie of 2011 - We Have a "Spending" Problem

No, we do not have a spending problem in general. We have a problem with runaway military spending and lack of revenue to pay for that military spending - We have a revenue problem, not a spending problem

The refrain that's won the day, apparently, for budget negotiators racing to see who can get the most praise from the Very Serious People for making the most Americans suffer under austerity, is "we having a spending problem." Not to put too fine a point on it: Bullshit.



Our deficit and debts can be traced to the fact that spending on entitlement programs and defense has shot up, and tax revenues have plummeted to their lowest level in decades. But spending on domestic discretionary programs has grown much more slowly. And, if you correct for inflation, and for growing population, it turns out we're spending exactly the same amount on these programs as we were a full decade ago....

"Although non-defense discretionary spending in nominal dollars has increased, when taking inflation and population growth into account the amount contained in the [2011 budget] represents no increase over what we spent in 2001, a year in which we generated a surplus of $128 billion," said chairman Daniel Inouye (D-HI) in a prepared statement. "So the right question to ask is: Are we really spending too much on non-defense programs? The answer is clearly no."

...In the wake of the Bush tax cuts, and the Great Recession, tax revenue has fallen through the floor to near-historic lows. As a percentage of GDP, it's fallen 24 percent since 2001, and if you correct for inflation, the government is collecting nearly 20 percent less per person than it was a decade ago. At the same time, the population-adjusted costs of mandatory spending programs—driven by Medicare, including its new prescription drug benefit, and Medicaid—have increased by over 30 percent. And, of course, defense spending has skyrocketed. But if you isolate domestic discretionary programs, a decade later we're spending no more on a per-person basis than we were back then.

What has increased? Health care spending, but at a rate that would have nearly been covered by massive loss of revenue in the past decade. TPM took the numbers from the Committee and "put them in a slightly different context, so you can see by what percentage spending and revenues have risen and fallen on a population adjusted basis over the last decade."
spending/taxes graph

As they say, it clearly shows "what is and is not the culprit of deficits and our supposedly out-of-control spending."

It just seems to be a bad habit picked up by the media and Congress to include Medicare - which they call an entitlement into the spending debate that includes general federal tax revenue. Medicare has its own separate fund paid for with working folks payroll taxes. The vast majority of the debt would disappear tomorrow if the Bush tax cuts for millionaires was trashed. That is a simple fact. What would happen to those poor millionaires? They would simply be paying the same taxes they paid during the Clinton boom years. We do not have a debt crisis. We have a revenue crisis. We also have a crazy irresponsible far right-wing un-American Republican party crisis, because they are putting the interests of a few millionaires above the interests of the country.

More here, We Have A Revenue Problem!