Congressman Barney Frank (D). Image from http://washingtonindependent.com/36599/frank-balances-interests-on-finance-reform
Blaming the S&P downgrade of the United States credit rating on excessive military spending by the United States, Representative Barney Frank (D-MA) stated on Monday that a logical key component of further deficit reduction is the reduction of military spending.
In addition, he said that the Bush-era tax cuts should be terminated for the wealthy and that the Clinton-era tax rate should be reinstated on those making over $250,000 per year. The reinstatement of the higher tax levels would correspondingly increase taxes by $30 for every $1,000 of additional income above $250,000.
Despite, and perhaps due to the slightly higher taxes, the Clinton era saw remarkable economic growth and even resulted in a budget surplus by the end of his second term in office.
On The Rachel Maddow Show Monday night Frank stated, “We could reduce our military spending by $250 billion a year, $140 billion from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and over $100 billion in Western Europe and Japan and other wealthy nations, and bring that money home.”
The Congressman maintained that such steps could be done without reducing the security of the United States. He has argued, recently, that military spending should be the primary area for spending reductions because the United States spends a disproportionately large amount of its budget on the military.
Remarking that some of the savings could go to deficit reduction, and some into reinvestment into the U.S.and its citizens, Frank addressed Republicans in Congress, exclaiming, “Don’t tell me to tell a 78-year-old woman, living on $19,000 a year, that she gets no cost of living. But you’re going to continue to pour money into Karzai’s coffers.”
“Let’s bring [the money] back and put it into our cities, put it into highway construction, put it into people back to work here.”
Frank ended his interview by stating that “it is the definition of stupidity” if the United States is in a crisis, with the stock market crashing and the credit rating “unfairly” downgraded by S&P, and we continue to support corruption in Afghanistan and Iraq while denying action on debt reduction and job creation in the United States.
–Raymond Gellner, National Liberal Examiner, Examiner.com | Follow me on Twitter
Please visit the originally published article on Examiner.com: Rep. Barney Frank blames S&P downgrade on excessive military spending
Edited By: Alexis Atherton
Correction on the prosperous economy surplus in the Clinton era. The economy was excessive with a lot of the extra tax revenue coming from the spending of unprofitable tech and dot coms. Whose funds came from poor decision making investors. Which in turn caused an excessive rally that took the stock market to 30 times earnings on the Dow and 50 times earnings on the s&p. All that extra infusion of money got spent and created more tax revenue. Clinton in not to blame for investors speculation but he certainly was not the creator of revenue surplus… Over priced non profitable companies expanding and spending billions of investors money is…
Which failure of these companies created the recession and correction of 00-02 which lowered interest rates which in turn created the housing boom. Of which it was Several democrats in the house and senate that did not want federal oversight on Fannie Mae because it “was so successful in making housing affordable”… And the rest is history…
Regarding Rick Perry’s prayer services and declarations, it is so comforting to know that we can’t fool God. He knows our hearts and motives. The attempt to exploit God the way he tries to do is futile.
God doesn’t exist.