Is there one thing that Tony Robbins, Ron Paul and Ben Bernanke can all agree on?  Yes, there actually is.  Recently they have all come forward with warnings that the national debt crisis could destroy America if something is not done.  Unfortunately, our politicians continue to spend us into oblivion as if there will never be any consequences.  When Barack Obama took office, the U.S. national debt was 10.6 trillion dollars.  Today, it is 15.6 trillion dollars and it is rising at the rate of about 150 million dollars an hour.  During the Obama administration so far, the U.S. government has accumulated more debt than it did from 1776 to 1995.  The United States now has a debt to GDP ratio of over 100 percent, and another credit rating agencydowngraded U.S. debt earlier this month.  Any talk of a positive economic future is utter nonsense as long as we are bleeding red ink as a nation far faster than we ever have before.  It is absolutely immoral to wreck the financial future of our children and our grandchildren and to leave them with a bill for the greatest mountain of debt in the history of the world, but that is exactly what we are doing.  Unless our current debt-based financial system is thrown out, there are only two ways that this game is going to play out.  One would involve absolutely bitter austerity and deflation unlike anything ever seen before, and the other would involve nightmarish hyperinflation.  Either path would be hellish beyond what most Americans could possibly imagine.

Unfortunately, we are running out of time as a nation.  You know that things are late in the game when the head of the Federal Reserve starts using apocalyptic language to talk about the national debt.  The following is what Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress recently….

CONTINUED at the Economic Collapse.

If you knew that you could live in luxury for the rest of your life but that by doing so it would absolutely destroy the future for your children, your grandchildren and your great-grandchildren would you do it?  Well, that is exactly what we are doing as a nation.  Over the past several decades, we have stolen 15 trillion dollars from future generations so that we could enjoy a dramatically inflated level of prosperity.  Our 15 trillion dollar party has been a lot of fun, but what we have done to our children and our grandchildren has been beyond criminal.  We ran up the greatest mountain of debt in the history of the planet and we are sticking them with the bill.  Sadly, both political parties have been responsible for the big spending that has been going on.  Both Democrats and Republicans have run up huge budget deficits when in power.  But instead of learning the hard lessons of the past, both political parties continue to vote for even more debt.  They would rather continue to steal trillions of dollars from future generations than have the party end and have to face the consequences.

And the consequences will be dramatic when the party ends.  During fiscal year 2011, the U.S. government spent 3.7 trillion dollars but it only brought in 2.4 trillion dollars.  That means that the U.S. government spent about 1.3 trillion dollars that it did not have.  It is important to understand that even if the U.S. government spent that 1.3 trillion dollars on really stupid things, that money still got into the pockets of ordinary Americans who then spent it on things like food, gas, housing, etc.  In turn, most of those that received money from providing those goods and services would spend it on other things.

So extra government spending can definitely stimulate the economy.  The problem is that we have been doing it permanently.  Since 1975, we have added more than 15 trillion dollars to the national debt.  This has fueled a false prosperity that was way beyond what we could afford.

If the U.S. government tried to go to a balanced budget now, our standard of living would crash and there would be riots in the streets.  The American people have been enjoying false prosperity for so long that they have lost any notion of what “normal” actually is.

Think of it this way.  If your family makes $40,000 this year and you spend an extra $20,000 on your credit cards, your family would be enjoying a false sense of prosperity.

You could do that year after year as long as the credit card companies keep loaning you more money.

But debt always catches up with you in the end.

It is the same thing with the United States.

We have been running up our national credit card balance and the interest payments have become quite painful.

The U.S. government spent over 454 billion dollars just on interest on the national debt during fiscal 2011.

That is 454 billion dollars that the people of the United States do not receive anything in return for.

So in order to keep up with interest on the national debt and to enjoy a standard of living that is beyond our means we now have to run deficits that are in excess of a trillion dollars every single year.

And a trillion dollars is a staggering amount of money.

If right this moment you went out and started spending one dollar every single second, it would take you more than 31,000 years to spend one trillion dollars.

Since Barack Obama was elected, the U.S. government has added about 5trillion more dollars to the national debt.

That kind of debt is a recipe for national financial suicide.

How are we supposed to explain to our children that we are passing a debt of$15,579,852,946,457.64 down to them?

At this point, the United States government is responsible for more than a thirdof all the government debt in the entire world.

The 15 trillion dollar party that we have been enjoying has been amazing, but all of that debt is soon going to bring us a tremendous amount of pain.

And there is really no way out under our current financial system.  As our population ages, government budget deficits are projected to spiral wildly out of control in future years.

Already, entitlement programs are starting to cause massive problems.  For example, mandatory federal spending surpassed total federal revenue for the first time ever in fiscal 2011.  That was not supposed to happen until 50 years from now.

If the federal government used GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) like all publicly-traded corporations are required to do, the situation would be much worse.

The truth is that the U.S. government never had a “balanced budget” during the end of the Clinton administration.  The federal government was borrowing gigantic amounts of money from the Social Security trust fund to finance regular government operations.  It was a big fraud.  Under GAAP, there would have been huge budget deficits during those years.

And even under the non-GAAP numbers used by the U.S. Treasury Department, the U.S. national debt still increased every single year during the Clinton administration.

So let’s get real.

Our national financial situation has always been much worse than we have been told.

It has been estimated that our current budget deficits would be in the neighborhood of 4 to 5 trillion dollars under GAAP.

And looking down the road a bit, we are facing a tsunami of unfunded liabilities that is absolutely nightmarish.

In other words, we have committed ourselves to tens of trillions of dollars of expenses that we don’t have any money for.

According to Professor Laurence J. Kotlikoff, the U.S. is facing a “fiscal gap” of over 200 trillion dollars in the coming years.  The following is a brief excerpt from a recent article that he did for CNN….

The government’s total indebtedness — its fiscal gap — now stands at $211 trillion, by my arithmetic. The fiscal gap is the difference, measured in present value, between all projected future spending obligations — including our huge defense expenditures and massive entitlement programs, as well as making interest and principal payments on the official debt — and all projected future taxes.

And it just keeps getting worse.  Recently it was revealed that Obamacare will add 17 trillion dollars more to our long-term unfunded obligations.

Basically what we have done is we have committed future generations to a life of endless debt slavery to pay for our debts and for the financial promises that we have made.

How could we be so stupid?

Of course this entire fraudulent system is going to completely collapse before we get too much farther down the road anyway.  Right now the whole thing is essentially being held together by chicken wire and duct tape.

Most Americans do not realize this, but the Federal Reserve bought approximately61 percent of all government debt issued by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2011.

Normally, the Federal Reserve is not supposed to be doing this.

But right now there are not nearly enough buyers of U.S. government debt at the super low interest rates that the U.S. government wants to pay.  A recent Money News article explained that foreigners have been increasingly shying away from U.S. debt….

“In 2009, such foreign purchases of U.S. debt amounted to 6 percent of GDP and has since falled by over eighty percent to a paltry 0.9 percent.”

Instead of interest rates on U.S. Treasuries rising to attract additional investors, the U.S. Federal Reserve has been intervening to make up the difference.

This is essentially “monetizing the debt” and it is something that Ben Bernanke promised that he would never do.

But he is doing it.

If the Federal Reserve was not buying up all this debt, interest rates on U.S. debt would soar and so would U.S. government interest payments.

Yes, this is a giant Ponzi scheme and it cannot last for long.

Of course all of this could have been avoided if our politicians had not been running up such massive amounts of debt all these years.

Some have suggested that our problems could be solved by simply increasing taxes on the wealthy.

Well, the truth is that the top 5 percent of all income earners already pay nearly 50 percent of all federal taxes and soaking them even more will not even come close to solving the federal budget crisis.

For example, if Bill Gates gave every single penny of his fortune to the U.S. government, it would only cover the U.S. budget deficit for 15 days.

And as Bill Whittle has shown, you could take every single penny that every American earns above $250,000 and it would only fund about 38 percent of the federal budget.

So taxing the wealthy will certainly not solve all of our problems.

In fact, when you tax the wealthy and the “somewhat wealthy” it slows economic growth in a number of different ways.

Number one, they have less money to spend into the economy.

Number two, they have less money to invest in business activities.

Number three, it gives wealthy individuals and corporations more of an incentive to move out of the United States.  As I have written about previously, the global elite are already hiding about 18 trillion dollars in offshore banks.  The U.S. government keeps trying to tap into all of that offshore wealth, but the elite always seem to be a few steps ahead of the game.

Yes, we should try to close loopholes in the tax system, but the truth is that the root cause of our problem is that the federal government is simply spending way, way too much money.

Right now, spending by the federal government accounts for about 24 percent of GDP.  Back in 2001, it accounted for just 18 percent.

But our politicians always want to put off spending cuts for another day because they know that immediate spending cuts would really hurt the economy.

For example, just check out this recent quote from White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew….

“The time for austerity is not today,” Lew told NBC News “Meet the Press.” “If we were to put in austerity measures right now, it would take the economy in the wrong way.”

Yes, the Obama administration definitely does not want to hurt the economy with an election coming up in a few months.

So when will it be time to seriously cut government spending?

The day never seems to arrive.

But even though the federal government has been pumping more than a trillion extra dollars into the economy every year, the economy has not shown much improvement.  The percentage of working age Americans that have jobs has barely budged for over two years.

Yes, the policies of the Obama administration have stabilized the U.S. economy for the moment, but if he was actually going to tell the truth he would say something like this….

“By mortgaging the future of our children and our grand-children I have stabilized our economic statistics for the short-term.   Unfortunately, I am going to have to continue to financially abuse future generations to keep us from falling into another Great Depression.  Meanwhile, I am making our long-term financial problems far, far worse.  But the most important thing is that I win re-election so that I can continue to be president.  Thank you for being so selfish and so willing to destroy the future of your children.  Vote for me in 2012 and let the party continue!”

Unfortunately, the party is going to come crashing to an end at some point.

Right now, the global financial system is based on the U.S. dollar and on U.S. government debt.

There will come a time when the rest of the world is going to get sick and tired of watching this Ponzi scheme play out and they are going to completely lose faith in the U.S. dollar and in U.S. government debt.  In fact, there are already signs that this is starting to happen.

When faith in our currency and our debt is completely gone, it will be nearly impossible to get back and the game will be over.

The false prosperity that we are experiencing right now is about as good as things are going to get.

Enjoy it while you still can, because when it is gone that will be the end of it.

Both the Democrats and the Republicans have failed us.  They played fast and loose with our future and they never planned for the long-term.

Now we are facing a collapse of unprecedented magnitude that most Americans will never even see coming.

A horrifying economic collapse is coming.

You better get ready for it.

Source: the Economic Collapse.

The Bowles-Simpson deficit-reduction plan went down to a crushing defeat in the House late Wednesday night in a vote that damages the one bipartisan proposal that just a few months ago had seemed like a possible solution to the country’s debt woes.

The 382-38 defeat, with just 16 Republicans and 22 Democrats voting for it, marks a bad end to what began nearly two years ago, when President Obama tapped former White House Chief of StaffErskine Bowles, a Democrat, and former Sen. Alan Simpson, a Republican, to lead a deficit-reduction committee.

Their report has popped up in every deficit discussion since then, but had never gotten a vote in either chamber until this week, when opponents prevailed.

“This doesn’t go big. This doesn’t tackle the problem. This doesn’t do the big things,” said Rep. Paul D. Ryan, Wisconsin Republican and chairman of the Budget Committee. “You can never get the debt under control if you don’t deal with our health care entitlement programs.”

The debate came as the House worked its way through its fiscal year 2013 budget plan, which Mr. Ryan wrote.
The Bowles-Simpson plan was offered as an alternative on the chamber floor.

Minutes earlier, the House also defeated Mr. Obama’s own budget, submitted last month, on a 414-0 vote arranged by Republicans to embarrass the president and officially shelve his plan.

CONTINUED at the Washington Times.

The burst of attention devoted to Congressman Paul Ryan’s 2013 federal budget seems to have passed, at least momentarily, but don’t be deceived: the plan rolled out last week by the Republican chairman of the House Budget Committee is going to be important for a long time to come.

If Mitt Romney wins the presidential election, the budget, which he endorsed, is a good guide to what he will try to accomplish. If Mr. Romney loses, the budget is a good guide to what Mr. Ryan might try to run on as a Republican presidential contender in 2016. And it’s certain that President Obama and his allies will try to use the plan to attack the Republican candidates in the upcoming election.

For all those reasons, it’s worth going back and taking a careful look at what is actually in the Ryan budget. Proponents of smaller government may be unpleasantly surprised.

For one thing, it doesn’t balance the budget. For those of us who believe that the federal budget ought to be balanced over the course of a business cycle, it’s an unpleasant surprise to see that after ten years of Mr. Ryan’s plan, the federal government would still be running a $287 billion annual deficit. That is what the plan produces in the year 2022.

For a second thing, it doesn’t reduce the national debt. Mr. Ryan’s figures show the national debt held by the public growing to $15 trillion in 2022, up from about $11 trillion this year.

For a third thing, the Ryan budget doesn’t reduce the share of GDP that the government takes from taxpayers. In fact, Mr. Ryan’s numbers show federal government revenue as a share of GDP growing to 18.7% in 2022 from 15.8% this year.

For a fourth thing, the Ryan budget doesn’t reduce government spending. It would increase federal outlays to $4,888 billion in 2022 from $3,624 billion in 2012, an increase of about 35% over ten years.

Voters may be forgiven for deciding that if they are looking for a party that will increase the federal debt and fail to balance the budget while also increasing the federal government’s bite out of the economy, they might as well choose the Democrats, because Mr. Ryan’s plan doesn’t offer a clearly contrasting or attractive alternative.

In Mr. Ryan’s defense, President Obama’s plan is even worse. Also in Mr. Ryan’s defense, it says something about the depths of the fiscal problems America is facing that not even as principled and passionate and intelligent a fiscal conservative as Mr. Ryan can find an attractive way out them.

When Mr. Ryan complains, “the president’s budget calls for more spending and more debt,” it’s technically accurate — the president’s budget does call for more spending and more debt than Mr. Ryan’s budget does. But both the president’s budget and Mr. Ryan’s budget call for more spending, and more debt, than we have now.

Mr. Ryan boasts that his budget “cuts spending by $5 trillion relative to President’s Budget.” That’s like bragging that your dinner has fewer calories and less cholesterol than the quadruple bypass burger at Heart Attack Grill. It’s Washington-style “baseline budgeting” spin, and as Mr. Ryan and Mr. Romney both on some level probably know, Americans are tired of it.

What attracted the most attention in the Ryan budget was his plan to reduce the top individual and corporate income tax rates to 25%, a figure with historical resonance. But at 25%, the corporate tax rate would still be too high to be international competitive. Mr. Ryan himself notes that Canada’s corporate tax rate just went down to 15%. A 25% corporate tax rate in America would be higher than Ireland, higher than South Korea, higher than Switzerland, higher than Hungary, higher than Poland, higher than the Czech Republic.

As for the 25% individual income tax rate, it would come on top of payroll taxes that, in the absence of a “holiday,” take 13.85% of the first $110,100 in wages. And it would apply in addition to state income taxes that also take a hefty bite in states that impose them. Remember, until the 16^th Amendment was ratified in 1913, America didn’t have any peacetime federal income tax at all.

And remember, these rates are Republican starting points, which, if history is any guide, would only be negotiated upward in the inevitable compromise with Democrats on the way to getting them passed.

All of this is not to attack Mr. Ryan. He’s one of the best things the Republican Party has going, and if he were left entirely to his own devices rather than having to operate in the context of Speaker Boehner and the rest of the Republican caucus, it’s entirely possible he would come up with a plan more palatable to conservatives, though less likely to pass the House. But, sadly for the country, to say that Mr. Ryan is one of the best things the Republican Party has going these days isn’t saying much.

Ira Stoll is editor of FutureOfCapitalism.com and author of Samuel Adams: A Life.

Source: Reason. Written by Ira Stoll.

Sen. Paul has a bold plan to do what conservatives say they want most. So why aren’t they talking about it?

House Republicans, searching for an election-year message amid a muddled political and economic landscape, will introduce a 2013 budget Tuesday that cuts tax rates and provides for just two individual brackets of 10% and 25%.

The budget would end the Alternative Minimum Tax, which originally was aimed at the wealthy but ensnares a growing number of middle-class taxpayers each year. The plan would nearly eliminate U.S. taxes on American corporations’ earnings from overseas operations.

The proposal, to be offered by Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.), who has become the Republicans’ leading figure on budget issues, has little chance of becoming …

CONTINUED at the Wall Street Journal.

Tad DeHaven:

Michael Tanner:

Chris Edwards:

*Written by Rob Rimes.

We have finally reached the final primary debate of the 2012 election cycle. There were three more scheduled but one was cancelled by MSNBC – who were hosting it, another was cancelled after three of the four candidates pulled out and the third one is highly questionable due to the fact that a dozen states or more will cast their votes before its date. The only way that that debate will still happen is if the race is still close between two candidates and they have the balls to go head-to-head. Considering that Romney will undoubtedly be one of those two men, consider at least one half of that equation to be nutless. No matter what happens after this, this is the final debate before Super Tuesday, which is the most important day in this primary race.

This debate was hosted by CNN, who does the best job in my honest opinion. The moderator for this round was John King, who I have given shit in the past. I wish CNN would hand the reigns over to Wolf Blitzer and just let these debates be his deal but I guess they feel the burning desire to keep pushing John King on us again and again. Why can’t they let Erin Burnett host one of these things? She’s pleasant to listen to, incredibly easy on the eyes and it would save us all from having to stare at a bunch of dickheads (Ron Paul excluded).

So here we are in Mesa, Arizona where everyone apparently loves Mitt Romney and hates Rick Santorum, as Ol’ Mittens got a huge ovation and Ricky Baby got dead silence, which in most cases is worse than boos. It’s funny how that went down, as CNN’s pre-game show spent a lot of time trying to convince their viewers that Santorum is a real contender for the presidency of the United States not just the presidency of the Southeastern Allegheny County Catholic Racquetball League. Whatever, the fact that homeboy is center stage is maddening enough, as it just proves the insanity of America, since enough of us have voted for this fiscally irresponsible fascist bastard regardless of the fact that he is a well-documented hypocrite and an incessantly whiney dork dick.

Now I’m going to just cover a few of the highlights of the debate, as this just played out like a rerun of a show that you’ve already seen nineteen times. There wasn’t much in the way of new material provided by the candidates. This was basically just a refresher in all the issues they have already talked to death over the last year. To be completely honest, I just couldn’t sit through this thing without being bored shitless at parts. Even my 750 ml bottle of 10 Cane rum wasn’t enough to keep me focused on the job at hand, that being the need to take extensive notes in order to write this very critique you are reading now. I apologize for my lack of interest but I also don’t want to bore you with the same superfluous details I’ve already covered multiple times.

So the first 8 minutes of this broadcast gives us no questions to the candidates. Instead, CNN decides to do the national anthem, which is a time waster. If that came off as offensive, get over it! They haven’t done the national anthem or the Pledge of Allegiance at most of these things, so why start now? Why not do it off camera before the debate, so we can just get down to quality time with the candidates at 8:01 instead of 8:09?

In addition, they wasted time going through the typical introduction spiel. If you don’t know who these guys are by now, you should probably just stay away from the voting booths. Ron Paul owned the intro section though by calling himself “The Defender of the Constitution!” and “The Champion of Liberty!” If anyone else said this, it would be a dick move but Paul ain’t lying, he knows that he is the only real candidate on that stage and everyone else is faking the funk. Santorum’s intro was dumb as hell as he just said some bullshit about our troubles being the Middle East. Romney said some garbage about restoring America, which is Ron Paul’s catchphrase by the way. Gingrich basically said, “Fuck the Saudis let’s make our own gas!” At least they all get to sit down during this debate; their legs must be tired after about two dozen of these two-bit shit shows.

So here we go, time’s been wasted but we finally get a question. Some old dude from the audience asks the candidates, “What are you going to do to bring down the debt?” CNN, already spending the hour before the show building up Ricky Baby, goes straight to him to kick things off. Santorum says that he has a plan to cut spending, taxes and all that other jazz. He gets the sheep to cheer regardless if his claims are true or not. He says that he will shrink the budget and then brags about how he has always fought spending. Okay, that is complete bullshit, as has been proven time and time again, not just by the writings of myself but through countless reports and studies done by watchdog groups and Mr. Santorum’s opponents throughout this long race. He calls for a time limit on all forms of welfare and then goes on to praise the Paul Ryan Plan. Man, Mr. Ryan gets just as much airplay these debates as the candidates themselves and Ronald Reagan.

Mitt Romney is asked if he sticks by his claims that Santorum is not a conservative. Mittens talks about Ricky Baby’s love for bacon a.k.a. pork. He also mentions that Santorum voted to raise the debt limit a whopping five times! Romney claims, that as a business man, he has lived a life full of balanced budgets. He goes on to explain that he will divide up all government programs and look at them line by line to determine if the benefit is worth the cost. He promises to send most of the programs back to the states and declares that government workers shouldn’t be making more than the taxpayers who pay them. Of course, starting by asking Mitt about his negative comments regarding Santorum was just to start a heated exchange between the two, which just allows them to monopolize the time per usual.

In fact, Santorum gets an obligatory response but makes himself look like a total moron with thin bitch skin. He whines about Mitt saying that the Massachusetts governor admitted that he too would have voted to raise the debt ceiling. He also says that he never raised taxes but Romney did in Massachusetts. He admits to voting for No Child Left Behind but said that he regrets the decision. Of course he does, now that he has been continually put on blast for it! Racquetball Rick then takes a cheap shot at Romney and says that he has adopted Occupy Wall Street rhetoric because he talked about raising taxes on the top one percent.

Mitt of course gets his obligatory response, as Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich sit off to the side battling each other in Words With Friends until John King acknowledges them. Romney more or less accuses Rick Santourm of being full of shit, as if that’s any sort of surprise. Romney reminds the people that Santorum was a pivotal part of a Congress that grew government exponentially. While this is seemingly valid, pretty much every Congress since the Woodrow Wilson era has grown government exponentially. As Mitt bashes Rick, the cheers get louder and louder. This was certainly a pro-Romney crowd; the Arizonans in attendance were like famine-afflicted great whites chomping at the piss-soaked boxer-briefs of Mr. Santorum.

Gingrich gets in the discussion and uses his time to boast about how, as Speaker of the House, he led the charge in bringing four consecutive balanced budgets to the table. He then makes a big deal about how this debate is on Washington’s birthday. I guess Washington is the new Reagan in Newtworld. He goes on a tangent about opening up federal land and offshore areas to bring forth more energy options. He then states that his policies will save America $500 billion per year. Sorry bro, Dr. Paul is going to cut a trillion dollars in year one and Gary Johnson is going to top that with $1.4 trillion! Newt needs to up the ante if he is going to live up to his honey badger persona.

John King finally gets to Ron Paul but just asks hom a question about Santorum. What the hell man, CNN really wants to give a lot of airplay to the GOP’s resident Catholic. Don’t get it twisted though, it’s not because they like him, it’s because they know he’s an embarrassment and has no chance at beating Obama, so they want to push him and get him over enough just to ensure that their liberal buddy gets re-elected. Anyway, King asks Paul about his attacks on Santorum, as one of his ads called him “a fake”. When asked why he ran the ads, Paul simply says that Santorum “..is a fake.” The crowd goes nuts, as Paul lands a killing stroke on the religio-fascist bag of weasel testicles. Santorum just sits there nervously with his dork dick smile and tries to cut in on Paul but is cut off by boos. Paul says that Santorum is a classic example of someone who does things in office that contradicts the rhetoric they used while campaigning. He calls Rick’s record “bad” and adds that when someone claims that they are going to be fiscally conservative when they never have been in the past, shows that they don’t have any credibility. The crowd explodes for Ron Paul.

Santorum responds by saying that there was some “study” done that compared him to other senators and that it ranked him as the most fiscally conservative. He even refers to himself as a “hero” that took on “tough issues”. He claims that he was a “leader” that took on “Social Security”. He then says that some other “study” ranked Ron Paul 145th as a “real conservative”. Is it just me or do these studies sound like complete bullshit? Did one of Ricky Baby’s kids do these studies for their 3rd grade political science project?

Waiting for the crowd to stop booing, Ron Paul responds to Santorum by saying that comparing yourself to other members of Congress is a cop out; Paul gets cheers. Ron Paul blasts Rick’s “studies” by reminding everyone in the room that he always votes for the least amount of spending and taxes. He then adds that conservatives have gotten to this point where they are quite pleased with wasting money over seas and that if they were actually real conservatives, they wouldn’t vote for things that perpetuate that madness.

Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum get into another bitch spat and this time it is over earmarks. Eventually, after a bunch of wasted time, Santorum diverts the attention to Ron Paul and essentially accuses him of being the king of earmarks. Paul explains,as he has in the past, that if his constituents are going to be robbed through taxation, he is going to fight to get their money back anyway that he can. He says that we need to vote against spending and we need to fix the corrupt earmark and taxation systems. In fact, in his own words, Dr. Paul says, “Getting rid of earmarks simply gives the executive branch 100 percent control over the funds. What we need to do is vote against the spending bills.”

The debate carries over to the subject of bailouts then contraception and then illegal immigration. None of it is all that interesting and most of it has been discussed to death. The only other real notable thing to come out of this debate is this quote from Rick Santorum, who was defending himself from attacks by Romney and Paul on his atrocious voting record:

While yes, I voted for a large appropriations bill that contained items I didnt like, I counteracted it by adding another program that I did like to it.

Holy Jesus on a Frisbee! This guy doesn’t just put his foot in his mouth, he eats his whole goddamned shoe and probably most of his foot! The best part about this whole debate is that Rick Santorum looked like absolute crap! He came in with all this fanfare and high hopes with the media on his side but in the end, he couldn’t bring it in primetime. This was the most watched debate on cable this year and my personal favorite punching bag of the GOP field got hit hard from both sides but ultimately proved to be his own worst enemy. Santorum burned under the bright lights and magnifying glasses like an ant on the sidewalk in the hot Mesa sun. If this debate wasn’t the nail in the Santorum coffin, then Americans really are as stupid as the rest of the world thinks we are.

Grading Scale:
Grade B+: Ron Paul
Grade C-: Mitt Romney
Grade D+: Newt Gingrich
Grade F-: Rick Santorum

And here’s a video of that soft thin skinned bitch Santorum shaking Paul’s hand like a f’n douchebag:

According to Michael Kinsley, a gaffe is when a politician accidently tells the truth. That’s certainly what happened to Mitt Romney on Tuesday, when in a rare moment of candor — and, in his case, such moments are really, really rare — he gave away the game.

Speaking in Michigan, Mr. Romney was asked about deficit reduction, and he absent-mindedly said something completely reasonable: “If you just cut, if all you’re thinking about doing is cutting spending, as you cut spending you’ll slow down the economy.” A-ha. So he believes that cutting government spending hurts growth, other things equal.

The right’s ideology police were, predictably, aghast; the Club for Growth quickly denounced the statement as showing that Mr. Romney is “not a limited-government conservative.” On the contrary, insisted the club, “If we balanced the budget tomorrow on spending cuts alone, it would be fantastic for the economy.” And a Romney spokesman tried to walk back the remark, claiming, “The governor’s point was that simply slashing the budget, with no affirmative pro-growth policies, is insufficient to get the economy turned around.”

But that’s not what the candidate said, and it’s very unlikely that it’s what he meant. Almost surely, he is, in fact, a closet Keynesian.

How do we know this? Well, for one thing, Mr. Romney is not a stupid man. And while his grasp of world affairs does sometimes seem shaky, he has to be aware of the havoc austerity policies are wreaking in Greece, Ireland and elsewhere.

CONTINUED at the NY Times. Written by Paul Krugman.