Lets talk about economics. I can almost hear the rumble of eyeballs rolling back in dozens of heads as folks prepare to tune this out. I know. Talking about vile acts of TEAbuggery is much more interesting, but this is too important not to know and understand. Day after day we hear Republicans and the media droning on and on about how government is burying America in a mass of debt that will soon crust the economy. Everyone knows that, right? In fact, that isn’t true at all.

…There are two national deficits, and both are in good if not excellent condition. Every day that the House has debated the public debt limit, President Barack Obama has cited this fact. No opponent pays any attention. The first of the two deficits owed by the U.S. is the cumulative debt racked up over many years, the public debt. Today this structural debt has ballooned to $18.7 trillion as of September 30, 2013—but its percentage of what the country actually earns remains essentially the same. The figures have “ballooned,” but the percentages are unchanged. Thus the debt is currently 77 percent of Gross Domestic Product (the aggregate worth of what the nation produces each year), and that percentage is presently stable. With tax revenues increasing by 15 percent in 2013, bringing more money into the Treasury, the structural deficit is projected actually to drop this year to $16 trillion by the end of 2013, according to Bloomberg. For comparison, in Japan the public debt to GDP ratio is one of the highest in the world, at 214.3 percent. The key European countries are much lower—the U.K. stands at 88.7 percent, France at 89.9 percent, Germany 81.7 percent. All are higher than the U.S. and rising. Italy is the laggard at 126.1. These figures are from the CIA World Factbook 2012. Our second national deficit is the current budget deficit, the one most of the political arguments are about. This is the annual increase or decrease in revenues over spending. These deficits are dropping significantly in Western Europe, thanks to current austerity programs. But the most important decrease is being registered in the United States! This is thanks to increased revenues and enforced spending cuts such as the sequester. The U.S. budget deficit has literally halved in the last two years. Today it stands at 4 percent of GDP. The figure is projected to shrink to 3.4 percent next year. This is close to the 3.3 percent average maintained over the past 30 years. In Europe, a 3 percent deficit is held as the optimum budget target for all members of the European Union. Only Germany has now managed to come in under that figure. The U.K. and France are struggling to come under 5 percent. Many European countries’ deficits are around 8 percent, and their governments envy the U.S… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Truthdig>

I took a chunk from the middle of an excellent article. Click through for the rest.

America does have a spending problem, but the problem is how we spend, not how much.

Welfare for billionaires and corporate criminals is hot helping our economy at all. Instead of using it to create jobs, these people using the money to move American jobs to third world economies to increase their own profit. They are using it to speculate in markets making the goods we consume more costly. They are stashing it in offshore tax havens to evade paying their fair share of taxes on their profits. The people, who Republicans call job creators are not creating jobs. They are creating only more wealth for themselves.

Instead, we need to support programs that create jobs. Investing in infrastructure puts Americans to work and provides the physical environment business needs to excel. Investing in education puts Americans to work by giving them job skills and provides business the skilled workers that business needs to excel. Investing in research puts Americans to work by providing business opportunities to create the jobs of the future here. Otherwise some other nation will get those jobs. And as we put more Americans to work, they will spend on goods and services, creating jobs for even more Americans and success for even more businesses. This will further reduce the deficit by lowering the need for the safety-net and increasing tax revenue from additional workers.