[lbo-talk] Needed: A Head Count

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Mon Jul 19 09:50:34 PDT 2004


Shane Mage wrote:


>Simple arithmetic. Kerry has promised to increase war spending
>and keep a big army indefinitely in Iraq. Kerry has pledged not
>to raise taxes on the rich beyond what would pay for a "health"
>plan that would mainly benefit corporations. Kerry has
>promised to eliminate the federal budget deficit. All this in
>a conjuncture whose basic elements will be, at best, stagflation,
>a huge current-account deficit, a falling dollar, rising interest
>rates, and a deflating or bursting real-estate bubble. How can
>anyone imagine that, under these conditions, the capitalist
>central government will refrain from the same old same old....

I doubt Kerry would boost the military budget to the degree that W has. He's pledged to roll back the tax cuts for the $200k+ households. Expanding health coverage would benefit the uninsured as well as corps. Elmiinating the deficit has no class content in itself; it all depends on how it's done. He would go into office, guns blazing on behalf of the proletariat, but to say he'd pursue an anti-working class agenda, esp in contrast to the gang in power now, is, um, overstated.

Doug



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