Anyone who tells you the United States spends too much is prevaricating within an inch of his or her wretched mortal life. America is only spending too much in comparison to the paltry amount it has been taking in since Republicans declared war on revenues thirty years ago, at the same time they declared wealthy Americans a coddled, protected class, and capital and corporations hothouse flowers requiring constant protection.

Could the real problem possibly be more brazenly obvious, when at a time Republicans tell us we are in the midst of a dire debt and deficit crisis, the country collects the lowest amount in tax revenues in modern times, and the lowest taxes on the wealthy ever, and even then, Republicans refuse to as much as consider increasing revenue? No, it’s a Republican-caused revenue crisis, that’s what it is. It’s a Bush era Republican splurge of unpaid for tax-cut spending for the wealthy and superfluous wars that funked us up.

In fact, we are in a spending-too-little crisis, since the country should have embarked upon an ambitious stimulus program several years ago, and continues to suffer slow economic growth and high unemployment, due to the Republican obstructionism that prevents any kind of stimulus program whatsoever.  Yes, that’s dandy for the party hoping to see the nation’s economic conditions implode, but for the rest?

The American government as a percentage of GDP is the 144^th in the world. That’s how much our government spends in relation to other nations across the globe. We have the least expansive safety net of the modern democracies. Anyone who tells you we’re overspending has only one agenda:  keeping taxes low for the wealthy, burning down the safety net, keeping workers in their place, and their wages stagnant, while creating wealth inequality in the vicinity of the Roman Empire or feudal Europe or Asia.

Of course, those of us who still are citizens of the reality-based community depend upon the administration and congressional Democrats to fight the good fight, and their fighting capabilities up to now haven’t moved them out of the chicken feather class. They’re in their typical defensive crouch, collecting punches as though they were valuable prizes. They’ve been swallowing down the Republicans’ and the VERY SERIOUS PUNDITS’ line that deficits are the imminent priority rather than creating jobs, and failing  dramatically to finger the profound lie that America has a bloated public sector with the accuracy of facts, which tell us America has a collapsing infrastructure, faltering education, a shredding safety net and an increasingly unhealthy population because Republicans have succeeded in starving the American treasury…for the benefit of our deadbeat fat cat and corporate sectors.

Sometimes I lay awake deep into the night praying that one of these days soon, President Obama will become more Muhammad Ali than Ally McBeal.