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In American politics, especially in post-9/11 politics, what most desperately needs saying is often banished to the realm of the unsayable. It's either too impolite or too impolitic to utter. This tends to apply more to the left than the right. Almost nothing's unsayable for right-wingers, and almost everything they say is justifiable. (Just ask them.) The problem is that being impolite or impolitic doesn't make what the unsayable untrue, or any less in need of someone to say it. But it ensures that no one on the left will say it.

Fortunately, Dean Baker didn't let that stop him from recently dubbing the GOP "a party of unemployment."

Originally posted at Capital Gains and Gains.

At least since I’ve been an adult, I’ve never believed in heaven or hell.

Despite all of the fire-and-brimstone warnings and thunderous sermons about the need to avoid eternal damnation by behaving a certain way, I can’t get it out of my head that no one has ever proved that hell exists. To me, the discussion about where you end up for all eternity has always been belief or spin and not fact. It may work for those preaching it and those who need an easy-to-understand guide for their lives, but it definitely doesn’t work for me.

The same is true when it comes to the federal budget. The equivalent of hell — the absolute guarantee that we’ll be economically doomed if we don’t immediately repent on the deficit and live a virtuous balanced budget life — has never worked for me because it’s never been proved to be true. In addition, those who have insisted that reducing the federal deficit no matter what the economic situation have seemed to be proselytizing to validate their personal beliefs or accomplish their unrelated political goals rather than actually analyzing anything.

As progressives gather at the annual Take Back the American Dream Conference today in Washington, they are gearing up for what is a fundamental struggle about America’s future.