Debt Ceiling

[carlfense]

I'll just leave this here . . .

 

[gobiggergoredder]

I'll just leave this here . . .

 

 

I'm trying to find this graph. www.wamo.info doesn't come up with anything. I found a very similar graph at mediamatters.org, but they are as bad as anyone. Years ago, the war effort was described in some outlets as a huge tarp program (the money comes back to the US anyway). I don't really believe that is the case.

 

The one thing I don't understand is how does a tax cut create a deficit? If you don't have the money, and you know you aren't going to have the money....how could you base your limit on money you don't have??? There may be a logical answer.

 

To me it is similar to what I use to run into at a place I use to work. We were extremely busy for 6-8 months out of the year. The hourly group would suck up the overtime pay and buy cars and houses that they really shouldn't be buying. Those 3-4 months with no OT brought them to their knees. There was a fire sale on nice cars the same time every year.

 

I really don't have a problem with increasing taxes, but I don't see how that solves anything if we don't add a constitutional amendment to balance our budget.

[carlfense]

I'll just leave this here . . .

 

 

I'm trying to find this graph. www.wamo.info doesn't come up with anything. I found a very similar graph at mediamatters.org, but they are as bad as anyone. Years ago, the war effort was described in some outlets as a huge tarp program (the money comes back to the US anyway). I don't really believe that is the case.

 

The one thing I don't understand is how does a tax cut create a deficit? If you don't have the money, and you know you aren't going to have the money....how could you base your limit on money you don't have??? There may be a logical answer.

 

To me it is similar to what I use to run into at a place I use to work. We were extremely busy for 6-8 months out of the year. The hourly group would suck up the overtime pay and buy cars and houses that they really shouldn't be buying. Those 3-4 months with no OT brought them to their knees. There was a fire sale on nice cars the same time every year.

 

I really don't have a problem with increasing taxes, but I don't see how that solves anything if we don't add a constitutional amendment to balance our budget.

The original source of the graph is the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

 

A tax cut creates a deficit if you do not cut spending to account for less incoming revenue. (Now, tea party folks will tell you that lowering taxes increases revenue . . . but quite simply, they are wrong.) Think of it like a bucket of water that has a hose running into it and a leak out of the bottom. Slowing the rate of the water running into the bucket will result in the bucket emptying faster. Similarly, reducing revenue without reducing expenditures will increase the size of the deficit.

[strigori]

I'll just leave this here . . .

 

 

I'm trying to find this graph. www.wamo.info doesn't come up with anything. I found a very similar graph at mediamatters.org, but they are as bad as anyone. Years ago, the war effort was described in some outlets as a huge tarp program (the money comes back to the US anyway). I don't really believe that is the case.

 

The one thing I don't understand is how does a tax cut create a deficit? If you don't have the money, and you know you aren't going to have the money....how could you base your limit on money you don't have??? There may be a logical answer.

 

To me it is similar to what I use to run into at a place I use to work. We were extremely busy for 6-8 months out of the year. The hourly group would suck up the overtime pay and buy cars and houses that they really shouldn't be buying. Those 3-4 months with no OT brought them to their knees. There was a fire sale on nice cars the same time every year.

 

I really don't have a problem with increasing taxes, but I don't see how that solves anything if we don't add a constitutional amendment to balance our budget.

The main error there is trying to look for 'logical answers' in anything congress does. The only thing you can count on them to do is make laws and tax rules to benefit the people who bought and paid for them.

[walksalone]

I'll just leave this here . . .

 

 

-1

[carlfense]

I'll just leave this here . . .

 

 

-1

Disliking the facts doesn't make them untrue.

[walksalone]

I'll just leave this here . . .

 

 

-1

Disliking the facts doesn't make them untrue.

 

Thats probably as accurate as using a pie chart to measure the effectiveness of a 25 Mt nuclear weapon...

[Malth]

Cutting taxes while we were in the middle of a war was a genius maneuver, imo.

[huskertim]

I'll just leave this here . . .

 

 

The one thing I don't understand is how does a tax cut create a deficit? If you don't have the money, and you know you aren't going to have the money....how could you base your limit on money you don't have??? There may be a logical answer.

 

To me it is similar to what I use to run into at a place I use to work. We were extremely busy for 6-8 months out of the year. The hourly group would suck up the overtime pay and buy cars and houses that they really shouldn't be buying. Those 3-4 months with no OT brought them to their knees. There was a fire sale on nice cars the same time every year.

 

 

 

 

The idea of basing a deficit on money you didn't have is consistent with the concept of base line budgeting wherein one simply spends 5% more on a line item year over year and claims a cut becasue the presumed growth of spending is 10% (which of course is always inconsistent with actual GDP growth).Sure your spending more, but look how much you saved. I agree taxes should probably be raised where they won't effect economic growth (if such a thing exists) but the idea that we can sustain an economy that includes perpetually ascending debt is absolute insanity. Regardless of the outcome of debt ceiling talks, our nation will endure negative effects to our credit based on our demonstrated inability to resolve this debt.

 

Alexander Hamilton started the U.S. Treasury with nothing, and that was the closest our country has ever been to being even.

Will Rogers

 

ptc

[carlfense]

link

Understanding the nature of a compromise

By Steve Benen

 

I’ve received quite a bit of interesting feedback in response this morning’s post about Republicans refusing to take “yes” for an answer, and there’s one concern in particular I want to tackle.

 

To briefly summarize, I noted that Republicans created this debt-ceiling crisis, and Democrats have offered plenty of proposals to clean up the mess. So far, literally every offer — a clean bill, a $2.4 trillion debt-reduction package, the “Grand Bargain,” the Gang of Six blueprint, the McConnell/Reid “Plan B” deal — has been rejected by House Republicans as insufficiently right-wing.

 

Conservatives didn’t especially care for my observation. None of the feedback is appropriate for publication, so I’ll just summarize in my own words the typical response I received from the right:

 

“Oh yeah? Well, Republicans offered their own plan — Cut, Cap, and Balance — and Democrats rejected the GOP’s offer. This just proves that Democrats are at least as inflexible and obstructionist as Republicans. Why can Democrats reject GOP offers without criticism, but Republicans are the bad guys if they reject Democratic offers?”

 

Let’s take a moment to explain the nature of a compromise.

 

Democrats, in general, wanted Congress to do what it’s done 89 times in the last 72 years: simply raise the debt ceiling in a clean bill. Republicans refused. Dems then proceeded to come up with a series of alternative plans that, they hoped, might make GOP officials happy. Each plan has included massive spending cuts; some plans have included entitlement cuts; and every plan has tried to achieve “balance” by featuring far more cuts than revenue. To date, none of the offers have been deemed good enough.

 

It’s true that Republicans presented their own idea — the Cut, Cap, and Balance measure — but no sane person could perceive it as a credible way to strike a bipartisan compromise. We’re talking about a plan that would immediately take $100 billion out of the U.S. economy, eliminating thousands of jobs in the process, en route to trillions more in additional cuts. It would make draconian cuts to key public priorities, including education, infrastructure, and energy. It would gut Social Security and Medicare, and make it almost impossible for any Congress to ever raise taxes on anyone ever again. It goes out of its way to protect tax cuts for the very wealthy, while targeting the most vulnerable. It doesn’t even do an effective job of reducing the deficit, its ostensible point.

 

This wasn’t an attempt on the part of conservative Republicans to make Dems happy; it was an attempt on the part of conservative Republicans to make themselves happy. There is, in other words, no comparison between Democratic offers to meet the GOP more than half-way, and a Republican offer to give themselves everything they want.

 

So, yes, while Dems rejected CC&B as transparent nonsense, this doesn’t mean “both sides” are rejecting compromise offers. At this point, only one side has tried to make concessions and present good-faith deals, and I’ll give you a hint, it’s not the Republican Party.

 

[knapplc]

Carlfense, that polarization of the Republican Party may help explain this Gallup Poll I ran across today, showing large-scale defections of self-identifiers from the Republican ranks: LINK

 

I used to be a Republican about 12 years ago. Just couldn't stand identifying myself with a party I had no affinity to, or affiliation with, anymore. I've been Independent ever since.

[carlfense]

Carlfense, that polarization of the Republican Party may help explain this Gallup Poll I ran across today, showing large-scale defections of self-identifiers from the Republican ranks: LINK

 

I used to be a Republican about 12 years ago. Just couldn't stand identifying myself with a party I had no affinity to, or affiliation with, anymore. I've been Independent ever since.

Regarding the bold, I'm right there with you. I was registered Republican up until about 4 years ago. Now I'm independent and it seems that the teabaggers push me (or just move the goal post) further to the left on a daily basis.

[carlfense]

The Drivers of our Debt

The drivers of our debt

By Steve Benen

 

A leading House Republican recently proclaimed recently that policymakers should be focusing on “the drivers of our debt.”

 

GOP officials ought to hope that doesn’t happen. Bloomberg News has a piece today reminding folks of a point that’s too often forgotten in Washington: the biggest drivers of our debt are Republican policies.

 

House Speaker John Boehner often attacks the spendthrift ways of Washington.

 

“In Washington, more spending and more debt is business as usual,” the Republican leader from Ohio said in a televised address yesterday amid debate over the U.S. debt. “I’ve got news for Washington — those days are over.”

 

Yet the speaker, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell all voted for major drivers of the nation’s debt during the past decade: Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts and Medicare prescription drug benefits. They also voted for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, that rescued financial institutions and the auto industry.

 

Together, a Bloomberg News analysis shows, these initiatives added $3.4 trillion to the nation’s accumulated debt and to its current annual budget deficit of $1.5 trillion.

 

It’d be amusing if it weren’t so ridiculous. Literally the exact same people whose fiscal irresponsibility created the deficit mess are the ones whining constantly about the problem they’re responsible for. Worse, they keep blaming everyone but themselves. Worse still, they’re prepared to crash the economy on purpose unless the solution to their own fiasco meets their approval.

 

This isn’t in the realm of spin or opinion. The numbers are unambiguous: Republicans took a large surplus, turned it into massive deficit. Republicans could have paid off the debt within a decade, but they instead chose to pursue an ambitious agenda without paying for it.

 

And now they don’t want the nation to pay the bills.

 

I suspect there’s a school of thought that says none of this matters right now. We’re a week from a catastrophe, and finding a solution is more important than assigning blame. I can appreciate why this sentiment sounds appealing.

 

But it’s mistaken. Accountability and credibility matter a great deal. Policymakers must find a resolution to a pressing crisis very quickly, and those who know what they’re talking about deserve to be taken more seriously than those who don’t.

 

So, when Republicans call for us to focus on “the drivers of our debt,” I’d suggest taking them up on the idea.

[gobiggergoredder]

The Drivers of our Debt

The drivers of our debt

By Steve Benen

 

 

 

This is a pretty lousy article.

 

Yet the speaker, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell all voted for major drivers of the nation’s debt during the past decade: Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts and Medicare prescription drug benefits. They also voted for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, that rescued financial institutions and the auto industry.

 

All of those morons voted for this stuff, but the article says it's a Repube issue. An article from Bloomberg is no different than the Huffington Post or Fox News. They all suck people! Republicans voted for TARP. Democrats voted for the War. Now both sides are trying to draw a line in the sand an everyone is picking a team. AGAIN....THEY ALL SUCK.

[carlfense]

The Drivers of our Debt

The drivers of our debt

By Steve Benen

 

 

 

This is a pretty lousy article.

 

Yet the speaker, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell all voted for major drivers of the nation’s debt during the past decade: Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts and Medicare prescription drug benefits. They also voted for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, that rescued financial institutions and the auto industry.

 

All of those morons voted for this stuff, but the article says it's a Repube issue. An article from Bloomberg is no different than the Huffington Post or Fox News. They all suck people! Republicans voted for TARP. Democrats voted for the War. Now both sides are trying to draw a line in the sand an everyone is picking a team. AGAIN....THEY ALL SUCK.

Obviously you haven't been paying attention. It's "Obama's Debt." Boehner says so.

 

It's not so much about right and wrong so much as it is about the hypocrisy. The GOP has been chanting that it's all Obama's fault . . . when the majority of the fault is their own. Which Democratic officials have been saying that it's ALL the GOP's debt? So far . . . I've seen none. I can show you a dozen GOP officials who say that this is "Obama's debt."

 

This "both sides" meme is absolute BS in this instance.