The Democrats are the problem (a second view).
[Posted by Karl]
Yesterday, I wrote about the claims from Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein that the GOP is ideologically extreme and scornful of compromise, noting that the Democrats are similarly afflicted with the problems they identified. However, we need not simply analyze their claims on the basis of what is wrong with both parties. We can also look at the affirmative record of the parties.
One of the biggest and most fundamental tasks of the federal government today is developing a budget. There is consensus on this point. Obama’s budget director has warned that our exploding public debt is “serious and ultimately unsustainable.”
Republicans have proposed a budget (largely the work of Rep. Paul Ryan) to address the debt bomb, and have taken considerable political flak for it, which will only increase in the general election campaign.
The Obama administration’s position?
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, speaking on behalf of the Obama White House, to Rep. Paul Ryan: “You are right to say we’re not coming before you today to say ‘we have a definitive solution to that long term problem.’ What we do know is, we don’t like yours.”
In the House of Representatives, Pres. Obama’s non-solution budget was unanimously defeated, 414-0. The House Democrats’ budget, which relies on massive tax increases and gutting defense spending, while doing nothing about runaway entitlement spending, nevertheless fares only marginally better in reducing the debt/GDP ratio than Obama’s non-solution. Neither the Obama budget or the House Dems’ budget comes close to either the Ryan plans or the bipartisan plans floating around the Beltway.
Speaking of which, people like Ornstein and Mann presumably favor some old school, center-left Grand Bargain along the lines of the Bowles-Simpson Commission recommendations. Beltway establishmentarians pine for the days in which the GOP signed onto budget deals that hiked taxes in return for future spending cuts that never seem to materialize.
In the House, a version of the Bowles-Simpson plan attracted a grand total of 38 votes, suggesting House Republicans are not the only ones scornful of this Grand Bargain. In the Senate, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid blocked Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad from taking a vote on a version of this plan, even in committee. Indeed, Senate Democrats, in violation of federal law, have failed to pass any budget for almost three years.
Democrats oppose the Republican budget approach for relying heavily on restraining government spending and avoiding massive tax increases. However, a study of fiscal consolidations in 21 countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development over 37 years concludes that failed attempts to close budget gaps relied 53% on tax increases and 47%, while successful consolidations averaged 85% spending cuts and 15% tax increases. Moreover, the International Monetary Fund would suggest spending cuts and tax cuts as a “Plan B” for overextended countries.
As for Republicans being ideologically extreme, consider the polling coming out of the GOP presidential primary campaign. Americans saw the ideology of the GOP candidates — including Michelle Bachmann and Rick Santorum — as closer to theirs than Barack Obama’s ideology. Even among so-called independents, only Bachmann scored as more extreme than Obama, who holds the record for the most polarizing first, second and third years in office since Gallup started measuring polarization. A majority of Americans (and independents) said Barack Obama’s political views are “too liberal,” a greater percentage than believed either of his main Republican challengers — Rick Santorum (38%) or Mitt Romney (33%) — is “too conservative.” A majority of Americans (and independents) disagreed with Obama on the issues most important to them, while only a plurality disagreed with either Romney or Santorum.
Today’s post is much shorter than yesterday’s, because if you reread Ornstein and Mann, you will find none of this real-world context in their op-ed. In order for them to condemn Republicans as “the problem,” they ignore the country’s biggest problems, save for a passing reference to our exploding public debt as, er, “fiscal pressures.” They ignore the Democrats’ gross irresponsibility and dereliction in meeting the basic duties of governance, similarly burying their heads in the sand. They ignore that the Democrats’ preferred approach to the debt — when forced to consider it — has tended to fail worldwide. They denounce the GOP as ideologically extreme, public opinion data to the contrary. No wonder they demand the media switch entirely to a propaganda machine for the Democratic Party. Their reality-based community is a Potemkin village.
–Karl
Ding!
Karl (6f7ecd) — 4/29/2012 @ 8:54 amEvery sentence in this post is a jewel that college students should have to study and liberals should have to memorize.
DRJ (a83b8b) — 4/29/2012 @ 9:03 amI agree, DRJ. I also think the “R” campaigns this season would do well to make use of the info, data and analysis that Karl consistently offers.
Colonel Haiku (d04f33) — 4/29/2012 @ 9:06 amThis post is yet another assault on women. Well done!
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 4/29/2012 @ 9:14 amIt’s also racist, homophobic, Christianist and Western-centric militarist corporatist-imperialist-hegemonist.
Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (6f639c) — 4/29/2012 @ 9:23 amIt is hardly surprising that the media whitewashes ideological extremism from Democrats.
Debra Saunders asks where all the moderate Democrats are.
Michael Ejercito (64388b) — 4/29/2012 @ 9:41 ammy understanding is that Obama caught bin laden
but I would like to see a picture
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 4/29/2012 @ 11:00 amPlease forward this post to Romney ’12 forthwith.
Bugg (ea1809) — 4/29/2012 @ 11:05 amObama appointd Simpson/Bowles-and then promptly ignores their report. He has not passed a budget in almost 3 years. His budget proposals were voted down unanimously-twice. And Geithner errs-the Obama plan is in fact to borrow 40% of every federal dollar of spending indefinitely.
You mean it isn’t already?
Ipso Fatso (7434b9) — 4/29/2012 @ 11:10 amAnd in that Potemkin village they have a cinema. Where, based upon the narrative the media fabricated out of whole cloth following the Zimmerman-Martin shooting, they bus in party members to view “Mississippi Burning” after telling them it’s a documentary of current conditions in flyover country. Apparently also known as “Klan Kountry” among those who Thomas Sowell aptly named the “self-anointed.”
I believe you won’t find “real world context” in what Ornstein & Mann wrote because what counts as real world to the self-anointed isn’t the same thing as it is to you or I because we don’t see everything through the their ideological filter. Commenter Brad touched on the “troubling” admiration American “progressives” express for the Chinese communist system. It may be troubling to some, I suppose, if one is inclined to imagine American “progressives” are by nature different from communists but if you’re not under that illusion then you’d it would be strange if they didn’t admire their co-religionists. Personally, I find it helpful that they are so tone-deaf as to reveal their true aspirations.
Marxism, communism, socialism, what have you (and formerly fascism before it got a bad rep) appeals to people who believe in their own superiority. This is why Hollywood celebs are head-over-heels in love with people like Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez. Sean Penn wouldn’t just be some sort of “honorary” ambassador; he’d be part of the ruling elite.
It’s why the enlightened such as Thomas Friedman speak in wistful admiration of the PRC. As an influential member of the state media, he wouldn’t just be writing opinion pieces. No, the word of such carefully selected governmental, scientific, artistic, and media elites of which he views himself an integral part would be law.
Some people deserve their own state-provided Zhil limos, their own traffic lanes so they can zip around Moscow in those limos, and luxurious dachas in the countryside where those Zhils transport them to on weekends. It’s tough work micromanaging the lives of their ungrateful inferiors, those “bitter clingers” that noted anthropologist Barack Obama so sympathetically described to a San Francisco audience. They deserve all the publicly funded perks they can get their hands on. Especially Obama, who deserves all the lavish vacations he can take so he can recharge his socialist batteries among the like minded elites on Martha’s Vineyard or the Nobel Peace Prize committee.
“Insurgent outliers” fail to recognize the huge debt of gratitude they owe their superiors who are looking out for them. (Hint: if you are a Tea Partier protesting the Vacationer-in-Chief instead of thanking him you are an insurgent outlier.) They may be numerous, even in the majority, but that’s what makes the ruling elite special and precious. The GOP is an “insurgent outlier” because it appeals to and encourages these counter-productive, counter-revolutionary attitudes and behaviors. Really, “insurgent outlier” simply refers to someone who has no business being on the central committee where the important decisions should and would be taken if we lived in a rational, scientific socialist world.
And why Thomas Friedman et al are so sick and tired of having to pretend the “insurgent outliers” have any sort of legitimate point and long for the simple efficiencies of the communist system.
If you weren’t an “insurgent outlier” you’d either be a part of or willing to defer to the moral authorities comprising the “vanguard of the revolution” as it carries out the long-overdue work of “fundamentally transforming” the USA.
Steve (8ab96a) — 4/29/2012 @ 11:40 amIt could be said that the Dems operate under a “Dr. Phil” budget:
AD-RtR/OS! (c48e50) — 4/29/2012 @ 11:57 amThey spend money on what “feels good” to them.
They have no use for empirical evidence, or inconvenient facts;
it’s just all “feelings” (cue Morris Albert).
What are the entitlements that the Ryan plan focuses on cutting? I’m not familiar with the specifics of the plan.
Leviticus (870be5) — 4/29/2012 @ 12:17 pmhttp://www.google.com/url?q=http://townhall.com/tipsheet/kevinglass/2012/02/07/paul_ryan_promises_more_bold_action_on_entitlements&sa=U&ei=RpWdT8qTIo2c8QTp4tCNDw&ved=0CAUQFjAA&client=internal-uds-cse&usg=AFQjCNHid6-jWiormJW8zZXAvow8N9_g5A
Colonel Haiku (39a46a) — 4/29/2012 @ 12:24 pmIt’s not like the Republicans have any kind of a solution that anybody will accept. Paul Ryan forgot to include a reduction in the student loan rate in his budget.
It may not be so bad, if a recovery gets started. Te deficit is already down about 3 percentage points of GDP, and it goes down another 3 it would be sustainable.
Sammy Finkelman (e9b54a) — 4/29/2012 @ 12:30 pmI think the federal budget should just be abolished.
It just makes things more insoluable and leads to absurdities.
It’s the worst kind of central, from the top planning.
Sammy Finkelman (e9b54a) — 4/29/2012 @ 12:34 pmThis is all very fine, but I’m not sure the fiscal house is bad enough yet for independents to vote Republican.
Here in California, there are any number of fiscally-responsible people who abhor deficits and bureaucracy, who nevertheless vote a straight Democrat ticket due to the single issue of Republican hostility to abortion. This may yet be the issue that re-elects Obama, and will surely be one that he brings up as often as possible.
So, when I read polls talking about how everyone thinks the Republicans have the answer for our fiscal mess, I have to think, yeah, but when they get to the polls they’ll vote D again, like they always do.
And this is why so many fiscally-conservative Republicans like me have such an issue with the SoCon’s litmus tests every damn primary. Ronald Reagan could not be nominated by the current Republican Party. So we get either socially conservative fire-eaters who cannot be elected or mealy-mouthed liars who will say anything to win a primary.
It’s a problem.
Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 4/29/2012 @ 12:39 pmRight, because of the fervent prolife stance of Meg Whitman, the one who was so impressed with Van Jones
narciso (8d0f34) — 4/29/2012 @ 12:59 pmNo Bill Macy but
Colonel Haiku (39a46a) — 4/29/2012 @ 1:13 pm0bama IS “Teh Cooler”
on economy
Right, because of the fervent prolife stance of Meg Whitman
Who had to run with a party that hammered her for it day in and day out. As now.
Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 4/29/2012 @ 1:14 pmIf the Democrats in the Senate are in violation of Federal law, then who has standing to sue them, and would the Courts require them to take action?
If no one has standing, and even if some party does, if the Courts don’t require action or abdicate the decision to do so, the what’s the point of the Federal law. Even if the Courts, up to and including SCOTUS say the Senate must act, who will enforce such a decision – shades of Andrew Jackson and John Marshall. Harry Reid can ignore them, admittedly with some political peril, but that’s about it.
Horatio (912697) — 4/29/2012 @ 2:11 pm“Obama appointd Simpson/Bowles-and then promptly ignores their report.”
The Simpson/Bowles Commission did not issue a report per Obama’s executive order. The report they wrote failed to gain the necessary votes.
TJ (6eeaf5) — 4/29/2012 @ 2:25 pmBarcky 0bama
Colonel Haiku (39a46a) — 4/29/2012 @ 2:33 pmput Bowles-Simpson together
then threw under bus
like Vegas cooler
Colonel Haiku (39a46a) — 4/29/2012 @ 2:36 pmBarcky 0bama craps out
cools economy
If the people of Kalifornia are so horrified by the spectre that at the national level the GOP would kick the abortion issue back to the states, and that in some other state they’d ban or restrict some or all abortions, then they deserve to live in their socialist hell hole.
I’m amazed that the liberals, who have a quite open plan to run everyone’s lives, can perennially make political hay out of alleging the “religious right” has a secret plan to run everyone’s life.
The left will restrict your choices on everything from light bulbs, to toilets, to how much salt can be on your food, whether or not you can buy a happy meal or smoke in your own apartment or own a gun. You can’t even eat some kinds of food (horsemeat = felony in kali). The religious right? They’d make you pay for your own contraceptives, abortions, and buy all the beer and liquor you need for the weekend by midnight Saturday. Other than that the bible thumpers will leave you alone while the nanny-staters are constantly coming up with reasons to mess with you.
In any case, “socially liberal fiscal conservatives” are a huge part of the problem. They have no compass guiding them on what the state should or should not be spending money on. That’s why the GOP ends up being the tax collector for the welfare state. And why the dems don’t worry to much about over-reach. They know that if they do over-reach and lose an election here or there, a caretaker GOP administration that can’t articulate an argument against what they’ve done will come in and try to make it more efficient, simultaneously putting their stamp of approval on it. They can be confident that the “socially liberal fiscal conservatives” will preserve their programs until they’re eventually back in power to do more damage.
Until people wake up and realize that “socially liberal fiscal conservatives” are nothing more than the junior partners in the progressive cause that’s driving states and the country ever leftward into economic ruin, well then the single issue voters of Kali and those like them in liberal hell holes are getting exactly the government they deserve.
Steve (8ab96a) — 4/29/2012 @ 3:32 pmTJ is fundamentally dishonest. Or dummerer than a sack of jharps.
JD (2585aa) — 4/29/2012 @ 3:46 pm“It’s not like the Republicans have any kind of a solution that anybody will accept. Paul Ryan forgot to include a reduction in the student loan rate in his budget.”
Sammy – It’s not like there is any Democrat proposal on the table currently so to pretend the Republicans are the bad guys after the President’s budget was voted down unanimously in the House is a little childish. The Democrats won’t even bring a budget to the floor in the Senate and Reid prevented a vote in Committee.
With respect to student loan interest rates, the House did act on the Bill. Perhaps you missed it.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 4/29/2012 @ 3:59 pmIf the people of Kalifornia are so horrified by the spectre that at the national level the GOP would kick the abortion issue back to the states
Wedge issues aren’t rational.
Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 4/29/2012 @ 4:05 pm“I think the federal budget should just be abolished.
It just makes things more insoluable and leads to absurdities.”
Sammy – Absurdities like accountability? Who needs that?
With budgets I might not get my pony!
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 4/29/2012 @ 4:08 pmSteve, what the —- do you thing “socially liberal” means? Clue: it does not mean “likes big government” it means more like “here is a place we like small government.”
Fiscally conservative, socially liberal folks tend to think government should stay out of the bedroom and the bank account. How is that bad?
Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 4/29/2012 @ 4:13 pmWith budgets I might not get my pony!
And with much smaller budgets you might even get less of the horse manure. Depends on how bad you want the pony.
Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 4/29/2012 @ 4:15 pm_____________________________________________
And this is why so many fiscally-conservative Republicans like me have such an issue with the SoCon’s litmus tests every damn primary. Ronald Reagan could not be nominated by the current Republican Party.
Just keep in mind that nowadays, in the 21st century, in order to be a good “centrist,” one must be supportive of the idea of domestic partnerships. In order to be a good liberal, one must be fully supportive of flat-out same-sex marriages. To be a pure liberal in 2012, one must be gunning for the idea that churches be mandated to perform marriage ceremonies for anyone and everyone.
In the 1950s, a major actress (Ingrid Bergman) was ostracized by Hollywood, no less, for having a child out of wedlock. Nowadays, Hollywood just about requires that an actress — in order to be au courant and hip — have children whenever and with whomever she damn well pleases.
When the middle ground of modern Western culture has shifted left over the past 50 years, the claim that a respect for even slightly basic traditional socio-political standards is quite conservative and reactionary says a lot about who buys into that new assumption.
However, people who theorize that cultural rightism alienates X percentage of voters are not without merit. But that’s also not too different from the belief (eg, of Karl Rove, among others) that Latino voters in the US are more liberal than they’d otherwise be because of opposition to illegal immigration. So a high percentage of folks in Mexico lean left, and have been leaning left, for decades because of what? Because of anti-illegal-immigration policies in Mexico?
Mark (411533) — 4/29/2012 @ 4:19 pm“In the 1950s, a major actress (Ingrid Bergman) was ostracized by Hollywood, no less, for having a child out of wedlock. ”
And people still whine about moral decline.
TJ (6eeaf5) — 4/29/2012 @ 4:22 pm__________________________________________
Fiscally conservative, socially liberal folks tend to think government should stay out of the bedroom and the bank account.
And those socially liberal folks don’t mind California’s legislature recently mandating that public schools, from K to 12, now include information in textbooks about well-known homosexuals or bisexuals? Given the mindset behind such laws, it really isn’t sarcastic or hyperbolic that school libraries will soon be required to carry the book “The Prince Marries a Prince.” As for wanting them to also make available copies of “Heather Has Two Mommies,” that’s pretty much a given.
Mark (411533) — 4/29/2012 @ 4:26 pmTJ is a brokeback troll. It just can’t quit us. Under any name.
JD (318f81) — 4/29/2012 @ 4:32 pmAnd those socially liberal folks don’t mind California’s legislature recently mandating that public schools, from K to 12, now include information in textbooks about well-known homosexuals or bisexuals?
No, that would be progressives who want that. There’s a big difference between “live and let live” and “progressive”. Just because you don’t care how other people live, and you don’t want to change them, discriminate against them, or make what they do illegal, that does not mean that you want to indoctrinate other people into thinking that the behavior is laudable.
Frankly, I’m amazed that 1) California public schools have time to teach reading and math, and 2) anyone who can avoid it sends their kids there.
But that’s another issue.
Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 4/29/2012 @ 4:33 pmThey don’t, they just teach attitudes, that’s how you end up with ‘Betamax’ Brown and Obama,
narciso (8d0f34) — 4/29/2012 @ 4:38 pm#32. How is that a moral issue, again? Did she abandon the child? Abort it (obviously not)? I’d say that in that instance morality has increased, and “bastard” is now only pejorative in the figurative sense.
Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 4/29/2012 @ 4:38 pmIt’s unclear to me if Ryan was running the meeting/hearing and what the bounds of protocol are.
I think it would have been great for Ryan to tell him, “The country has waited for over 3 years now for a yearly budget as required by law, and you have the nerve to sit there and moan and groan over a serious attempt to deal with the issues, whether you agree with them or not. Who do you think you are? Get out of here and don’t come back until you have a proposal of your own. (and have paid your back taxes!!)”
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 4/29/2012 @ 4:43 pm“It may not be so bad, if a recovery gets started. Te deficit is already down about 3 percentage points of GDP, and it goes down another 3 it would be sustainable.”
Sammy-
For too long both sides of the aisle have tried this reasoning, coupled with rosy proejections. And the deficit only gets worse. Growth is wonderful, but absent a decade and a half of 5-6% annual growth (highly unlikley and spare the 1950s when America had the lion’s share of industrial capacity on the postwar planet)it won’t happen. Not ever. it would be a miracle. We cannot grow way out of this. Things have to be cut. Either we make sensible decisions today, or we will be forced to make tham in a panic in the very near future.
Bugg (ea1809) — 4/29/2012 @ 4:56 pm“…If no one has standing…”
Historically, such an impasse would be reconciled under Rule-7.62!
AD-RtR/OS! (c48e50) — 4/29/2012 @ 4:58 pmTJ-
Has Obama done anything on the budget? His propsoed budgets were both voted down unanimously, and they were introduced by Republicans since he didn’t bother. Saying that S/B didn’t issue a report with recommendations is even worse. Except for the folly of The Super Committee. Ah,another grat idea that went nowhere.
Leadership is dealing with this like an adult. We know Obama will not do that, not ever.
Quotes from the Press Conference(Bowles and Simpson directing their comments to the vaunted and ulitmately failing Super Committee)
Bowles and Simpson on why the select committee must exceed its savings target
And 1.2 (trillion dollars), frankly, is peanuts, as we used to say in the grandstand. –Al Simpson
Four trillion (dollars) is not the maximum amount we need to do, it’s not the ideal amount; it is the minimum amount we need to do to stabilize the debt and put it on a downward path a percent of GDP. –Erskine Bowles
Bowles and Simpson on why Going Big is easier than going in pieces
The more comprehensive we made it, the easier our job got, the easier it was to get to majority rather than the less – you know, trying to do just little teeny pieces of it. –Erskine Bowles
The tougher we made our proposal, the more people came aboard. I think that same thing can happen with this super commission. –Al Simpson
Bowles and Simpson on how Going Big is necessary to restore confidence among the public, the markets and the world
We need to do this reassure the markets….we also need to do it to restore public trust and to restore the trust that was lost during the whole debt/default debacle that occurred in July and August, as I think America lost a lot of confidence and trust – people and companies and countries around the world. –Erskine Bowles
The reason nobody with the credit agencies is messing around with Great Britain or France or Germany is simply because they have a plan. They may not get there. We don’t have a plan. –Al Simpson
Bowles and Simpson on the need for serious action now
I know that in Washington it’s difficult for Congress to do – to ever do anything big or bold all at once. As I thought back on our experiences in the 1990s when we did balance the budget, you know, we didn’t do it all at one time…..Fortunately at that point in time, we had the luxury of time. We don’t have that luxury anymore. We need to act and we need to act now. –Erskine Bowles
We don’t do BS and we don’t do mush. And if you’re looking for BS and mush, just watch every congressperson that talks about cutting the deficit and telling you nothing about how to do it. –Al Simpson
Bugg (ea1809) — 4/29/2012 @ 5:05 pm“How is that a moral issue, again?”
We’ve had moral progress in achieving things like gay marriage and sexual freedom for women. And will continue to do so.
“I’d say that in that instance morality has increased, and “bastard” is now only pejorative in the figurative sense.”
Yup, we don’t ostracize women for being single mothers, nor their children. In fact we sometimes elect these children as president.
“Except for the folly of The Super Committee. Ah,another grat idea that went nowhere. ”
I’ve never understood this critique of the Super Committee — it was supposed to find an alternative to the cuts in the deal. So it “going nowhere” just means no alternatives, we stick with the deal. Not so bad.
“Four trillion (dollars) is not the maximum amount we need to do, it’s not the ideal amount; it is the minimum amount we need to do to stabilize the debt and put it on a downward path a percent of GDP. –Erskine Bowles”
Don’t know why the fetish for all this austerity in this economic climate. Good thing that crap went nowhere and Obama finally gave up all that deficit talk.
TJ (6eeaf5) — 4/29/2012 @ 5:16 pmPlease list all the names you have commented under, “TJ”
JD (318f81) — 4/29/2012 @ 5:21 pmComment by Kevin M — 4/29/2012 @ 4:13 pm
Except, dear Kevin, their Social Liberalism leads them to support projects and policies that can only be supported with higher taxes (on someone), which does not keep them out of your bank account.
AD-RtR/OS! (c48e50) — 4/29/2012 @ 5:36 pmToo many people confuse Libertarians with Social Liberals due to their stance on drugs; Libertarians are not Social Liberals, and Druggies are Brain Dead!
AD-RtR/OS! (c48e50) — 4/29/2012 @ 5:49 pmA true libertarian would be against virtually every government program from the New Deal on.
“A true libertarian would be against virtually every government program from the New Deal on.”
And before too.
TJ (6eeaf5) — 4/29/2012 @ 5:52 pmAnyone else recognize this one?
JD (318f81) — 4/29/2012 @ 5:56 pmI don’t know the usual trolls would cite some journolist tripe, this one is just ‘rolling’
narciso (8d0f34) — 4/29/2012 @ 5:59 pm“I don’t know the usual trolls would cite some journolist tripe, this one is just ‘rolling’”
Am I on the part of the Internet where Obama is a Muslim and Journolist made sure he wasn’t “vetted” ?
TJ (6eeaf5) — 4/29/2012 @ 6:02 pmWhat other names have you posted under, “TJ” ?
Your act is old, stale, and tiresome.
JD (318f81) — 4/29/2012 @ 6:05 pmYes, they have been the problem, at least since the 80s, when the likes of Ted Kennedy, pledge to work with Andropov to foil Reagan’s nuclear policies. when along with the obligatory Rinos they closed off, avenues of energy resource development,when they foisted the ESC scam, over more plausible research programs.
narciso (8d0f34) — 4/29/2012 @ 6:20 pm_____________________________________________
We’ve had moral progress in achieving things like gay marriage and sexual freedom for women. And will continue to do so.
And yet liberals like you want to make society feel so bad, so guilty, for things like HIV/AIDS.
Larry or Linda Lefty: “It’s so mean and cruel that we don’t hand out free condoms! So many people, particularly if they’re gay or bi, aren’t educated enough about the need for protection! The poor dears need us to hold their hands.”
And liberals want everyone to feel so bad, so guilty, for not having enough programs (read: government-sponsored ones) to support all the layers of dysfunction. To feel so bad, so guilty, for not having enough do-gooder policies to assist various women who’ll be struggling enough even if they’re single, childless adults. But who will really be struggling when having to tend to the needs of X number of children, with no husband around to help pick up the slack.
Larry or Linda Lefty: “More publicly funded daycare!!, because single mothers need more than welfare and free public education for their kids! And those children also need to attend schools that hand out free lunches! While we’re at it, single women struggling to raise a family need assistance with housing too!
“More food stamps, more subsidized housing, more free condoms, more free birth control pills, more free Internet, more free cell phones, more free cable, more vouchers for mortgages and tuition, more free, free, free everything, please!!!”
Yup, we don’t ostracize women for being single mothers, nor their children.
The big joke is how so many folks on the left, who like to think they’re such compassionate and loving humans, place greater emphasis on what’s better for the adult instead of the child. So instead of saying “is it really good for you — a single woman on a tight budget — to have a child instead of giving it up for adoption?,” the typical liberal proclaims: “isn’t it wonderful that a single woman in today’s culture who’s giving birth to children can be hip and self-fulfilled, and face lots of cool choices — while being embraced by government programs if a lack of enough money is an issue for them!”
Mark (411533) — 4/29/2012 @ 6:41 pmTJ writes: “We’ve had moral progress in achieving things like gay marriage and sexual freedom for women. ”
Ah, yes, gay marriage. Which Obama says he’s against.
SPQR (26be8b) — 4/29/2012 @ 6:56 pmWhere are they?
Michael Ejercito (64388b) — 4/29/2012 @ 7:12 pm“Ah, yes, gay marriage. Which Obama says he’s against.”
Yeah gay people are real worried about that.
Another piece of moral progress is the end of Jim Crow, and the furtherance of civil rights.
TJ (6eeaf5) — 4/29/2012 @ 7:20 pmTeh One ended Jim Crow, and gave civil rights furtherances? All while gnawing on Fido. What a guy.
JD (318f81) — 4/29/2012 @ 7:29 pmWait what you think I’m arguing that the moral progress we’ve had is because of Obama? Mark isn’t pining this all on Obama, and neither am I.
TJ (6eeaf5) — 4/29/2012 @ 7:39 pmComment by Kevin M — 4/29/2012 @ 12:39 pm
Here in California, there are any number of fiscally-responsible people…who nevertheless vote a straight Democrat ticket due to the single issue of Republican hostility to abortion. This may yet be the issue that re-elects Obama, and will surely be one that he brings up as often as possible.
This is one of David Plouffe’s three issues where they will try to portray Romney as the most extremist Republican candidate for president since Barry Goldwater: tax cuts for the rich abortion, and immigration. In the case of abortion, it is an almost complete con job, because too many people don’t understand the legal position abortion is in right now. Now that people against abortion want to make that clear.
It can’t be changed very much like other laws.
So, when I read polls talking about how everyone thinks the Republicans have the answer for our fiscal mess, I have to think, yeah, but when they get to the polls they’ll vote D again, like they always do.
The Republicans also don’t have the answer. You can’t do this with magic asterisks. This is exploited too.
Sammy Finkelman (e9b54a) — 4/29/2012 @ 7:56 pmTJ – Did you tell everyone all the names you have used to comment here?
JD (318f81) — 4/29/2012 @ 8:07 pmSammy, Obama has spent us into OBLIVION. Do you have a suggestion other than a REPUBLICAN?
Gus (694db4) — 4/29/2012 @ 8:08 pmMoral progress?? 15 million unemployed because we have a Marxist with ZERO SKILLS is moral?
What has Obama accomplished?
NOTHING is your answer.
Gus (694db4) — 4/29/2012 @ 8:13 pm“We’ve had moral progress in achieving things like gay marriage and sexual freedom for women. And will continue to do so.”
And to the Left is a moral imperative to leave our children a debt of $16 trillion and couting. To buy…any idea?Contraception for 30-year old law students too lazy and too cheap to go to CVS before a big weekend(like everyone else not named Antonio Cromartie)? The one good reason to vote for Obama to me was getting out of these wars. And he has not done that.So for all the high dungeon about ending it instead he’s expanded the drone war.
And yes, Bush spent stupidly too. Yet not as much nor as fast, but still a bad thing. Either way it’s dissgraceful. No person nor business nor government can borrow it’s way to prosperity. It didn’t work for the Romans, nor the Soviets, nor the Brits.Printing Benjamins to pay the bills is the height of moral depravity.
Bugg (ea1809) — 4/29/2012 @ 8:23 pmSF: “It’s not like the Republicans have any kind of a solution that anybody will accept. Paul Ryan forgot to include a reduction in the student loan rate in his budget.”
Comment by daleyrocks — 4/29/2012 @ 3:59 pm
Sammy – It’s not like there is any Democrat proposal on the table currently
The Democrats just try to stop Republican proposals. Since the Republican proposals are not really completely thought through, they can.
They say the Republican proposals are bad (or they say they would go slower, if they talk in generalities)
What happens regularly now is this: Anytime any kind of spending or tax cuts that people overwhelmingly support comes up, the Democrats either:
1) propose to add to the deficit. This is going out of style now. They used to do that when they were more serious.
2) Propose to “pay for” it (and paying for it can be a change in law that over 10 years is supposed to balance a one year increase in the deficit) by doing something that Republicans strenuously oppose – usually a tax increase “on the rich.”
They get a lot of work out of that tax increase – it’s used over and over again because it never passes. That tax increase should complain to the Department of Labor. Surely it needs at least double overtime.
Alternatively, it can be “closing a tax loophole” which often is something Republicans don’t want to change.
The Democrats could easily come up with something Republicans wouldn’t oppose as much, but that’s not the idea.
Let’s say there’s a budget cut or a tax increase not too many people are opposed to. Well, a budget cut is a terrible thing to waste. It is never done for its own sake, nor used to “pay for” anything very popular, but it is saved for some otherwise difficult to pass measure that the Democrats want but the Republicans don’t care for, at best.
The Democrats are playing politics with the budget, and while the Republicans aren’t doing this sort of thing, they have bad judgment or no judgment at all.
so to pretend the Republicans are the bad guys after the President’s budget was voted down unanimously in the House is a little childish.
What nobody should pretend is that the Republican have any very good ideas. I didn’t say they were the bad guys. I just said they have no good ideas.
The Democrats won’t even bring a budget to the floor in the Senate and Reid prevented a vote in Committee.
Because they are playing politics of course. Also, because no idea is very palatable. If the Republicans wanted to play politics they’d give the Democrats a bit of a tax increase and ask them: Now, what?
With respect to student loan interest rates, the House did act on the Bill. Perhaps you missed it.
The Republicans in the House tried to “pay for” the student loan interest rate cut (which really shouldn’t be paid for anyway since interest rates are lower than what was anticipated back in 2007) by cutting something out of Obamacare.
Preventative health care I think. Obama actually put a cut of this amount in his budget, apparently. This is actually an Obama-proposed cut. But, of course, he wants to save it for something else. Meanwhile House Democrats are opposing the cut altogether at the moment.
I think the idea is to reduce screenings which many medical consensus groups are starting to oppose because they may do more harm than good in many cases.
Sammy Finkelman (e9b54a) — 4/29/2012 @ 8:30 pmObama has given us GAY MARRIAGE and SEXUAL FREEDOM for women???
Put the crack pipe down son.
Gus (694db4) — 4/29/2012 @ 8:33 pm“The Republicans also don’t have the answer. You can’t do this with magic asterisks. This is exploited too.”
Sammy – The Republicans at least have the testicular fortitude to propose solutions. The Democrats, not so much. Can kicking is not an answer.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 4/29/2012 @ 8:34 pmIf DEMOTARDS do ANYTHING to stop the out of control spending.
THEY LOSE.
Gus (694db4) — 4/29/2012 @ 8:38 pmWe need more WTF speeches from Obama.
Algae and Solar Power. Green Jobs!!!!!!!!
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 4/29/2012 @ 8:38 pmComment by Gus — 4/29/2012 @ 8:08 pm
Sammy, Obama has spent us into OBLIVION. Do you have a suggestion other than a REPUBLICAN?
1) He hasn’t quite done that yet. We’re just getting onto the high side.
2) The fact that something doesn’t work, doesn’t mean that the most easily available solution has to.
3) Yes I have a suggestion. two in fact.
a) economic growth
b) the 28th amendment. I wrote up an amendment.
https://patterico.com/2011/07/15/does-the-debt-ceiling-blame-game-matter/
Comment number 10
Sammy Finkelman (e9b54a) — 4/29/2012 @ 8:39 pm“I think the idea is to reduce screenings which many medical consensus groups are starting to oppose because they may do more harm than good in many cases.”
Sammy – Obama started by proposing to reduce the frequency of mammograms. That went over like a lead balloon. Talk about your war on women. He fired the first shot right there.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 4/29/2012 @ 8:42 pmDaley, I think most Americans who are not Conservative, have ZERO CLUE how bad Obama has screwed us. It was predictable, and it has been unprecedented. He has NOTHING to show for all the spending. Yet the LEFT wants more of same.
Gus (694db4) — 4/29/2012 @ 8:43 pmWe are in DEEP trouble.
This is not a balanced budget amendment (which by the way has no need to be balanced)
It is a rational budget amendment – something that would enable Comngress to deal with the budget. Or budgeting.
Article XXVIII
Section 1.
1. No money shall be drawn from the Treasury unless a source of income for it has previously been received, but the Treasury may issue notes for a term no longer than 270 days against future receipts. This debt shall not be valid except against those particular receipts assigned to that debt, but Congress may pay it anyway.
2. No bill appropriating money to be drawn from the Treasury shall become law unless it provides an income stream for that expenditure, which may be any receipt of money that comes into the U.S. Treasury, including borrowing.
3. No other source of revenue may be used but that specifically provided by law.
4. The same source of revenue may not be simultaneously tied to more than one purpose, but any individual income stream may be split or assigned in any way prescribed by Congress.
5. The sources and expenditures may be replaced and abolished any number of times before the money is spent, and it shall always be in order in both Houses for any Amendment to a bill that is proposing any expenditure to use a source of revenue already assigned, except that whenever it shall turn out when a bill becomes law, that the money has already been spent even though the income has not come in, enough must be collected to cover the expenditures before it can go to another purpose.
Section 2.
1. Both Houses of Congress shall maintain a running tally of proposed expenditures and sources for them, separately both for those that have passed into law and those that have passed that particular House, which shall also be available for inspection by the public.
2. No more than 15% of the possible expenditures of the Treasury during any given calendar year,or such other period that Congress may by law provide, shall result from the adoption of one bill and no more than 30% from any three bills,nor 40% from any 8 bills. In calculating how much of an expenditure extending over a longer period or overlapping the calculated period belongs to a particular period,a pro-rata formula shall be used unless in the bill appropriating money a different timetable for spending it was mandated. All appropriation bills and laws shall always be valid, but no more money may actually be spent than would fit into this formula. [Note, this clause needs more work]
3. No two or more appropriation bills may be tied together by any rule of either House and the President must be given the opportunity to
veto any one.
Section 3.
1. The government of the United States shall not been be bound by any other budget requirements but those that result from this Amendment, except for other provisions of the Constitution.
2. The Federal Budget and all laws relating to it are hereby abolished, but all trust funds are to be deemed already assigned in accordance with
the provisions of this article.
Section 4.
1. Whenever money is appropriated Congress may direct that it all be spent before a certain date and lay down any other regulations down with respect to time, and Congress may extend the time period for spending the money at any time.
2. The time periods for the various sources of revenue and expenditure for different purposes need not be the same length nor start at the same date in the same year.
Section 5.
1. Any member of Congress or a state legislative body shall have standing to sue and claim that this Amendment has been violated.
2. This article shall become effective on the second October 1st following its ratification.
3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states within seven years from the
Sammy Finkelman (e9b54a) — 4/29/2012 @ 8:43 pmdate of its submission to the States by Congress.
Sammy, nothing personal, but do you huff spray paint.
Obama is DESTROYING economic growth.
You do know that don’t you Sammy??
Gus (694db4) — 4/29/2012 @ 8:45 pmYou are living on Earth??
Daleyrocks –
JD (318f81) — 4/29/2012 @ 8:47 pmPhase 1 – green energy/stimulus/crony capitalism
Phase 2 – ?????
Phase 3 – profit! Or huge deficits
#
“The Republicans also don’t have the answer. You can’t do this with magic asterisks. This is exploited too.”
Comment by daleyrocks — 4/29/2012 @ 8:34 pm
Sammy – The Republicans at least have the testicular fortitude to propose solutions. The Democrats, not so much. Can kicking is not an answer.
The Republicans are not proposing solutions. They are asserting that there is a problem. Their solutions are unworkable, and impractical. They may only sound practical, but they will never work when you get down to the nitty gritty.
Sammy Finkelman (e9b54a) — 4/29/2012 @ 8:47 pmI wonder why Obama and Reid have no budget??
Feb 17, 2009, the PORKULUS bill was signed and now we have “Continuing Resolutions” keeping the spending at 1.3 trillion more each year.
That’s some HONEST, PRINCIPLED, GOVERNANCE!!
Right Sammy!?
Gus (694db4) — 4/29/2012 @ 8:49 pmSammy’s right, the Ryan plan is only going to fix the problem, but not keep LIBTARDS all GREASY.
Gus (694db4) — 4/29/2012 @ 8:52 pm“They are asserting that there is a problem.”
Sammy – Even Obama agrees there is a spending problem. He just doesn’t want to do anything about it while he is in office. Geithner is on the same page.
There is nothing but intransigence from the other side of the aisle that makes Republican proposals unworkable, you are merely asserting that.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 4/29/2012 @ 8:52 pmComment by Gus — 4/29/2012 @ 8:45 pm
Sammy, nothing personal, but do you huff spray paint. Obama is DESTROYING economic growth.
You do know that don’t you Sammy??
No, he’s not.
Remember, almost nothing he has proposed or passed into law has actually taken effect. The Bush tax cuts and other cuts are still in place. No tax increases, no health care mandate is in effect yet.
He did do some useless measures.
Now I do think that raising interest rates could destroy economic growth. It never fails.
You are living on Earth??
Austerity in Europe, isn’t working.
Sammy Finkelman (e9b54a) — 4/29/2012 @ 8:53 pmWhat a clown. NO NEW TAXES IN EFFECT.
Just 5 fucking trillion dollars in spending and printed money. What a fucking clown.
Gus (694db4) — 4/29/2012 @ 8:58 pmSammy is amongst the 17% that think Teh One is doing a good job with the economy.
JD (318f81) — 4/29/2012 @ 9:02 pm“Remember, almost nothing he has proposed or passed into law has actually taken effect.”
Sammy – He’s like a huge dark cloud hovering over the economy, ready to rain down hail and thunder and lightning, but he’s doing great because not much except some pesky regulations have taken effect so far.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 4/29/2012 @ 9:07 pm“They [the Republcans] are asserting that there is a problem.”
I should add they’ve been saying so since about 1935. They’ve been crying wolf for as long as just anybody can remember. It’s been conceded by Democrats since Jimmy Carter.
Comment by daleyrocks — 4/29/2012 @ 8:52 pm
Sammy – Even Obama agrees there is a spending problem.
He may conceding too much. But anyway there’s isn’t a spending problem – there may be a total debt problem.
Now what s the problem? There are certain trends in government programs that get worse. Medical costs rise, which is the biggest thing,. Anything subjective gets easier and easier and easier to happen. More people get income from a government income stream.
This cannot be stopped by meat ax budget cuts. That just makes things not work. You’ve somehow got to get into the inner workings of the program.
He just doesn’t want to do anything about it while he is in office. Geithner is on the same page.
That is more or less right. Although what they say is they want to slow things down a bit in the immediate future. But anyway his projections are mostly Rosy Scenario and magic asterisks.
There is nothing but intransigence from the other side of the aisle that makes Republican proposals unworkable, you are merely asserting that.
Some things can work but as a whole it can’t work. Any time you see a magic asterisk – that’s a clue the thing won’t work.
In the 1990s we arrived at a balanced budget and Alan Greenspan and others started worrying that th entire federal debt might be paid off. It was part of the case for the tax cuts in 2001
The budget was not balanced in any of the ways talked about now. There was just simply lot of economic growth
Sammy Finkelman (e9b54a) — 4/29/2012 @ 9:10 pmif I had a dog
Colonel Haiku (856960) — 4/29/2012 @ 9:10 pmit would look just like teh dog
that 0bama ate
“It was predictable, and it has been unprecedented.”
Gus – If you looked at his background in Illinois, it was all predictable.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 4/29/2012 @ 9:11 pmComment by JD — 4/29/2012 @ 9:02 pm
Sammy is amongst the 17% that think Teh One is doing a good job with the economy.
No he’s not. It’s a so-so job. The economy is not getting back into recession, but it is not climbing out of the trough either.
And he’s not so great either.
Sammy Finkelman (f913b2) — 4/29/2012 @ 9:14 pmJD,
Does it appear to you (as to I) that Sammy and TJ coincidentally happen to respond to multiple questions/challenges from other commenters in similar fashion ?
Elephant Stone (0ae97d) — 4/29/2012 @ 9:14 pm“Any time you see a magic asterisk – that’s a clue the thing won’t work.”
Sammy – You need to define and point out these magic asterisks that you are talking about that nobody else sees.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 4/29/2012 @ 9:15 pmColonel Haiku,
That one (#82) right there blending the dog AND Trayvon Martin….THAT’S something that Jimmy Kimmel should have written, if he had the courage to challenge The One,…and if he had your talent.
Elephant Stone (0ae97d) — 4/29/2012 @ 9:17 pm#
“Remember, almost nothing he has proposed or passed into law has actually taken effect.”
Comment by daleyrocks — 4/29/2012 @ 9:07 pm
Sammy – He’s like a huge dark cloud hovering over the economy, ready to rain down hail and thunder and lightning, but he’s doing great because not much except some pesky regulations have taken effect so far.
That’s more or less correct. Of course some things may stop the storm. The Supreme Court may kill Obamacare and all of its provisions that would raise the cos of living. Obama may come to see that it is not a good idea to let many of the tax increases scheduled for Jan 2013 take effect. Even if this would be after he no longer needs to run for re-election it still may not be a good for him.
Sammy Finkelman (f913b2) — 4/29/2012 @ 9:22 pmSammy – Why can’t we go back to fiscal 2007 spending levels? Obama essentially took what was billed as a one time trillion dollar Stimulus and made it the baseline for spending. Knock that back out of the budget and get back on track.
Why wouldn’t that work?
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 4/29/2012 @ 9:23 pmSeñor Stone – i see vast differences between the 2 you describe. I don’t agree with Sammy often, but I see little to n similarities between Sammy and the serial troll that has been banned here repeatedly, under multiple names.
JD (318f81) — 4/29/2012 @ 9:25 pm“But anyway there’s isn’t a spending problem – there may be a total debt problem.”
Sammy – You are describing a revenue problem. With the developed world’s most progressive individual income tax system and close to half the country not paying any federal income tax, I agree that is a potential issue. Plus we already have the highest corporate tax rates in the developed world.
What I don’t understand is you then go on to describe the biggest problem as medical costs, which is a spending issue.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 4/29/2012 @ 9:34 pmComment by daleyrocks — 4/29/2012 @ 9:23 pm
Sammy – Why can’t we go back to fiscal 2007 spending levels?
That’s the sort of idea that sounds plausible, but really isn’t. Things have changed. If we are going to ask this question, why stop at 2007? Why not 1957? Things weren’t so bad then. Maybe 1957 with minor modifications?
It’s easy to see why this can’t happen when you are dealing with a state or local government.
More money is needed for pensions and to pay back debt incurred for so called capital expenditures. There are built in cost increases.
The federal government doesn’t have so much of its money used for employees (except in the military budget) but it does have the factor of built in cost escalators.
I thin another problem is the inflation in medical costs, education costs.
More people qualifying for entitlements. This is a chronic problem. More and more children are diagnosed with autism, qualify for disability etc. Some of this also is due to the economy.
Anyway we couldn’t go back to 2007 without all kinds of disruption. We could maybe, if this was planned and thought through.
Maybe one idea would be to insist every little department either have its budget cost by 3% in real terms, or increased by at least 10% but nothing in between. That would stimulate some thinking.
Obama essentially took what was billed as a one time trillion dollar Stimulus and made it the baseline for spending. Knock that back out of the budget and get back on track.
Why wouldn’t that work?
Sammy Finkelman (03c829) — 4/29/2012 @ 9:38 pmAnyway we couldn’t go back to 2007 without all kinds of disruption.
You assert this without explaining why. The world did not quit spinning at 2007 spending levels.
JD (318f81) — 4/29/2012 @ 9:41 pmSorry I didn’t edit the quoting right.
Yes, Obama might make an increase the new baseline, but that is just a way of arranging data nd is practically forced and no surprise,
Sammy Finkelman (03c829) — 4/29/2012 @ 9:42 pmSF: “Any time you see a magic asterisk – that’s a clue the thing won’t work.”
Comment by daleyrocks — 4/29/2012 @ 9:15 pm
Sammy – You need to define and point out these magic asterisks that you are talking about that nobody else sees
A “magic asterisk” is when you say you want to cut spending by X% somewhere.
Sammy Finkelman (03c829) — 4/29/2012 @ 9:45 pmThat’s not a plan.
Sammy Finkelman (03c829) — 4/29/2012 @ 9:47 pmBill Buckler via zerohedge:
“There is one “issue” in which Mr Obama, Mr Bernanke, Mr Geithner and Mr Romney are in total agreement. That “issue” is the source of the economic malaise still affecting the US. The source is NOT the US government, nor the US central bank, nor the US banking system. Above all, it is NOT the debt-based and government guaranteed US Dollar.
The debt morass sucking down the entire world is happening in Europe, not in the US. The lack of jobs and economic opportunity wearing “main street” down is a result of “unfair competition” from Asia, and China in particular. The US establishment MUST point the finger anywhere but at their own seat of power and keep on doing it until the election has safely been put to bed. They are going to have to keep it up for a bit more than six months. The US establishment has never fooled all of the people all of the time -just enough of them to keep their power. The problem is that this keeps getting harder to do.”
gary gulrud (d88477) — 4/29/2012 @ 9:53 pm“But anyway there’s isn’t a spending problem – there may be a total debt problem.”
Meaning the problem is only if the debt gets too high, or is headed that way. Otherwise spending is not a problem (or not that kind of a problem)
Comment by daleyrocks — 4/29/2012 @ 9:34 pm
Sammy – You are describing a revenue problem.
A deficit could be described as a revenue problem or as a spending problem, depending on what you see is causing it. Did revenues go down, or spending, go up, perhaps to more than where it needs to be?
With the developed world’s most progressive individual income tax system and close to half the country not paying any federal income tax, I agree that is a potential issue.
You mean, no more taxes to raise? They usually talk now in terms of GDP and the argument is made that the U.S. government has tended to collect the same percentage for most of the Twentieth Century and maybe here is a natural economic law that makes 20% an effective maximum.
Plus we already have the highest corporate tax rates in the developed world.
What I don’t understand is you then go on to describe the biggest problem as medical costs, which is a spending issue.
Well wait you just said taxes couldn’t go up too much more – then every debt problem is a spending problem. Truth is though revenue could go up, especially if it as rebated back.
Sammy Finkelman (03c829) — 4/29/2012 @ 10:02 pmThen there;s the issue of is a political problem when people don’t owe taxes.
I say: It doesn’t make any difference whether or not people are now paying tax. People not paying taxes now could fear paying in the future.
You could have an argument that it’s a (political) problem when tax increases are proposed only for the rich. To wit: – if people believe that tax increases are only going to be proposed for the highest brackets, then people won’t be bothered by the idea of an income tax increase, as perhaps, a political philosopher might want them to be.
Although I don’t think there’s anything like this in the Federalist Papers.
Sammy Finkelman (03c829) — 4/29/2012 @ 10:05 pmUS Deficit of 40% of GDP wherein $2.52 of Federal spending begets a dollar of economic activity.
Moonbarking insanity that will certainly end badly. Soon.
gary gulrud (d88477) — 4/29/2012 @ 10:31 pm“Well wait you just said taxes couldn’t go up too much more”
Sammy – That’s not what I said. Read it again.
I pointed out we already have the most progressive effective system of rates in the developed world and almost half the country does not pay any income taxes. If we want to raise revenues, who does that suggest we should raise revenue from?
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 4/29/2012 @ 10:53 pm“That’s the sort of idea that sounds plausible, but really isn’t. Things have changed. If we are going to ask this question, why stop at 2007? Why not 1957?”
Sammy – Because it’s easy to see why it would not work relative to 1957, not so easy relative to 2007. What really has changed since 2007? Seriously?
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 4/29/2012 @ 11:00 pmSammy – Saying something isn’t workable is something the Democrats are very good at, but when you did into their reasoning, if they have any at all, you typically find that it is completely specious.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 4/29/2012 @ 11:02 pmTJ:
We’ve had moral progress in achieving things like gay marriage and sexual freedom for women. And will continue to do so.
— Help! Wikipedia has failed me. When was the “Women are free to have sex” act (or was it the “women are free to do a sex act”?) passed?
Yup, we don’t ostracize women for being single mothers, nor their children.
— “ostracize”? Hell, we SUBSIDIZE them! And, coincidentally I’m sure, now there are more of them than ever. There’s your ‘moral progress’!
Don’t know why the fetish for all this austerity in this economic climate.
— Uh, it’s like a “don’t spend any money that you don’t have” type of deal. Being a leftist, you wouldn’t understand.
Good thing that crap went nowhere and Obama finally gave up all that deficit talk.
Icy (0c68d7) — 4/30/2012 @ 1:37 am— Yeah, ’cause deficit reduction don’t feed the bulldog, or the welfare mothers.
Or, it don’t feed the bulldog TO the welfare mothers. Let’s ask the president for a clarification on that one.
Icy (0c68d7) — 4/30/2012 @ 1:41 am100. Rather 10% of GDP, 40% of Fed “budget”. In deference to myself and Sammy, it was late.
gary gulrud (d88477) — 4/30/2012 @ 4:43 am“The one good reason to vote for Obama to me was getting out of these wars. And he has not done that.So for all the high dungeon about ending it instead he’s expanded the drone war. ”
We’re out of Iraq, people whined about that. And get ready for whining about reductions in defense spending.
“It is a rational budget amendment – something that would enable Comngress to deal with the budget.”
It seems like your “rational budget amendment” would end things like 10 year Treasuries and 30 year savings bonds.
TJ (6eeaf5) — 4/30/2012 @ 5:39 amWhat we may face is what Rajoy is facing now, trying to correct eight years of Zapatero, adebt
narciso (8d0f34) — 4/30/2012 @ 6:09 amburden that is prohibitive.
SF: Anyway we couldn’t go back to 2007 without all kinds of disruption.
Comment by JD — 4/29/2012 @ 9:41 pm
You assert this without explaining why. The world did not quit spinning at 2007 spending levels.
Because the world is not he same. The economy is not as good, there are more people in the United States (on the other hand interest rates are lower, but the debt is higher so that cancels out) military and other long term spending is built on the idea that somewhat more money will be spent every year medical bills are higher.
The current services baseline – even a current services baseline that used an earlier year as the baseline, would not lead to the same revenues and expensitures as you had in the baseline year. To try to get the same results, would lead to dsruption. This is besides the fact that some very good or necessary new spending may have been added. Now it could be that there are things to subtract but they are 1,000 small things.
The current services baseline exists mostly in the federal government.
From a website:
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3602
To provide a simple example, consider a Department of Motor Vehicles in a state where automobile ownership is on the rise and where there is no excess staff capacity. A current services baseline would show what the DMV would need to spend to keep up with increased demand for drivers’ licenses and auto titles as well as other increasing costs. This information is useful because if the governor proposes funding below the baseline, legislators and the public can see at a glance that the agency cannot make ends meet without changing policies (e.g., slower processing times or improved technology) and so can demand details on the real-world impact of the funding change. If the governor proposes funding above the baseline, legislators and the public should expect details on what additional services the DMV would provide with the extra funding.
Changing policies = disruption. Some kinds of changes may be good ideas – other kinds just make for government that doesn’t work.
Sammy Finkelman (8650a4) — 4/30/2012 @ 6:35 amNow against a year in which there was a large temporary increase or decrease in something the current services baseline is misleading but even a current services baseline based on 2007 would not lead to 2007 results, besides which you really don’t want to actually do something identical to 2007.
Now an interesting thing. You can’t go back to a previous year, but you can go to a different state, where the trend was different. You can move from California to Colorado or Texas. New York to Florida or North Carolina. Massachusetts to New Hampshire. Illinois to Wisconsin. Michigan, especially Detroit, to anywhere. Some of it is different conditions, but it is also 10,000 small things.
Budget politics are very bad. I think people worry too much bout he budget – everywhere. Because of budget constraints for instance, if crime goes up, money for police, prosecutors ,courts and jails does not go up. This is actually penny wise and pound foolish, but it doesn’t show up that way in budget projections.
If a new disease hits, money must be spent. There are always emergencies. So you can never spend what you spent last year and get the same results, even if salaries etc stayed the same. Usually bad compromises get made.
Budget policies cause government not to correct its mistakes, and make it hard to fund what needs funding. And budget projections are never good, and can be toyed with. That’s why I propose getting rid of the budget and relying only on reality.
Sammy Finkelman (8650a4) — 4/30/2012 @ 6:41 amHorsepuckey. Disruption is worse than ever expanding unmanageable deficits and debt?!
TJ never did tell us all the names it commented under.
JD (2585aa) — 4/30/2012 @ 6:43 amComment by daleyrocks — 4/29/2012 @ 11:00 pm
Sammy – Because it’s easy to see why it would not work relative to 1957, not so easy relative to 2007. What really has changed since 2007? Seriously?
Unemployment is higher, medical care costs more, there is more government debt although, for now, less interest being paid on the debt, all sorts of multi-year projects cost more now than they did then and there are more of them, population is somewhat higher, some new areas of government spending have come into existence, the payroll tax is lower, more people are collecting Social Security – and disability, more children are diagnosed with autism, taxes from people making profits in the stock market, or collecting bonuses on Wall Street are down – and there are not so many automatic countervailing virtually automatic reductions. Some of that is the economy. Richard Nixon proposed a full-employment budget that would be balanced if the unemployment rate was as low as they thought it would go, but there are changes beyond that.
Oh, by the way the federal government’s current services baseline now includes all sorts of changes built into law that nobody actually wants to see happen: e.g. an increase in the alternative minimum tax, a cut in Medicare payments to doctors, expiring tax cuts. It’s become useless, just something manipulated.
Sammy Finkelman (8650a4) — 4/30/2012 @ 6:53 amComment by daleyrocks — 4/29/2012 @ 11:02 pm
Sammy – Saying something isn’t workable is something the Democrats are very good at,
No, they don’t say it is not workable – they say it would have horrible consequences, and/or would take care of “the rich” at the expense of everyone else.
The Democrats then claim, and can do so because they argue each noncontroversial and widely supported but not “paid for” expense at a time, that if only their special tax increase on the rich/loophole closing/corporation tax were enacted, there would be no need to make this terrible budget cut that the Republicans are proposing to “pay for” the noncontroversial and widely supported expense in question.
the Democrats do occasionally propose some things that reduce the deficit that the Republcans will accept, but only to “pay for” controversial and difficult to pass legislation. they can then say: Why are/should the Republicans (be) against it? It’s paid for!!! What are they, just mean?
They would never use such a budget cut to “pay for” an unemployment insurance extension/payroll tax cut/issuance of new student loans at a lower rate than what it is in the current servces budget
Sammy Finkelman (8650a4) — 4/30/2012 @ 7:04 ambut when you did into their reasoning, if they have any at all, you typically find that it is completely specious.
But they never talk about the budget as a whole at one time.
Sammy Finkelman (8650a4) — 4/30/2012 @ 7:06 amSF: It is a rational budget amendment – something that would enable Congress to deal with the budget.”
Comment by TJ — 4/30/2012 @ 5:39 am
It seems like your “rational budget amendment” would end things like 10 year Treasuries and 30 year savings bonds.
Not at all. It says nothing about the term of borrowing, and there is no limit on revenues and borrowing is considered a form of revenue.
The restriction is on disbursing money from the Treasury. Everything spent must be tied to a specific source that has already come in (including borrowing) with some allowance for money expected to come within the next 270 days.
Sammy Finkelman (8650a4) — 4/30/2012 @ 7:11 am113. Usually in the end, with must pass deficit increasing legislation I think they make some permanent (ten year’s projected worth) tax or budget law change to “pay for” one year’s worth of continuing the status quo.
Sammy Finkelman (8650a4) — 4/30/2012 @ 7:16 amComment by narciso — 4/30/2012 @ 6:09 am
What we may face is what Rajoy is facing now, trying to correct eight years of Zapatero, adebt
burden that is prohibitive.
I don’t think Spain ran huge deficits – it wasn’t Greece. Incidentally, Greece shows the difficulty of carrying out balanced budget amendments, that rely on accounting to say it has been complied with.
Spain fell victim to a market panic. And the ECB isn’t stepping in. But I haven’t looked into it. That’s what they seem to write.
Sammy Finkelman (8650a4) — 4/30/2012 @ 7:21 am117. Spain’s official Federal debt is 68% but when the territories are rolled in it’s 134%–a very different situation than the US.
Their housing bubble, now burst, was twice the size of ours per capita. Their unemployment rate nearly 25%, and their social costs higher.
The banks loans are heavily leveraged, where ours hold something like 8% in reserve, theirs have virtually nothing.
Greece, Portugal, and Spain have no choice whatever but to leave the euro. The balance of payments will kill them.
gary gulrud (d88477) — 4/30/2012 @ 8:38 amWell that was sort of shorthand for Zapatero’s green jobs, deficit and other tricks
narciso (8d0f34) — 4/30/2012 @ 8:39 am119. Indeed, the ‘market panic’ begins in the kitchen. Bank deposits are flying out of the PIIGS and yet they are sole purchasers of their uncollateralized national debt.
The ECB in LTRO 1&2 was making loans to the banks only backed by collateral, now lost to the banks to back their loans. Then the ECB demands payment for sovereign debt ahead of all other purchasers.
Now they demand all banks have 9% reserves on hand. You will be seeing all EU assets sold, expect that to prop up our market for the near term even though earnings forecasts will not exceed 8%.
gary gulrud (d88477) — 4/30/2012 @ 8:58 amToday’s Chicago and Dallas PMIs took huge dives today. The Purchasing Manufacturer’s Indicies are composites tracking new orders, backlogs, prices paid, etc.
China is supposedly stabilized, Japan down, Germany down big.
Good bye revenue.
gary gulrud (d88477) — 4/30/2012 @ 9:14 amIIRC, it was reported last week that orders for hard-goods were down considerably, which is not a good indicator for growth going forward.
AD-RtR-OS! (b8ab92) — 4/30/2012 @ 9:21 amHave the last few years been nothing but a “dead cat bounce”?
Hope & Change Re-dux cannot make the situation better.
That can only happen with a complete repudiation of the economic theories that this administration operates under.
Like vampires, they need to have wooden stakes driven through their hearts to excise them permanently.
122. “Have the last few years been nothing but a “dead cat bounce”?”
See Japan last 20 years, asset deflation, public debt balloons. Once 200 yen to the dollar, now 80 with furious printing of yen. Forecast to go to 60.
Many financial whizzes expect Japan to lead the Black Swan debt catastrophe. Beginning 6 months ago they started running a current account deficit, the first since 1980, and must now look to global financing of their debt or debase their currency and toss their standard of living.
Public debt 230% of GDP, 93% domestically owned but dropping with gathering pace as pensioners cash in to buy groceries.
gary gulrud (d88477) — 4/30/2012 @ 9:53 amLiberalism is a mental disease in which vice is called virtue, and virtue called vice. Or in TJ’s case, moral decay is called progress, and progress is called, what? Repression?
Thanks to this “progress” we are now in the absurd situation where Judge Vaughn Walker can pen an idiotic decision in which he touts all the stabilizing benefits marriage brings to society, and that only “irrational” religious discrimination keeps society from extending those benefits to gays.
When in fact “gay marriage” only becomes thinkable when marriage itself has been hollowed out and stripped of its special status that in the past caused it to have such a stabilizing effect. This decline is due in large part to the “progress” TJ sees in the arena of “sexual freedom” for women.
Marriage had a stabilizing effect because all responsible procreation took place within it. And responsible families took care of these children. Which isn’t to say that no procreation took place outside of marriage. But that was stigmatized precisely because it was irresponsible.
Which is why Ingrid Bergman was ostracized in the ’50s. She may have been able to raise a child on her own as a single mother. Most aren’t.
Now that we’ve de-stigmatized it in the name of “sexual freedom” we’ve separated procreation from marriage. To the extent that it’s imaginable to extend the term “marriage” to same sex relationships. Relationships in which it is biologically impossible to procreate within marriage, and a third party outside the marriage must be involved.
This is only possible when the concept of marriage has been so abused its central purpose is lost. It then no longer has a norming effect on society, and consequently Judge Vaughn Walker’s opinion extolling the stabilizing effect of marriage is laughable.
The practical effect of this moral decline is that once you’re deluded into believing it represents some sort of “progress” you’ve signed on for the whole government program package. That includes the nanny state spending that necessarily has to substitute for the baby dadday who isn’t around to raise the kids.
As I mentioned earlier, Bergman may have been able to afford a kid on her own, but single motherhood impoverishes most women. You don’t really need to look farther than the black community to see the devastating effect that the nanny state has wreaked on the black family to illustrate this:
STUDY: Single Women Of Color Age 36-49 Have Median Wealth Of Just $5
Marriage would help, but since these women have so few examples to emulate it never occurs to them. The norm, thanks to people like TJ approving the of their choices in the name of making “progress” in terms of “sexual freedom” is generations of children being raised by single mothers on public assistance. At this point, they are firmly convinced they don’t need a man, that they turned out “OK” since they’re just like mom and grandma, and how dare you come in and insult all of them by saying differently.
Don’t think any of this was unintentional, by the way. Back in the early ’90s a Norwegian feminist sociologist, Kari Moxness, wrote something of a milestone editorial, “Empty Marriage.” She views marriage as inherently repressive. Legitimizing single motherhood, unmarried cohabitation, and gay marriage were precisely the tools necessary to de-legitimize this legacy institution of teh h8ed patriarchy. Gay marriage would essentially be the final nail in the coffin because, as the the title of the editorial was intended to convey, it signalled the fact that wider society no longer assigned it any sort of special status worth defending. This also suits the desires of the nanny staters, who see job security in creating dependent clients. Whereas the fact that marriage would help to lift these women out of poverty is undoubtedly seen by the authors of the study as part of a solution, to the nanny staters that is exactly the wrong way to go. Policies that impoverish these women are in their best interest. Socially liberal fiscal conservatives have no argument against these policies; indeed, as long as it’s done to advance “moral progress” in the name of “sexual freedom” they’re all for it.
Ironically, if you’re going to create dependent clients you’ve got to groom them to believe they’re the responsible ones and it’s the flawed system and a selfish, uncaring society that refuses to shoulder its financial responsibilities that is failing them. What you get is this:
Woman With 15 Kids: “Somebody needs to be held accountable, and they need to pay.”
Got that? This is the result of TJ’s moral “progress.” If TJ is correct, then this woman is also correct to demand that whoever it is failing her kids man up and quit slacking off. These slackers need to pay more in taxes or they’re opponents of moral progress.
Before anyone suggests I’m picking on any particular ethnic group I need to point out you can destroy any society or subset of society with these destructive notions labeled “progress;” to continue with the Scandi theme we’re all feasting at a giant smorgasbord called “sexual freedom” where filling your plate with one menu item is just as “valid” as any other. And somebody has to pay for it!
Congrats! The nanny state spending comes with. This is the problem with socially liberal fiscal conservatives. They deny cause and effect, and pretend they can be in any sense fiscally conservative after conceding all the dysfunctional assumptions that cause spending to skyrocket.
Steve (8ab96a) — 4/30/2012 @ 10:05 amA little reality:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/robert-j-samuelson/2011/02/24/ABSZV8O_page.html
In constant dollars, transfers to poor, $562 in 1962, $13,000 today, but Americas rich, the elderly, get the bulk.
60% of the $3.4 Trillion ‘on-budget’ spending are transfers of wealth.
gary gulrud (d88477) — 4/30/2012 @ 10:22 am“Before anyone suggests I’m picking on any particular ethnic group ”
Let’s wait till you find the other comment I made about moral progress:
“Another piece of moral progress is the end of Jim Crow, and the furtherance of civil rights.”
TJ (6eeaf5) — 4/30/2012 @ 10:23 amThe F-35 is expected today to cost $1.5 Trillion over its lifetime, except its up 75% before any deliveries and won’t be fleet-ready ’til 2020.
The Dept. of Education costs $100 Billion a year for nothing. Fannie and Freddie are underwater $3.5 Trillion or something as ridiculous.
Every bureau you can think of now has a swat team.
All this will not change Jan. 20th, 2013, just get worse.
gary gulrud (d88477) — 4/30/2012 @ 10:28 am126. “Another piece of moral progress is the end of Jim Crow, and the furtherance of civil rights”
That was 50 years ago. Lately, we get maintenance of the Death Cult in Gaza, the Death Cult on Chicago’s South Side, the Death Cult in PA abortion clinics, the Death Cult on our southern border, the Death Cult returning CA Central Valley desert,..
Progress exterminating the species. Ok, I’ll buy that to a degree.
gary gulrud (d88477) — 4/30/2012 @ 10:47 amFound it TJ, and found it too silly to address.
The problem and the point is you can call either advancing Constitutional principles or eroding Constitutional principles, or embracing social changes that lift people out of poverty or embracing social changes that lock growing numbers of people into poverty, “moral progress.”
You obviously have no principles that can guide you to distinguish between what constitutes progress or regress.
Destigmatizing dysfunction isn’t “moral progress,” but having done so it’s now your responsibility to foot the bill for it. So it’s too late for you or anyone else who decided to put their stamp of approval on behavior that creates wards of the state to claim to be a financial conservative.
Steve (8ab96a) — 4/30/2012 @ 10:58 am“You obviously have no principles that can guide you to distinguish between what constitutes progress or regress.”
I think you’re just not capable of handling when someone disagrees with you. When someone’s morals are not your own. Good luck with the future, because it will contain more progress for feminism and gay rights.
TJ (6eeaf5) — 4/30/2012 @ 11:17 amMore government-enforced “fairness”? Sign me up!
Icy (e2785d) — 4/30/2012 @ 11:48 am123. Comment by gary gulrud — 4/30/2012 @ 9:53 am
Public debt 230% of GDP, 93% domestically owned but dropping with gathering pace as pensioners cash in to buy groceries.
There you go again. It’s approaching or over 100% of GDP. Can’t you make that sound scary enough?
It was about 67% in 1994, dropped down to 56.6% in 2001, reached 64.8% in 2007 and 69.6% in 2008, and then started climbing.
And it is not 93% domestically owned:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt
As of January 2011, foreigners owned $4.45 trillion of U.S. debt, or approximately 47% of the debt held by the public of $9.49 trillion and 32% of the total debt of $14.1 trillion.[59]
The largest holders were the central banks of China, Japan, Brazil, Taiwan, Switzerland, Russia, and the United Kingdom.[61] The share held by foreign governments has grown over time, rising from 13% of the public debt in 1988[62] to 25% in 2007.[63]
As of May 2011 the largest single holder of US government debt was China, with 26 percent of all foreign-held US Treasury securities (8% of total US public debt).[64] China’s holdings of government debt, as a percentage of all foreign-held government debt, have decreased a bit between 2010 and 2011, but are up significantly since 2000 (when China held just 6 percent of all foreign-held U.S. Treasury securities).[65]
And if any pensioners are cashing in their savings bonds to buy groceries, they probably planned it that way.
When you say 250% are you maybe future social security liabilities or something like that? State and local government? Where does that number come from anyway?
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 4/30/2012 @ 12:02 pmhttp://www.newsmax.com/Headline/rodriguez-waterboarding-obama-pelosi/2012/04/30/id/437505
narciso (8d0f34) — 4/30/2012 @ 12:10 pmComment by gary gulrud — 4/30/2012 @ 9:53 am
Once 200 yen to the dollar, now 80 with furious printing of yen. Forecast to go to 60.
The theory that printing money causes inflation apparently isn’t working very well in Japan.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 4/30/2012 @ 12:11 pmRe: Decimate: that wasn’t used against civilians – that was used against their own soldiers as military punbishment.
http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/concepts_decimate.html
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 4/30/2012 @ 12:16 pmSammy – I don’t accept your argument that because things are different in 2012 than 2008 it is impossible for us to cut government spending, plus because it would cause magic asterisk “disruptions”, whatever those are in your mind.
When you look at the biggest items in the government budget, entitlements, plus defense, Democrats have no plan for entitlement reform. Republicans do. It’s farcical to have 100 programs providing food support to families, a $100 billion Department of Education, Departments of Energy and Interior that only serve to hinder our energy independence, an out of control EPA that needs to hire several hundred thousand bureaucrats to enforce its non-science based mandates, and public sector employees compensated at 2x the rate of private sector counterparts but without the job risk.
Creative disruption is sorely needed in our corrupt government.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 4/30/2012 @ 12:26 pmYou really can’t see the forest for the trees, can you?
No, I’m perfectly willing to disagree with someone. I’m just not willing to let someone evade the consequences of their actions. You sign on to the liberal program, you sign on to the liberal spending that axiomatically follows. And the disastrous effects that result.
I believe this is to be expected from someone who lacks the moral fiber to maintain the barriers by which society once discouraged illegitimacy. The fact is, illegitimacy is bad for children, whether they or their parents are stigmatized or not. Even now that there is no social stigma, all that means is that greater numbers of children are born and raised in poverty. And then they’ll go on to do the same because they don’t know any different.
Essentially, if you lack the decency to prevent this sort of destructive behavior in the first place, you also lack the decency to recognize that inevitably you get more of it by approving of it in the second place. Which you are amply demonstrating.
In general, liberals must obstinately ignore the results of the policies they approve of in order to convince themselves that their hearts are in the right place. Or, as you put it TJ, these policy choices represent “moral progress.”
You fail to realize there is no future in what you advocate. No society can afford to underwrite the levels of irresponsible behavior you’re willing to approve of. I’m not worried about the future because while you may be able to ignore the mountains of evidence that you’re wrong, eventually you and people like you will become objects of ridicule as greater numbers of people wake up to the fact that all you have to offer is a feel-good suicide pact. I doubt no dose of reality will ever wake you up.
Which just brings us back to the whole point of this comment thread. Democrats are the problem.
When you get right down to it, wrong-headed democrats wouldn’t be such a big problem if they weren’t aided and abetted by the soft-headed spinelessness that you are unwittingly illustrating. The problem with the progressive social policies that democrats so love isn’t simply that we can’t afford them, which is apparently what socially liberal fiscal conservatives have allowed themselves to be convinced of. It’s that these progressive social policies are not in any sense compassionate. They certainly aren’t “moral” nor do they embody “progress” by any objective measure. Quite the opposite.
This is not obvious at first. You have to be willing to follow the evidence. Most, like you, are unwilling to upset their cherished illusions by doing so. That’s why we are facing social calamity and economic collapse. So far from not being able to stand it when someone disagrees with me, I’d be disappointed if you didn’t. It isn’t just Ornstein and Mann, or for that matter Pelosi, Reid, and Obama, who are refusing to face up to reality. It’s helpful when other such people chime in to show the extent of the rot.
Steve (8ab96a) — 4/30/2012 @ 12:48 pm“I believe this is to be expected from someone who lacks the moral fiber to maintain the barriers by which society once discouraged illegitimacy.”
One way we’ve yet to advance is by not using ridiculous words like “illegitimate.” What’s illegitimate about it?
What next, talk about contraception coverage?
“This is not obvious at first. You have to be willing to follow the evidence. Most, like you, are unwilling to upset their cherished illusions by doing so. That’s why we are facing social calamity and economic collapse”
This is another way we’ve had progress. Look at how far we’ve advanced, both socially and economically, in the last 100 or so years. You want to talk calamity? The civil war was calamity. Slavery was a calamity. Now we have progress.
We do have the great recession, and a timid response to it, but we also have much better safety nets than the great depression. Again, thanks to progress.
TJ (6eeaf5) — 4/30/2012 @ 12:55 pmRight, after spending 60 million in tax payer funds, we’d rather not be insulted;
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brent-baker/2012/04/30/gumbel-whipping-frenzy-over-imagined-slights-play-straight-out-far-righ
narciso (8d0f34) — 4/30/2012 @ 12:58 pmhttp://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/washington-secrets/2012/04/obama-anti-obesity-%E2%80%9Cslush-fund%E2%80%9D-paid-pet-spaying/554751
narciso (8d0f34) — 4/30/2012 @ 12:59 pmComment by daleyrocks — 4/30/2012 @ 12:26 pm
Sammy – I don’t accept your argument that because things are different in 2012 than 2008 it is impossible for us to cut government spending,
I didn’t say it was impossible – I said it wasn’t simple or easy. Nothing as simple as going back to whatever was going on 5 years ago.
< plus because it would cause magic asterisk “disruptions”, whatever those are in your mind.
A change in current policy on the individual level. Adverse to some individuals, either in the form of tax increases or spending cuts.
Actually there are some things for which many more people are theoretically eligible than benefit. Head Start is an example. Now Head Start may be useless in the long term, as having good teachers in kindergarten is not enough to make up for 12 years of bad teaching later.
When you look at the biggest items in the government budget, entitlements, plus defense, Democrats have no plan for entitlement reform. Republicans do.
I’m not sure.
Now one problem is that some things that aren’t bad can be demonized and the Republicans don’t know how to defend it, maybe because they don’t really understand it! And there’s not even one Republican leader who can congently explain it.
There’s nothing bad in principle with premium support, for example, except for the possibility the support won’t be big enough – which is a risk.
But then there are bad idea floating around.
One of the ideas floating around is means testings Medicare and even Social Security which is not good. It would slowly destroy Medicare, just like Obamacare would slowly destroy medical care in the United States. And did they suddenly forget about incentives?
ANOTHER “GREAT” IDEA IS NOT ALLOWING PEOPLE TO DEDUCT STATE AND LOCAL INCOME TAXES. Romney seemed to think that was a sensible idea the oither day. Talk about double taxation! He lacks common sense, you know.
That’s not an entitlement, that goes into the category of “tax reform” but trying to balance a budget puts people in this kind of situation where they start adbocating things like that.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 4/30/2012 @ 12:59 pmWhat next, talk about contraception coverage?
Before, iamadimwit thought that contraception coverage was the proper role of the federal govt. now, he doesn’t want to talk about it. Cute.
JD (2585aa) — 4/30/2012 @ 1:00 pmIt’s farcical to have 100 programs providing food support to families,
No, wait a second, that’s competition.
a $100 billion Department of Education
Most of that spending I think is transferring money to the states.
Still, they could do away with a lot of conferences and the like. Not that that would amount to a large sum of money. Of couyrse maybe without a DOE some ideas for spoending wouldn’t go very far.
Departments of Energy and Interior that only serve to hinder our energy independence
Ah – they may be doing positive harm. Yes, there are government programs like that. Don’t forget ICE.
an out of control EPA that needs to hire several hundred thousand bureaucrats to enforce its non-science based mandates
They do?
Now you see this reminds of something where more money needs to be spent. The FDA. At least they could try approving things instead of having people wait. But the FDA in general is another bad organization.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 4/30/2012 @ 1:00 pmand public sector employees compensated at 2x the rate of private sector counterparts but without the job risk.
Unions will give you an argument, but it’s like this: When you compare people by the nature of the job, people working for the government are paid a lot more. When you compare people with similar educations and backgrounds, people working for government are paid about the same.
In other words, people working for government are overqualified!!! That is the result of civil service testing.
Now some people prefer these jobs. Some people have a hard time looking for jobs. But if the government were willing to take people who score less well, they could easily pay less and have people stay in the jobs as long.
But the problem in the federal government isn’t salaries of workers. That’s not where most of the money goes. That’s an issue in state and local government.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 4/30/2012 @ 1:01 pm0bama could not
Colonel Haiku (4ad427) — 4/30/2012 @ 1:01 pmslow jam closing of Gitmo
any slower could he?
could not possibly
Colonel Haiku (4ad427) — 4/30/2012 @ 1:04 pmbe more tight-assed lefties than
XWEB Forum clowns
Comment by daleyrocks — 4/30/2012 @ 12:26 pm
Creative disruption is sorely needed in our corrupt government.
In Poland, after the fall of Communism,theyt called this kind of thing “shock therapy.”
The important point is there must be some creation to go along with the destruction. People have to get into economically useful jobs. This can only happen with no real obstacles to starting new ventures.
Greece is an example where you have a lot of people doing things (or even not doing things) that don’t make sense. In macrfoeconomic terms,. the opverall productivity of the economy is low.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 4/30/2012 @ 1:36 pmPeople have to get into economically useful jobs
EPA bureaucrats can be reassigned to sweeping stables, which can be reclassified as another job Americans WILL do.
AD-RtR-OS! (b8ab92) — 4/30/2012 @ 1:44 pmOne person’s progress is another person’s very simple math problem. Trillion dollar deficits are not sustainable. They will end, one way or the other. Probably with a financial collapse.
I don’t think loading up the credit card in the short term is progress.
Dustin (330eed) — 4/30/2012 @ 2:13 pmSammy – The questions are simple. Do you believe an ever expanding government is good for the future of this country and that deficits and debt do not matter?
Based on what you have said in this thread, your answer would appear to be yes to all the above while mine would be no.
People who have a legitimate interest and the political will to reduce the size of government, deficits and debt can find a way. It is not rocket surgery, your protestations to the contrary.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 4/30/2012 @ 2:22 pm“But the problem in the federal government isn’t salaries of workers.”
Sammy – According to the Office of Personnel Management, payroll costs of civilian federal government employees in fiscal 2005 (excludes postal workers and military) was $151 billion. We know it has gone up significantly since the Democrats assumed control of Congress. It’s not where all the money goes, but it is a very controllable expense unless you are using it to buy votes.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 4/30/2012 @ 2:38 pmhttp://www.opm.gov/feddata/html/wypc/2005/2005wypc.pdf
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 4/30/2012 @ 2:39 pm134. “causing inflation isn’t working very well in Japan”
Our domestic markets are somewhat shielded from foreign exchange rates just not as ‘effectively’ as Japan. A notable exception for each is oil, but being denominated in dollars, until recently, the US noticed the fluctuations in price less than elsewhere.
Japan has been cowed into moderating its printing, and right now is a distant third to the ECB and US as central bank war instigators.
gary gulrud (d88477) — 4/30/2012 @ 3:55 pmThe right to inherit. Some claimants have legitimate claims, others don’t. In the past, children born within the marriage had the legitimate claims. The courts demolished that principle in the 1990s.
It’s all part of the assault on the special status marriage once had. The status that enabled marriage to be a stabilizing factor within society. Now, any one night stand is just as good.
Steve (8ab96a) — 4/30/2012 @ 4:46 pmApparently you don’t know the history of these things. Or even that there is a history to know. That’s understandable, since people like Judge Walker have to pretend it doesn’t exist to override society (he says the pro-prop 8 side presented no evidence on matters such as this in his decision; he lied, it’s in the transcript).
Which is why you can find the word “illegitimate” ridiculous even though it’s been the central purpose of marriage in western society to produce legitimate heirs from the time of the Greeks about 3000 years ago until, like Soviet encyclopedia editors, the courts decided to air brush that bit of our history out of existence less than 20 years ago.
Steve (8ab96a) — 4/30/2012 @ 4:55 pmhttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2137636/SEALs-slam-Obama-using-ammunition-bid-credit-bin-Laden-killing-election-campaign.html
narciso (8d0f34) — 4/30/2012 @ 5:41 pm“Now, any one night stand is just as good.”
Like the kids had anything to do with it. Progress for them.
TJ (6eeaf5) — 4/30/2012 @ 6:34 pmTJ, the destruction of the institutional of marriage has been a disaster for women. Its reduced their living standards and increased the number of women and children living in poverty. Its not “progress” for them. Your simplistic view of the situation is a bad joke.
SPQR (26be8b) — 4/30/2012 @ 6:40 pmSave your breath, Steve. This serial troll is just doing its performance art routine. Again.
JD (2585aa) — 4/30/2012 @ 6:41 pmThad ad reminds of this one, from last fall;
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/09/911-campaign-ad_n_955373.html
narciso (8d0f34) — 4/30/2012 @ 6:51 pmSure is fringey out here on the fringe.
Any concerns about Ryan’s wish to RAISE THE DEBT BY TRILLIONS MORE during the Bush Administration (in order to give even greater tax breaks to non-poor people.)?
Larry Reilly (9f99f8) — 4/30/2012 @ 7:06 pmThe Bush Admin thought Ryan was too far out there in his wish to raise the debt a whole lot more than did an undeclared war.
Wish it away, dudes.
“The Bush Admin thought Ryan was too far out there in his wish to raise the debt a whole lot more than did an undeclared war.
Wish it away, dudes.
Comment by Larry Reilly ”
Good Grief! Are you still wasting oxygen ?
Mike K (326cba) — 4/30/2012 @ 7:17 pmHe’s like Bill Press, but dimmer,
narciso (8d0f34) — 4/30/2012 @ 7:30 pmLarry “Crowne” Reilly
Colonel Haiku (4ad427) — 4/30/2012 @ 7:35 pmhttp://freebeacon.com/dumb-and-dumber/
narciso (8d0f34) — 4/30/2012 @ 7:42 pmLarry Reilly – Look Squirrel!
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 4/30/2012 @ 8:00 pm“TJ, the destruction of the institutional of marriage has been a disaster for women. Its reduced their living standards and increased the number of women and children living in poverty”
It seems like marriage is still there for those who want it, but not there for those who don’t. As for the living standards of women… personal income of women has gone up almost 3x from 1950 to 2004 (in real terms). For black women, it is 5x. Current poverty rates aren’t so great though but the blame for that might be the great recession, as they were better in the 90s.
But who knows, maybe the ladies you know prefer the good old days. I’m sure that life is still available to those who want it.
TJ (6eeaf5) — 4/30/2012 @ 8:04 pmMawy Reilly is a JournoLister.
JD (2585aa) — 4/30/2012 @ 8:16 pmIsn’t it cute how “TJ” hides from its own history?
JD (2585aa) — 4/30/2012 @ 8:18 pmhttp://hotair.com/archives/2012/04/30/elizabeth-warren-camp-its-kind-of-sexist-for-scott-brown-to-ask-if-shes-lying-about-being-native-american/
narciso (8d0f34) — 4/30/2012 @ 8:23 pmhttp://news.investors.com/article/609418/201204261900/russia-gains-stimulus-funded-ener1-technology.htm
narciso (8d0f34) — 4/30/2012 @ 8:24 pm“U.S. Perfecting Formula for Budget Failure, Says Bowles”
Sammy – Erskine Bowles, a Democrat, does not share your view of deficits and debt. A good read.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 4/30/2012 @ 8:37 pmSigh.
Partisan nut.
Even if you’re right in this rather stupid summary, the deficit is not going to continue. We have no choice but to cut spending. Maintaining current spending levels is not a real option.
If all you wish to say is that the GOP has not produced a balanced budget, very few would disagree. Spending is a bipartisan problem. There is no constructive way to blame our way out of this problem. The only practical purpose there is to keep political power for its own sake.
What we need is realistic spending reform.
On that issue, Paul Ryan stands head and shoulders above the democrat party.
Dustin (330eed) — 4/30/2012 @ 8:47 pmUtter insanity,
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2012/05/01/Obama-Prepared-to-Defy-UN-to-Make-Deal-With-Iran-on-Nuclear-Enrichment
narciso (8d0f34) — 5/1/2012 @ 5:49 amWhen even Nadler takes a step back;
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/04/30/ows-leader-questions-representative-government-cites-marx
narciso (8d0f34) — 5/1/2012 @ 5:57 amYes, and for those who don’t there is the irresponsible social spending required to support your illusion of “moral progress” as a substitute. A woman who you liberate to have all the children she wants outside of marriage to one man who might voluntarily support them can instead be dependent upon society as a whole which must involuntarily support them. Yeah, freedom!
Which is why homeless Angel Adams, living in a motel room with 13 of her 15 kids and demanding that somebody be “held accountable” and “pay for all this” in that news clip I linked to, is the perfect poster child for your warped view of “moral progress.” I can hardly blame her for responding naturally to your prompts and promises.
Your “sexual freedom” in the name of feminism means the rest of us foot the bill. Now we’ve got to borrow massive amounts of money to foot the bill. You’d saddle generations that can’t yet vote or aren’t yet born with crushing debt they never agreed to in order to maintain your illusions. You’d make them serfs; that’s the price of your “moral progress.”
I suppose I have to admit there is a sort of moral code to how you’d order society. But “from each according to their ability, to each according to their need” is a very inferior and inhuman one. No one adheres to the first clause voluntarily to produce the surpluses you’d like to redistribute like Santa Claus. Which is why when properly understood “from each according to their ability” is really a threat. Getting people to produce according to their ability when what they produce will be taken from them and go to support others requires force, either the whips of the plantation overseers or the gulags, forced labor camps, and mass murder of socialism.
And frankly it’s a moral code that makes it difficult to understand why even though you keep bringing it up you could have a problem with slavery at all. The only reason one human being ever held title to another was so that one could be forced to work not for their own but the title holder’s benefit. The only difference is that your scheme makes the future “state slaves” (as the unfortunate subjects of communist regimes were once called) and the fruits of their labor public instead of private property.
So, yes, got it. You’re irresponsible; you condone irresponsible behaviors that couldn’t exist without subsidies in the form of out-of-control social spending and consequent irresponsible levels of debt. You’ll never be willing to make a connection between out of control social spending, current debt levels, and the current economic conditions that you refer to as the “Great Recession.” And you’ll certainly refuse to acknowledge that the debt is the price of your expensive vanity policies.
You won’t stop. Your arguments prove nothing except like Ornstein and Mann you’ll never let reality get between you and what you advocate and therefore it’s up to the rest of us to stop you. You’re part of the problem. Again, I’d be disappointed if you didn’t disagree with me.
Steve (8ab96a) — 5/1/2012 @ 11:01 amComment by narciso — 5/1/2012 @ 5:49 am
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2012/05/01/Obama-Prepared-to-Defy-UN-to-Make-Deal-With-Iran-on-Nuclear-Enrichment
Of course not. (Obama wouldn’t do this withoiut getting another UN Resolution passed saying this is OK.)
And this is talk anyway.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 5/1/2012 @ 2:36 pm170. I put an update in the Los angeles Times thread. Comment 77 here:
https://patterico.com/2012/04/29/l-a-times-obama-using-tactic-formerly-thought-by-liberal-newspaper-editors-to-be-the-exclusive-province-of-the-gop-the-dreaded-wedge-issue/comment-page-4/#comment-961534
She now says she has discovered she is 1/32 American Indian (based on an 1894 marriage certifacte in Oklahoma where her son saiod his mother was Cherokee.)
But in the 1860 Census in Tennesseee all members of the family were listed as white. But since Indians had been removed by Andrew Jackson, they would have been.
But a person hardly needed to be full blooded to be considred Cherokee.
Cherokee may have been listed in 1894 only to avoid any possible imputation of African ancestry. Or maybe by the time it was of some benefit.
In any case if she never got on the tribal roles her ancestor would never have been legally an American Indian because legality today may depend on an ancestor being listed in the late 1800s.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 5/1/2012 @ 2:43 pm