Obama Presidential Thread XIX: Starting a new chapter

[WeWantMore]

Re: Obama Presidential Thread XIX: Starting a new chapter

Eventually "mandatory" spending will have to be cut. The most obvious place to start is by means testing it and phasing it out for people with higher incomes, but after that adjustment there will still have to be cuts in benefits. We will have to reconfigure Social Security and Medicare as insurance programs rather than fixed interest accounts (that appreciate higher than the market rate of return).

You better have a word with Harry Reid then.

 

[Priceless]

Re: Obama Presidential Thread XIX: Starting a new chapter

you better have a word with any politician who wants to be re-elected then.

fyp

 

[WeWantMore]

Re: Obama Presidential Thread XIX: Starting a new chapter

fyp

Well, not quite. Paul Ryan has a proposal out, and he has to stand for election every two years. House Republicans as a whole are going to include entitlement reform in their budget proposal. Rand Paul will release a proposal in the next few weeks.

Meanwhile, Leader Reid has said: "Social Security is off the table". Great leadership there Harry.

 

[Priceless]

Re: Obama Presidential Thread XIX: Starting a new chapter

Well, not quite. Paul Ryan has a proposal out, and he has to stand for election every two years. House Republicans as a whole are going to include entitlement reform in their budget proposal. Rand Paul will release a proposal in the next few weeks.

Meanwhile, Leader Reid has said: "Social Security is off the table". Great leadership there Harry.

He shouldn't be the Senate Majority Leader anyway, but that's another issue.

I haven't read through Paul Ryan's proposal but how many votes is it going to get in the House? 100? 150? It won't pass, but will get a lot of votes from people who like to demagogue on the issue.

There's a sharp divide between what has to be done and what the public will allow the politicians to do. The public is an uneducated mob. "Cut the budget, but nothing that impacts me!"

Cut defense spending by eliminating 250,000 contractors (as Alan Simpson proposed), but that's a quarter of a million people that will now be out of work.

Cut Social Security (just not mine!) Cut infrastructure (insert picture of I-35 bridge in Minneapolis). Cut education! (the US is already doing so well on test scores).

The time to get the financial house in order was 10 years ago before the bubble burst and we had the money. One person wanted to put revenues in a "lockbox" and another wanted to give it all to billionaires and invade two countries. The guy with the lockbox was turned into a punch line. That lockbox sure looks good now, doesn't it?

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: Obama Presidential Thread XIX: Starting a new chapter

But you agreed with me that a fool is someone who makes claims that aren't supported by facts. So you're agreeing that you're a fool.

Or are you changing your story?

Because it can't be both.

Liberals have pointed out that the budget was balanced under Clinton. Some even have credited him. But no one, certainly not a liberal around here, has accused him of being fiscally conservative. So you are either admitting you're a fool or you're changing your story because you didn't mean what you posted. Which is it?

Some of us live in a world with shades of gray, where everything isn't 100 percent black and white. Apparently such nuance is not in your arsenal.

 

[WeWantMore]

Re: Obama Presidential Thread XIX: Starting a new chapter

I haven't read through Paul Ryan's proposal but how many votes is it going to get in the House? 100? 150? It won't pass, but will get a lot of votes from people who like to demagogue on the issue.

We'll see. They claim to have at least 218 votes locked up. I'm not particularly optimistic though.

 

[Priceless]

Re: Obama Presidential Thread XIX: Starting a new chapter

Some of us live in a world with shades of gray, where everything isn't 100 percent black and white. Apparently such nuance is not in your arsenal.

When you say that you are sick of all the liberals around here saying that Clinton was a fiscal conservative and there are actually zero liberals who make such a claim, it's pretty black and white. You're wrong, I called you on it and instead of admitting you were wrong you've succeeded in not only being wrong but looking like an idiot at the same time. Well done.

Look, admit you were wrong. I'll make it easy on you. I'll even show you how. What you meant was that you're sick and tired of liberals praising Clinton for balancing the budget, but instead you said he was fiscally conservative. Mistake fixed and we can move on, OK?

 

[unofan]

Re: Obama Presidential Thread XIX: Starting a new chapter

The time to get the financial house in order was 10 years ago before the bubble burst and we had the money. One person wanted to put revenues in a "lockbox" and another wanted to give it all to billionaires and invade two countries. The guy with the lockbox was turned into a punch line. That lockbox sure looks good now, doesn't it?

The lockbox was only for social security, which has its issues but those issues would still be present with or without the lockbox (its problems are primarily one of demographics and how it's funded) - the budget deficit would be there regardless.

I think a point that needs to be emphasized at every opportunity when talking about eliminating waste is the ginormous sucking sound that is the ever increasing portion of the budget that goes towards debt servicing - i.e., interest. If you balance the budget or even pay off the debt, you'll free up money for actual programs.

 

[Priceless]

Re: Obama Presidential Thread XIX: Starting a new chapter

We'll see. They claim to have at least 218 votes locked up. I'm not particularly optimistic though.

I'm a liberal, but I'm also a pragmatist. The budget has to be fixed and there aren't many people who are going to avoid getting hit when it happens. The only way it is going to work is if everybody accepts that they are going to get hit...what's that called...oh yeah, sacrifice. I vaguely remember my grandmother talking about how they used to have to do that during the Great Depression and WWII. When is the last time anyone in power called on the American people to sacrifice anything?

 

[geezer]

Re: Obama Presidential Thread XIX: Starting a new chapter

wow, you're sounding like me these days!

You beat me to it. Someone turned Kepler into a heartless coldblooded conservative.

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: Obama Presidential Thread XIX: Starting a new chapter

When you say that you are sick of all the liberals around here saying that Clinton was a fiscal conservative and there are actually zero liberals who make such a claim, it's pretty black and white. You're wrong, I called you on it and instead of admitting you were wrong you've succeeded in not only being wrong but looking like an idiot at the same time. Well done.

Look, admit you were wrong. I'll make it easy on you. I'll even show you how. What you meant was that you're sick and tired of liberals praising Clinton for balancing the budget, but instead you said he was fiscally conservative. Mistake fixed and we can move on, OK?

And you don't see any connection between being a fiscal conservative of some sort and balancing the budget? And yet you stand in judgement over me? That's rich, really rich. But, I've learned that it's not worth the effort to connect all the dots for you, as you are just looking for an argument.

Oh, and earlier I was told that Clinton didn't have to do that much with balancing the budget (avoiding the question of whether it was truly balanced or not), so you libs need to get your story straight at least.

 

[Priceless]

Re: Obama Presidential Thread XIX: Starting a new chapter

And you don't see any connection between being a fiscal conservative of some sort and balancing the budget? And yet you stand in judgement over me? That's rich, really rich. But, I've learned that it's not worth the effort to connect all the dots for you, as you are just looking for an argument.

Oh, and earlier I was told that Clinton didn't have to do that much with balancing the budget (avoiding the question of whether it was truly balanced or not), so you libs need to get your story straight at least.

Guess not.

Your flaw is that you naturally assume that only a fiscal conservative can balance the budget. A liberal could NEVER balance the budget, therefore Clinton had to have been a fiscal conservative. That's your faulty logic, not the fault of all the liberals around here.

The budget was balanced. See?

1998	1,721,733	1,652,463	 69,270
1999	1,827,459	1,701,849	125,610
2000	2,025,198	1,788,957	236,241
2001	1,991,142	1,862,906	128,236

Receipts/Outlays/Surplus (Defecit) in millions of $

See that those numbers at the end are positive? That's because the government had more in receipts than it spent (aka: a surplus)

Try to change the subject if you like, but the fact remains that what you wrote was wrong. No liberals around here have accused Clinton of being a fiscal conservative.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Obama Presidential Thread XIX: Starting a new chapter

You beat me to it. Someone turned Kepler into a heartless coldblooded conservative.

I still believe in a 99% top marginal rate, so don't think too highly of me.

I want to balance the budget, but I understand that involves both cutting spending and restoring the tax structure we had during our better days as a nation and a society. And I'd mothball the Pentagon long before the Dept. of Education.

But even I can see the Simple Math of the debt leads to bankruptcy.

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: Obama Presidential Thread XIX: Starting a new chapter

Guess not.

Your flaw is that you naturally assume that only a fiscal conservative can balance the budget. A liberal could NEVER balance the budget, therefore Clinton had to have been a fiscal conservative. That's your faulty logic, not the fault of all the liberals around here.

The budget was balanced. See?

1998	1,721,733	1,652,463	 69,270
1999	1,827,459	1,701,849	125,610
2000	2,025,198	1,788,957	236,241
2001	1,991,142	1,862,906	128,236

Receipts/Outlays/Surplus (Defecit) in millions of $

See that those numbers at the end are positive? That's because the government had more in receipts than it spent (aka: a surplus)

Try to change the subject if you like, but the fact remains that what you wrote was wrong. No liberals around here have accused Clinton of being a fiscal conservative.

You're amazing. You create all these false conclusions of mine and then knock down your strawmen. Go troll someone else.

 

[Priceless]

Re: Obama Presidential Thread XIX: Starting a new chapter

You're amazing. You create all these false conclusions of mine and then knock down your strawmen. Go troll someone else.

Did you or did you not claim that liberals around here said Clinton was a fiscal conservative?

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: Obama Presidential Thread XIX: Starting a new chapter

Did you or did you not claim that liberals around here said Clinton was a fiscal conservative?

Ah, now you reword what you said that I said, in contrast to your last posting with all sorts of things I supposedly said. Would you at least make up your mind what you want to say I say?

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: Obama Presidential Thread XIX: Starting a new chapter

Kudos to the Obama Administration for showing some flexibility in working with Arizona's need to scale back certain medical coverages under the state's generous AHCCCS program. I'm surprised, but pleased.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/elect...1/02/16/20110216arizona-health-care-cuts.html

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: Obama Presidential Thread XIX: Starting a new chapter

Bob, you're spinning like a top. Only O'Reilly himself gets to do that.

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: Obama Presidential Thread XIX: Starting a new chapter

Bob, you're spinning like a top. Only O'Reilly himself gets to do that.

You mean my kind words for Obama? Hey, if he does the right thing, I'll be here leading the praise. And this decision shows some flexibility to work with states that have spending/budget challenges. As I said the other day, I'll give credit where credit is due.

 

[Priceless]

Re: Obama Presidential Thread XIX: Starting a new chapter

Ah, now you reword what you said that I said, in contrast to your last posting with all sorts of things I supposedly said. Would you at least make up your mind what you want to say I say?

I tried posting several points at once but you weren't able (or willing) to follow along, so for your sake we're going to go one at a time.

First, did you or did you not post

All I know is that I hear liberals around here constantly trumpet what a wonderful fiscally conservative President Clinton was. Glad to hear not everyone takes such simplistic and at least somewhat inaccurate views.