The 112th Congress: Debt ceiling edition

[Bakunin]

Re: The 112th Congress: Debt ceiling edition

Curious how many of those people support raising taxes on everyone, not just the rich. They should let ALL of the Bush tax cuts expire, not just the ones on the rich.

I'm sure the percentage is much lower because greed is a common human trait. If somebody else has been subsidizing your lifestyle all these years, why would you want that to change? It's pure self interest. The problem is people's expectations on the receiving end are way out of sync with what they should be paying into the system. Everybody should be paying a bit more, and the government should be spending a bit less. Until a majority comes to this conclusion, we will continue along this idiotic path of "make the rich pay for it" vs "we can get all the way there by cutting".

Amusingly, this same battle is playing out in Minnesota (only the entire legislature is GOP-controlled), and the government is about to shut down because of it.

 

[Kepler]

Re: The 112th Congress: Debt ceiling edition

If somebody else has been subsidizing your lifestyle all these years, why would you want that to change?

I'll say.

 

[Almington]

Re: The 112th Congress: Debt ceiling edition

Amusingly, this same battle is playing out in Minnesota (only the entire legislature is GOP-controlled), and the government is about to shut down because of it.

True, but shutting down the government, while stupid in and of itself, isn't even in the same universe of stupid as threatening to blow up the credit rating of the federal government (and with it the global economy).

I'm more than willing to slash spending to 20% (from ~25% total GDP today) but only if we increase taxes to raise revenues to cover that 20% (from ~15% total GDP today).

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: The 112th Congress: Debt ceiling edition

I'll say.

Problem is, no one cares. No one that matters anyway, including the majority of the "voting" public. Give them another tax cut, they're the job creators after all. It's amazing how many jobs those guys have created the last 10 years with that huge tax cut from Bush and 10 trillion dollars in government spending.

 

[Handyman]

Re: The 112th Congress: Debt ceiling edition

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I think this about sums it up...

 

[Priceless]

Re: The 112th Congress: Debt ceiling edition

From the liberal hacks over at Forbes

Today we learned that the Republicans walked away from the very approach to resolving the deficit put forth by the GOP members of the Congressional Joint Economic Committee just three months ago.

Ezra Klein and Mike Konczal report today on the document prepared by the Republican staff to the Congressional Joint Economic Committee, under the direction of GOP Congressman Kevin Bradley and posted on Speaker Boehner’s website. In the report, published in March, 2011 and entitled, “Spend Less, Owe Less, Grow the Economy”, the Republicans proposed that, “successful fiscal consolidations averaged 85% spending cuts and 15% revenue increases, while unsuccessful fiscal consolidations averaged 47% spending cuts and 53% revenue increases.”

Last week, the Obama administration agreed to a bargain that would reduce our deficit by $2.4 trillion- $2 trillion coming from spending cuts and the remaining $400 million from revenue increases (taxes, ending corporate subsidies, etc.)

That works out to 83% in spending cuts and 17% from increased revenues.

Again, just three months ago, the GOP suggested that the successful approach involved a ratio of 85% to 15%.

You have to admit that those numbers come awfully close – certainly close enough that a rational individual seeking a compromise could see how a deal might be struck.

And yet, the 83:17 deal caused House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, followed by GOP Senate big-wig John Kyl, to get up and leave the bargaining table.

Still believe that the Republicans really want to make a deal?

This has prompted Democrats to look at this part of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution:

Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.

Obama can simply say the debt ceiling is unconstitutional and all this goes away. SCOTUS could be expected to rule against Obama, but CJ Roberts might consider this part of the Unitary Executive Theory and say the <del>dictator</del> president has the authority to do whatever he damm well pleases.

Oh, and the drop dead date is not 2 August but 22 July because even if a deal is struck, it takes time to write, pass and sign the law and for the money to circulate through the system. So if there is a deal it has to be done in three weeks.

 

[Kepler]

Re: The 112th Congress: Debt ceiling edition

SCOTUS could be expected to rule against Obama, but CJ Roberts might consider this part of the Unitary Executive Theory and say the <del>dictator</del> president has the authority to do whatever he damm well pleases.

Silly rabbit. Unitary Executive Theory only applies when a Republican is in the White House. Otherwise it's "a troubling incursion against legislative authority and (cue angelic choir) the Will of the People."

At some point the CEO of Goldman is going to pick up the red phone (surgically connected to the cortex of every Congressman upon election, as ordered by Citizens United) and say, "we'll just evade our taxes anyway, like always" and order them to raise it.

Here's the Bipartisan Policy Center's analysis of what playing chicken really means.

“Based on publicly available data, we have estimated daily cash flows through the end of August 2011. Our analysis shows that the government will be unable to pay all of its bills on August 3 or sometime soon thereafter,” said BPC Visiting Scholar Jay Powell, a former Under Secretary of the Treasury for Finance under President George H. W. Bush.

Under a system of prioritization, to pick one illustration, Treasury could exhaust all inflows for the month of August by paying only six major items: interest on our existing debt, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, unemployment insurance and defense contracts. Without cutting from these items, there would be no money to fund entire U.S. departments, such as Justice, Labor, and Commerce. There would also not be funds to pay for veterans’ benefits, IRS refunds, military active duty pay, federal salaries and benefits, special education programs, Pell Grants for college students or food and rent payments for the poor. “The choices would not be pretty,” said Powell.

Moreover, BPC’s research shows that the day-to-day outlook would be even more harrowing. For example, if the cash shortage begins on August 3, as projected by Treasury, the government could find itself unable to make a $23 billion Social Security payment that has to go out that day.

 

[Bakunin]

Re: The 112th Congress: Debt ceiling edition

There's a reason I maintain a healthy emergency reserve despite having a federal job, and this is it: you simply cannot underestimate the stupidity of elected representatives.

 

[Kepler]

Re: The 112th Congress: Debt ceiling edition

There's a reason I maintain a healthy emergency reserve despite having a federal job, and this is it: you simply cannot underestimate the stupidity of elected representatives.

Work in defense. Voters will tolerate cuts to poor people, sick people, and old people (in that order) but they'll never tolerate cuts in their Overcompensation Phallic Projection.

 

[Bakunin]

Re: The 112th Congress: Debt ceiling edition

Department of Veterans Affairs - it's close enough to defense.

 

[Kepler]

Re: The 112th Congress: Debt ceiling edition

Department of Veterans Affairs - it's close enough to defense.

The problem is Wall Street can't make as much of a buck off vets, who after all are probably poor, sick, old people.

We'll get you a wreath.

 

[Bakunin]

Re: The 112th Congress: Debt ceiling edition

The problem is Wall Street can't make as much of a buck off vets, who after all are probably poor, sick, old people.

You could say similar things about medicare/medicaid, and neither of those is going away anytime soon. Plus since we can't stop getting into wars, it's not like there'll be any precipitous decline in our patient population.

And if anything, the patient demographic is trending younger. WWII and Korean War vets are dying off, so we're seeing more and more Vietnam Era to the present vets (including Gulf War I and II + Afghanistan). While the inpatients are obviously sick, the bulk of our patient visits are outpatient in nature. The system is expanding in that regard.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: The 112th Congress: Debt ceiling edition

Minnesota's Government is shutdown today and we're divided here about the same as the Feds. I'd say it's a safe bet that since this deal didn't happen the debt ceiling will not be raised and our economy will tank. Great Forbes article, Priceless. You could take the same frame and write it for the Minnesota shutdown.

 

[Bakunin]

Re: The 112th Congress: Debt ceiling edition

Minnesota's Government is shutdown today and we're divided here about the same as the Feds. I'd say it's a safe bet that since this deal didn't happen the debt ceiling will not be raised and our economy will tank. Great Forbes article, Priceless. You could take the same frame and write it for the Minnesota shutdown.

The state government shutdown is embarrassing and an inconvenience (since it is fairly certain to be short-term). However, in terms of long-term consequences, I don't expect there will be any. Other than our elected representatives looking like idiots, what exactly were the long-term effects of the last state shutdown a few years ago? I can't think of any, can you?

The stakes are far higher at the federal level - if they screw this up, we are looking at an unmitigated disaster next month.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: The 112th Congress: Debt ceiling edition

The state government shutdown is embarrassing and an inconvenience (since it is fairly certain to be short-term). However, in terms of long-term consequences, I don't expect there will be any. Other than our elected representatives looking like idiots, what exactly were the long-term effects of the last state shutdown a few years ago? I can't think of any, can you?

The stakes are far higher at the federal level - if they screw this up, we are looking at an unmitigated disaster next month.

It only went about 5 days last time. This one is likely to go on for a long time.

The rhetoric is the same. Dayton offered to only increase taxes on those making more than 1 million dollars at the end. That still wasn't good enough. You can't raise taxes on the folks who have all the money cause they also have all the power. We're going into default.

 

[Bakunin]

Re: The 112th Congress: Debt ceiling edition

It only went about 5 days last time. This one is likely to go on for a long time.

I don't think it'll drag out that long. People in this state don't have much patience when it comes to crap like this, and pressure will be brought to bear on both sides. The inability to access the state park system during the one tolerable season of the year is going to p*ss off a *lot* of people. Putting all the state construction projects into a holding pattern is also going to draw a lot of negative attention.

The rhetoric is the same. Dayton offered to only increase taxes on those making more than 1 million dollars at the end. That still wasn't good enough. You can't raise taxes on the folks who have all the money cause they also have all the power. We're going into default.

You have to keep in mind that many of the GOP legislators campaigned on holding the line on spending and taxes. If they compromise on that, they're going to lose their re-election bids much like Bush lost his bid in '92 after agreeing to a tax hiking budget deal with the Democrats after famously campaigning on a no new taxes pledge. The only way out for MN is to go the user fee route as that raises revenue and gives the GOP an out by allowing them to say "we didn't raise anyone's taxes". It's obviously rhetorical bull****, but that's where we're at politically these days.

 

[Kepler]

Re: The 112th Congress: Debt ceiling edition

The problem is you can fire the representatives but you can't fire the voters.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: The 112th Congress: Debt ceiling edition

I don't think it'll drag out that long. People in this state don't have much patience when it comes to crap like this, and pressure will be brought to bear on both sides. The inability to access the state park system during the one tolerable season of the year is going to p*ss off a *lot* of people. Putting all the state construction projects into a holding pattern is also going to draw a lot of negative attention.

You have to keep in mind that many of the GOP legislators campaigned on holding the line on spending and taxes. If they compromise on that, they're going to lose their re-election bids much like Bush lost his bid in '92 after agreeing to a tax hiking budget deal with the Democrats after famously campaigning on a no new taxes pledge. The only way out for MN is to go the user fee route as that raises revenue and gives the GOP an out by allowing them to say "we didn't raise anyone's taxes". It's obviously rhetorical bull****, but that's where we're at politically these days.

Run for a spot in the legislature which most important job is to pass a budget and get elected by saying that you can't compromise. We elect idiots.

That Forbes blurb is very telling.

 

[walrus]

Re: The 112th Congress: Debt ceiling edition

The problem is you can fire the representatives but you can't fire the voters.

The voters aren't smart enough to fire the Reps so we don't even do that

 

[Kepler]

Re: The 112th Congress: Debt ceiling edition

The voters aren't smart enough to fire the Reps so we don't even do that

That's a different problem. In this case, the overwhelming advantage of incumbency ought to allow reps to go back on stupid electioneering promises that will bankrupt the country and actually get away with it -- the laziness of voters ought to be a good thing here. The scary thing is there are plenty of GOP House members who are so ideologically blinded and mentally handicapped that they are no smarter than their constituents. They're actually doing this because they believe it's what Baby Jesus wants them to do.

The Dems shouldn't be waiting until after the fact, they should be bombarding voters right now with the message that the Republicans are risking fiscal (and maybe monetary) Armageddon, and a double dip would be squarely on them. Dems should be out there saying "look at this crap. Give the Dems full control of the House and enough Senators to get rid of cloture voters. We need a real government, no these lunatics." There are probably a few GOP fence sitters who still think they can blame a train wreck on Obama. Remove that possibility from the equation and take the irresponsible choice away from them.