The 2nd Term - Round 2 - Amensty for Some, Miniature AR-15s for Others...

[LynahFan]

Re: The 2nd Term - Round 2 - Amensty for Some, Miniature AR-15s for Others...

I guess the buck doesn't stop with Obama. Why is he worried about making unpopular cuts? What election is he worrying about now? I guess "Pope" is open...

Googling "Obama line item veto" turned up this gem. I guess he only wanted it for the window-dressing items, not for doing any meaningful spending cutting.

 

[Rover]

I guess the buck doesn't stop with Obama. Why is he worried about making unpopular cuts? What election is he worrying about now? I guess "Pope" is open...

Googling "Obama line item veto" turned up this gem. I guess he only wanted it for the window-dressing items, not for doing any meaningful spending cutting.

Why let the Republicans off the hook? They wanted the sequester so let them own it. There seems to be a disconnect with conservatives in that they don't realize the GOP is not in control of the government. It controls one half of one third of the government, and therefore everything doesn't get decided on their terms.

Before someone accuses me of not hashing out a plan, let me reiterate. I can completely understand why the GOP Congress doesn't want to embrace the part of Obama's plan that includes the Buffett rule as that would be part of a larger tax code revamp. However, I'm not sure why they wouldn't counteroffer with the idea of getting rid of the low hanging fruit (oil/AG tax breaks, carried interest, etc) and use that to ease the first couple of years of cuts. "We want to preserve all of Romney's tax breaks" is not a winning policy IMHO.

 

[LynahFan]

Re: The 2nd Term - Round 2 - Amensty for Some, Miniature AR-15s for Others...

Why let the Republicans off the hook?

Oh, I don't know - perhaps if he valued leadership above playing party politics... Now he's doing the exact same thing that the Republicans have been doing (and you've rightly called them out for) - holding a gun to the head of the economy and saying "Nope, you have to blink first. I won't lift the slightest pinkie to make the landing one single bit softer."

They wanted the sequester so let them own it. There seems to be a disconnect with conservatives in that they don't realize the GOP is not in control of the government. It controls one half of one third of the government, and therefore everything doesn't get decided on their terms.

Sequester was passed by a Democratic Senate and signed into law by a Democratic President, so in your calculus doesn't that means that the Democrats wanted it more than the Republicans?

 

[Rover]

Oh, I don't know - perhaps if he valued leadership above playing party politics... Now he's doing the exact same thing that the Republicans have been doing (and you've rightly called them out for) - holding a gun to the head of the economy and saying "Nope, you have to blink first. I won't lift the slightest pinkie to make the landing one single bit softer."

Sequester was passed by a Democratic Senate and signed into law by a Democratic President, so in your calculus doesn't that means that the Democrats wanted it more than the Republicans?

Lynah this is a bit unfair. Obama has put forward a proposal that's more cuts than revenues. The GOP is insisting all cuts and no revenues. In your opinion, who is closer to meeting in the middle? All of this is a negotiation, but aside from a link you posted that in all honestly doesn't even have the approval of Congressional Republicans (I believe McCain is against ceding those powers to Obama and the House GOP is also) I haven't seen much publically to suggest the GOP ready to make any deal that isn't 100% on their terms. Obviously I'm not privy to any private negotiations which we'll find out soon enough if those are occuring.

Regarding the sequester, it wouldn't exist if Congress hadn't held the debt limit hostage. As that was a Republican idea (they never did this when Bush was President and they held Congress) they get the blame as the American people seem to realize.

 

[LynahFan]

Re: The 2nd Term - Round 2 - Amensty for Some, Miniature AR-15s for Others...

My interest is not in who is "meeting in the middle" or who is getting credit for what. I just want a balanced budget, so if nobody is willing to step up and make the hard choices of what to cut, across the board cuts are fine with me - it seems I agree with Obama!

 

[Rover]

My interest is not in who is "meeting in the middle" or who is getting credit for what. I just want a balanced budget, so if nobody is willing to step up and make the hard choices of what to cut, across the board cuts are fine with me - it seems I agree with Obama!

Me too. Personally I don't want to see too much backtracking on the sequester. I'll gladly trade cuts to discretionary spending for big defense spending cuts. I can see the wisdom though of maybe easing the first couple of years of cuts with some gimmicky tax loopholes being closed.

As I've said before, some progress has been made although you'd never know it. By my count we'd have about 2T in tax hikes (payroll taxes, upper income, cap gains, etc) and 2T in spending (with a lot coming out of the defense). That's about all you can do before you get to re-doing the tax code and entitlement reform.

 

[Shirtless Guy]

Re: The 2nd Term - Round 2 - Amensty for Some, Miniature AR-15s for Others...

Me too. Personally I don't want to see too much backtracking on the sequester. I'll gladly trade cuts to discretionary spending for big defense spending cuts. I can see the wisdom though of maybe easing the first couple of years of cuts with some gimmicky tax loopholes being closed.

As I've said before, some progress has been made although you'd never know it. By my count we'd have about 2T in tax hikes (payroll taxes, upper income, cap gains, etc) and 2T in spending (with a lot coming out of the defense). That's about all you can do before you get to re-doing the tax code and entitlement reform.

Please tell me how our government can possibly have a revenue problem? We collect plenty of taxes, expenses are out of control. I think that's pretty obvious to most people. Also, the debt ceiling issue, you bring up a valid point that republicans didn't stop Bush from drastically increasing it over his 8 years, especially the last 4, but that doesn't make it wrong for the republicans to finally decide to put their foot down. The problem is that it is more political in nature and has little to do with actually stopping the out of control spending.

 

[Rover]

Please tell me how our government can possibly have a revenue problem? We collect plenty of taxes, expenses are out of control. I think that's pretty obvious to most people. Also, the debt ceiling issue, you bring up a valid point that republicans didn't stop Bush from drastically increasing it over his 8 years, especially the last 4, but that doesn't make it wrong for the republicans to finally decide to put their foot down. The problem is that it is more political in nature and has little to do with actually stopping the out of control spending.

In all seriousness, my take on it is this:

1) The American people will not tolerate the amount of cuts in spending that it would take to bring the budget in balance. Politicians reflect where the public is as you'd expect in a democracy with frequent elections. Reduce entitlements by 1T a year and the public will kick out of office the people who do so and elect ones that will restore the cuts. Why do you think spending never goes down even when Republicans have total control of the govt? Its not feasible.

2) So, the trick is to raise revenues and reduce spending to where you get a happy medium. At some level of taxation, which was achieved in the late 90's, you can pay for what people are demanding. Hence the need for some revenues as well as some cuts.

3) The idea that you have a spending problem is a half truth. As has been said, its like an obese person saying they have an eating problem, and therefore they don't see the point of exercising. Similarly, if your household is running a deficit, you could A) cut spending, B) bring in more money (2nd job, etc) or C) do both. I prefer C personally.

We could debate all day some nirvana state where people are happy you take away social security and Medicare and leave them to their own devices. You and I will never live to see that day, nor will anybody else. I'm not asking you to like that or think its logical, but it just is. Given those constraints lets find a way to fund it.

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: The 2nd Term - Round 2 - Amensty for Some, Miniature AR-15s for Others...

What a train wreck this nation is becoming. And when the wreck comes to a stop the American public will be shocked, even though they could see this coming down the tracks at them for a long time. Oh, for some true statesmanship for once!

 

[mookie1995]

Re: The 2nd Term - Round 2 - Amensty for Some, Miniature AR-15s for Others...

As I've said before, some progress has been made although you'd never know it. By my count we'd have about 2T in tax hikes (payroll taxes, upper income, cap gains, etc) and 2T in spending (with a lot coming out of the defense). That's about all you can do before you get to re-doing the tax code and entitlement reform.

couple months ago we added revenue. cutting spending by doing nothing more than winding down the wars is not cutting.

last step was repubs grabbing the ankles and letting rates rise.

bho is coming back to drop his 2nd load now, looking for more revenue. an olive branch of significant cuts would be what everyone wants to see (everyone except for those 47% )

 

[Shirtless Guy]

Re: The 2nd Term - Round 2 - Amensty for Some, Miniature AR-15s for Others...

In all seriousness, my take on it is this:

1) The American people will not tolerate the amount of cuts in spending that it would take to bring the budget in balance. Politicians reflect where the public is as you'd expect in a democracy with frequent elections. Reduce entitlements by 1T a year and the public will kick out of office the people who do so and elect ones that will restore the cuts. Why do you think spending never goes down even when Republicans have total control of the govt? Its not feasible.

2) So, the trick is to raise revenues and reduce spending to where you get a happy medium. At some level of taxation, which was achieved in the late 90's, you can pay for what people are demanding. Hence the need for some revenues as well as some cuts.

3) The idea that you have a spending problem is a half truth. As has been said, its like an obese person saying they have an eating problem, and therefore they don't see the point of exercising. Similarly, if your household is running a deficit, you could A) cut spending, B) bring in more money (2nd job, etc) or C) do both. I prefer C personally.

We could debate all day some nirvana state where people are happy you take away social security and Medicare and leave them to their own devices. You and I will never live to see that day, nor will anybody else. I'm not asking you to like that or think its logical, but it just is. Given those constraints lets find a way to fund it.

The problem with (3) is the government can't go get a 2nd job, it just takes a job away from someone else. It's not a net gain, you can't keep spending like we have been regardless of who is in charge. I don't think anyone expects medicare or social security to disappear but we can't keep expecting those programs to ever function in a meaningful way with the direction we're headed. I understand that (1) is very difficult, but we have to get real or this crazy train will become a trainwreck. We have to apply the brakes at some point. This country is a bunch of spoiled kids and someone needs to sit them down and tell them why we can't go out to eat every night and have to tighten our belts. If the country as a whole can't handle that, then we've already lost.

 

[SJHovey]

Re: The 2nd Term - Round 2 - Amensty for Some, Miniature AR-15s for Others...

In all seriousness, my take on it is this:

1) The American people will not tolerate the amount of cuts in spending that it would take to bring the budget in balance. Politicians reflect where the public is as you'd expect in a democracy with frequent elections. Reduce entitlements by 1T a year and the public will kick out of office the people who do so and elect ones that will restore the cuts. Why do you think spending never goes down even when Republicans have total control of the govt? Its not feasible.

2) So, the trick is to raise revenues and reduce spending to where you get a happy medium. At some level of taxation, which was achieved in the late 90's, you can pay for what people are demanding. Hence the need for some revenues as well as some cuts.

3) The idea that you have a spending problem is a half truth. As has been said, its like an obese person saying they have an eating problem, and therefore they don't see the point of exercising. Similarly, if your household is running a deficit, you could A) cut spending, B) bring in more money (2nd job, etc) or C) do both. I prefer C personally.

We could debate all day some nirvana state where people are happy you take away social security and Medicare and leave them to their own devices. You and I will never live to see that day, nor will anybody else. I'm not asking you to like that or think its logical, but it just is. Given those constraints lets find a way to fund it.

I disagree with you in one respect. I think there are a lot of very well off people in this country who receive social security, and frankly, find it silly. Of course they're going to take it. It's the law, the government sends it to them, and they're "entitled" to it, apparently. But I have spoken to many retirees who find the whole thing ludicrous. Will I need social security or medicare benefits when I retire? Sure doesn't look like it. Will I take them, if offered? Of course. Only a fool turns down an offer of money for nothing.

SS and Medicare need to go back to what they were originally intended to accomplish -- provide a safety net for those who need it. Not serve as some sort of government run retirement plan.

You do that a little at a time, slowly tightening the ring of eligible people. You'll get there. It just takes someone with the courage to do it.

The problem is, we have politicians in charge, and politicians like patronage. They thrive on it. It keeps them at the reins of power. That's why we'd probably be better off in this country with some sort of Greek-style economic meltdown, rather than the slow, France-like death spiral.

 

[Rover]

couple months ago we added revenue. cutting spending by doing nothing more than winding down the wars is not cutting.

I used to be in this camp, until it dawned on me that if you didn't pass a law taking away the war spending once the wars ended, the Pentagon would just find other things to spend it on! C'mon, you know that would happen. So yes, in fact you do need to say that funding is gone before they get any ideas.

Regarding cuts to entitlements, my focus if I ruled the country with an iron hand (after I outlawed Boston College) would be to make the entitlement programs more efficient without resorting to cuts in service. So, how does that happen? SoS is set pretty well. I would entertain a slowdown in future benefit increases with the chained CPI which is a fair policy. However, I would just plow those savings back in SoS as that program has a dedicated funding stream and isn't part of the problem. For Medicare/Medicaid, start with fraud crackdown, tort reform, changing the way doctors/hospitals are paid (as in not by every procedure they do), bargaining for generic drugs, etc. See what that does for you. I don't know too many pols who run on a pro-fraud platform, so this ought to have bipartisan support.

Then as you take a deeper dive you should look at people of considerable means drawing more out of the system then they put in. I wouldn't start with that though.

So to sum up, nobody is saying that we shouldn't cut any spending. However, saying we can get there totally with spending cuts is to ignore reality. The voting public won't stand for that. Blame the American people if you'd like, but pols can't do much for long without their consent.

 

[unofan]

Please tell me how our government can possibly have a revenue problem? We collect plenty of taxes, expenses are out of control. I think that's pretty obvious to most people. Also, the debt ceiling issue, you bring up a valid point that republicans didn't stop Bush from drastically increasing it over his 8 years, especially the last 4, but that doesn't make it wrong for the republicans to finally decide to put their foot down. The problem is that it is more political in nature and has little to do with actually stopping the out of control spending.

Once again, the debt ceiling is not a spending limit, but a repayment limit. It's an artificial creation to give the minority party political points. If congress wants to reign in spending, that's what the budget is for. Refusing to raise the debt ceiling to cover spending congress already made is asinine.

So yes, the GOP was 100% wrong for putting up more than token resistance.

 

[Shirtless Guy]

Re: The 2nd Term - Round 2 - Amensty for Some, Miniature AR-15s for Others...

Once again, the debt ceiling is not a spending limit, but a repayment limit. It's an artificial creation to give the minority party political points. If congress wants to reign in spending, that's what the budget is for. Refusing to raise the debt ceiling to cover spending congress already made is asinine.

So yes, the GOP was 100% wrong for putting up more than token resistance.

Its not a repayment limit, its a borrowing limit. Reigning in spending by preventing the government from borrowing more money seems perfectly reasonable to me. Granted what they should do is put more effort into stopping the spending bills but the republicans rarely have spines.

 

[Craig P.]

Re: The 2nd Term - Round 2 - Amensty for Some, Miniature AR-15s for Others...

Please tell me how our government can possibly have a revenue problem? We collect plenty of taxes...

A combination of tax cuts and the bad economy pushed revenues to long-time lows as recently as a year or so ago, so in point of fact, we don't collect "plenty" of taxes, depending on how you define "plenty". The recent tax increases will certainly get us part of the way to where we need to be, but I don't think they'll be enough to make all of the needed revenue.

Me too. Personally I don't want to see too much backtracking on the sequester. I'll gladly trade cuts to discretionary spending for big defense spending cuts.

One potential issue is that defense spending cuts need to be managed to agree with defense appropriations. I've seen complaints from defense folks that they can't cut waste immediately because it's either Congressionally-mandated or it's on an appropriation cycle where it needed to be cut a year or two ago. It would be nice to keep the same dollar amount for DoD cuts but work with them to do a better job of cutting efficiently.

 

[Craig P.]

Re: The 2nd Term - Round 2 - Amensty for Some, Miniature AR-15s for Others...

Its not a repayment limit, its a borrowing limit.

Functionally, it's both. It's a limit on borrowing money to pay for things that the government previously obligated itself to pay for.

Reigning in spending by preventing the government from borrowing more money seems perfectly reasonable to me.

I guess it's reasonable enough if it's part of the budgeting process. It's not reasonable when it's separate from the agreement to spend money in the first place.

 

[Rover]

Re: The 2nd Term - Round 2 - Amensty for Some, Miniature AR-15s for Others...

Exactly. On the debt limit if the GOP didn't want to raise it they shouldn't have agreed to the spending that already occured that's causing it to go up. Its like if you buy a house and then just decide on your own to stop paying the mortgage because you want to make a point that you don't like your bank. If you choose to do so the consequences will be dire so its a better idea to find a different way to make your stand.

 

[mookie1995]

Re: The 2nd Term - Round 2 - Amensty for Some, Miniature AR-15s for Others...

A combination of tax cuts and the bad economy pushed revenues to long-time lows as recently as a year or so ago, so in point of fact, we don't collect "plenty" of taxes, depending on how you define "plenty". The recent tax increases will certainly get us part of the way to where we need to be, but I don't think they'll be enough to make all of the needed revenue..

so the us gov had less revenue than they did in 2004? wow!!

 

[FreshFish]

Re: The 2nd Term - Round 2 - Amensty for Some, Miniature AR-15s for Others...

we don't collect "plenty" of taxes, depending on how you define "plenty".

Sadly, no matter how much is collected in taxes, the refrain seems to be "it's never enough."

The first rule of economics: humans have unlimited wants and limited resources.

The Demagog is really good at the first part. No one really speaks for the second part. the debt limit is a token recognition of it at least. We've had fights over the debt limit since at least the mid 1960s. Hasn't done much good to help people realize that you cannot be all things to all people and still remain fiscally solvent at the same time.

It is really pathetic that NO ONE in this "debate" is preparing for increased debt service payments when interest rates go back to historical norms. Move short-term yields from 0.5% to 2.0% and interest payments quadruple. We absolutely must reduce the rate of increase in the spending baseline elsewhere. "Limited resources" always always always wins out over unlimited wants in the long run. ALWAYS without exception.