A reprieve from the hazy, hot and humid days–enjoy, it will be short lived. We need a slow, gentle rain for a day.
Are the Manassas folks going through withdrawl after all the excitement?
129 Thoughts to “Open Thread…………………………………………….Tuesday, July 26”
Comments are closed.
@Moon-howler
See, here’s the problem.
The spending for WWII was a special case. It was not just pork and entitlements. It was a TRUE emergency, not the crap we’re being handed now.
So, no I wouldn’t, THEN. NOW, I’m dead serious.
Because the clowns in Congress today, could care less about the debt limit, etc. They are spending this money to buy votes and to change the structure of the government and its relation to the citizenry. None of the bills offered in Congress do anything to cut spending.
Its funny, though, how the Republicans can offer TWO plans to solve the problems, get shot down by a Senate that refuses to even hold a vote on them, and the GOP gets blamed for not compromising, and then the Senate states it has a bill that it knows won’t pass the HOUSE, and the GOP STILL gets blamed for not compromising. And then the President says that he’ll veto anything that does not match his ideas exactly, and the GOP STILL GETS THE BLAME.
Tell me again, that “compromise” and “bipartisanship” is not code words for “Do what the Democrats want.”
Cargo, I think you think that WWII didn’t have waste. Of course it had waste, lots of it. There was even SS back then. However, there were not the social safety nets in place that there are now. The 9-11 attack and subsequent wars were a special case also. The 2008 Crash was a special case also. There are no blue prints for the proper response. You have to rally your team, call in the experts, and do the best job you can with the knowledge you have. I see little difference in comparing the time periods as far as catastrophic events setting wheels in motion that needed response.
I don’t think today is just pork and entitlements. First off, I refuse to discuss ‘entitlements’ unless we define what is meant. I don’t think that SS and Medicare which I have paid in to for more years than I care to admit on this blog are ‘entitlements’ for me.
The social safety nets for the needy are a whole different story and one we should discuss outside of this issue. I don’t know any easy answers. We aren’t the same society we were back during WWII or when I was growing up. The GI bill was probably one of the first great entitlements. It alterned the face of America and how educated its populace become. Now people are offered free education and it is squandered. Don’t get me started…..
@Slowpoke Rodriguez
Uh…ew.
Dude….really? C’mon….
Is there something inappropriate I need to take down? Just warn me please.
“I think all people on active duty (and active workers in general) might have to put in more of their own contribution to a pension plan.”
I think that its more on the civil service side than on the active military side. I’m not aware that a member of the armed forces puts something aside for their pension benefit (aside from their actual service of course).
Why so much hate against the 401/403? Because the investment is not guaranteed? The holder has a lot of flexibility (in most plans) to move around the investments so they have some built in flexibility.
@Moon-howler
If you won’t discuss SS and Medicare as entitlements, then there will never be a debt reduction. Can’t be done. Yes, you paid into them, just as I have. Apparently, you expected something back. I just looked at it as another income tax. Because I don’t expect the gov’t pay us that money.
EVERYTHING needs to be on the table, and Congress needs to justify all the spending. If we want to keep current spending levels on SS, Medicare, Military, etc, then justify it. Or cut money elsewhere. GI bill? Great! Justify it. VA? Justify it. I’m willing to put my benefits on the line, including my future SS, Medicare, and Retirement. The only difference is that the military retirement and other benefits were part of a contract. The SS and Medicare…nope.
I’m curious. If we need these “safety nets” how did we ever survive? How did we even get through the nineties with that level of spending under Clinton? In fact, I remember the liberals being very satisfied with his spending. So, lets take his budget, adjust for inflation, and spend that. Heck, even add a half trillion to pay for the war.
WE STILL WON’T EQUAL TODAY’S SPENDING. The problem is that we keep using the current level of spending as the base line. That line keeps moving up.
Our entire domestic tax revenue is being used up in entitlement spending. Everything else is borrowed. WE are paying for China’s military budget.
So? If you want to keep that SS and Medicare, what should we cut? Because you’re not going to have it much longer. In ten years, we will have an ADDITIONAL 15 TRILLION in debt, according to Obama.
Ponzi schemes ALWAYS fall apart.
Know what? I’m done.
After looking at the “plans’ and listening and reading peoples ideas and postings….
I’ll support any plan that cuts $1.00, a real cut, a plan that spends $1.00 less than the previous plan. And if they do that, I don’t care where they put the debt ceiling. Because the debt ceiling doesn’t matter IF you actually plan to make the cuts you’re touting.
If they do that, that will be the largest budget cut in decades.
If you can’t support $1.00 in cuts, then its not worth discussing anymore. Spend spend spend.
Here’s something different.
The American Islamic Forum for Democracy and their take on the most recent Ft. Hood Muslim “terrorist.”
http://www.aifdemocracy.org/news.php?id=6187
http://www.aifdemocracy.org/news.php?id=6944
All I can say is….HELL YEAH!
Finally! Now we need to get this group some air time.
Interesting comments (including ending drone strikes in Pakistan) by former Director of National Intelligence Adm. Dennis Blair at the Aspen Security Forum:
The U.S. intelligence and homeland security communities are spending about $80 billion a year, outside of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Yet al-Qaida and its affiliates only have about 4,000 members worldwide. That’s $20 million per terrorist per year, Blair pointed out.
“You think — woah, $20 million. Is that proportionate?” he asked. “So I think we need to relook at the strategy to get the money in the right places.”
Blair mentioned that 17 Americans have been killed on U.S. soil by terrorists since 9/11 — 14 of them in the Ft. Hood massacre. Meanwhile, auto accidents, murders and rapes combine have killed an estimated 1.5 million people in the past decade. “What is it that justifies this amount of money on this narrow problem?” he asked.
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/07/call-off-the-drone-war/
@Moe, now that is something to think about. $20 million per terrorist. I wonder what our tea party buds will have to say about that? This damn spending!!!!!
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/07/apple-now-has-more-cash-than-the-us-government/242729/
And better management.
(“Jobs for jobs” – 2012 bumper sticker?)
Shoot, Jobs would probably have to fill out a medical report that would look the paperwork on a congressional bill.
@Big Dog, wherever you are…..
How much more money am I going to have to lose before those wing nuts in Congress are going to stop trying to destroy the country?
I give up. Maybe I will just sign up for food stamps and medicaid. No, they will take those away also. The outlook is dim.
People around the world are seeing this as an American self-inflicted wound. Let’s make the economy worse by ten-fold. Sadly, decisions made by a few here will also affect them.
Looks like the Global Warming alarmists might have some ‘splainin’ to do:
http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-data-blow-gaping-hold-global-warming-alarmism-192334971.html
@Moon-howler
Moon,
To be fair, those “wing nuts” believe the libs on the other side have been trying to destroy the country with reckless spending.
Now I have stayed pretty much out of the whole debt ceiling discussion. I do believe:
-There will be a deal that raises the debt ceiling, and cuts spending.
-what we are seeing is each side trying to squeeze the best deal out of the other.
-we will be seeing these “money fights” pretty regularly for some time to come.
I am not opposed to raising the debt ceiling. I am not convinced failure to do so will result in an economic armagedon that some are predicting, but I do think it would have some adverse effect on the economy, and we can’t afford that right now.
I also think we need to be deliberate and thoughtful on our approach to spending reductions. If the Fed is a “spending addict” then they need to be dialed back as quickly as possible, but not so quick that “the patient” dies.
What is really ticking me off is both sides (there, I said it) framing the debate in absolute terms (No cuts, raise taxes, no raise to debt limit, no tax raises), and trying to craft deals that have one specific year at the center: 2012. Raise the debt limit passed 2012, or make something short term so we have to go through this again before the election. If your roof is on fire, worry about putting out the fire. Once it’s out, then worry about the condition of the shingles.
Steve, I agree with you about 95%. I think the most important thing you said was the absolute terms–the binary thinking component. There needs to be a blend of ideas.
Wonderful roof afire analogy.
You know, if every American could just put a savings suggestion in a federal suggestion box, we could solve this thing. We just ran into a Medicare situation that we felt was wasteful. My husband just got out of the hospital. He did not have surgery, which is important to the story. Someone (doctor, hospital staff ???) tried to give him home health care nurses. He didn’t want or need them. When they called he said NO. My friend who used to work for a doctors group in Fairfax told me she used to have a hard time getting for Medicare to even pay for home health nursing for patients who had surgery and no one at home to help them.
Go figure. I guess Mr. Howler had a cadillac gap policy. They are going to call back to see if he changed his mind.
Now if we could just make a suggestion that this is a waste of money. As for physical therapy, he wants to go to his regular therapist on Ashton Ave. Some of this makes no sense.
There needs to be a citizen suggestion box. There are over 300 million Americans. We can come up with some good suggestions.
Steve said:
Yes but I think they have a myopic view and want to hang it all on one person. I reject their opinion, regardless of how well-meaning. Ain’t America grand?
@Moon-howler
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/_wkgIzuqJM0w/TKgw0s5dMsI/AAAAAAAAGio/C9W4pe4YhHQ/FUCKIN%20WINGNUTS.jpg
NSFW, F-bomb warning.
Aaaaannnnd we’re green, having roared back from the test of S&P 1280. Sorry bears, better luck next time. Sad face.
F-bomb the bears. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
I am still in the red. GGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
I think that goes along with http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1952330,00.html
where many fiscal conservatives have talked about the need to dismantle the federal air marshal program and DHS. $200 mil per arrest? Really?
We all need to slim down at the govt trough.
MH, good to hear that your husband is OK.
hahahaha http://www.cnbc.com//id/43943482
Did you see the mess? The US Capitol was “TPed” last night.
Had to be some drunk frat boys, right?
Trust they will soon be arrested and charged with destruction of property
and disturbing the peace.
Cato, this may be sick and twisted logic but I had a thought and wanted to bounce this off of you.
What if Wall Street WANTS the US to default?
If a default means that interest rates go up and the people holding those notes are the banks and investment houses…doesn’t that make a default for the most part something favorable (short term) to Wall Street?
Maybe it’s just a conspiracy theory or I’m operating off of too little sleep but an interesting “what if”..
nuh uh. Nobody wants higher rates. Higher rates means more people send them jingle mail and they end up having to eat the losses on those assets. Higher rates mean they can’t borrow at essentially zero and speculate and/or put it back on deposit at the Fed for the carry. That’s why I’m so sure this is all BS and is what the TP doesn’t understand. What WS wants, WS gets. Take it to the bank.
@marinm
These capitalists generally work harmoniously and in concert to fleece the people.
– Abraham Lincoln, speech, Illinois Legislature, January 1837
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2011-07-28-debt-ceiling-myths_n.htm
Raising the debt limit allows us to pay bills we already have now.
Spending cuts require decreasing our future obligations.
“Higher rates mean they can’t borrow at essentially zero and speculate and/or put it back on deposit at the Fed for the carry.”
I forgot to take that into account. Thank you.
sound bites, and the same old same old.
I cannot believe how many people are brain washed with – they listen to one stream of kool aid, without really checking to see if the drivel is true or skewed.
OK, so the new Boehner plan –
we promise to create a BBA – nonsense – the House cannot create an Amendment by themselves.
we promise to cut taxes – when – tomorrow, kicking the can down the road. Boehners planned cuts did not even pass the CBO. And the promised cuts are over the next 10 years, we all know how that plays out. Where is all the Waste, Fraud and Abuse I heard so much about back in November 2010…. ummm, silence. Not even ideas.
And no tax reform – folks, there is something wrong with a company that makes 3 Billion dollars in profit, and pays no taxes. There is something wrong when the richest (by income) Americans pay 18% Federal Income Tax, and their assistants pay 30%. There is something wrong when the AMT hits people making 100K a year, which was originally created because high income earners were not paying *any* taxes.
It ties spending to 20% of GDP – which are not correlated at all – GDP is not the Revenue number, it is a guestimate at a number.
Let me guess – they will start to work through the night to get this done.
Our Congress is failing us folks. Smoke and Mirrors – and putting in a 6 month fix, is just a political stunt! Would you refinance your mortgage for 6 months, no, and neither should Congress.
Pat, I think all you will hear is crickets chirping.
What an excellent point about refinancing the mortgage.
The one that gets me the worst is the protection of the very wealthy. Many of them don’t even pay 18% income tax while the middle class often pays well over that bracket. They can’t afford all the loop holes.
A balanced budget amendment is fraught with peril. What on earth do you do if a Katrina, an enemy attack and an economic crisis all hit the same month? Why should a mighty nation paint itself in a corner. More self inflicted wounds by naive people.
If you haven’t already seen it, a gift for you liberals!
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2011/07/sarah-palin-film-the-undefeated-opens-in-orange-county-three-pay-to-attend.html
Yawn, what’s the movie really about?
Here’s a Tea Partier answer to Admiral Dennis Blair:
Have you ever considered, Sir, that without the efforts of our security services that relatively low number of post-9/11 American casualties cited by you might well have been much, much higher? Surely, Admiral, as the once upon a time Director of National Intelligence you must have been briefed on the number of times the CIA, FBI, and other security agencies have disrupted terrorist plots before those plots could come to fruition. Some of those successes have been announced to the public and others have been implied by the President himself. But most of them, in my own personal experience on that battlefield, cannot be announced because of the potential retribution danger to the lives of our own counterterrorist operatives and their recruited agents, as well the risk of the loss of effectiveness of our technological weapons which would come through public exposure.
There may, indeed, be ways to examine the current expenditures and effect some savings through readjustments in targeting and methodology. There is no harm in taking a close look at this. But, quite frankly, Admiral, if you want to run counterterrorist operations on the cheap, I would suggest that the results you get may well match the lower level of expenditure.
As for citing estimated numbers of terrorist effectives? Well, Sir, I can tell you from direct experience that the fewer the numbers the harder the organizations of these murderers are to pin down and penetrate. Many terrorist organizations have deliberately stayed relatively small and practiced strict compartmentation, especially at their critical operational cores, because smallness is a beneficial tool for them when it comes to the counterintelligence needed to prevent penetration. It is when they try to expand through greater recruitment that they become more vulnerable to penetration by counterterrorist agencies, simply because the greater the size the more difficult it becomes to monitor the true loyalty of your effectives. This is especially so when these groups have to operate on relatively unprotected ground and are not given a natural blanket of protection by being located in areas like Yemen and West Pakistan, which are more difficult for Western services to penetrate because of extraneous factors.
Taken to its numerical extreme, this is precisely why a “lone wolf” terrorist such as Breivik in Norway or an al-Qaeda sympathizer acting virtually independently and without close contacts with that organization can be one of our most difficult counterterrorist problems. He has no organization except himself which may be vulnerable to the mistakes and leaks which could lead us to him. Often, we only become aware of his existence at the moment he strikes. The “lone wolf” is precisely why our security agencies, including especially the Secret Service, have to investigate even the smallest hint of a spoken or implied threat. And that, Sir, takes money for manpower.
All of which makes the location and killing of bin Laden such a laudable event. In that instance, we did overcome the negatives of an enemy benefitting from an environment not easily accessible to us. And, Admiral, I will bet the farm that the bin Laden operation did not come cheap. Those monies were spent in fulfillment of one of the first and most sacred tasks of the U.S. Government under the Constitution: the defense of the American people. That is what I would call a real “entitlement.”
Having sort of addressed the Admiral on this, let me revert back directly to this audience. Osama bin Laden was always a “big bang” type of guy. He preferred major strikes such as 9/11 for the publicity effect. Apparently , from the evidence found in his lair in Pakistan, he was still following that line of operational thought. There is now, however, a growing concensus that his successor(s) have a preference for the smaller attacks which require less complicated planning and less risk because of lesser size. Rather than hijacking planes and driving them into tall buldings full of innocents, they may be looking toward such tactics as bombs or suicide assassins placed here and there in public places which, while being less effective in numbers of total casualties, may well scare the living Hell out of a populace which will feel increasingly unsafe in their everyday lives. Remember our reactions of panic in the case of the Beltway Sniper? Nipping that sort of thing in the bud will always take manpower and money. Don’t short sheet yourselves on the lives of you and your families.
“We tried to cut a few programs, but most of our cuts were intended to
slow down the runaway train of federal spending, not to throw it in reverse.
The federal budget grew during every year of the Reagan presidency.”
James A. Baker
Reagan Chief of Staff
Harry Reid: “The only comprimise there is, is mine” I love Reid…he’s soooo cool!
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/07/29/reid_the_only_compromise_there_is_is_mine.html
Wolverine – In less than a decade we’ve gone from a nation that takes in more money than it spends to a nation so deeply in debt that if the government was a real person it would be facing eviction. Since 2001, in my view, the two big things that have brought us to this point are to reduce revenue through the Bush tax cuts and the leap into protracted military engagements for reasons that do not threaten our democracy as much as our current financial crisis.
I was at a conference recently where a senior DoD official said none of the conflicts in which we’ve been engaged (he never used the term “war”) represent an existential threat to the country. Then what are we fighting and dying for and why are we borrowing the money to fund it on our credit card? The greatest existential challenge from another country for the foreseeable future is generally regarded as China, one of the primary owners of the credit card company we owe to support our tax cutting/military engagement habit. While we’ve invested huge sums and numerous lives over the past decade flexing our military muscles and blowing things up and killing people, China to my knowledge has not fired a single missile. Our forces have killed people in 6 countries just this summer; Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Libya. China is not engaged militarily anywhere. We borrow money to fight causes that do not represent existential threats to our democracy and China flexes its economic might fueled in large part by the interest we pay on our debt to them and the profits on the goods we import to satiate the public’s appetite.
I was on a panel with a person from Sierra Leone who had been involved in their civil war. He said he had visited Sierra Leone recently after being away for many years. I asked what the biggest change was from when he was there during the war. He said the biggest change was the huge Chinese economic presence: hotels, restaurants, construction, etc. I wonder if at some point our strategy or the Chinese strategy proves more prescient. If we don’t short-sheet defense then where do we shorten the sheets? We’re not going to balance the budget by putting the screws to ACORN and Planned Parenthood. At lot of oxen are going to get gored if we’re really serious.
The envelope, please! And the Moonhowlings Award for Prognostication goes to….CARGOSQUID!
Toronto Globe and Mail, Friday, 29 July 2011. Peter Martin from Cairo.
“There was a moment Friday in the Egyptian capital when the people’s vaunted uprising brought to mind Tehran in 1979: Just when the left-wing secularists thought they had ousted the Shah, the Islamists ousted them.
Hundreds of thousands of ultra-religious Islamists packed this capital’s central Tahrir Square in an unprecedented show of support for the creation of an Islamic republic, rather than the planned unity demonstration in collaboration with secularists. In doing so, they drove a stake through the heart of a united revolutionary movement that had brought together Egyptian Islamists and secularists, Muslims and Christians, and shared the goal of democratic elections and the punishment of the corrupt regime of Hosni Mubarak….”
Hmmmm. Looks like we may have another migraine coming on…….
Oops. Patrick Martin from Cairo.
And, if one migraine is not enough, here’s another one for you:
New York (CNN Money), 29 July 2011: “Neither of the debt ceiling bills before Congress would meaningfully alter the country’s debt trajectory and thus won’t bolster the United States’ chance of preserving its AAA rating, a key rating agency said Friday…”
The agency was Moody Investors Service. All things remaining equal, the projection would be for a rating downgrade within a year or two.
And then there is the feeling that the United States is in far better shape than some of the political hysterics would have us believe. We are nothing like Greece, Ireland, Portugal:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/how-a-flush-country-could-be-in-debt-trouble/2011/07/27/gIQAIXPAiI_story.html?hpid=z1
Its real hard to take politicians serious on the debt issue when they are hysterical over Planned Parenthood. PP hysteria also blows holes the size of tractor trailers in any logic they might present.
How can anyone follow the logic of someone who says I hate abortion so I am going to defund Planned Parenthood from distributing contraception and medical services even though tax payer money cannot be used for abortion.
Foolish, absurd, ridiculous, illogical.
@Wolverine
Thank you…thank you….I’ll be here all week. Tip your waitress.
I do have to mention that Glenn Beck predicted this before I did…..even before the Egyptian revolution started.
There. Fixed it for ya. That covers it all. 🙂
Here’s Barney Frank on the possible default. He doesn’t seem to worried…. http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2011/07/barney-frank-if-moodys-downgrades-us-economy-just-ignore-them-video/
Rep. Barney Frank of Fannie Mae-Freddie Mac fame told Neil Cavuto this morning that if Moody’s downgrades the US debt, “We just don’t pay much attention to them… Don’t sell.”
Here’s the take at Instapundit. I really like the plan by Tranbarger. Too bad HE’s not in Congress.
DEMOCRATS KILL BOEHNER BILL IN SENATE. The party of “no.”
UPDATE: Reader Gary Tranbarger emails: “I have a new idea. Republicans immediately pass a clean, no conditions, debt ceiling addition of 100 billion dollars. They also announce their willingness to vote for additional 100 billion dollars additions, as needed, one at a time, up to November 2012. Finally, they announce their willingness to engage in negotiations for a two-year addition to the debt ceiling once the CBO scores a 10-year financial plan for the country that is publicly endorsed by (a) the President; (b) a majority of Senate Democrats; and (c) a majority of House Democrats.”
ANOTHER UPDATE: “The Democrats have been telling us for weeks what disasters will ensue if the debt ceiling isn’t increased. Fine: the House has voted to raise the ceiling. Now it is the Senate’s turn.”
President Obama and Harry Reid keep saying they want to make a “deal.” But that isn’t how it works. The Senate needs to pass a bill. Next, leaders of each chamber appoint representatives who participate in a conference committee. The conference committee comes up with a compromise between the House bill and the Senate bill, and that conference bill goes back to each chamber for approval. It will be appropriate for Harry Reid to negotiate with Mitch McConnell over a Senate bill, but Boehner should go on vacation unless and until the Senate acts.
What the Democrats are trying to do, of course, is gain absolution for all of their fiscal sins by negotiating a cosmic deal with the GOP that, as I once put it, would put Republicans in the position of going over the waterfall holding hands with the Democrats. If Republicans are dumb enough to let that happen–which I doubt–then it will indeed be time for a third party. The Democratic Senate has now gone for more than two years without adopting a budget. That is not only poor practice, it violates federal law. Why won’t the Democrats adopt a budget? Because they don’t dare put down on paper, for the American people to see, what they really want: skyrocketing spending, higher taxes and spiraling deficits. Forever. The Democrats don’t want to commit to anything until they have bullied the Republicans into signing onto it.
Indeed.
MORE: Senate rejects Boehner plan, Reid won’t allow vote tonight on his own plan. It’s not a plan, it’s a talking point.
WalkScore.com
An interesting site – type in an address and get a walkable score –
mine was – #65 “somewhat walkable”.
(Still needs some fine tuning — under “books” they listed nearby
Payne Publishing as a plus, but it is only printing and wholesale).
Car-dependent over here, Big Dog. I see lots of folks walking to and from stores though.
43.
And here I thought that mine was quite walkable. Avg for Richmond is 65.
I don’t see it.
From RedState comes this info. The GOP are the obstructionists? Really?
Guess who wrote it?
The late-night jousting in the Senate followed a vote on House Speaker John A. Boehner’s debt-limit measure, which would extend the Treasury’s borrowing power until early next year and force another economy-rattling fistfight within a few months.
Drafted largely by aides to Reid and McConnell last weekend, the measure was originally designed to appeal to the more centrist Senate.
From the Wash. Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/house-gop-tries-to-rescue-debt-limit-plan-obama-to-make-statement/2011/07/29/gIQAH527gI_print.html
Here’s a little something: At their core, the House and Senate bills are strikingly similar, having emerged from the same bipartisan talks last weekend. Both call for cutting deeply into agency budgets over the next decade and creating a new 12-member committee of lawmakers tasked with identifying trillions of dollars in additional cuts by the end of this year.
BUT, the Senate version wants to extend to a safe distance where they don’t have to justify their spending. AND they want to give the President power to raise the debt limit without Congressional approval.
“A new version of the legislation Reid unveiled Friday…added a two-stage process for Obama to raise the debt limit without explicit congressional approval.
Now…realize this…..this is just more abrogation of responsibility by Congressional leaders. And if it passes, Republican Presidents could use this. I reject this as giving too much authority to the President and may even be unconstitutional.
Obama quote, “If we need to put in place some kind of enforcement mechanism to hold us all accountable for making these reforms, I’ll support that, too, if it’s done in a smart and balanced way,”
except if it forces him to justify yhis spending during a re-election or has ACTUAL enforcement ideas like Cap, Cut, and Balance.
What a friggin’ mess.
Just had a thought….the disconnect is this….Why do we need to borrow money to pay for stuff that we supposedly paid for LAST budget and if we do need to borrow money to pay for such things, why aren’t we just borrowing enough to pay the items that would cause a default. Why do we need the trillions requested?
Think on a larger scale, Cargo. I think you are trying to simplify things too much. We have the largest economy in the world. It stands to reason that this is a complex question. We haven’t paid for things. We have used things that need to be paid for. Think defense contractors, military pay, federal workers pay, social security which is always a month behind. And then there is September…….and October…..80 million checks a month is a lot of checks. 70% of medicare goes to pay physicians. Not sure about the remaining 30%. I guess it goes to hospitals.
Why do conservatives always want to amend the Constitution? When I was studying political science, the conservatives were the ones who wanted to stick to the way things were originally (or at least part of their definition.) It seems to me that they are always trying to alter the constitution, from doing away with the birth right clause in the 14th, to make flag burning something akin to treason, to defining marriage…the list goes on.
Now some are willing to crater our fragile economy in order to get a balanced budget amendment. WWFFD? What would the founding fathers do? Well, obviously not put a balanced budget amendment in place. If they wanted one, there would be one.
They also understood compromise. At several points in forging out the nation, the states came to a stalemate. However, they played the game of give and take. They didn’t go off with their lip hanging down to their knees and refuse to keep working on things. I don’t think there were whips in those days either.
I wouldn’t want to be John Boehner.
@Moon-howler
Because that’s the way the Constitution says its supposed to be done instead of relying on courts to make law.
Again, you make it sound like its the Republicans that are being the problem. Why aren’t you angry with the Democrats that are refusing to even schedule a vote on the only bills being presented? The Democrats have YET to present a bill AND the President has said that he WILL veto anything that does not conform to what HE wants regardless of what the Senate and House agree on.
Oh, and in 2009….we went over the debt limit. No problem.
Sorry, here’s the link for 2009
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-5987341-503544.html
The GOP is getting the blame for hurting the markets. But its the Democrats that want a panic sell off so that they can have another crisis so that they can push through what THEY want…like they did with the TARP (Yes, I know it was Bush, but it was pushed by Congress.) and the bailouts.
They WANT you to lose your money for political gain.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/43943482
“Frankly, a bit of panic would be very helpful right now,” he said.
“We were following the script from 2008. When the market collapsed after TARP failed, that spooked everyone enough to get them to fall in line. We thought the same thing would happen this week,” he said.
And I said that this is just what is happening. Never let a crisis go to waste. And if you don’t have crisis, create one.
@Cargosquid
Actually I was blaming the tea party, not all the Republicans.
Funny how you make them innocent. The Democrats have not refused to schedule votes. That simply is not true.
When I am feeling sorry for Boehner, that should speak volumes.
No short term, no constitutional amendment, no more protection for millionaires at the expense of the middle class, no more eyeing social security to make it ok for the rich to cash in at 18%. That seems very fair to me.
re: I still say I have never seen so many attempts at new constitutional amendments. I don’t think the poor old Constitution knew how many times some group of yahoos was going to try to run some pet amendment through.
@Moon-howler
Blaming the Tea Party? At least the Tea Party/GOP has presented bills, unlike the Democrats. I’m sorry, except for the one bill by Reid that he finally presented.
Reid did kill the House bills without debate. Never made it to a vote.
The Republican bill was written by Senate aides of McConnell and Reid and he still killed it.
Why do you object to a simple short term raise with no other additions? To give time to the Congress to actually do their jobs now that people are forcing them to? Why do we need a multiple year raise when the actual goal, as stated by, well Obama and both parties, is reduce spending? Or….are they just lying to us again like I’ve been saying?
And you keep talking about protecting millionaires when it was the Gang of Six…the BIPARTISAN gang that Reid likes, that wants to raise taxes on the middle class and reform SS by raising the age limit.
I hate to break it to you. It doesn’t matter who changes it, but SS WILL be changed. It WILL be cut. It will go broke. Its a ponzi scheme. And we’ve reached the end of it.
Why would I give anyone credit for coming up with a scheme I did not like? The Democrats have caved about as much as they are going to. I am not real happy with them either.
No other president has had to go through such nonsense.
The gang of six has equal R and D. I never saw anyone of them raise taxes on the middle class. How do you make that claim? What do you call raising taxes? And if they did, they did. I don’t see their bill passing.
I have heard about the demise of social security my entire life. Still waiting. Social security will exist in some form. Will it be changed? It needs to be tweaked. I have already mentioned a few ways to do it on the blog. No we haven’t reached the end. Stop being a fear monger. Decline yours if you don’t want it. No one holds a gun to one’s head to take ss.
Stay tuned.
No other president has had to go through such nonsense.
No other president has spent so much money so quickly.
Here’s a summary of what the Six were proposing.
The plan would simplify the tax code by reducing the number of tax brackets from six to three, lowering the top rate from 35 percent to somewhere between 23 percent and 29 percent. That could provide a windfall for wealthy taxpayers because the 35 percent tax bracket currently applies to taxable income above $379,150.
To help pay for lower rates, the plan would reduce popular tax breaks for mortgage interest, health insurance, charitable giving and retirement savings. Other tax breaks would be spared, including the $1,000-per-child tax credit and the earned income tax credit, which helps the working poor stay out of poverty.
The alternative minimum tax, which was enacted in 1969 to make sure that high-income families pay at least some income tax, would be repealed. The tax was never indexed for inflation, so Congress routinely patches it each year – at an annual cost of about $70 billion – to prevent it from hitting more than 20 million middle-income families.
I would be happy to turn down SS if, one) they stopped taking 15% of my salary to fund it two) if they would return all the money that I paid into it.
I don’t believe the Gang of 6 actually published the final ideas they were tossing around.
Any mortgage interest would probably be on very high priced houses, for instance, amounts over $700,000 would not be eligible but amounts up to that would be. We would have the same deductions but they would be capped. So someone’s $200l mortgage interest would be deductible. Someone else’s $900k mortgage interest would only be deductible to $700,000.
The middle class certainly would not take a hit that the wealthy weren’t taking. Again, Unless there was a press leak, there was no actual gang of 6 plan released, to my knowledge. To say that they were attacking the middle class is being circulated to put fear in the hearts of the middle class.
So how do you think that you could turn the SS money you got back into enough money to live off of in your old age? SS will be adjusted. Policy makers should probably take a look at who all gets to pull SS.
The key is TAXABLE income.
A view from the medical trenches.
http://docisinblog.com/index.php/2011/06/21/still-breathing/
And we wonder why medicine is so expensive.
My recollection is that the reason given for big corporations and “job creators” hording cash rather than creating jobs was they don’t handle uncertainty very well. The Boner plan would have us going through this same fiscal death march again in a few months. How is leaving the question of whether America is going to default on its debt hanging in limbo restoring stability and certainty so the “job creators” can make long term plans that put people to work? I believe both sides have been as useful as tits on a boar hog in working for the good of the country to craft sensible solutions. We need a simplified tax codes. Average Americans should not have to spend a lot of money to figure out how much money they need to send to the government. We need to revampt social security an raise the retirement age and means test it. There is a lot wrong with out system, but approaching it like two teams of 4 year olds on a soccer field is not the cure. We need a BRAC-like process where a bipartisan team makes recommendations and then Congress gets and up or down vote. We’re at a point now where we may as well join hands like Thelma and Louise and hit the gas and see how far we can fly before we crash. Watching Congress work does nothing to restore confidene in democracy.
“The debt-limit hobbits should realize at this point the
Washington fracas they are prolonging isn’t helping
their cause.”
WSJ – 7-30-2011