January 2011
Obama Calls for a New Era of Civility in U.S. Politics
“If, as has been discussed in recent days, their deaths help usher in more civility in our public discourse,” Mr. Obama said, “let us remember that it is not because a simple lack of civility caused this tragedy — it did not — but rather because only a more civil and honest public discourse can help us face up to our challenges as a nation, in a way that would make them proud.”
February 2011
Obama proposes FY 2012 budget that does nothing to reduce deficit
THE PRESIDENT PUNTED. Having been given the chance, the cover and the push by the fiscal commission he created to take bold steps to raise revenue and curb entitlement spending, President Obama, in his fiscal 2012 budget proposal, chose instead to duck. To duck, and to mask some of the ducking with the sort of budgetary gimmicks he once derided. “The fiscal realities we face require hard choices,” the president said in his budget message. “A decade of deficits, compounded by the effects of the recession and the steps we had to take to break it, as well as the chronic failure to confront difficult decisions, has put us on an unsustainable course.” His budget would keep the country on that course.
April 2011
House passes Paul Ryan’s budget
The House on Friday approved a fiscal year 2012 budget resolution from Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) that seeks to drastically limit government spending next year and in years to follow.
IRONY ALERT
Obama: Ryan is not on the level
“When Paul Ryan says his priority is to make sure, you know, he’s just being America’s accountant…,” Obama said, “this is the same guy that voted for two wars that were unpaid for, voted for the Bush tax cuts that were unpaid for, voted for the prescription drug bill that cost as much as my health care bill — but wasn’t paid for. So it’s not on the level. And we’ve got to keep on, you know, keep on shining a light on that.”
The guy whose first budget proposal completely ignored the coming fiscal train wreck – the guy who punted away the tough choices- the guy who continues to demagogue the Ryan plan- says Paul Ryan is not on the level.
Obama took a mulligan on the budget and proposed a second plan. It has been called “unseriously unfair”
If any country’s upper-crust pays its fair share, America’s does.
But you wouldn’t know it listening to Mr Obama. He repeatedly and misleadingly portrayed the tax burden carried by America’s top earners as unfairly light, and the top-rate tax cuts under President Bush as a leading cause of America’s dire fiscal straits. He even proposed that itemised deductions available to every other American taxpayer be eliminated for the top 2%, which strikes me as precisely the sort of thing a country that values fairness would not do. In any case, to the extent our woes flow from a paucity of revenue, the problem is that America’s vast middle-class pays too little, not that its rich do.
and “ridiculous.”
Of course, if Obama had actually offered a multi-decade blueprint, like Ryan did, he would have had to concede that there’s no way he can pay for all his spending over the long term without Washington raising taxes on the middle-class and probably instituting a value-added tax. (On that count, one nonpartisan budget expert told me, the Obama plan is “ridiculous.”)
But Obama is not just unseriously unfair or ridiculous. He is also dishonest. Obama claims to trim the same $4 trillion from the deficit as does Ryan, but Keith Hennessey notes that Obama is off by more than a trillion.
The tongue is faster than the eye.
In his weekly radio address the President said:
“Now, one plan put forward by some Republicans in the House of Representatives aims to reduce our deficit by $4 trillion over the next ten years.
… That’s why I’ve proposed a balanced approach that matches that $4 trillion in deficit reduction.”
In the radio address the President did not give a timeframe for his $4 trillion in deficit reduction. He did in his budget speech last Wednesday, however:
“So today, I’m proposing a more balanced approach to achieve $4 trillion in deficit reduction over 12 years“.
$4 trillion in deficit reduction over 12 years does not “match” $4 trillion in deficit reduction over 10 years. It’s not even close.
The twelve year timeframe is a red flag. Federal budgets are measured over 1, 5, and 10 year timeframes. Any other length “budget window” is nonstandard and suggests someone is playing games.
Hennessey observes that Obama is “wildly incorrect” when he claims that his approach matches Ryan’s plan for deficit reduction. Read it all.
Bottom line: You have to be an idiot to believe anything Barack Obama says.
If I could only get paid for pointing out Obama hypocrisy! I’d be in Obama’s tax bracket.
Or maybe Buffett’s.
DrJohn has been a health care professional for more than 30 years. In addition to clinical practice he has done extensive research and has published widely with over 70 original articles and abstracts in the peer-reviewed literature. DrJohn is well known in his field and has lectured on every continent except for Antarctica. He has been married to the same wonderful lady for over 30 years and has three kids- two sons, both of whom are attorneys and one daughter on her way into the field of education.
DrJohn was brought up with the concept that one can do well if one is prepared to work hard but nothing in life is guaranteed.
Except for liberals being foolish.
Waiting for Obama to put out civility memo to his union goons.
I tried to find some legacy media quoting White House Budget Director Jack Lew from his testimony in Feb when he said:
“The terminology that we use in Washington of primary balance is a little confusing.”
Fox News quoted him, adding:
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/02/16/white-house-stretches-truth-national-debt-claim/#ixzz1KApLqUHz
Where was the dinosaur media on this?
Why hide this little accounting trick for Obama?
Sen. Mark Pryor, DEMOCRAT-Ark. told members of a local political group Wednesday that he’ll need to see a commitment to cut spending and overhaul the tax code in order to vote to raise the $14.3 trillion cap.
Sen. Joe Manchin, DEMOCRAT-W.Va., said he needs to make sure the government is not paying for a “blank check” with borrowed money.
Rep. Mike Ross, DEMOCRAT-Ark,
Read more
Obama has lost his own peeps.
Ed Morrisey finds more errors (dishonesty?) in Obama’s words:
That’s actually wrong on three counts.
(1)First, Obama’s plan doesn’t reduce the national debt at all. It reduces by $4 trillion dollars the amount that Obama originally promised to add to the debt through deficit spending in his earlier budget projections. Obama’s plan adds at least $7 trillion to the national debt by its end, with projections rapidly increasing thereafter.
Secondly(2), Republicans have a plan to cut deficit spending — not debt in the short term — by over $6 trillion, using the far less rosy baseline figures of the CBO over the Pollyannaish predictions of growth coming from the OMB.
And thirdly(3), Obama promised a twelve-year plan, not a 10-year plan, a point he made repeatedly in last week’s speech:
It’s bad enough to have a President who confuses debt and deficit. It’s worse to have a President who can’t keep his own plan scope straight.
@Nan G, #4:
What republicans have is a strategy for slipping through yet another round of high-end tax cuts–tax cuts that are far larger than those of the Bush era–when three decades of the same have already proven to be a spectacular exercise in fiscal folly.
It’s actually quite clever: The deficits and accumulating debt that have resulted from not collecting enough taxes to pay the bills are not downplayed, but are instead spotlighted, and used as the rationale for cutting high-end taxes even further. The worsening debt that inevitably follows can then be used as the rationale for eliminating spending that doesn’t directly benefit those who have benefitted from the high-end tax cuts.
@Greg:
In a way, Greg, you are much better at expounding Obama’s stand than he is.
Mostly, I think it is because Obama, unlike you, is a framer who only puts out empty frames, hoping each one of his supporters will fill it in with his own personal brand of what-ever-turns-him-on.
Spending without having the money is as much a downward spiral as
refusing to accept money while spending.
But the Republican/Ryan plan involves a great deal of spending cuts.
It doesn’t wait until the debt worsens to invoke them.
@Greg:
Greg, if you were being intellectually honest with yourself, you wouldn’t make such statements. Even a return to the Clinton era tax rates would not pay for the debt the government has incurred in the last decade, particularly the past couple of years.
@ Greg, It is the Irresponsible Spending. Just because You still have Checks, You do not necessarily have Money. Just because the US Mint still has paper and ink, printing more money is not a solution.
No Nation has ever Borrowed and Spent it’s way to Prosperity.
Does anyone really believe that cutting revenue when you’re already running a deficit is somehow going to make the deficit smaller?
The rightness or wrongness of taxation at various levels might be a subject open to legitimate moral and philosophical debate, but the rules of arithmetic are not.
No one argues with that, Greg. The answer is just as simple as your question. You cut the spending, reform the entitlement programs that continue to weigh down the current and future generations, and Congress should be authorized only to spend x percentage less than anticipated revenues. Just like you do at your own house.
Greg, the ”rules of arithmetic,” as you call them, are not pure black and white when it comes to taxation.
If people who risk running businesses have some CERTAINTY back in their financial futures, they might just hire more employees (who pay taxes).
They might just manufacture more stuff, buying inventory (paying more taxes).
They might just turn enough of a profit to pay more taxes.
The ”sidelines” are full of cash.
Why?
Because of uncertainty.
Business owners are not upgrading equipment.
Because of uncertainty.
Business owners are not hiring.
Because of uncertainty.
Businesses are waiting.
Because of uncertainty.
A lot of good things could happen in this country if business owners had certainty as to what their share of health care, taxes, energy and unionization were going to be costing them (less, please!) in the near future.
Every economic graph I have posted here shows you this.
There was a contraction as soon as business owners knew Obama was going to be our next president.
As he has ruled, he has done nothing to disprove that business owners were not correct in their actions.
More economic contraction has occurred.
Do you remember when Obama went in front of the US Chamber of Commerce?
He told business owners to think like he does, throw caution to the wind and spend and hire and invest!
That’s not how business owners got to be business owners.
But Obama has never run a business.
And every day, it shows.
@MataHarley, #10:
But if the primary goal is to balance the budget, why add another round of high-end tax cuts to the mix? The tax cuts mean that spending cuts have to be that much deeper to offset the additional revenue losses.
Can anyone deny that the programs hit hardest are those most important to people who will gain little or nothing from the high-end tax cuts?
Why not forego the high-end tax cut components, reducing deficits and paying down the debt more quickly?
Greg, you’re backwards. You wrack your brain, trying to think of reasons to raise taxes. You should be wracking your brain for reasons *not* to raise taxes. The even more simple answer why *not* to raise taxes is to look around you… we are a nation of “turnips” who cannot afford higher taxes with the declining dollar, increasing debt, increasing energy prices, and high unemployment. The only hope for jobs in the private sector is from those who haven’t hit the “turnip” stage yet. Yet all this admin does is pile more jobs into the federal government…. on a payroll paid by us, the “turnips”.
When you decide you now want to whittle those who aren’t turnips, down to being turnips with the rest of us, you’ve effectively slashed your lifeline to any private job creation and tax revenues.
You can tax all of us 100% of our earnings until the cows come home, and it won’t make a dent in the debt. Because the problem isn’t, and never was, absconded revenues from the nation’s wage earners. It was always spending more than what revenues would be received. And that unwise spending goes back to the 30s (social security… the Congressional piggy bank) and the 60s (Medicare).
Added: oh yes, it’s not about “balancing the budget”. That’ political trickery. What does it take to balance the budget? To increase income to afford your planned spending.
Any Constitutional amendment to “balance the budget” will be firmly opposed by me for it’s sleight of tongue. It places no limits on spending. All it does is remove any threshhold on what the elected ones will cite as Constitutional authority to pick your pockets after they’ve increased spending.
Look at it this way… how about if you decide you will buy three yachts, four half million dollar homes in different states and three new cars in every one of those garages this year. And your wife says you must “balance the budget”… aka get the income to support that spending. Does this now give you the mandate for theft? After all… the mandate is to “balance your budget”… not to keep your budget within the income requirements.
@Nan G, #11:
In the matter of tax rates it’s not that they want the certainty of a number. They want the certainty of an unrealistically and historically low number.
I’m sure you’re aware of how many billions of dollars Wall Street paid out in bonuses in 2010. The figure set an all-time high, breaking the standing record high that had been set in the immediately preceding year.
You’re probably also aware that corporate America has had record-breaking profits since the recession began, with profit increases in each of the last 8 consecutive quarters.
This isn’t an income segment that is suffering much from the recession, or being hammered into dysfunctionality by outrageously high taxes. Why would we think that further tax reductions on them would change a behavior that’s working out so well for them already?
If working and middle class America had more money to spend, logic suggests you might expect better results. They would likely buy things, increasing the level of demand for the goods and services corporate America wants to sell. Before long hiring and orders pick up to meet that growning demand, which in turn put even more money into consumer pockets. This is what makes an economy strong and healthy.
If you’re going to cut taxes, an argument might be made that it would be far better for the country to cut taxes on everybody but the rich. (Come to think, someone has made just such an argument.)
@Greg:
I’d say that the arithmetic is more in favor of cutting spending, Greg. Spending has gone up from $2.1 Trillion or so during Bush’s first year up to $3.6 Trillion(estimated) for this year, 2011. Revenues, meanwhile, have gone from $2.0 Trillion(a drop of $50 Billion from the previous year), up to nearly $2.6 Trillion in 2007, then dropping to $2.1 Trillion in 2009, and rising again, but only to $2.2 Trillion(estimated) for this fiscal year.
Simply put, government revenues have risen and fallen during all 8 of Bush’s years and the first 2.5 of Obama’s, while the spending rose steadily, never dropping. All you wish to do is place more of the burden of trying to pay for what government spends squarely on the backs of the higher income earners. Until you start truly discussing spending cuts, any noise one makes about tax increases is an avoidance of the real issue at hand.
drj… first of all, Ryan’s “budget” doesn’t reduce the debt or deficit either. Even the debt commission’s recommendations… somewhere in the middle of Ryan’s and Obama’s budgets… doesn’t do the trick.
So I’m calling you out on major BS job here. About all that can be said about Ryan’s is that at least he’s brave enough to tackle the heretofore untackle’able… Medicare.
Secondly, I’ve asked this of you before… stop calling those of us who have believed Obama’s own promises (and fruitions) about health care and financial reform, and changing the direction of this country towards Euro socialism, “idiots”. He hasn’t lied to us. He told us in advance everything he was going to do, and he’s accomplished most of it. If you haven’t bothered to listen/hear and observe his results, than it is you who is the idiot.
Poor form on your part and, frankly, I’m tired of constantly being referred to as “an idiot” by you merely so you can self promote.
@MataHarley: You’re saying neither plan reduces the deficit? Then why do people like Keith Hennessey say they do? Paul Ryan is a liar? Obama is lying when he agrees that Ryan’s plan would reduce the deficit?
Ought you not call them out?
No one said “eliminate.” If you’re going to argue semantics about whether it’s reducing deficit or reducing the growth of the deficit, that’s pathetic. These are the terms that are being used. Obama uses those terms, then you argue that he’s telling you the truth and then you’re critical of me for using the terms he uses?
How Obamaesque.
I do think there were a handful of things Obama said that were/are true. Spreading your wealth around, making your electric rates skyrockets, pushing your gas prices higher….those were true.
Then you’d be an idiot to support him.
I’ve cited an abundance of examples which demonstrate that Obama is far less than honest. Geraghty said that all Obama statements come with an expiration date as well. I have merely taken that a step farther.
Why not create your own catch phrase instead of criticizing those of us who have?
Yes, drj… that’s exactly what I’m saying. Ryan’s plan has us running deficits until the year 2030, at which time then it would be a “balanced budget”… supposedly. It would not see surpluses until 2040. Needless to say, if we’re running an annual deficit for the next 18 years, we are still adding to the untenable debt.
This differs only slight from Obama’s in that he can’t say exactly when the budget would be balanced and deficits would end. Frankly, I don’t think Ryan really can either, since neither of these budget bills would exist in a vacuum of future Congressional legislation, national and global economic trends, conflicts and military expense, our world reserve currency status, and that pesky and unpredictable interest rate on our debt.
I’m not exactly sure how they can play the numbers games of “debt savings” with straight faces to the nation when they continue to run annual deficits. But all those “savings” they are waving about triumphantly? It’s but a math mind game play. They use current projections of debt, and the “savings” is how much less that current figure of projected debt would be under each plan. Yet, in reality, both plans still run annual deficits, and add to the debt each year.
And, BTW, neither projections really accommodate for what happens in the event of a debt ceiling not being raised (it can be postponed for 3 months to a year or so, but then the default happens…), and what happens to the US credit rating and interest rates for our loans over that time. If we’re still going into the hole with annual deficits, there is no escaping default without raising the debt ceiling.
Frankly, I’m not only unimpressed, I’m livid after seeing the devils in the details. They’re going to have to do considerably better than that to win my electoral heart. And, in fact, there are many sites that do side by side comparisons of both Obama’s and Ryan’s budgets. Without the devil in the details of cuts, they aren’t all that much different. Therefore if you think you can criticize Obama’s budget, and give Ryan a pass, you are living in LALA land. This is an utter failure of both sides of the aisle to grasp the reality of austerity measures.
INRE your “idiot” mantra… I never think it’s a great idea to insult everyone at one time. Obama lies no more than any other politician with campaign promises. But on the whole, Obama’s probably been the most truthful of politicians in showing us who he is, what he believes, stating what he planned to do, and actually doing it. Therefore everytime you think you have a winner in parroting the “idiot phrase”, you pretty much insult all of us who listened to Obama and saw his Euro-socialist, social justice persona laid out quite plainly.
Tell me… are you surprised at anything he’s accomplished in his first years? Or did you believe that he never would really do what he’s done? In which case, you’ve just labeled yourself an idiot along with the rest of us.
Nope… I believe him when he speaks of his quest for this country. What we saw, and what he said he was, we got. And in fact, we did have a few pleasant suprises along the way… like he didn’t dishonor the Iraq SOFA agreement, didn’t abandon Afghanistan. Granted, he isn’t accomplishing much as a CiC either, but that was a pleasant surprise. Also he may be a slow learner, but he figured out he can not only NOT close Gitmo, but that military tribunals aren’t such a bad deal after all. So I guess, if you are to talk about lies, there’s a few he did… but those lies/changes of policy are in our favor. Life looks different behind the Resolute Desk, as Obama is learning.
Now your alternative… of being an idiot to support him. That, at least, only insults Obama supporters, and not those of us who oppose Obama, but still believe his own spoken promises of social justice, redistribution of wealth, green energy policy, climate change thru agency regs, etc.. But like I said, I’m not in to blanket insults of the political opposition as you are. Nor do I deal in cutesy phrases that do so. I criticize you because you’re really better than this. You know very well that Obama has spoken plain and true about his social justice political beliefs. Therefore not even you are stupid enough to believe your own phrase.
As far as your niggling over the details of individual instances to support your claim he’s a perpetual liar, he appears to me to be not much different than most of the other career politicians we have on the hill. And that’s both sides. This big lie about the budget is just one instance of how all of us are being played the fools with lies about fake “savings” by both parties. And frankly, I’m extremely unhappy. I would hope you are too.
Words of wisdom from yesteryear.
> “You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
> You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
> You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
> You cannot lift the wage-earner up by pulling the wage-payer down.
> You cannot further the brotherhood of man
> by inciting class hatred.
> You cannot build character and courage
> by taking away people’s initiative and independence.
> You cannot help people permanently by doing for them,
> what they could and should do for themselves.”
>
> ~~ Abraham Lincoln ~~
>
>
> I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government
> from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of
> them.
>
>
> ~~ Thomas Jefferson ~~
Maybe we should figure out your actual views of austerity measures, drj. Ryan says he’ll reduce the spending by approx $620 bil annually. Obama says he’ll reduce it by $483 bil annually. The difference between the two is a pathetic $137 billion of “cuts”.
Yet with both plans it will take 18 years or more, assuming no mitigating factors in between, before the federal government starts spending less annually than they take in.
This is okay with you? ’tain’t okay with me.
Since that $137 billion difference between the two “reductions” annually is tantamount to a drop in the bucket, the nation has nothing left to argue about except who and how gets the cuts… we’ve already sold out by buying into the lie that the federal government will no longer add to the debt every year.
Maybe it’s unrealistic of me to demand that the government immediately cease adding to the debt and, starting next year, only spend as much as the anticipated revenue expected. At least that’s a zero sum gain/loss, if not a real spending “cut”. But that’s not what either party is offering us. When you are spending more than you take in, and just promise to spend a little less but *still* more than you take in – telling us that’s a “cut” – you are ready to buy into the logic of counting tax money you don’t collect as “lost revenue”.
@MataHarley:
Not with me either. I don’t think it’s unrealistic to expect that Congress immediately stop adding to the debt. I’m all for putting anything and everything on the budget cutting table, including the defense budget.
Zero baseline budgeting, for starters.
@MataHarley:
It’s not enough, but I’d take it over nothing.
@MataHarley:
With a bilateral supermajority of fellow idiots? You’d have to be an idiot to think he couldn’t do the damage he’s done.
In the first response, you see the light and now concur with johngalt and myself. But then in the second, you admit you’ll cave in advance. Isn’t this much like telegraphing to the GOP leadership your “withdrawal of troops” date?
We can’t afford to cave, drj. Both parties are selling us a bill of goods. There’s nothing acceptable about promises to add to the debt for 18 more years. This is not going to inspire global confidence in the US economy, and the ugly realities that can happen inbetween only make it a more unstable promise to spend more than we take in, but just a little less.
Personally, we need to start raising hell about this mass bipartisan deception. People don’t get it when both parties frame this scam the way they do.
My point exactly, drj. Thruout the very long Obama POTUS campaign, and with Pelosi/Reid echoing their enthusiasm, there were no surprises. Obama was not a centrist in his campaign just because the MSM wished to pretend to classify him as such. He was overtly and proudly a social justice/redistribute the wealth kind of guy. No lies… just flat out statements from his own lips.
That most of us believed him, and in his ability to accomplish what he promised to accomplish with Congress held by Dems, doesn’t make us idiots. Nor does it make him a liar.
No complaints with the “idiot for support” mantra on a personal level. But I will continue to consider the “idiot if you believe what he says” a personal insult. Trust me, I’m a believer…. and he’s done the damage he’s promised to do. And I ain’t no idiot.
@Greg:
Actually, Greg, as regards your:
It turns out the working and/or middle class are increasing their savings rate at a huge pace.
Why?
Because, they, too, recognize how uncertainty might adversely affect their futures.
I know plenty of people who would have bought new cars but have held off.
Why?
They don’t feel certain about their job security.
They don’t know if those cars will be legal with the mileage they get in the near future.
I also know people taking little day and weekend trips when they used to go on vacations.
Why?
Saves money.
I have learned that quite a few people are filling their larders rather than spending the money on more fun things.
Why?
When things are on any sale at all, they prefer to stock up for the year, even if it means less cash for going to shows or throwing parties.
We bought a large kitchen appliance recently.
The first two stores didn’t have what we needed.
They were reluctant to tell us where we could get the machine we wanted.
They would rather we had compromised and bought from them so as not to lose the sale.
Just sayin, the Old USSR had 5 and 7 year Plans. What makes anyone believe that a 10 or 12 Year Plan based upon artificial Projections is worth a warm bucket of spit?
In my Cattle Business I sign 2 and 3 Year contracts. Ones that I can meet despite diseases, weather, Gummint Over Regulation and medicine and feed costs. I budget for worst case, hope for the best, have never laid off my Hands and meet the payroll and expenses. I can’t run a deficit or “gladly buy you a hamburger on Tuesday for one today. ”
Can I trust a Congress that passes Continuing Resolutions instead of taking the Bull by the Horns and having the Courage to cut the spending? I reckon that You already know the answer. These Folks took an Oath of Office to be Stewards of the Treasury and are are all Adults.
I have sold 1,000 head of cattle on a handshake to Folks with integrity that I know. Folks that can’t balance the Nation’s Checkbook or cut unsustainable spending should resign from Office.
Yup, OT…. and I might add those 10 and 12 year plans offered by both parties still add debt for 18 and more years. Brilliant…. not!
I ain’t buying….
Psst Greg, It aint’t what You spend but what You save that marks a return to Fiscal Prudence and Responsibility. We must demand the same from those in Elected Office immediately. The unsustainable spending and kicking the can down the road must stop. From the Top Down.
@MataHarley, #15:
I’ve wracked my brain trying to understand any logical reason whatsoever for cutting high-end taxes even further, when we’re running unsustainable deficits, when effective high-end tax rates are already at an historically low level, and when income and wealth are continuing to concentrate upward at an unprecedented pace.
Whenever legitimate questions about the tax cut component of Ryan budget are raised, the topic seem to be quickly diverted to the second important component of any truly workable deficit and debt solution–that obviously being the necessity of spending cuts.
The current Ryan budget proposals aren’t going to fly because the imbalance of the approach is too obvious to be concealed and far too easy to spotlight. It will become obvious to average American voters that they’ll be the ones who will make all the sacrifices, while those who are doing remarkably well already will be set up to reap enormous new benefits.
The political danger of Ryan’s approach for the GOP in 2012 should be glaringly obvious. The danger for the nation is that the business of advancing a truly workable approach–one that balances necessary spending cuts with necessary revenue inhancements–will be sidetracked. We’re at the point already where putting the issue of deficits and debts off any longer is totally irresponsible.
Policies of both the right and the left are responsible for the mess we’re in. Both sides will have to make ideological compromises to get us out of it.
@Greg, you’re addressing the wrong fiscal conservative here. That was my comment #15, not johngalt’s.
The topic is diverted because the solution is not to further slice down any prosperity in this country… none of which is sufficient to make the slightest dent in the debt…. when unemployment now has a new standard of being acceptable with almost double what it was just a few years ago. It’s a self defeating, and self eating policy to merely reduce the success of others, in order to pretend it will raise the standards of the rest. You just shoot yourself in the foot for future revenues and growth.
Oh for heavens sake… I daresay you can’t name any specifics of the Ryan plan, nor how they substantially differ from Obama’s… that does what you say. And in fact, both plans are a death knells for the US economy since both promise to add to the debt for 18 years or more. Don’t you read?
I don’t disagree with this statement at all. Our problem is not that they make ideological compromises, but that neither side genuinely wants to reduce spending for political reason. We live in a perpetual election cycle since, every two years, somebody’s up for relection, and no one wants to take responsibility for austerity.
But I know one thing… your raising taxes mantra is a guaranteed loser. But we do know you have your own little unknown threshhold of who you believe should be “rich” and what that number actually is. So this is an arena where you and I shall never meet.
@Old Trooper 2, #29:
I don’t disagree with you on that point. I’ve never had to return to fiscal prudence. It’s been central to my personal finances for over 40 years, with predictable results.
@MataHarley, #31:
Sorry about that, and thanks for pointing it out. I corrected my error.
I was referring specifically to the reduction of the top-end tax rate to 25 percent, which is essentially a permanent continuation of the GWB tax cut of 4.6 percent plus a permanent additional cut of 10 percent.
Only if mainstream voters can’t manage to figure out just who the GOP actually plans to cut taxes for, and who democrats are suggesting aren’t paying quite enough. Polls indicate that a substantial majority of voters favor increased taxes on the high end as one component of any plan to balance the budget–and certainly as an alternative to the republican-proposed modifications to the Medicare program.
@Greg:
This is true if you are discussing Republicans and Democrats as the two sides. You continue to mistakenly refer to Republicans as conservatives. There are fiscal conservative Republicans, just as there are some fiscal conservative Democrats, although I haven’t seen any on the national stage in a while.
Both the Republicans and the Democrats, as parties, have insisted on welfare, or unearned benefits, given to specific groups, both crushing freedom and liberty by their overreaching legislation. Republicans, along with democrat support, tend to do so by corporate welfare, while Democrats, with some Republican support, tend to do so by class warfare tactics, giving welfare to special interests, such as unions. Neither method is good, and most conservatives here I would imagine will tell you the same. Obama is a new entity, in that he has used both corporate, and special interest, welfare, in order to further destroy what used to be a truly free market.
‘Free market’ is not a bad term, and shouldn’t have any negative connotations, but when democrats slam it as meaning corporate welfare, and you repeat those assertions, you do a great disservice to what is, and always has been, the greatest engine of personal wealth production the world has seen to this date. We don’t have a free market system anymore, though, as government intrusiveness has provided unfair, and artificial advantages to certain groups, and companies, that otherwise might not enjoy those advantages. The TARP funds to Wall St. were one such example, the buying of GM another.
Now, when you discuss ‘conservatives’, please do not mistake us as being in favor of any type of corporate welfare system. We dislike it, and are offended that you imply we favor it. It hasn’t been ‘one side’ or the other that has caused our economy to be in the state it is in. I used to think that, but I no longer do. It has been both Republican and Democrat rule, in congress and the presidency, that has brought us to such a state. I tend to think that both you and Rich would be in favor of true conservative principles, along with Mata, Curt and other conservatives here.
Mata has already given you here thoughts on Ryan’s plan, and mine nearly mirror hers. I simply believe that it is the best budget plan presented, but only provides for a slower death to the economy, rather than Obama’s rapid destruction. Neither will work in the long run, and our country will continue to experience worsening effects, economically speaking, as we continue down the path of spending more than we have.