Crossposted from Confounded Interest
As Treasury Secretary Geithner prepares to leave office, he has the notorious distinction of being the worst Treasury Secretary in the history of the United States, at least in terms as presiding over the outrageous growth of Federal debt.
Of course, John Snow (3 1/4 years) was no slouch, nor was Hank Paulson (2 1/2 years). But no one ran up the debt like Tim Geithner.
To be fair, Geithner is only Treasury Secretary. Both President Bush and President Obama combined with Congress went on a spending spree unlike the world has ever seen.
Paul Krugman has espoused “But all this depends on our having the political will and cohesion to do what’s necessary. What if it turns out that we’re a banana republic, with crazy extremists having so much blocking power that we can’t get our house in order?”
Professor Krugman, we are a banana republic because Socialism and Keynesian economic fantasies have indebted our children for generations to come. If we protest the spending and want to stop the debt madness, WE are the crazy extremists?
And where in The Constitution does it give anyone in Washington DC the authority to engage in wealth transfer, particularly from those who cannot represent themselves? Our children.
Dr. Anthony B. Sanders, Distinguished Professor of Real Estate Finance, George Mason University
The rumors sure are flying as to Timothy Geithner’s future.
*White House: Geithner has not told Obama he wants to go (Chicago Tribune)
(Of course this could be mere parsing, telling Obama is far different from spreading a rumor or starting to look elsewhere, etc. These are all lawyers, after all.)
*Treasury Secretary Geithner considering leaving post after debt talks (Washington Post)
(HMMMMMmmmmmm….180′ difference from the story in the ChiTrib!)
*Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner Heads for the Exit (Examiner.com)
*Geithner may quit Treasury this year for sake of family (The Independent)
*Wall Street looks to fill Treasury post after potential Geithner exit (The Hill / blog)
I just wish Lassie had kept her mouth shut and let little timmy stay in the well forever.
From a Center for Labor Market Studies report, May 2011:
Understand? That’s what has actually been happening in America. It isn’t theoretical. Nobody is making it up. It’s the reality of class warfare in America, and the average citizen didn’t declare it.
Remember:
These are the people who are currently paying some of the lowest percentages of their income in taxes in modern U.S. history, and believe that those rates should be lower still.
These are the people who assert that failure to balance the budget will result in total catastrophe, but then tell you that no tax increase of any kind at any level is acceptable to balance the budget, and go buggy-eyed ballistic if you suggest otherwise. Instead, they insist, we’ve got to balance the budget on the backs of everyone else, with drastic reductions in expenditures for Medicare, Social Security, unemployment insurance, Medicaid, infrastructure, education, etc. We’ve got to pay for the lowest possible taxes for the richest by cutting any and all programs that aren’t of direct benefit to the richest. And forget about higher wages or higher benefits. Those have got to go down, too, to keep us competitive with foreign production.
What is it about this that the average American citizen can’t figure out? Is it just too obvious, too simple, too brazen to be believed? Is it hard to understand that the debt has been going up for most of 30 years simply because we haven’t been collecting enough taxes to pay the bills?
@Greg:
greg, the class warfare going on in this country involves mobs mostly of blacks attacking working whites and stealing them blind.
These mobs chose their targets where whites commute (buses, subways, train stations) where whites shop (gas stations, liquor stores, big box stores)where whites congregate (parties, parks, fairs, concerts).
This growing trend stretches from Los Angeles to New York.
Las Vegas, Atlanta, Milwaukee, Chicago, and everywhere in between.
The odd thing about this is that Obama could very effectively use his bully pulpit to end this racist activity….yet, so far, he has not even TRIED!
Well, that brings to mind Obama’s mindset about race.
Remember?
The black friend was ”right,” but the white police (oops! Officers of many colors on that porch) acted ”stupidly.”
Listen to the video here at FA about Wright and whites.
http://floppingaces.net/most_wanted/the-rev-jeremiah-wright-all-whites-are-liars/
Obama listened to him for 20 years.
@Nan G, #4:
No, it doesn’t.
That’s one of those emotionally-charged far-right themes calculated to distract people from the real robbery-in-progress.
Black mobs are not attacking working whites and stealing them blind. The entire economic system is being manipulated by those who are in control of critical parts of it to shake down the entire country. Look at the recent series of economic upheavals. Who came out of each much richer than before, and who took the hit? Look at the “solutions” those same people are proposing. Who gains by them, and who loses? The repeating pattern is so obvious that a blind man could see it.
Incidentally, black people have been hit hard as a group. Consider that unemployment has risen even more among that minority group than among white people.
Poor Greg…. He’s got himself worked into such a lather he’s now using italics type and bold type. If he gets to the point of using bold italics then everyone better watch out.
Hey Greg, since you seem determined to keep pounding the class warfare meme of yours could you point me to the portion of the US Constitution which establishes the right of the Fed Gov’t to guarantee equality of outcomes?
@Greg:
Wait…what?
@Aye, #6:
I don’t believe that the founding fathers intended that the Constitution should be used as a means for establishing and defending a new ruling aristocracy of special interests and the super-rich. As I recall, getting away from total domination by such a system was one of the main reasons they declared independence to begin with.
@Aye, #7:
Oh, yeah. That is most definitely typical behavior for the average American black person.
I’m also quite certain that Casey Anthony is the typical white American mother.
But getting back to reality for a moment… What conclusions should a reasonable, mainstream American draw from that Center for Labor Market Studies report cited up in post #3?
What do the simple, straightforward facts tell the average American citizen about his or her likely future?
@Greg:
If the Founders had been worried about providing a means of equalized outcomes, then surely they would have provided an Enumerated Power for that purpose.
Furthermore, the breakaway was not based on a rejection of class domination or inequality at all but rather the rejection of an oppressive, overgrown, and bloated central government which is precisely what you continue to support.
@Greg:
You claimed that robberies by mobs were not happening. I provided you video evidence that you were wrong.
Nice attempt at the straw man there though.
@Aye:
Good point. However, if the founders had done so, they would have had to have given up the same freedoms and liberties that they had just fought a war to keep. Doesn’t make much sense, does it?
@Greg:
No, they fought a war to free them from the totalitarian British government and Monarchy. What you suggest is to replace that with another totalitarian government, and use ‘big business’ as your evil opposite.
Show me, and Aye, EXACTLY where in the Constitution that it gives the government the power to regulate the outcomes of individual citizen’s lives. That is, in effect, what you are supporting by your statements on taxation and wealth.
@Aye, #10:
Don’t you think there might be some difference between an unrealistic desire to guarantee equal outcomes and not wanting to see the nation bled dry by people who are very obviously rigging the game?
@johngalt, #13:
The Constitution as originally written was not an example of total perfection. Its writers were arguing principles, words, and meanings as it was written, before it was ratified, and afterward. They knew that the nation would change and evolve with the passage of time, and provided mechanisms in our governing document to change and adapt. They didn’t intend to create a fossil.
My guess is that these guys were more than smart enough to know that the future would bring many things and issues that were beyond the scope of the knowledge and considerations of their time.
@Greg:
Wanna know who is bleeding the nation dry Greg?
Here ya go:
@Greg:
Then might I suggest that you and your ilk get busy using the “provided mechanisms” to “change and adapt” the Constitution to better fit your goals rather than attempting to use the Tax Code to accomplish your social engineering goals.
My prediction is that efforts in that regard would get no further than I could throw you.
@Greg:
An absolutely true statement, however, change by executive fiat and judicial activism is NOT how they provided for change.
What you fail to understand is that it isn’t about particular issues. It’s about the idea of a limited government, and the principles they set forth to ensure a free society. They didn’t have to know about cellphones, air travel, automobiles, or power generation. Their ideas and the principles they espoused apply to everything, including what may come in the future that we, today, know nothing about.
I say again, Greg, show me, and Aye, EXACTLY where in the Constitution that it gives the government the power to regulate the outcomes of individual citizen’s lives.
@Aye, #16:
Do you believe that people who barely have enough to provide for their basic necessities–or fall short of even that–should be contributing a significant portion to the total taxes require to run the nation?
They are, of course, paying inescapable taxes already, at rates that take a significant portion of what they earn, with no dodges or loopholes available. Sales taxes, excise taxes, gasoline taxes, Social Security taxes, Medicare taxes, etc, none of which is reflected when only federal personal income tax is considered. These represents a far larger percentage of the total income of those in the bottom 50% than of high-income people. At the bottom, such taxes can cut into the budgeted money available to put food on the family table.
The rich pay the biggest share of total taxes because they’ve got the biggest share of the total income.
@johngalt, #18:
Show me EXACTLY where in the Constitution it gives the government the power to intrude into doctor/patient privacy, and to compel any female citizen, from the point of conception forward, to continue her pregnancy through to the birth of a child.
For a majority of conservatives, the obvious Constitutional issues with that sort of astonishingly intrusive governmental overreach appear to present no problem whatsoever. In what sense doesn’t that put conservative attitudes about the inviolability of constitutional principles on the level of particular issues?
@Greg:
It’s called the right to life. It’s in the Declaration. It’s part of the US Code. Perhaps you’ve heard of it.
Nice straw man by they way.
@Greg:
What I believe is that the lower 50% shouldn’t be suckling off the teat while paying in only 2.7%.
Remember that, while you whine about basic necessities etc, this slice of the population contains those who receive more government largesse than any other.
@Aye:
No doubt that includes children of the poor, along with our retired parents and grandparents.
———
I’m still very curious about the conservative take on the paragraph quoted up in Post #3. Not holding my breath, of course, but I’ll check back to see if anyone gives it some thought.
@Greg:
I though I had already made my position on your paragraph abundantly clear. I’m not interested in equality of outcomes.
The rich, whom you constantly wish to victimize and vilify, have the most to lose vis a vis taxation and gov’t interference.
Why shouldn’t they enjoy more gains from their risk and exposure than those you wish to coddle and protect?
#23:
I’ve got no problem at all with “more”. What I have a problem with is the degree of more. Corporate America capturing $464 billion of the real growth in national income while working men and women capture only $7 billion suggests to me that something is seriously amiss with the system.
There’s a far bigger rip-off of average working men and women going on in the disproportionate distribution of the profits of their production than there is in government taxation.
@Greg:
But no problem with the facts that …..
Medicaid, cost the federal government $275 billion in 2010.
Obama’s budget projects spending $75 billion on Food Stamps in 2011, double the $36 billion spent in 2008.
2010 Federal spending for Food and Nutrition Assistance overall had climbed to roughly $100 billion a year.
Federal housing assistance, totaled $77 billion in 2010.
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), pays cash mostly to single mothers with children. There is the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), which sends low income workers checks even though they usually owe no taxes to be credited against. The Child Tax Credit similarly provides cash to families with children. Supplemental Security Income (SSI) provides cash for the low income aged, blind and disabled.
In 2010 such income security programs accounted for nearly another $200 billion in federal spending.
Total welfare spending for 2010 reached nearly $900 billion.
According to your figures*, that’s almost double what ALL workers and businesses brought in!
Our so-called safety net has nightmarishly morphed into a safety foundation, maybe even a safety neighborhood.
We need, as Obama calls it, a ”reset.”
Reset welfare to be a SAFETY NET not a lifestyle.
@Greg:
Greg, get back to me when you and your minions have amended the Constitution so that equality of outcomes is covered.
Until then, you can go pound sand because, quite frankly, I am sick to death of hearing you espouse your un-American, socialist, redistributionist, utopian ideas.
@Greg:
I wasn’t arguing the abortion issue, Greg. You brought it up. You still haven’t shown me where in the Constitution it gives government the power to regulate the outcomes of people’s lives. I’m still waiting.
@johngalt, #27:
My point in bringing it up was that some conservatives seem to want to follow the Constitution literally and to the letter when it suits their agenda, but forget about it altogether when it doesn’t.
I would suggest that there’s better constitutional support for taxation and spending to benefit the general welfare than can be found for meddling into a citizen’s reproductive decisions. The Taxing and Spending Clause at least provides something topical, that’s open to interpretation and debate.
The founding fathers were silent on the topic of herbal abortifacients, the use of which was hardly unknown in colonial times. This was not a hotly debated topic. It was a non-issue. Pregnancies weren’t generally recognized as such until the point referred to as “quickening”. There were no state laws on the books interfering with reproductive choice until 1821, and the first–in Connecticut–only forbade herbal intervention after the point of quickening. Until that point, a “child” wasn’t legally recognized. This was the norm, and had been for a very long time. English Common Law always held that a woman who sought an abortion prior to quickening had committed no offense.
I’ll let whoever wants have the last word on this thread. I’ve not nothing more to add, and most probably think I’ve said too much already.
@Greg:
-One, you are confusing conservatives with abortion rights supporters, who come in nearly all stripes of the political spectrum.
-Two, conservatives do not wish to follow the Constitution “literally”, Greg. That is not what original intent means. I’d argue that liberal/progressives are more apt to follow certain phrases or clauses of the Constitution “literally”, with the example of the 2nd Amendment the biggest one.
-Three, conservatives such as myself, regarding the Constitution, do not “pick and choose” which phrases or clauses to give wide latitude to, and which to view in strict literal interpretation. Rather, we rely upon the writings of the founders, particularly in the Federalist Papers, to glean the original intent of those clauses and phrases.