Given that many Republicans, including Utah’s own Senator Mike Lee, practically ran on a platform of shutting down the federal government, the present situation is hardly unexpected. Nobody on Capitol Hill can agree on the FY 2011 budget, even though the fiscal year is half over.
David Dayen sums it up on FDL:
According to the latest information, the two sides are far apart… Lawmakers have a little over two weeks to resolve all of this, and it doesn’t seem possible to anyone, especially when the GOP House leadership reacts to any hint of compromise with a blistering statement disavowing it. And with members of both parties adamant against any more short-term stopgaps, there doesn’t seem to be any choice other than a shutdown.
Remember, this is just the FY2011 budget. The deadline for next year’s budget isn’t all that far away. And we’re about a month away from reaching the debt limit, another hostage-taking event.
A government shutdown? Really? In the midst of an economic slump and three major military operations overseas?
UPDATE: Caution, wrecking crew at work. Republicans Prepare To Reject Final White House Budget Offer
Previous One Utah posts:
Read Speaker Boehner’s Lips: Government Shutdown on March 5 (February 20, 2011)
Republicans Threaten Government Shutdown and Economic Catastrophe (November 1, 2010)
#1 by Larry Bergan on March 26, 2011 - 7:18 pm
What’s a government?
#2 by Rico on March 27, 2011 - 7:29 am
Stop with the threats already and shut ‘er down. Time to bring this idiocy to its final and ugly conclusion.
#3 by 70.75.10.132 on March 27, 2011 - 7:31 am
It is going to be great! This very well will be what it takes to stall 3 major military operations, and keep our moron in chief and the rest of his indians from more spending legislation.
This is what we’ve been waiting for. Watch the markets skyrocket!
#4 by Rico on March 27, 2011 - 7:39 am
Time to stock the ammo cabinet.
#5 by Richard Warnick on March 27, 2011 - 8:36 am
This morning on “Meet the Press,” SecDef Gates pointed out that the U.S. has four major military operations right now — he included the Navy’s relief operations in Japan. I doubt any DOD activities will be affected by a government shutdown, because everything the military does is “essential.”
Many civilian government employees will be temporarily out of a job during the shutdown. I hope they march on Washington.
#6 by 70.75.10.132 on March 27, 2011 - 9:35 am
This is awesome, of course the MIC won’t be defunded. If I worked and was payed off the public dole, the error of that way will soon be apparent.
Go ahead march, so the all of America can see what they aren’t paying for, then perhaps we can permanently fire this wasteful non essential crowd.
#7 by 70.75.10.132 on March 27, 2011 - 9:48 am
Think back to the election. Remember the joy of real leadership at last? Back to the promise of hope and change?
ROTFLMAO!!!
Nothing can stop the degradation of a system devoid of intervention. The bulk of those opposed to the natural course of recent events are still too busy WATCHING and WHINING!!
#8 by cav on March 27, 2011 - 9:54 am
Call me crazy, but here’s how I look at it all: Liberalism and rationality have won the culture war. Hands down. The problem stems from the American political establishment refusing to see this fact and the corporate system not caring about the outcome, willing and able to rob the people blind either way. Really, a simple matter of making the real division between our government and the corporate sleeze obvious enough to activate the re-control mechanisms.
#9 by Richard Warnick on March 27, 2011 - 10:03 am
Without the culture war, how will Republicans convince working people to vote against their own economic interests? Or are things so far gone that the corporatists can count on Democratic politicians to go against the people who voted them into office?
We need to get this one person, one vote thing working for us, the middle class majority.
#10 by 70.75.10.132 on March 27, 2011 - 10:05 am
You still are in the weeds so bad that even a brush hog couldn’t save you cav. The culture war has been nothing but a side show distraction to facilitate the ongoing ripoff and destruction of the publicly funded apparatus that is of no value to the MIC and Wall Street. All the idiot logic of mindless social causes are placed in front of the public’s (liberal) idle mind to purposely divide them and keep them at each others throat while the planned closing down of government and what it does and doesn’t do, heads apace.
It is so spectacularly AWESOME to see how bone stupid progressives and Democrats have been to fall directly head first into this trap. It’s all but done. Predictable.
When you believe in anything you will fall for everything.
#11 by cav on March 27, 2011 - 10:18 am
You seem to believe all progressives are bone stupid’…keep falling friend. Here we part company. Good day.
#12 by 70.75.10.132 on March 27, 2011 - 10:20 am
Duh progressives, not much more will be needed, es ist, “Das Ende”!!
If you believed in Freedumb and Democrazy from the last ten years overseas, what in the name frijoles do think it is going to mean here? I mean people, hello, welcome to reality. Foreign wars and behaviors bear domestic consequences. The whole order of the American mind has been altered these past 11 years, and that of course was the entire intent. Go WAR!
The upshot? We are no democracy anymore, and that places the populace directly where they are, nowhereland, where there is no soup for you!
#13 by 70.75.10.132 on March 27, 2011 - 10:39 am
Well then, if not stupid a bunch of easily led, incapable of sensing the political danger they are in, and day late and dollar short.
It is supposed to make you mad, instead all it does is precipitate a turning away. That is the hoped for response of the diametrically opposed dialectic. Keep heading in exactly the direction your pointy heads are pointed.
I’ll just read about the result in the paper, because for the most part reality doesn’t live here.
The useful progressive idiots are finding themselves on a raft with no sail or oars, slowly drifting out into the obscurity of the open ocean of history, on the outgoing tide. It might give comfort to say you were done ill by evil republicans, but the sad fact is you followed a “mud cart and thought it was wedding”, in Obama. You did your own selves in.
#14 by 70.75.10.132 on March 27, 2011 - 10:52 am
The AXE that progressives so cleanly sharpened themselves by their over reach under the traitor who sold them out.
#15 by Richard Warnick on March 28, 2011 - 1:01 pm
Caution, wrecking crew at work. Republicans Prepare To Reject Final White House Budget Offer
It really looks like the Tea-GOP is going ahead with their shutdown plan.
#16 by 70.75.10.132 on March 28, 2011 - 5:16 pm
It is awesome!! Get ‘er done, and we will see what we need from this shitpile, and what we don’t. Way overdue. Thank the Democrats in their hubris since day one of Obama’s presidency for the opportunity to finally see what is truly unnecessary.
#17 by shane on March 28, 2011 - 5:17 pm
It occurs to me that 1) the wealthy are generally more likely to vote, so it is more a matter of people failing to vote for their interests, 2) a little election fraud is the republican way 3) race is still handing the south to the right in spades, 4) the religious reich will never let the culture wars die, at least in their own minds. A sum total of those facts continues to be the rights best bet.
And when the left does get elected from time to time, you can generally count on enough of them to be corporate sellouts to keep that special party enough in power to just keep any actual meaningful change from happening.
#18 by Richard Warnick on March 28, 2011 - 6:05 pm
The Tea-GOP regards all non-military discretionary spending as unnecessary. They think Social Security and Medicare are unnecessary. What’s necessary? More wars and tax cuts for the rich! Send the bill to what’s left of the middle class!
shane– When I say “the rich” I mean the top two percent of U.S. households.
#19 by shane on March 28, 2011 - 10:22 pm
Well, you know what they call a tea party member with morals? a democrat.
The top 2% might be “the rich”, and about 60% of the population (a few years ago, doubt it has changed much) make less than 50 grand, but only 40% of voters. Even though the average income isn’t all that special, the average income of the typical voter is going up, and has been since the early 70′s.
Make your policy for the wealthy. Block the poor from voting, break up unions, which not only increased the hoi palloi’s wages but encouraged them to vote. Convince people that $250,000 a year is “middle class” when it describes your tax cuts but teachers making less than 1/3 that are wealthy and thumbing their noses at the poor. Get the courts to proclaim companies as people for giving you cash, but then claim that people aren’t people when it comes time to count the votes…
Good gig if you can get it. Grand Old Plutocracy in action.
#20 by Richard Warnick on March 29, 2011 - 7:55 am
Average income has gone up, GDP has gone up, etc. The problem is the distribution has been more and more unequal. You can average a huge surge in wealth for the wealthy and a flatlined middle class, and say it’s all good. But is it?
#21 by shane on March 29, 2011 - 8:10 am
The distribution isn’t just unequal and getting worse, there are signs that the amount it is getting worse is accelerating.
But what I mean about the average income going up is not that the average person is making more, adjusted that has held pretty steady for some time, rather, the typical voter is a higher income voter. The lower income potential voters have simply stopped voting.
With my classes, the way i generally discuss the problem you are referencing is the “Bill Gates walks into the classroom” example. If we figure the median and average worth of our classroom, and Bill Gates walks into the room, the average changes a lot. The median probably doesn’t change all that much, if at all.
The median is a better measure for the typical citizen, and the median income has actually declined over the last generation, while the average keeps climbing.
That is why the rich need bigger tax breaks, they have so much more money to pay taxes on than the rest of us after all….
#22 by Richard Warnick on March 29, 2011 - 9:01 am
Voter registration and turnout are complicated problems, as I found out once when I tried to use voter stats for a project in a statistics course.
In 2007, Paul Krugman looked at the exit polls and noted that people with incomes of $100,000 or more tend to vote Republican, and this has been true since 1972.
Definitely, it’s an advantage for the GOP if they can find ways to reduce middle-class and lower income voter participation. This is why Republicans always complain about voter fraud, and use caging and other voter suppression schemes where they can.
I think education, and not just education but awareness of current events, is a big factor. Lots of people I see every day pay virtually no attention to politics and the world outside their own lives. For these people, filling out a ballot is like taking a test that they didn’t study for. It’s stressful, and why do it if you don’t have to?
#23 by 70.75.10.132 on March 29, 2011 - 9:04 am
When a dime bought a candy bar that was when I was first introduced to money. They now cost 60 cents. The average we are paid is of course higher due to the inflated value of money and its constant creation. 35k used to be a big salary in the 70′s, now it is barely above poverty line.
However, despite the recent economic tumble, a higher % of people own their homes, and cars are everywhere and cheap. TV’s, cell phones, easier access to necessities, no matter where you live, really the quality of life is great deal better than in years past. People even without insurance get health care, heck you can get it even if you are not a citizen here, and have the taxpayer foot the bill.
No doubt growing government is where we are going broke, and that problem is going to be excised. Needless wars would go along way to helping affairs, if you want take it up with our Nobel Peace Prize president.
The rich are not going to pay any more money, they are now in full control if the government, and are legislating in their own favor. Simple fascism. Even if you managed to get the “rich” to pay what you believe is their fair share, they will in a relatively short period of time find a place to avoid taxes as a means to fund social policy that isn’t helping their class and society. We are left then with a government that is hapless in its ability…., you name it, to do anything effectively. If you call running transfer payment programs effective, I could get better results paying a salesman a 1% commission to hand out government checks to the entitled, and save the bureaucracy, buildings, heating bills, utilities, and all of the rest of the waste that encompasses big “government”.
Yes, progressives a new age is dawning, the age of less it could be called. Considering that the Obama stimulus went almost entirely to growing government, certainly not to common folks, it is clear that what you want from government even under a perceived progressive as Obama, isn’t going to come. Good luck, and get a paddle for that raft before you lose sight of land.
#24 by shane on March 29, 2011 - 9:17 am
Since the Citizens United decision, I have asked over 150 university students what they know about it. To date 3 have even heard of it. Education? Awareness?
Which is a bigger problem, ignorance or apathy? I don’t know, and I don’t care…
This is the political future. And that is too educated for the repubs. They need to defund NPR so the last 7 people who are moderately informed will have less access to non-faux news.
Krugman is who i got the “Bill Gates walks into the room” example from BTW. He generally seems to do good work.
#25 by Richard Warnick on March 29, 2011 - 9:18 am
I would like to welcome George W. Bush to One Utah. Who else would say health care is already free (all you have to do is go to the emergency room, yeah right)?
Why is there a budget deficit? Could it have something to do with humongous tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires? How about military operations halfway around the world that cost hundreds of millions of dollars per day? Nope, those can’t be the reasons. Must be wasteful spending on home heating for the elderly in New England.
#26 by james farmer on March 29, 2011 - 9:23 am
And don’t forget public support of NPR.
#27 by shane on March 29, 2011 - 10:10 am
If we just started converting the freezing elderly to a gasoline substitute, we could solve the (non-existant) medicare crisis and the fuel problems in one step! And who listens to NPR outside of old people? Three problems in one go!
And the ads could be great! We could call it “soylent granny gas additive!”
Plus, the right could finally get the death panels they where so sure would happen. Wins all around…
#28 by Richard Warnick on March 29, 2011 - 11:00 am
The Tea-GOP is very serious about voter suppression. They are making their plans now for 2012.
#29 by Richard Warnick on March 29, 2011 - 11:56 am
Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) Admits Republicans Want to Kill Social Security:
#30 by Larry Bergan on March 29, 2011 - 4:34 pm
Why not? They always get away with it. It’s not like the Democrats are going to do anything about it; that would be controversial.
#31 by Richard Warnick on March 29, 2011 - 5:55 pm
Sometimes you have to laugh to keep from crying…
#32 by 70.75.10.132 on March 29, 2011 - 6:59 pm
Don’t worry about NPR, you all will fund it I’m sure, even if you have to listen to hours of begging.
Watch “Waiting for Superman” and you will understand why Fox and MSNBC rule. Our kids cannot understand most of what is talked about on NPR, and that is just how the elites like it. How did it get to this? Perhaps we have to ask what the hell is going on in most schools. That’d be a whole lot of nothing.
Our crisis with SSI and the elderly has only been an understood demographic reality since before most of us were born. No one has really planned for it, so there are few solutions but privation with the numbers of people involved.
#33 by Larry Bergan on March 29, 2011 - 7:44 pm
What if the government were to drown Grover Norquist in his bathtub first. That would save a lot of grief, wouldn’t it?
#34 by shane on March 29, 2011 - 8:10 pm
So what we want America to be is a place where that 50% are put on icebergs and set adrift so they won’t be a burden on (non)working teabaggers?
Good to know. I assume Cantor will off himself before he is a burden on anyone.
…oops, too late.
#35 by 70.75.10.132 on March 29, 2011 - 8:22 pm
The gov’t couldn’t get it done Larry, they would have to rely on contractors, or their own employees, and we all know how well they do their jobs and follow instructions.
#36 by Larry Bergan on March 29, 2011 - 8:45 pm
Well there’s one good thing; the people who are picking up wages to be inefficient on purpose will be in the soup lines.
Wake up call, for sure!
#37 by 70.75.10.132 on March 29, 2011 - 8:49 pm
So the better part of public service employment is what mean? On purpose, without a clue how inefficient you are? It won’t matter once the money is gone. http://www.inflation.us top article.
#38 by Larry Bergan on March 29, 2011 - 8:59 pm
Try to slow down glenn.
#39 by Richard Warnick on March 29, 2011 - 9:41 pm
Glenn–
There is no Social Security crisis. By 2023, Social Security will have a $4.3 trillion surplus (yes, trillion with a ‘T’). It can pay out all scheduled benefits for the next quarter-century with no changes whatsoever.
After 2037, it’ll still be able to pay out 75% of scheduled benefits–and again, that’s without any changes. And that projection is based on an unrealistically pessimistic assumption about the rate of economic growth. Social Security does not add to the federal deficit — it’s self-financing.
Medicare would be OK, too, if somebody would do something about skyrocketing health care costs.
#40 by Larry Bergan on March 29, 2011 - 10:05 pm
Vermont!
#41 by Richard Warnick on March 30, 2011 - 1:06 pm
Think Progress: Caught On Tape: Republicans Touting Support For Government Shutdown
#42 by 70.75.10.132 on March 30, 2011 - 1:30 pm
Wait for inflation Richard, which is on its way. Sure people will get their money, it just won’t pay for their needs. If it is so well off why is there plans to raise the age to get the benefit? The numbers are cooked. Believe it if you want to, at the deficit we are createing( 222 billion in Feb. alone) you won;t be convincing anyone. There is is no money at all in SSI, there is no lock box, it is another unfunded liability.
Bernie took his 200 million in exchange for giving up on the public option. This is the indication that the ship is going down and Bernie is getting what he can now for his constituents. Smart move.
Belguim shut its gov’t down last year and it has been nothing but a benefit.
#43 by Richard Warnick on March 30, 2011 - 1:41 pm
Buy lots of gold, Glenn. I hear Goldline is the best source of inflation protection.
#44 by 70.75.10.132 on March 30, 2011 - 1:57 pm
Gold and silver coins are now legal tender in Utah.
People who bought gold at 280 are sitting pretty, it is now near 1500, and silver is at 38….38. Beats paper money and government promises hands down.
#45 by Richard Warnick on March 30, 2011 - 2:04 pm
I’m selling shares in a gold fund. Probably Glenn Beck’s followers are buying.
#46 by 70.75.10.132 on March 30, 2011 - 3:24 pm
Buying any yourself?
#47 by Richard Warnick on March 30, 2011 - 3:43 pm
No, selling. I bought in 1993, when gold was still under $400 an ounce.
#48 by 70.75.10.132 on March 30, 2011 - 4:12 pm
Well there you go, you know as well as anyone how devalued our money is. What do you buy next to keep the value. If you are like the rest of world no one wants to hold dollars if they can help it. Though the government shutting down could help strengthen our currency.
#49 by Richard Warnick on March 30, 2011 - 4:31 pm
Gold is not money. Gold is a commodity. Money is money. This is how Goldline cheats the Glenn Beck fans who are stupid enough to buy from them.
#50 by brewski on March 30, 2011 - 4:47 pm
Lots of things are money. Money is a medium of exchange, a storage of value, unit of account. Gold, silver, cigarettes, fish hooks.
Since fiat money can decline in value through inflation and overthrow of governments, other items are a far better item to meet these definitions.
#51 by 70.75.10.132 on March 30, 2011 - 6:11 pm
The State of Utah disagrees with you Richard. Gold coins will bear the value of their weight in the open market. That’s money, and a commodity as well. Superior to paper money which has no inherent value at all.
#52 by Richard Warnick on March 30, 2011 - 6:51 pm
I told you, buy gold. It’s the only way to survive the coming apocalypse that Glenn Beck predicts on a daily basis.
#53 by 70.75.10.132 on March 30, 2011 - 8:20 pm
Got it and am going to hang onto it for a bit longer. The apocalypse is here Richard.
http://enenews.com/alert-epa-radioactive-iodine-131-levels-in-rainwater-exceed-maximum-contaminant-level-permitted-in-drinking-water
Where gold is headed in some opinions is 5k an ounce, though I imagine the paper pushers would like to intervene then..amortized for existing debt gold would be worth 22k an ounce. Meanwhile the money creation continues and the market soars because well, where else can money go? When the crack up comes it will be epic.
#54 by Dave on April 7, 2011 - 2:34 pm
Watch the markets tank! Maybe this is just what we need to go from recession to depression. I know I’m taking everything I got out of the bank tomorrow!
#55 by Dave on April 7, 2011 - 2:46 pm
And you know this because you are or have been a government employee? That’s bs the same that gov workers are overpaid! Maybe in Washington but not anywhere else. I happen to be an IT worker and I work my ass off. I’m also a disabled vet who was a paratrooper and served honorably. What have you ever done?
#56 by Dave on April 7, 2011 - 2:50 pm
You forget that we’ve been borrowing against that so what you call self-financing is a smoke screen.
#57 by Larry Bergan on April 7, 2011 - 3:19 pm
Dave:
Hold on there!
I’m on your side!
I’m not talking about all government employees. I have been to the capitol to stand with Wisconsin workers. I’m talking about people at high level government jobs. The republicans have been telling us that the “government can’t do anything right” and when they got the power to, they put shills in positions at high level government jobs that were designed to protect all of us through regulation. Important offices became headed by plants who were NOT doing their jobs and it was by design.
#58 by cav on April 7, 2011 - 3:21 pm
We’re dealing with obvious madness. Republicans want to cut off Planned Parenthood and gut the Clean Air Act, but instead of pursuing legislation to achieve their goals, they’re insisting that this be part of the budget. Democrats can’t go along with this nonsense, and John Boehner is too weak a Speaker to tell his caucus to act like grown-ups, so the entire process is unraveling.
#59 by cav on April 7, 2011 - 4:01 pm
Obama should let the shutdown happen,and then nationalize the entire health care industry over the weekend.
That should make Congressman Eddie Munsters head to explode.
#60 by Richard Warnick on April 7, 2011 - 4:31 pm
Dave–
Social Security is not responsible for any of the deficit. The trust fund money belongs to the working people who paid into it. Any politician who tries to take it away is going to be sorry.
#61 by cav on April 7, 2011 - 4:37 pm
How is a social contract like the Constitution of the United States?
They both can be seen as a suitable substitute for toilet paper in the event of a republican ascension in political weight (usually the result of outright lies or other manipulation of information, or gamed voting systems).
#62 by brewski on April 7, 2011 - 4:50 pm
What trust fund money? There is no money in it.
Government bonds are in it. The same government who owes you the money. So it’s an asset from the same entity from whom it is a liability.
I don’t think a bank would loan you money based on the fact that you have an “asset” in the form of a note from yourself.
In fact, Canada’s equivalent of SS does not own Canadian government bonds. They invest a broad portfolio of diversified global securities.
http://www.cppib.ca/
But I guess those Canadians with their national healthcare are just a bunch of wingnuts.
#63 by Richard Warnick on April 7, 2011 - 5:46 pm
brewski–
Are you going to break the news to the Chinese about how U.S. Treasury securities are now suddenly worthless?
#64 by brewski on April 7, 2011 - 7:22 pm
They aren’t worthless. But a loan from yourself is not an asset for you, although it may be an asset for someone else.
If not, go to your bank and tell them you made a billion dollar loan to yourself and you are now among the uber rich.
#65 by Richard Warnick on April 7, 2011 - 7:58 pm
brewski–
You may know this, but it’s worth mentioning. There is a vault in Parkersburg, West Virginia at the Bureau of the Public Debt. In it are $2.5 trillion in treasury securities that belong to the Social Security Trust Fund.
If these securities are valueless, as you say, that constitutes sovereign default. Which would mean that the “full faith and credit of the United States Government” is no longer bankable. If that ever happens, nobody in their right mind would buy Treasuries.
I know you’ll love this — I’m going to quote Michael Moore again. “America is not broke. Not by a long shot. The country is awash in wealth and cash. It’s just that it’s not in your hands.” So there is no danger of Social Security running out of money in the foreseeable future. We as a nation have more than enough resources to make good on the promises made to everyone paying into the system.
#66 by brewski on April 8, 2011 - 8:54 am
It doesn’t matter if the SS Trust Fund has a vault with $2.5MM in treasurues in it.
The point is that the asset and the liability are both from the US government. Treasuries are a promise to pay from the US government, and the SS Trust Fund is part of the US government. So part of the US government is promising to pay another part of the US government. Which part of that is so hard to understand?
You are right, in sort of a technical accounting sort of way but not ina a reality of cash flow sort of way. The only way the US Treasury can make good on those $2.5 trillion in obligations is that if it runs a budget surplus of $2.5 trillion over the next several decades. Since the Budget Mr. Obama proposed projects trillions and trillions of additional deficits, running trillions in surpluses seems pretty unlikley.
Yes, many Americans have a lot of money personally. This fact is irrelevant when it comes to liabilities of the US Treasury. Those wealthy Americans have also paid their SS taxes just like everyone else so they are owed their benefits too.
So tell me why did those liberal Candians invest their government pension assets in a diversified portfolio of securuies and not only Canadian government bonds.
Because they understand math.
#67 by Richard Warnick on April 8, 2011 - 9:09 am
brewski–
My point is, the U.S. government can deliver on Social Security because there is ample money available. The so-called “crisis” doesn’t exist. Social Security is only in danger from the people trying to destroy it and give our money to Wall Street.
#68 by brewski on April 8, 2011 - 9:20 am
The ample money available can be had by running a $2.5 trillion surplus. When was Obama planning on putting that budget forward?
#69 by brewski on April 8, 2011 - 9:29 am
Richard,
Thank you for providing me with my first belly laugh of the morning.
You posted as a source on the viability of social security someone who is a “social media consultant”. Tell me you are joking and that you just wanted to amuse me.
So tell me again where is this $2.5 trillion in cash going to come from.
#70 by Richard Warnick on April 8, 2011 - 9:32 am
brewski–
Social Security is not contributing to the deficit. The budget debate should not include anything to do with Social Security. Source is the Social Security Board of Trustees (PDF).
The federal deficit situation is divided between the long-term deficit problem (caused by the Bush tax cuts for the rich, deadbeat corporations, and over-spending on the military) and the short-term deficit problem (caused by Bush’s Great Recession). The solutions to these two different problems are different.
Short-term deficits are needed to backstop state government budgets and keep people employed to prevent a double-dip recession. Thanks to the deficit spending in the ARRA, America was saved from going into Great Depression 2.0. If the economy ever recovers from the BGR, this federal spending can be reduced.
Or else the Tea-GOP controlled House will simply force an immediate reduction in spending, killing the recovery by the power of minority rule. Putting hundreds of thousands of people out of work, as the pending government shutdown will do, does not reduce deficit spending — quite the opposite.
To bring down the long-term deficits will require repeal of the Bush tax cuts, ending our permanent state of war, taking about $300 billion out of the Pentagon budget, lower health care costs, and reform of the tax code. This is all regarded in Washington as pretty much impossible.
#71 by cav on April 8, 2011 - 10:25 am
Accounting made easy: I paid for your dinner, you owe me sex.
#72 by brewski on April 8, 2011 - 10:46 am
Correct, SS is not contributing to the deficit. I didn’t say it was. Tomatoes are red. So what? The point is that if SS wants to redeem those bonds, the Treasury must run a $2.5 trillion surplus to have the cash to pay the cash. It is called arithmetic.
#73 by Richard Warnick on April 8, 2011 - 10:51 am
Why do you think the Social Security Administration is going to cash in $2.5 trillion all at once?
#74 by brewski on April 8, 2011 - 1:33 pm
Who said all at once? Is it your goal today to see how many time you can misquote me in one day?
#75 by Richard Warnick on April 8, 2011 - 1:44 pm
Didn’t you demand that President Obama submit a budget with a $2.5 trillion surplus?
#76 by brewski on April 8, 2011 - 2:36 pm
No.
#77 by shane on April 8, 2011 - 3:14 pm
Honestly Richard, it isn’t that hard.
It doesn’t say all at once, just put forward the budget that runs that surplus.
Example:
1. Yearly balanced budget plus 1 dollar.
2. Wait 2.5 trillion years
3. Profit!
What that has to do with SS is anyones guess, but you are arguing with brewski.
#78 by brewski on April 8, 2011 - 3:34 pm
Shane, tell me where the cash is going to come from. I don’t see the SS trust fund mailing out the bonds. It wants the bonds redeemed, with cash. The redeemee, the US Treasury, will need to get that cash from someplace. I have yet to hear this addresses by anyone including Richard and the social networking consultant.
#79 by shane on April 8, 2011 - 3:44 pm
Modern capitalist economics is built on the idea that you can do exactly that, but I digress.
Maybe you should go read the links so helpfully provided in the discussion. You would learn that you are asking the wrong question. In fact, i would go further, and say that you are making a category error. But honestly, I know you won’t listen, so….
#80 by cav on April 8, 2011 - 4:11 pm
Developing: Federal Workers Union Files Suit Against Government
#81 by Larry Bergan on April 8, 2011 - 4:56 pm
Hey!
Here’s some dough!
Hard to imagine we had a really good secretary of labor not long ago.
#82 by brewski on April 8, 2011 - 9:53 pm
Shane,
First Richard links the bloggings of a social media consultant. Next he links to me the official news that:
“Over the 75-year period, the Trust Funds would require additional revenue equivalent to $5.4 trillion in present value dollars to pay all scheduled benefits.”
and
Basically supporting every point I have made. In other words, the SS Trust Fund is redeeming bonds for cash and will need more bonds for more cash for the next 75 years.
In other words, I’m right and you’re wrong…again.
#83 by cav on April 9, 2011 - 8:32 am
Lift the cap, oh wise one!
#84 by Richard Warnick on April 9, 2011 - 11:46 am
brewski–
The reason why this Social Security argument is silly is because for the last 28 years I have been paying for the retirement of the generation ahead of me, and also for my own retirement. So the government Trust Fund is a loan from me that has to be paid back.
Dean Baker explains (emphasis added):
(Yes, he is an economist)
Social Security privatization is a phony solution to a phony problem.
#85 by brewski on April 10, 2011 - 4:35 pm
If the GM employees’ pension plan had a billion dollars in loans only from GM, and that the pension plan proundly pointed to those “assets” as being bona fide assets, and on GM’s consolidated accounting statements booked those loans as assets, you would call them insane, and the pension asset managers would be fired for violating their fidiciary responsibility, and the accounting people would go to jail for intentional misstatement of financial statements.
A loan from GM to GM is not an asset to GM.
Eventually the GM pensioners would want cash for their bonds. They would go to GM and want to redeem their bonds for cash. So GM would need to raise cash. GM’s choices to raise cash are to turn around and borrow again from someone else (not the pension plan) or make sustained cash profits from operations until it could repay those bonds with real cash generated from operations.
The analogy is perfect to the US government except that the US can print new money, in other words, devalue its currency and pay in dollars worth less than the dollars it borrowed.
If you don’t get this, you don’t get accounting and you don’t get what cash is and what it isn’t. I can’t make you understand that. It just is.
Yes, you did get taxed to pay for the retirement of others, you also paid for all the crap that the US government has pissed away money on for the last 80 years including various wars, wasteful and innefective social programs, bridges to nowhere, sex life of shrimp research, missions to the moon, etc.
So I hate to be the one to break it to you, but you have been lied to by everyone from FDR to Greenspan. You got screwed. Just beacuse you don’t like getting screwed doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
#86 by Richard Warnick on April 10, 2011 - 4:50 pm
brewski–
The U.S. government is not a private sector corporation. It cannot go bankrupt. As the cliche goes, “the government is all of us.” As a nation, we have enough money to provide needed services — a fact the right-wing refuses to recognize.
#87 by brewski on April 10, 2011 - 5:40 pm
Oh really?
http://www.billshrink.com/blog/6799/10-governments-that-went-bankrupt/
#88 by Richard Warnick on April 11, 2011 - 8:23 am
Last time I checked (this morning), Argentina, Iceland, Germany, Great Britain, Russia, Pakistan, Zimbabwe, Ecuador, France, and Spain all had functioning governments. Most of them are collecting taxes and spending money. Governments of developed nations, unlike private sector concerns, rarely go out of business.
You know who ought to be bankrupt. The TBTF Wall Street firms. But no, the taxpayers bailed them out so they can come full circle and trigger a future recession.
#89 by brewski on April 11, 2011 - 9:25 am
You are shifting the goal posts. First you said governments can’t go bankrupt. Bankrupt, by the way, does not mean out of business. It means reneging in your debts. So yes, countries can go bankrupt. Also, private companies can also go bankrupt and still operate. They reneg on their past debt and often go on.
Yes, a lot of the banks should have been liquidated. But Barack “Goldman Sachs” Obama would never let that happen to his bosses.
#90 by cav on April 11, 2011 - 9:26 am
Jobs take people off of unemployment insurance payments (reducing the deficit), and those newly-employed start paying taxes (reducing the deficit). Jobs are fine as long as the people holding them do not join the Union.
But if people get employed, then they thank the President, a Democrat. Thus, jobs will not happen if the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has anything to say about it.
Also, “No one is hiring because they have no idea what the employment situation will be in 2 years.” Sounds like a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Just like the deficit.
They LOVE the deficit. LOVE IT. They created it, after all.
The Republicans can now spend every single day from now until 2012 beating back everything that they’ve always hated, as long as there is a deficit.
The fact that they just make the deficit WORSE, is a feature, not a bug.
Finally:
Former Reagan OMB director David Stockman on Paul Ryan’s long-term budget plan:
It doesn’t address in any serious or courageous way the issue of the near and medium-term deficit. I think the biggest problem is revenues. It is simply unrealistic to say that raising revenue isn’t part of the solution. It’s a measure of how far off the deep end Republicans have gone with this religious catechism about taxes.
Amen. Tax the rich until they squeal in pain.
#91 by cav on April 11, 2011 - 9:36 am
Among their most pernicious contrivances has been to convince the passengers seated aboard the runaway train of the corporate state that the blur of landscape out the train’s windows is caused by their own poor vision and the impending crash will be due to their negative thoughts.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/04/11-1
#92 by Richard Warnick on April 11, 2011 - 10:37 am
brewski–
I think your point is valid. Maybe I should have said, there is no logical reason for the U.S. government to declare bankruptcy. But Republicans threaten to do exactly that, refusing to raise the ceiling on the National Debt “without something really, really big attached to it.”
#93 by brewski on April 11, 2011 - 1:05 pm
Regardless of tax rate over the last 60 years, Federal tax receipts as a percentage of GDP has been under 20%, no matter what. So don’t kid yourself that raising rates will result in some huge windfall of revenue. History proves this is false.
http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/4cfa47654bd7c86020620000-450-308/federal-tax-receipts-by-source-percent-of-gdp.png
#94 by Richard Warnick on April 12, 2011 - 7:47 am
brewski–
Are you saying that cutting federal taxes reduces revenue and causes big deficits, but raising taxes back to what they were under the Clinton administration won’t undo the damage? Is that logical?
#95 by brewski on April 12, 2011 - 10:10 am
I am saying that the Regressive’s budget assumes that Federal revenue as a % of GDP will be 22.3%.
I am observing that at no point since WWII, even when marginal rates were 90%, did we get anywhere near that number.
Look at the charts.
I guess you believe in unicorns and fairies.
#96 by Richard Warnick on April 12, 2011 - 10:24 am
brewski–
Maybe 22.3 percent is a pie-in-sky figure, but if the federal millionaire’s tax (“Fairness in Taxation Act”) passed then you could get there. And 80 percent of Americans support it.
#97 by brewski on April 12, 2011 - 10:42 am
If we had a millionaire’s tax before and didn’t get there then what makes you think a new millionaire’s tax will?
Oh that’s right, you believe in unicorns.
#98 by Richard Warnick on April 12, 2011 - 10:52 am
Due to extreme wealth inequality, the millionaires have more millions now than before. QED
#99 by brewski on April 12, 2011 - 10:59 am
I don’t think 22.3% is high enough. We should take more. The suggested millionaire’s tax needs to be more punative as a matter of moral righteousness. Then there is the matter of re-education camps and eliminating the intelligentsia, clergy, boureoisie, etc.
#100 by brewski on April 12, 2011 - 12:46 pm
Federal Spending as a % of GDP:
2000 17.98% (last year of Clinton admin)
2011 25.32% Obama budget
2012 23.58% Obama budget
2013 22.51% Obama budget
So Richard, if the Clinton years are what we should aspire to, let’s suggest Obama cut the budget back to be 17.98% of GDP.
All he would need to do is to cut $562 billion this year and more each year thereafter.
#101 by Richard Warnick on April 12, 2011 - 12:50 pm
What are you talking about? Hedge fund managers work hard for their money. I’m sure one Wall Streeter does the work of 23,000 teachers, and deserves to keep everything.
During the Clinton administration, the Republicans hadn’t crashed the economy yet. Economic recovery is expensive, hence the additional expenditures.
#102 by brewski on April 12, 2011 - 1:26 pm
The funny thing about hedge fund managers, and I know a couple of them, is that they only make money if someone else voluntarily gives them money to manage. To the best of my knowledge, no hedge fund manager has held a gun to anyone’s head demanding that they manage their money.
Most of the time, hedge fund managers underperform the risk adjusted returns of an S&P 500 Index fund, but they make a lot of money anyway. They shouldn’t. But baseball players who bat .210 shouldn’t make millions and neither should completely talentless 16 year olds who lip-sync. We don’t have to go to baseball games and we don’t have to buy their CD’s.
GDP per capita:
2000 39,766.69
2011 43,840.82
(constant dollars)
source: IMF
Obama is working with an economy which is 10.2% higher in per capita constant dollars than Clinton was in 2000. You are sounding Palinesque with your assertions without data.
#103 by Richard Warnick on April 12, 2011 - 1:39 pm
You want to analyze income inequality data? Don’t use averages.
#104 by brewski on April 12, 2011 - 1:45 pm
I was responding to your statements.
#105 by Christian Kuboushek on December 13, 2011 - 9:21 am
I live in Canada and we tend to actually elect people that will get the job done. Have you noticed our canada pension plans? They’re amazing considering what the states can offer.
#106 by Frank Stearch on December 13, 2011 - 10:54 pm
Well..America has as many total losers in the country as Canada has people, very different country. You are secure, but the ceiling is low. Lived there for a time.
#107 by Richard Warnick on December 14, 2011 - 8:53 am
Update of the Update: Government shutdown this Friday unless Congress passes a new omnibus bill to keep it running.
#108 by cav on December 14, 2011 - 9:04 am
Does this mean no recess appointments?
#109 by Ronald D. Hunt on December 14, 2011 - 2:30 pm
No by constitutional requirement the congress has to close session before they can start the new session. This happens every year and every year technically the president can make recess appointments.
Through odd bit of law during the year the senate has to get permission from the house to close session, so if the opposition party to the president holds it they can stop appointments during the year.
Now technically, the senate can close the current session and then immediately open the new session however this is leaves room between the gavel drops for the president to recess appoint, and has been used before. And the supreme kangaroo court is unlikely to touch this on the basis of it being “political”, so if the president has the balls he can do it.
That said, I wonder how hard the gop will push this round, they are unlikely to want to rock the boat much going into election year, unless they feel their chances are up a rats ****. Their is a mountain of things that is going to hurt them, even with a good chunk of their own typical voters.
They voted in unison in the house against the STOCK act, which would ban congressional/Federal employee insider trading(not currently illegal FYI). Which just astounds me, I knew dems would be trying to setup a contrast between them and the republicans, I didn’t think the republicans would be trying to help them.
#110 by cav on December 14, 2011 - 3:40 pm
Ronald, thanks and I get your opinion.
I was wondering if a rebubblican forced government shut-down would preclude such appointments – since the gov would essentially be non-operational. Subtle difference, but what the hey.
#111 by Ronald D. Hunt on December 14, 2011 - 9:25 pm
A shutdown would have no effect what so ever on the rules, law, and constitutional requirements on the legislative branch.