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Losers All Around in Debt Limit Debate
Ultimately, the political dysfunction on display in Washington doesn't make either party look very good.
Red States, Including the ‘Newly-Reds,’ Excel at Job Growth
But for them, the U.S. economy might already be in another recession.
Obama, Geithner Hold All the Face Cards in Debt Ceiling Fight
The administration will get to choose who gets government checks and who doesn't.
Decouple the Debt Service Debate from Budgetary Disputes
End the debt ceiling dramatics once and for all.
Options Limited in Debt Ceiling Mess
The "unexpected" debt limit mess has persisted far too long for anything better than the least bad outcome to be anticipated.
The Fear-Based Economy
Further tax increases could bring an already frightened, sputtering economy to a standstill.
Debt Limit Comes Closer as Congress Begins to Move
Cut, Cap and Balance, versus the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. UPDATE: Also read House Republican and Democrat Want a Vote on the 'Gang' Plan, at the Tatler.
Wanted: Sacrifices for Obama’s Reelection Campaign
President Obama and others negotiating an end to the debt limit mess are searching for ways out of a political crisis of their own making and trying desperately to kick cans full of worms and of blame down the road to avoid losses during next year’s elections. Solving the underlying problems would have taken lots of unglamorous work rather than political pandering, so comforting during a political season which has neither a beginning nor an end. Now that it’s too late to do anything definitive, the rhetoric is full blown and occasionally rancorous while substance is lacking.
In his weekly speech on July 16th, President Obama called for shared sacrifice by big corporations and the rich. He said,
Simply put, it will take a balanced approach, shared sacrifice, and a willingness to make unpopular choices on all our parts. That means spending less on domestic programs. It means spending less on defense programs. It means reforming programs like Medicare to reduce costs and strengthen the program for future generations. And it means taking on the tax code, and cutting out certain tax breaks and deductions for the wealthiest Americans.
. . . .
The truth is, you can’t solve our deficit without cutting spending. But you also can’t solve it without asking the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share — or without taking on loopholes that give special interests and big corporations tax breaks that middle-class Americans don’t get.
It’s pretty simple. I don’t think oil companies should keep getting special tax breaks when they’re making tens of billions in profits.
As was the case with President Obama’s address on July 15th, he failed to “name a single entitlement he is willing to cut. His sacred cows are still sacred, but yours are up for slaughter.” It may be true, as reported by CBS News, that
President Obama on Friday acknowledged for the first time that he was considering changes to the programs like raising the retirement age or applying means testing.
Additionally, an administration official tells CBS News political analyst John Dickerson that a deal based on Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell’s “back up plan” could include a binding commission charged with reviewing the entitlement programs.
President Obama did indeed put it “simply”; so simply that even a third grader could understand that he claims to want just good stuff and to kill the demons — even though the third grader couldn’t learn what the good stuff and demons are. Neither, most likely, does our Harvard Law School graduate and former “constitutional law professor” know.
Children too young to understand what’s happening are susceptible to demagoguery; so are too many chronological adults.
As to Social Security, President Obama spoke of raising the retirement age — to what, when, for whom and to produce what savings how and when he did not indicate. Means testing? What means that? He has yet even to touch upon the extent to which, if any, such tests may change or adapt existing means testing formulae with which the progressive Revenue Code and Treasury regulations already abound.
What “loopholes that give special interests and big corporations tax breaks that middle-class Americans don’t get”? Oil depletion allowances — obviously Harry Homeowner doesn’t get them and if he did wouldn’t have any use for them. Do the big bad corporations include Boeing Aircraft but not Government Motors? General Electric? Do the wicked special interests include domestic oil drilling, production, and refining companies but not unions, malpractice lawyers, and his other supporters? What “loopholes” are bad, which are good? Are they good or bad in terms of social fairness as perceived by President Obama or in terms of real economic impact? Demands for more good stuff and less bad may be sufficient for those who still hold him in absolute awe; they can’t be for the rest of us.
Everything has been so amorphous as to be meaningless. As Charles Krauthammer recently said on NPR,
[The President] talks a good game. “Oh, I’m prepared to do entitlements, I’m ready to do entitlements.” Not once has he ever enunciated in public — other than all these leaks which I don’t trust for half a second — one structural change in entitlements, and without that, everybody over the age of nine knows we are not going to get a handle on the debt. So let’s hear him say it in public once.
Rick Moran asks here whether the Republicans will “cave on taxes.” How does one cave on such things as unspecific as more taxes for fat cats, big corporations, and special interests? What’s to cave on? A marriage subsequently to be arranged with someone unknown?
President Obama to the contrary notwithstanding, it’s not “pretty simple” and anyone who claims that it is either does not himself understand “it” or has, at best, a very low opinion of the intelligence of his audience. There may be some specifics under discussion but if so the discussion has been behind closed doors; what little has leaked out under the transom has been no more solid than quicksand and no more reliable than Daily Kos.
Europe’s Debt Crisis Arrives in Italy
Will Italy become the next European country to need help managing its debts?
Obama Digs in His Heels on Taxes
"Revenue enhancements" must be on the table, the president insists.
How Do You Solve a Problem like the National Debt?
Like a leaky faucet wasting water, it's time to stop the careless flow of taxpayer money. Also see Video: President Obama promises 'massive job-killing taxes' if he is re-elected, at the Tatler.
ObamaCare, ObamaCars, and Government-Mandated Broccoli
Ready for the government to regulate the interstate commerce in your stomach?
Boehner Should Cave to Obama, Make More Tax Revenues Part of Debt Deal
By yielding to the president’s stated goal, Republicans can put their principles into practice to produce prosperity once again.
Obama 2012: Never Underestimate the Power of Incumbency
The built-in advantages of the office may overcome all the president's shortcomings.
Here’s an Idea: How About a Real Social Security Trust Fund?
Yes, an actual trust, with an actual fund.
Blunders and Bundlers
A night in the Lincoln bedroom? Obama's donors have substantially more ambitious ideas about how to be rewarded for raising cash for the campaign.
How Free Is America?
Ask Boeing. Or the Heritage Foundation, which puts the U.S. in a dismal ninth place in its 2011 Index of Economic Freedom.
Can the DoD Trust Brazil with American National Security?
Should an important Air Force contract be awarded to a Brazilian company, despite our trade and foreign policy differences with that country?
The Marxian Worm
For the last forty years in the U.S. — longer in other places — a worm has been gnawing at the roots and sickening the tree of civilization. That worm is the philosophy of Karl Marx.
What Is ‘The Tragedy of Sarah Palin’?
To the Atlantic, it's that she didn't choose to be a liberal. Also read about Palin's statement that she does have the fire in the belly to run for president, at the Tatler.
Boeing vs. the NLRB: A Naked Power Grab by Radical Pro-Unionists
Boeing made a legal business decision that unions opposed, and the National Labor Relations Board is using this as a pretext to unlawfully expand its power.
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