Obama, Geithner Hold All the Face Cards in Debt Ceiling Fight
There are still a number of conservative voices — including some presidential contenders — who are smugly watching the approach of the debt ceiling deadline and treating it like a paper tiger. Their argument, in essence, is that our spending addicted government is in need of a rehab style intervention, having all of its credit cards cut up in front of it and locking Washington up in a Betty Ford Center for Terminal Shopaholics. This, they conclude, is precisely the sort of foul tasting, cod liver oil style medicine which will put the system to rights and strong-arm us back onto the path of reason.
I have a confession to make here. In some of my darker moments, I find the idea appealing. But then I recall the law of unintended consequences and remind myself to be careful what you wish for.
But when does this remarkable transformation begin, and what happens when it arrives, both in practical and political terms? The date is somewhat cloudy, though the White House continues to insist that it falls on August 2nd. Other analysts feel that there could be anywhere from an additional one to two weeks before the bean counters finally run out of tricks. But regardless of when it happens, our date with destiny is on the way.
By most estimates, barring some sort of 11th hour deal, the federal government’s revenues in August will come up approximately $135B short of the total bills coming due. Thirty days after that, in some hypothetical world where we never again increase the debt ceiling, we’ll reach the end of Fiscal Year 2011 and can start working 2012 numbers. By current CBO projections, Washington revenues for next year will be approximately $2.6T with spending currently estimated at $3.7T. This works out to an average monthly shortfall of just over $91B allowing for seasonal variances.
The bottom line is that some checks won’t be going out. So how does that work and who will be figuratively receiving the short end of the financial stick?
This is where the situation begins to get sticky for the Republican Party, and seasoned hands in the establishment GOP have doubtless already begun pondering the problem. Congress is, of course, responsible for setting the future spending agenda. (Or they would be, had the Democrats bothered to actually pass a budget in the last 800+ days.) But once the deal is done, the revenues have been collected, and the bills come due, they really don’t retain much control beyond that point. The sad fact of the matter is that it will be pretty much exclusively the executive branch bean counters — under the watchful eye of President Barack Obama — who will be sending out those checks and deciding who gets paid and who doesn’t.
Now, I understand that most of you reading this have nothing but the utmost respect for the office of the presidency and would never suspect Mr. Obama of having political ulterior motives when making these decisions. But what if he and the leaders of the Democratic Party did? Well, the president actually has quite a few options on the table.
He’s going to pay the interest on the debt, as well as sending out all of the Social Security checks. It would be essentially illegal and/or politically suicidal not to do so. From there, one of the first and easiest choices would be to furlough some government workers. At first blush, conservatives might nod approvingly, noting that the federal government is too darned large anyway. But those are real people with real families, friends and relatives. When it’s you losing your job, long held political beliefs may sail out the window, the conversation becomes much less theoretical, and you may rest assured that they will be tuning in to the news every day to hear Barack Obama saying, “I really didn’t want to send you all home, but the Republicans wouldn’t…”
You know how the rest goes.
After that, the president finds himself in a truly target rich environment. Randall Hoven at the American Thinker has done a lot of the leg work on this, breaking out the various pockets of bills coming due and how they might be trimmed. One of the biggest targets on the radar will be defense spending. Clearly Obama would not be foolish enough not to pay the troops, but more than $575B of the estimated $738B defense budget goes to things other than military pay. These possible targets could include:
- “Yard bird” pay for civilian workers at shipyards and military installations
- Maintenance, refitting, and salvage of the “ghost fleet”
- Civilian base workers in maintenance and related fields
The president could also reduce checks or simply fail to pay any number of defense contractors for work already performed or scheduled. This would hit a lot of major Republican donors, not to mention potentially leading to layoffs in that industry for lack of work. And once again, Jay Carney will be out on the White House lawn every day at noon with his big, sad puppy dog eyes detailing how it’s all the fault of the GOP.
Next up we find a clever way to get the seniors out in the streets. As previously noted, Obama would obviously send out all of the Social Security checks, but he doesn’t have to pay everything associated with Medicare. One immediate option would be to reduce or cancel some reimbursement payments to doctors. Might that result in physicians cancelling appointments or refusing to take new patients who are in the program? This one hits seniors right in the breadbasket, traditionally a demographic that supports the Republicans disproportionately.
But it’s not just direct payments to providers that might be on the table. There’s a lot more gold to be mined in them there hills. There are a multitude of secondary programs in Medicare which take up resources every month. They take care of a host of mundane programs such as reducing the cost of prescriptions to subsidizing bulk items like ace bandages, disinfectants or… replacement oxygen tanks.
As I recently wrote in piece titled “Plan Nine from the DNC,” there are political opportunities aplenty waiting in all of those bookkeeping nooks and crannies, assuming the Democrats are willing to play politics with something like this. (Not that I’m insinuating Debbie Wasserman-Schultz’s crew would ever stoop so low, mind you.) But if you stop and think about it, it’s a fairly simple matter to fail to send out a check or two to some medical supply companies. And when that happens, the Democrats find a young boy named Timmy in a wheelchair that didn’t get his replacement oxygen bottle this week, and suddenly he and his bedraggled, single working mom are instant television stars in political advertisements which run non-stop until the Republicans finally cave in.
But the Democrats would never actually do that… right?
Of course, this assumes that Republicans wouldn’t run ads saying, “the Obama administration stiffed little Timmy’s oxygen so that Obama could go golfing for the umpteenth time this year.”
Hyperbole and Insanity in D.C.
It’s sometimes challenging to attempt to separate the wheat from the chaff, the real from the unreal, the merely mistaken from the blatantly hyperbolic, the dumb from the patently maniacal ideas and blatherings emanating from Washington, D.C. nowadays.
Okay, it’s always a challenge and not just lately. Of late, however, some of the chaffish, unreal, hyperbolic rantings from Democrat politicians lead objective observers to wonder whether some of their ilk have gone, literally, insane.
If not for the state of the art air conditioning in the Capitol, I could attribute it all to the effects of D.C. heat.
A leader of the Dem pack, former and wannabe-future Speaker of the House, multi-millionaire Nancy Patricia D’Alesandro Pelosi, (CA), has always been an enigma to those who were mystified as to how a DNC hack could rise to the position of third in succession to the presidency of the United States.
In her role as Speaker, Pelosi further mystified with ineptitude supplemented by outrageous ignorance, more graciously termed inexperienced naiveté, as when she freely admitted she hadn’t the bloodiest idea of what was contained in the most significant social legislation her House had passed in generations, Obamacare.
Saying we would all have to wait until the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was rammed through on Christmas Eve, 2009 before we–and she and her fellow Democrats who had done the ramming–would know what the PPACA contained should have led to her summary impeachment. Instead, it led to accolades for Pelosi’s leadership.
Go figure.
What is beyond figuring are the most recent statements of this current Democrat Leader of the House and her congressional cohorts.
On Thursday, Leader Pelosi delivered what may best be described as a head-shaker regarding the debt limit debate, which the Senate Majority Leader on Friday all but guaranteed would go down to the Tuesday wire.
Rep. Pelosi clarified the essential issue in that debate for us nincompoops who just can’t grasp essentials when she said, “What we [that would be Democrats] are trying to do is save the world from the Republican budget. We’re trying to save life on this planet as we know it today.” (http://bit.ly/ql288h)
Got it now, fellow nincompoops? And you thought that Obama spending scarce taxpayer money like a drunken Dem and adding trilions to the national debt in just 28 months, his refusal to accept the Republican proposal for a balanced budget, and his demonstrable financial ineptitude were the problems! You probably also believe legislation should be read before it’s approved!
We should trust Aunt Nancy to preserve the planet, all life thereon, and the American way, forever and ever. Amen.
Harry Reid (NV) is another Dem who has either gone over the rhetorical top–or has simply gone bonkers. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=5115)
This is another reason why I refuse to take seriously anyone who expects me to believe his parents named him, “Jazz”.
Truly of a piece with his sneering dislike of Sarah Palin, he expects us to believe the Internet, talk radio, and Fox News (with the exception of O’Really) will not be informing the public (Cavuto and the Judge have already started) that it is Barry, not the GOP, who determines where the checks go. The point has also been made, and will be again, that the Republicans have come up with a half dozen plans to deal with this and the Demos can do no better than Dingy Harry’s.
The administration will get to choose who gets government checks? Really? This is the same insane nonsense as when King Putt told CBS stenographer Pelley that he couldn’t guarantee is Social Security checks would go out if the debt ceiling wasn’t raised.
There will be no default. Enough revenue comes in each day to service debt and to meet our full-faith-and-credit obligations as well as entitlements. The administration has no authority to stop or prevent that. What will happen, as I understand it, is there will be automatic cuts and layoffs across all non-essential areas of the Federal government’ something that I am in favor of, and the problem that should be addressed; namely THE DEBT ITSELF.
Then again, the administration doesn’t have authority to do many things but sadly that has not stopped them in the past.
“The administration has no authority to stop or prevent that (stop the checks)”
As you amended your initial post, I won’t make a snarky comment.
Obama can direct Timmy (not the one in the wheelchair) Geithner to stop any and all checks to anyone. While the federal government’s three branches may be technically co-equal, at least one president has stated, “The Chief Justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.”
Other than brutally moving the Cherokee nation west, making nepotism a high art form, shooting a dozen guys in duels, running a rather corrupt administration and generally being one mean SOB, I rather like Andrew Jackson, back when men were men and we still shot and processed horse meat.
In Germany, publicly funded tv news (ARD, ZDF) and most major news media are revoltingly like extended arms of the Democrats propaganda departments; it is revolting to watch the biased spin here.
Take a look at der Spiegel (English edition) today (July 30):
Annihilating Democracy with the Tea Party
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,777344,00.html
The Spiegel article is all too typical of German reporting. The even managed a way to blame Bush. I have little respect for German reporters or pundits. They play constantly on the association of conservative with right wing with Nazi, and they have no idea about how America works. What they really desire is to show that they are less racist than America, and they will swallow every piece of BS Obama tosses to them. Yet when there is the slightest stress on the German system, all of their own prejudices are on full display: witness the current opinions of the Greeks. The German MSM is shallow and holier than thou.
The current Boehner plan may be offered in good faith but when Harry Reid is through with it, it will be a pile of crap. This non-event will result in the debt ceiling being raised $2.5 trillion. The dems will agree to pay cuts 10 years out and there will be no tax increases. These dip shits will declare victory and go home. All that is certain is that Obama will blow through the $2.5 trillion. In 2012 we go through the same exercise all over again.
The ONLY solution is for us to DEFAULT. No debt ceiling increase and no worthless agreements. Just say no to the Democrats. They created this problem and have done nothing serious to solve it. I say cut up their credit card NOW! With a default and no access to further debt, these bastards will be forced to cut spending. Too bad that we cannot behave like mature rational people. However take a look at what we are dealing with (Obama Reid Pelosi Schumer and the rest of the scumbags) and what else can you do.
The ONLY thing in disagreement between any of the two parties conclusively is ‘short term vs. long term cap lifting’ AND a constitutional amendment.
On the ‘governing’ side all are agreeing with the cuts being offered on either side.
On the ‘political’ side its a different story! A story owned by the minority Tea party folks of the GOP demanding control of how long and a silly constitutional amenendment that is not in the constitution for good reasoning of the founders great wisdom. In fact, for all the folks who don’t understand the constitution…read Article I Section 8 “To borrow money on the credit of the United States.”
We DON”T need a Tea Party constitutional amendment! We need responsible congressional legislators and appropriators….representing responsible citizenry!
We DON’T need a Tea Party ‘six month fix’ for purely ‘political’ hack gamesmanship going into the 2012 election.
Start ‘governing’ according to your position in the nations congressional governance processes! Divided congress…majority or minority, you debate negotiate and compromise…thats the constitutional mandate among the people of the nation and the congress….lest you want to revert to some barbaric system of dueling on the floors of congress….or civil wars over budgets and debts.
You keep talking down to everybody about how they might not understand the Constitution, then you immediately demonstrate that you don’t understand it– all in your never ending efforts to take false swipes at the Tea Party.
There are quite a few things that were not in the original document that are there now. They are called amendments, and it was the Founding Fathers who did exactly the opposite of what you are suggesting– they provided the mechanism for amending the Constitution.
It is a false argument to say the Founding Fathers didn’t include an article about balancing the budget and suggesting it was because they had the wisdom that the Tea Party lacks. The Founding Fathers knew they could not predict the future and it was THAT wisdom that compelled them to include the methods for amending the Constitution– just as the Tea Party is trying to do.
Since it would still have to be ratified by the states, and since many of the clowns on the left of the aisle are on record as supporting such an amendment (Quite a few of them have campaigned on it), what is the problem with allowing the states to decide the issue? There would be a healthy national debate, and the matter would take years to be decided. What’s the problem?
The Tea Party is following the Constitution. Democrats are playing games. Our President (and all of his straw man arguments)is useless on this matter, and the Tea Party is trying to save the country from financial disaster.
Also, you can argue all you want that the “governing” side (I think you mean “ruling class”) is in agreement, and that “compromise” is what the Founding Fathers intended, but that is not the case. We have had enough compromise and “reaching across the aisle”, but it is not the Democrats who engage in it– unless it is about what to name a new federal building.
There is no bill that has been offerred by Democrats that fixes any of this problem. Their cuts are a complete sham, as are Boehner’s, since neither side is providing anything other than vague descriptions of what will be cut. That is the compromise that you argue for. Great “fix”.
Thanks for the lecture prof! You ignore in a most self serving manner…probably intentionally, the crux…the centerpiece of what I wrote:
["To borrow money on the credit of the United States."]
The founder could forseen deficit spending to revenue and thus operate with debt.
In 1917 and at least two subsequent times the congress passed legislation by which to control their own actions regarding deficit spending and debt. They’ve continued to be by degree’s irresponsible…or have they? I submit they have failed in their fiscal charge by governing nation according to the will of the majority of the people they represent.
Furthermore! The congress has consistantly propped up the nations private sector economy for decades…an economy that conslusively would have collapsed decades ago but for massive government subsidies trying to overcome the private sectors arbitrary and circular inflated value of goods and services (unsustainable) that they, the private sector created. The government implemented a two-prong approach. 1) Direct and indirect monetary subsidies. 2) Become massive direct consumers (government) of goods and services.
Now, if you, as obviously a Tea party supporter knows of some means in which to reverse this and form an ‘isolated’ and ‘sustainable’ economy serving 360 million citizens in the current global marketplace….. bring it on!
Your idea of a constitutional amendment for debt caps is void of any reasonable intelllectual or common sense basis.
On the one hand, the deficit spending and debt are real problems of concern. On the other hand, the causation problem is the nations lacking of a strong ‘sustainable’ economy to serve its domestic population in a global marketplace.
IF the government by constitutional authority (general welfare clause) does NOT secure the economy and the USD as the worlds currency, we have a problem NO American is going to want!
The Tea Party folks better wake up and begin to think and reason beyond their eye brows! Right now, they’re being reckless, and I mean reckless with the nations future by ignoring the root problem(s).
Troll boy,
You obviously dont understand how money, or our government works:
The “government” does not “inject” money anywhere, it simply has none with which to do so…
Government EMPLOYEES merely pay off their personal benefactors with future promissory debts placed on the backs of their ill served constituents.
The exchange is horrific, as they “sell” billions and trillions of future debt to be paid by the yet unborn (tomorrow) in exchange for mere millions of campaign donations, or guaranteed vote blocks for themselves TODAY.
Rather like the thief who takes $1000 lap tops (from his employer, the manufacturer of them), and sells them for $100 each.
He is always flush with cash, perks, even prestige, as he negotiates future deals with unsavory characters who want “in” on the lucrative gravy train. They treat him very VERY well in anticipation of lining THEIR pockets as well.
Everything is fine until inventory day, when the boxes are found to be empty.
The “company” is still on the hook to its vendors for raw materials and utility costs of running the plant, but has very little left to sell to offset them. The thief is gone, the company is broke, and the angry gangsters waiting THEIR cut of the pie come for the workforce to pay up.
Crisis time for the workers, but never the thief
The fact that this thieving “employee” was in sales, (or more accurately in comparison to our government, THE ENTIRE sales force) and was allowed to offer “sales samples” of the companies wares to promote business, and horrifically abused that trust, MIGHT cause the (soon to be laid off workers) to implore the BOARD OF DIRECTORS to change COMPANY By-LAWS regarding the expenditure, oversight, or perhaps COMPLETE BAN of free sales samples.
Just because the company policy WAS ONCE based on TRUST doesnt mean they cant get badly burned by determined, un-embarrass-able thief of zero conscience.
And the primary reason no one on the (D) side want a constitutional amendment, is it has to be ratified by the states…as in the PEOPLE of the states…as in, majority VOTE of THE PEOPLE…
Its rather difficult to Pay-off THE PEOPLE to rob THEMSELVES
Flabber my gast, here’s a wingnutette who can actually notice the obvious!
¿Maybe there is hope for us all?
Happy days.
Jazz isn’t a wingnut; he’s a Candy-Assed RINO Squish! Geez.
FYI, my Veteran’s disability check for August has already direct-deposited, so there’s at least one group Obammy knows not to screw with.
Truth be told, I was kind of hoping we’d be on his hit list. The thought of 30 million Veterans pissed off at the Dems just tickles me pink.
I think most of us are already PO’d at Obama, regardless of whether he sends the checks or not.
Hooverville comes to mind when angry vets went to DC to protest. Many of our officer hero’s of WWII stood with the Army and opened fire on them. Do no assume the active duty officer corp will stand with you. It didn’t in the last situation like this.
Moderates like Shaw are putty in the hands of an extremist like Obama. Sending Shaw to fight Obama is like sending a boy to fight a man.
So Barack Obama will start cutting into The New Deal and Great Society programs?
Wowzer! So much for Democratic ‘compassion’, huh? Amazing!
What will they fund INSTEAD of these lovely programs? Want to keep the Dept. of Agriculture on life support? How about EPA, why shouldn’t they go home to keep checks flowing to granny?
Now, flip that around and have Obama realize that if he shows the fraud of all the D talking points for decades, then no matter where he places the blame it is his name on the orders. So he decides to keep those and… well… that Dept. of Agriculture can go on furlough for awhile. Ditto Education. And Energy. EPA down to executive staff that can’t do much. IRS down to collections only. DoJ at a skeleton crew, meaning States pick up the slack if there is any…. why that Big Government thing gets cut back by a Democratic President!
What is the ‘winning’ scenario for Democrats/Progressives/Liberals from all of this? If they cut ‘entitlements’ by executive fiat being unable to pay and fund other things, then that is a big LOSE as it can easily be pointed out that there is money to pay for them. If they cut out regulatory systems for payment, who will miss them? Will industry suddenly chuck all OSHA standards that they have painstakingly put in place through decades OVERNIGHT? Not a chance of it. Waste recovery systems have some actual utility and can generate some revenue, so will waste processors for chemicals suddenly cut those cash flows off? How about energy generation, with all the departments hampering coal and oil unable to process forms, do you think companies might go to their States to get permission to do stuff? Oooooo…. spooky!
I’m seeing a whole bunch of lose for the Democrats and Obama in this.
As was said ‘don’t let a good crisis go to waste’. Let this ‘crisis’ continue on through to the next election and make the point of your lives being controlled by spendthrifts the point of it. Even the MFM will have a hard time spinning that after some months and once the ‘default’ isn’t defaulted, the lie will be out in the open.
The simple message of ‘stop the spending’ is a painful one, and everyone who pulled a lever in 2010 to get that understands what this means and still DID IT. Elections must have consequences, and waiting for 2012 is kicking the can down the road and ignoring an election. Not a good thing for a representative democracy to do, now, is it?
Of course they’ll do that. They always find some victim regardless when spending is their issue. However, that is yet another misdirection from the Masters of Deceit (h.t. JEHoover):
The stage is set. Commerce Dept. has shown the economy “bottomed” in 1Q 2011 (adjusted GDP at 0.4) and “started rebounding” in 2Q 2011 (GDP 1.4). WH announcing the GOP debt “terrorists” are already effecting the economy. Oh, and they knew what the numbers were going to be. After all, it IS the Dept of Commerce. And even Bernanke knew, well before the start of the serious demogoguery by Obama. It’s a classic Lefty move. Start a fire then plant the matches on their opponent.
There WILL be a debt “crisis”. The media is primed, Media Matters is set, the moonbats have left the cave, Soros is placing his hedges, Matthews is tingling all over. For Obama it’s much better to crash the economy pointing out “we’d bottomed out and were heading into REAL Recovery before those damn Tea Partying GOP lovers of Big Business” killed it.” Etc.
Evil at work before your eyes.
I think folks will realize that there is no money. That something like this was going to happen sooner or later. They will adjust. Will they decide to give the man who decided to cut out THEIR part of the pie and not that of someone else another term in office? I doubt it.
I’m a physician. My paycheck has already taken a huge hit this year even without cuts that I know are going to have to come. What I think truly laughable is that the democrats think they are going to better their lot by taxing money I get from them in the first place at a higher rate. First, there’s going to be less available to tax already. Second, they are going to be paying me even less, because even the first set of cuts from the BBA in 1997 were never made, and finally bringing them into line will be enormous. Lastly, when you think about it, it is tax money already; it has been pulled out of the economy where it would have done more good to give to me to provide services I would have bargained for in the private market anyway, without any need to tax it away, and now a small portion of it will be shuffled back to a place where it will again do no one any good.
doc…the discussion needs to come around some day very soon regarding the arbitrary and circular inflation of all goods and services sectors in America. This arbitrary iflation fgor example in the entire chain of health goods and services constantly far out paces the inflation of any other sector and….is whats bankrupting private and public coffers.
I shudder to think about “bargaining” with a doctor when, as things stand today, I have to pay to get an estimate for elective cosmetic surgery. When you MD’s start advertising your rates I might buy into your farce; Market pressure controlling costs through medical savings accounts. How is a person to solicit the lowest bid on heart bypass surgery? Or feel confident going with the lowest bidder?
What did people do before there was health insurance? Did they do a little homework? You correctly point out that most people would be lost if they had to make decisions about heart bypass, especially if attempting to discern which “bid” to accept. But what do they do now? They make an equally uninformed decision, do they not?
Very few people know what they are being charged when they see a doctor, or have tests done. They make their small co-pay, and the rest is handled by insurance. Patients do not know what blood tests or x-rays or anything else costs, and they don’t care. The healthcare industry continually raises rates, the employers pay, and patients have no interest in taking responsibility for any of it.
If a patient had a set dollar amount for the year, combined with changes in medical malpractice tort law, they might start refusing some of those tests that are done “as a precaution”– not because it is a bad idea to take precautions, but because it is a bad idea to test for everything as a defense to a lawsuit. A change in medical malpractice law could have a very positive impact on healthcare costs, reducing liability insurance premiums and “defensive medicine” overtesting. Patients might start caring about costs, comparison shopping (across state lines, hopefully)and treating health care as as something other than a perk– or a right.
Henry….good read! I’m actually trying to address the gross arbitrary inflation of the entire ‘chain’ of health care.
I was born in the year ‘modern’ health care insurance came about. I lived in a state near where it gave birth however, we didn’t have much of it spread far in our state until the mid to late 50s after I had entered a career in the military service at the end of WWII. We had for the longest time, in my home town and county, four city doctors and trhee more smaller rural communities and a thriving rural county hospital.
All the doctors knew their patients and in many cases delivered our parents…and even in some case our grandparents. It wasn’t rare but, rather the standard, for all the doctors to consult over a patient and deem the best course and best specialty doctors in the state or neighboring states to provide a recommended procedure. In many cases they would out-of-pocket the travel and other expenses for the patient and immediate family to that specialist. Heck, it was sometimes that the specialist would travel to our home town to consult with the doctors, the patient and the patients immediate family before proceding with any procedures. Money was never discussed! If you had the money when the bills came, fine! If you didn’t and could work out a small payment, fine! If you didn’t have that means, the community took care of it.
The doctors were our neighbors, our personal friends, our social therapists, our vets when the vets were tied up on calls, part of our church fellowships, and above all, the most humble and generous givers of the community in charity. They all eventually died and left most of their assets to the entities of health care in the county.
In all to many places around the country folks are served today with doctors of a very different moral and professional fabic. That is not to say, that the necessities of many markets is not responsible for at least a good measure of difference in their professional fabric. SAD!
Both the ‘people’ and ‘insurance companies’ are co-conspirators for much of the uncheked arbitrary and circular inflation of health care costs. They rarely have much of any ‘skin’ in the game and don’t care. Insurance companies have no problems with simply raising and raising and raising premium costs of the employee and employee’s employer to cover inflation (far above the national inflation rate) and protect their profits. The health care chains says pay more, the insurance companies raise premiums of their policy holders and….. willing pay more….even in those socalled ‘managed’ systems. The managed systems may reduce procedures and costs at the doctors level but primarily ignore the rest of the health care chain.
When there is nothing left to take, what then? How does this turn out well? Even the Boehner plan is not nearly enough. It’s like trying to save the Titanic by bailing with a teacup.
We cannot afford the government we have, any more than those naive Californians could afford their million dollar condos with the no-money-down, interest only, adjustable rate mortgages with the balloon payment at the end. Under the best of circumstances, the charade can continue for a few more years. Make the hard choices now, or harder choices will be made for you later.
Money is a human creation. We can always create more if we know how to create it. JB Say summarized Adam Smith by saying “All supply [wealth] creates its own demand [money].” The law of the markets. Smith said the money supply is only worth what is available to be purchased with it (the medium of exchange) it in the Market. Stuff the markets with goods (production) and the money supply will grow in tandem, automatically.
Now turn it around. 1935. World in Depression. A very smart man gave the other other half of the solution but forgot (?) the first half. JM Keynes: “All Demand (money) creates its own supply (market wealth).” What Keynes theory really means, when not corrupted by government consumption (e.g., building pyramids to bury the god-kings — check out the monuments to Nelson Rockefeller in Albany NY, a rather sleepy village in upstate NY) is that we can print all the new money we want, as long as we use that new money to build the factories to create the market wealth to stuff the markets to give value to that new money. Say does not cancel out Keynes and vice versa. They have to work together. Keynes’ multiplier works if the leakages from that multiplier (government inspired theft, taxes, inflation, consumption, fraud, waste, charity, and unreciprocated expenditure that avoids Adam Smith’s act of trade or exchange, which gives us the “Wealth of Nations”) are replaced by production designed to make a profit by selling the product of that production in the market to give the new money value. This in short is the course of Western Capitalistic Expansion for the last 300 years or more. (You can actually trace it back to the caves). Use government money (loans) to make a profit, make the government dependents join the private capital producing markets and all is solved. Stop government consumption, waste, taxation, fraud, crony “capitalism” oligopoly, etc. and all is solved. This is not really all that complicated. Add one unit of money and one unit of market wealth worth more and the money supply will grow even as each unit becomes more valuable. Deflationary growth. That is what is needed.
Ed,
“Stop government consumption, waste, taxation, fraud, crony “capitalism” oligopoly, etc. and all is solved.
This is not really all that complicated.”
Well, yeah it really is “that complicated”
See…They are so delusional from all that free money and the power in dispensing it,
they actually think THEY’RE right, and WE’RE the enemy…
Nothing will stop them, ever.
Not even when blood is spilled.
God help us if that ever happens, because all the money talk will disappear overnight,
and “saving the country” will be the priority (read: cover) to guarantee they stay in power.
Forever.
As long as the majority of people who can fathom/care about this finacial crisis have have “just enough”
(like a home, kids, fear of losing them) the Pelosi’s, Geitner’s, and Bernakie’s will bet on us not wanting
to go into a Full-On Suicidal Armed Revolt against their nukes and tanks, just to make our point.
And they are right.
I want things to get better.
But I’m not burning down my house, grabbing a gun, and leaving my kids orphans, just to piss them off.
Because it wont.
It will simply empower them further.
See, we’re not dealing with something like a few corrupt, thieving, inefficient CO-WORKERS….
Jerks that MANAGEMENT would THANK us for ratting out, because they along with US, would like to see eliminated for the sake of the company.
We’re dealing with a entrenched criminal gang at every level of government,
and all of them have Carte’ Blanche to rob us blind.
All of them, from the county commissioner, to the teachers, to senators and presidents, are in on the take, enriching themselves and their friends with money you and your children have YET to earn, but STILL owe, to THEM.
They will NEVER give that up, and thats what makes any attempt at a solution
Really, Really “complicated”
This President is so ideological I wouldn’t put it past him to veto a debt ceiling bill and allow a government shutdown closing in on default. He may not send out SS checks regardless, because he saw that Clinton vetoed the 1995 Republican bill to prevent a shutdown and even with 5 months of government shutdown, the results were the Republicans being accused of the shutdown. Look at Chavez in Venezuela who has done so many utterly stupid things that have killed his country’s economy and he is still in office accumulating even more power; at least until his cancer problems developed. And saying it won’t happen here won’t fly. With all of the things happening by this administration, like Fast and Furious, the streets are still empty.
So citizens are still yelling at the TV from the comfort of their couch; well stop and actually do something constructive. If we citizens don’t, we deserve what we get, just like the good Germans who stood by during the rise of Hitler. I say this as one who spend 15 months in the streets prior to the November 2010 election while a leader in the local TEA Party.
“…we deserve what we get, just like the good Germans who stood by during the rise of Hitler.”
Ironically, Hitler said virtually the same thing in the last weeks of the war when defeat was inevitable: that the German people were wimping out on him and were going to get the crushing defeat they deserved.
No, not tieing that in to anything else here, just thought it was an interesting observation.
I wonder if the debt ceiling crisis will preclude the 3500 or so Palestinian terrorist in Israeli jails from receiving their monthly checks that are paid by the American taxpayers. With Obama and Geithner making the call, I think not.
What Mr.Shaw failed to acknowledge is that the DEMs/BHO have declared war on American prosperity. The only way you win a war is to outsmart the enemy. Unfortunately no one in the GOP has the will or the conviction to engage in combat
with the enemy.
Remember Peace is achieved with total victory.
Let’s be fair. The GOP doesn’t believe the ‘rats are the enemy. They may see the TEA Party that way, but not their distinguished colleagues across the aisle.
“Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is a good man. His character is not in question. But the fate of this legislation, and possibly our economy, hinges on his ability to reason with the president, and with his caucus.” — John Boehner
This is true.
The Republicans are not at war with the left, but the left is at war with them– and America. The left has a long view of this, planning years ahead for their battles.
Obamacare is a perfect example: Presented with the only opportunity they would likely ever have to forever change (control) a huge portion of the economy and our lives, but knowing it would likely cost many of them their Congressional seats, they did it anyway. Sure, they lost their seats, but the long view is that the election cycle pendulum will one day swing back toward them– and the single most controlling piece of legislation of our lifetimes will likely be in place. They will build on that.
Republicans don’t do that. Republicans reach across the aisle to support far left whack jobs that Obama nominates to the Supreme Court. Republicans and conservatives are far more willing to let issues like Obamacare fast track to SCOTUS. Democrats play the waiting game, knowing that they will get one more extremist on the high court if a conservative justice dies or retires. Scalia is no youngster, so the Dems wait. One more seat and they will tear this country down.
Maybe we should sell some assets like I do when I run out of cash. Maybe sell Manhattan back to the Indians, resume offshore leasing, sell some treasures from the Smithsonian. Seriously, a CFO usually becomes resourceful in times of cash shortages, like maybe the Secretary of the Treasury should become. Debt is not always the only solution. Every entity can do without something for a year or two and it usually makes everyone get serious about making changes in their habits. If our debt is downgraded, we earned it, the pain that is. This course was going to lead to a downgrade eventually. Unfortunately the persons casting the votes or running the Executive branch are too insulated financially from the economic consequences of what will happen, that they will be the last to get serious.
they hold the face cards because the republicans are part of the problem ..not all but most of them.
they should be impeaching obama and most of his cabinet as well as having criminal investigations into the fraud and deceit that is rampant in the obama administration.
August 2.
14th Amendment will be invoked by 0.
Be afraid.
Be very afraid.
Not really. There are two theories on the relationship between Amendment XIV and the debt, one relatively benign, one so politically radioactive that you’d have to be a Petulant Leftist to even consider it.
(Actually, there are three theories, counting, “There’s no connection” as one.)
The benign theory is that Amendment XIV imposes the obligation on the President to pay interest and principal on Federal debt as they come due, before doing anything else. Barky’s puppeteers won’t let him invoke this one, because it means that they’d suddenly lose a trillion and a half of pork to hand out to their cronies and thugs.
The radioactive theory is that Amendment XIV gives the President the power to issue debt to pay for whatsoever he damned well pleases, and take any revenue the Feds collect to pay it back. The problem with this one is that section 4 of Amendment XIV says:
Thus, by invoking this theory, Barky would be proclaiming himself Barry Jesus I, God-Emperor of America. Barky is stupid and narcissistic enough to do this, but his puppeteers are smart enough to realize that this would bring the Obamist regime to an end well before 20 January 2013.
So when some progressive whines, “Why doesn’t Obama (PBUH) use His Amendment XIV powers?”, we can grin and say, “Because that’s a lose-lose proposition for him”.
When asked about it, Obama admitted he had spoken with the lawyers, and then he said their response was that “it was not a winning argument.” Apparently, he had an interest in distorting the Constitution, but lawyers told him it was not a winner.
Here is how the dept ‘crisis’ will play out – since Boehner’s bill is almost certainly dead and Reid is keeping it on life-support only in case his own plans (and schemes) blow up in his face. Reid is now free to gut the Boehner bill and insert his own that will seem to be the epitome of fairness. Vague promises of cuts ‘down the road’ will be the verbiage – and quoted heavily on all the Sunday Morning news programs as ‘fair and balanced’. IF he can cobble it together in that time-frame and get his ducks in line. Harry’s bill will be smoke and mirrors of course – I’d expect nothing less from Dingy Harry. If he can’t cobble the guts of his bill together before the Sunday Morning news shows he’ll offer it up in the 11th hour Monday evening with an ultimatum from himself and Obama for Boehner to ‘shit or get off the pot’ to avoid ‘default’ – whatever that means since it isn’t clear at all that sudden default would be on us.
Republicans are trying everything they can to have this issue around in about a year from now just in time for campaign season. It highlights the problem the Dems have – spending money is their opium. Its a great idea and a huge club come campaign season. Obama has been hurt from this ‘crisis’. It brings a stark truth to the American people – Obama likes spending money – OUR money. His comic acts in front of the cameras about how we need to get fiscally responsible is akin to having a skid road drunk preaching to us about how we drink too much. He continues to talk out both sides of his mouth. Like we don’t have a memory good enough to compare what he said today vs yesterday?
With the MSM still running cover for this idiot both parties (Democrats/Obama & MSM) are losing credibility over this issue. That couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of hypocrites.
which is why it was so lame to submit such a weak bill by the house
the house should have passed the most bombastic bill possible knowing full well it would get beat down by reid (this would happen no matter what)
in the mean time, use the pulpit to demonstrate the simple and incompatible differences between capitalism and collectivism (ala hayek and friedman) to further inform the public at large as to the fundamental problems– this is essentially why there can be no compromise– it is impossible to compromise on incompatibility
get the message out and force reid and obama to strike it down and be counted; continue the debate and deal from a position of strength and principles rather than that of a pistol whipped scardey cat
I understand the attempt to be ‘reasonable’ and to find a way to get some movement with what you can ‘see’. However, Jazz looses all credibility with the statement, “Next up we find a clever way to get the seniors out in the streets. ”
uhhhh.. yeah. it was called the TEA PARTY and it elected those 22 patriots who started the revolution.
I responded to this earlier this morning and either my comments were too long or Jazz deleted it. If this is deleted – we know what kind of man he is. Or isn’t – http://streamofjim.blogspot.com/2011/07/current-conservative-sympathizers.html
Let me clarify something about SS/Medicare.
These programs have their own dedicated revenue streams. To use that money for something else, the government has to BORROW that money. This money borrowed counts against the debt limit. Once the debt limit has been reached, the government may no longer borrow those monies.
The government may sell the T-bills held by SS/Medicare in order to raise the funds necessary for any shortfall. There is some $2T worth of them. So, they are REQUIRED to pay SS/Medicare as set forth by law as long as there are funds, and the funds are there. This is why they set it up as a separate revenue stream and separate accounting, so the government could not screw with it.
(I have read that SS was moved into the general fund when Medicare was passed, but I have not verified that.)
In fact, someone should look into whether or not the government has been using these monies for other things since we hit the debt limit. Have they been borrowing the money illegally?
Doesn’t matter ultimately. Unless something changes, the obligations of SS/Medicare will exceed their revenue streams. Then what? The available borrowing, below the limit, will have to be used to pay the shortfall. Then general tax revenues. When SS/Medicare and current interest payments use up all that. Then what? But wait. Since the Tbilss SS holds in its lock box are already part of the debt, can government sell those to the Market without raising the debt limit? I think they can since those bonds held by the government (they owe it to themselves, LOL!) are already included in the debt limit.
Then what? All the bonds are sold, all the baby boomer elders are allowed to die off untreated, all tax payments are committed, the debt limit is fully consumed and still obligations exceed income. Then what? The history of the Bourbons of France suggest one outcome.
I appreciate your comments! However, lets take a look at whats being ignored and why the political rhetoric surrounding social security going broke is false. Regardless of the types of ‘instruments’ used to borrow from the SS funds at a minimum interest of 3%, the congress allows for more lending than future needs should allow for. The problem created by short term instruments are not nearly so great but account for the minority of lending instruments. Looking at the longer term loans for which is by far the greater problem. These are held by the ‘people’ (states and federal) for programs which subsidize private sector economies….Medicare and medicaid….AND…the nations private sector housing mortgages and education among so many more…all benefiting the peaple and their communities directly and indirectly.
Now we can begin to have a discussion on where the cuts should be and above all, the exceedingly high perr annum rate of arbitrary inflation for the health care chain of goods and services.
MM’s take is correct. If there is insufficient cash flow to pay Social Security benefits, the Trustees of the Social Security Trust Fund are obligated to redeem some of the $2.7 trillion Treasury bonds that it holds. The principal trustee of the fund is the Secretary of the Treasury, Tim “Tax Cheat” Geithner. Treasury would have to find the cash to redeem the bonds. Since Social Security benefits are included in the official tally of the national debt, when the Trust Fund redeems bonds, the outstanding debt of the country falls BELOW the debt ceiling to the same extent. At that point, Treasury can go to the bond market to sell bonds in order to replenish the cash that went to the SS Trust Fund. Assuming there remain willing investors, the interest rate the Fed would have to offer might be a bit higher than before, but other than that the redemption of the bonds would be a wash as far as the debt ceiling goes. All that happens is that the Trust Fund is replaced as creditor by a different third party.
I would love for Obooby to decide who gets checks first. He’ll put SS down the list to make the Republicans look bad–but it would backfire so big time.
The current Fox News headline is “Washington Races To Avoid Default” with a photo of Harry Reid making a cellphone call as if he’s dialing an emergency number!! No different in France where last night’s news had an enormous MSM-like spin to it exactly like the MSM here. The entire worldwide Left are on the same page with this and they’re openly cheering the Obama and the Dems. The most sickening spin in Europe is that Obama is portrayed not as a bungler; but he’s portrayed as exasperated with the idiocy of those “other” people in Congress that can’t seem to grasp the importance of spending.
The U.S.A is a bastion of hope for many around the world and it’s paramount that we defeat this establishment cronyism in DC; I vehemently disagree with those that think that the Republicans aren’t culpable in all this – hey; they’re politicians first. How can you be a politician first and put country second and STILL call yourself a patriot? Kudos to all those that voted against the grand ‘ol “compromise”.
There may not be a third party in 2012 but none of the establishment pols will ever get to be POTUS.
This debt limit thing has been a fiasco from the beginning. You have to believe the Republicans are either fools, idiots, or the marxists’ right-hand men. Tea Partiers haven’t been much better.
Anybody with a brain had to know from minute one that the debt limit will be raised. That is so obvious it isn’t even worth the ink to say why.
But it was just as obvious that there will be no balanced budget amendment in 2010. Maybe in 2012. Not this year.
Moreover, the debt limit is as easy to demagogue as Social Security. It doesn’t take a genius to know that either.
So what have the Republicans/Tea Partiers been doing? Fighting a losing battle; handing a victory to the marxists, acting like intransigent idealogues, and engaging with a bully whose only goal is to bash then senseless, with the enthusiastic compliance of his hollow-cheeked media worshippers.
Smart generals don’t go into losing battles unless there is no other choice. The fools should have passed the CCB bill to check that box and then look for the easist and quickest way to increase the limit while every spokesperson shouted that the marxist has increased spending more than all other administrations in history…while destroying the country. That would have been the only victory possible.
Now, no victory is possible. Idiots.
Thank you! Reasonable strategic thinking, reasoning for systemic and systematic vistory is NOT anywhere amonbg their skills set. On a real battle field folks would be a hollerin ‘medic’ for them.
After a week where most finally took a stand one way or another, PJM gives us …..Jazz Shaw?
The last thing we need at this point is a lecture on “Danger Ahead!” from one of the biggest squishes in the blogoshere.
Should we expect a DREAM Act/all Republicans are immigration bigots from Mr. Navarette tomorrow?
I disagree.
The discussion of what is happening must be based on the reality of the economy.
If the democrats will succeed in NOT cutting the deficit in a substantial way AND in raising taxes, the consequences on the economy will be dire.
And the elections in 2012 will be won by the GOP in a landslide.
And that is the most important factor to take into consideration, not the possible tactical defeat.
This administration is destroying the country, and it will succeed if it will win in 2012. America can stand one more year of folly, no more.
The idea that the stubbornness of the Tea Party is purely ideological is an idiocy.
The Tea Party can see that the economy cannot be “managed” by Washington. If Washington keeps on the present trend, the economy will suffer. Greatly.
Obama has moved his first wrong (from his point of view) move, and has bound himself to a sinking ship, his economic policies.
["The Tea Party can see that the economy cannot be “managed” by Washington. If Washington keeps on the present trend, the economy will suffer. Greatly."]
That is exactly the thinking that will defeat the Tea Party in the end and possibly take down the entire GOP with them.
Without the federal and states governments subsidizing the private sector directly and indirectly for decades now, along with the governments (states and federal) huge consumtption of goods and services, the nations economy would have collapsed long ago.
Wait till you start the Tea Party ‘slashing’ and see who starts yelling, then bawling tantrums from the mountain tops!
Theres no ROI in stupidity!
“Without the federal and states governments subsidizing the private sector directly and indirectly for decades now, along with the governments (states and federal) huge consumtption of goods and services, the nations economy would have collapsed long ago.”
That is ridiculous. It is precisely the opposite. Of course, if it were all immediately and instantaneously eliminated, that would have disastrous effect, but goverment subsidies are a distortion of the economy– not the reason the economy exists.
It is precisely this sort of nonsense that gives politicians cover to pay off the lobbyists and special interests decade after decade, and raising of the debt ceiling is the “government subsidy disease” moving into terminal stages.
When government interferes in the free market, providing subsidies, bailouts, loans and tax breaks, it almost always leads to unintended consequences, and usually a bad result. Time after time, the amateurs in Washington or statehouses, most with no solid business experience, think they know better than the free markets. We are witnessing this every day with the Obama administration as “faculty lounge theories” get put into law.
Subsidies are a toxic poison to free markets. Subsidies are the problem– not what is holding the economy up.
Henery….Fine! Then lets have the Tea Party folks stand up and immediately propose cutting AT least the 1,700 + federal subsidies. By immediately, I mean well in advance of the 2012 election date. Since folks on here have obviously thought all that through, define the consequences of just that, the 1,700 + most insignificant federal subsidies to States and the private sector.
Have you ever counted change for a dollar?
Do you have a bank account?
A Job?
No No NO, the government doesnt prop up the citizens, the government props up ITSELF… its Union Cronies, their (unfunded) pension schemes, its officers and regulators, perks and paid for voting blocks…It uses our money (or that fun-lonin’forever-debts-to-or-kids trick) to fatten itself.
Why is every spending debate is predicated on what the new reduced amount of a SS check might be, and never on “overhead costs” that are the real debt drivers?
Why cant we just demand every government employee making 100K get a 5% pay cut?
And the 100 to 150 range gets a 7% cut?
150-175 gets 10% cut?
20% for the over 200K crowd.
All of them will be damn near six figures or above.
If you cant live on a six figure income AND serve your country, kindly resign.
Period.
Thats where the debt is
Thats where the first cuts go before we touch SS Medicaid Medicare etc etc.
Lots of local government people (teaches, cops, administrators) are milking the system, a system covered with federal funds (“stimulus money”).
What does that “stimulate” besides deeper debt.
Start there for once
This budget ‘crisis’ is a complete SHAM. It wasn’t important to Obama at all last year when he had the DEM #s to support what he wanted.
Now it’s more fun to label house GOP as causing delays, when you have Sen Reid not accepting either of two budgets submitted by house, and now Reid filibusters his own Senate budget bill.
DC is infected with FOOLS ON THE HILL. Starting in the Oval Office.
Moodys and S&P are threatening to downgrade our credit rating regardless of this current budget debacle, which was caused by spending far exceeding income. And like with a child, you don’t increase their income to meet spending habits, but enforce spending cuts to help them out of current mess and hopefully they’ll then understand how to avoid future messes of overspending.
The sad fact of the matter is that it will be pretty much exclusively the executive branch bean counters — under the watchful eye of President Barack Obama — who will be sending out those checks and deciding who gets paid and who doesn’t.
That should fit right in with the driving philosophy of the Barack Obama administration, since the whole point of his cabal is to punish our enemies and reward our friends. Friends, for example, would be unions and the myriad companies that were given exemptions to Obamacare. Obama’s jobs adviser and head of GE Jeffrey Immelt is a friend who has gotten so many perks (including but not limited to tax breaks and a promise to retain the incandescent ban) that he has taken to preaching to America to stop complaining about government.
Chicago style politics on the Potomac.
The fix if the debt ceiling is not increased is simple. Use the CA strategy, pay bills and payrolls with vouchers.
Much of the nearly 1 trillion of your money in “stimulus” hasn’t yet been disbursed, despite all the cash laid out to study shrimp on treadmills and alcoholism among prostitutes in obscure regions of South America et al. and etc.
Reportedly, much of the $22 billion that BP was intimidated into anteing up to compensate residents of the Gulf hasn’t been disbursed either, wrangling over whether people who receive cash will have to sign waivers for any future claims and so forth.
A couple of slush funds at this administration’s disposal to add to its discretion over which bills to pay in the event the phony date of August 2 is passed without Barack getting him some higher taxes on “America’s wealthiest”.
As for Timmy Geithner, don’t know if he’s a face card, maybe the jack, a court jester.
Most of Obama’s economic team has seen the lousy writing on the wall and beat feet to salvage their so called careers, Christine Romer, Larry Summers…Austan Goolsbee indicated he was leaving…someone else whose name escapes.
Timmy hangs on altho’ there have been rumors that even he may beat feet. But he has been having so much fun of late getting off on threatening Armageddon.
Secretary of the Treasury, the court jester who cheated on his own taxes by neglecting to pay taxes on definitely taxable monies he had received. Said he didn’t understand TurboTax.
This debt debate and the sub-debate on where it will be most honorable to surrender to the leftists, so that we can allow the credit card to max out at a higher rate and gouge/confiscate a little more from the top 33% of this country…reminds me of a discussion I had with one of my more left of center acquaintances a while back.
I was railing (as usual) on how despicable the lapdog media is, that they exist as a coverup and propaganda arm for the Democratic Party in general and the far left wing of the Democratic Party in particular.
She turned to me and said “if they believe the truth is on one side, shouldn’t they be presenting that?”
My reply was that there job was to report the facts, not shade them to favor one side.
She snarkily replied “But, isn’t that exactly what you did for three decades as a lawyer….present the facts in a most favorable light for your side of the case? Is it only good for you, but not for everyone else” The other left of centers snickered and guffawed, nodding their approval. She was quite self-satisfied.
My reply was this: I took an oath to provide a zealous defense of each and every client. I take that oath seriously…and while I would not cross the line and lie as an officer of the Court, I did my best to present my client’s case. That was the crux of what was in our code of ethics determining my behavior.
As I read the Journalist Code of Ethics, it states that they are forbidden from taking only one side and presenting the case in an intentional light favorable to one side.
The two main differences then are…I was following my code of ethics and they are breaching theirs…and, I decided I did not want to live my life as an abject liar…they apparently have no problem crossing that moral abyss…do you?
That was met with silence. Uncomfortable silence.
In the present scenario…some snarky Republicans and virtually every left of center buffoon seems to have forgotten what it is that we are surrendering, what the code of ethics and moral imperative is…and they conflate two entirely separate things as if they are one and the same.
The job of our representatives is to PROTECT the people ….FROM THEIR GOVERNMENT, if necessary. When the government becomes abusive, confiscatory, dictatorial, tyrannical, …it is the PRIMARY JOB of our representatives to charge into the fray and shield us from that tyranny.
Never in the whole of my life have I seen an administration so hell bent on totalitarian, sometimes racist, perpetually class-based…at war with its own people. “Redistribution” is simply pigeon leftist speak for confiscation.
The Code of Ethics that should be dominating and guiding the behavior of those elected to serve us…is to give voice to that protection. “Compromising” on that protection should not come lightly.
This is not about “what can pass or not pass” at its core. Sure, we might have to win a battle, lose a battle….but we should not forget the foundational responsibility. This is not a Tea Party issue of “no compromise”, this is a reminder that the government is the biggest threat, the largest abuser, the barely contained tyrant.
We can compromise our debating points, but never our core principles.
My reply was that there job was to report the facts, not shade them to favor one side.
Objectivity in journalism ? Surely you jest.
I did read that code of journalistic ethics a long time ago, nothing in there about defending your ideological guy at all costs, at any lengths.
…the government is the biggest threat, the largest abuser, the barely contained tyrant.
The democrats have absolutely no desire to stop their wild deficit spending, and more borrowing increases Barack Obama’s blank check.
Other bottom line, Barack Obama is hellbent on the notion of collecting even more personal funds from this nation’s job creators.
Nothing much going on beyond that.
Keep fighting the good fight with your leftist friends, maybe you can get them to shut up for a whole 5 minutes, which would be quite an achievement.
(over and out)
More report and distort!
["I took an oath to provide a zealous defense of each and every client. I take that oath seriously…and while I would not cross the line and lie as an officer of the Court, I did my best to present my client’s case."]
Since when are playrights of ‘circumstantial’ evidence representing honestly, the facts of any case in trial, much less honesty at any jurisprudence level?
Likewise, wouldn’t be any need for ‘fact finders’ such as judges and juries if our adversarial jurispridence system was so honest in representing only the known direct evidence of a case…would we? The legal system of many decades, represents one of the most corrupted system and professions in America. The laws aren’t corrupted…the lawyers are.
Lawyers suck…Right.
And just whats that got to do with left wing media bias?
Given that the state of Illinois has been months behind on paying private vendors (and still expecting service & goods), and not so much noise has been made about that, I can imagine the feds have all sorts of people they can just “forget” to pay.
But that wouldn’t get the leverage that angering a bunch of old folks in Florida would.
I am PRAYING that Obama delays Social Security Checks along with veterans and active military. He will ignite a firestorm that will remove him from the Presidency and pretty much ensure his future home will be in Indonesia.
IF you knew how non discretionary vs. discreation and appropriations legislation works you’d know your ‘dream’ of what you hope for isn’t possible…and folks in the government know this in spite of their politcal rhetoric and gamesmanship for consumption to an ignorant population.
What the fickle people of the nation would get, should it come to that point, is a ‘stoppage’ of government handouts to the states and private sector economies. Lets ‘dream’ for that and give the folks a real education in the midst of a crisis economy and jobs environment.
“From there, one of the first and easiest choices would be to furlough some government workers. At first blush, conservatives might nod approvingly, noting that the federal government is too darned large anyway.”
Also at second blush, third blush, fourth blush, etc.
That’s exactly what I’d like to see happen. Except I don’t want them furloughed, I want them fired for keeps. Because, as you say, the federal government is too darned large.
The “rich” and the “corporate jet owners” …should they be “made to contribute” and to “pay their FAIR SHARE”? And what about the bottom 50%, what is their “fair share”? Do we need to force the “rich” to pay more because they have been “getting away with something”?
That question is a lot simpler to answer. In fact, the TurboTax blog ran a post on how America pays taxes versus how other wealthy countries pay hints at the answer:
“A look at the data on tax distribution in the United States, for instance, reveals that high income individuals pay an enormously disproportionate amount of total income taxes in the country. The Tax Foundation’s Fiscal Facts report shows that the top 1% of income earners (1,410,710 people) pay 40.42% of all income taxes in the United States. The top 2.5% (5,642,839 people) pay 20.20% of total income taxes, while the top 5% (a combined 7,053,549 people) pay 60%. The top 10% as a whole pays 71.22%, while the bottom 50% of taxpayers account for only 2.89% of all income taxes.”
These numbers can be examined in even more depth. The 1,410,710 people who comprise the top 1% of income earners, for instance, earned $2,008,259 trillion – of which $450,926 billion went to federal income taxes. Overall, the Tax Foundation shows in this graph, the top 1% now pays more total income tax than the bottom 95%. The top 10% as a whole earned $4,227,839 trillion – of which $794,432 billion went to taxes. Of the $1,115,504 trillion of total income taxes collected, the top 10% paid nearly half. This data, updated in 2009, was calculated using income tax returns from 2007 and is the newest data available at time of writing.
It is important to keep in mind that the tax burden being weighted heavily toward high income earners is not a coincidence. Progressive taxation means that America’s income tax system is literally designed to produce such outcomes. Indeed, the Tax Foundation’s Scott Hodges cited, ”…an OECD study released last year showing that the U.S.—not France or Sweden—has the most progressive income tax system among OECD nations.”
http://blog.turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tips/how-is-americas-income-tax-burden-weighted/03032010-2488
More report and distort! IF the top 10% (individual income earners) were paying their tax RATE or remotely a fair adjustment ratio to the lower classes adjusment ratio, folks wouldn’t be so incensed.
IF we’re going to have a graduated system for (individual income earners) then durnit, lets pay the rate and dispose of ALL the special interest adjustments all the way down among the graduation scales.
The top percentages pay 15-19% (adjusted) and the working middle and lower classes pay 20+% …..since you went to the source and failed to indicate such.
(by the way I’ve posted all the factual data sources on other very recent postings)
As many other posters have noted, holding the cards works both ways and Obama’s hand is weak.
No matter which Obama chooses to play, somebody is going to be miffed at the outcome. I kind of like the idea of Obama getting to make the tough call without hiding behind the Soros machine. I can tell you right now from Obama’s reaction these last weeks, he is not comfortable with having to make these kinds of decisions.
I for one would love to see The One dance.
It was reported Obama once said, “just give me the ball.” Well, here is Barry. It’s time to see how well you really play the game.
‘It was reported Obama once said, “just give me the ball.”’
Whereupon he promptly stole the ball, and is now trying to steal the whole dang court.
Always the same thing with these lefty types:
We must have all your money, so we can pass helpful laws to make sure you won’t buy the wrong sort of toilets or lightbulbs! The nation will be doomed unless we give fat handouts to NPR (so rich liberals can get their type of entertainment for free) or ACORN (so that elections can be properly rigged), so we must borrow more, more, MORE!
Well, like they say, you get what you pay for. And if you pay for Obama types, that’s what you’re going to get.
I disagree with you, however it doesn’t matter, since no Republican is standing up and countering the Democratic irrationality, vocally and visibly in front of the public. The Democrats with the President have wet their pants in front of everyone. So you may be right, only because there is no one willing to stand up and fight.
Another person preaching obama`s lies, the only thing obama and geithner hold in their hands is each others pecker. They do hold the military to put us under marshal law that`s all they have if we allow them that privilege.
“In the present scenario…some snarky Republicans and virtually every left of center buffoon seems to have forgotten what it is that we are surrendering, what the code of ethics and moral imperative is…and they conflate two entirely separate things as if they are one and the same.”
Sadly, some Republicans seem to have lost their way under W. But the leftists know exactly what they are doing and it is deliberate. They do not care a whit about the Constitution except when they can readily pervert its meaning to turn any part of this country upside down. No line cannnot be crossed; no lie cannot be told; no traditions are sacred. There are no rules for them– the ends justify the means.
Obama’s election brought the far left out of their ratholes in droves. They became emboldened, believing the final victory was at hand. They jammed Obamacare and a corrupt trillion dollar stimulus down our throats. They had big plans for America, not the least of which is a massive redistribution of wealth. No wonder they hate the Tea Party– it is the antidote to their sick, perverted view of America. No wonder they are deeply disappointed in Obama, as they feel a more effective leader would have already “transformed” this country.
I feel your heat, the white hot contempt.
And share it.
Anonymous @ #5
With your ignorance of facts, this nation is doomed should you have the powers to perpetuate such ignorance. When… or if ever, you become informed then please do come back and pontificate. I shall not banter with such ignorance!
Yes, Obama gets to choose, and therein lies the rub. Everyone understands that he will have to stiff someone: Who will it be? You?
Yes, the Democrats are already preparing the “Timmy” ad for next year’s election. But for every “Timmy” actually identified there will be many private charitable organizations which will offer to help, and those offers will never be publicized. Conservatives should make those offers the subject of corresponding ads.
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