I expect that would be regarded as restructuring and probably hurt the credit-rating of the USA.
Taxes should be raised across the board.
Jon Stewart rips Obama a new one on debt deal
- Thread starter DarthTom
- Start date
I expect that would be regarded as restructuring and probably hurt the credit-rating of the USA.
Taxes should be raised across the board.
And they are stone-headedly rejecting the option of raising some revenue through taxes, DESPITE the fact that 65% - 72% of citizens in SEVERAL recent surveys and polls state that they feel that the way out of this miss is through supporting a mix of program cuts AND tax increases. The Republicans in the house are ignoring the will of the majority of the people in the country and the financial good of this country in order to satisfy the small minority of this country's citizens who put them in office.
Although these folks may have a beef about the state of our finances, they do not understand that compromise is how politics MUST work. (Based on how these people view compromise as a bad thing, I can only pity their spouses who _I assume- get no say in making decisions in their relationships!).
Yes... that's the way it works! I heard yesterday that BOTH parties were calculating how many votes would be needed to pass the bill, and then figuring out which congresspeople who were really against the bill would be politically safe in voting for it, and which members could be allowed to vote against it- since they would be in a more precarious position for re-election in their district if they came out in support of bill! Calculations and Compromise!
I admit I'm not really a sovereign debt wonk but I think the US government can use borrowed money to buy back Treasury bonds and hold them--essentially the same thing as paying them off, since the government would be buying its own debt back. This has ramifications for Treasury yields, though, and someone more knowledgeable on the subject can probably say more. I wish Lumen still posted, he'd know.
One of the things the Tea Party people have repeatedly said [whether you or I agree or not] is they believe they were sent to Washington to fundamentally change the way the US government does business namely to end this cycle of borrowing more money - and shrink the government.
Andrea Mitchell an NBC correspondent was commenting over the weekend that the big paradigm shift in D.C. today is they will not 'compromise,' on that platform. They deeply believe that their mission is to stop ongoing borrowing.
Whether that's a good and/or achievable goal isn't really the point - at least for them. They are holding steadfast to that goal. They also believe that this goal can be achieved without raising taxes on what they call 'job creators' or the wealthy- another debatable premise but nonetheless there it is.
Well, if the Tea Party folks can get some actual respected scientists to go on the record as saying their ideas have merit, then maybe I'll consider their position. Until then it's just simpletons not understanding that the economy of a country is more complicated than their daughter's credit card problem.
And even if it weren't, unilaterally stopping all payments against the existing balance the girl has wracked up wouldn't be the correct solution anyway.
And even if it weren't, unilaterally stopping all payments against the existing balance the girl has wracked up wouldn't be the correct solution anyway.
Your absolutely correct. Obama apologists on this matter claim he's changed his mind.
I on the other hand tend to side to a more pragmatic view on how he's approached this which was he's politically expedient to take the position as Senator v. President that makes him least accountable and which more likely favors his reelection.
Jon Stewart mused in a show as well earlier in the year that apparently the President was an 'adolescent 40 year old Senator," and now an 'all grown up late middle aged man as President.' on this issue.
While that quote certainly doesn't look good for him in the present context, I think it's a mistake to criticize politicians too heavily for (gasp) changing their mind. That sort of mentality is precisely what leads to extremism and no-compromise politics.
I'll agree with them on one point; it's absolutely asinine for all US departments to have a 8% baseline budget growth rate automatically written in.
No sane person runs a business and/or government program with an auto-increase budget.
Why? As long as people behave, Misc is fine.
Well...yeah. But the person who started this OP don't want to go there.
The problem is that we've continued to lower taxes through multiple stimulus packages and the job growth just isn't there. I supported when both Bush and Obama attempted to cure our economic issues with lower tax rates and I just don't see them as working in any meaningful way with unemployment hovering around ten percent.
The people who have benefited most from the stimulus simply haven't put the money back into the economy. If they refuse to put the money back into the economy, then we might as well get it out of them by repealing the tax cuts.
The people who have benefited most from the stimulus simply haven't put the money back into the economy. If they refuse to put the money back into the economy, then we might as well get it out of them by repealing the tax cuts.
The problem is that we've continued to lower taxes through multiple stimulus packages and the job growth just isn't there. I supported when both Bush and Obama attempted to cure our economic issues with lower tax rates and I just don't see them as working in any meaningful way with unemployment hovering around ten percent.
The people who have benefited most from the stimulus simply haven't put the money back into the economy. If they refuse to put the money back into the economy, then we might as well get it out of them by repealing the tax cuts.
There was only one stimulus, and it wasn't big enough. Cutting taxes is not nearly sufficient stimulus. It has to be accompanied by extra spending--and lots of it.
The stimulus actually did improve things. If you look at the GDP numbers, things started to slide again once the stimulus ran out, and it could've done more good had it been a lot bigger.
The lesson is that we need more stimulus, not less, and tax cuts are of very little value in an economy like this.
Obama's tax reductions have been relatively minor and mostly focused on the lower class. He actually wanted to let the Bush tax cuts expire for the top earners, but wasn't able to make that happen.
The people who have benefited most from the stimulus simply haven't put the money back into the economy. If they refuse to put the money back into the economy, then we might as well get it out of them by repealing the tax cuts.
The stimulus was pocket change. A big deal was made about it, but some economists say that in order to have had the desired effect, the stimulus would have needed to be an order of magnitude larger.
The problem is that we've continued to lower taxes through multiple stimulus packages and the job growth just isn't there. I supported when both Bush and Obama attempted to cure our economic issues with lower tax rates and I just don't see them as working in any meaningful way with unemployment hovering around ten percent.
The people who have benefited most from the stimulus simply haven't put the money back into the economy. If they refuse to put the money back into the economy, then we might as well get it out of them by repealing the tax cuts.
There was only one stimulus, and it wasn't big enough. Cutting taxes is not nearly sufficient stimulus. It has to be accompanied by extra spending--and lots of it.
The stimulus actually did improve things. If you look at the GDP numbers, things started to slide again once the stimulus ran out, and it could've done more good had it been a lot bigger.
The lesson is that we need more stimulus, not less, and tax cuts are of very little value in an economy like this.
I could've sworn that Bush and Obama both did separate stimulus packages.
Any stimulus is designed to increase cash flowing through the economy temporarily. Temporarily is the key word here, at some point the private sector has to increase spending or else it doesn't matter how big the stimulus is. Until they have a plan to fix employment in a meaningful way, stimulus packages are no more than band-aids. And last about as long.
I hope for the best.
Sure, daddy.
So "wrong and stubborn" is better than "correct but flexible". Funny that.
