“The President needs to put a plan on the table.” That was the message at the Republican House press conference this morning, as multiple House Reps stepped to the microphone.
This really is the heart of the problem. The House Republicans have passed a budget, but the Democrats in the Senate have done nothing, and Obama has sat back and watched in between fundraising and golf offering a budget unanimously rejected by everyone on both sides of the aisle.
If the debt increases $2.4 trillion as Democrats want, one of the Reps said, that equates to $20,000 per American.
Eric Cantor stated that the Democrats are offering “perhaps” $1.5 trillion in spending cuts although the number keeps changing, while the House budget is $6.1 trillion.
Next week Republicans in the House will bring forward a “cut, cap and balance” bill.
In a sign of the trouble Republicans have getting their message out, MSNBC was covering Casey Anthony, and even Fox News cut away before the press conference was over. Somehow I don’t think that will happen when Obama holds his press conference at 11.
Update: Here’s how The Hill describes the plan:
The plan would authorize a $2.4 trillion increase in the debt ceiling after Congress passes a balanced-budget amendment.
According to a summary shown to The Hill, the plan would cut $111 billion in fiscal 2012 and cap spending at 18 percent of gross domestic product by 2021. The $2.4 trillion increase in the debt ceiling would satisfy President Obama’s demand that the additional borrowing authority carry the nation through the 2012 elections.
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The Democrats are imploding. The government has spent way more then it has taken in, and unemployment is very high due to the poor economy. We now have so many economic problems that some of the problems are making other problems even worse. We are approaching a critical mass which everyone knows will be followed by a meltdown if the spending and taxing aren’t stopped. Despite these immense problems, the Democrats want to go further into debt and they want to increase taxes. They simply cannot be taken seriously.
While the Republicans are not very good at putting out a clear and concise message that the public can easily understand, and their negotiating skills as a group seem to indicate they have not sat down and developed a strategy, they seem to be trying to do what is best for the nation. That they haven’t gotten the public behind them en masse is a tribute to their extremely poor communication and messaging skills.
The Democrats can no longer talk about their goals in a civil tone of voice because their actions are not conducive to solving our problems and their words ring hollow. Thus, the Democrats must employ all manner of dramatic techniques in their efforts to bamboozle people into taking them seriously. They are like the spoiled brats who just continue to escalate the level of their emotions until everyone else just gives up and simply accommodates them.
The childish behavior of the Democrats, and their increasing level of histrionics is making everyone tired. Obama is sucking the energy out of everyone with his tired old manipulation techniques and his incessant banal statements. People are beginning to get it. He and the Democrats have made things much worse and they have no intention of stopping. As they continue to increase the drama and their emotions, people are beginning to see through their lies. The Democrats just need to go.
Another new wrinkle from S&P for the “McConnell punt plan” backers (those who argue that any deal is better than no deal) to ponder.
If you read pages 3-4 in the officials S&P statement issued yesterday, it warns that maintaining the AAA rating is predicated on eliminating the risk of default for the foreseeable future AND reducing the debt growth trajectory. Here is the key wording:
“We (S&P analysts) expect the debt trajectory to continue increasing in the medium term if a medium term fiscal consolidation plan of $4 trillion is not agreed upon.”
All compromises proposed so far fall far short of that requirement. Although S&P doesn’t take a stand on revenue/spending mix, they seem to be making a case for a spending cap by linking acceptable debt levels to GNP.
I’ll e-mail the pdf to you professor. I can’t cut and paste from it.
Meanwhile over at the Pentagon …
Larger magnitude cuts only could be achieved, at the earliest, after 2020, he said. During the next three years, the only major reductions that could realistically be made are in operations and training. The following three years, the Pentagon would have to let people go, particularly in the active-duty force, and possibly shift more responsibilities to the National Guard, Reserves — and even consider the unthinkable, a draft.
… now there would be a real legacy for President “gutsy call”
I’m not certain Republicans should stick to this “absolutely no tax increases” mantra, it seems like we could at least increase the tax revenue to GDP ratio to what we had under Reagan. If it gets us at least twice that increase in cuts to current fiscal year spending, seems like it would be worth it.
The reason is simple. The cuts will NEVER take place. Revenues HAVE NEVER BEEN HIGHER yet Congress continues to spend more than they receive.
Revenue is not the problem. Uncontrolled spending is the problem.
Revenues have never been higher? As a percentage of GDP, they are at their lowest levels in 60 years. http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=205
Receipts are down because there has been essentially no recovery from the recession, not because tax rates have been cut (in fact, there’s over a trillion in tax hikes in PPACA, aka Obamacare, that will start kicking in next January). Further tax hikes will destroy jobs, stunt economic growth, probably put us into another recession, and are not likely at all to result in increased revenues.
Just because you raise tax rates does not mean that tax revenues go up – they NEVER go up as much as ‘expected’, usually by far less, and sometimes receipts actually go down as a result of higher rates. Given where current rates are, and the extremely weak economy, tax rate increases are very likely to result in lower, not higher, revenue.
Meanwhile, spending IS at an alltime high. Obama/Pelosi/Reid have jacked spending up to about 25% of GDP, up from its historical average of 18%. The budget deficit expected over the next decade is on the order of 13 Trillion. That assumes a lot of things that won’t happen which could make the deficit significantly worse (like assuming interest rates will stay at their historical low – they won’t). The only way to cut that deficit is with big spending cuts. These won’t be anywhere near as painful as the Democrat/Media propaganda would have us believe. You could achieve nearly all of it by simply reducing baseline discretionary spending to 2007 levels + inflation – simply eliminate all the new spending put in place since Obama took office. Most of which was supposed to be temporary anyway, to ‘stimulate’ the economy out of the recession but immediately came to be considered the new baseline. They need to undo what was put in place in the last Bush budget (passed by Dems and signed by Obama after Bush left office) and the first Obama budget as well as the omnibus spending bill passed in Obama’s first year in office. There’s simply no way the level of spending in those bills can be paid for.
Did you even read what I wrote? I’m not talking about gross receipts, I’m talking about revenue relative to GDP. If you raise the rate, even if actual receipts go down because of a decrease in economic activity, the revenue to GDP will still go up. That’s why revenue relative to GDP is a better measure of tax levels than just receipts.
Alas, for you, we don’t spend a percentage of our GDP. We spend dollars. And gross receipts are over $2.1 Trillion and only 3 years have been higher!
Only a true leftist would claim we have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem.
American tax levels are absurdly high and need to be cut to spur growth.
And spending needs to be capped and a balanced budget amendment must be passed because leftists will not stop spending.
You really don’t understand why it’s only useful to look at spending and revenue in terms of a percentage of GDP? Nominal values can’t be used to form an intelligent debate because they don’t actually represent anything, particularly when you start debating about dollars over time. This is because nominal dollars change in value over time, and the size of the system changes over time. So a dollar in taxes from 1900 doesn’t represent a dollar today because 1) inflation has changed the value of that dollar and 2) the size of our economy, even in inflation adjusted terms, has increased since that time period. For this reason you must use a normalizer, in this case GDP, to understand how much we are being taxed compared to previous periods.
You really should have learned this in 11th grade statistics class.
So the plan to cut spending and rein in the nation debt starts with conceding an additional $2.4 TRILLION dollars over the next 18 or 19 months? Who are we kidding!
The House should immediately begin passing bills
1) to assure that Social Security checks receive priority in payment
2) to assure that military salary receive priority in payment
3) reduce by 15% the funding of HUD, EPA, Department of Energy, Department of Education, HHS, Department of Commerce, Bureau of Justice Affairs at DoJ,
4) furlough personnel GS-13 and above at these agencies for 2 days a week throughout the rest of the fiscal year
5) freeze on any new capital expenditures for the rest of the fiscal year
They should keep voting on these measures every day to remind the American people they are serious about reducing spending.
Why won’t they do these simple things?
Are they this inept? Or do they just want more Kabuki Theater?
I wasn’t aware that the House had already passed a budget. Maybe out of mischief they should continue to pass a new budget every couple of days while cutting spending by a 100 billion more or higher each time.
Since they’ve done their jobs they should go play golf and let the Democratic controlled Senate and President pick up the slack.
[…] Obama lashed out at Republicans for wanting to have a debt-limit increase with a balanced-budget amendment. Obama said the Constitution and the […]
You mean Obama knows we have a Constitution? It must have come as quite a shock to the poor man…
The House is going to have a CBO scored plan that real journalists will now report on, meanwhile reporting the CBO can’t score a speech. Other journalists can just laugh along with nice eloquent speeches.
Maybe we’ll finally get to see the score behind the negotiating rhetoric about corporate tax loopholes and jet depreciation schedules…or not…really doesn’t matter to me.
We see the jobs and unemployment numbers.
And for the enterprising journalists, Pres. Obama in his press conference, mentioned lots of spreadsheets on his desk, as I recall (don’t have the transcript yet). So maybe someone should check his desk for his plan.
House Republicans are about to do what I’ve been suggesting for weeks: Stop negotiating with Obama and simply pass a bill. The plan is 2.4 Trillion in debt ceiling increase for 2.4 Trillion in spending cuts (including baseline spending reduction starting next year of over 100 Billion), AND a balanced budget amendment (I wouldn’t be surprised if this bit gets dropped, since they’d need a 2/3 vote if they include it).
This will put the ball firmly in the D’s court. Any criticism that they’re holding up the deal can be rebutted by pointing out that the R controlled House has already passed the debt ceiling increase in the amount Obama requested, and that nothing can happen now until the Senate acts.
The D’s have yet to put forward ANY plan of their own, neither Obama nor Senate D’s have put anything on the table. This will force the Senate to act. At a minimum, they’ll have to put forward a plan of their own. The public will see what the D’s stand for, and Republicans will have a real opposition plan to bargain against.
[…] More from the right: House Republican Presser: Next week is “cut, cap and balance” – Le … […]
Disorderly desk, disorderly mind. Empty desk, empty mind!
Good one Barry-boy!
[…] without misrepresenting a poll that anyone can read for themselves. Meanwhile, the Republicans have a plan on the table. Well, actually, it’s another plan, since they’ve come up with at least two others by […]
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