Victory and not victory
I was most interested in the discussion (starting around 3:15) about whether the debt deal was a victory:
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Comments
Under current law, and following the CBO’s assumptions, the national debt is expect to increase by about $8 Trillion over the next ten years. This is the ‘rosy scenario’, the actual number is almost certain to be at least 50% higher. If interest rates go back up to where they averaged under Clinton, you can add another $500 billion or so per year to that number, just to service the debt.
Obama and the Democrats in both houses have made no attempt to work out a budget plan that balances the budget at any time in the future. They anticipate trillion dollar deficits for the forseeable future. Not only do they not have a plan, they’ve made no attempt to try to form a plan.
The Ryan budget, which passed the House but not the Senate, does provide a reasonable path toward a balanced budget.
If I were a reporter, I’d be asking the President and every Democrat I can what their plan is to balance the budget. I’d be asking at every possible opportunity.
This *should* be huge national news. Obama is on track to DOUBLE debt held by the public by the end of his term. He’ll create more debt in 4 years than all 43 Presidents before him combined. And for what? What has it bought us? Worse, we’re on track to double our national debt AGAIN over the next ten years and the President isn’t even working on a plan that would ever result in a balanced budget.
Not only will we, our children and grandchildren be paying interest on Obama’s debt for our entire lives. We have no idea when they’ll stop increasing the debt and start paying down what we already owe.
@Aarradin There is no mystery about how the President would like to balance the budget. The Bush tax cuts have been the single largest contributor to the budget deficit (followed closely by the two unfunded wars). End the wars and let the tax cuts expire, problem solved. Budget balanced, as it was during the prosperous times under Clinton, when we had a budget surplus (unlike the massive deficits under Reagan and the Bushes, 20 out of the 20 years that they were collectively in office).
This debt plan, which Palin and the tea-party are calling a victory, is not a victory for the American people. There is not a single credible economist who believes that this course of action will stimulate the stagnant economy (not even people on Wall Street or in the financial industry believe that it will). And with a plan that fails to create more jobs–indeed, it will probably cause more job losses–we will also see deeply substandard consumer spending. As consumer spending accounts for approximately 70% of US economic activity, this is a very serious problem. While the federal debt is a significant long term problem, the lack of jobs is orders of magnitude more urgent in the short term.
The idea that austerity will lead to more “business confidence” is currently being proven terribly wrong in England (amongst other countries), almost on a daily basis. It will be a miracle if we aren’t wrenched back further into deep recession.
Our infrastructure is falling apart, our students have fallen behind, and funding for basic medical research is stagnant. Yet under this plan, all of these things will be cut further. How this leads to a resurgence of “American exceptionalism” is a profound head-scratcher.
@cylinders – you need to be firing on all 4. Right now you are one giant mis-fire.
I don’t normally feed the trolls, but you are wrong on every point. Read Prof. Jacobson’s prior blog posts – i.e. get educated on FACTS, not lib talking points. Keynesian Economics is a FAILURE: proven under FDR, as well as every other place and time it’s been tried. Read up on economics – start with Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom. Listen to Mark Levin. Learn about the FACTS and TRUTH; don’t just spew leftist tripe.
Until you do, stop revealing your foolishness (i.e stop talking). You be-clown yourself.
@DINORightMarie I’ve noticed how anyone who disagrees with the orthodoxy over here is a “troll.” I guess it’s more comfortable to live in an echo chamber than to engage in civil debate. Fair enough.
But I’m still curious: why did we have prosperity and budget surplus under
Clinton, and virtual economic collapse and massive deficits under Bush? And how will this plan current plan of cutting everything that we should be investing in lead to renewed American prosperity?
Clinton cut defense to nothing (a time when we were not at war but our enemy was at war with us) and enjoyed outstanding prosperity from a new technology aka computer and all the dot.coms which bloomed. MAde gazillions for Al Gore!
I will agree with you darling that Bush spent big however you cannot be serious if you do not recognize Obama has tripled what Bush spent yet America is broke, out of work, and completely reliant upon unaffordable government care.
Did not President Obama bascially declare just a couple of days ago that if we did not give him more money than the trillions already given then grandma will starve and the troops won’t get paid?
We face DOOM yet this is after Obama tripled what Bush spent.
Can you explain why we are worse of today than we were five years ago?
Cylinders asks: why did we have prosperity and budget surplus under Clinton?
Answer: Because Clinton altered course in obedience to Dick Morris’ polling numbers.
Satisfied?
“why did we have prosperity and budget surplus under
Clinton”
Answer: Republicans won control of Congress in the midterms. Clinton’s ‘Stimulus’ bill failed, Clinton’s ‘Hillarycare’ health care bill failed. We had prosperity because Republicans, led by Newt Gingrich, controlled Congress and kept spending under control. Clinton does get credit for NAFTA, which tripled exports to Mexico and nearly doubled exports to Canada (note that W. passed a dozen or so free trade agreements with various countries, Obama = zero). Clinton also gets part credit on Welfare reform (which he finally signed after a few vetoes). In short, prosperity under Clinton was due entirely to policies that you oppose.
“virtual economic collapse and massive deficits under Bush?”
1) First, note that the dot.com bubble burst just at the end of Clinton’s Presidency, so Bush ‘inherited’ (to use a favorite O phrase) a recession. This really had nothing to do with policies on either side, but it did inflate the numbers for Clinton’s Presidency. He was fortunate to leave office before a collapse.
2) 9/11/01 Did you forget? 9/11 had an enormous impact on the economy.
3) Despite this, the Bush years saw a substantial increase in GDP, averaging 2.8% growth up to the collapse of the housing bubble. Note that post WWII GDP growth has averaged only 2%, so a 2.8% growth average over 8 years despite a national catastrophe, the collapse of the dot.com bubble and simultaneously fighting 2 wars can, under no stretch of the imagination, be labeled ‘virtual economic collapse’
4) “massive deficits” Bush deficits ranged from 150 billion to 413 billion, for a YEAR. Those are numbers that Obama beats in a MONTH. Obama deficits run at 1.7 TRILLION per year.
5) The housing bubble. The housing bubble was a direct and forseeable result of the Community Reinvestment Act, passed under Carter and massively expanded under Clinton. This is the law that requires banks approve the same % of mortgage applications by ‘protected minorities’ (ie. blacks and hispanics) as it does to everyone else, regardless of credit rating. This is the law that resulted in hundreds of billions of ‘subprime’ mortgages (the euphemism for mortgages given to people that no one ever expected to be able to pay back). This is why we have ‘no doc’ (no documents needed) mortgages for illegals and ‘ninja’ (no income, no job) mortgages for blacks. Banks had to keep their ‘numbers’ up. Banks were, and still are, forced by the government to lend to people they know can’t repay their mortgages for the sole purpose of satisfying racial quotas. Obama was personally involved in sueing Citicorp to force it to give out more of these ‘subprime’ mortgages. The banks complied, because their at the mercy of the federal regulators but also because they knew they could sell these bad mortgages to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, no questions asked. Fannie and Freddie bundled good mortgages with bad and sold them as triple A paper (collateralized mortgage obligations), that no one could look into because of the privacy laws protecting the individuals that got the mortgages. These CMO’s are the ‘toxic assets’ you heard so much about when they were dealing with TARP. The bundling resulted in taking the half trillion in bad subprime and bundling it with about 15 trillion in good mortgages, but no one knew which CMO’s had large amounts of ‘toxic assets’ and which had small amounts, and fewer and fewer people would buy them when they started to fail. So, the CRA, Fannie, Freddie not only provided the low interest money to inflate the housing bubble, they also created the bad mortgages that led to its collapse.
Notice, Mr. Socialist Troll, that the housing bubble and its collapse were due to policies implemented and supported by the Left, and opposed by the Right (McCain tried repeatedly to reform this system, but was defeated by Democrats in Congress). The 3 largest recipients of campaign donations from Fannie and Freddie up to the collapse were Dodd (Senate banking committee chair), Barnie Franks (House finance committee chair), and Obama.
Anyone that discusses the housing bubble and its collapse without acknowledging the central role of the CRA, Fannie and Freddie is flat out lying to you. Many of the most powerful Democrats still in office are directly or indirectly responsible for these policies, or appointing the people that were (Fannie and Freddie are cesspools of Democratic political largesse).
Clinton virtually turned his head away from Al Queda, passing it on to Bush and gutting military, the Dem Congress under Bush fed the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac housing bubble, the credit angencies gave phony ratings to monstrous derivatives, Bush compromised, you know like when someone wants to murder you and you compromise by commiting suicide with spending spending spending! This is a short course.
Can’t agree with cylinders. Instead of incurring additional unsustainable debt with more failed “stimulative” spending, we can get “business confidence” and job numbers on the upswing, again, by promoting bottom-up growth and pruning top-heavy, unaffordable administration. We must get back to smart fundamentals:
1. repeal Obamacare
2. bury Keynes once and for all, stop the constant deficit spending
3. dial back onerous regs on small business
4. rein in the politicized, big business killing EPA
5. reduce and eliminate certain Federal departments
6. clean-up defense appropriations and use the mil for threats to the US and our specific interests, only
7. tighten up entitlements by raising qualifying bars; upping ages; imposing performance conditions, time limits, and means testing; doing better fraud detection
8. drill, baby, drill
@Socialist Troll
1) Ending the ‘Bush Tax Cuts’, which Obama and the Democrats just extended while they had supermajorities in both Houses of Congress, would represent a tax hike on the order of $3.8 Trillion. There are NO economists now, or ever, that have ever put forth a theory wherein tax hikes lead to economic growth. Tax hikes destroy jobs, and result in permanently slower economic growth. Your messiah occupying the White House has said as much on several occassions. You don’t raise taxes in a recession. Also, if you did, it would be by Democrat votes only and they’d lose massive numbers of seats in the next election.
2) The entire cost of the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and the costs of the war on terror elsewhere, combined, from 9/11/01 until now, are less than HALF the current ANNUAL deficit under then Obama administration. Now, I know you lefties are fond of bogus numbers for the military, failing as you always do to subtract the cost of maintaining the troops in their previous occupations from the costs of the wars to arrive at grossly inflated numbers. But, even the Left’s inflated cost estimate of $1.2 Trillion for the wars, plus the approximately $3.8 Trillion for allowing the ‘bush tax cuts’ and the AMT fix expire would only cover about 3 years of current deficits, and would not put us anywhere near a balanced budget.
3) “massive deficits under Reagan and the Bushes” A clear sign of your liberalism is your complete unfamiliarity with reality. The deficits under W ranged from $150 Billion to $413 Billion, with the exception of his last year – which was padded by Obama and the Dems waiting until after he was out of office to pass a budget for W’s last year in office. They packed in hundreds of billions of spending that he would have vetoed knowing it would go on the books as a Bush budget even though it passed with Dem votes in both houses and was signed by Obama. Obama deficits are on the order of $1.7 TRILLION. Obama has had MONTHLY deficits in excess of a Bush ANNUAL deficit.
4) “credible economist” To a socialist like you, I’m certain that anyone that isn’t a Keynesian fails to qualify as credible. This despite the 100% failure of Keynesian economics throughout history.
5) “cause more job losses” Another clear sign of your being a socialist. Government produces zero wealth. Government only ever consumes wealth. Government does not create productive jobs, rather it destroys productive jobs in the private sector through the taxes imposed to pay for the useless parasitic bureaucratic jobs that it pays for. The net result is ALWAYS a loss. If a mosquito is sucking blood out of your arm, does it benefit you more to kill it or let it eat its fill? You kill it, of course, which is bad for the mosquito but good for you. Government workers are parasites on the national economy – when they lose jobs the economy improves. I’m sure you’re unfamiliar with the Austrian school of economics, all followers of which would disagree strongly with every statement you’ve made, but if you’re determined to be a blind follower of the Keynesians like Krugman, at least read his textbooks rather than his columns. His textbooks disprove virtually everything he writes elsewhere.
6) ‘austerity’. The one thing government can do to help create jobs is to take the jackboot of socialist tyranny off the throats of the entrepreneurs in society. This the Obama administration and ‘progressives’ like you will NEVER do. In fact, you ALWAYS do just the opposite. You insist on massive tax hikes to fund your wealth redistribution programs (the US currently taxes over $2 Trillion/year for the sole purpose of making such ‘transfer payments’). You insist on massive bureaucracies and hundreds of thousands (literally) of pages of burdensome regulations that make it virtually impossible for businesses to create jobs. Has it escaped your attention that job creation in the US declined by roughly 90% the day Obamacare was passed and has remained at that catastrophically low rate from that day to this? Obamacare alone creates 159 new agencies/bureaus/boards all with authority to write their own regulations. The Dodd/Frank financial regulations bill is nearly as bad. The simple fact is, the bigger the government gets (you can measure by govt spending as a % of GDP) the slower GDP growth becomes. This applies 100% of the time in every country.
7) “Our infrastructure is falling apart” Government spending is up by 42% since Obama became President. Unemployment has doubled and the national debt will double as well (betwen Obama’s inauguration and inauguration day in 2013, debt will more than double) and your ‘solution’ is more spending and more taxes to pay for the spending. “Tax and Spend Liberal” isn’t a cliche by accident. That’s all you know. The Democrats base is the 49% that has a zero (or lower) tax liability + government employees. So, to you, increasing the welfare payouts you live off and hiking taxes that you don’t pay seems always to be a good idea. Its a complete divorce of power from responsibility. This wouldn’t be so catastrophic if you didn’t have so much power to enact your disastrous policies. Don’t you have the slightest care for what this will do to the economy and the national debt that you will leave to your children? Look at it this way, the federal government has gone from spending $200 billion to $500 billion per year simply to service the debt. That’s set to go over $1 Trillion per year within the next few years. Think how many of your precious redistribution programs that could have funded.
I’m bored with refuting your ludicrous socialist talking points. I doubt you’ll ever learn anything anyway.
@Aarradin, thanks for proving once again that civilized debate with you folks is utterly futile
and not worth the effort. Don’t worry, now you can go back to parsing the finer points of “The Undefeated.”
So in other words, you didn’t bother to read each of Aarradin’s points that refuted yours, right?
Why not?
Because you’re wrong on each one? Is that it?
You just got a full page of civilized debate. Either respond to the points of stop trying to present yourself as interested in same.
How much is Soros paying you?
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/08/02/reid_joint_committee_must_include_taxes_or_trigger_will_kick_in.html
We’re so screwed!
There’s a good chance anything the committee comes up with will fail to pass the Senate. If the Commmittee fails to reach and agreement, or its proposals fail to pass either house of Congress, the trigger for automatic cuts kicks takes effect in exchange for the debt ceiling hike.
The cuts are split between defense and medicare. It’d be a cut of 7-800 Billion to each.
This would be two huge policy victories for the D’s in exchange for doing nothing. All they have to do is ensure the Committee fails and they win.
Yeah, I know, the medicare cut as a Democrat goal seems counterintuitive, but that’s only because we hear so much of their demagoguery instead of watching what they actually do. They LOVE to demagogue on Medicare, the Scare Gradma technique for winning elections. In practice though, they know seniors tend to vote Republican. Look at Obamacare – more than half the funding for it, about $500 billion, comes from Medicare. Obamacare will also destroys Medicare Advantage (they did this to get AARP to support Obamacare, AARP’s insurance business (their primary revenue) competes directly against Medicare Advantage).
Democrats want to shift an enormous amount of social welfare spending away from seniors to ‘the poor’. If Obamacare actually goes into effect, the first huge change will be the enrollment of additional millions (really, estimates are 75-125 million) of people onto Medicaid.
Their problem is how to do this while blaming Republicans.
The Obamacare $500 billion cut to Medicare was accompanied by some of the biggest lies ever told to the American People. This is the whole issue with saying they’re using that same $500 billion to both extend the solvency of Medicare by years while also spending that $500 billion on Obamacare. You can’t spend the same dollar twice.
The next $700+ billion they’ll blame on Republicans by finding a way to make the Committee fail.
Bottom Line: Don’t count on Medicare being there when you retire. It’ll still exist under the same name, but the benefits will be nowhere near what they are for current retirees.
I think Palin’s saying it’s a Pyrex victory :}, not flaking Teflon but not shatter-proof, either.
Am leaning toward voting for her, since she’s keeping our national teapot hot and the right issues on the front burner.
I’m reading “Going Rogue” now and the more I read, the more I like her. I only hope she runs.
I listened to this after I commented on your Pep Talk 3 post. She is right, as usual. There is not much to be calling victory over, beyond the discussion being about cutting spending. The blank check on spending will be used to
I predict she will announce in Iowa on Sept. 3rd, at her TEA Party rally speech. I can only hope – she is the only politician I believe sees reality, understands the problem, and will have the steel spine and cojones to stare them down.
I saw The Undefeated last week in Florida. I’m ven more certain now she is the right person to lead our nation, after seeing it.
Game on, Mr. Obama!!
I adore Sarah Palin, but on this point, I fear she may be wrong. I am truly concerned that when the American credit rating gets dropped and as the economy continues to tank, this “Tea Party” bill is going to get the blame — which is why the establishement left and establishment right are keen on calling it a “Tea Party Victory”. LEGISLATE in HASTE, REPENT at LEISURE!
Well, I don’t favor Palin, I think she’s a lot more establishment that many realize, and I don’t agree with her that this is any sort of win for the Teas, or for fiscal sanity.
Further, Palin came out for legal status for illegal immigrants on BOR’s show in July 2010, and gets a solid D from NumbersUSA on immigration.
http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/oreilly/transcript/how-sarah-palin-would-tackle-illegal-immigration
O’REILLY: But what do you do with these folks?
PALIN: Which means…
O’REILLY: Do you make them register with the federal government? Do you tell them they have 60 days to get out of here before we put you in jail? What do you do with them?
PALIN: Do we make them register with the federal government? Yes, we do.
O’REILLY: Yes, so we know who they are.
PALIN: We have — exactly, yes. I want to answer to that question absolutely.
…..
O’REILLY: Now, you have these people that register. You’re going to have millions of them. Then they register and they say, OK, we obeyed what President Palin told us to do. Then what? Do you give them green cards to work right away? What do you do with them?
PALIN: You know, there has to be that expectation that they will work and that they will contribute. Bill, it makes me uncomfortable that we’re even going down that path so far…
…….
O’REILLY: …because you are rewarding bad behavior. You’re letting them stay in the United States. And they came in illegally.
PALIN: Then let’s keep it — then we won’t complicate it anymore. Let’s keep it simple. And let’s say no, if you are here illegally, and if you don’t follow the steps that at some point through immigration reform we’re going to be able to provide, and that is to somehow allow to you work. If you’re not going to do that, then you will be deported. You will be gone.
http://www.numbersusa.com/content/action/2012-presidential-hopefuls-immigration-stances.html
Palin would give millions of illegals a foothold on citizenship (one lawsuit would be all it would take to grant a path to cit for all the new “legal illegals”) and thereby turn TX and FL blue, locking the Rs out of the WH for good.
Palin is too naive, and nowhere close to cagey enough to save the US.
She’s a good person who means well but simply cannot deal with the various threats we face, coming as they are from all directions now.
Look at T-Paw, or Bachmann, as better alternatives IMO.
Once the Democrat base outnumbers us, elections are pointless anyway. Palin seems oblivious to this concept, and I fear most Republicans are as well.
Well, I don’t favor Palin, I think she’s a lot more establishment that many realize…
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AHEM…W.T.F you be talking about???? She’s so “establishment” that the REAL establishment wants her dead, done and buried. So “establishment” that the MSN wants her on a volcanic spit.
Quite to the contrary. She’s the WalMart candidate. Even in Alaska, she wasn’t in the elite cliques or social circles.
You really need to see the “The Undefeated” before you make that comment.
http://www.pozogoldstein.com/blog/immigration-discussion/sarah-palin-says-wait-in-line/
While contemplating a possible run for president by touring the country, Sarah Palin spent some time in New York and New Jersey signing autographs last week and expressed her thoughts on immigration. While on Ellis Island, which is best known as the port of entry through which twelve million immigrants entered the U.S. from 1892 to 1924, Mrs. Palin had the following to remark, “It’s one of the symbols, of course, of our liberty, and it’s a reminder too that immigrants built this country.” Yet this seemingly lukewarm comment is in stark contrast to some of her political opinions, thus raising the question of whether it was just given for crowd-pleasing and political posturing purposes. The possible 2012 presidential contender has said she supports the Arizona law that would allow police to ask people to show proof that they are in the country legally. She has also said that she does not support any type of amnesty or even the DREAM Act legislation that is meant to help young undocumented individuals. When asked specifically of it, she said, “the DREAM Act, well see, the immigrants of the past, they had to literally and figuratively stand in line to become U.S. citizens. I’d like to see that continue, and unfortunately the DREAM Act kind of usurps that, the system.” With such a politically incorrect comment like this, even though she claims to have not decided yet, it is our hope that such a shortsighted person will hold herself from running for president. Regardless, we would not expect her to be a strong contender, especially since she would probably be the least favored candidate among the immigrant constituency and its sympathizers.
I heard that statement, which got her upgraded from a D- to a D by NumbersUSA….
It’s a pretty good statement, but we’ll see if she backs off her immigration reform position in time.
Note she didn’t say anything like “Wait in line in your home countries as required by law”
So she could easily mean “Wait in line while we cook you up some Z visa amnesty” which would be consistent with her earlier, pro-watered down amnesty position. “Wait in line while we pass immigration reform and hand you 20 million illegals green cards.”
Bottom line is she’s not asking any illegals to comply woth the law. She’s offering them legal status and immigration reform…. And she’s saying she’s against amnesty, while promising immigration reform and legal status for tens of millions of illegals.
That will be converted to full amnesty in short order.
The conclusion is that she’s a lot more like McCain than her supporters will confess.
She’s going to give the Dems an electoral college lock
I’m not saying she means to do it, but that’s what will happen if she gets her way on immigration as she has stated her position.
Palin comes off as very sincere, and I like that, but I will not support her as the R nominee with her current -pro-legalization position, and I am also very disappointed that she would refer to this debt deal as anything remotely victorious.
We need 3 things to save the country.
1. Immigration enforcement, which can be done slowly over time, as long as amnesty or legal status is not granted. Removes the threat of a left wing majority, restores the rule of law and to its proper position, honors immigrants who obey the laws, and tightens the job market, all desperately needed.
2. Serious commitment to restrain federal spending. We are running out of time very quickly on this.
3. Serious commitment to rolling back the strangulating regulatory regime that stares business in the face.
repeal Ogabecare, and renounce all new tax, and most energy development restrictions.
If this is not done soon, we have little chance to avoid Greece’s fate.
We can argue about other things, but these things should be non-negotiable for any R candidate, and 2 out of 3 are sadly, not good enough to save us. IMO.
Let me provide more of an insight to this discussion.
My fiance (Mexican heritage, 2rd generation American) lives in Dallas and comes from a libertal, pro-Amnesty family. She’s in tune with the immigration/amnestry groups from her college days/community/family connections and has a good feel of the ground situation.
The “vibe” on the street is that contray to what “Numbers USA” says is that Palin is supportive of Arizona-style laws, E-verify, denile of social services to illegals, voter ID bills, a strong border fence and a beefed up INS/board patrol.
In their view, anything remotely considered friendly to illegals is just smoke and mirrors. She will not support amnesty but only standard legal channels. In essence, they believe that once in office she will “sour the milk” for illegals to operate in the US (self deport).
In conservative Latino areas, she will do fine in the primaries/general but she won’t get squat in liberal areas.
Such liberal areas would prefer Obama (or a Jeb Bush).
I can concure to her findings, to some degree, from my days of living in El Paso.
Largely meaningless.
The La-Raza types will be pleasantly surprised to find, (should Palin run and win) that she intends to pass immigration reform, legalize their status permanently in the US (according to her own words) and grant them the right to stay here indefinitely. By the time her proposed immigration reform makes it thru congress it will be well to the left of her already far too capitulationist starting position, anyway.
And she knows that as well.
The only conclusion is she’s not as conservative as many like to believe.
Then, all the 15-18 million new legal residents have to do is file a lawsuit claiming unequal treatment before the law, (they were given the right to stay but not to vote or have any right of self determination, they will pose as the slaves of 1800s) and the judge(s) will likely find for them and order the Feds to place them on a path to citizenship.
And that will be the ballgame, courtesy of the so-called conservative wing of the R party.
Their vibe is wrong, Palin is an immigration squish and effectively an amnesty supporter.
As such not fit to lead.
Gee, why not come on down their barrio and call them a liar while you’re at it.
I’ll trust their word (and their networks of friends) over your stranger.
Hope you can speak Spanish.