It’s A Bird…It’s A Plane…..It’s Super Committee!
Posted: 6 September 2011 Filed under: Economics, Fiscal Policy, Government, News, Observations, Politics | Tags: Budgetary Debate, Deficit Solutions, Federal Spending, Postaday2011, US Congress 4 Comments »It is the day after Labor Day and the Congress should be making their way back to work….or at least to Washington……and when they return it will be the super committee that will get most of the media attention……..and very little will be said about those donors that will be pulling strings……..
Each party named 6 people to work on the Super Committee that will be working on the spending cuts thingy that consumed Washington for 6 weeks prior to their abandoning their posts and going home to sleep with their donors…..but the big question is…..will this committee be successful at finding a partisan answer to all the crap about spending? My guess is…….NO!
Let me explain my reasoning…….from an article in Raw Story…..
The bipartisan “super committee” created by the debt ceiling deal is comprised of lawmakers who have received big bucks from special interest groups, according to a report by MapLight.The committee is tasked with finding at least $1.2 trillion in deficit cuts over ten years.
In total, the twelve members appointed to the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction got nearly $64.5 million from special interests groups over the past decade, with legal firms donating about $31.5 million and Wall Street firms donating about $11.2 million.
Of that $11.2 million, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase donated approximately $2 million combined.
The members appointed to the committee are Sens. Pat Toomey (R-PA), Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Rob Portman (R-OH), Patty Murray (D-WA), John Kerry (D-MA), and Max Baucus (D-MT) and Reps. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), Fred Upton (R-MI), Dave Camp (R-MI), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Xavier Becerra (D-CA), and Jim Clyburn (D-SC).
Remember that irritating term, “kicking the can down the road”? Well, sports fans, this committee is that can on that road……This is always the answer in Washington….A Committee! Nothing will be done because they can drag their feet and the trigger with no compromise will do what the conservs want done….so there is NO incentive for this attempt to succeed. Just another Washington waste of time and resources!
While You Were Sleeping
Posted: 1 August 2011 Filed under: Economics, Fiscal Policy, Government, News, Observations, Politics | Tags: Budgetary Debate, Federal Spending, National Debt, Postaday2011, US Congress 4 Comments »The little dicks in Washington ruined my couple of days of Zen…..and the best they could do is the deal we have now……….
The Grand Deal has been done! (Coming to Reality TV near you)…….
“Now, is this the deal I would have preferred? No,” Obama said. “But this compromise does make a serious down payment on the deficit reduction we need, and gives each party a strong incentive to get a balanced plan done before the end of the year.”
The still-unreleased legislation would slice more than $2 trillion from federal spending over a decade and permit the nation’s $14.3 trillion borrowing cap to rise by up to $2.4 trillion, enough to keep the government afloat through the 2012 elections — a key objective for Obama, whose poll numbers have sagged as the summertime crisis dragged on.
Both parties in Washington have joined hands and come up with a deal that will save America from itself……funny how that worked, huh? And just in time for the Asian markets to open….go figure! It took months upon months to come up with this deal……and the rest of the deal needs to be worked out……..and this is the best they could do…….they caved!
It sounds like a deal that was offered up back in April (I believe)……..basically it is the cut, cap and balance that I wrote about for the last couple of days…..and guess what? They will have a committee to study what and where to cut in the future……(what a blowjob)………that is what they do….they have committees to study things and while they study the middle class disappears……and the super committee for the study has already been done! It is called the Simpson-Bowles. Why do we need another one?
What do you want me to say? This whole deal making process is a fraud….that is right….I said FRAUD!
…..the debate surrounding the debt ceiling, spending cuts and the like is nothing more than smoke and mirrors. There is no real debate going on as it is just staged theatre between two factions of a one party system. There is zero difference between both the Republican and Democrat parties as for decades they have continued supporting this phony monetary system that has bankrupted the nation and made the American people debt slaves. As a sovereign entity the United States Treasury could simply issue its own currency free from the burden of debt or interest payments and use that to pay off its debts. Abraham Lincoln did this by financing the Civil War through the issuance of Greenbacks. To reiterate, a sovereign entity does not need to borrow from the Federal Reserve or any other lending institution when it can issue its own currency. The fact that not one politican or one media pundit has brought up this fact shows that nobody is interested in truly resolving this crisis and are only interested in continuing the status quo.
This was a manufactured crisis…..and it takes a sick mind to do so…..and slip it to the middle class….yet again!
Remember priorities have been protected! And YOU are NOT one of those priorities!
Addendum: On word of the deal stocks jumped and gold fell……see priorities protected! That is what this charade was all about the whole time……happy now?
Debt Ceiling–It’s All A Game
Posted: 14 April 2011 Filed under: Economics, Fiscal Policy, Government, Observations, Politics, Public Policy | Tags: Conservatives, Federal Spending, National Debt, Political Games, Postaday2011, Republicans, Speaker of the House, Tea Party, Wall Street 11 Comments »From the VOMITORIUM
Let us be honest……Actually…..ALL politics is a game….a game of spin, of stats, of people……we just finished one game….that being the deadline game of the 2011 budget…..both sides pushed that issue to the limits and then miraculously a deal was struck…and then both sides could claim victory and the peasants back home….danced…..
That was round one and now we will move on to round two…..and that would be the raising of the debt limit….the spin machine has been working overtime and the media has been doing the tango with the politicians to keep it in the news (always look for what they are trying to suppress…it is called a misdirection)…..any way we will be bombarded continuously with this news story…..but go to the local town square and ask people what they think about the national debt….you will be surprised how many do not CARE….most want to see the economy grow and to find a descent job…..but the major story will be the catnip for the media…..the debate on whether to raise the debt ceiling or not……
I know that many of my conservs friends think that I am a bit too sarcastic or pessimistic….but if it is NOT a game then what the Hell would you call it?
From Politico……
Republicans are growing increasingly concerned about the impact a bruising fight over raising the nation’s $14.29 trillion debt ceiling could have on U.S. financial markets.House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has had conversations with top Wall Street executives, asking how close Congress could push to the debt limit deadline without sending interests rates soaring and causing stock prices to go lower, people familiar with the matter.
Republicans and even some fiscally conservative Democrats want to use the debt limit fight as leverage to wring more significant spending cuts out of the White House. Politicians of all stripes are worried about how independents will react to a vote — or multiple stop-gap votes — to raise the debt ceiling. Many executives on Wall Street believe Washington is playing an enormously dangerous game with what is typically a non-controversial vote.
Now The Jobs Will Come Rolling In
Posted: 17 March 2011 Filed under: Fiscal Policy, Government, News, Observations, Politics | Tags: Conservatives, Federal Spending, NPR, Postaday2011, Republicans, US House of Representatives 2 Comments »Flash! The House of Representatives have taken a step to help the country create a massive amount of jobs……finally the House is doing what it is paid to do…..(In case you are confused….all that is sarcasm)
Posted on Newser website……
The House has voted to end federal funding to National Public Radio, though the chances of it getting through the Senate are slim. Republican supporters say it makes good fiscal sense, but Democratic opponents call it an ideological attack that would deprive local stations of access to programs such as Car Talk and All Things Considered. The bill, which passed 228-192 along mostly partisan lines, would bar federal funding of NPR and prohibit local public stations from using federal money to pay NPR dues and buy its programs. “It is time for American citizens to stop funding an organization that can stand on its own feet,” said Colorado Republican Doug Lamborn. He said it was not a question of content—which many conservatives say has a liberal slant—but whether taxpayer dollars should go to nonessential services. “As a country we no longer have this luxury.” Democrat Ed Markey countered that the bill would “snuff out stations from coast to coast, many in rural areas where the public radio station is the primary source of news and information.”
I know I am so much more confident about the economy and job creation with this action by our Reps in Washington….(once again…SARCASM!)
I know that I feel much more confident in the work of our Reps…..(yes…sarcasm)
Do these people not realize that this waste of time does nothing to improve their popularity rating….which is at 26%…..this whole spending cut thing and the whole Congress is nothing more than a huge joke….(and that is NOT sarcasm…..but rather a statement of fact)
We Are In Debt Now!–Part Deux
Posted: 10 December 2010 Filed under: Economics, Government, Observations, Politics | Tags: Budget Deficit, Deficit Solutions, Deficit Spending, Federal Spending 16 Comments »The thing to remember is that politicians seldom do as they say…..I have been harping on this point for years and few listen…..it is always about the election never the action with these political types……the last election was all about the size of government and the federal spending frenzy that the Dems are accused of having started…..all that is a steaming pile of chicken crap (to use a term uttered by the GOP statesman, John Boehner)….
Come on people…politicians have always been liars and thieves…look at the hero of the small government Right, Thomas Jefferson….he had written much about the limited size of government and the ails it would beget if it got too big….but yet once he was elected president…he over saw an increase in the size of the government with the Louisiana Purchase which was to be governed by an extensive system of military governors and their administrations……yes it did increase the size of the country, but it also increased the size of government and government spending…..so if the lies have been uttered since the early 1800′s what makes you think that they will be truthful 200 years later?
There are those amongst us that do not feel that the deficit is the huge problem that the Right wants it to be……read what James Galbraith has to say about the deficit….
The starting point of the deficit contrarians’ argument is that the deficit was caused not by over-spending and under-taxation, as the current debate would have it, but by the collapse in tax revenues that resulted from the 2008 financial crisis and the subsequent economic slump.
In prepared testimony before the presidential debt commission this summer, James Galbraith, a professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, argued that this means the only way to reduce the deficit is to reduce unemployment, not to cut spending or raise taxes. Galbraith (pictured above) argued that the only way to reduce unemployment without adding to the deficit through more government spending is to get banks lending again, by fixing the root problems in the financial sector that caused the financial crisis in the first place.
Galbraith — a former director of Congress’s Joint Economic Committee, and the son of the renowned liberal economist John Kenneth Galbraith — went on to address the idea that cutting Social Security benefits can help close the deficit. That’s been a mainstay of the debate, and it’s a notion that the commission’s co-chairs appear to subscribe to, judging from their recent proposal, which recommends significant cuts to the program. But Social Security, Galbraith noted, isn’t a spending program at all. It simply transfers wealth from today’s taxpayers to low-income elderly people in the future. “One can favor or oppose [cutting benefits] on its own merits as social policy,” Galbraith said. “But one cannot argue that it would save real resources that are otherwise being ‘consumed’ by the government sector.”
Next, Galbraith took on the argument that deficits will produce higher long-term interest rates, making it prohibitively expensive for the government to borrow in the future. That’s not true, he countered, because the government doesn’t spend in the same way that private individuals or companies do. “So long as U.S. banks are required to accept U.S. government checks — which is to say so long as the Republic exists — then the government can and does spend without borrowing, if it chooses to do so,” he declared.
All in all, Galbraith said, the current mania for deficit reduction is disastrously misplaced. “The right economic objectives are to meet real problems, not those conjured from thin air by economists,” he concluded. “Bringing about a rapid end to unemployment, caring properly for an aging population, cleaning up the Gulf of Mexico, coping with our energy insecurity and with climate change are all far more important objectives than reducing a projection of future budget deficits.”
This is all smoke and mirrors….and remember nothing being said about future deficits is written in stone….they are ALL projections….they are NOT gospel…and to try and sell them as such is just another trick of the political parasites…..
About the only thing that these people are serious about is to make the Middle Class pay for the crimes and misjudgments of the upper class….and you still do NOT believe there is a class war? (tune in tomorrow for the post on that very subject)
Wassup With The Deficit?
Posted: 26 November 2010 Filed under: Economics, Fiscal Policy, Government, Politics, Public Policy | Tags: Budget Deficit, Deficit, Deficit Spending, Federal Spending, Political Games 7 Comments »The Deficit? Yes we need to keep talking on this issue….it is too important to ignore and revert back to watching Dancing With The Stars……
The Deficit? You know that monetary problem that every politician has an opinion about? It is too high….or it is going to effect your children (and if you think your children are of any concern to politicians, then you are dumber than I originally thought)……or that it will subdue any and all economic prosperity…..on and on…and the song stays the same…..need to do something but NOBODY has a workable plan…..
Let us take a bit of time and look at the deficit through glasses that let us see into reality…..First of all Political wire has a very good piece on the deficit……
President Obama and many lawmakers say they will work to cut the federal deficit, but a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News survey underscores the challenges they may face in taking specific steps that could help reduce the red ink.
Key findings: 57% said they were uncomfortable with gradually raising the Social Security retirement age to 69 over the next 60 years, 70% were uncomfortable with making cuts to Medicare, Social Security and defense in order to reduce the deficit, 60% said they were uncomfortable with increasing tax revenue through measures such as raising the gasoline tax, limiting tax deductions on many home mortgages and altering corporate taxation.
Said pollster Peter Hart: “Everybody wants to cut the deficit and cut the spending. But at the end of the day, everybody wants a choice that doesn’t affect their well-being.”
But as I have said …not everyone sees the deficit in the same light…..Yahoo news blog, The Lookout has a pretty good look at the deficit….
Ever since concerns over the deficit took center-stage in Washington earlier this year, several prominent economists — all progressives — have been pushing back, claiming not simply that proposed spending cuts are too deep, or that the rich should be asked to sacrifice more. Rather, they’ve challenged the entire premise of the debate: that a budget shortfall caused by over-spending and under-taxation stands to put an undue burden on future generations, and that cuts to government programs, including Social Security, can help fix the problem. That view, they say, is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what’s driving the deficit and how government spending works. In fact, they argue, as one recently put it, that “the current deficit is a positive.
“The starting point of the deficit contrarians’ argument is that the deficit was caused not by over-spending and under-taxation, as the current debate would have it, but by the collapse in tax revenues that resulted from the 2008 financial crisis and the subsequent economic slump.
I guess I would be a deficit contrarian….I do not see where tweaking SS or earmarks or any of the proposals flying around Washington will do anything to make it better……things will get better when business returns to making things and selling things…..buying up other companies is not going to help the deficit….the stockholders maybe…but that has little to do with the deficit…..now does it?
From Rep. Ryan: Cancel Remaining “Stimulus” Funds
Posted: 22 June 2010 Filed under: Economics, Fiscal Policy, Government, Observations, Politics, Public Policy | Tags: Budget Deficit, Deficit, Deficit Spending, Economic Stimulus, Federal Budget, Federal Spending, GOP, Republicans 11 Comments »Inkwell Institute
Federal Budget Deficit Reduction:
Paper #2
In continuing with the series on fighting the Federal deficit according to the office of Wisconsin’s Rep. Paul Ryan….next this all seems to be the same song different Congress from the GOP……This installment is entitled:
Cancel Remaining “Stimulus” Funds
The cancellation of the program would save $273 billion over 10 years. The savings would be directed to the reduction of the Federal budget.
I will agree with Rep. Ryan, which I seldom do, that the stimulus money should be rescinded from its current proposals…I do disagree with Ryan in that it should be used to stimulate demand….instead of the programs it is trying to fund now…
With demand created…jobs will be created….production will increase…..and revenue will be increased……I know how to create demand? One way could be refunds to people who make less than the official poverty level….they will spend any extra income they have …..this is not perfect but it will create a demand and could kick start a sluggish jobs market and create a bit of a recovery from below……the recovery from above that Ryan and his cohorts helped to create has done NOTHING to improve the lives of the American people…all it has done is save some massive corporations from taking a dirt nap.
I may agree with Ryan, at least somewhat, but the stim money would be spent on infrastructure and if it is canceled then the states will have to make up the cash shortfall and the way these self-indulgent people are acting….the only way to make it up is by slashing all funds for services. Ryan’s idea sounds pretty good but in the long run may help bankrupt more states than California.
Taxes Owed?
Posted: 13 May 2010 Filed under: Fiscal Policy, Government, News, Observations, Politics, Public Policy, Taxation | Tags: Balanced Budget, Budget Deficit, Deficit, Deficit Spending, Economic Solutions, Federal Spending, Republicans, Taxation 6 Comments »Daily Agitator
I recently heard a Repub Senator, Judd Gregg, mention that we should collect all the taxes that are owed to help solve part of the deficit problem…..now I had to have a good chuckle at this….
First, there are lawyers waiting in line to see that YOU do NOT pay all your taxes…just watch the tube….you will see at least 4 different firms that are clamoring for your business…..second, what a crock of crap! Do you think that any wealthy person or corporation is going to pay their fair share of the taxes? If you do think you need to return to the ICU for a Thorazine shot…..
Here is an idea! The GOP is pushing for tort reform as part of any health reform…as a matter of fact it is in their top 5 reasons we need reform…then why not go the next step and demand tax reform? Why not make it damn near impossible to NOT pay your taxes? And that includes our lovely batch of Reps in Washington, who always have a better idea but somehow never involves them…..
A couple good ideas….but…..we will NOT see these anytime soon…..why?…..corporate cash for politicians program….so they only things you will see as a way to help the deficit is entitlements…….seniors will be forced to work until they are 80…..Medicare will be made harder to get……and social security will be attacked to the point that they try to eliminate it in favor of some lame ass savings account…..there are the answers they have to the deficit…..and you elected these guys…..how is that working out for you?
Politicians keep saying that they have to make “hard choices”….laughable at best….why? They make the decisions that are most politically advantageous for them there are no “hard choices” to be made…only actions that NEVER help the people …..actions that will help in winning their next election.
Can you feel the love?
“Shared Sacrifices”?
Posted: 30 April 2010 Filed under: Economics, Fiscal Policy, Government, News, Observations, Politics, Society | Tags: Budget Deficit, Deficit Spending, Economic Crisis, Economic Solutions, Federal Budget, Federal Spending 8 Comments »Daily Agitator
Federal Deficit Series
I have had about enough of the bullsh*t! As we all know the deficit is choking our nation to death….and the Dems and Repubs will meet in some half-assed way to find an answer to solving the problem….you can bet your butt that it will mean the people will pay through the nose, while Washington continues its runaway spending….
Well Obama has a plan:
The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility held its inaugural hearing on Tuesday, launching the process through which the Obama administration plans to introduce drastic attacks on social spending and living standards to make the working class pay for the crisis of American capitalism.
The commission, consisting of 10 Democrats and 8 Republicans, is charged with discussing ways of slashing trillions of dollars from future federal budget deficits and making recommendations to the White House and Congress six months from now.
Now we have yet another commission to find answers to the problem of an ever expanding deficit……the bi-partisan commission will look at ALL avenues for savings, at least that is what they would have us believe but the real truth lies in what they do not say…..
Obama sounded the theme of “equal sacrifice” in his own remarks to the commission, in which he blamed the crisis, in the final analysis, on the American people, citing “the reality familiar to every single American—it’s a lot easier to spend a dollar than to save one. That’s what, at root, led to these exploding deficits. And that is what will lead to a day of reckoning.” (thanx to wsws.org for the excerpts)
“Everything on the table” is another Washington code phrase, meaning that cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, the major entitlement programs, will be among the measures to be considered and proposed.
That basically means ….YOU will pay for the bailout of the country….YOU will be asked to sacrifice while your do-nothing reps sit on their butts and collect their salaries…..
Hoyer was compelled to admit in his Wall Street Journal column that the rapid increase in the US national debt is the product of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (launched by Bush and continued by Obama), the bailout of Wall Street (begun by Bush and continued by Obama), and the ongoing recession (which began under Bush and continues under Obama). In other words, corporate America, not the working people, is responsible for this crisis.
That aside……YOU will still pay the bill……with taxes and loss of benefits……..It will be “shared sacrifices” but it will be shared by the working people of the country while the game remains the same in Washington…..keep supporting wars of intervention, keep supporting corporate communism, keep quiet and watch YOUR family go hungry……I hope you can live with yourself……
The President Cannot Win
Posted: 2 May 2009 Filed under: Fiscal Policy, Government, News, Politics | Tags: Cabinet, Federal Budget, Federal Spending, Pres. Obama 4 Comments »First, the GOP was all over Obama for his stim plan, calling it a tax and spend proposal. They also were all over his budget, which by the way was not totally his, saying that we , as a country, were bankrupting our children’s future.
The GOP had little to no effect on the national conversation and now they will bitch about the budget cuts that the president has told his cabinet they must come up with in 90 days.
Sorry to my conservative friends, but you guys need to get your stuff together….pick a position and stick with it…the American people are listening less and less to whatever it is you guys are trying to say.
The first one I heard after the announcement of the cuts was one Glen Beck of FOX News.
One hundred million dollars is a joke — a joke that gets even less funny when you consider that we’re spending more than $100 million every 2 hours in interest on our debt alone!
It’s also reportedly going to take President Obama’s Cabinet 90 days to make these deep, painful cuts — something that would take you and I about 10 seconds to do. Cutting programs that even the government admits aren’t working like: $83 million for educating migrant workers; $169 million for “air quality grants” or $900 million dollars on Amtrak.
Beck said on his FOX News show and he was talking about the order that the Pres. gave to his cabinet members to cut their budgets wherever they could.
Framed by members of his Cabinet, the president himself acknowledged that the goal amounts to a drop in the bucket. “It is, and that’s what I just said,” he told reporters. “None of these things alone are going to make a difference. But cumulatively they make an extraordinary difference because they start setting a tone. And so what we are going to do is, line by line, page by page, $100 million there, $100 million here, pretty soon, even in Washington, it adds up to real money.”
Is it just me or is the Right looking ever more pathetic and rudderless? I think the American people are more and more finding the conservatives just comical and less effective…it is a dying party and the members are doing little to save it. JUst once maybe they should have a “real” plan before they go about their mindless attacks and then their “NOs” might have some validity.
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