Tag: Fiscal Policy

Debt Ceiling–The Game

The big news other than abortion and congressional antics has been the debt ceiling….if it was not raised then the government would shutdown….and the game began……

The Repubs, as usual, played it tough before they cave and do a deal that would extend the functioning of government….at least for a short while……

As usual the game was all too predictable……

The Senate dodged a US debt disaster Thursday night, voting to extend the government’s borrowing authority into December and temporarily avert an unprecedented federal default that experts warned would devastate the economy and harm millions of Americans. The vote of 50-48 in support of the bill to raise the government’s debt ceiling by nearly a half-trillion dollars brought instant relief in Washington and far beyond. Congress has just days to act before the Oct. 18 deadline after which the Treasury Department has warned it will quickly run short of funds to handle the nation’s already accrued debt load. The House is likely to return to approve the measure next week. The White House signaled Biden’s support, with principal deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre saying the president would sign a bill to raise the debt limit when it passed Congress.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Thursday an agreement has been reached with Republicans to extend the government’s borrowing authority into December, temporarily averting a debt crisis. “We’ve reached agreement,” Schumer announced as he opened the Senate, reports the AP. “Our hope is to get this done as soon as today.” Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell had offered to accept a short-term extension on Wednesday, shortly before Republicans prepared to block legislation to suspend the debt limit until December of next year.

The agreement sets the stage for a sequel of sorts in December, when Congress will again face pressing deadlines to fund the government and raise the debt limit before heading home for the holidays. McConnell and Senate Republicans have insisted that Democrats would have to go it alone to raise the debt ceiling and allow the Treasury to renew its borrowing so that the country could meet its financial obligations. Further, McConnell has insisted that Democrats use the same cumbersome legislative process called reconciliation that they used to pass a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill and have been employing to try to pass Biden’s $3.5 trillion measure to boost safety net, health, and environmental programs.

McConnell said in his offer Wednesday that Republicans would still insist that Democrats use the reconciliation process for a long-term debt-limit extension. However, he said Republicans are willing to “assist in expediting” that process, and in the meantime Democrats may use the normal legislative process to pass a short-term debt-limit extension with a fixed dollar amount to cover current spending levels into December. Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy’s take: Assuming final details in the emergency legislation are in order, “for the next three months, we’ll continue to make it clear that we are ready to continue to vote to pay our bills and Republicans aren’t.” McConnell: “This will moot Democrats’ excuses about the time crunch they created and give the unified Democratic government more than enough time to pass stand-alone debt-limit legislation through reconciliation.”

Does all that sound the least bit familiar?

The end result was all too predictable….it is the same game with the same result year after year.

Another waste of time because it is not something that needs the wasting of this valuable time….a ploy all too familiar……especially with the approach of an election year.

These are the games politicians play to avoid the heavy lift the country needs badly.

Turn The Page!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Advertisement

How About Defunding The Pentagon

We have lots of talk these days about defunding the police…..but for me the debate should be about defunding the Pentagon……why? So much of the problems we face revolves around a department in government that is out of control….it is wasteful and corrupt.

Yes I said corrupt!

Because the defense industry owns our Congress, both Houses, it is obvious when a bill came up that would cut just 10% of the budget….read my thoughts on this……https://lobotero.com/2020/07/22/2021-ndaa/

Now to the meat of the post…..there has been calls for the defunding the Pentagon (something I can agree with but that would be another post)………

n just the past few months, Congress has appropriated nearly $3 trillion dollars to fight the economic and public health impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic. This is on top of a terrible budget deal last year that blew through spending caps imposed by the 2011 Budget Control Act. With little end in sight to the pandemic and its associated recession, Congress is likely to spend even more in the months to come.

With resources more limited than ever, areas of the budget that were off-limits for years should now be more closely scrutinized. At the top of that list should be the single largest part of the federal discretionary budget, an entire category of spending that has long been off the table: the Pentagon.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/07/16/defund-the-pentagon-the-conservative-case-366066

I agree that the Pentagon could use some tweaking and scrutiny….it has gotten away with wasting taxpayer money for decades….time for it to tighten up……

To be fair……something more bloggers need to try…..I will give the rebuttal to the defunding call…..

Recently Politico published two opinion pieces claiming that it’s time to “defund” national defense: “Defund the Pentagon: The Conservative Case by Andrew Lautz and Jonathan Bydlak, and “Defund the Pentagon: The Liberal Case by Sen. Bernie Sanders. A provocative suggestion, but both pieces lack some information that would contribute to a richer, more informed discussion of this critically important topic.

Although sharing similar headlines, the articles advance different arguments for why defense spending should be reduced. The self-described “conservative case” argues Pentagon spending has become “bloated” and “wasteful” and that Americans can no longer afford national security at the level currently funded. The other, “liberal view” proposes that instead of funding national defense, America should focus inwardly and take care of pressing internal problems.

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2020/07/25/what_the_defunding_the_pentagon_articles_dont_tell_you_115494.html

I am with those that are calling for the defund…..put of control M-IC has given us endless war and wasted money…..and unless we voters pay attention and vote these toads out of control we will continue to have endless wars and pissed away cash.

Learn Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

 

Where Have All The Deficit Hawks Gone

Gone to Trumpland every one.

Closing Thought–23Aug19

Before I go on my rant about the deficit…..I would like to update a post on the deaths of 2 Americans in Afghanistan a few days ago…..

The Department of Defense has released the names of two U.S. service members who were killed in Afghanistan on Wednesday, August 21, 2019. They are members of the 7th Special Forces Group based at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida.

Both soldiers died in Faryab province, Afghanistan as a result of wounds sustained from small arms fire while engaged in combat operations.

Master Sergeant Luis DeLeon-Figueroa, 31, of Chicopee, Massachusetts.

Master Sergeant Jose J. Gonzalez, 35, of La Puente, California.

More than half of the U.S. deaths in Afghanistan in 2019 have been Special Forces casualties – sometimes referred to as Green Berets. The two soldiers were assigned to the NATO Special Operations Component Command – Afghanistan (NSOCC-A). The soldiers received a posthumous promotion.

I recall my younger days in the political scene…there were social hawks and deficit hawks….the GOP were traditionally the hawks on the deficit….that is until they sold their souls to Trump.

Who really cares about the budget deficit?  https://lobotero.com/2009/06/13/is-the-deficit-really-of-concern/

And the question is still asked and failed to be answered.

All their rhetoric about the dangers of running a massive deficit were stuff of legend……but came 9/11 and their desire for revenge and allowed the defense budget to explode the deficit…..and then cam Trump and all pretense about caring about the deficit is gone.

The news coming out of the CBO is terrible and yet the GOP is silent thus approving of the massive deficit they have given the nation…..

The deficit will swell by $809 billion more than anticipated over the next decade, the Congressional Budget Office announced in new projections Wednesday, per the AP. The Washington Post reports the US was already expected to hit a deficit over the $1 trillion mark in 2020. The change here, which is an update to the CBO’s May report, is due to recently enacted legislation on two fronts: the budget deal signed into law this month and supplemental spending at the border. A grim line from the new CBO report: “To put [debt] on a sustainable course lawmakers will have to make significant changes to tax and spending policies.”

CNBC quotes CBO Director Phillip Swagel as saying in the report that “federal debt … is on an unsustainable course,” and that while it will average $1.2 trillion annually between 2020 and 2029 it’ll jump even higher after that as the population ages and health-care spending rises. A third grim line from the report, per Fox News: “As a result of those deficits, federal debt held by the public is projected to grow steadily, from 79% of GDP in 2019 to 95% in 2029—its highest level since just after World War II.”

Give it time and the deficit hawks will return….probably when there is a Dem president…..and a GOP Congress……funny how all that manure works…..and yet they only care about deficit spending when it applies to social safety net…..

Learn Stuff!

“Lego Ergo Scribo”

Pay Less And Save!

There has been a debate (if it could be called that for all the lies told) about affordable health care…..there have been all sorts of plans and all of them have favored the industry over the society……GOP is in the pockets of the industry….the Dems are kneeling in front of the industry with their pockets wide open……and in the end the people continue to be screwed daily by the industry….

What if I could show you a way to pay less for medical care to the tune of $5 trillion savings in ten years?

“Medicare for All promises a system that is fairer, more efficient, and vastly less expensive than America’s bloated, monopolized, over-priced and under-performing private health insurance system.”

Confronting the question most commonly asked of the growing number of Americans who support replacing America’s uniquely inefficient and immoral for-profit healthcare system with Medicare for All—”How do we pay for it?”—a new paper released Friday by researchers at the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) shows that financing a single-payer system would actually be quite simple, given that it would cost significantly less than the status quo.

“It’s easy to pay for something that costs less,” Robert Pollin, economics professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and lead author of the new analysis, declared during a panel discussion at The Sanders Institute Gathering in Burlingon, Vermont, where Pollin unveiled the paper for the first time.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/11/30/easy-pay-something-costs-less-new-study-shows-medicare-all-would-save-us-51-trillion

That is a lot of money that could help our deficit…..but to be honest the figures are stretched to the limit to make the point….I doubt is the savings will be that high…..but the savings will be there.

The US military budget is such a bloated monstrosity that it contains accounting errors that could finance two-thirds of the cost of a government-run single-payer health insurance system. All Americans could visit an unlimited array of doctors at no out of pocket cost. At least that’s a notion spreading on left-wing Twitter and endorsed and amplified by newly elected Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of Democrats’ biggest 2018 sensations and an undeniable master at the fine art of staying in the public eye.

Unfortunately, it’s not true. The idea spread like a game of telephone from a Nation article to the US Congress while losing a crucial point of detail: The Pentagon’s accounting errors are genuinely enormous, but they’re also just accounting errors — they don’t represent actual money that can be spent on something else.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/12/3/18122947/pentagon-accounting-error-medicare-for-all

You would think that if the savings are there then why do not more politicians embrace it if they are truly working for the people and not for their bank accounts?

Just a thought.

Closing Thought–04Oct18

I remember when conservatives, Republicans, use to harp and rant about the debt and fiscal policies….those days are gone just recently the new tax cuts will explode the deficit and expand the debt that the GOP use to guard heavily.  According to Congressional Budget Office estimates, the bill will add more than $1 trillion to the national debt over the next decade. The annual deficit for fiscal 2017 was $666 billion, or 3.5 percent of the overall U.S. economy. That share, because of the tax bill, will now increase, though by how much is a matter contentious debate.

The news about the state of the debt was released…….

The US spends far more on its military than any other nation on Earth, but very soon, it will not be the top expenditure of the US government. Rather, rising interest rates and years of mounting debts mean that soon, interest on the debt will overtake that.

Interest costs will be $390 billion next year, and more than $900 billion within a decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office. At present, US military budgets are in the $700 billion range, and themselves constantly growing.

Somewhere, these two growing lines will intersect, and the runaway military spending is a big reason why. There simply is no way for US to keep pouring substantial portions of a trillion dollars down the well annually for the military without borrowing, and that debt is just growing.

The US debt is huge, and that is in no small part because of decades of runaway military spending, and trillions dumped into nuclear weapons. Lawmakers largely are not interested in this matter right now, likely reflecting their unwillingness to cut military spending to try to get the debt back in line.

(antiwar.com)

And the Trump GOP wants another round of tax cuts…..are these toads serious?

Yes they are!

With the nation’s attention rightly transfixed by the Senate GOP’s monstrous efforts to ram through a Supreme Court nominee who has been credibly accused by multiple women of sexual assault, House Republicans on Friday voted overwhelmingly to approve another $3 trillion in tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans just weeks before the November midterms.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/09/28/nation-transfixed-kavanaugh-monstrosity-house-gop-votes-give-rich-another-3-trillion

If the last round of cuts exploded the debt then what will another round do?

If you did not know about this end run by the GOP then you can thank your local media for the lack of coverage.

But if you are such a slow learner that you think the GOP tax cuts are a good thing…..then you are a moron or a wealthy person that is making out like a bandit….but for the wider picture of the cuts…..

Tax Day has come and gone. How are those cuts working out?

Spoiler alert: They’re not. Republicans sold their rush-job bill as a way to boost an already strong economy; my colleague Holden Miller boasted they would be jet fuel for growth and touted the year-end bonuses and wage growth so many got.

I argued that most people weren’t seeing increased paychecks, that the bonuses were one-time and heavily concentrated in a couple industries, and that they weren’t lifting up the economy as promised. Actually, in the long term, they’re putting an already strong economy at risk.

Every month we get more fresh evidence of that.

https://www.debt.com/americas-voice-on-debt/far-trumps-tax-cuts-failing/

Peace Out!

Come September

American politics has become so damn boring that it is too silly for words…..but that may soon change….

It is now September and the Congress returns to what they call work…..and they are faced with several options for failure….deficit…..taxation….budgetary debate….none of these will bode well for the GOP….they do not have a reliable partner in the White House….

President Trump’s public comments this week have made one thing crystal clear: September is going to be a very big month for the US. Congress faces a Sept. 30 deadline to pass a funding deal to avoid a shutdown, and Trump has thrown a wrench into things by demanding serious money for a border wall. But in a deadline with more serious consequences, Congress also must raise the debt ceiling around the end of September or the US could default on its debt, reports the Wall Street Journal. The issues are separate, but they’re likely to get lumped together, and not much goodwill is circulating at the moment. In addition to his shutdown threat, Trump on Thursday blamed Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell for the debt ceiling “mess.” Related coverage:

  • Chances of a shutdown: Flip a coin. A Goldman Sachs advisory to investors puts the odds at 50-50, but Axios has a GOP source who thinks there’s a 75% chance of a shutdown: “The peculiar part is that almost everyone I talk to on the Hill agrees that it is more likely than not.”
  • Better odds on debt ceiling: “We’re going to get the debt ceiling passed,” said Treasury chief Steven Mnuchin this week, per Bloomberg. (He wants a “clean” increase with no strings attached.) At the same event in Kentucky, McConnell said there is “zero chance—no chance—we won’t raise the debt ceiling. No chance.”
  • Unless: Yes, the budget and the debt ceiling are separate, but because the deadlines are so close together, they could become “entangled” in negotiations, per the New York Times. For example, Bloomberg notes that House conservatives are demanding big spending cuts in return for lifting the ceiling.
  • Consequences: If the ceiling isn’t raised and the US defaults on its debt, it would rock financial markets around the world, explains NBC News. Also, ratings agencies could downgrade the US. At the Wall Street Journal, James Mackintosh writes that he finds “it hard to believe that the US will default,” but he explains that the mere possibility is already making investors nervous.
  • How we got here: The Washington Post notes that, in 2015, President Obama and Congress agreed to suspend the debt ceiling decision until March of this year, and emergency measures have extended it since then. But Mnuchin runs out of tricks next month. The story also points out the contrast in Trump’s tweet about the “mess” and Mnuchin’s public attempt to ease fears and notes that Trump has mocked Congress for raising the ceiling in his pre-presidential days.

In all this drama the country shutdown looms…..

You want humor….then these debates will be the best place to go for a good chuckle…..

Universal Credit: A Primer | Center for American Progress

This is a program that UK is flirting with…..but it could work here in the US as well……if it is successful in the UK we can bet that the GOP will form some sort of bill that mirrors these actions……

Fore armed is fore warned…..check this out and see what the future could bring…..it will depend on the outcome of a couple of elections……something to think about, eh?

 

Universal Credit: A Primer | Center for American Progress.

Why We Must Reset the Fiscal Debate: 15 Charts | Center for American Progress

The government will most likely be shutdown as of midnight today……and after that butt fuck is solved then we will have the debate on fiscal policy and debate ceiling and other delays to keep from working on real problems for a country that is losing itself slowly……..

I know economics make most ill but this has graphs in it that is easy to read and understand……a good place to start if you want to keep up with the comical ramblings of a broken political system….

 

Why We Must Reset the Fiscal Debate: 15 Charts | Center for American Progress.