Tag: Fiscal Policy

Will They Take The Hint?

Whataya think?  Will the GOP take the hint from numerous polls?  The people keep dropping subtle hints, especially to the pollsters…..

The people want government to cut spending…..but not with Social Security or Medicare or Medicaid a recent poll showed…I believe it was a WSJ poll…..Defense seems to be the target for most people…end wars and adventurism around the world…..more closely control government contracts…..etc……and of course, the middle class is asking why the rich cannot pay more in taxes…..

Rep. Paul Ryan has given the country his ideas on the budget (actually they are just rehashes of the thinking of the Heritage Foundation) and there has been a lot of back and forth…….not among the people but rather from the self-serving little pills in Congress……he has been called bold and courageous and visionary…….but what do the people, I am talking about real people….average people….think of “his” Path To Prosperity?

It seems that at a recent townhall in his home state of Wisconsin….Ryan was met with an unexpected response to his saying that the wealthy need to pay less in taxes…….

Watch it http://t.co/0EkokIb

Of course this was a townhall meeting in Wisconsin and it may be a reaction to the policies of their new Repub governor….it may not be Ryan’s fault at all…..no one believes that so why would I say it?  Dunno….I guess I was just trying to be “fair and balanced”……

The GOP might want to watch this closely….it could be a harbinger of things to come…..as the people become more knowledgeable on his proposals to basically eliminate SS, Medicare and Medicaid the people will NOT allow this to continue and there is an election coming up…..let us see how many start running away from these proposals……

Will they (GOP) take the hint?

Obama’s Fiscal Responsibility

In his speech to a joint session of Congress, Tuesday, Feb. 24, President Obama offered some additional assurances that his approach to budget policy will focus on saving taxpayer dollars without undermining the social safety net and harming working families.

Obama targeted health care reform. “[T]he cost of our health care has weighed down our economy and the conscience of our nation long enough. So let there be no doubt: health care reform cannot wait, it must not wait and it will not wait another year,” he told Congress.

Obama’s agenda for fiscal responsibility looks to other places for savings. He said, “In this budget, we will end education programs that don’t work and end direct payments to large agribusinesses that don’t need them. We’ll eliminate the no-bid contracts that have wasted billions in Iraq, and reform our defense budget so that we’re not paying for Cold War-era weapons systems we don’t use. We will root out the waste, fraud and abuse in our Medicare program that doesn’t make our seniors any healthier, and we will restore a sense of fairness and balance to our tax code by finally ending the tax breaks for corporations that ship our jobs overseas.”
In a statement following the speech, Barbara Kennelly, director of the national Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, said, “The President is right, comprehensive healthcare reform is the best way to strengthen Medicare for the future and that healthcare reform should come sooner rather than later.”

Comprehensive health care reform that controls costs, provides universal access and offers public options in addition to private options to consumers will reduce overall costs of health care and ease the burden on taxpayers over the long haul.

Experts in the health care field believe that Obama’s reference to waste in Medicare targets the issue of overpayments to insurance carriers implemented under the Bush Medicare privatization law in 2005. They suggest that a reform in this area alone could save billions annually. The White House Web site specifically calls for “eliminating subsidies to the private insurance Medicare Advantage program,” which could produce a savings of about $15 billion.

She Is A Fiscal Conservative?

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin calls herself a fiscal conservative who wants to “rein in government spending.” She says she “reformed the abuses of earmarks in our state.” Republican John McCain said during the last debate that his running mate has “cut the size of government.”

But Palin didn’t cut the size of government as mayor of Wasilla, and she hasn’t done so as Alaska’s governor, city and state budget records show. Spending in fast-growing Wasilla increased by 55% during her tenure from 1996-2002, records show. In nearly two years as governor, she has presided over a 31% spending hike by a state government that sought earmarks from Washington even as it reaped billions from higher oil prices and Palin-backed tax increases on oil companies.

Alaska’s spending bills are split into a capital budget for infrastructure projects and an operating budget that funds salaries and other general government expenses. In Palin’s first two years, the state operating budget has increased 31%, and capital spending remained roughly at the same level as the last two years under her predecessor, Republican Frank Murkowski, state records show.

Alaska’s capital budget is full of local projects because many local governments rely on state funding to meet basic needs. Most of Alaska is owned by the federal government, and only 25 municipalities levy a property tax, according to the state tax assessor’s office. The capital budget, therefore, is a grab bag of projects requested by communities through their state lawmakers.

Because 90% of the state’s revenue comes from the oil and gas industry, Alaska has been flush with cash in recent years. State coffers grew fatter still when Palin, with help from Democrats in the Legislature, increased taxes this year by billions on the energy industry.

Obama’s Market Populism

An article from the Seattle Times and takes a good simplified look at Obama’s economic positions.

Barack Obama calls himself an economic pragmatist. In a long interview with The New York Times he says he is for “what works” — a statement safe but not revealing. What he often sounds like, though, and what we would like him to be, is a market populist — a champion of a bubble-up capitalism in which wealth creation is spread among more people.

A philosophy like that has to keep a close eye on what works. With each economic proposal, Obama should ask: Does it promote jobs or snuff them out? Does it promote education, job training, research and other ways for people to raise the value of their work?

Democrats have been good on the education part. Obama is for increasing the tax credit for college tuition, and it is a fine idea. He also has an intriguing idea to lower the job-killing payroll tax: a credit for the first $8,100.

Democrats have been less good on other taxes. Obama has proposed to raise the top personal income tax from the current 35 percent to 40 percent or so, to raise the capital-gains tax from 15 percent to 25 percent, and to freeze the top rate of the estate tax at 45 percent of assets.

Obama’s populism should focus instead on the distinction between kinds of business, asking of each proposal: Does it tend to concentrate wealth in behemoth corporations or spread it in smaller, more flexible and family-owned business? Does it promote long-term investment instead of quick gain?

Republicans, the presumptive pro-business party, have too often become the pro-big-business party. Here is where Obama can stake out a difference. If he has to raise taxes, raise them on passive earnings rather than active business. He proposes, for example, to make publicly traded partnerships pay corporate income tax. Whether this is a good idea we are not sure, but the thought is correct: It does less harm to squeeze a passive investor than an active owner.

Georgia Needs Your Help!

No dipstick I am still talking about the country, not the state.  And why would a country that has a surplus in their budget need our help?  Why would a country that runs on a deficit help a country that workes with a surplus?

The United States is exploring ways to assist Georgia’s economy including how global financial institutions can help limit economic damage caused by the conflict with Russia, a senior U.S. Treasury official said Friday.

Assistant Treasury Secretary Clay Lowery said the situation in Georgia was “fluid” and it was hard to know how much harm was done to the economy and investor confidence since the crisis erupted over the breakaway South Ossetia region.

While the White House has flexed its political muscle to force Russia to pull troops out of the region, the U.S. Treasury has tried to reassure investors over Georgia’s young democracy.

All three institutions said this week they stood ready to help Georgia’s government, which they said had acted to tackle corruption, quicken privatization and created a business-friendly environment that increased capital flows.

“For Georgia to succeed it has got to continue along the path it has been following in terms of its economics, which can lead to greater economic growth and continued private sector flows both from investment and trade,” he added.

U.S. Recessions

JUst a few facts I found that I thought my readers might find interesting, especially on the causes of the recession we have faced since 1950.

1953 — Inflation caused by spending during the Korean War prompted the Federal Reserve to tighten monetary policy, causing a one-year recession.

1957-1958 — A recession hit developing countries the hardest because industrial nations sharply cut their purchases of minerals and farm products. U.S. unemployment rose during this period but, unusual for a recession, prices did also.

1973-1975 — The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC, quadrupled oil prices. That and the ongoing expense of the Vietnam war caused two years of inflation with little or no growth.

1980, 1981-82 — The Federal Reserve’s sharp rise in rates to quell the inflationary period of the 1970s and another spike in oil prices, this time triggered by the Iranian revolution, tipped the United States into a brief recession in 1980. A short expansion was followed by a deeper downturn from 1981 to late 1982.

1990-1991 — A credit crisis prompted by the insolvency of many failed U.S. savings and loans and a spike in oil prices during the first Gulf War resulted in a contraction followed by several years of sub-par growth.

2001-2002 — The bursting of the dot-com bubble, the Sept 11 attacks and corporate accounting scandals induced a relatively short and shallow recession followed by two years of slow growth.

Does any of this look familiar to anyone else?