Jonah Goldberg is fed up:
The dishonesty and/or stupidity of all this is really quite breathtaking — and obvious. First of all, you could cut government funding down to 1950 levels and still have money for food safety. But this is what liberals do. They metaphorically lash children to the fenders of government so that the budget cutting blade must slice through them first. Then, after insanely putting them in harm’s way, they proclaim it is the sane budget cutters who seek to harm children. In fairness, sometimes liberals hold the young human shields in reserve and put firehouses, historic monuments, and old-age homes outside the budgetary walls of the fiscal keep. And, again, they declare that the fiscally sane want to get rid of fire fighters and the Washington memorial — and not, say, the Export-Import Bank or agricultural subsidies.
And too many people buy their BS, judging by polls. What’s most infuriating, of course, is that their partners in crime in the media don’t call them on it.
Clean water, part of Pelosi’s speech, is ensured for us by the EPA, an agency that did not exist in the 1950s. Regarding food safety, she was speaking about a House bill that would would cut FDA’s budget and not fund the 2011 Food Safety Modernization Act.
More broadly, in the 1950s we didn’t have Medicare, Medicaid or SCHIP for children’s health care. So, if we did in fact cut funding to 1950s levels, millions of Americans would get screwed.
If we don’t cut spending and rein in an increasingly unrestrained government, hundreds of millions will be screwed even worse.
Way back in the year 2000, this unrestrained government had a budget surplus. We could, perhaps, look back to that ancient time and determine what caused this surplus and, perhaps, find something from our ancestors to implement today.
You mean a GOP controlled Congress?
It was caused by imposed spending restraint by a GOP congress (including the welfare reform that Obama wants to undo), and revenues from the dotcom bubble, which burst shortly thereafter.
It was also caused by higher taxes.
They weren’t higher taxes, they were higher tax rates, which were raised long before the deficit came down. They didn’t cause it.
And who undid that spending restraint? A GOP president and GOP congress. Who dropped the tax rates, foregoing hundreds of billions in revenue? A GOP president and a GOP congress. Who decided to invade and occupy Iraq, at a cost of a trillion dollars? A GOP president and GOP congress.
We balanced the budget with a 40% top rate when baby boomers hadn’t started retiring, medical care was cheaper, and we weren’t trying to fight foreign wars. Revenue was 21% of GDP. With today’s demographics and health care costs we need more than 21% of GDP in revenue to balance the budget; instead the GOP hopes to cut the top rate even further.
Jim, $1t for the entire Iraq war not per year. Sure, the Republicans spent a lot of money and there were several factors that led to less revenue. If tax rates remained the same, there would still have been less revenue and revenue did increase after 2003.
We have had deficits over $1t since Obama was elected and Obama added more to the debt in four years than Bush did in eight. The $100b or less that we spent on Iraq was not the driving factor behind the deficits, although it was a significant cost.
And the dot com bubble burst meant that the projected budget surplus never became reality.
By all means, let’s return to 2000 spending levels. I’m on board with that.
Or just reinstate Microsoft’s “monopoly” status because that’s when the economy and thus revenues tanked. The Fed’s attempt to bring back “irrational exuberance” has certainly been met with only…um…limited success.
Or just reinstate Microsoft’s “monopoly” status because that’s when the economy and thus revenues tanked.
I’m glad I’m not the only one that noticed.
I not only noticed after-the-fact, I actually bet that would happen by selling my entire stock portfolio a few weeks before it went down. Good thing, too — life savings were wiped-out by that thing. I hope Judge Jackson is pleased with himself.
You might ask yourself what the effects of the tech bubble bursting had on the projected budget surplus.
Bingo. The ‘budget surplus’ was largely down to the bubbles that Greenspan’s easy credit created, combined with a government which couldn’t screw things up too badly because Congress and the White House were controlled by different parties.
The only magic involved was convincing people that there was a ‘budget surplus’ when the national debt increased every year Clinton was President.
SCHIP for children’s health care
Because, after all, it’s for the children. Or not.
“millions of Americans would get screwed”
I was am reluctant to quote that phrase as it is quite vulgar in its etymology. But the sentiment is correct, rolling back Federal spending will adversely affect millions of people.
I may not be the most pure Libertarian out there, but there is something, however, that rubs me the wrong way about how this sentiment is expressed. So government has to take money in taxes or in various non-tax claims of future earnings in the form of inflation or deficit financing, and then it has to turn around and give you back the same money but maybe redistributing it or “sharing it” in the process, and then tell you if it didn’t do this, how bad off you would be?
With that in mind, what Chris says, however, correctly expresses the sentiment of most voters, and with that in mind, I will stake my political prognostication reputation that if Mitt Romney selects Paul Ryan as his running mate, Mr. Obama will be reelected.
I was in the dentist’s office reading the New Yorker, and bless their black little liberal hearts, they are often right about so many things however the annoying way they express it. The piece was about how Mr. Obama was ahead with every single demographic with the exception of geezers, er, I mean seniors (I am old enough to get membership solicitations from AARP, so I count myself in geezer or near geezer demographic). And why seniors are down on Mr. Obama is the Affordable Health Care Act. And they are down on the Affordable Health Care Act because they think the “would get . . .” with the funding for it being skimmed from Medicare. And that seniors were particularly responsible for the “shellacking” of Mr. Obama’s Democrats in the 2010 election, because seniors are serious voters who turn out for by-elections.
The New Yorker writer, however, was castigating seniors for being narrow-minded, mercenary, and mean-spirited for being the odd holdouts who didn’t like Mr. Obama and for not liking him for apparently threatening (according to false premises, as the article glibly points out) Medicare and not liking something (Affordable Health Care Act) that is supposed to benefit everybody. Those selfish geezers! I think the article had a cartoon drawing of a dodering geezer with a cane.
I have between my thumb and forefinger the “world’s smallest violin” as the liberal left has been cultivating the idea that especially Medicare and Social Security couldn’t be touched (third rail in politics). And these programs couldn’t be touched because of the “millions would be . . .” mentality that Mr. Gerrib relates.
But inasmuch that Mr. Obama has fully grabbed ahold of the Third Rail with the Affordable Health Care Act, it would please me to see Mr. Obama suffer the political consequences to this as it plays out.
But for Mr. Romney to select Mr. Ryan of the “dump Grandma in the wheelchair off the cliff” fame? Does Mr. Romney want to grab the Third Rail two-handed?
Before people start gently scolding me, let’s let Mr. Obama suffer the consequences of dissing seniors in the next election, that he sowed the wind, let him reap the whirlwind. Let’s not give seniors a chance to think “hey, wait a minute” by wheeling Mr. Ryan and his Plan out before the election. I am not being cynical, I am being pragmatic. Let’s ride this wave and don’t waste it.
Clean water, part of Pelosi’s speech, is ensured for us by the EPA, an agency that did not exist in the 1950s. Regarding food safety, she was speaking about a House bill that would would cut FDA’s budget and not fund the 2011 Food Safety Modernization Act.
Well, Chris, is clean water important? Is it expensive?
More broadly, in the 1950s we didn’t have Medicare, Medicaid or SCHIP for children’s health care. So, if we did in fact cut funding to 1950s levels, millions of Americans would get screwed.
How? I don’t see such programs actually helping people in net. They cost too much to do so. Every person helped is countered by several people loosing part of their livelihoods to taxation and a general increase in health care cost. And what’s the justification for the federal government’s involvement instead of state governments?
One way or another the gravy train will slow. Whether because the engineer slows to avoid hitting the fiscal cliff, or because it hits and wrecks the economy supplying it.
“Sooner or later you run out of other people’s money,” said someone whose name I can’t place.
That was Margaret Thatcher, talking about the problem with socialism.
^^ Herbert Stein’s Law
Chris Gerrib’s latest brilliant idea: High taxes are good for you! Yep, those dollars you have managed to keep Gerrib’s gang of looters from seizing are doing no one any good–but if the State seizes them, those same dollars are magically transformed and bring prosperity to all!
Maybe we should listen to the one of the two men young Obama learbned economics from: his daddy (from whom Obama, after all gets his “dreams.” His other mentor was Uncle Frank the Red). Daddy Ogabe want 100% taxation! That would bring even more prosperity!
It’s the magical money multiplier!
Unfortunately, that multiplier is less than 1.
They metaphorically lash children to the fenders of government so that the budget cutting blade must slice through them first
Look at the school funding cuts since 2010. It wasn’t Democrats who decided to target those children — it was Republicans. If there are “sane budget cutters” who have a plan that spares children, they certainly aren’t in today’s GOP.
Goldberg and the like want to live in denial about the actual human impact of their “sane budget cutting.” So they can’t stand having Pelosi point out the obvious: you don’t cut spending as much as the Ryan budget does without harming millions of children.
From your previous post, since I can’t “reply” to it:
“Who dropped the tax rates, foregoing hundreds of billions in revenue?”
The Bush tax rates are what turned the economy around after 9/11 thereby creating billions in revenue.
If increasing tax rates always creates more revenue Jim why not just tax at 100%?
Since we went from a surplus to a deficit, obviously the tax cuts failed to produce sufficient revenue to pay for themselves.
Since we went from a surplus to a deficit, obviously the tax cuts failed to produce sufficient revenue to pay for themselves.
That is not obvious at all. We went to a deficit because Bush ramped up spending. There were not tax cuts (at least, there is no way to know if there were). For all we know the rate cuts resulted in relative revenue increases, by preventing the economy from sinking even deeper after 911. This is no more absurd a counterfactual than the one you folks always trot out about the “stimulus.”
We do know that when Ronald Reagan took office in 1981 the top individual tax rate was 69% and that when he left office in 1989 the top rate was 28%.
We also know that federal tax revenue in 1981 was $1.251 trillion and the same was $1.494 trillion in 1989 (both in constant 2005 dollars).
So we had a tax rate cut but a tax revenue increase, how on earth did that happen?
Wizardry I suppose.
The tax rate cuts came after the deficits caused by increased spending and the recession Bush inherited from Clinton. The Bush economy was doing pretty well considering everything that was thrown at it, right up until the last six months of his term.
And thanks to Bush’s implementation of TARP, the recession ended shortly after Obama took office. Too bad we never had a recovery, Obama’s anti-business polocies wouldn’t let it happen.
What people forget (ignore) is that the Bush deficits peaked in 2004 at $413 billion and then declined each year through 2007, when there was a deficit of only $161 billion.
I am not sure what year was the peak for Bush or the year to year deficits but IIRC he added around $4.9t over eight years. Buy ya after we recovered from the 2000 recession we were trending downward until the housing crisis.
Because other than tax rates there are no other economic variables?
There is not one Clinton policy that anyone can point to and say “this made the 90’s economy better”.
Clinton was simply the beneficiary of a historical event that he had no part in creating: the technology boom.
If lowering tax rates actually increased revenue, everyone would support doing so — it’d be a free lunch.
There is not one Clinton policy that anyone can point to and say “this made the 90′s economy better”.
The 1993 tax hike reassured the bond market and reduced crowding out, which brought down interest rates. It also meant that as the economy boomed, the Treasury captured a larger share of the resulting income, which further brought down the deficit, reduced crowding out, and reassured markets. The 1993 budget, along with George H.W. Bush’s 1991 tax hike, help set up that virtuous cycle, years before the GOP took the House.
School funding is at the local level. Funding for schools was cut by the housing crash and ensuing depression that wrecked havok on property taxes and employment rates. Ideally, you would want to get people back to work so their taxes could support government but instead stimulus went to government payrolls. It was like throwing a blanket over a broken leg instead of putting it in a cast.
Ideally, you would want to get people back to work so their taxes could support government but instead stimulus went to government payrolls.
Laying off teachers is no way to “get people back to work.” In fact, it results in those teachers spending less, which means other people get laid off too. Keeping government payrolls from shrinking is one of the best things a government can do in a recession.
When the air runs out everybody suffocates.
The liberals have got the blinders on as to how much money Obama has been plowing through since he’s been in office. We’ve had TARP and stimulus levels of spending for all 4 years he’s been in office. And there is a retired Federal Reserve chairman that feels that the country was headed into just what should have been a mild recession but that it was exacerbated by the poor decision making by Ben Bernanke into what some are describing as a full on depression. If anything it looks like the whole administration just ran straight mac dab into Murphy’s Law. Anything and everything they thought could go wrong, did go wrong. What do they call that, um; self fulfilling prophecy or some such? If you keep talking about how its the worst recession since the great depression well guess what? You’ll get yourself into a depression. And don’t get me started on the whole, “he inherited this mess”, nonsense. He actively campaigned for this job. It’s not like he was appointed by some higher power. Or, the reluctant heir of the kingdom at the passing of some relative. He actively applied for and campaign to be elected to take this job. He told us all that he’s “Lebron, he can play at this level”. He told us he’d avert another depression. He said the employment would be in the 5’s at this point. He told us we’d have a green energy revolution. He said the world would respect us more. What. has. he. actually. done? If he had actually accomplished anything on that list we’d not be hearing about how it’s all Bush’s fault anymore. If Obama keeps telling us he can do this job and fix this country well then why hasn’t he friggin’ done it already? That’s what I’m assuming everyone elected him for. You know, to like produce results like the rest of us do here in the real world. But it appears that’s an odd concept for those in the D.C. world.
Well, to be fair, TARP was passed in the waning days of the Bush administration, with bipartisan support of both houses of Congress, as well as Republican nominee John McCain. This despite the fact that phone calls and letters ran roughly 300-1 against. So much for representative government.
Take it away, Sunny.
I think Josh said it correctly. TARP was passed under the Bush Administration. However, it was voted in the affirmative by then Senator Obama, and much of the distribution of funds were handled under Obama’s Administration, which I think is more to Josh’s point.
Many told us that TARP and ARRA were necessary to turnaround the economy. A few of us disagreed (as you note rickl, about 300-1 disagreement), but alas we lost that battle. So TARP and ARRA were issued, and Obama was given the funds he requested and states as necessary to fix the economy. He was even given PPACA, which kicked in additional revenue streams now to pay for benefits later.
Obama and the Democrats got their requested spending accounts, but they never delivered on the economic improvements.
As I recall Bush purposefully left the decision on how much of the TARP funds would be used to his successor. Classy, but I suspect not something Clinton would have done nor would Obama do. The left would clamor for either of those to direct the funds as the all knowing, compassionate, inclusive, tolerant left wanted them to be used and make sure it was done in a way that would be impossible for the evil Republican to change.
We’ve had TARP and stimulus levels of spending for all 4 years he’s been in office.
You have no idea what you’re talking about. The stimulus ran out in 2010. TARP almost paid for itself.
There has been no spending spree. Government payrolls have shrunk — if they’d grown at Bush rates, we’d have 1.7 million more government jobs today, and a much lower unemployment rate. Deficits are huge because the bottom fell out of revenue, and automatic spending increases for safety net programs, not because of new spending.
Josh is correct. Federal spending level has never decreased under Obama’s administration. Payroll may have decreased, but that’s just the number of federal employees. For example, Solyndra’s employee were not federal employees, yet the federal government spent money on Solyndra.
The people building the
high speedrail in middle of Nowhere, California are not federal employees. The health insurance companies that will become contractors like Boeing and Lockheed Martin under PPACA will not have federal employees.And that’s what is so laughable about Obama’s charge against Romney that he’s an outsourcing, offshorer who outsources shores that are off sourcing — well stuff. When, you consider that nearly all the green energy money we’ve spent goes overseas to other countries. If it’s not going off to the Chinese who have all the rare-earth metals and semi-conductor fabs, or some Korean factory that builds battery packs for the Volt, then its’ off to the Netherlands who build turbine blades for the oh so romantic wind power. And then I just find out that GE, who builds the wind turbine generators with federal subsidies and effectively pays no income taxes, just sent its research lab to China. Ha ha, funny funny stuff — excuse me; *barf*.
A friend sent me a picture of a t-shirt yesterday that, for me, is the cut and dry of this entire (D) vs ( R) on money handling issue. It simply says,
.
.
The Democrats think,
I should be MORE concerned over
how Romney spends HIS money,
than how Obama spends MINE!
.
.
If I could find them in my size, I wear ‘OMG it’s coming this way’ sizes, if I could find them, I’d buy 5 and wear ONLY that shirt until the first Wednesday in November.
.
.
As for the geezer / fed bucks recipient vote I can say that I’m both.
I’ve been on SSD for almost 12 years and I get Medicare because of my disability. I’m not against how Obamacare will affect ME. I’m against it because I know how to read the Constitution and because my one Econ 101 class, along with a general knowledge of history, has taught me enough to know Socialism has NEVER worked.
The constant refrain that ALL recipients of fed $$$ are going to vote for Obama specifically and Democrats in general is a buncha’ horse hockey. There are those of us who can do enough math to figure out how much of our money goes BACK to the city / county / state / feds, so that we see that there IS a possibility of NOT needing the SSD or $$$ from wherever we get it, if we weren’t taxed to death.
And for the tally sheets, my SSD is indeed taxed.
I pay about 1/12 of my SSD in federal income taxes, and I have every year that I’ve drawn a check. So, again, the idea that if you get a ‘government check’ that you aren’t also a federal taxpayers is some booool shirt!
Socialism has NEVER worked
So it’s okay to transfer money from healthy working people to you, but it isn’t okay to transfer money from rich people to Obamacare subsidy recipients? Only one of these things is socialism?
No Jim, it wasn’t “okay” for Obama to transfer money to the Solyndra fatcats.
But…but if “everyone agrees” on something, that makes it moral!