You can make up $500B real quickly by simply not buying foreign oil. You can then get $500B surplus by not funding middle eastern military presence as well.

Basically...the part I think we diverge on is what order to do these things. I believe you start the process of reducing outsourced energy first (which is 100% loss if not worse)...and then we'll split up the other $500B we save on military campaigns for deficit reduction, infrastructure, tax cuts, etc..

You're still $600B in the hole on this current budget.

Sorry, that was to JPhillips.

I'm all for that, I just don't think it happens quickly enough. I see putting people to work as a short term and energy independence as a long term. If you can do it quickly it would be great.

To answer a previous question, shovel ready projects are those projects that have been engineered, they have only been waiting for the funding to be approved (think WWTP upgrades, energy retrofits, etc.)

Yep. Should have been started in 2009 so that people could go to work with that money we spent instead of the unemployment line (or even addressing HCR before addressing the actual economy to pay for Health Care in the 1st place).

As it stands...we'd need to do something which will appear to be crazy or gambling if we actually made a massive push towards energy independence.

I wish we had a Huey Long around these days:

Not surprising given the rush to push this legislation through. What's concerning is all the loopholes that haven't been found yet.

AP Exclusive: Medicaid for the middle class? - Yahoo! News

I believe I said this months ago. If you try to ramrod/steamroll something like this through as fast as you can, there's going to be problems. I don't know why it would be so bad to implement things incrementally and ditch the things that don't work or are money drains.

Of course, if it wasn't pushed through like it was, then it would've never got through at all. Obama correctly realized that he had to press his advantage when he had it. One of the benefits of having many provisions take effect in 2014 is it gives time to catch things like this.

Correct. It wouldn't have gotten through in its current form had he not pushed it then. It just reminds me though, of NASA launching the shuttle when it's too cold...there's going to be problems.

Don't get me wrong, I know about trying to take advantage of things when you have the votes to do so. And there's no argument from me that certain things need to be fixed and or improved. Now that this loop hole has been found, it will now be even more picked apart like a vulture does to its carrion by their competition at just the right time for the campaigns to begin.

The bill was negotiated for over a year. How long should the process have been?

This can be fixed. Just because fixes will be necessary later is no reason to not try to fix healthcare in this country.

I hope it does get fixed. I seem to remember the plan came out near the beginning of fall (I'm thinking Octoberish) and then was signed by Obama near the beginning of summer.

To answer your question of how long should it have taken: As long as it takes to get it right. If it's not this time around, then you keep on working until you get there.




From wikipedia (Ah my memory isn't that bad!):

Introduced in the House as H.R. 3962 by John Dingell (D-MI) on October 29, 2009

The PPACA passed the Senate on December 24, 2009, by a filibuster-proof vote of 60–39 with all Democrats and Independents voting for, and all Republicans voting against.

signed into United States law by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010

October 29, 2009 to March 23, 2010. Not quite a year. :)

That timeline leaves out the negotiations between the Senators of the so-called Gang of Six that took up most of 2009. There was a lot of work on the ACA before it was formally introduced in the House.

I can concede that. :)

The Senate overwhelmingly voted to end the tax credits to ethanol producers. One tiny step in the right direction but many more steps to go.

No one in Washington gives a shit about getting that right, it's just a circus to score political points.

Funny how a lot of the (mostly) Conservative grain farmers are complaining now.

Everybody is for cuts until they cut something you benefit from.

I've got no problem with it. Our corn goes where it was meant to be, into cows.

My former co-workers are going to be throwing fits today. They're going to have to redo that section of the web subsidy program. Job security I suppose.

I definitely know that. It's a pipe dream to think anything else, regardless of your alignment.

Today both Cantor and Kyl walked away from debt ceiling negotiations because they refuse to consider any tax increases. According to Cantor there was agreement for trillions in cuts, but the Dems are insisting on increased revenue as well and the GOP won't consider that.

@6 weeks until the GOP purposefully throws the word into a depression.

If two sides are refusing to do something why is only one "purposefully throwing the world into a depression"?

What are the Dems refusing to do?

Exactly. Dems have said that spending cuts and tax increases are necessary. Republicans are the only ones who are refusing to consider revenue increases.

One side is making concessions and one side isn't. One side wants to continue negotiating and one side has walked away.

So are cuts now officially a Democrat "concession"? Good to know. That's often denied.

Dems haven't aggressively pushed for tax increases. And now, they suddenly REFUSE to cooperate in lifting the debt ceiling unless they get them? At least they're playing ball now, I suppose. Or maybe they don't believe that the debt ceiling not being lifted would be that bad, if they, like Republicans, are willing to take that chance to try to get what they what they believe is important.

Oh, I know what (elected) Dems "say", I'm just trying to judge their actions/inactions. MAYBE this is the closest they've come to actually accomplishing the increased tax thing (if that's actually a sincere goal.) I think they're equally happy with blaming the other side for it not happening than they are actually accomplishing it. (I think some of the Dems are enjoying this whole thing a little too much). But hey, if they can get the Republicans to blink here, with the debt ceiling thing hanging in the balance, they'll have finally accomplished something - albeit by means that they criticize Republicans for using.

I may be wrong, but I am pretty sure that the Dems are willing to have a straight up or down vote on extending the debt limit while the GOP leadership will only (for the time being, until we get closer to default, at least) said that they won't agree to increasing the debt limit without cuts.

In other words....

The Democrats want to raise the debt ceiling.
The GOP wants major cuts to raise the debt ceiling.
The Democrats want to increase revenues by ending some tax loop holes and increasing the tax rate on the very wealthy if they agree to major cuts.

I know the republicans are pretty consistent with the "no new taxes" thing, and i'm not sure how you overcome that (though I didn't promise I could accomplish this in campaign speeches like Obama and some legislators did.) But if the republicans are able to characterize the dems as the party that refuses to make cuts without getting "concessions" in return (however fair or unfair that would be), they could win some moderates. I agree that both cuts and taxes would be ideal, but the masses are a lot angrier about spending/corruption then they are taxes being too low. The republicans have won that pr battle.

I think we're definitely going to need some tax increases to get rid of the deficit, but increased spending is by far the biggest contributor to our financial problems. The CBO just released their long term budget outlook. They give two scenarios, one in which spending decreases to its lowest level as a percentage of GDP since before WWII. That one gets the annual deficit to about 4% of GDP. In the other scenario, spending levels are allowed to increase at their present rate. The results there?



Revenues have historically been around 18% of GDP regardless of taxation levels. I think we can count on the economy recovering to the point we get back to 18% revenues. There is no way we're ever going to get to 33.9%. Tax increases will help, but spending has to be cut.

Which goes back to the original complaint of the Republicans purposefully throwing the world into a depression.

[quote=JPhillips;2489269]
If that what it takes to prevent a tax increase, so be it. There simply is no acceptable reason for one, nada, zip, zero, not a fucking penny.

It may be that the point has been reached where we simply have to let everything implode & start over ... starting with D.C.

Are any and all tax increases bad? Not being a smart ass here. I'm genuinely curious.

At the current levels of wasted spending, and given the weakness of the economy? Absolutely.

At this point, I'd have to go with yes.

I've seen nowhere near enough in the way of cuts to consider giving the gov't (any government - federal, state, or local) another penny a wise/good investment.

It's kind of like when you first let a kid begin to manage their own money, prove to me that you can be responsible with it & maybe you'll get access to more. The leash is a lot shorter when you've proven how irresponsible you can be with it.

Right now, if the gov't promised to cure cancer with just an additional penny tax per person I'd oppose it.

I've read three times in the last month that Americans are paying less in taxes (% of income) than they have since WWII. Is that true or false?

The measure is probably % of GDP as that can be measured population wide the best. With that measure taxation is at the lowest since the early fifties. I haven't heard anything related to WWII, but then I don't have a good handle on how fast war taxation dropped and the economy boomed.

[quote=JonInMiddleGA;2489409]
That's insane. You do realize that a global depression will have effects far worse than returning to the Clinton tax rates, right?

And yet the Dems seem willing to take that chance unless tax rates are raised immediately? (IF they believe they can successfully blame Republicans, of course). The Republicans have to sign the deal the Dems want or they're evil, but the Dems are in the moral clear if they don't sign the deal that the Republicans want.

I'm no economist, and I don't fully understand the debt limit and can't make an educated prediction about the impact if it's not raised.

But what about Obama? Did he just not understand the debt limit or was he intentionally trying to deceive people back during the campaign when he vowed not to raise it, and voted against raising it as a Senator? I mean, what the hell was that? And is this all fear mongering now with some basis in speculative truth? It's quite the 180. It's like if someone opposed the Iraq War and then supported withdrawal but then suddenly determined that the world was actually such a dangerous place after all, that the middle east required our aggressive presence indefinitely...oh wait.

Edit: I mean, if something was so complicated and speculative and difficult to understand that Obama couldn't figure it out in 2006-2008 when he had a reason to be knowledgeable about such things....how much stock are we really supposed to put in the opinions - now 100% political - floating out there now?

The global depression prediction...

brought to you by the same group of experts who didn't foresee the housing collapse, who passed multiple stimulus’s that stimulated nothing, who (D&R included) only want to spend 3.7 trillion this year, who refuse to say inflation to explain why food and energy prices keep going up (these aren't included in their definition), who landed a plane on an aircraft carrier declaring "Mission Accomplished" in 2003, who patted themselves on the back (and took a very couragous politcial "gamble") when they planned to reduce troop levels in Afghanistan to a level higher then when the anti-war president took office… In other words, the experts!

I am going to go read "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" to the kids. I hope the D's and R's can all save the day at the last minute and save us all from this depression! All without cutting spending or increasing taxes a dime. Wonder when this mentality catches up with us?

I posted some graphs earlier, here are numbers:

Historical Source of Revenue as Share of GDP

We've been 15-20% since WWII pretty consistently, but right before WWII we were MUCH lower. Note that 2000 was one of the highest years on record, and they are currently expecting revenue to go up as a percent of GDP. Around 18% seems average, which would be a 20% revenue growth from the current tax levels. With $2.2 trillion in revenue, that would mean going to $2.7 trillion in revenue, leaving us only $900 billion (!) in cuts to balance the budget. Historic levels of taxation would be 33% revenue growth, or almost $3 trillion in revenue, leaving just $600 billion so the Dems could just cut the military budget to the bone and be happy.

I posted spending graphs earlier that showed how fast spending has gone up.

No, the Dems have a responsibility to negotiate and sacrifice from their priorities. According to multiple sources they are willing to agree to Medicare cuts and trillions in overall cuts. The GOP has responding by sacrificing none of their priorities. If the Dems were unwilling to negotiate any priorities I'd agree they share blame, but it isn't the Dems responsibility to agree only to GOP priorities especially when they are willing to raise the debt limit with no strings attached.

But we know that there's nothing you won't eventually blame on liberals.

Oh and Jphillips will give good reasons not to trust the GOP. (I am serious) And JinMGa will give good reason not to trust the Democrats. (Seriously) Hmmm, maybe neither party has any idea of what the hell they are talking about?

I'll send you a pm when it's time for you to post your bi-weekly republican debt limit rant. Until that's over, and you can move on to the next partisan competition on the schedule, whatever that is.

I mean seriously.....you are the liberal JIMGA. I appreciate the conviction from both of you, but you're both pretty much 100% down party lines/blame on every single issue. (Though I've definitely seen JIMGA turn on his own party much more often than you have).

The predictions regarding failure to raise the debt ceiling come from economists, bond traders, etc. It isn't a political issue. If the U.S. stops paying its bills bad things will happen. Nearly every prediction of what will happen when the debt eventually gets too burdensome will happen when we fail to raise the debt ceiling.

But Obama wasn't smart enough to understand that just 5 years ago? When the Iraq War started getting unpopular Democrats were ALL ABOUT the debt limit (and Republicans were all about making sure it was promptly raised). But this isn't political?

What happens if it isn't raised isn't political.

I guess we could isolate "what happens" in neutral terms, but they could have done that in 2006 too. I guess the Dems' idea was that if the debt limit was not raised, the Iraq war would have to be scaled back. Mirror image today. The Republicans' idea is that if the debt limit was not raised, federal government bureaucracy will have to be scaled back.

No, at that point the GOP was going to raise he limit so there were no consequences for a political stunt. I would expect a stunt from a minority party. It may not be the best leadership, but you can't separate politics completely. In this case I wouldn't mind if the Senate GOP voted against the debt ceiling and most of the House GOP did, especially those in tight districts.

The problem is that the GOP seems genuinely set against raising the ceiling without gutting the federal government for a generation, and has the power to do so.