That's not a reason to continue to be fiscally irresponsible. Term limits and a return to allowing all bills to go to the floor for a vote barring a verbal filibuster would be a good step in that direction.

Except for 1 man businesses, i think, which probably impacts millions.

But the public overwhelmingly elect people to be fiscally irresponsible. We don't want responsibility out of our elected officials, so why exactly do we think we're going to get it?

By all means, let's remove the increasingly rare instance of a decent Congressman.

I've never been better represented in DC in my life (imperfect as even my Rep. may be), I'd be loathe to force him out against the will of the people he represents due to some arbitrary calendar restriction.

That smells of the very things that contributes considerably to our national downfall: celebration of mediocrity + punishment/resentment/hatred of success

They pay the same rate. They are actually in a better position because they can pay themselves a lower salary, count the rest as profit sharing, and avoid paying payroll tax on that amount. They also can take advantage of big retirement options that employees don't have to dodge taxes right now.

Missouri has term limits at the state level and has produced a balanced budget for several years running. Given how badly the federal government and multiple states have gone off the rails during this time, I think they've done quite well.

I'd certainly agree that decent Congressmen are exceptionally rare right now.

Oof. Christie doesn't just bring the heat, he brings the flamethrower:

Selected quotes:

"There's only one group to blame for the continued suffering of these innocent victims: The House Majority and their Speaker, John Boehner."

"We respond to innocent victims of natural disasters not as Republicans or Democrats, but as Americans. Or at least we did, until last night. Last night, politics was placed above oaths to our citizens. To me, it was disappointing and disgusting to watch."

"Last night, the House of Representatives failed that most basic test of public service and they did so with callous indifference to the suffering of the people of my state."

"This should be a no-brainer for House Republicans."

"This was good enough for 62 Senators ... this was good enough for a majority of the House of Representatives ... it just could not overcome the toxic internal politics of the House Majority"

"New York deserves better than the selfishness we saw on display last night. New Jersey deserves better than the duplicity we saw on display last night. America deserves better than just another example of a government that has forgotten who they are there to serve and why. 66 days and counting. Shame on you — shame on Congress."

BTW, even more on where that number comes from:


So, almost all of that deficit reduction would have come from a huge tax increase. Is that what you where looking for? This whole "deal increases the deficit" thing is so disingenuous it is ridiculous.

Wasn't the 2012 deficit like $1.6 trillion, making that even worse?

The way it was SUPPOSED to happen was for both sides to take a hit: raise taxes, cut defense for the Republicans, and cut SS/Medicare for the Dems. Then both sides can point at each other in the next election and even it out. Instead we go back to the usual schemes and keep driving us to an even worse financial place.

Boner is resigning tonight according to MSNBC.

I still don't get the Boehner flame war here. Maybe I just have a bad read on the situation, but I've always felt he was ready to deal but in danger of getting strung up by the right flank of his party.

SI

Republicans don't want to cut SS or Medicare. Sure there are a few on the fringes that do like Ron Paul, but they are an extremely small part of the party.

A Speaker of the House who can't get things through his party is basically worthless.

Good riddance.

Sure, but let's say Cantor takes over. What is he going to be able to get done? He represents a group that wants things that can't pass the Senate or a Presidential veto. You either have to risk your own party's wrath and cut last second deals to save face or, well, do nothing.

SI

I haven't seen that anywhere, personally. I think MSNBC might have jumped the gun but I could be wrong.

SI

Yup. It is political suicide to raise taxes/cut popular programs. But, if everyone did it, then you could see a world where the suicides kind of canceled out. It was a decent enough attempt at something. Sorry that it didn't work.

1.1 trillion according to the CBO.

So, does anyone know why the Sandy aid didn't come to a vote in the House? Was it just a personal preference of Boehner? Are they punishing Christie for supporting Obama? Is there something in the bill the House Repubs don't like?

The way it was presented, the house felt it was too much money (wanted something to offset the 60B costs) and that FEMA had enough money to help the area out for 1-2 months while they figured it out.

It will be voted on today or tomorrow with a stopgap funding of 9B, and the new congress will vote on the remaining 50B.

I must be missing something in the Sandy debate - what were the total losses? I know insurance was responsible for like $30 billion, and I know that doesn't cover the total losses, but is it really $90 billion for the government to be throwing an additional $60 billion at it?

It's the GOP and their "everything must be offset by cuts somewhere" mentality right now. It's good to pay for things. It's not good when you can't pass a budget from year to year to try to account for these things or trust to get it done next year. But no one wants to pass an actual yearly budget because of all the political third rails.

SI

The problem as I see it is he's effectively 'speaker' for two different parties:

Firstly he's the speaker for the moderate Republicans who are willing to deal and find a compromise/best solution for issues.

The 'second party' he speaks for who are more "Tea Party-esque" Republicans who have no interest in finding a middle ground and who are numerous enough to cause real problems. These individuals see themselves as elected because they have this stance and so view any compromise as potentially threatening their jobs ... as such they'd generally prefer to cause gridlock rather than allow anything but what they want occur.

Boehner (in my eyes) has tried to pander to both camps - but is more biased towards the first.

If the next 'Speaker' is more entrenched with the second then chances are nothing will happen anyway because of their general ideology (ie. all or nothing) and its distance from potential middle ground where compromise might be found ......

I believe the insurance losses don't cover all the infrastructure damage.

And flood insurance only covers a max of $250K in losses. Not many of those houses destroyed were worth that little. I don't know for sure, but some of the aid may be going towards making some of those people whole, or close to it.

But, on othe other hand, if Cantor can deliever votes, you can make a deal with him. With Boehner, even if you make a deal, you have no clue if that's going to work - so what's the point in even negotiating with him? You may have to work harder and it may be more difficult with Cantor, but when you agree - you have something.

There are no GOP electoral votes in the region, so fuck em.

Obama Sandy aid bill filled with holiday goodies unrelated to storm damage - NYPOST.com

What's wrong with any of this?

The fisheries are the really odd thing in the story. Other than that, it's at least tangentially if not materially related to the storm.

SI

It was a MSNBC reporter citing a source from the speakers office. He obviously got it wrong, or Beohner was encouraged not to. There is still threats (Fox has 20+ congressmen saying they don't want to vote for him), but unless Cantor says he wants, they'll probably be no challenge.

I think maybe Ted Sevens' corpse still has power in Washington.

I mean seriously, I hate Congress. Who tries to sneak the fisheries deal in? Let's go make them watch that Rutgers/Virginia Tech bowl game over and over again.

Yeah, the only way anything substantive happens is if both parties truly compromise & take some flack from their respective bases. The fiscal problems we have are too big for one party to come out looking good to their base.

We have to cut spending AND raise taxes past the point that anybody really will "agree" with. It really isn't an option at this point & we cannot (and should not) rely upon flowery economic predictions (read: pure speculation/gambling) to make the numbers appear better than is reasonable based on the past 4-5 years of data. Thats been "good enough" in decades past as we've simply kicked the can down the road but the road does have a (practical) end to it.

And if (a very big emphasis on if) we make these cuts & tax increases, and find that the economy begins booming to the point that our updated deficit/debt projections are pulled in dramatically, then we can restart the (philosophical) debates about whether we should add entitlements back or reduce taxes from that point.

But this type of stuff doesn't get done by both parties believing they can look good for it. They simply cannot. Unfortunately, this is a time for adults to make adult decisions and all we have are invincible teenagers negotiating.

We don't need to slash and burn spending. Austerity doesn't work. Look at the European countries that have tried it.

What we need to do is reform Medicare/Medicaid and spend smarter so that they're sustainable. Note that I'm leaving SS out of this because it doesn't contribute to the debt, but the principle is the same there.

But radically slashing domestic spending in the name of "austerity" and "trying to get our debt bill in order" is the wrong thing to do at this point in an economic cycle. It needs to be done at some point, yes. Obviously. But cutting too much right now (or in the wrong places) will just send us back into a double-dip recession.

But it's all relevant. If we reform SS to be more efficient, there will either be more money going towards our SS payout or (heaven forbid) a reduction in our contribution. Either way, that puts more money in the economy instead of being burdened by another social program.

Burdened? Such a shitty choice of words there (although yes, I agree with the rest of your post, which is why I included a mention of SS, just wanted to note again that it doesn't directly contribute to the debt).

Sorry if this was posted elsewhere in the thread:

Fiscal Cliff Deal Sneaks In Wall Street Gifts, NASCAR Perk

I wonder what the real effective tax rate increase is when you figure in the tax breaks and perks that have to go in to get it passed.

Social security is ridiculously efficient with 0.9% administrative costs. My previous employer and I were paying close to that in fees for my 401k with a much lower set of problems with the user base (i.e. Social Security applies to all, rich and poor- not just those working for a Fortune 500 company).

It should be held up as a model of government being much more efficient than the private sector and not some mindless thing to be indiscriminately put on the chopping block because NEED MOAR TAX RELIEF. Adjust it to make it solvent and then leave it the eff alone (and, for the love of god, stop borrowing from it or having "payroll tax holidays").

SI

Of course the same could be said for medicare. It is way more efficient and cost affective than private insurance, but the GOP would rather shoot their grandma than admit that. And then the greatest example of government waste and cronyism is the defense budget, but that can only be allowed to rise.

What's wrong with any of this? So you have no problems adding millions, tens of millions or even billions to already overestimated expenditures because they can and they make political contributors and lobbyists happy? No wonder we are in this mess.

What I've never understood is that if there's no hurry to cut any spending in any significant way, why is it so urgent that we get money out of people's incomes? A higher tax is just like spending less. Except that you're taking money from people's incomes and the economy. I can understand the desire to attack the problem with both taxes and cutting spending, but not the urgency to do just do one or the other, and definitely not the urgency to raise taxes when the national debt problem is simultaneously downplayed. The push for taxes has never been vocally about reducing the deficit, it's more about people "paying their fair share", a more moral/social kind of argument.

Agreed. It's more pandering rather than addressing the core issue that revenue - expenses = 0 if you're doing it right.

I like Buffet's idea that if the budget doesn't balance to a certain percentage of GDP, all congressmen face an immediate recall in the fall. If they can't do their job, their job needs to be on the line.

adjusting it to make it solvent for more years is what i was talking about by "fix" it btw.

+1

Sometimes doing your job right means running up large deficits though. I did a bit of reading about debt to GDP yesterday in response to someone's question to me. There have been a few times where we ran up huge deficits in the past 112 years, mostly in response to wars and to a lesser degree economic downturns. Where we seem to have failed over the past 32 years in contrast to other times in the 80 years before it is not doing a good job of paying down the debt when we've had prosperous times (with the exception of the Clinton / GOP congress era to some degree).

There's much I don't understand from the raw numbers I've seen that I wouldn't feel comfortable pulling them out for a debate, but the general logic (spend out of a downturn to get people back to work (and thus increase revenues), pay down debt when the economy is rolling, do not let debt-to-GDP get to dangerous levels where you can only pay the interest with what you're making) seems sound to me.

Boehner gets enough votes to remain Speaker of the House.

Social security should be as insurance should be if it were not-for-profit. Take a really thin slice off the top for administrative costs (less than 1% works). Then the rest of it should be totally self contained: make adjustments to COLA or tax changes to keep it solvent on the 75 year plan and then leave it alone. If it could be spun off as its own not-for-profit arm, so much the better.

SI

Exactly. So now we're screwed, and have to do something painful to get out of it one way or another. How many years are we supposed to wait for this recession to end for us to start paying it down again, when we're already at 5+ years of revenue in debt?