Busting the Budget
If you’re a conservative, you probably hate Obama’s stimulus and health care plan, right? You see them as wasteful spending on a scale that busts the budget and explodes the deficit.
What if Obama were to propose a fiscal plan that would cost four times what the stimulus and health care bill cost, combined??? You would probably burst at the seams, and rant about how Obama is trying to destroy the nation.
Well, exactly such a plan is being proposed.
By Republicans.
From WaPo:
Even as they hammer Democrats for running up record budget deficits, Senate Republicans are rolling out a plan to permanently extend an array of expiring tax breaks that would deprive the Treasury of more than $4 trillion over the next decade, nearly doubling projected deficits over that period unless dramatic spending cuts are made.
The measure, introduced by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) this week, would permanently extend the George W. Bush-era income tax cuts that benefit virtually every U.S. taxpayer, rein in the alternative minimum tax and limit the estate tax to estates worth more than $5 million for individuals or $10 million for couples.
Aides to McConnell said they have yet to receive a cost estimate for the measure. But the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office recently forecast that a similar, slightly more expensive package that includes a full repeal of the estate tax would force the nation to borrow an additional $3.9 trillion over the next decade and increase interest payments on the national debt by $950 billion. That’s more than four times the projected deficit impact of President Obama’s health-care overhaul and stimulus package combined.
So, are you infuriated by the GOP yet? No? Gee whiz, what a surprise.
Tax cuts aren’t the same as spending, and our friends on the right believe cutting government spending by this $400B/yr is just the ticket.
But we as a nation are pretty stupid and enough of us believe in Voodoo Economics and/or are deathly afraid of “Teh Social ism” for this to fly.
This is going to be a very interesting election.
Too bad I don’t have much faith in the American people being smart about this. Too many subgroups have it out for liberalism.
And ironically, Obama’s centrist habits haven’t really helped him. Nearly everyone expecting Change/Hope from him are wondering where it is since he has been following a slow-play strategy IMO.
“Hate”?
“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means”.
Not a huge fan of the stimulus, but not THAT upset by it. Bothers me a lot less than the auto bailouts. Hideously wasteful in execution, but that is my only real complaint. I get the idea and it makes a fair amount of sense.
Health care reform. Yeah, that I don’t like. But it’s not a money issue.
Unless I am mistaken, the Democrats plan to extend all but the 250k+ parts of the ‘Bush’ tax cuts. So their plan ‘costs’ 3.2 trillion as opposed to 4. Not a lot to choose from here.
“Burst at the seams and rant”? Nah. Now when the EPA was looking at effectively banning shooting in the US I was a bit riled; but that blew over well enough. The government has spent more than it collected for damn near every year I have been old enough to keep track. Why get riled up now?
Besides, all of this looks a lot like the first part of Clinton’s presidency. How cool would it be if we end up with something that looks like the last half?
Conservatards, even when they try to downplay their derp, they are still derp-tastic.
Hideously wasteful in execution, but that is my only real complaint.
Politics is the art of the possible. Check out a chart of F over the past 2 years if you think they were a bad idea.
Health care reform. Yeah, that I don’t like. But it’s not a money issue.
LOL. Ideology trumps all as usual.
So their plan ‘costs’ 3.2 trillion as opposed to 4. Not a lot to choose from here.
well, the big difference is raising taxes back to Clintonian levels on the lower 98% would utterly slaughter middle-class America.
Rents and home prices have adjusted to this new after-tax reality. Changing people’s after-tax income is A Big Deal for the middle class. The bottom 80% owns only 7% of the financial wealth of this nation, they have no reserves to fall back on, additional taxes would increase pressures on land values and also reduce middle class consumption, putting another drag on an already fragile “recovery”.
That you cannot see the difference here is an utter indictment of your reality-challenged ideology.
How cool would it be if we end up with something that looks like the last half?
Not gonna happen. I’ve been toying with the idea of “Peak Debt”, only to be shocked that someone essayed the thesis four years ago:
http://www.safehaven.com/article/5824/peak-debt
Wanting “gridlock” now is like wanting “gridlock” in the German Republic 1930-32.
The texture of those times is interesting. von Papen and the Authoritarian Right thought they could box-in Hitler and his Radical Right in 1933.
This is all going to end very badly. The author of the above essay sorta alienated the blog comment section he contributed often to (and by extension me) by calling Americans “born and bred dopes”.
But now I see that he was an optimist. O’Donnell was right; there are more stupid people here than smart people.
“well, the big difference is raising taxes back to Clintonian levels on the lower 98% would utterly slaughter middle-class America.”
Is someone actually proposing to do that? Last I heard, extending the tax cut for the middle & lower income brackets was the plan for both parties. It is only the top brackets that are in question.
I was responding to your failure to understand the difference between middle class and upper-middle and above. Your ‘$800B — whoop-de-doo’ perspective is what is wrong this nation.
“well, the big difference is raising taxes back to Clintonian levels on the lower 98% would utterly slaughter middle-class America.
Rents and home prices have adjusted to this new after-tax reality. Changing people’s after-tax income is A Big Deal for the middle class. The bottom 80% owns only 7% of the financial wealth of this nation, they have no reserves to fall back on, additional taxes would increase pressures on land values and also reduce middle class consumption, putting another drag on an already fragile “recovery”.
That you cannot see the difference here is an utter indictment of your reality-challenged ideology.”
That is about the “the difference between middle class and upper-middle and above”?
You are correct that I entirely fail to understand how those statements are related. Any explanation would be appreciated.
As for “$800B — whoop-de-doo”; that is over 10 years. $80B is a lot of pizza and beer, no doubt. But the budget deficit last year was over 1,400B for a single year. We are talking less than a percentage point difference. In the context of federal spending, this is pretty small time stuff.
For what it’s worth, I actually support letting ALL the tax cuts lapse, in a phased in plan. I do not believe in fancy plans that spend tons today with the promise of savings someday. I DO believe in spend less / collect more. History suggests neither party will do that on their own, but it HAS happened when one held congress and the other held the white house…
OK, we can agree on that phased-in plan idea.
You are correct that I entirely fail to understand how those statements are related. Any explanation would be appreciated.
Bush raised the child tax credit $1000/kid. This put another $1000 or so into many family’s budgets, a big deal for most Americans.
The top 2% doesn’t really even notice the tax cuts they got. They just bought bonds or other very long term investments with it.
$80B is theoretically enough to pay for one million jobs
In the context of federal spending, this is pretty small time stuff
We are in a fiscal emergency just as about as bad as the Japanese got themselves into in 1990 and we ourselves created in 1929. We’ve slung trillions into the system to keep it together but have yet to apply any long-term fixes.
The $80B is a demonstration to the global system that our political system isn’t entirely screwed up and we can in fact function as a policy-oriented democracy.
This is still in doubt.
I think someone should bind copies of the Communist Manifesto in Gideon pocket new testament & psalms bindings and start handing the things out to kids at schools. Cause contrary to the beliefs of the Derpistani-Americans it is okay to give bibles to school children as they are leaving schools, but Charlie Marx is still verboten. (Did I come across as loonie enough, I’ve been taking Derpistani lessons!?)
This is a 50%+ Christian country that has been successfully inoculated against the materialistic red menace. All this “One nation UNDER GOD” stuff since the 50s hasn’t been just window dressing.
40% of Delaware is still behind O’Donnell. Not-so-coincidentally, ~40% of this country are complete idiots:
Q: God created man pretty much in his present form at one time within the last 10,000 years.
Everyone 44%
Scientists 5%
http://www.religioustolerance.org/ev_publi.htm
And of course, fighting conservative wank with communist wank isn’t going to work that well IMO. But that’s Ye Olde radical left/liberal left divide of course. . .