The Secretary of the Treasury has yet to pay the back taxes he owes and he’s in charge of collecting taxes. Charles Rangel skipped out on paying taxes on his luxury rental property. John Kerry tried to duck out on his yacht taxes until he was caught.
While it’s fun to point out that the hypocrisy of these politicians it doesn’t really address the simple fact that they as a collective group vote to spend more than is taken in. That is why Greece is in trouble. They voted for X amount of expenditures when they were really taking in a percentage of X. Greece is not alone. Portugal’s credit rating has been reduced to junk. Europe is a house of cards ready to come down.
The reason the public at large understands this is because individuals have to live within their own budget. We know what happens to us if we overspend.
And we’re spending more than we take in because of past changes in the tax code–those tax cuts Pubbies use to buy votes in lieu of, y’know, actually demonstrating enough competence at their jobs that we would hire them at a sustainable rate of tax.
Again, ad hominems against individuals who are identified with the Left does not have quite the impact you expect it might. Do not assume that someone who agrees with many of a person’s political views would not castigate bad behavior demonstrated by that individual. And do not assume that allegations will be assumed to be accurate because they are stated. That’s a Tea Party mindset.
It is true that spending outstripping revenue is a problem.
However, ignoring an entire side of the equation–increasing revenue–is anathema to the Right. Why? It’s not like we’re still not a rich nation–in certain sectors–and increasing revenue from those quarters would allow certain good spending programs (with multiplier effects on GDP, might I add) such as infrastructure programs, unemployment compensation, and safety net bulwarks such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security to continue healthy and strong, and in doing so conserve (muahahaha!) an expected standard that served our country when it was at its strongest.
Is the Right now opposed to looking to our history, our ‘First Principles’, when looking for solutions to our problems?
How do you figure? This is so counter-intuitive, you are going to have to explain it. Raising the debt limit in no way damages our credit rating. Defaulting on our debts damages our credit rating.
The answer is to stop cutting taxes when you are waging to war on two fronts! Bush Tax Cuts - Iraq - Afghanistan = No Debt!
The Democrats are not the ones having a problem with that. We are not inclined to cut our social programs to pay for your tax cuts and wars. You don’t like the debt? End the Bush tax cuts, and pay for AfPak like an adult.
There was an interesting story on NPR yesterday. It talked of the ‘little default’ in 1979. A computer glitch/accounting error/data entry error caused the government to default on $120 million. (At the time, the deficit was $8 billion, so it was not a large percentage.) This caused a 0.6% rise in interest rates. IIRC, this cost the government $1.6 billion. ‘But the default was only $120 million! How could the cost be so high?’ Because the interest rate was increased for all loans undertaken by the government – not just the $120 million. That’s the danger of defaulting on the loan. Higher interest rates not only apply to the defaulted amount, but across the board.
The error that caused this situation was quickly discovered and resolved. But the higher interest rate did not decline during the course of the study (which ended six months after the default).
Conservatives love to beat up on Liberals, charging that Liberals want everything free. ‘Liberals want to give money away instead of making people work for what they want!’ Ironic, since it seems the Conservatives are the ones who want everything for free. ‘Give us wars! No, we don’t want to pay for them.’ ‘Give us tax cuts! No, let someone else pay for them.’
Bolded because I believe that this is exactly why that strategem has been so successful by conservatives in influencing the public dialogue at large.
Conservatives beat up on Liberals. Well, who’s the strong one in that transaction? Making the accusation first is a power play. There needs be no regard to ‘the facts on the ground’ when human psychology naturally remembers what is said first the most.
(Who went to complain, in 2000, at the Florida polls, claiming the Constitution ‘FIRST’?)
What an inoculation! Accuse your enemies of an action, so that (for you Mafia players) anyone that rightfully points out that it is you who is in fact performing the action, to a third party, seems like petty backbiting, such that it’s seen by the less-active as ‘the same old bickering’ and the truly guilty gets away with it. I’m shocked … ok, mildly amused … that the same old play works so well.
Then again, you run the same play until the opponent shows it can stop it.
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If we don’t stop raising the debt limit then our credit rating will take a hit. The solution is pretty simple, stop spending more than is taken in. The party that is having difficulty with this is not the GOP.**
The only time in my memory that we haven’t raised the debt limit several times during a President’s term in office was when Clinton was President. I’m not sure how many years he had a balanced budget, but he’s the only one who did. When George W. Bush was President, the debt limit was raised seven times! Did you even notice? Probably not, becuase the average has been about once a year since Kennedy was the President.
Raising the debt limit is normal. It does not equate to raising our spending. Democrats can continue to try to find ways to cut spending and the Republicans can continue to walk out on talks. We see you!
Reminder: Each of us paid more taxes this year than General Electric Corporation.
Some people thing that a government’s budget is in some way analagous to their own checkbook. Which is, of course, idiotic, but it does help explain things to the pobes in nice short sound bites.
Sure, we need to get a handle on our expenses. Not getting involved in off-the-book wars and shutting down the ones we are already involved in will help a lot. Getting a handle on health care costs, perhaps by going to single payer like the smart countries already have, which would greatly decrease the cost of entitlements, would also be a very good thing. Making some adjustments to entitlements to bring costs down while maintaining a reasonable standard of health care, also also very good.
But not covering our current debt obligations, thus raising the cost of EVERY ASPECT OF OUR ECONOMY, is NOT the way to solve the problem.
we are in danger of losing our current credit rating because of excess debt. It is because the government has promised to spent 14 trillion dollars more than it took it. I can’t think of a better analogy than the inability to balance a checkbook. The same thing that happens to individuals who can’t manage their finances happens to governments. The cost of debt goes up.
And so, to avoid this, you would risk defaulting on existing debts by holding the debt ceiling hostage for political purposes? One of these outcomes is far worse than the other.
We could argue about how successful single payer health care has been with other countries but yes, it’s a function of making adjustments to everything. Nobody is suggesting that we don’t cover our current debt obligations. The argument revolves around increasing our debt and raising taxes. Both of which will hurt the economy.
Really? You really think that a) this is a vote on increasing our debt; b) that increasing our debt will hurt the economy more than cutting off funds to those whose livelihoods are subsidized by the government; & c) that raising taxes at all will hurt the economy?