# Let's go over the fiscal cliff **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 4, 2012, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-go-over-the-fiscal-cliff/639874 "2012-11-04T19:37:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![JQPublic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ac8455/32.png) [@JQPublic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JQPublic)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-go-over-the-fiscal-cliff/639874/41 "2012-11-08T20:07:42Z")
> [@LinusK](#): > > My suggestion - the Fed should purchase another couple trillion in debt. That eliminates a couple years’ worth of deficits without raising taxes or cutting spending, keeps interest rates low, and helps the economy. Once the economy has fully recovered, we can talk about raising taxes and cutting spending then. Printing money to buy debt only devalues the dollar. Wouldn’t be easier to just right off the debt? After all if my right pocket owes my left pocket ten dollars why can’t I leave it in my right pocket. ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-go-over-the-fiscal-cliff/639874/42 "2012-11-08T20:08:11Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > Total Medicare spending is projected at $7.7 trillion for 2012-2022. That’s $300 billion more annually than we’re spending now, and that’s only one of three healthcare time-bombs (the others being Medicaid and VA health coverage). And it only gets worse for 2022-2032. Much worse. > > We can’t grow our way out of that. To cover the Medicare increases alone, we’d need to increase income tax revenue by 25%. That just ain’t gonna happen. > > Obamacare’s cost controls are a start, but they’re only a start. There’s a lot more than we need to do. When there’s work that needs to be done, and unemployed people looking for work, the solution surely involves putting unemployed people to work doing the work that needs to be done. My suggestion would be to lower the barriers to entry in the health care field while reducing the costs of getting the necessary training. In other words, to invest in the human capital neccessary to address the problem. The flip side is the more people there are who have the skills and training, the less it’s likely to cost to employ them. It’s a win-win-win. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-go-over-the-fiscal-cliff/639874/43 "2012-11-08T20:10:09Z")
> [@JQPublic](#): > > Printing money to buy debt only devalues the dollar. Not in a recession. ---
**Author:** ![JQPublic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ac8455/32.png) [@JQPublic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JQPublic)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-go-over-the-fiscal-cliff/639874/44 "2012-11-08T20:20:33Z")
Do you think any of this could be avoided by the government making a budget and sticking to it. And I’m not talking about, “if my budget is enacted in 20 years we’ll have a balanced budget”. We all know that’s bullshit. A budget should be balanced every year. I’m on the council of the little villlage I live in. We have a small tax base. Every year we make a budget and except for the hit we took in '08 we end up with a small fund balance every year. And the one year we did take the hit we saw the writing on the wall and budgeted accordingly. I’m not trying to pretend that a village of 1,000 people compares to running a country of 310 million but the theory is the same, you spend only what you bring in. And while we have some complain that it takes around five years for us to have enough set aside to do some road repair when we ask those who complain if they want to pay off a bond they accept that we do what we can pay for. Now if we were able to print money when we needed it it might be different. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-go-over-the-fiscal-cliff/639874/45 "2012-11-08T20:32:59Z")
> [@JQPublic](#): > > Do you think any of this could be avoided by the government making a budget and sticking to it. And I’m not talking about, “if my budget is enacted in 20 years we’ll have a balanced budget”. We all know that’s bullshit. A budget should be balanced every year. America would never have become the richest, most powerful nation in the world by following that advice. Prudent deficit spending is entirely appropriate in recession. Kitchen table economics do not scale well when talking about the budget of a first world nation. ---
**Author:** ![JQPublic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ac8455/32.png) [@JQPublic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JQPublic)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-go-over-the-fiscal-cliff/639874/46 "2012-11-08T20:41:47Z")
“Prudent deficit spending” But Fear we are way past “prudent defict spending”. I mean way way way past “prudent defict spending” ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-go-over-the-fiscal-cliff/639874/47 "2012-11-08T20:45:05Z")
> [@JQPublic](#): > > Printing money to buy debt only devalues the dollar. Wouldn’t be easier to just right off the debt? After all if my right pocket owes my left pocket ten dollars why can’t I leave it in my right pocket. If you wrote off the debt, you’d be eliminating trillions of dollars of private savings as well as plunging the world into financial chaos. So that would be a bad idea. As far as printing money is concerned, if it caused the value of the dollar to fall, you’d expect the value of the dollar to have fallen, given all the money that’s been printed. But that hasn’t happened. Why not? ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-go-over-the-fiscal-cliff/639874/48 "2012-11-08T20:45:30Z")
> [@JQPublic](#): > > But Fear we are way past “prudent defict spending”. But that does not imply slavish adherence to a balanced budget is any better. ---
**Author:** ![JQPublic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ac8455/32.png) [@JQPublic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JQPublic)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-go-over-the-fiscal-cliff/639874/49 "2012-11-08T20:58:47Z")
"As far as printing money is concerned, if it caused the value of the dollar to fall, you’d expect the value of the dollar to have fallen, given all the money that’s been printed. But that hasn’t happened. Why not? " What do you mean?? The dollar dropped again on Wednesday. A few years ago if I when I went to Canada and I gave them a U.S. dollar they would give me $1.40 Canadian. Last week it was one for one. Do you go to the gas station? Do you go to the grocery store? The value of the dollar has dropped. ---
**Author:** ![JQPublic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ac8455/32.png) [@JQPublic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JQPublic)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-go-over-the-fiscal-cliff/639874/50 "2012-11-08T21:07:01Z")
"But that does not imply slavish adherence to a balanced budget is any better. " So Fear, it’s either a trillion dollars a year in “prudent defict spending” or a slavish adherence to a balanced budget?? No middle of the road with you, eh? And they wonder why there is such a divide in this country. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-go-over-the-fiscal-cliff/639874/51 "2012-11-08T21:20:21Z")
> [@JQPublic](#): > > And they wonder why there is such a divide in this country. [Yes, that’s the reason.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=14849196#post14849196) ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-go-over-the-fiscal-cliff/639874/52 "2012-11-08T21:23:16Z")
> [@JQPublic](#): > > "But that does not imply slavish adherence to a balanced budget is any better. " > > So Fear, it’s either a trillion dollars a year in “prudent defict spending” or a slavish adherence to a balanced budget?? No middle of the road with you, eh? > And they wonder why there is such a divide in this country. So, do you think that we can take steps to reasonably reduce the deficit, or do you think we should immediately make > [@](#): > > a budget and sticking to it. And I’m not talking about, “if my budget is enacted in 20 years we’ll have a balanced budget”. . That doesn’t seem middle of the road to me. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-go-over-the-fiscal-cliff/639874/53 "2012-11-08T21:25:48Z")
> [@JQPublic](#): > > No middle of the road with you, eh? You either: [QUOTE=JQPublic] A budget should be balanced every year. [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-go-over-the-fiscal-cliff/639874/54 "2012-11-08T21:33:25Z")
> [@Random55](#): > > As long as the spending cuts come first. And I’m not talking about just decreasing the rate of increase. > > We also need a real effort to seek out waste and fraud. [http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/10/03/weve-already-cut-spending-by-almost-all-of-the-bowles-simpson-targets/](http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/10/03/weve-already-cut-spending-by-almost-all-of-the-bowles-simpson-targets/) Okay, now your turn. We’ve already achieved most of the cuts of Simpson Bowles. ---
**Author:** ![JQPublic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ac8455/32.png) [@JQPublic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JQPublic)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-go-over-the-fiscal-cliff/639874/55 "2012-11-08T22:06:39Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > You either: I accept the fact that you have probably read up a lot on this subject and know much more than I. I only have practical experience. Let me explain what little I know. We need road work done so issue a bond for the money = deficit spending. We collect our tax revenue and budget our bond payment thus we have a balanced budget while incorporating prudent deficit spending. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-go-over-the-fiscal-cliff/639874/56 "2012-11-08T22:36:25Z")
> [@Random55](#): > > Because it’s your turn. I waited for the spending cuts Reagan was promised after he agreed to raise taxes. they never happened, intead spending increased causing deficits. Same with the Bush tax cuts. > Your turn to have faith. What about the bush tax cuts? Was there some sort of deal that the Democrats would cut spending in exhcange for the Busht ax cuts? I’m not getting your point. > [@JQPublic](#): > > “Prudent deficit spending” > > But Fear we are way past “prudent defict spending”. I mean way way way past “prudent defict spending” Aux contraire. We might need more deficit spending in the short term and more balanced budgets over the medium term. You should take a look at where the deficits are coming from. A significant portion of that deficit is the result of lower tax revenues from the recession and increased safety net spending from the recession. A significant portion fo that deficit can be traced to the Bush tax cuts. A significant portion fo that deficit can be traced to our military expansion. Very little can be traced to extra spedning and programs by this administration. > [@JQPublic](#): > > "But that does not imply slavish adherence to a balanced budget is any better. " > > So Fear, it’s either a trillion dollars a year in “prudent defict spending” or a slavish adherence to a balanced budget?? No middle of the road with you, eh? > And they wonder why there is such a divide in this country. No, he is saying that people who insist on balanced budgets don’t know what they are talking about. I think Fear would be OK with lower deficits or even surpluses, just not now. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-go-over-the-fiscal-cliff/639874/57 "2012-11-08T22:41:01Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > We might need more deficit spending in the short term and more balanced budgets over the medium term. Obviously for some reason this is crazy talk. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-go-over-the-fiscal-cliff/639874/58 "2012-11-08T22:45:10Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I think Fear would be OK with lower deficits or even surpluses, just not now. That is correct. The debt is a long term problem that must be addressed. But it is not the most important problem we face. Creating jobs is more important in the short run that reducing the debt. If we must add to the debt in the short run, while planning how to cut spending over the long run to reduce the debt, that is the responsible thing to do. And yes, reducing the debt to a reasonable level will take decades. ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2012, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-go-over-the-fiscal-cliff/639874/59 "2012-11-09T02:13:48Z")
> [@JQPublic](#): > > "As far as printing money is concerned, if it caused the value of the dollar to fall, you’d expect the value of the dollar to have fallen, given all the money that’s been printed. But that hasn’t happened. Why not? " > > What do you mean?? The dollar dropped again on Wednesday. A few years ago if I when I went to Canada and I gave them a U.S. dollar they would give me $1.40 Canadian. Last week it was one for one. Do you go to the gas station? Do you go to the grocery store? The value of the dollar has dropped. Gas prices are going down. [Gasoline prices post biggest fall in nearly 4 years: survey](http://news.yahoo.com/gasoline-prices-post-biggest-fall-nearly-4-years-065002225--finance.html) It’s true the dollar’s been falling vs. the CAD. On the other hand, it’s rising against the euro: [Signs that the U.S. job market is slowly improving pushed the dollar higher against most other major currencies Thursday. The euro fell to a two-month low after the European Central Bank left its key interest rate unchanged.](http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2012-11-08/dollar-jumps-to-2-month-high-against-euro) Inflation in the US is low. [The inflation rate in the United States was recorded at 2.00 percent in September of 2012. Historically, from 1914 until 2012, the United States Inflation Rate averaged 3.36 Percent](http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/inflation-cpi) ---
**Author:** ![JQPublic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ac8455/32.png) [@JQPublic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JQPublic)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2012, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-go-over-the-fiscal-cliff/639874/60 "2012-11-09T03:41:40Z")
OK gas prices aren’t double what they were 4 years ago anymore I’m getting 40% less gas for every dollar I spend. To me that sounds like devalued currency. Great news our currency is up against another nearly bancrupt financial system. I call bullshit on low inflation. Do you buy your own groceries? They base inflation numbers on big ticket items not the items we purchase on a daily basis. My grocery bill is up at least 25%. Couple that with gas being 40% higher my dollar doesn’t go as far as it did. So it’s either our currency is devalued or there’s inflation. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-go-over-the-fiscal-cliff/639874.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-go-over-the-fiscal-cliff/639874.md?page=4)