Democrats fund $26 Billion Stimulus...by cutting aid to feed poor!

Because that last $26 billion is going to fix what $787 billion couldn't.

Where is the liberal outrage to the food stamp budget reduction?!

 

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I hate to mess up you indigent outrage with a few facts, but I will. And it is so good of you to be so suddenly concerned with the nation's poor. The reality is and the point you forgot to mention is that the food stamp funding used for this progam comes from expected food stamp spending in the year 2014 not for the years 2010, 2011, 2012 or 2013.

Given that the nation is recovering and the jobs numbers have signficantly improved from the previous year, I would expect that one can legitimately expect food stamp spending for the year 2014 to be signficantly less than that which was previously expected...one of those minor details and probably why liberals are not outraged. I guess liberals are more informed than you guys on the extreme right.

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http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20013164-503544.html

"Democrats convinced two Republicans in the Senate to support the measure in part by ensuring it would not add to the deficit. That was in part accomplished by cutting food stamp payments beginning in 2014 by $12 billion. The cut would bring funding for the food stamp program, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, back to pre-stimulus levels ahead of schedule." - CBS

And the 26 billion is going to keep teachers, firemen, nurses, and policemen employed. In case you have not noticed, a lot of states have been severely hurt by the recession...severely crippling their revenue. That is why the additional spending is needed...to help states who have been severely hurt by the recession and too keep people employed and to educate and protect American citizens...what a radical idea.

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-scher/the-conservative-jobs-pla_b_677495.html

 

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First, its rather rude of you to insinuate that I have not cared about the poor up until now. Do you have proof of this? Of course not, just a liberal tactic of insulting those who disagree with you.

Second I am not at all against keeping jobs for teachers, police, etc. There are just some major flaws with this legislature. We are supposed to believe that:

-States are broke and cannot pay their employees

-Instead of making cuts (and cuts could come from somewhere other than police or teachers salaries) the government will subsidize the state budgets.

-This results in partially stabilizing the unemployment at 9.5% by eliminating the potential loss of about 300,000 state jobs.

-Jobs here are retained but none are created.

-We do this by taking money from food stamps on the hope that the economy will be doing so well in 2014 that the amount of people using food stamps will revert back to levels of 2008-2009. (actually this would require even lower numbers of participates than in 2008-2009 when you take into account population expansion.)

You do remember from our previous discussion that levels of food stamp usage has historically only increased dont you?

 

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Oh. What did I say? I said it was good of you to be concerned about the poor people. Where did I say that you were not concened? I didn't.

Yes. Do some reading. This not a deep dark secret. It is on the cover of Time Magazine.

http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,20100628,00.html

Well then you need to tell the police, teachers, firemen, etc that are going to loose their jobs this fall if this legislation did not pass.

How is this related to the issue at hand? How are these concerns related to keeping teachers, police, etc employed? Yes, it does have the effect of keeping people employed. The unemployment rate you cited has been consistent. I don't understand how it is relevant to your OP.

I think you should know this is multiyear funding. Congress made the assumption that some food stamp spending in 2014 would be less than expected based on the improvement in the economy we have seen year over year. This year the economy is GROWING, last year it was shrinking. It is a good assumption based on something radical....fact and reason. Especially since the economy is now growing private sector jobs and has done so for 7 straight months.

As much as Republicans, conservatives, Tea Partiers would like it to be otherwise, the economy is getting better. The national income is growing...sad but true for you conservatives, Republicans, et al.

Do you have any proof that there was anything irrational congreses action to reevaluate the actual money they would spend on food stamps in 2014? Population growth is not the only or even the most important factor in foodstamp usage.

Quite well. What you don't seem to understand is that there is a new sheriff in town. Things have changed in a substancial way in Washington. We have a congress and president that are being fiscally responsible and doing things needed to grow the economy...that is a radical change over what we had a few years ago. So just as we saw and reversal of food stamp usage after george II and his merry band of Republicans came to power, it is likely based on changes in the economy, we will see food stamp usage demand change/reduced in the future (4 years from now).

 

How big is the bucket of water you carry Joe?

 

"And it is so good of you to be so suddenly concerned with the nation's poor. " is not the same as "it was good of you to be concerned about the poor people." The former smacks of sarcasm, as does most of your posting.

"Well then you need to tell the police, teachers, firemen, etc that are going to loose their jobs this fall if this legislation did not pass."
-Again I state cutbacks to come from other areas instead of increasing spending and subsidies. The notion of a state cutback = no teachers or firemen is a fallacy. The budget gap requires a review of ALL state workers and ALL state programs. If not where is the subsidy coming from for this next year? And the year after?

"Jobs here are retained but none are created."
-This was to point out there is no job creation here, only temporary stabilization. I mentioned this since your argument suggested 'job growth' would reduce the need for food stamps and no growth is happening here.

"Do you have any proof that there was anything irrational congreses action to reevaluate the actual money they would spend on food stamps in 2014?"
-What?

"Population growth is not the only or even the most important factor in food stamp usage."
-But it cannot be ignored and must be incorporated into the figure meaning food stamp usage must resort back to lower than 2008-2009 levels for this to work.

Your last paragraph is nonsensical. Food stamp usage only increases. Where has usage ever fallen to the level it was at five years previous?

Also you keep mentioning job growth. How does 73,000 private sector jobs last month equate to such economic prosperity that food stamp rates will decrease as significantly as needed for this to work? What formulas are you using? Back this up.

 

Thall, the states are legitimately broke, but it's unclear why the Feds should bail them out in what is essentially a form of double-taxation.

Also, Joe's continued head-in-the-sand routine about the economy is just that, and you won't break him of -- no matter how hard you try. He's carrying a very large bucket full of water.

 

I see you could not answer the questions put to you. Did you not see food stamp usage feel under the Clinton presidency? Do I need to go back and pull that chart into this thread to jar your memory?

I believe I showed you the jobs numbers from the BLS. Last year were loosing almost 800,000 jobs per month, now we are adding jobs. You don't think that is signficant?

The economy last year was shrinking at a rate of 6 percent per quarter. This year the economy is growing at just under 3 percent per quarter. You don't think that is signficant?

Under the Clinton years the economy was growing. The bush II years the nations struggled to grow and more and more people needed food stamps as evidenced by the previously referenced chart.

 

Why is it always the police, teachers, and firemen that must lose their jobs? With all the government boondoggles and bureaucrats out there, we can't find anyplace else to cut? Of course not.. We have to go right to the few popular government employees and use them to shield the rest.

The recovery is quite anemic and many fear a "double dip" recession.

Fed downgrades recovery outlook

By James Politi in Washington and Michael Mackenzie in New York

Published: August 10 2010 19:26 | Last updated: August 11 2010 01:07

The US Federal Reserve on Tuesday took a first step toward extending its crisis-era monetary policy regime, as it downgraded its view of the economic outlook amid rising fears of a “double-dip” recession.​

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0567152a-a49c-11df-8c9f-00144feabdc0.html​

Or if you want a really gloomy assessment:

By Lorimer Wilson
“The U.S. is in an untenable position - between a rock and a hard place - in an inescapable debt trap - where the options are, at best, dire – either hyperinflation or a deflationary depression! It would seem that all we can do is ride out the storm in a boat laden with gold” said Jeff Nielson (BullionBullsCanada.com) in a recent speech* going on to say:

“The U.S.'s severe debt problems are exacerbated by its $70 trillion in unfunded liabilities to fund the social 'entitlements' of the mass of baby boomers who will be retiring by the tens of millions in the next few decades and there is absolutely NO likelihood of the U.S. government ever reducing those entitlements. Any attempt to do so would cause severe economic disruptions and civil unrest.”

http://www.commodityonline.com/news/Economic-recovery-is-nothing-but-an-illusion-30779-3-1.html​

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So basing spending on rosy projections of an economic recovery may be premature and overoptimistic.

I think you have things a bit backwards. At least with respect to the Tea Party movement. If the economy were booming, you'd not have so many people pissed off and politically active. Sure, some hard core Republican party insiders and politicians may be secretly hoping for the bad times to continue; but the rest of us have to live in the real world and make a living. We want the economy booming again.

The thousands of pages of new laws and the hundreds of thousands of regulations that will come from them in the recently passed healthcare and Wall Street reforms will be an albatross around the neck of the economy for some time to come. These regulations will slowly but surely drive private health insurers out of business and soon we'll all be on the government plan.

The health care reform law, which is designed to cover millions of uninsured people, will squeeze the profitability of the largest commercial health insurers over the long term, making them unattractive investments, according to Edward Jones analyst Aaron Vaughn.

THE OPINION: Vaughn said in a research note his firm was downgrading UnitedHealth Group Inc., WellPoint Inc. and Aetna Inc. to "sell" from "hold" and plans to drop coverage on all three stocks at the end of the month.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Edward-Jones-analyst-apf-2337797211.html?x=0&.v=1​

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This is why Obama didn't object to dropping the "public option" from his plan.

I will say one positive thing about this story, I'm impressed that they actually decided to cut something instead of simply adding the new spending to our already overdrawn tab.

 

You keep asking me what I think is significant in your posting and mentioning figures. This is what I think is significant and these are the only figures I am interested in you showing me:

1. Where has usage ever fallen to the level it was at five years previous?

2. How does 73,000 private sector jobs last month equate to such economic prosperity that food stamp rates will decrease as significantly as needed for this to work? What formulas are you using? Back this up.

Address specifically please.

 

Yah, but the cuts come from the 2014 budget.

 

Yes, of course. The increased spending comes right away, the "cut" doesn't occur until 2014. Furthermore, congress in 2014 is not bound by what congress in 2010 said it would do.

Still, it was nice of them to at least pretend they were cutting something.

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Why it had to be food stamps, I'm not sure.

 

An excellent point I've often wondered myself. Every time finances are strained these are held up and cuts promised. It's bullshit. There are plenty of other cuts that could be made. Try cutting the managers in the education systems, for example.

 

They are operating on a ten year budget plan which is a good thing. And whenever they add somthing that increases the 10 year plan they have to take something else out. All of that is a good thing. That is how we achieved a budget surplus in the 90's.

Wither Congress will continue with the practice, who knows? But it is good to see Democrats to back to pay as you go rather than the Republican "deficits don't matter" approach to federal spending and budgeting.

 

Well, then you are a bad Republican. So I take you are complaining that dems behave as Republicans. What is wrong with that?

 

Because that is the lions share of local government spending.

Yes the US is in a difficult position...along with the rest of the world. And the US in in the difficult position because of the wreckless spending that occured under the "deficits don't matter" Republican government.

Well given the economic numbers, I think the biggest cause of public angst is the fear being spread by the likes of limbaugh and his minions.

As for the health insurers, they are big boys and girls. They need to live outside their special exemption from the nations antitrust laws and they need to compete in open markets....just like a of other corporations do each and every day.

The US tax payer does not owe, insurance providers a paycheck.

And as for the stock market, investors are very fickle in often irrational. It was just a few months ago when the market was convinced that Europe was going to be the death of society as we now know it.

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And of course we are all still here and the European contagen that was all the talk never appeared. And Germany today far exceeded its expected GDP growth.

The stock market now is very skittish, reminds me of a spooky horse. You never know what kind of irrational thing is going to cause the market to spook. One day the market will be down 3 percent - it is the end of the world. The next day it is up 3 percent, things couldn't be better. The stock markets are far from rational.

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No one I know is painting a rosy picture. The US is in a difficult position. But it is in a better position than many including those in Europe and it is manageable. But that is far from rosey. Things today are much better than they were a year ago. But still there is a lot that needs to be done.

In the short term the US needs to get employment up. And thus far, the response by the US government has been fair...not as good as it could have been. But certianly better than anything that has come from the Republican side of the fence.

 

The majority of government spending is in the administration, bureaucracy, and social welfare, not the Thin Blue and Red Line of our Police and Firemen.

 

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Oh, you wouldn't have any proof would you? The bulk of state and local spending in on education, health, infrastructure (e.g. roads), and protection (police, law enforcement, etc).

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/#usgs302a

 

And?