By the way if you have not gone to in free thoughts thread , alternative media Obama has signed the NDAA amendment here http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/03/ndaa-obama-indefinite-detention_n_2402601.html
Is it Obama’s math or yours? You are forgetting the other side of the equation . . . the revenue side. The side where he closes tax loopholes to balance out the equation.
Political Math It's political math, and thus very easy to forget the details. Get rid of old-industry handouts, like oil subsidies. Collect proper taxes from large companies. Get rid of wasteful defense programs. Just those steps should handle everything but the universal pre-K. Fix the rest of the tax code, and that should take care of the rest. There is a lot of reallocation we can figure within our spending priorities. Most people tend to view the situation in terms of cuts and increases as an up or down proposition, and forget about the possibility of lateral transfers. A great example will come when we finally start cutting military personnel. Career reorientation and education will cost less over a given period than keeping those people in the service. And, in the long run, they'll make more money and contribute more to the revenue side of the federal ledger. Or taking project development money for extraneous equipment and hand that out fractionally to NASA, NIH, and private-sector development, and we can still save money while initiating new spending.
"Close Tax Loophole" has been the idea for decades, but never done - they only grow in number - why IRS code is now 73,000 pages long. "Grow our way out of debt" is also vintage text and not done. (Actually it is impossible as too much of the future off books debt, like Social Security, is indexed to inflation.) Also, as documented in post 702, Obama wants to prevent scheduled spending cuts as well as add new spending listed in post 703. Further more, Unlike first term Obama, who planned to cut spending by (what was it - 8 Trillion over the next ten years? I forget.) Second term Obama just wants not to increase it by even a dime. - quite a change, for the worse, (or perhaps because economy is worse?) and now needs Fed´s QE-infinity and new spending on new projects as per post 703 just to kick the "collapse can" down the road until late 2014. I don´t expect revenues to grow much with such a low GDP (even negative last report), but sure they help - only 40% of US expenses are paid with borrowed or freshly printed thin air money but that fraction is growing with the rising interest rates. Unfortunately more than 10,000 people who were in their highest tax paying years are now retiring each day to be come net collectors of government funds and/or spenders of their savings. Actually the bad math comment was Martin Hutchinson, Global Investing Strategist, Money Morning, February 14, 2013 comment, not mine, in article entitled Obama's State of the Union Address Was Short on Math and he specifically said in the article: "Put politely, his numbers don't add up." in the sub section called: "Fuzzy math" - I just did not bother to quote that part. I agree with Tiassa - Conceptually we could cut military spending in half and better use those fund but the Military/Industrial Complex, Ike warned was the "greatest danger to the US" is too strongly in control (with help of many paranoid Republicans) of the Congress to do that too. Hell even Obama wants the sequester delayed. It is like the drunken womanizer´s prayer to god: "God help me to be a better man, but not just yet."
That doesn’t change the fact that President Obama is also proposing to fund his spending by closing tax loopholes. The nation’s fiscal debt problem has not been as dire since the end of WWII and the nation had the balls to raise marginal rates to 94% to fix it. So closing a few tax loopholes now doesn’t seem as burdensome a 94% marginal income tax rate. President Obama wants to prevent the specific cuts identified in the budget sequester. That is not the same as NO Budget Cuts. President Obama remains true to the Simpson-Bowles objective, cutting 4 trillion dollars out of the budget over the course of the next 10 years. So your notion that President Obama doesn’t want to cut any spending in his second term is just not true. Two trillion has already been cut, for the remaining 2 trillion, Obama proposed to cover about half of that with tax increases, and closing tax loopholes, and spending cuts in entitlement programs (largely by making them more efficient like opening Medicare Prescription Drug program to competitive bidding) and cuts in defense spending.
Wake me up when saving by closing tax loop holes, exceeds the cost of new ones created (all to encourage growth of the economy, of course) or when debt to GDP ratio stops increasing. I would not want to sleep thru such rare events.
The federal deficit is already shrinking. As of last year it was some 400+ billion less than it was when President Obama stepped into the office as POTUS. And the CBO is predicting the deficit will be 250 billion dollars less this year than it was in 2012.
Yes things are getting worse more slowly under Obama, but debt is still growing relative to GDP. Here are three charts that give some facts about employment and hours worked trends: http://www.sciforums.com/showthread...e-worse-news&p=3040693&viewfull=1#post3040693 Also the food stamp rolls are growing more slowly too, but perhaps mainly because out of work people can only stay on them for 3 or 4 years (I forget that data). Skip top confusing graph below and focus on clear trends shown in second. (I can´t post 2nd alone.) Note food stamp rolls are still growing faster than non-farm payrolls, but not by as much as they were. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!From 4 Feb13 issue of Bloomberg Briefs. Yes if the sequester is not just kicked down the road, as Obama is calling for, the 2013 reduction in the deficit may be bigger than the CBO estimates but even still US will be going deeper into debt in 2013. "May be" is in bold as the sequester will cut deeply into revenues too and no-one knows the net effect on the deficit. Only thing one can be sure of (with sequester) is that the food stamp rolls will again be growing much faster than the non-farm jobs.
Because I tricked many congressmen into thinking I lived in their districts (to get them to look at my alternative to Paulson´s plan*) I still get emails from some, including: Republican Darrel Issa of CA´49 district, who seems to make good points /suggestions. (If I did live there, I´d vote for him.) Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Rep Issa Email said: "Despite what the President would have you believe, the government cannot solve the deficit by increasing taxes every few months. We must start by curbing expenses and waste. The truth is, we don’t have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem. The federal government is projected to take in record tax revenue in 2013 -- $2.7 trillion. We must reduce the size of the government to pay off our debt. When the Obama Administration tells the public that spending cuts must begin by cutting vital public services; I, instead, suggest the cuts must begin with obvious waste, fraud, and abuse. As Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, I have identified billions in potential savings, including: · Reducing government workers compensation and bonuses · Eliminating excessive federal employee conference spending · Ending Medicaid fraud · Selling unused federal property · Preventing future Solyndra-like loans ..." Being a good Republican, Issa does not note the Defense Costs could be cut in half & US would still be world´s greatest spender on defense and have the world´s strongest military. ------------------- * http://www.sciforums.com/showthread...-or-not-quot&p=2025940&viewfull=1#post2025940 I spammed many threads with the above post, then reported myself and got the 3 day ban I expected. That gave me the time to by-pass congress people´s filters that blocks Emails not from address in their district. If my plan had been chosen, instead of TARP, (and the QEs that followed it) I think the US economy would not be in the current thin-air printing press mess, which ends in depression, but we will never know.
We, of course, have both. And until both sides acknowledge that nothing will change. They'll just keep blaming each other.
Yes - one could consider that focus on blaming as the natural extension into congress of the negative TV ads.
Found this. http://news.investors.com/ibd-edito...s-buys-7000-semiautomatic-assault-weapons.htm I don't like that he said this. And we don't need two federal armys.
Ah, yeah. For starters, Obama made no such statements. Two, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was created by George II and his merry band of Republicans more than a decade ago. So you guys are a little slow on the pickup. DHS didn’t bother you guys when George II and his merry band of Republicans were creating it nor did you have any problem with it operating for nearly 8 years. But now that we have a Democratic president it is suddenly something ominous? Get real . . . or are you really that delusional? Two you are referencing the same rag that said Stephen Hawkings would be dead if he depended on socialized medicine. You do realized that Stephen Hawkings is very much live and has been dependent on socialized medicine his entire life. And Stephen Hawkings credits “socialized” medicine for his longevity. By the way, the DHS created by George II and his merry band of Republicans includes one of our military services, the US Coast Guard. And the DHS also operates the Border Patrol. They both use weapons, ammunition and police gear. I am sure all Americans live in fear of the US Coast Guard and Border Patrol . . . services that patrol our nation’s borders and keeps them secure from terrorists and other criminal enterprises and rescues people in need. And Republicans/conservatives wonder why people think they are crazy.
He's an incompetent and dishonest and corrupt Republican hack, Billy, whose stated mission when he took over the House Oversight Committee (that guy in charge of oversight? all you need to know about the Republican Party) was to paralyze and slander the Obama administration - for example, as you posted there without thinking for second, his ascription of the Republican forced end to Obama's payroll tax holiday (an Issa style vandalism of the Keynesian stimulus that is the only good exit from a liquidity trap, whose only competent motive would be political dirty tricks) as a tax increase by Obama. Another second, after you realize that Congressman Issa there is treating you with considerable contempt by lying to your face in that manner, you might notice that if you are going to look at the expiration of that payroll tax holiday as an active change in the tax code, it qualifies as a very large closed loophole - bigger than any of the new ones opened up. You wanted someone to wake you up and point that event out to you, when it happened, but you found it for yourself! Being a good Republican, the Chairman of the House Oversight Committee shows no apparent awareness of anything that would actually make a chuckles worth of difference (except maybe Medicaid fraud, which btw Issa has been abetting his entire career and should therefore be in a well informed position to curb - years ago). Government salaries? Small potatoes. Already lower than private ones, for comparable jobs - who you want to hire? (Issa, the richest man in the House, like the rest of these alleged "conservatives", sees no benefit from competence in government, or possibly underlings in general). Preventing "Solyndra-like loans"? Whatever he means by that, they're peanuts in the first place and almost certainly a net profit center for the government and benefit for the public in the second. Selling Federal property? To his buddies for more peanuts at large and permanent public loss, so they get the exploitation opportunities. He wanted to privatize FEMA and Medicare (after saddling Medicare with Plan D). And so forth. Here's the Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, the guy in charge of monitoring fraud and influence, showing his colors: http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsme..._fights_to_keep_federal_contractors_donat.php With the provision, as of course you meant to say, that since the Democrats have acknowledged that and included that in their proposals, when the Dems blame the Republicans they are correct. Factually accurate. Reality based. So although each Party blames the other, the situation is not symmetrical: one Party is right in assigning blame, and the other Party is wrong.
Here is part of Republican Congressman Darrel Issa´s latest Email to me. I like the guy - sorry I don´t live in his district as he thinks I do. ".. In the past 12 years, revenues have actually increased by 25%. But over that same 12 year period, federal spending has increased more than 100%. Entitlement spending is the biggest drive of our debt-totaling 62% of total federal spending for FY2012. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! To give you a better understanding of how and where your tax dollars are being spent, here is a breakdown for a family of four with a combined income of $80,000 according to the White House’s own data : · Total federal taxes owed: $9,110 · Social Security: $3,360 · Medicare: $1,160 · National Defense: $1,142.91 · Medicaid and other government healthcare programs: $1,087.83 · Veterans benefits: $206.55 · Immigration and law enforcement: $91.80 · Agriculture: $32.13 · Response to natural disasters, such as hurricanes and wildfires: $18.36 .." Issa also notes that 2012´s revenue was 2.47 trillion 3.54 -2.47 is 1.07 trillion more outgo than income. Not to mention Fed´s $85 billion / month new "thin -air" money in 2013 = 1.02 trillion annually til it stops.
It boggles the mind to think that anyone could take Republican Congressman Darrell Isa seriously. Issa along with his Republican colleagues are responsible for the unprecedented profligate spending which is the genesis of our current fiscal ills. Issa voted for and supported every profligate spending measure that has gone through the House since he was elected to office some 13 years ago. He voted for the unfunded war spending. He voted for the unfunded pork riddled entitlement expansions. He voted for the Bush Junior tax cuts without commensurate spending cuts or revenue increases. He voted for deregulation of the financial industry which led to the collapse of that industry and The Great Recession of 2007-2009 and the federal deficits that followed. So using Issa as a fiscal reference and authority is like using Bernie Madoff to invest your savings. If you want to know the real spending numbers, go to the real White House web site. http://www.whitehouse.gov/2011-taxreceipt The good news is the US is recovering from its Madoff like experience with Issa and his fellow Republicans. The deficit as a percent of GDP is now down by 50% and is projected to continue its downward progression. The good news is that the economy is and has been growing. The good news is that employment continues to improve with each passing month. The good news is that President Obama and the Dems have passed healthcare reform, while not perfect, is projected to dramatically curtail future federal spending and even though not fully implemented is already slowing the growth of healthcare expenses. The good news is that the Republicans wars and related expenses are coming to an end. The good news is that we are not losing nearly a million jobs a month as we were when President Obama was sworn into office. The good news is that the economy has experienced real growth of about 2% for each of the last 3 years rather than shrinking by nearly 10% and more with each passing month as it was when President Obama was first sworn into office some 4 years ago. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/25/opinion/krugman-deficit-hawks-down.html “Why have the deficit scolds lost their grip? I’d suggest four interrelated reasons. First, they have cried wolf too many times. They’ve spent three years warning of imminent crisis — if we don’t slash the deficit now now now, we’ll turn into Greece, Greece, I tell you. It is, for example, almost two years since Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles declared that we should expect a fiscal crisis within, um, two years. But that crisis keeps not happening. The still-depressed economy has kept interest rates at near-record lows despite large government borrowing, just as Keynesian economists predicted all along. So the credibility of the scolds has taken an understandable, and well-deserved, hit. Second, both deficits and public spending as a share of G.D.P. have started to decline — again, just as those who never bought into the deficit hysteria predicted all along. The truth is that the budget deficits of the past four years were mainly a temporary consequence of the financial crisis, which sent the economy into a tailspin — and which, therefore, led both to low tax receipts and to a rise in unemployment benefits and other government expenses. It should have been obvious that the deficit would come down as the economy recovered. But this point was hard to get across until deficit reduction started appearing in the data.” -- Paul Krugman, New York Times (Krugman is a Nobel Prize winning economist) http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/us/politics/sharp-slowdown-in-us-health-care-costs.html?_r=0
to Joepistole: I know nothing of Issa´s voting record - just that he writes plausible Emails and some have some good suggetions in them. Which of his "facts" in the Email he sent me is wrong? I agree it is not wise to predict disaster in the near future. When I made my predicion of coming disaser, it was more than 8 years away but now less than 2. I´m still willing to stick with Halloween 2014 (or before) but may end up with egg on my face, I admit. I´m not worried about egg on face yet as I have great faith in the economic stupidity of vote seeking Congress and the people who have lent trillions to US getting nervous about getting their money back with nearly same purchasing power as it had when lent, especially now that the currency war seems to be intensifying. Not worried because for the last 4 years (including 2012) the government has spent more than a trillion dollars in excess of its revenue. That is part of why the Fed is printing thin-air money at 1.02 trillion dollars per year rate now (but they do have a cover story - something about "stimulation" instead of keeping interest on the growing debt afforable). China has been nervous for five or more years about value of its Treasury paper and been a net seller for more than two years now, as well as now buying on the open market more than 500 tons of gold each year. (Not to mention that as the world´s largest producer, they produce at least that amount too and don´t sell even and ounce externally!) About 2+ years ago the CCP did a 180 degree turn - cancelled the law that made it illegal for Chinese to own gold and now encourages them to do so.* That takes money from circulation to help control inflation and lets the people help fincance the buying of a "dead asset" than pays no interest. (The CCP can always confiscate their gold as US did a while back or Cyprus is doing to the bigger savers in the banks now.)** That rapid accumulation of gold certainly makes you wonder why - what are they planning? - I told my guess four years ago. I.e. China will back RMB bonds with gold for central banks and the IMF when they want to see dollar lose most of it status as world´s reserve currency. I.e. they would like to pay for their rapidly growing volume imports with printed paper as US has for more than two decades. Converting factories to produce for domestic consumption is their stated goal for the current 5-year plan - They want be a more of domstic driven market instead of an export driven economy. * Hell they have made it very easy for Chinese to buy gold with new gold bank accounts. I.e. you give bank your Yuan and get account credited with X grams of gold. You can´t get that value out as gold, but only as Yuan with what ever gain or loss your X gram are currently valued at compare to Yuan you intitially gave the bank. In addition to this, the larger cities have many gold stores that sell gold bars, coins or jewlery you can walk out the door with. I have posted pictures of a few. ** Governments do what they think they must "for the good of the people." For example, for some years more, the US government can and has told us this thin-air money printing is for stimulation of the economy until unemployment gets near 6.5% etc. but like the predicted disasters you mentioned, it has not happen. Fraction of the population working continues to rapidly decline - that is the way I look at the baby boomers retiring effect, but agree the the BLS uses it (and their clever definitions) to claim unemployment is at least not rising. Every year now an increasing fraction of corporate profits come from their over seas sales, not the US, where Joe American is still "deleveraging" from his excess spending and debts. "Big Mac jobs" are replacing better paying factory jobs, student loans are at all time high and now top 1 trillion dollars (more than all credit card debt). Sorry but my rose colored glasses got broken back when GWB was POTUS. Perhaps you can lend me yours?
