A way out of gridlock
Hard truths lie at both ends of the country’s political spectrum. The fix can be found only on some middle ground.
Tea party-style Republicans have been urging Americans in this election cycle to face hard truths about unsustainable federal budget deficits.
Here’s one for tea partiers: The country cannot fix a crippling structural deficit without a mix of spending cuts and higher taxes.
August 31, 2012 - 6:34 AM
“To no avail” indeed. History is watching and once again, one party is on the wrong side of it. This “structural deficit” did not happen overnight, it was decades of pandering and effort from both sides of the aisle and until they come to grips with reality, the tribal politics they are working will continue to harm this nation. And they dare to call themselves patriots. The man who burns his house down to save it from foreclosure is an arsonist, not a hero.
I realize the TP/GOP is all hyped up on the lies and pretty, hate filled, unrealistic speeches they heard this week, but reality is going to bite hard and they can no longer say it is “Obama’s fault”. Because it isn’t.
What is not surprising is that in a piece on deficit reduction, the RTEB uses the word “taxes” twice as often as the word “spending”!
It was spending that got the country into this historic deficit mess, not lack of revenue. And the Obama admin. continues to increase the deficit at the rate of $1T a year!
Tax increases will not have any impact on the deficit. That money will be spent as fast as it comes in and the deficit will continue to grow.
If Obama gets the tax increases he wants, instead of borrowing 40 cents out of every dollar spent, it will go to borrowing 38 cents out of every dollar.
Let’s have the spending cuts first by going back to the 2007 budget and try that for a while. Let’s see what that would do to the deficit. Let the tax increases come after the spending cuts for a change.
The liberals really don’t want any spending cuts, only tax increases. That is the reason the Dems have not submitted a budget for 3 years! Rest assured the GOP controlled Congress will submit a budget next year
Did you all ever consider the impact of lowering taxes and increasing the GDP? The only way out of this mess is to cut spending and increase revenue. Revenues will increase if business’s and individuals are making more money and paying a less percentage but paying more taxes. If all of President Obama’s unfair tax increase were to pass, which they won’t, the resulting revenue would finance the Federal Government for 8 days. It is all class envy BS. President Obama had his chance time to hire someone else for the job. These are the facts they are undisputed. 1) Unemployment is high 2) GDP is down; 3) Federal deficit is through the roof. The economy is really bad. The middle class has lost value in their net wealth and average household income. President Obama has hurt the very people he is trying to help. The only way to increase GDP is to promote a pro business environment from the Federal Government. Every poll I have seen shows the American people have more faith in Mr. Romney helping to fix the economy then President Obama. Pro business will add jobs for all! Don’t know how President Obama wins with 8+% unemployment.
John R, why don’t you stop telling us what “the liberals don’t want” or what we do? You are not an authority on liberals.
It is ludicrous for anyone to think that we should not raise revenue AND cut spending. There is obviously a tipping point on revenue and there is the moral commission to share sacrifice. If the poor, working and middle class have to face the cuts to programs and facilities they need, the wealthy can pay more in taxes. Otherwise the cuts are too steep and the shock to the economy too strong.
It was NOT the poor, working class or even the middle class that crashed the economy. The gains of the wealth class and corporations, even as the rest of us lost ground, speaks for itself.
The solution to deadlock is vote out the GOP do nothings. Even their presidential candidate has nothing in mind but more do nothing platitudes.
#4 – “4.John R, why don’t you stop telling us what “the liberals don’t want” or what we do? You are not an authority on liberals.”
And yet you, Sandi, and the other Libs here feel free to tell us what Conservatives are all about.
Ironic, isn’t it?
#4 “…TP/GOP is all hyped up on the lies and pretty, hate filled, unrealistic speeches they heard this week…”
Sandi seems to consider herself an “authority” on the “TP/GOP”! “…lies…hate filled…speeches” Really? The “TP/GOP” is that evil?
I know exactly what liberals want and it ain’t spending cuts! They yell “CUTS” when a modest 2-3% reduction in the rate of growth in the rate of growth of any budget item is proposed.
Where has the Dem budget proposals in Congress been for the last three years? Your silence on that point is deafening!
Could somebody please list these spending cuts that Obama and Senate Democrats have offered in compromise? I’d really like to see a list (with annual dollar amounts attached), so that it could be compared to the $1200 billion deficit we’re currently running.
And I am an authority on the TP/GOP. Agreed.
#9 – “And I am an authority on the TP/GOP.”
Hands down, the funniest thing I’ve read online today.
#10, “Hands down, the funniest thing I’ve read online today” so you haven’t read the text of the Repub/NFR speeches from the convention? Because those are hilarious.
#11 – “…so you haven’t read the text of the Repub/NFR speeches from the convention? Because those are hilarious.”
Nah, E, I haven’t read them. Doesn’t matter, though. Sandi saying she’s an authority on the GOP is simply unbeatable.
Does ANYONE have such a specific list Brian? Has ANYONE done such a detailed list or the comparison you ask for?
Summary of President Obama’s Long-Term Deficit and Debt Reduction Framework
From Peter G Peterson Foundation
Obama Offers Framework To Cut Federal Budget Deficit
BOWLES, SIMPSON REACT TO THE PRESIDENT’S DEFICIT REDUCTION FRAMEWORK
It is up to CONGRESS to pursue this framework and present it to the President and the nation, not the other way around. I know they are jerks who need a butt-kicking, but are they children who need hand holding too?
#12, Mike, you just haven’t indulged in low-class comedy until you’ve read those speeches…granted they are funnier when the comedians who delivered them are speaking the words, but they are pretty damn funny in print, too.
It is not one iota more funny than John R’s declaration “I know exactly what liberals want” which it was responding to. Declare yourself any kind of expert you like and it is so, apparently.
#14 – ” Mike, you just haven’t indulged in low-class comedy until you’ve read those speeches…”
Actually, E, I have been indulging in low-class comedy since January 20, 2009.
To #13 (Sandi): Remember that the Senate Democrats are part of Congress, just like House Republicans. They need a butt-kicking too. And Obama definitely has a role to play, both in offering suggestions and by indicating what he would sign and what he would veto.
But from your second link: http://www.pgpf.org/Issues/Fiscal-Outlook/2011/04/15/Summary-of-President-Obama-Long-Term-Deficit-and-Debt-Reduction-Framework.aspx
The president’s framework (with details annoyingly unspecified) “aims to reduce deficits by at least $4 trillion over the next 12 years compared to OMB’s adjusted baseline; compared to a current-law baseline, however, the savings will be less than $1.35 trillion over ten years.”
$1.35 trillion over 10 years?!? That’s $135 billion per year. Barely 11% of the current $1200 billion annual deficit. And Obama proposes to eat up more than three years of that savings with the $447 billion AJA: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_jobs_act.
If this is the extent of the compromise that “Senate Democrats and the White House have been offering GOP hard-liners for more than a year” (to quote the editorial), it’s pitiful. It’s not a compromise to bring federal spending down to 20% (from today’s 25%), as Scott Rigell proposes. It’s an offer to drop it to 24.4%, assuming the AJA passes as Obama wants.
To close the deficit, the Democrats and Republicans will have to make large-scale compromises. Thus far, these “offering of compromise” made by Democrats look like small-scale token efforts to me.
Gracious Brian, I had forgotten all about Congress having any Dems in it! Thank you so much for that timely piece of information!
As much faith as I have in Obama being honest in an election year, I do not think the onus of cleaning up decades of neglect, abuse, fraud, and near criminal mismanagement of the budget should all fall on him to do. Call me crazy.
“As much faith as I have in Obama being honest in an election year”
LOL this thread just keeps getting funnier and funnier. Obama and honest shouldn’t even be in the same sentence.
#19 OTR do you credit the members of the GOP/NFR with being honest, then?
#16, while I disagree that the Obama admin is low-class comedy, I freely concede that American politics in general have become a joke.
Try this on for size: If your personal income is not adequate to meet your needs/wants, you have two choices. 1. Figure out what you can do without, and cut your spending. 2. Increase your income. Hit the pavement and look for a better job, or a second job. The editorial board would have us look for option number 3…take the money we need from someone else. You and I don’t have the ability to raise taxes on our neighbors so WE can live comfortably…SOOO…we vote to let the Democrat Party do it for us…that way we can sleep at night. Social Security is supposed to RETURN TO US THE MONEY WE PAID IN….NOT….GIVE US MONEY OUR NEIGHBOR EARNED!!!! What will we do when the takers outnumber the makers?
#18 – “Call me crazy.”
I’m sure many have tried, but the pesky ToS gets in the way!
@22 No, SB, the editorial board would have you cut something you can do without and take the second, or better, job.
Also, Social Security is not a savings account. It’s an insurance program.
#22, Bear, so you are saying all Americans are living within their means? If so, you are uber-delusional. Additionally, the federal government isn’t an individual, so your comparison falls flat.
No doubt Michael. None at all. I have offered my email on many occasions for those who need to deliver their bile: vademsandi@yahoo.com Anytime. Oddly, most prefer to do so publicly.
Searching Bear, Social Security is one of those “pay it forward” programs. You paid toward your parent’s generation, not your own. What you get back is calculated on your income and how long you worked, but it is not a “RETURN TO US THE MONEY WE PAID IN” system. If you die at 43 like my dad, all that you paid in, goes to help someone else. If you live longer than what you paid in covers…you still get that check.
Yes, I realize that the people we count on to fill the needed low wage jobs should feel grateful to have them and work two or three of them as long as they can to make their ends meet. (Which will doubtless add to the disabled rolls, but your point is made). Not sure how you square the millions of unemployed with people finding that second and third job as needed, but that is not relevant to your point either.
Just as you want those on the bottom to get more jobs, I want those at the top to return their checks for those who need them. How you all consistently manage to kick only the poor people bothers the Jesus right out of me!
SB you might want to brush up on the history of Social Security: http://www.ssa.gov/history/briefhistory3.html
To #22 (Searching Bear): You said, “Social Security is supposed to RETURN TO US THE MONEY WE PAID IN… NOT GIVE US MONEY OUR NEIGHBOR EARNED!!!! What will we do when the takers outnumber the makers?”
The previous posters are correct. Social Security is a “pay-as-you-go” program, with current payroll taxes going straight to current SS beneficiaries (or to the government’s general fund, if there’s a surplus). There are no savings accounts. [This shouldn't be a surprise. After all, the federal government owes $11.2 trillion to outside parties, a sum which grows by $3.1 billion every day. They have no money!!]
Alas, your concern about the takers outnumbering the makers is a legitimate one. The first Social Security recipient, Ida May Fuller, received her payroll taxes back nearly a thousand-fold: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_May_Fuller
Later recipients didn’t make out quite as well, but still generally got back more than they put it. Today’s recipients aren’t as lucky. On average, they’ll get back ~90% of what they put in. For them, an actual savings account would have been better.
And those born after 1965? Well… They get hammered. In addition to paying a 6.2% payroll tax, a good chunk of their income taxes (adding up to ~4% of their wages) will be redirected to the Social Security administration for “trust fund redemptions”, so that people retiring before 2033 can still receive full benefits. And their reward for this sacrifice? Their own benefits will be cut by 30% when they retire in 2033 or later years. They’ll be lucky to get even half of their money back.
All of this can be blamed on a falling worker-to-retiree ratio (or maker-to-taker, if you wish), which is a consequence of Congress failing to index the eligibility age to life expectancies. Unfortunately, Republicans have offered only half-baked, inadequate solutions to the problem, and Democrats have stuck their heads in the sand entirely.
No wonder young people (even liberals) are pretty sour on Social Security: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/09/20/opinion/granderson-social-security/index.html?hpt=hp_c2
Yes, I’ve paid into Social Security. No, I don’t expect to benefit from it, at least not at the level those who are currently collecting are benefiting. And I don’t know anyone in any line of work my age or younger who does.
He’s right.
You guys who think Social Security is a Pay it forward program, or an insurance program are dillusional. It was not conceived as, nor set as either of these, and you can’t find anything that says it was. It was designed to be a sort of involuntary savings account, THAT IS WHY WE HAVE A SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER. It was supposed to be YOUR ACCOUNT NUMBER…get it? Can you buy private retirement insurance…absolutely not. You buy life insurance that has a pay out if you don’t die…but that is not the same. It was never intended that Social Security would pay you bac anything except what you had contributed…and…even today, if a recipient dies…the money goes away…not to any survivor..so much for insurance. As to paying it forward, why will you not answer the simple question…when the takers outnumber the makers…then what?
So, the government isn’t like an individual…oh yes it is…if I can’t borrow my way to prosperity, neither can it.
Luanne…I don’t need to brush up…anecdotal writings are not the same as reading the law as written. Try the following…try doubling, or tripling, your contribution to SS…but first check to see if that will double or triple your pay out. You need to study, not me. Your pay out is based on earnings, not contribution as with insurance.
Even in 1935, President Roosevelt was trying to decide whether to to call SS “insurance”, or admit it was a tax..the reason? By definition, if you don’t pay insurance premiums, you aren’t insured. So, as politicians do, and will continue to do, we will institute a tax, call it something else, and no one will be the wiser. When you see someone drawing SS who never paid into the program…it is not insurance…it is the redistribution of taxes paid by others.
Obviously any effort is wasted.