Does the US Have a Fiscal Crisis?

[washamericom]

Saw on Hannity tonight a report from the CBO....It turns out the amount of jobs created from the stimulus money spent breaks down like this.It cost $228,000.00 per job.If the government gave everyone a check for $100,000.00 each they would have saved a fortune.

Are we starting to get at least a little tired of hearing how this guy is the greatest President we ever had.

it's beyond reason for me why the dims are so afraid of reality, as to continue to defend wreckless spending and saddam hussein.

 

[georgephillip]

Yeah, we're in deep. There's no other way to slice it.

And it may be much deeper than we suspect

"After I last wrote about online astroturfing, in December, I was contacted by a whistleblower.

"He was part of a commercial team employed to infest internet forums and comment threads on behalf of corporate clients, promoting their causes and arguing with anyone who opposed them. Like the other members of the team, he posed as a disinterested member of the public.

"Or, to be more accurate, as a crowd of disinterested members of the public: he used 70 personas, both to avoid detection and to create the impression that there was widespread support for his pro-corporate arguments. I’ll reveal more about what he told me when I’ve finished the investigation I’m working on..."

Has anyone else encountered this phenomenon?

Online Astroturfing...

 

[MaggieMae]

Until both parties stop the political posturing and get down to business over the debt, which WILL mean tax increases as well as major changes to the Big Three (Social Security, Medicare, Defense), they'll just chip away at the problem with ideological fixes which make for great political fodder and headliners designed to prop up their voting bases.

Why is it that the left refuses to acknowledge that the problem isnt that taxes arent high enough. Its that we SPEND WAY TOO MUCH?!

We have to work to April to pay off the government. And you want to increase the tax burden even more?!

Just cut the damn budget!

Economists and politicians alike (when they're being honest) say that BOTH need to be done. Clinton and a Republican Congress cut spending and raised taxes, and the 90's were boom years.

 

[MaggieMae]

for awhile we had a dimocrat crisis. could not tell the difference between real life and monopoly money. now we have paul ryan, thank god

Paul Ryan would sell you out in a second buddy.

interesting choice of words "sell out". you mean like the 111th congress and the president of obama sold out a whole generation of unborn? i'll bet you miss pelosi.
paul ryan is just as smart and genuine as he seems on tv.
sincere and factually correct, something you DIMS will never know

"Selling out the next generation" or a myriad other clichés just like it have been used as a talking point as far back as I can remember. However, we are still the richest country on earth, and I don't see the poor put-upon next generation as having to "suffer" very much at all. They might have to use the same cell phone or computer for more than six months, or resort to buying their jeans at Target, but if that's "suffering," then they'll learn to deal with it. The last two generations have not been asked to sacrifice one iota, but that's not my fault. It's the me-first mindset reprogrammed without our even being aware of it.

 

[boedicca]

De Nile ain't just a river in Egypt.

Thinking that future generations will somehow figure out how to overcome the crushing debt, permanent deficits, high structural unemployment and the other lovely features of Obamanomics is naive, dishonest, and corrupt.

 

[MaggieMae]

Saw on Hannity tonight a report from the CBO....It turns out the amount of jobs created from the stimulus money spent breaks down like this.It cost $228,000.00 per job.If the government gave everyone a check for $100,000.00 each they would have saved a fortune.

Are we starting to get at least a little tired of hearing how this guy is the greatest President we ever had.

Defense of the Stimulus Bill remains that there were tangible benefits as well, in addition to the talking point formulation of it costing $228,000 per job. Nobody ever said it wasn't going to cost money. Hello? But it's rather foolish to now decide that the formula was as simple as number of new jobs divided by $700 billion.

And then of course there's still the bigger unanswered question: What would the economy have looked like if even MORE people had become unemployed at the time, each one of them also needing the support of government social umbrellas? That costs money too. Would it be better to spend it up front and invest in jumpstarting an already failing economy? Or better to risk tens of thousands more people on unemployment and welfare?

 

[MaggieMae]

De Nile ain't just a river in Egypt.

Thinking that future generations will somehow figure out how to overcome the crushing debt, permanent deficits, high structural unemployment and the other lovely features of Obamanomics is naive, dishonest, and corrupt.

You mean they're not smart enough?

I do think future generations will adjust to permanent fixes to the three big budget busters. Social Security and Medicare will be treated similar to Medicaid, with means testing, only moving up the income eligibility ladder, instead of down in order to qualify. There's no reason, morally, why some billionnaire who retires at 65 should also collect Social Security and especially become eligible for free health care. The whole purpose of Social Security at the outset was to assist people who would otherwise have no money when they retired. If that proposal reads too much like discrimination against the rich (Heaven Forbid), then the alternative would be to uncap the FICA limit allowing them to thereafter pay zero in SS taxes but still remain eligible to collect benefits. That's absurd.

Defense budgets will continue to be cut because the younger generations aren't that interested in the billions spent on foreign wars and military aid to foreign countries.

I also see the next generation as being much more savvy about the need for alternative energy and not being all bogged down in stupid ideological reasons for not moving forward. They know that ENERGY is the industry that will drive the country forward by providing jobs right here in this country and have a lesser chance of seeing those jobs get shipped overseas.

As a related item but generalized, I also believe that younger people who will become the next leaders also recognize that capitalism can't survive the gap between the rich and the poor. Whatever they do will hopefully be a balance between Obamanomics and Reaganomics.

 

[boedicca]

It has nothing to do with their intelligence. If we ruin the economy, then we are crippling their opportunities.

That to me is highly immoral. If you are happy with it, then it says a lot about you.

 

[MaggieMae]

It has nothing to do with their intelligence. If we ruin the economy, then we are crippling their opportunities.

That to me is highly immoral. If you are happy with it, then it says a lot about you.

We've been in down economies before, and in debt, and managed to overcome the obstacles.

I happen to still believe in the strengths and moral fortitude of the American people. Apparently you don't, which says volumes about you dear.

 

[boedicca]

Yes, that's what the Big Government types keep saying.

We've NEVER borrowed this much money for expanding government in a time of relative peace. The spending is not due to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it's simply to expand government at the expense of the private sector and taxpayers.

Peggy Noonan had a good column this week that sums up the denial quite well:

I think some of the answer has to do with what, for lack of a better word, I’ll call crisis-ism. This is a condition in which you don’t know you’re in crisis because you’re always in crisis, you’ve always been in crisis, and you’ve always gotten through, so what the heck. Crisis-ism is the inability to apprehend that this time it’s different, that this time the crisis is an actual crisis.

There are senators and congressmen who’ve been on the hill for 10 and 25 years, and from the day they walked in, all they heard about was the budget crisis. “This spending will kill us.” But it never did. So maybe it wasn’t so bad, and, ergo, isn’t so bad. They are inured to warning. You can tell them 10 different ways that we’re in crisis and they’ll think, “Some think-tank guy told me that 20 years ago, and we’re still here.”

Another reason for budget denialism is that everyone now in Congress lived through the greatest expansion of wealth in the history of man on earth. It happened here, in America, in the past 30 years. And we were rich even before that. But when you grow up in a time of constant expansion, when you grow up immersed in the assumption that we are rich and will always be rich, that we’re powerful and will always be powerful, you start to think that America can take any amount of damage and still continue. This is called optimism, but it is not optimism, it is Rich Boy Syndrome. A boy is lucky enough to be born to rich parents who are themselves the product of generations of wealth going back as far as the eye can see. But he never got into the habit of making money, never learned to respect it, and never felt protective of the system that allowed it to exist. So the money went away. Rich Boy Syndrome is thinking wealth will just continue no matter what you do. A lot of members of Congress have Rich Boy Syndrome. They think they can do anything and America will always be rich.

A final reason is simply human. It is really convenient and pleasant not to see a crisis, because if you don’t see it, you don’t have to do anything about it. You don’t have to be brave, you don’t have to put yourself on the line, you don’t have to lead. You can tell yourself you don’t have to be brave and lead because really, at the end of the day, despite all the screaming, there is no crisis....

Peggy Noonan: Home

 

[MaggieMae]

Yes, that's what the Big Government types keep saying.

We've NEVER borrowed this much money for expanding government in a time of relative peace. The spending is not due to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it's simply to expand government at the expense of the private sector and taxpayers.

Peggy Noonan had a good column this week that sums up the denial quite well:

I think some of the answer has to do with what, for lack of a better word, I’ll call crisis-ism. This is a condition in which you don’t know you’re in crisis because you’re always in crisis, you’ve always been in crisis, and you’ve always gotten through, so what the heck. Crisis-ism is the inability to apprehend that this time it’s different, that this time the crisis is an actual crisis.

There are senators and congressmen who’ve been on the hill for 10 and 25 years, and from the day they walked in, all they heard about was the budget crisis. “This spending will kill us.” But it never did. So maybe it wasn’t so bad, and, ergo, isn’t so bad. They are inured to warning. You can tell them 10 different ways that we’re in crisis and they’ll think, “Some think-tank guy told me that 20 years ago, and we’re still here.”

Another reason for budget denialism is that everyone now in Congress lived through the greatest expansion of wealth in the history of man on earth. It happened here, in America, in the past 30 years. And we were rich even before that. But when you grow up in a time of constant expansion, when you grow up immersed in the assumption that we are rich and will always be rich, that we’re powerful and will always be powerful, you start to think that America can take any amount of damage and still continue. This is called optimism, but it is not optimism, it is Rich Boy Syndrome. A boy is lucky enough to be born to rich parents who are themselves the product of generations of wealth going back as far as the eye can see. But he never got into the habit of making money, never learned to respect it, and never felt protective of the system that allowed it to exist. So the money went away. Rich Boy Syndrome is thinking wealth will just continue no matter what you do. A lot of members of Congress have Rich Boy Syndrome. They think they can do anything and America will always be rich.

A final reason is simply human. It is really convenient and pleasant not to see a crisis, because if you don’t see it, you don’t have to do anything about it. You don’t have to be brave, you don’t have to put yourself on the line, you don’t have to lead. You can tell yourself you don’t have to be brave and lead because really, at the end of the day, despite all the screaming, there is no crisis....

Peggy Noonan: Home

So since you seem to like Peggy Noonan (who by some is called one of those evil rinos), her point there is that it isn't ALL the fault of Democrats, which is what you carp on nonstop.

 

[boedicca]

I never ever said it was all the fault of Democrats. This fiscal nightmare has been brewing for decades with bipartisan support.

 

[MaggieMae]

I never ever said it was all the fault of Democrats. This fiscal nightmare has been brewing for decades with bipartisan support.

Yeah, right. What was that you said about denial not being just a river in Egypt? Blaming dems/libs/Obama is your constant mantra. And your signature!!

 

[boedicca]

I never ever said it was all the fault of Democrats. This fiscal nightmare has been brewing for decades with bipartisan support.

Yeah, right. What was that you said about denial not being just a river in Egypt? Blaming dems/libs/Obama is your constant mantra. And your signature!!

Your reasoning faculties are serverely limited, aren't they hun?

None of the things you mentioned mean I blame Democrats for EVERYTHING.

Please, read this book:

[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Logic-Dummies-Mark-Zegarelli/dp/0471799416/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1298743956&sr=8-1]Amazon.com: Logic For Dummies (9780471799412): Mark Zegarelli: Books[/ame]

 

[MaggieMae]

I never ever said it was all the fault of Democrats. This fiscal nightmare has been brewing for decades with bipartisan support.

Yeah, right. What was that you said about denial not being just a river in Egypt? Blaming dems/libs/Obama is your constant mantra. And your signature!!

Your reasoning faculties are serverely limited, aren't they hun?

None of the things you mentioned mean I blame Democrats for EVERYTHING.

Please, read this book:

[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Logic-Dummies-Mark-Zegarelli/dp/0471799416/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1298743956&sr=8-1]Amazon.com: Logic For Dummies (9780471799412): Mark Zegarelli: Books[/ame]

I should have saved some of your more classic postings proving I'm right. But I don't intend to get into a pissing match with you. Seems like I'm the only one left who doesn't flat-out ignore your over the top claims. I'm starting now.

 

[boedicca]

Typical response from a dishonest coward.

You are the one making unfounded accusations. You can't provide any proof.

'Nuff said.

 

[MaggieMae]

Almost forgot. I've got something for your reading pleasure too, Bo.

THINGS REPUBLICANS HATE | THE LIST

 

[georgephillip]

Getting Ahead of This Curve:

Over the next few months, say between now and November 2012, where does the greatest financial threat to Americans come from?

Simon Johnson (again):

"The financial system poses a major risk to our fiscal outlook over the next few years.

"Unless you think that the Dodd-Frank reform bill really ended 'too big to fail' and the associated excessive risk-taking culture, you should worry a great deal about the boom-bust-bailout-fiscal damage scenario that the Bank of England now refers to routinely as the 'doom loop'.

"Of the national level politicians now pushing for spending cuts, almost none showed up to fight to contain the fiscal risks posed by our largest banks.

"The Brown-Kaufman amendment to Dodd-Frank – which would have placed a limit on the size and debt (relative to equity) was supported by 33 Senators, only a handful of whom were Republican.

"But, then again, the Obama administration also fought hard against Brown-Kaufman. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner argues that the TARP bank bailouts will end up costing the tax payer very little.

"He is forgetting the broader fiscal damage done by the collapse of the real economy and the loss of 8 million jobs."

 

[boedicca]

Almost forgot. I've got something for your reading pleasure too, Bo.

THINGS REPUBLICANS HATE | THE LIST

Thank you for sharing, but as I am not a Republican, I see no reason to click on your link.

 

[Agit8r]

of course we have a problem. Dems want to spend more. Reps want to tax the wealthy less. So they compromise and do both. And how is this financed? With that old flat tax called inflation!