editec, a reasonable person. I have asked rethugs this questions, but none ever answer.
What do you think the debt is doing to harm the American economy AT THIS POINT IN TIME?
Interest rates are dirt cheap (I borrowed mortgage money at 2.75% unbelievable) Wall Street and corporate profits are doing fine.
Food prices are going up, but that is more an indication of what last years drought. Energy is up and down, depending on what war is brewing in the ME.
Companies are sitting on piles of cash.
What is the debt doing to harm the USA Right NOW that is worse than the rising UE that will come about if the government cuts spending a great deal.
If the UE rate climbs about 9% again. what good will that do the government? UE insurance will go up, revenue's will go down. Recession will come back full swing. Where is the up side?
What will be all the good things that will happen if the government cuts spending, lets say 10% across the board?
Good points zeke. We should be debating solutions, but all Republicans want to do is wrinkle their collective noses and fight against anything-----anything Obama is for, didn't Groucho do a skit about being "against it"?
Hot air is famous for false attributions, taking quotes out of context, removing and/or moving key words. In this article, Hot air is taking half sentences of Nancy Pelosi's then adding their own words without separating Pelosi's words with quotation marks. Even the word "almost" was removed in Hot air's headline, not to mention the contextual second half of her sentence (i.e. – we have a budget deficit problem that we have to address.). IOW's, if Hot air is going to use Pelosi's words for their headline, the headline should have read: "So, it is almost a false argument to say we have spending problem – we have a budget deficit problem that we have to address. Right now we have low interest on the national debt and it’s a good time for us to act to lower that deficit. We think that the deficit and the national debt are at immoral levels, they must be reduced, we’re sick and tired of paying interest on the national debt and that’s 15 percent – that’s a large percentage of the budget, the interest on the national debt, it’s lower now because of the lower interest rates."
It's not surprising that Republican/tea party types get duped by this kind of stuff, it's what they've emotionally bought into via the rightwing propaganda machine.
Below is Hot air's full article, then below that is the transcript of Chris Wallace's interview with Nancy Pelosi -- see what I'm saying, lots-o-hot air changes huh?
Sorry about the length of this post but-----but Hot air moved-changed-made up a lots-o-stuff.
Pelosi: It’s really a false argument to say we have a spending problem « Hot Air
Well, I think that sequestration is a bad idea all around. Â… The fact is, weÂ’ve had plenty of spending cuts. Â… What we need is growth. We need growth with jobs. Â… So, again, we have to make a judgment about how do we get growth with jobs, thatÂ’s where the real revenue comes from. You donÂ’t get it byÂ… cutting into education, cutting back on investments in science and National Institute of Health, food safety, you name it. Â… So, it isnÂ’t as much of a spending problem as it is a priorities, and thatÂ’s what a budget is, setting priorities. Â… Nothing brings more money to the Treasury of the United States than investments in education of the American people. Â… So if you recognize that, which cuts really help us and which cuts hurt our future. And cuts in education, scientific research and the rest are harmful. And they are what are affected by the sequestration. So, it is almost a false argument to say that we have a spending problem. We have a budget deficit problem.
Just let that sink in for a moment. We’ve had “plenty of spending cuts,” and we don’t have a spending problem — “we have a budget deficit problem.” …Yeah, all of those ‘plentiful’ spending cuts are probably the reason we’re on track to add
$7 trillion more to our debt in just ten years.
The nonsensical contortions she just made to protect the White House’s sudden panic about the sequester are really quite impressive. On the one hand, I’m almost pleased that she acknowledges that the most efficient and productive way to increase revenue is to increase economic growth — but that is completely canceled out by her belief that
government spending is what really drives growth. “Investments” in education are the single biggest thing bringing in the most money to the Treasury? No. Blaming the Bush administration for spending increases? Yawn. One of Obama’s own major economic advisors pointed out that tax hikes hurt growth, but these recent tax hikes are awesome and their effectiveness is about “timing”? What the
what?
This all comes down to the DemocratsÂ’ refusal to substantively acknowledge and address the urgent need for major entitlement reform, the
absolute main driver of our debt, and instead keep slapping on more short-terms band-aids made of government “investments” and “revenue,” a.k.a. tax, increases. The
GOP is not impressed with that strategy:
Eric Cantor said today that pushing off the sequester by additional tax hikes was unacceptable.
“We can’t be raising taxes every three months in this town,” Cantor said on Meet the Press today. “The bottom line is we want tax reform, but we want to go plug those loopholes that the president talks about to bring down tax rates because we believe that’s pro-growth and we can get an economy growing again. Let people who earn the money keep more of it. The president is not talking about that. What he’s talking about is trying to raise more taxes for Washington to spend the money.”
Well, I think that sequestration is a bad idea all around. Â… The fact is, weÂ’ve had plenty of spending cuts. Â… What we need is growth. We need growth with jobs. Â… So, again, we have to make a judgment about how do we get growth with jobs, thatÂ’s where the real revenue comes from. You donÂ’t get it byÂ… cutting into education, cutting back on investments in science and National Institute of Health, food safety, you name it. Â… So, it isnÂ’t as much of a spending problem as it is a priorities, and thatÂ’s what a budget is, setting priorities. Â… Nothing brings more money to the Treasury of the United States than investments in education of the American people. Â… So if you recognize that, which cuts really help us and which cuts hurt our future. And cuts in education, scientific research and the rest are harmful. And they are what are affected by the sequestration. So, it is almost a false argument to say that we have a spending problem. We have a budget deficit problem.
Just let that sink in for a moment. We’ve had “plenty of spending cuts,” and we don’t have a spending problem — “we have a budget deficit problem.” …Yeah, all of those ‘plentiful’ spending cuts are probably the reason we’re on track to add
$7 trillion more to our debt in just ten years.
The nonsensical contortions she just made to protect the White House’s sudden panic about the sequester are really quite impressive. On the one hand, I’m almost pleased that she acknowledges that the most efficient and productive way to increase revenue is to increase economic growth — but that is completely canceled out by her belief that
government spending is what really drives growth. “Investments” in education are the single biggest thing bringing in the most money to the Treasury? No. Blaming the Bush administration for spending increases? Yawn. One of Obama’s own major economic advisors pointed out that tax hikes hurt growth, but these recent tax hikes are awesome and their effectiveness is about “timing”? What the
what?
This all comes down to the DemocratsÂ’ refusal to substantively acknowledge and address the urgent need for major entitlement reform, the
absolute main driver of our debt, and instead keep slapping on more short-terms band-aids made of government “investments” and “revenue,” a.k.a. tax, increases. The
GOP is not impressed with that strategy:
Eric Cantor said today that pushing off the sequester by additional tax hikes was unacceptable.
“We can’t be raising taxes every three months in this town,” Cantor said on Meet the Press today. “The bottom line is we want tax reform, but we want to go plug those loopholes that the president talks about to bring down tax rates because we believe that’s pro-growth and we can get an economy growing again. Let people who earn the money keep more of it. The president is not talking about that. What he’s talking about is trying to raise more taxes for Washington to spend the money.”
Transcript
Pelosi: We Must Avoid Sequester, Need Growth & Balance | Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi
On Sequestration:
Leader Pelosi. Well, I think that sequestration is a bad idea all around. It should be something that is out of the question. The fact is we’ve had plenty of spending cuts – $1.6 trillion dollars in the Budget Control Act – what we need is growth. We need growth with jobs and if you have spending cuts – the education of our children and other investments like the National Institutes of Health, where you are hindering growth, you’re not going to reduce the deficit.
So, what we do need is more revenue and more cuts – where I would like to see that is in a big, balanced, bold proposal, short of that we must do something to avoid the sequester.
On Speaker Boehner’s “Spending Problem:”
Leader Pelosi. Let’s just back up from – with all due respect to the Speaker, what he’s said is not the gospel truth. The fact is that a lot of the spending increases came during the Bush Administration – two unpaid for wars that we got ourselves engaged in, prescription drug plan that added enormous amounts to our spending, and the tax cuts for the high end that did not create jobs and create revenue coming in.
So, thatÂ’s how we got to a placeÂ…
Mr. Wallace. But the total debt has increased $5 trillion since this President came in.
Leader Pelosi. Well, part of that is from what we had to do avoid going over the cliff of a recession – depression. Yes, we had the Recovery Act which saved or created 3.5 million jobs – you know the record of job growth in the private sector has been consistent for many, record number of months.
So, again, we have to make a judgment about what to – how do we get growth with jobs? That’s where the real revenue comes from, you don’t get it by cutting down your seed corn, cutting in education, cutting back on investments in science and National Institutes of Health, food safety, you name it.
So, it isnÂ’t as much a spending problem as it is a priorities [problem] and thatÂ’s what a budget is: setting priorities.
On Jobs:
Mr. Wallace. But you talk about growth – even Christina Romer, the former Head of the Council of Economic Advisers for the President says: ‘you increase taxes, that also hurts growth.’
Leader Pelosi. Well, itÂ’s about timing, itÂ’s about timing, and itÂ’s about timing as to when you make cuts as well. WeÂ…
Mr. Wallace. But could you – the fiscal cliff you raised taxes $650 billion right away.
Leader Pelosi. Yeah, and that was a very good thing to do on people making over – the high end in our population. So, here’s the thing though: we are here to have a budget that has revenue coming in, that has investments made into the future, we also want to make decisions in those two areas where growth with jobs are created because the more jobs, the more revenue coming in. Nothing brings more revenue to the Treasury of the United States than investment in [the] education of the American people.
So, we have to recognize that. Which cuts really help us and which cuts hurt our future? And cuts in education, scientific research, and the rest are harmful and they are what are affected by the sequestration. So, it is almost a false argument to say we have spending problem – we have a budget deficit problem that we have to address. Right now we have low interest on the national debt and it’s a good time for us to act to lower that deficit. We think that the deficit and the national debt are at immoral levels, they must be reduced, we’re sick and tired of paying interest on the national debt and that’s 15 percent – that’s a large percentage of the budget, the interest on the national debt, it’s lower now because of the lower interest rates.
Mr. Wallace. But, again, all I would say is we got a $3.5 trillion budget and theyÂ’re talking about $85 billion in cuts. But let me, letÂ’s go to the taxes thoughÂ…
Leader Pelosi. Okay, but before you leave spending – we agreed to $1.6 trillion in spending and discretionary domestic spending…
On Medicare:
Mr. Wallace. But the sequestration is just spending cuts.
Leader Pelosi. Right. Secondly, we have gone to Medicare and had savings of over a trillion dollars in Medicare already – when I say we, I mean the Democrats. And what Republicans budgets are proposing is to make a voucher of Medicare, no longer make it a guarantee. There are other things in this discussion that I think the American people are made fully aware of – understand what it means in their daily lives.
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