Thinking about the 'super committee'

[eflatminor]

History shows that when tax rate increases are enacted now in return for the promise of future spending cuts, we get the taxes but never the spending cuts. That's not surprising. No Congress can legally hold future Congresses to a promise of spending cuts.

How about we try the reverse? Spending cuts NOW with a promise to raise tax rates after said cuts take are enacted?

 

[PoliticalChic]

History shows that when tax rate increases are enacted now in return for the promise of future spending cuts, we get the taxes but never the spending cuts. That's not surprising. No Congress can legally hold future Congresses to a promise of spending cuts.

How about we try the reverse? Spending cuts NOW with a promise to raise tax rates after said cuts take are enacted?

You are clearly a right-wing conservative nutjub!!!




Welcome to the club.

 

[Chris]

Without the super committee, the spending cuts start automatically in January of 2013.

When the Bush tax cuts expire in December of 2012, Obama won't allow them to be renewed.

Spending cuts + a return to the old tax rates = deficit reduction.

Congress has been taken out of the equation. No treasonous Tea Party/Republicans to mess things up.

An absolutely brilliant move by Obama.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Without the super committee, the spending cuts start automatically in January of 2013.

When the Bush tax cuts expire in December of 2012, Obama won't allow them to be renewed.

Spending cuts + a return to the old tax rates = deficit reduction.

Congress has been taken out of the equation. No treasonous Tea Party/Republicans to mess things up.

An absolutely brilliant move by Obama.

This may be your Thelma and Louise moment.

 

[Chris]

Without the super committee, the spending cuts start automatically in January of 2013.

When the Bush tax cuts expire in December of 2012, Obama won't allow them to be renewed.

Spending cuts + a return to the old tax rates = deficit reduction.

Congress has been taken out of the equation. No treasonous Tea Party/Republicans to mess things up.

An absolutely brilliant move by Obama.

This may be your Thelma and Louise moment.

Never saw that movie.

 

[eflatminor]

Without the super committee, the spending cuts start automatically in January of 2013.

When the Bush tax cuts expire in December of 2012, Obama won't allow them to be renewed.

Spending cuts + a return to the old tax rates = deficit reduction.

Congress has been taken out of the equation. No treasonous Tea Party/Republicans to mess things up.

An absolutely brilliant move by Obama.

Deficit reduction, maybe...debt increase for SURE. They're not cutting shit. They're slowing slightly the rate of increased spending. We're fucked. Brilliant!

But hey, increasing tax rates on everyone is a great idea during an economic downturn. That will surely raise tax revenues as everyone thinks "I have less to spend...let's go shopping". Again, brilliant!

 

[Chris]

Without the super committee, the spending cuts start automatically in January of 2013.

When the Bush tax cuts expire in December of 2012, Obama won't allow them to be renewed.

Spending cuts + a return to the old tax rates = deficit reduction.

Congress has been taken out of the equation. No treasonous Tea Party/Republicans to mess things up.

An absolutely brilliant move by Obama.

Deficit reduction, maybe...debt increase for SURE. They're not cutting shit. They're slowing slightly the rate of increased spending. We're fucked. Brilliant!

But hey, increasing tax rates on everyone is a great idea during an economic downturn. That will surely raise tax revenues as everyone thinks "I have less to spend...let's go shopping". Again, brilliant!

Actually it is.

Bill Clinton did it and balanced the budget.

Then Bush cut taxes for the rich and started two useless wars and a trillion dollar unfunded drug program and blew it all up.

Time to return to sanity.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Without the super committee, the spending cuts start automatically in January of 2013.

When the Bush tax cuts expire in December of 2012, Obama won't allow them to be renewed.

Spending cuts + a return to the old tax rates = deficit reduction.

Congress has been taken out of the equation. No treasonous Tea Party/Republicans to mess things up.

An absolutely brilliant move by Obama.

This may be your Thelma and Louise moment.

Never saw that movie.

I read your Obama post....this is you at 1:10

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4z88U915uq8]Thelma & Louise:Ending Scene - YouTube[/ame]

 

[PoliticalChic]

Without the super committee, the spending cuts start automatically in January of 2013.

When the Bush tax cuts expire in December of 2012, Obama won't allow them to be renewed.

Spending cuts + a return to the old tax rates = deficit reduction.

Congress has been taken out of the equation. No treasonous Tea Party/Republicans to mess things up.

An absolutely brilliant move by Obama.

Deficit reduction, maybe...debt increase for SURE. They're not cutting shit. They're slowing slightly the rate of increased spending. We're fucked. Brilliant!

But hey, increasing tax rates on everyone is a great idea during an economic downturn. That will surely raise tax revenues as everyone thinks "I have less to spend...let's go shopping". Again, brilliant!

Actually it is.

Bill Clinton did it and balanced the budget.

Then Bush cut taxes for the rich and started two useless wars and a trillion dollar unfunded drug program and blew it all up.

Time to return to sanity.

Folks with your views are the uninformed.

Bill Clinton never balanced the budget.

Over Clinton's term the national debt increased by forty-one percent.

That's 41%.

And that, even with the peace dividend: Reagan had removed the threat from the USSR.


You have been completely manipulated.

 

[Big Black Dog]

Everybody in Congress should be immediately fired and replaced with people who are interested in doing something constructive for America. Tired of all the Congressional horse shit from BOTH parties.

 

[Contumacious]

Thinking about the 'super committee'

Well don't think about them anymore.

The committee s composed of super government supremacists and moderate government supremacists.

So , don't expect any results.

.

 

[Chris]

Deficit reduction, maybe...debt increase for SURE. They're not cutting shit. They're slowing slightly the rate of increased spending. We're fucked. Brilliant!

But hey, increasing tax rates on everyone is a great idea during an economic downturn. That will surely raise tax revenues as everyone thinks "I have less to spend...let's go shopping". Again, brilliant!

Actually it is.

Bill Clinton did it and balanced the budget.

Then Bush cut taxes for the rich and started two useless wars and a trillion dollar unfunded drug program and blew it all up.

Time to return to sanity.

Folks with your views are the uninformed.

Bill Clinton never balanced the budget.

Over Clinton's term the national debt increased by forty-one percent.

That's 41%.

And that, even with the peace dividend: Reagan had removed the threat from the USSR.


You have been completely manipulated.

Liar, liar, pants of fire....

The Clinton years showed the effects of a large tax increase that Clinton pushed through in his first year, and that Republicans incorrectly claim is the "largest tax increase in history." It fell almost exclusively on upper-income taxpayers. Clinton’s fiscal 1994 budget also contained some spending restraints. An equally if not more powerful influence was the booming economy and huge gains in the stock markets, the so-called dot-com bubble, which brought in hundreds of millions in unanticipated tax revenue from taxes on capital gains and rising salaries.

Clinton’s large budget surpluses also owe much to the Social Security tax on payrolls. Social Security taxes now bring in more than the cost of current benefits, and the "Social Security surplus" makes the total deficit or surplus figures look better than they would if Social Security wasn’t counted. But even if we remove Social Security from the equation, there was a surplus of $1.9 billion in fiscal 1999 and $86.4 billion in fiscal 2000. So any way you count it, the federal budget was balanced and the deficit was erased, if only for a while.

FactCheck.org : The Budget and Deficit Under Clinton

 

[Chris]

The failure of the supercommittee (which didn't even exist long enough for people to settle on a canonical capitalisation scheme) is the kind of bad news where the sound of wringing of hands drowns out the information about what the failure actually means, and the reasons for it.

The easy answer – that the impasse stems from the inability of the parties to compromise – isn't wrong, but it does tend to cover up in generalities the specific actions (and actors). Over at Slate, Dave Weigel traces the roots of the committee's failure to decisions made over ten years ago. In 2001, Republicans gleefully passed the Bush tax cuts without listening to the (admittedly oblique) warning of Alan Greenspan:

"What if, for example, the forces driving the surge in tax revenues in recent years begin to dissipate or reverse in ways that we do not now foresee?"

What if, indeed.

The Democrats are not without fault, though honestly, I'm having trouble coming up with something specific beyond how they ceded so much ground to Republicans when Republican ideas were popular. The good news for them (and us!), now, is that Republican ideas aren't popular. Over the weekend, supercommittee member Senator Jon Kyl even tried to go all "Occupy" on David Gregory, boasting that Republicans had presented a plan wherein "the wealthiest Americans would pay more taxes than they do now."

You know a party is in trouble when it's quoting the signs being waved outside their supporters' meetings.

After the supercommittee, Congress needs rehab | Ana Marie Cox | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

 

[eflatminor]

Without the super committee, the spending cuts start automatically in January of 2013.

When the Bush tax cuts expire in December of 2012, Obama won't allow them to be renewed.

Spending cuts + a return to the old tax rates = deficit reduction.

Congress has been taken out of the equation. No treasonous Tea Party/Republicans to mess things up.

An absolutely brilliant move by Obama.

Deficit reduction, maybe...debt increase for SURE. They're not cutting shit. They're slowing slightly the rate of increased spending. We're fucked. Brilliant!

But hey, increasing tax rates on everyone is a great idea during an economic downturn. That will surely raise tax revenues as everyone thinks "I have less to spend...let's go shopping". Again, brilliant!

Actually it is.

Bill Clinton did it and balanced the budget.

Then Bush cut taxes for the rich and started two useless wars and a trillion dollar unfunded drug program and blew it all up.

Time to return to sanity.

Bush cut taxes for EVERYONE, not just richer folks.

 

[DaGoose]

Deficit reduction, maybe...debt increase for SURE. They're not cutting shit. They're slowing slightly the rate of increased spending. We're fucked. Brilliant!

But hey, increasing tax rates on everyone is a great idea during an economic downturn. That will surely raise tax revenues as everyone thinks "I have less to spend...let's go shopping". Again, brilliant!

Actually it is.

Bill Clinton did it and balanced the budget.

Then Bush cut taxes for the rich and started two useless wars and a trillion dollar unfunded drug program and blew it all up.

Time to return to sanity.

Folks with your views are the uninformed.

Bill Clinton never balanced the budget.

Over Clinton's term the national debt increased by forty-one percent.

That's 41%.

And that, even with the peace dividend: Reagan had removed the threat from the USSR.


You have been completely manipulated.

Hmmmm......................

Bill Clinton never balanced the budget.

Yes, the budget was BALANCED during Clinton's presidency. Just ask Newt who confirmed it more than once during the GOP debates.

Reagan had removed the threat from the USSR.

The Soviet Union was on the decline even before Reagan became POTUS. So that statement is debatable at best.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Actually it is.

Bill Clinton did it and balanced the budget.

Then Bush cut taxes for the rich and started two useless wars and a trillion dollar unfunded drug program and blew it all up.

Time to return to sanity.

Folks with your views are the uninformed.

Bill Clinton never balanced the budget.

Over Clinton's term the national debt increased by forty-one percent.

That's 41%.

And that, even with the peace dividend: Reagan had removed the threat from the USSR.


You have been completely manipulated.

Liar, liar, pants of fire....

The Clinton years showed the effects of a large tax increase that Clinton pushed through in his first year, and that Republicans incorrectly claim is the "largest tax increase in history." It fell almost exclusively on upper-income taxpayers. Clinton’s fiscal 1994 budget also contained some spending restraints. An equally if not more powerful influence was the booming economy and huge gains in the stock markets, the so-called dot-com bubble, which brought in hundreds of millions in unanticipated tax revenue from taxes on capital gains and rising salaries.

Clinton’s large budget surpluses also owe much to the Social Security tax on payrolls. Social Security taxes now bring in more than the cost of current benefits, and the "Social Security surplus" makes the total deficit or surplus figures look better than they would if Social Security wasn’t counted. But even if we remove Social Security from the equation, there was a surplus of $1.9 billion in fiscal 1999 and $86.4 billion in fiscal 2000. So any way you count it, the federal budget was balanced and the deficit was erased, if only for a while.

FactCheck.org : The Budget and Deficit Under Clinton

1. I never lie.

2. Would you like to see the actual national debt figures?
1993 4,351,044
1994 4,643,307
1995 4,920,586
1996 5,181,465
1997 5,369,206
1998 5,478,189
1999 5,605,523
2000 5,628,700

Historical Tables | The White House (table 7.1)

The table 7.1 will also show that he inherited a $4 trillion debt.

That means the debt increased 41% under Clinton.

Logic would indicate that, since the debt increased every year under Clinton,
there could not possibly be any "large budget surpluses."

Surely you can do that kind of math. Can't you?

And thanks to President Reagan, no wars or military build up to blame said debt on!
BTW, the social security excesses that he used to hide spending was also due
to President Reagan.

3. Would you like to apologize now, or make an appointment to do so in Macy's window?

 

[PoliticalChic]

The failure of the supercommittee (which didn't even exist long enough for people to settle on a canonical capitalisation scheme) is the kind of bad news where the sound of wringing of hands drowns out the information about what the failure actually means, and the reasons for it.

The easy answer – that the impasse stems from the inability of the parties to compromise – isn't wrong, but it does tend to cover up in generalities the specific actions (and actors). Over at Slate, Dave Weigel traces the roots of the committee's failure to decisions made over ten years ago. In 2001, Republicans gleefully passed the Bush tax cuts without listening to the (admittedly oblique) warning of Alan Greenspan:

"What if, for example, the forces driving the surge in tax revenues in recent years begin to dissipate or reverse in ways that we do not now foresee?"

What if, indeed.

The Democrats are not without fault, though honestly, I'm having trouble coming up with something specific beyond how they ceded so much ground to Republicans when Republican ideas were popular. The good news for them (and us!), now, is that Republican ideas aren't popular. Over the weekend, supercommittee member Senator Jon Kyl even tried to go all "Occupy" on David Gregory, boasting that Republicans had presented a plan wherein "the wealthiest Americans would pay more taxes than they do now."

You know a party is in trouble when it's quoting the signs being waved outside their supporters' meetings.

After the supercommittee, Congress needs rehab | Ana Marie Cox | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

"...that the impasse stems from the inability of the parties to compromise..."

Wrong.....again.


1. " On Friday, Republicans offered a “go small” plan that would reduce the deficit by $640 billion — including a pay freeze and bigger pension contributions for federal workers, cuts in farm subsidies and other spending reductions. According to one GOP aide, this is “the lowest of the low-hanging fruit, stuff that everyone agrees on.”

a. Republicans even gave in to one of the Democrats’ long-held demands, eliminating the special tax break for corporate jets, which would raise $3 billion in new taxes over 10 years.

2. The Democrats rejected the GOP offer.

a. Patty Murray, Democratic co-chairman of the supercommittee, declared “it does not meet, even close to coming to meet, the issues that we set out from the beginning: fair and balanced.” Translation: Democrats won’t sign on to any spending cuts, no matter how modest, if Republicans do not agree to massive tax increases.

If the supercommittee fails, Republicans will rightly point out that they put two serious proposals on the table only to have Democrats reject both offers without ever putting forward a unified counterproposal.

3. [Dems] dismissed a proposal by Sen. Pat Toomey that included some $300 billion in tax increases. In making this offer, Toomey and his fellow Republicans crossed a line in the sand their party had drawn — risking a major backlash from the GOP rank-and-file and the conservative grassroots. But instead of accepting this concession in good faith and putting forward a serious counteroffer, Democrats immediately attacked it and demanded $1 trillion in tax increases —

4. ...failure. ...may be precisely what the Democrats want. With President Obama’s approval ratings in the tank, and their party poised to lose control of the Senate in 2012, Democrats know their only hope to stave off electoral disaster is to run a negative campaign that paints Republicans as intransigent extremists.

5. It is the Democrats who have rejected every offer and every compromise Republicans put forward."
Our super-pathetic debt supercommittee - The Washington Post


BTW...did you note how much classier it is not to refer to one's opponent as a liar? Try to learn to do that.

 

[uscitizen]

How many here will vote to re-elect any of those on the Super Committee?

Or did they pick none up for re-election this time?
Knowing that the publics memory will not withstand more than 2 years of re-programming.

 

[zzzz]

...

And that, even with the peace dividend: Reagan had removed the threat from the USSR.

...

Peace dividend, what a misnomer. We got rid of enemy who was impotent and now we've been losing men and women in combat for over a decade while taking on an insurmountable debt for what?

The only way we can get out of this slide to depression is to get people working and spending money. We also need to trim the Federal monster some and increase income. Income will increase once jobs start to multiply but if the spending is not brought under control ... there is a limit and we are fast approaching it. But it has to be combination not just cut expenditures or raise taxes. And this hole was not dug in a day so we cannot expect it to be over quickly. The road to recovery, if we can get a our act together, will be a long slow one but the alternative is

 

[PoliticalChic]

...

And that, even with the peace dividend: Reagan had removed the threat from the USSR.

...

Peace dividend, what a misnomer. We got rid of enemy who was impotent and now we've been losing men and women in combat for over a decade while taking on an insurmountable debt for what?

The only way we can get out of this slide to depression is to get people working and spending money. We also need to trim the Federal monster some and increase income. Income will increase once jobs start to multiply but if the spending is not brought under control ... there is a limit and we are fast approaching it. But it has to be combination not just cut expenditures or raise taxes. And this hole was not dug in a day so we cannot expect it to be over quickly. The road to recovery, if we can get a our act together, will be a long slow one but the alternative is

"We got rid of enemy who was impotent..."

Now, z...this is one of the silliest things you've ever posted...



"The 1980s were a dangerous time for the world. The Soviet Union stood at the peak of its military and political power, its nuclear forces ranged from pole to pole. The globe stood at the brink of World War III, with a final countdown of 25 minutes from launch to total thermonuclear combat.
The Soviet Union led the world with an extraordinary increase in nuclear and conventional arms. The Soviet Union had 4.9 million active soldiers, 42,000 tanks, 2,200 warships, 15,000 combat planes, 1,500 long-range nuclear-tipped missiles, 1,000 short-range nuclear missiles and 900 sub-based nuclear missiles.
Soviet bombers equipped with nuclear weapons frequently flew off the U.S. coast. Soviet submarines armed with nuclear-tipped missiles prowled off both U.S. coastlines, within 100 miles of the most populated coastal American cities.
In Europe, the Soviets had 10 tank divisions in East Germany alone, backed by another 20 tank divisions poised across the border in Poland and Russia. Thousands of armored vehicles were ready to pour across the Fulda Gap and flow into West Germany.
During one Soviet armored exercise in East Germany, an Army general once commented to me that he could walk from the East German border to Poland on Soviet tanks, never touching the earth beneath them.
All evidence pointed to the Soviet intent to achieve total world domination in every dimension of military power. "

The Legacy of Ronald Reagan – Peace
Charles R. Smith
Thursday, June 10, 2004