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How the U.S. Sequester Will Hurt Science and Tech
Later today, the U.S. government will enter the sequestration process, a series of across-the-board budget cuts put into place automatically because U.S. politicians are bad at agreeing on things. "At that moment, somewhere in the bowels of the Treasury Department, officials will take offline the computers that process payments for school construction and clean energy bonds to reprogram them for reduced rates. Payments will be delayed while they are made manually for the next six weeks." The cuts will directly affect science- and tech-related spending throughout the country. Tom Levenson writes, '[s]equester cuts will strike bluntly across the scientific community. The illustrious can move a bit of money around, but even in large labs, a predictable result will be a reduction in the number of graduate student and post – doc slots available — and as those junior and early-stage researchers do a whole lot of the at-the-bench level research, such cuts will have an immediate effect on research productivity. The longer term risk is obvious too: fewer students and post-docs mean on an ongoing drop from baseline in the amount of work to be done year over year.' The former director of the National Institute of Health says it will set back medical science for a generation. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden has laid out how the cuts will affect the U.S. space program. He said, "The Congress wasn’t able to do what they were supposed to do, so we’re going to suffer." The sequester will also prevent billions of dollars from flowing into the tech industry. This comes at a time when there's a pressing need in the tech sector for professionals versed in the use of Linux, and salaries for those workers are on the rise.
Your payroll tax increased 2% on Jan 1, if you work. That is a 2% paycut to you, period.
The sequestor is effectively a 1% reduction in spending this year for the Federal government.
Translation: You need to do with less and not complain, if you force the government to reduce spending by a tiny amount doom will come for you.
Wait! You don't think.... No! Surely politicians wouldn't play games with government services for political gain? Say it isn't so!
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
the federal government will spend $14,000,000,000 more this year than last, even with these "cuts."
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Where is the quadrillion dollar platinum coin? We need it now!
New Economic Perspectives
A less than 3% cut in funding is going to set medical science back a generation? By that logic, if we were to increase funding by 3% (as we have more than done) we should have seen a generation's worth of progress. So where are my medical tricorders?
Methinks somebody is fearmongering. I'll be the first to say cutting research funding is a dumb idea, but is it too much to ask that the former head of the NIH assess the situation based on the facts and not Chicken Little "the sky is falling" theater?
Wrong, its the failure of leadership to get something done and the leadership is the President. If he cannot build a culture where people can agree to disagree but come out with a win-win then its his fault 100%.
Colin Macilwain. Science should be ready to jump off ‘the cliff’. Nature 491, 639 (29 November 2012) doi:10.1038/491639a
These aren't real scientists asking that government money stick around, but lobbyists for companies that feed upon science funding. Scientists love more government money of course, but many scientists understand that far must be cut, especially in military spending.
Sequestration merely provides an opportunity to re-evaluate what is important. Our question should be : Do we decide "important" by consulting lobbyists or by looking at the work that gets done.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
Not one person in the 3 branches of government made any mention of making sacrifices and them getting pay cuts?
It was "the government shutdown" a few years ago. And all sorts of people got on their soap box and blamed everyone else for it. Now it's called something else, the "sequester". And again let's point fingers and blame. However none of that has to do with the real problem - the US is spending more money than it takes in, spending more money than it can print, even, and has been doing this for YEARS. They scream at the federal banks to keep interest rates near zero to "stimulate the economy" meaning that everyone must bear the cost of the devaluation including those smart enough to put their money to work, and then they wonder why all the wealth is leaving the US dollar.
The US will be buried under its Keynesian nightmare. I just hope it doesn't take the whole world with it.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
You sir are a fucking retard. You can't build compromise with people whose sole purpose is to disagree with you no matter what you say.
Hate to say it, but it's the ignorant blaming House Republicans that take the majority of the blame for this one. Some of the ignorant see wearing blinders as a GOOD thing.
Hate to say it, but the House Republicans take the majority of the blame for this one. Some on the Right see crippling the government as a good thing.
Finally, the Republicans actually limited government spending! They should own this every chance they can get!
I don't think I can help you if you think this petty-cash reduction in spending is "crippling". I for one am tired of mortgaging my unborn children's futures.
The President has one vote, just like any of the rest of us. It's hardly his fault that roughly half of the powers that be gladly proclaim that sequestration is a good thing.
You DO know about the separation of powers, right? Are you proposing some sort of alternate reality where Congress and the Senate are puppets that only do the bidding of the President?
I'm sorry, but if a 2% cut to expenditure is crippling, then the system deserves to fail.
Know what a government with 2% less money looks like? Take a look at the budget from 2010. That's what it looks like.
I know, using the 2010 budget for 2013. Complete madness!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget#Total_outlays_in_recent_budget_submissions
If you are really brave, take a look at the budget from 2001 (Clinton). 1.9 trillion.
I don't see how you can consider a 2% budget reduction "crippling." And consider how the individuals in power are very happy to raise taxes by more than 2%, and don't think that would be harmful to families.
They should really call it what it is, "austerity". Then maybe the idea of it will be more obvious when compared to similar measures around the world. Really, this is the USA, we can do better.
You mean the House Republicans who passed not one but two bills as alternatives to replace sequestration while the Senate Democrats did nothing (except to complain that the Republicans hadn't agreed to raise taxes even more) and when the President finally actually proposed something it included mostly more tax increases and a lot of "cuts" that were undefined.
Of course, the other part of your post that I have to challenge is the idea that cutting the amount that government spending increases will somehow "cripple" the government. Not only are the cuts in this sequestration not significant, they are merely reductions in how much federal spending will increase not reductions in actual amounts spent.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
If there's one thing politicians are EXPERTS at, it's convincing the general public that money must keep flowing in for any and all of the projects they voted for, or else dire consequences will result.
To step back and put these cuts into perspective.... Federal govt. is STILL spending something like $13 TRILLION dollars a year in deficit spending with the full effects of the sequester in place!
The primary reason Obama is motivated to scare up people to put a stop to this and "work out a deal" is because this prevents his healthcare reform plans from taking effect. (And before we get into that whole debate on whether or not his healthcare changes would be a good or a bad thing for the USA? Let me just say that IMO, the REAL problem with them is they attempt to fix only one side of the issue, while ignoring the other side. It's great to try to ensure all Americans have healthcare options available to them. But nobody has really tried, yet, to do anything about the massive (and constantly rising) COSTS of healthcare, which SOMEBODY gets the bill for, whether it's an uninsured individual or the insurance company covering that individual by govt. mandate.
Time magazine (the online version) very recently published a great piece on all of this, breaking down line-by-line, all the costs on 6 or 7 people's hospital bills, and clearly illustrating how inflated and arbitrary those charges are. (By and large, the price Medicare/Medicaid actually compensates a hospital for a given procedure or good is pretty darn close to what a "fair" price would really be, where a small but reasonable profit is made - but no gouging takes place. But so far, Obama's healthcare reform doesn't really do anything to ensure ALL insurance companies are able to pay those bills using those same rate structures. So each of those $29 -rays becomes $300 charges, etc.)
But overall? As little effort has been made to spend our tax dollars more wisely? (Some recently approved study was going to give over $1 million to researchers for a project studying goldfish to see what they could learn about political choices people make based some some aspect of their habits!) I wouldn't mind seeing govt. grinding to a halt for a while .... even if it causes a little inconvenience and pain in the short-run.
Cut it all - Starting with congresscritter pensions and benefits (don't get distracted by their salaries, just a drop in the bucket compared to their real cost).
The problem with this whole sequester (aside from not going nearly far enough) comes from the whitehouse thinking themselves clever for having made an uncallable bluff - From assuming that the Republicans would never let the military suffer any real cuts. Well, whaddya know, in a surprising show of sanity, the larger principle of getting government spending under control trumped even their favorite special interest.
Yeah, we (by which I mean fiscal conservatives, not to imply I would ever voluntarily associate myself with the GOP) would all rather see the real problems addressed - End social security, end security theater, and cut HHS and the DOD in half (at least). But this current farce? Hey, better than nothing, but at least it counts as a start.
Cut. It. All!
Given the massive amount they're spending over budget this IS a good thing. Blame congress as a whole for where the cuts are being made, but the cuts are good. This is no different than a city saying "if we don't increase taxes, we'll have to reduce police and fire presence." They neglect to mention they've paid themselves and pet projects FIRST when threatening to defund and cut vital services.
We have a funding crisis every 3 to 6 months now like clockwork. If the the federal government had a budget this wouldn't happen. The blame lies with the senate.
I don't trust the Republicans in government further than I can comfortably spit a rat, but take off your partisan blinders for a moment and look around. The world is both weirder and more wonderful than your blinkered view will allow in.
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
Hate to say it, but the House Republicans take the majority of the blame for this one.
Wait - So the whitehouse bluffed and the Republicans called them on it, and you blame the Republicans?
IANAR, but just no. Both sides may take the blame for failing to come up with real cuts, but the full burden of responsibility for the sequester rests solidly on Barry's broad shoulders.
House Republicans passed two bills to address this last year and the Senate didn't even bother to look at them.
Obama has threatened to veto a couple or proposed solutions.
So, who get's' the majority of the blame?
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Really, how long are we going to swallow absolute FUD without question?
The sequester is $1.2 trillion....OVER TEN YEARS. So $120 bill a year (I've seen it reported as $85 bill for this year).
The idea - as promulgated by the spenders in Congress and White House - is that ANY cut in spending by the US gov't will radically and catastrophically affect (whatever service is important to the listener). This is a bald-faced lie.
This morning, a senior administration official claimed that sequestration would CANCEL all military service person training for the rest of the year (outside of actually-deployed servicepeople). Seriously? A 5% cut in budget cancels 75% of a training schedule?
One example: Obama/Tiger Golf Trip cost $989,207 to the Fed and $78,205 to local police...the average american household paid $1372 in income tax... So ~728 American households had to pay taxes for an entire year to fund the golf trip...
And yet we're crying that we can't cut anything from the US budget? Really?
My understanding - I'm not an economist - is that if we simply STOPPED programmed-increases in spending for 6 years, the US budget would be balanced. That doesn't seem that painful, given that most American businesses (except Wall Street, I suppose) have suffered far worse over the past 5 years already.
On NPR this morning, they discussed the previous sequestration of 2% that happened in 1991. The bureaucrat they talked to discussed "how hard it was to implement this 2% cut in everything", using as an example a call he got from a Parks person, asking how they implement a 2% cut in service that scrapes bird shit off of channel buoys. His response was to "...only scrape 98% of the crap off".
This, my friends, is what passes for both intelligent thought in government bureaucrats...either he (most likely) thought that was an ironic, humorous reply to what he felt was an unjust budget cutting (which it really wasn't) or he thought that was ACTUALLY a way to reduce his 'poop scraping' service costs by 2%.
As much as they try to make it so, it's pretty simple: expenditure cannot exceed income. Period, full stop. ANY OTHER SOLUTION IS GAME-PLAYING.
Oh, and for those with a party bias? I'll just remind everyone that this has been a problem for 50 years REGARDLESS of which party controlled Congress and the White House. It wouldn't be this bad, if both parties weren't generally colluding.
-Styopa
Like the previous person said, take off your blinders, I have yet to see the Obama and his administration respect any of the "separation of powers". Want some examples? well here are a few, Tell the supreme court they better not strike down his Obamacare. His administration has no transparency, yet that was his platform. He routinely tells his AG to ignore enforcing laws that "He" doesn't agree with. If he can't get something passed, he writes an executive order. He uses fear mongering and children as props when he doesn't get his way.
He really respects the separation of power....keep telling yourself that, if that lets you sleep at night.
FYI (I didn't approve of how the last president used his power, but the current administration has done things 100 times worse, in short, obama has to be one of the biggest hypocrites I've seen in a long time.)
The Bob Woodward thing was a bit overblown, fyi. Not really as mafia-like as it first seemed once you read the emails. (And I'm on the "Obama administration is fearmongering" side, to put my biases out there)
Charisma is the measure of someone's ability to lie with a straight face.
Actually, the sequester doesn't cut federal spending at all, or rather it cuts it only in the Washington sense of any reduction from projected baseline increases is a cut. In reality, even if the sequester goes through, the federal government will spend more every single year.
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/fairy-tale-spending-cuts
Spending will still go up, just not as much.
I care, but only a little. And at this point it's abotu securing myself and my family from any of the negative effects that will come.
I think the whole sequester thing is dumb as hell. Always did.
After playing poltical brinkmanship for years, they finally agree on one thing, and its this idiot piece of legislation.
So I do care. But I have very little sympathy left. Because after passing this absolutely retarded "suicide pact" what did the country do?
THEY RE-ELECTED ALL THE SAME IDIOTS AND SENT THEM RIGHT BACK TO CONGRESS, AGAIN.
So who is more foolish?
The fools in Congress?
Or the fools who re-elected them?
Since day one, I know it would happen like this. As a political gambit both sides knew EXACTLY what they were doing.
They knew from the first that they would absolutely intentionally go right over that cliff.
And they knew right from the start that they would blame the other side for anything negative to come of it.
And they knew that the fools that elected them would believe them when they did so and compeltely ignore any fault on the part of their own political side.
As far as the politicians are concerned, its a win/win no matter what happens.
After all, it's not actually going to affect them inside, only everyone else outside the Capitol building
They'll make damn sure of that.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
During all the Chicken Little propaganda blitz, not a mention in any of the media outlets about the > $100B in wasteful spending that the Government Accountability Office found. Go to WSJ.com and search for the article "Billions in Bloat Uncovered in Beltway". Last week Rand Paul returned $600k in surplus operating budget back to the Treasury, up from $500k he returned last year. I'm sure there are plenty of Congressmen(women) that could do the same. I'm sure they could if more of them actually had respect for our tax dollars. How about slashing Congress' budget?
Or how about cutting down on the hundreds of millions of dollars in conferences that Gov't employees attend every year? Do conferences have to be in Vegas? Can we setup a few of these conferences in Detroit for a change, even if it's not as much fun? That is, if they're so important because of the work being done. Hmmm?
Also no mention of the fact that there is still plenty of discretion as to what each agency gets to cut. Planes won't fall out of the sky if you furlough paper pushers instead of Air Traffic Controllers.
Truth is, not every Federal employee is critical, and they are now starting to average better pay and more $100k+ workers and better benefits than the private sector. The Government shut down numerous times during Reagan's time, and nobody resorted to cannibalism because of it. Civilization is still here; for now. Notice how, up until last week, the message was all about all the different aspect of our lives that were going to break down due to these budget cuts. The President sounded like a prepper! Doesn't this tell us that we are WAAAY too dependent on government?
"Now, I doubt any of you would prefer a rolled up newspaper as a weapon against a dictator or a criminal intruder."
You mean the House Republicans who passed not one but two bills as alternatives to replace sequestration
Republicans passed those bills in the 112th Congressional session.
Which means those bills are dead right now, since we're in the 113th session.
They'd need to be resubmitted and brought back for a vote if Republicans were serious about putting them into play.
*Here's a summary of the Democratic proposal from Feb 14th which the Republican House leadership has refused to allow a vote on.
And the full text of the bill HR 699: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/hr699/text
The real problem is that Republicans think that cutting spending is the only way to fix the budget,
despite the fact that taxes are at historic lows and austerity is actually a really shitty idea (see: europe).
*skip down to the last section if you don't want to read a bunch of political posturing
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
While I'm certain there is some truth that a small decrease in budget means some things might not happen (we're actually more resilient though... so I wouldn't say that "all things stop" like some are trying to say).... what about all the waste? I mean, you scratch your head about how our tax dollars are used to study arguably "stupid" things.... did you ever ask why that is? Do we really want those studies?
If I give a "gift" of government dollars to "you" and you don't really have a plan.. in order to not lose those dollars, you come up with "something"... and presto... the stupid research study is born.... so maybe a reduction is a good idea... maybe we'll think more carefully about where dollars matter... in fact, maybe even better would be a better "attitude" (and associated process) that makes us want to push committed dollars to "real" meaningful projects and studies instead of creating "the stupid" just so we don't throw away the funding.
The government is a machine. Remember how things work and then you can understand why there is so much waste.
If we can't afford stuff... let's decide that we stop spending until we figure out how to spend correctly... While I'm not a fan of President Obama, I'm not against the idea of spending tax dollars on national infrastructure if done wisely (and I believe he's sort of for that... though I'll bet there's an "angle"). But for now, until we figure out how to stop wasting the dollars, I think we just need to put the brakes on in order to force people to "scream". Let's face it, we use the "scream test" in IT all of the time to reduce waste.... it works... though occasionally (rare) the penalty is high.
I guess it should come as no surprise that slash dotters do understand math and know BS when it involves numerical slight of hand. Too bad the press and a lot of politicians can't figure this out.
Holy fuck that's some spin.
The Republican bills were complete pie-in-the-sky conservative fantasy that would NEVER have passed, and would have been disastrous if they did. The blame is on their shoulders for not putting forward anything that would have had a chance of making it. Those pieces of legislation were nothing more than symbolic gestures to pander to their base.
And you're pretty stupid for buying their BS.
But I do have to note that the Republican-controlled House has been passing budgets while the Dem-controlled Senate has not, which is why we've been running on continuing resolutions (and thus running up $1T per year in new debt).
Those "budgets" gutted various provisions of the ACA, which Republicans are ideologically opposed to. That, and the for-profit medical industry has their collective dicks in various congressional asses.
Basically, those budgets aren't really in good faith, cutting services (you know, services for the citizens that the taxes are ultimately drawn from) instead of drawing more revenue from places like the wealthy and wall-street (the biggest fraud perpetrators in the history of the world).
I have to note that the President has threatened to veto all of the ways the Republicans have proposed to avoid the sequester
Yes, because they are all total BS. I could also counter-note your note and observe the Republicans have failed to budge from their stance against taxing the wealthy. We're at loggerheads and while both sides are responsible, raising taxes on the wealthy was a specific platform of Obama's re-election and thus I would argue the Republicans are thwarting the will of the electorate in this matter.
no, the blame lies with every idiot who voted for an incumbant.
that is a very broad and sweeping statement, but it is mostly true.
there have been very few peacemakers trying to negotiate between the aisles; its been blue yelling at red and red yelling at blue, and nothing getting done for over 3 damn frigging years.
(and this recent election is a better example than most of the general across the board dissatisfaction with everyone, with people even voting for the guy on their side, even though they hate the job he did, simply to keep from having the OTHER SIDE win)
I say we replace every chair in the Congress with a Dr Evil style seat, that dumps into a pool of lava. and if more than 30% of an elected representatives constituents become dissatified with the job he is doing, because of things like this, DOWN HE GOES. and I'm not joking.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Percentage-wise, we're shaving off about 8%:
By an eerie coincidence, you can lose 8% of your body weight by decapitating yourself:
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
http://blogs.ajc.com/kyle-wingfield/2013/02/25/oh-that-dreaded-awful-sequester/?cxntfid=blogs_kyle_wingfield
See the awful pain in store for us all? Yeah, me neither.
Those passed budgets were a sham, gutting services and preserving tax rates on the wealthy.
It all comes down to where the axe should fall, and given Obama was re-elected campaigning to raise taxes on the wealthy and preserve services for the middle and lower classes, the majority of the blame goes to the Republicans for ignoring what the MAJORITY of voters want to do.
everyone is to blame, includng the ordinary citizens who saw the extreme dysfunction of the last Congress, and yet voted all the same people back into office anyway.
in fact i'd go so far as to say most of the blame falls on those voters. after all, a tiger cannot change his stripes, so electing the tiger who just ate someone back into office simply because he swore not to eat someone again....well that's just a very foolish thing to do.
yet, foolish as it was, the entire country did it anyway.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
The House does a lot of weird stuff, let's not confuse that with Republicans getting shit done, okay?
Defense-only sequestration exemption House bills passed in House by Republicans are unlikely to survive in the Senate. Just as budgets with medicare cuts are unlikely to be passed and put into effect by the Senate. Hey, look, the House just voted to repeal Obamacare!
Actually, DOJ should be defunded until Eric Holder resigns and the Fast and Furious documents are turned over. This lawless administration only understands force, because that is how they do things.
Somebody doesn't live in reality.
Bureaucrats have one goal in life. To accumulate more power and increase the size of their budgets. The thoughts of cutting waste and removing inefficiency never occur to their twisted minds.
If these microscopic little slowdowns in their budget increases (these are not cuts) have any effect on government services whatsoever, it is only because the bureaucrats implemented them in a way that would be most painful and most noticeable to the people.
If your spouse was a bureaucrat and you had to decrease household spending by 2.2%, the cut would be made by turning off the heat and electricity. The restaurant and entertainment budget that a sane person would cut first would not be touched. That way, the cuts would be as painful as possible so that you didn't DARE suggest a cut ever again.
It would be possible to cut the federal government by 33% without anyone but the bureaucratic parasites noticing.
Well, if the Senate would pass a budget then we would have some idea of what sort of budget might pass the Senate (and if it is reasonable to expect the House to pass such a budget). Since the Senate has not done so in somewhere around four years, the House has no way of knowing what kind of budget would pass the Senate and have reason to believe that the answer is that NO budget will pass the Senate. If the Senate will not pass any budget, how is the House supposed to pass one that has a chance to pass the Senate?
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Just for clarification, who is "he"?
You're looking at the budget as a monolithic blob. There are programs that are already underfunded and some that are ripe with waste. As inexplicable as it might seem, some organizations don't have that much wiggle room. In some cases, contracts have been signed, people have been relocated, buildings have been leased. When you cut 5% across the board, you're taking the simplistic approach to a complex problem and hoping that someone else works out the details.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
While it's true that the "sequestration" is across the board, that's by department. Each government department is a huge enterprise. Surely, a little thought from the top (and from each agency) should have been able to find the least impactful things to cut.
Instead, the President (as the CEO) spent the last two weeks running around threatening the most dire results .... instead of meeting with the people (viz. the senate and house membership and leaders) to coax a settlement.
IANAR, but it is painfully clear who bears the greater responsibility for the outcome. Sadly, it appears far more difficult for the press (oh my, isn't Michelle wonderful at the Academy Awards?) to focus on either things that count, or on whose feet need to be held to which fire.
the Republicans have failed to budge from their stance against taxing the wealthy.
I thought they already gave Obama the tax increase he wanted at the beginning of the year. Obama was claiming that if they gave him a tax increase during the "fiscal cliff" negotiations than the sequester negotiations would be all about budget cuts.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
How did the White House bluff? People have goldfish memories. The sequester wasn't a solution, it was crafted as an awful consequence to not getting a deal done after the elections. Somehow it's being spun as Obama's plan (that Boehner said contemporaneously gave him 98?% of what he wanted) no doubt because Republicans know how unpopular the cuts will be once they take place, yet they're simultaneously running around bragging about what a good idea they are.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
It is, in fact, a real cut to the currently-appropriated spending and the current spending rate. While it is often the case that reductions in projected increases are sold as "cuts" in government budgets, this is not one of the cases.
The sequester has nothing to do with baseline budgeting, it has to do with cuts to funds that are already appropriated for the current period.
Also, nothing in the federal budget happens automatically. If an appropriation isn't passed for each year, there are no funds, period, full stop. Baseline budgeting has to do with how budget proposals are drafted and presented, it doesn't mean that if no legislative action is taken an appropriation automatically remains in effect indefinitely.
the congressman that ticked off his constituents of course.
sending down dr evil into the lava wouldnt have the desired effect.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
They do and funding isn't automatic under the current system. That's why we have a government shutdown if no appropriation is passed by Congress and signed by the President (or repassed by Congressional supermajority over a Presidential veto.) Even so-called "non-discretionary" spending isn't automatic.
Baseline budgeting is simply a matter of how budget proposals are calculated and presented, it has no bearing on the actual substantive process and requirements around passing a budget.
Given that nobody is willing to step up to the plate and cut entitlements then the only way is across the board cuts. The US is broke. People like to toss around the $16T figure for debt... its far, far, larger when the PV of the entitlement programs is considered in full. You could cut all discretionary spending and we would still be broke.
Personally I would be happy to see an across the board 30% cut to everything. That would set us back to... OMFG: 2008!
Maybe, just maybe, this will wake people up that all their favorite discretionary spending is going away for good if something is not done now. One good place to start would be to bind and gag Paul Krugman and render him to ... anywhere else. As long as people keep believing his fantasy stories we are (queue FedEx commercial) Doomed!
Why did the Senate (and Obama) have to wait until now to act on those bills? The Senate could have passed those bills last year. Why should the House pass the bills again when the Senate has refused to even consider them?
WE have been down the road of "raise taxes now and cut spending later" before. Yet it seems that spending never gets reduced. Maybe the reason that Republicans think that cutting spending is the only way to fix the budget has something to do with how loud the Democrats scream about things like this when the only thing about to happen is that spending won't
increase by as much as it would have if not for this. If people like you are this scared by the increase in spending slowing down, how are they going to react if there is ever a proposal to actually reduce spending?
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
None. Because its not actually a legislated policy change but a spending-cut-without-program-change, there's no actual elimination of wasteful programs, or focus on maintaining good ones.
The casualties are going to be the people the government is supposed to be serving. But I am sure the shining stars are looking for a better country.
this is precisely why George Washington himself warned the new country against political parties.
it's precisely why I believe anyone wishing to run for President should be required to permanently and irrevocably sever all ties with all political parties, to the extent they may not even accept their support, nor can the parties offer any support, in the campaigns. I'm talking real draconian, NCAA style draconian rules (like they have against "boosters"). If this us vs them style congressional sessions are going to continue then we need men in the white house who are dedicated, proven leaders and unbeholden to any one. i'd also say they cannot have held office as a member of a political party in the past 5 years.
course even better would be to simply nuke the two parties into non-existence and get rid of all this allinclusive labeling with automatic you-have-to-b-against-this-and-for-this automatic platforming.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Shut down the banks, and just zero out the books. And for good measure, have early elections, not allowing any incumbents to run.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
you have got to be the same AC that keeps saying the same thing.
and once again i say it: even though he is the President, and head of the executive branch, there are certain people and certaint hings the President CANNOT order people to do or to decide in a certain way. There are some he can, but some people have certain jobs or responsibilities that require they act independently, and for the POTUS to tell them what to do compromises the integrity of the position and/or is illegal to do.
For ex, the courtsmartial of Bradley Manning....it is a court of law, and therefore for the POTUS to direct them to any particular finding or verdict, even though its run by military officers and Obama is the CiC. It is ILLEGAL.
As for your examples, the POTUS has absolutely ZERO power to tell teh Supreme Court what to do. So that example is BS.
It's also illegal to issue any Executive Order that is outside the powers granted him by law.
As for the AG, there are quire literally a million things teh AG can spend his time on. Telling him to ignore one set of things to focus on another is quite within his power, especially if those things are alrady of questionable nature and the President is in the process of trying to change them. Believe it or not, establishing priorities and changing policies and submitting changes of laws to Congress is well within the POTUS power.
I'm not a big supporter of the pres, but I am however awake to the realities of the position, and unlike you, not using everytime he sneezes as an excuse to attack him.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Yes, because [the Republican plans to avoid sequester] are all total BS.
I don't think that's true. There was one suggestion to allow the president to make the choice of what to cut. With such a small cut, it should be easy to find things that won't cause huge damage. Obama threatened to veto it, because of pork-spending, jobs, defense, and kids. Think of the kids.
It's not clear to me the real reason why he opposes that bill.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I don't see how you can call disagreeing with systematic anal rape of the middle class "bad at agreeing on things".
The current GOP side of the aisle is nothing more than a collection of representation for the interests of the upper 1% of wealth in the US. Nothing more, nothing less. As the distance between have and have-nots grows wider, you can thank them for it*
*The Republicanhttp://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/01/us/politics/house-republicans-cheer-boehners-refusal-to-negotiate-on-cuts.html
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
Well, how it should work is in conference.
House passes bill.
Senate passes what they believe it should be.
Then they get together in conference to actually negotiate.
The house has passed several budgets. You can disagree with them, but honestly, the senate needs to put a stake in the ground and say "here's our version", then it can go to committee and potentially be compromised.
You realize that most European countries are both cutting spending AND raising taxes, right? That's normally how one tries to balance a budget - increase revenue and decrease costs. All "austerity" really means is reducing government spending, and America will have to do that sooner or later, even the Dems don't disagree about that ...
IANAR, but just no. Both sides may take the blame for failing to come up with real cuts, but the full burden of responsibility for the sequester rests solidly on Barry's broad shoulders.
House Republicans voted 174 for and 66 against the Budget Control Act of 2011, which created the Sequester.
House Democrats were evenly split 95:95
The Sequester could never have become law without overwhelming Republican support in the House
And guess who's been pointing fingers and screaming the loudest about the sequester.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
The sad thing is that this won't result in you paying less to the government (if you want this sort of thing). All it means is that $85B will be pulled out of the economy this year, probably pushing the country back into recession. And all for some stupid "debt crisis" that is "so severe" that people from all over the globe are falling over themselves to lend us money at obscenely low rates. Enjoy your longer recession, idiots.
That is all.
The Repubs ideologically oppose the ACA because it is ideological in its conception, and practically unaffordable. Dems were hiding the real costs by doing things like not counting the Doc fix, and the bill was full of new measures that would add real costs to employers, like the extra billion per year supermarkets would have to pay for new food labeling requirements (I know, Nancy told us we didn't need to read it, so I don't blame anyone for not knowing this was in there). And what about the new taxes on medical device manufacturers? That impacts everyone!
But you give yourself away with the phrase "for-profit medical industry". Don't like profits, huh? Neither does anyone in the administration. The people who wrote and pushed this law don't like this "for-profit medical industry" or any profitable industry, for that matter, and would like to turn the whole thing eventually into a government enterprise. Like good Marxists, they want to blame the increases in costs that the consumers are currently seeing and will continue to see on the "greed" of industry, while they re-distribute wealth and buy the votes of the dependent masses. Ultimately, the private insurance industry cannot compete with a government that can borrow infinitely and would collapse. Hello, single payer system.
It's not an interpretation; it's in their own words. They give speeches plainly stating that the ultimate goal is a single payer system. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=926bPZiQhgY. Keep browsing; you'll find all their speeches. They're not exactly shy behind closed doors. Here; have some more. Donald Berwick, one of the architects of this law stated in a speech that "Excellent healthcare is, by definition, redistributional." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIK7duK9ACE.
By the way, to your last point, did you see the election results? It wasn't anywhere near a landslide and it shows that nearly half the country is against raising taxes. Maybe the same half that is not in the "protected class" and actually has to pay them?
Ultimately ACA is a spike in the heart of the economy and will only drive long term liabilities sky high. It was never meant to be paid for, because nothing is these days. That's why these "cuts", as trivial as they are, are a necessary first step.
"Now, I doubt any of you would prefer a rolled up newspaper as a weapon against a dictator or a criminal intruder."
the majority of the blame goes to the Republicans for ignoring what the MAJORITY of voters want to do.
Sorry but representatives from other states have no business trying to represent me or my neighbor. Representatives are there by definition of their title, regardless of what the overall US majority thinks. My representative had better represent his state's voting base and their interests or he is not doing his job and will be out of one at the next election cycle.
If people like you are this scared by the increase in spending slowing down, how are they going to react if there is ever a proposal to actually reduce spending?
I'm not scared of reducing spending.
I am scared of only reducing spending while not fixing the tax code to remove the kind of income equality which preceded the Great Depression.
Remember the good old days when Republicans refused to entertain the possibility of $1 in tax increases for $10 in spending cuts?
Yea. They should have taken that deal while it was on the table.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Start with the Reddest States; those that willingly elected ingrates as public officials whose sole desire is to destroy civil society. Given them what they want.
Well that's one perspective, but since we lived through the 2004 re-election of Bush and the "mandate" the GOP screamed about from coast to coast, they can god damn well deal with what happened in 2012.
51.5% to 48.5% barely even counts as a majority, especially when more than a third of all the voters stayed home and didnt vote.
you also fail to understand what the word representative means. your rep isnt supposed to rep me, and my rep isnt supposed to rep you. my guy is beholden to me, not you. your opinion should not matter to him. (the sad reality is my opinion does either, its the parties opinion that does...and one more reason we need to nuke the parties)
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Ask Boehner. He's the one refusing to allow any Democratic compromise from getting anywhere. There's only one party that's willing to negotiate in good faith. And if you can't see that then you aren't doing your civic duty of at least paying attention.
Just like Republicans that refused to identify what they would cut. They wanted this across-the-board cut all along, this was their provision in the last temporary budget compromise.
Actually, no I don't. Unless you are talking about a question that was asked of Republican Presidential candidates, which was not a deal that was actually on the table. Rather it was purely hypothetical. In which case, of course they stated that they would reject it. If they had said they would take it and then won the election, the Democrats would have claimed that that was the place to start negotiating on taxes and spending cuts. Of course one of the biggest problems we have in this discussion is that when Democrats talk about "spending cuts" they don't mean actual cuts. What they really mean is reducing the amount that spending increases compared to what they had projected that they would increase spending.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
The problem isn't rising entitlements. Social Security, for one, is not responsible for a single cent of debt, and never has been. The reason SS is in any kind of trouble at all is because the government has been raiding SS funds for other purposes and owes it money. The problem is reduced revenues. That happens in a depression.
To step in to a dangerous metaphor, you weren't living beyond your means when you made 60k/yr, but say you just took a pay cut and now you're making 50k/yr (just like the government when the economy crashed and tax reciepts went down.) Where do you make the cuts? Do you stop buying guns or stop buying your prescriptions? I know which I'd cut, but insanely, we're talking about cutting the prescriptions.
That's funny, when the GOP barely won in the past, they've always immediately claimed mandates and so forth. Yet that apparently only work FOR them. Well fuck them, they don't get to arbitrarily decide when the majority votes means something. Besides, they've only won the popular vote 1 time out of the last 6. Ideally the GOP will waste away to be a footnote of craptastic corrupted idiocy in the future.
And you don't understand how the U.S. government is supposed to work. Let's examine ACA. That was passed by a majority of both houses of Congress, who in turn were elected by their citizens. The President signed it. It was upheld by the Supreme Court. Yet the GOP, the butthole of politics, tries at every step to kill or unfund it.
What EXACTLY do republitards suggest as a mechanism to running a democracy, if this MOST OBVIOUSLY constitutional method of passing and enacting laws, is apparently not good enough? Republitards don't believe in the legitimacy of government, except when they control all branches. So fuck them again, scumbags that they are.
And as for voting, yeah, lots of people don't vote. Makes us kind of hypocritical when we invade other countries for bullshit reasons, mostly having to do with beefing up profits and defense contractors that the previous VP was head of, under the theory we're bringing them freedom and democracy. Those same unassailable values that various dumbasses here don't bother to use?
You do not understand the words the budget is not subject to filibuster.
It's crippling to the economy. Government spending is what is keeping the economy from taking an even worse nosedive. In case you haven't noticed, we've been a recession with high unemployment since the banks crashed the economy in 2008. In my state there are 5 people looking for work for every job that's available. Spending equals jobs. Government is one of the biggest spenders. Cut government spending, you kill jobs. These things have a multiplicative effect. You kill jobs, those people who lost their jobs can't spend as much, more people lose their jobs. 2% is a lot of jobs. An analysis put that at 2 million jobs lost.
Really? Has the Senate passed something? I would not disagree that there is only one party that is willing to negotiate in good faith, but I am not sure that I agree that the Republicans are willing to. However, they have at least done the first step in such negotiations by presenting a proposal as a starting point for negotiations. Neither the President nor the Senate has produced a proposal as a starting point for negotiations (while the President has produced a proposal, it is so vague in so many places as to not qualify as a starting point for negotiation). There is no point in even considering a bill from Democrats in the House as there is no reason to believe that the Senate would pass them or that the President would sign them.
Until the Democrats in the Senate pass a bill and/or the President presents a proposal that contains specifics, there is no way to know if the Republicans would be willing to negotiate in good faith. We know that Obama is not willing to negotiate in good faith because he is going around and claiming that the sequester, which originated in the White House, was the idea of the House Republicans.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
I expect the real reason the GOP pushed to let Obama choose is so that they could turn around and blame him for any unpopular cuts. They tried to further abdicate responsibility, because it's Congress's job to choose funding levels.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
What is the debt to income level of the federal government? Were it a corporation, it would be in receivership waiting for the assets to be sold to try to pay off its creditors. Over the next 75 years the GOA estimated a shortfall of $45.8 trillion for entitlement programs. Is that broke enough for you? Has the US defaulted? No - simply because it can print as much money as it wants. See Zimbabwe.
http://www.gao.gov/financial/fy2009financialreport.html
http://www.fms.treas.gov/finrep12/citizenguide/fr_citizen_guide_where_we_are_now.html
False. Until such a time as future SS payouts are revised to reflect reality, it is a future obligation of the US government. As noted here, once the fund runs out the current income will not be able to pay 100% of the defined benefits.
As to your very weak analogy, the current broohaha over a whopping $44B "cut" is to be half in defense. The bottom line is you, like the vast majority of Americans, are hooked on government handouts be they federal, state or local. And you can toss in US corporations as well.
The president "may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them"
Come on Obama, grow a pair and keep them in session until they work out a deal. If they decide to adjourn, reconvene them immediately. They'll eventually give in.
Tits or GTFO
I know sure as hell I would never take such a "deal".
I think such a deal would die in the courts (being unconstitutional and all), but if that weren't a problem, I'd love to make a go of it.
The President has one vote, just like any of the rest of us.
The President's vote can block any bill from Congress unless they pass with veto-proof supermajorities. My vote doesn't have that kind of pull.
it's precisely why I believe anyone wishing to run for President should be required to permanently and irrevocably sever all ties with all political parties, to the extent they may not even accept their support, nor can the parties offer any support, in the campaigns.
I imagine such a rule would contradict the First Amendment, namely, the part, " interfering with the right to peaceably assemble or prohibiting the petitioning for a governmental redress of grievances." And I'd rather keep that amendment more or less intact.
Meanwhile I haven't received a single raise in the last 6 years working for 3 different companies (all for well over a year). Every one of these politicians knew about the sequester last December.
Come on idiots, (not the poster, who probably just made a typo, but the mods who sent it up to +5) -- the TOTAL cumulative government debt is about $14 trillion. The deficit for this year will be in the neighborhood (probably under) of $1 trillion, still a large number but we need to keep the facts straight in these discussions.
Too many zeros for me at the speed I was reading, sorry.
When I started looking a bit more closely at this, it isn't a cut at all. It is like you said...only a reduction in spending.
See that? You grasped the truth for a second, then you immediately fell back into the oversimplified rhetoric the media is spewing.
It's not a reduction in spending at all; it's an increase in spending -- but the increase happens to be not enormous as some had hoped for.
And by "some," I'm talking about those for whom no amount of government control over our resources is too much.
Obama got his tax increase....
Yes, and already everone has forgotten what Obama pledged during the re-election campaign: "balanced" deficit reduction that consists of $2.50 in spending cuts for every $1 of new revenue. In December, the president received $600 billion in new taxes, which should now be matched with $1.5 trillion in spending cuts, by his definition of balance. He has proposed no such cuts. In fact, he has only proposed even more spending increases.
sweep EVERYONE out of Washington
Why would you want to sweep out the few who give us straight talk about how sequestration isn't a spending cut at all?
The most extreme plan to balance the budget is not at all extreme. Connie Mack's "Penny Plan" proposes six annual tiny 1% cuts that would allow revenue to catch up with spending. You can see Lanny Davis, a self-proclaimed liberal, praise the plan here.
I work on a government contract, and I can tell you it would be easy to improve delivery of government services, even as those 1% cuts are being absorbed. (I know that my productivity increases by more than 1% every year. And if they would stop allowing people like me to stay at the Ritz-Carlton while traveling, bang, you've got a huge savings on the contract.)
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
Baseline budgeting has to do with how budget proposals are drafted and presented, it doesn't mean that if no legislative action is taken an appropriation automatically remains in effect indefinitely.
Baseline budgeting creates budget proposals in which every program gets an increase, by default. Effectively, this does mean that most appropriations remain in effect indefinitely -- and at ever-increasing levels -- because if the legislators don't go out of their way to reduce appropriations for particular programs, the increases sail right through.
I'd much prefer a process in which every program is assumed to be increasing in efficiency -- so by default, it gets an annual decrease. If it seeks to keep its appropriations the same (let alone to increase them), the program's director must explain why he or she failed to improve its efficiency in the past year, and how that failure will be rectified in the coming year.
The automatic increases in baseline budgeting are a self-fullfilling prophecy that every program is decreasing in efficiency. We taxpayers deserve much better from government officials who purport to be professional managers.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
I know, using the 2010 budget for 2013. Complete madness!
Well, it's about time they passed a budget for 2010. Think they'll have the 2011 budget ready and approved for 2014?
This "problem" of having the House and Senate agree is something every bill has faced through the entire time this country has existed. The normal process is pass bills, then have a "conference committee" to iron out the differences, then bring those revised versions up.
"The Republican bills were complete pie-in-the-sky conservative fantasy that would NEVER have passed,"
Very likely true. Doesn't justify not stating a position and waiting for a response from the Senate.
"and would have been disastrous if they did."
Assumes facts not in evidence. Back up that statement with facts or it's just gas-bagging.
"The blame is on their shoulders for not putting forward anything that would have had a chance of making it."
No, the blame is on the entire polarized environment in congress that's been festering since "pro-choice" became a litmus test for the supreme court. When one side starts to get THAT ideologically based that they force a CONGRESSIONAL viewpoint on the JUDICIAL branch, we've got a problem. If they are qualified, approve the appointment. That's the way the system SHOULD work. Don't like it? There's a mechanism for that -- amend the constitution. Finding "shortcuts" and subverting separation of powers just yields to what our framers foresaw -- faction tearing us apart.
"Those pieces of legislation were nothing more than symbolic gestures to pander to their base."
I don't disagree they pandered to their base. but I *DO* disagree that they were "nothing more than symbolic gestures" designed to do so. The Senate could have came back and said: "Ok, you say X. We'll give you .5X and we want "Y". That is how our system is DESIGNED to work. That did not happen.
Well, yes, but in order to do that, the Senate has to pass something.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Dear moderator,
Disagree with me all you want, I know mine is an unpopular position. But flamebait? Not so, and you know it.
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
THERE ARE NO CUTS! Only a diminishing in the rate of growth. Some people or projects may get less but only because other people got more and new projects were started. There will be more taxes collected and more money spent next year than this year. 2007 budget 2.7 trillion,deficit, 161 million, 2013 federal budget 3.8 trillion, 901 billion deficit.
La recherche est une affaire trop importante pour être confiée à des politiques.
Research is too important a matter to entrust the politicians with.
and a 2% payroll tax on families who work for their money is not crippling, we should all thank the government for taking 2% more of our money, while at the same time screaming doom and gloom if we take 2% of their money???
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
then allow the vote and see what happens. without allowing the vote to take place, we can all play what if but the bottom line is the democrats did not allow a vote, therefore it is their fault.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
we already have a net loss in actual jobs in the country over the past 5 years now (probably longer) I am sorry but giving the jobs to people who broke the law over people who do not is not the right way to fix things.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
The real problem is that Republicans think that cutting spending is the only way to fix the budget,
despite the fact that taxes are at historic lows and austerity is actually a really shitty idea (see: europe).
Well, they (taxes that I pay) do not feel like they are at historic lows at my level. They are as high or higher than ever for me.
For myself, I absolutely DO believe that government spending needs to decrease. I am not qualified to say where or how, but surely they could defund some of the departments tasked with implementing an authoritarian society upon us.
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
The budget in the Senate requires a simple majority vote to pass and cannot be filibustered. How are the Republicans prevent Harry Reid from passing a budget exactly>
Of course that's just my opinion...... you could be wrong!
Each house of Congress passes it's own budget using it's own rules. When they don't agree the reconciliation process is used to match the two budgets up and try and come to a compromise. That's a little hard to do when only the House has passed a budget and the Senate refuses to and before you bring up filibusters, remember, budgets are exempt from the filibuster process and only require a simple majority (51 votes) to pass.
Of course that's just my opinion...... you could be wrong!
Budgets cannot be filibustered according to Senate rules. Even better they require a simple majority vote to pass the Senate.
So any time the Harry Reid decides to propose a real budget that he can get 50 or his fellow Dems to support it could be passed the same week and the Republicans could do absolutely nothing to stop it. How do you think Obamacare got passed in the first place? The Senate Dems used the filibuster proof budget process to pass it when they could come up with the 60 votes they would have needed otherwise.
Calling bills they are trying to pass 'budgets', while good enough to fool a lot of partisans and give them some talking points about obstructionist Repubs, doesn't actually make it a budget.
Of course that's just my opinion...... you could be wrong!
For the hundredth time in this thread, budgets cannot be filibustered; they require a simply majority vote (51 votes) to pass.
The Senate hasn't passed a budget for the simple reason that Harry Reid doesn't want to pass a budget. What's his reasons are exactly can be discussed in depth but fearing the Republican filibuster it is not one of them.
Of course that's just my opinion...... you could be wrong!