The thing about negotiation is that you put your starting position out there to work from. You know you aren't going to get everything, but it is a starting point. The Democrats haven't put out that starting point. The Republicans have. You don't like the Republicans starting point and that is fine. But how do you know that the Democrats' starting point is any better?
I'm sorry, but from where I stand it looks like it is Obama who wants to screw over the whole country. He has been trying to get a government shutdown that he is then going to try and blame on the Republicans since they needed to pass a Continuing Resolution to fund the government for the rest of the fiscal year. Why is he insisting that any debt ceiling increase be until after next fall's election? Why did he threaten to veto a plan that was looking like both the House and the Senate could pass?
At least the Republicans have put something on the table to look at and decide what you think of their priorities. What taxes do the Democrats want to raise? By how much? What programs are they willing to cut? By how much?
So, you don't like the plan that the Republicans passed. I do not have a problem with that, but the Democrats have, so far, failed to offer an alternative. The Senate Democrats could pass a bill. They could even pass a bill that theoretically matches up to the "Cut, Cap, and Balance" bill and send the two bills to conference committee to have the differences ironed out. That would give us a comparison point to decide which party's priorities are less messed up. They haven't done that because they want you to assume that their priorities match up with yours (even when, by now, you should know better).
Sorry, but there was no real surplus. If you look you will see that the federal debt increased both of those years as well. If there was an actual surplus, the federal debt would have diminished by the amount of the surplus.
Under the Clinton administration there was actually a surplus at the end
There was on the "budget", yet the federal deficit went up that year as well. So, once you counted the "off-budget" spending the budget was not really balanced. If the Bush spending plan (every President includes a projection of spending over the next ten years in their budget) had been followed, the budget would have been balanced this year. Of course, those "spending plans" are just so much eye wash because they are never actually followed through on, spending is always higher than what past "spending plans" said it would be.
Because if they don't tell us what they offered to cut, or what taxes they wanted to raise, I have no idea if it was a legitimate plan. Also, how do you know that you would not have as much, or more, of a problem with what they wanted to cut and what taxes they wanted to raise than you do with the Republican plan? Or, is it that you know you wouldn't because you would support anything the Democrats propose, even if it is something you would oppose when Republicans propose it?
If they won't tell the American people what they would propose, why should the American people think it is any better than what the Republicans have proposed?
The budget has not been balanced in my lifetime. There has not been a single year in the past 50 years when the federal deficit did not increase. If the budget had been balanced, the federal deficit would not have increased in the year it was balanced.
And the Democrats have refused to even produce an actual proposal.
They've made all kinds of offers of combinations of cuts with some revenue increases included.
What cuts? What tax increases? Which taxes did they want to increase? What programs were they willing to cut? By how much?
It is easy to say, "I offered to cut $4 trillion," if you don't say what you were willing to cut.
Gary Kildall was not willing to sign IBM's Non-disclosure agrrement. IBM's NDA was much more complicated than anything he had dealt with up to that point. He was afraid that IBM would do to him what MS did to many small players in later years (and what IBM had done to many small players in the past).
IBM was already doing business with MS for programming languages. When they could not cut a deal with Gary Kildall for CP/M on the IBM PC, they went to MS and asked them for suggestions. At that point, Bill Gates had heard about QDOS and told IBM that MS could provide them with an OS.
The reason that IBM was willing to trust this kid was because his Mom worked with the CEO of IBM on the United Way board. Of course the other reason IBM was willing to work with MS was because they were in the middle of a big anti-trust fight with the Justice Department.
Maybe you should look at their proposals? There have been many, they say raise taxes as you need to increase revenue which will reduce the need to cut spending so dramatically all at once.
Which taxes? By how much? How much revenue will be generated by those tax increases (or at least, how much do they say will be generated)?
The Democrats have said, "We need to raise taxes." But they haven't said which taxes, or by how much. The Democrats have said they are willing to cut spending, but they haven't said what spending and by how much.
The reason to put the plan on paper is so that the American people can tell if you are serious about actually addressing the problem. You are right that there is a "good reason" why the negotiations are being done behind closed doors, it is because they are trying to pull a fast one.
The point is that it is not fair to condemn the plan that has been put on the table and blame those who put it there when the other side not only has rejected that plan, but has failed to tell anyone what their plan is. The Democrats have failed to say what they will pass. You say that the Tea Party has refused to accept anything but what they want, but at least they have told you what they want. The Democrats have refused to accept anything.
So, what is the Democrats' plan? Where is it written down? You say there are other plans, yet as far as I know, none of them have been written down. Senator Reid supposedly has a plan, but not even other Senate Democrats have seen it. Speeches are not plans. So, you say there are other plans, where can I go to find out some of the details about these plans? Not general, "My plan calls for cutting $2 trillion", but specifics, like exactly what is going to be cut.
Yes, the TARP program is over, but if you look at the budget that Obama sent to Congress in April (the only basis we have for interpreting what Obama's spending plans are), he uses the money spent on TARP as part of the baseline for federal spending.
Current federal spending is 25% of GDP. Historically, federal spending has been between 16-20% of GDP. How can you say that we don't have a spending problem?
Evidence suggests that preventative care actually increases total medical costs of a population. Yes, it saves me money to spend a small amount of money on preventative care that catches something early. But that only works out on the population as a whole if the number of people who will actually get that particular illness is a large enough percentage of the population.
Before the introduction of Medicare and Medicaid, health care costs rose at essentially the same rate as inflation. After the introduction of Medicare and Medicaid, health care costs started rising much faster than inflation. I expect Obamacare to have a similar multiplier effect.
You are apparently unaware that the Republicans already passed a bill, that the Democrats in the Senate refused to consider. You may not like it, but they passed it. Now, they are trying to come up with another one. The Democrats have yet to put anyhting other than the budget Obama sent to Congress in April in writing (that was rejected by the Senate 97-0).
How has TARP repaid itself? By destroying over a million jobs? Are you aware that Obama is including TARP in with the rest of federal spending as the baseline for future federal spending? That is, something that was supposed to be a one off expense is now figured in to calculate all new budgets.
If these things paid for themselves, how come the federal deficit is so much bigger than ever before?
Someone's not gonna get paid. Who do you think it will be?
Guess what? That is up to Obama, unless Congress passes a law specifying differently. That means it is Obama who is threatening the lives of seniors, poor people or veterans. Obama or the Democrats in the Senate could put a proposal on the table and then we could debate the relative merits of the Republicans' plan and the Democrats' plan. The problem with criticizing the Republican's plan is that it is the only plan on the table. There are, currently, no other options (except to keep on racking up ever more debt until to no one will loan the government any money).
You assume that steps won't be taken to reign in the deficit. I'm not seeing any argument against that from anyone, only an argument about how it should be done.
I'm not seeing any actual proposals from the Democrats that rein in the deficit. The only spending proposal from a Democrat (Obama) would increase the deficit. Everything else from the Democrats is talk with no actual specifics.
Except that the Bush tax cuts increased revenues. Historical evidence suggests that federal tax revenue will not go above 20% of GDP, no matter how the tax code is written. That means that reducing federal spending to less than 20% of GDP is more important than increasing revenue. The thing is Congress has passed laws that would reduce spending in the future in exchange for increasing taxes immediately several times in the last 30 years. Funny thing is, the tax increases happened but the spending reductions never did.
It is time to do it the other way around, immediate reductions in spending and we can increase taxes later if needed. When has Congress ever reduced spending? It is time to stop calling it a reduction in spending when they just don't spend as much more as they originally said they were going to.
Missing from this story is that the White House switchboard was, also, jammed. This story makes it seem as if the people are supporting Obama against Congress, when in fact, they are mad at the whole lot of them.
My question is this, how do you negotiate with someone who will not give you a list of what they want out of the negotiations? The Republicans have laid out in clear terms what their negotiating position is, the Democrats have, also, done so with Obama's budget from April, yet they are trying to tell us that that isn't their negotiating position. If that isn't their starting point for negotiations, what is it?
Sorry, the problem is that since Obama took office federal spending has increased to approximately 25% of GDP. Historically, federal spending has been between 16-20% of GDP. Of course even 20% of GDP is unsustainable because historically federal tax revenues have been around 18-19% of GDP (with little fluxuation as tax rates go up and down).
The rational thing at this point is to reduce spending, which is what those Republicans you say are the one's causing the problem are trying to do.
I thought the Democrats were telling us there was no need to reform Social Security because there was a Trust Fund?
Sorry, but your rhetoric doesn't fly. It wasn't this Congressman who threatened the lives of seniors, poor people or veterans, it was Obama. The fact of the matter is that if the debt ceiling is not raised, there is no reason for the federal government to default. There is, also, no reason for the federal government to not send out SS checks or pay the military.
I have a question for you, what happens if they increase the debt ceiling and no one wants to buy the new bonds? That day is going to come sooner or later. Isn't it a good idea to start reining in spending now, while people are still willing to buy U.S. government bonds rather than wait for that day?
I did not say they threw them away, I said they did not count them. I know that California stopped counting absentee ballots when the remaining number of absentee ballots was fewer than the margin between the candidates. I believe this to be the correct use of resources. Since the total number of votes nationwide is irrelevant to the outcome of the election, the only thing that matters is whether there are enough votes to change to outcome of the election in that particular state. There is no reason for a state to count the remaining absentee ballots if the difference between the votes for each candidate was 50,000 and there were only 20,000 remaining absentee ballots to be counted in that state there would be no reason to count the remaining absentee ballots since even if they all voted for the candidate that had fewer votes it would not change the outcome of the election. My understanding is that this is a common practice in most states and, as I said, it is the correct usage of government resources.
Slashdot Mirror
The thing about negotiation is that you put your starting position out there to work from. You know you aren't going to get everything, but it is a starting point. The Democrats haven't put out that starting point. The Republicans have. You don't like the Republicans starting point and that is fine. But how do you know that the Democrats' starting point is any better?
I'm sorry, but from where I stand it looks like it is Obama who wants to screw over the whole country. He has been trying to get a government shutdown that he is then going to try and blame on the Republicans since they needed to pass a Continuing Resolution to fund the government for the rest of the fiscal year. Why is he insisting that any debt ceiling increase be until after next fall's election? Why did he threaten to veto a plan that was looking like both the House and the Senate could pass?
At least the Republicans have put something on the table to look at and decide what you think of their priorities. What taxes do the Democrats want to raise? By how much? What programs are they willing to cut? By how much?
So, you don't like the plan that the Republicans passed. I do not have a problem with that, but the Democrats have, so far, failed to offer an alternative. The Senate Democrats could pass a bill. They could even pass a bill that theoretically matches up to the "Cut, Cap, and Balance" bill and send the two bills to conference committee to have the differences ironed out. That would give us a comparison point to decide which party's priorities are less messed up. They haven't done that because they want you to assume that their priorities match up with yours (even when, by now, you should know better).
Sorry, but there was no real surplus. If you look you will see that the federal debt increased both of those years as well. If there was an actual surplus, the federal debt would have diminished by the amount of the surplus.
Under the Clinton administration there was actually a surplus at the end
There was on the "budget", yet the federal deficit went up that year as well. So, once you counted the "off-budget" spending the budget was not really balanced. If the Bush spending plan (every President includes a projection of spending over the next ten years in their budget) had been followed, the budget would have been balanced this year. Of course, those "spending plans" are just so much eye wash because they are never actually followed through on, spending is always higher than what past "spending plans" said it would be.
Because if they don't tell us what they offered to cut, or what taxes they wanted to raise, I have no idea if it was a legitimate plan. Also, how do you know that you would not have as much, or more, of a problem with what they wanted to cut and what taxes they wanted to raise than you do with the Republican plan? Or, is it that you know you wouldn't because you would support anything the Democrats propose, even if it is something you would oppose when Republicans propose it?
If they won't tell the American people what they would propose, why should the American people think it is any better than what the Republicans have proposed?
The budget has not been balanced in my lifetime. There has not been a single year in the past 50 years when the federal deficit did not increase. If the budget had been balanced, the federal deficit would not have increased in the year it was balanced.
They've made all kinds of offers of combinations of cuts with some revenue increases included.
What cuts? What tax increases? Which taxes did they want to increase? What programs were they willing to cut? By how much?
It is easy to say, "I offered to cut $4 trillion," if you don't say what you were willing to cut.
Gary Kildall was not willing to sign IBM's Non-disclosure agrrement. IBM's NDA was much more complicated than anything he had dealt with up to that point. He was afraid that IBM would do to him what MS did to many small players in later years (and what IBM had done to many small players in the past).
IBM was already doing business with MS for programming languages. When they could not cut a deal with Gary Kildall for CP/M on the IBM PC, they went to MS and asked them for suggestions. At that point, Bill Gates had heard about QDOS and told IBM that MS could provide them with an OS.
The reason that IBM was willing to trust this kid was because his Mom worked with the CEO of IBM on the United Way board. Of course the other reason IBM was willing to work with MS was because they were in the middle of a big anti-trust fight with the Justice Department.
Maybe you should look at their proposals? There have been many, they say raise taxes as you need to increase revenue which will reduce the need to cut spending so dramatically all at once.
Which taxes? By how much? How much revenue will be generated by those tax increases (or at least, how much do they say will be generated)?
The Democrats have said, "We need to raise taxes." But they haven't said which taxes, or by how much. The Democrats have said they are willing to cut spending, but they haven't said what spending and by how much.
The reason to put the plan on paper is so that the American people can tell if you are serious about actually addressing the problem. You are right that there is a "good reason" why the negotiations are being done behind closed doors, it is because they are trying to pull a fast one.
The point is that it is not fair to condemn the plan that has been put on the table and blame those who put it there when the other side not only has rejected that plan, but has failed to tell anyone what their plan is. The Democrats have failed to say what they will pass. You say that the Tea Party has refused to accept anything but what they want, but at least they have told you what they want. The Democrats have refused to accept anything.
So, what is the Democrats' plan? Where is it written down? You say there are other plans, yet as far as I know, none of them have been written down. Senator Reid supposedly has a plan, but not even other Senate Democrats have seen it. Speeches are not plans. So, you say there are other plans, where can I go to find out some of the details about these plans? Not general, "My plan calls for cutting $2 trillion", but specifics, like exactly what is going to be cut.
Yes, the TARP program is over, but if you look at the budget that Obama sent to Congress in April (the only basis we have for interpreting what Obama's spending plans are), he uses the money spent on TARP as part of the baseline for federal spending.
Current federal spending is 25% of GDP. Historically, federal spending has been between 16-20% of GDP. How can you say that we don't have a spending problem?
Evidence suggests that preventative care actually increases total medical costs of a population. Yes, it saves me money to spend a small amount of money on preventative care that catches something early. But that only works out on the population as a whole if the number of people who will actually get that particular illness is a large enough percentage of the population.
Before the introduction of Medicare and Medicaid, health care costs rose at essentially the same rate as inflation. After the introduction of Medicare and Medicaid, health care costs started rising much faster than inflation. I expect Obamacare to have a similar multiplier effect.
After the Bush tax cuts went into effect, federal revenue went up. The numbers are part of the public record.
You are apparently unaware that the Republicans already passed a bill, that the Democrats in the Senate refused to consider. You may not like it, but they passed it. Now, they are trying to come up with another one. The Democrats have yet to put anyhting other than the budget Obama sent to Congress in April in writing (that was rejected by the Senate 97-0).
How has TARP repaid itself? By destroying over a million jobs? Are you aware that Obama is including TARP in with the rest of federal spending as the baseline for future federal spending? That is, something that was supposed to be a one off expense is now figured in to calculate all new budgets.
If these things paid for themselves, how come the federal deficit is so much bigger than ever before?
Someone's not gonna get paid. Who do you think it will be?
Guess what? That is up to Obama, unless Congress passes a law specifying differently. That means it is Obama who is threatening the lives of seniors, poor people or veterans. Obama or the Democrats in the Senate could put a proposal on the table and then we could debate the relative merits of the Republicans' plan and the Democrats' plan. The problem with criticizing the Republican's plan is that it is the only plan on the table. There are, currently, no other options (except to keep on racking up ever more debt until to no one will loan the government any money).
You assume that steps won't be taken to reign in the deficit. I'm not seeing any argument against that from anyone, only an argument about how it should be done.
I'm not seeing any actual proposals from the Democrats that rein in the deficit. The only spending proposal from a Democrat (Obama) would increase the deficit. Everything else from the Democrats is talk with no actual specifics.
Except that the Bush tax cuts increased revenues. Historical evidence suggests that federal tax revenue will not go above 20% of GDP, no matter how the tax code is written. That means that reducing federal spending to less than 20% of GDP is more important than increasing revenue. The thing is Congress has passed laws that would reduce spending in the future in exchange for increasing taxes immediately several times in the last 30 years. Funny thing is, the tax increases happened but the spending reductions never did.
It is time to do it the other way around, immediate reductions in spending and we can increase taxes later if needed. When has Congress ever reduced spending? It is time to stop calling it a reduction in spending when they just don't spend as much more as they originally said they were going to.
Which of Obama's expensive policies have recouped the money spent?
Missing from this story is that the White House switchboard was, also, jammed. This story makes it seem as if the people are supporting Obama against Congress, when in fact, they are mad at the whole lot of them.
My question is this, how do you negotiate with someone who will not give you a list of what they want out of the negotiations? The Republicans have laid out in clear terms what their negotiating position is, the Democrats have, also, done so with Obama's budget from April, yet they are trying to tell us that that isn't their negotiating position. If that isn't their starting point for negotiations, what is it?
Sorry, the problem is that since Obama took office federal spending has increased to approximately 25% of GDP. Historically, federal spending has been between 16-20% of GDP. Of course even 20% of GDP is unsustainable because historically federal tax revenues have been around 18-19% of GDP (with little fluxuation as tax rates go up and down).
The rational thing at this point is to reduce spending, which is what those Republicans you say are the one's causing the problem are trying to do.
I thought the Democrats were telling us there was no need to reform Social Security because there was a Trust Fund?
Sorry, but your rhetoric doesn't fly. It wasn't this Congressman who threatened the lives of seniors, poor people or veterans, it was Obama. The fact of the matter is that if the debt ceiling is not raised, there is no reason for the federal government to default. There is, also, no reason for the federal government to not send out SS checks or pay the military.
I have a question for you, what happens if they increase the debt ceiling and no one wants to buy the new bonds? That day is going to come sooner or later. Isn't it a good idea to start reining in spending now, while people are still willing to buy U.S. government bonds rather than wait for that day?
I did not say they threw them away, I said they did not count them. I know that California stopped counting absentee ballots when the remaining number of absentee ballots was fewer than the margin between the candidates. I believe this to be the correct use of resources. Since the total number of votes nationwide is irrelevant to the outcome of the election, the only thing that matters is whether there are enough votes to change to outcome of the election in that particular state. There is no reason for a state to count the remaining absentee ballots if the difference between the votes for each candidate was 50,000 and there were only 20,000 remaining absentee ballots to be counted in that state there would be no reason to count the remaining absentee ballots since even if they all voted for the candidate that had fewer votes it would not change the outcome of the election. My understanding is that this is a common practice in most states and, as I said, it is the correct usage of government resources.