If one's budget doesn't include health care costs or defense spending
That person should not be taken seriously.
Guess we can cross Mitt Romney off the list:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2011_05/romney_takes_defense_cuts_off029618.php
Romney said that he would be open to redirecting spending within the defense budget to ensure that it’s more efficiently allocated, and to eliminate waste. But the overall budget won’t face cuts.“I’m not going to cut the defense budget,” Romney said in a question-and-answer session on his Facebook page.
The former Massachusetts governor acknowledged that there’s “a lot of waste” in the defense budget, and that “there’s work that we have to do with the money that we have.” But, Romney reiterated, he wouldn’t cut the overall budget.
The three biggest items in the federal budget are almost always: Social Security (a complicated issue for sure), national defense, and health-related expenditures.
If anyone ever presents a budget that doesn't address our massively wasteful and inefficient health care system, or the 20-22% of the federal budget that's spent on national defense (including ~1% per year on Iraq and Afghanistan EACH), then that person should not be taken seriously.
That person needs to go to economics 101 and come back when they've received a passing grade.
Comments
-
Speaking of which:
Addressing social security and medicare, and how to reduce medicare costs:
-
Cross Tim Pawlenty off the list.
Is any Republican serious about our deficit and spending? I thought Repubs were the fiscally responsible* ones?
*cut taxes for wealthy people
Take it away, Tim:
Republican presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty said Sunday that Social Security and Medicare needed to be sharply cut but defense spending was off the table.
"I believe strongly that the first responsibility of the United States federal government is to protect this nation and our citizens, so I'm not calling for absolute or real cuts in defense," he told ABC's Christiane Amanpour.
More:
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/david/pawlenty-no-absolute-or-real-cuts-defense
-
House just blocked raising the debt ceiling
They seem serious
What do you think
-
Krugman, my hero:
May 18, 2011, 10:31 AM
Origins of the Deficit
Bruce Bartlett uses part of this quote, but the whole thing (via Nexis) is even more damning:From The Hill, Feb. 5, 2003:
As President Bush sent his budget to Capitol Hill Monday, a split opened among congressional Republicans between those who are still deficit hawks and an increasing number, including top leaders, who no longer see deficits as the touchstone of fiscal probity.
Confronted with projected deficits until fiscal 2007, senior GOP lawmakers are backing away from long-standing rhetoric about the government’s duty to live within its means.
The switch – whether from conviction, circumstance, or both – is bringing charges of hypocrisy from Democrats.
Some lawmakers view the existence of deficits as a useful tool to keep spending down.
“I came to the House as a real deficit hawk, but I am no longer a deficit hawk,” said Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.). “I’ll tell you why. I had to spend the surpluses. Deficits make it easier to say no.”
Nobody cares about the deficit, least of all the people making the loudest noise.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/18/origins-of-the-deficit-2/
-
Boygabriel said:
I think this:http://news.firedoglake.com/2011/05/31/hoyer-asks-democrats-to-vote-against-debt-limit-kabuki/
I mean... you keep focusing on the people and the people's needs... how far are we going to erode our fiscal integrity to give everyone what they want?
You realize
- much of the economic "growth" we've seen since 2008 is stimulus money
- all stimulus money was created out of thin air, and we are all paying for it through a tax called inflation
- our debtors are coming to the very sobering reality that we will not be able to service our colossal debt as is, which really makes the idea of us taking on MORE debt that much more ridiculous
BG there is gonna be some pain. You want to provide help at all costs- well it looks like the cost has finally reached the point that we can't afford it. And that fundamental problem has to be solved before we can do anything else.
Now I know we are throwing money away on a lot of useless shit. I am not defending the current budget as it is. But we borrow 40% of what we spend federally, and you want to borrow MORE. It makes absolutely no sense man. We have to cut back and work within our means, or we will face a fiscal collapse well beyond your worst nightmares.
-
I'm focused on people (Republicans) who's idea of budget reform ignores the two biggest (by a wide margin) items in the federal budget. Unlike most of the Republican party, I am not primarily focused on (cutting) entitlement and social programs for the less well off.
What makes no sense is that all of the sudden raising the debt limit is the biggest threat to our democracy. Not during the last decade that Republicans were in charge and were trashing our deficit, but right now, during one of the worst economic and employment downturns in the past 100 years.
-
biggest threat to our democracy?
this isn't about democracy.
One can be bankrupt in a democracy, or a monarchy.
This is about being able to pay our bills. While I would prefer that my favorite programs not be cut, I realize our standard of living is going to have to fall.
I'll agree, this is lousy time to have to become fiscally responsible. ...but this is not something we have a choice about.
....pursuing a strategy that merely soaks the rich and/or makes it suck more to be poor ain't gonna be enough.
We are ALL going to have to pay in taxes, or inflation. This is a reality that the US can no longer postpone.
We've already been postponing since 1975.
-
If we have to make cuts, let's make cuts. Cut the defense budget by 75%.
Bring everyone home from Iraq and Afghanistan. Right now. Every single soldier.
Where else do we have military installations? Close them all. Bring our young men and women home.
After we do that, then we can discuss cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.
-
booklaw said:
If we have to make cuts, let's make cuts. Cut the defense budget by 75%.Bring everyone home from Iraq and Afghanistan. Right now. Every single soldier.
Where else do we have military installations? Close them all. Bring our young men and women home.
After we do that, then we can discuss cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.
And there it is, ladies and gentlemen.
Also, HEALTH CARE REFORM.
-
booklaw said:
If we have to make cuts, let's make cuts. Cut the defense budget by 75%.Bring everyone home from Iraq and Afghanistan. Right now. Every single soldier.
Where else do we have military installations? Close them all. Bring our young men and women home.
After we do that, then we can discuss cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.
Lol.
Yea lets bring home those thousands of people to a home w/no jobs & a generally weak economy. Let's bump the unemployment rate up a few percentage points and make the economic outlook even weaker. Let's pull out of regions on the brink of collapse- due to much of our own meddling.
Now bear in mind, I agree that we need to make cuts on the military. I'm against our thinly veiled imperialism too. But let's cut this college freshman liberal horseshit. Just like you don't think we should make wholesale cuts to entitlement programs, a very good case could be made for pausing before making wholesale military cuts. Yea lets chop the police force in half too since in a perfect world there shouldn't be any crime. Give me a break.
I'm so sick of this our side vs their side bullshit. It literally makes me sick. Fuck entitlements, fuck the military, fuck pork, fuck all the meaningless ideologues we are so caught up in. We are at the brink of defaulting on our debt. That is more significant than anything, because w/o the USD as a bastion of safety and a global reserve currency, we have SHIT. The sooner you talking point liberals AND conservatives get your heads out of your asses and realize THAT, the closer we will be to actually effecting change that will benefit the country as a whole.
-
Let me put it even simpler since after years on this board people still don't seem to get it.
If the US govt were a household, we'd be putting 40% of our expenses on a credit card. Imagine making $100K a year, and racking up $40K in credit card debt over the same period. How does that make any sense? It will get to a point where your minimum payments will exceed your income, and you will go bankrupt- which in the case of the US govt will also fuck up our base income. What else matters when that fundamental problem threatens to destroy everything???
-
CTK-
I get it.But I believe that fiscal discipline that benefits the country as a whole isn't going to happen.
The evenly matched sides will continue to say "you cut your favorite programs first, then I'll cut mine", which is exactly what got us into this mess.
Excess spending seems to be inherent in modern democracy.
But fear not, it is nothing to get excited about. The dollar will simply depreciate, and gradually we will have a federal government whose main role is to pay off the excess of the last 40 years.
...very little money will be available for defense and social service programs, and the fed gov will be powerless to raise taxes on the rich and corporations (even more than it is now).
The pain will be far worse than it would have been had we cooperated, but that is often the case.
-
CtK, no one here is disagreeing that we have to reduce our expenditures so as to cut our borrowing to the bone.
The question is which expenditures do we reduce?
Why is it ok for the US gov't to pay billions of dollars to employ all of those soldiers overseas? Why not bring them home and employ some of them right here, rebuilding New Orleans, Joplin, and other disaster areas?
Retrain them to install and repair solar panels, wind turbines, and other oil- and gas-free technologies... let them learn how to contribute to the US economy. If they have to be on the federal payroll, let's teach them to do something more useful than destroying other countries.
-
I work in the energy efficiency industry. I would hope we wouldn't pour billions into grossly inefficient technologies like wind and solar power. Oil & natural gas are not inherently evil. It would make more sense to get people to evaluate and install energy efficient measures but that's another thread.
My overall point is, the gov't is subsidizing a lot of people's sustenance by the wrong means, and is making the whole country pay dearly to do so. We need REAL stimulus- policies to first and foremost pay off the deficit, as well as policies to get the private sector up, running and confident enough in the gov'ts dealings to begin to hire again, while generating business on real, sustainable & long term economic stability and growth. Military spending, increased entitlements, class warfare in one direction or another- none of these things are the answer. We've been on a ship headed for an iceberg for years and have been arguing over whether to go left or right the whole time. It's getting to the point where we will not be able to get out of the way at all....
-
If the US govt were a household, we'd be putting 40% of our expenses on a credit card. Imagine making $100K a year, and racking up $40K in credit card debt over the same period. How does that make any sense? It will get to a point where your minimum payments will exceed your income, and you will go bankrupt- which in the case of the US govt will also fuck up our base income. What else matters when that fundamental problem threatens to destroy everything???Soooooo we should cut spending, no? And have budgets that address our biggest expenditures? Cool. I agree.
Also, cut the condescending bullshit. You sound like... a snobby grad student who thinks they're smart b/c they drink at wine bars and wow freshman college students.
See how obnoxious that bullshit is?
-
You're right, BG, about the condescending tone. And yet CtK is correct in the substance of his remarks.
Our society is split down the middle between
(i) conservatives who want to cut social benefits for the poor and the middle class and cut taxes for the rich, but maintain or increase military spending; and (ii) liberals who want to cut military spending, increase taxes on the rich, and maintain social welfare programs. We are indeed so busy arguing about these "values" issues that we never quite get around to cutting anything of consequence, and thus keep borrowing and borrowing our way into economic irresponsibility and looming disaster. -
I wish democracies could have a have referee, or an umpire.
...you know, someone who could:
-Send people to the penalty box because they broke the rules, and/or
-Declare the debate over, and/or
- Decide who won based on objective criteria.
...that way we could actually get something done.
At present, we just keep going around in circles.
-
There are a LOT of forces at work leading to our inaction. A LOT.
Many powerful interests like things just the way they are.
whynot_31 said:
I wish democracies could have a have referee, or an umpire....you know, someone who could:
Send people to the penalty box because they broke the rules, and/or declare the debate over, and/or decide who won based on objective criteria.
...that way we could actually get something done.
At present, we just keep going around in circles.
Indeed.
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
I personally think our Republic/power/dominance is completely doomed. Most things that are happening are quite intentional on the part of short-sighted, self-serving people in positions of power and privilege.
-
I am sorry about the condescending tone.
Everything's gotta get cut, and everyone has to suffer. There's no way around it. We're long past the point of no return. We're long past the point where anyone, even poor people, can spare their interests from the hammer of sustaining our country's solvency. We're long past the point where we can justify any kind of military expansion, or the now hilarious concept of "nation building" anywhere but here. We have a serious problem.
-
Nobody here disagrees with you.
-
Step 1: Implement "pay as you go"
Step 2: repeal "pay as you go"Step 3: Set a debt ceiling
Step 4: Repeal debt ceilingStep 5: Ask the pentagon for a list of bases it could close.
Step 6: Ignore the list because some of the bases are in powerful districts.Step 7: Rally against member items
Step 8: Everyone in the country insists their members' items are are not pork.Step 9: State we are spending too much money on health care
Step 10: Add prescription benefits to medicare.Step 11: Declare we could solve the debt crisis if we were more competitive. Go on on government led Keynesian spending spree.
Step 12: Invest a tiny percent of the funds in human or physical infrastructure, thus just incurring more debt.Step 13: Complain that Social Security will soon become insolvent
Step 14: "Temporarily reduce" the amount of social security taxes people have to pay, knowing after the temporary period expires, it will be seen as a tax increase that will not be approved. -
Step 15: State we are behind in science and math education
step 16: Reduce funding for community colleges, causing motivated people to borrow money for educations of questionable value.Step 17: State step 16 is bad. http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2011-06-02-obama-crackdown-for-profit-colleges_n.htm
Step 18: Reduce loans to said colleges, yet not build public community colleges -
On: Medicare
Short version: medicare IS sustainable, but among other cost/waste control measures needs to expand its ability to say no to unnecessary procedures and use its weight to negotiate better prices (something GWBush specifically left out of his Program D expansion at the behest of the health care industry).
Paul Krugman's Blog:
June 3, 2011, 8:53 PM
Yes, Medicare Is Sustainable In Its Current Form
I keep seeing people say that Medicare in its current form is not sustainable, as if that were an established fact. It’s anything but.
What is Medicare? It’s single-payer coverage for the elderly. Other countries have single-payer systems that are much cheaper than ours — and also much cheaper than private insurance in America. So there’s nothing about the form that makes Medicare unsustainable, unless you think that health care itself is unsustainable.
What is true is that the U.S. Medicare is expensive compared with, say, Canadian Medicare (yes, that’s what they call their system) or the French health care system (which is complicated, but largely single-payer in its essentials); that’s because Medicare American-style is very open-ended, reluctant to say no to paying for medically dubious procedures, and also fails to make use of its pricing power over drugs and other items.
So Medicare will have to start saying no; it will have to provide incentives to move away from fee for service, and so on and so forth. But such changes would not mean a fundamental change in the way Medicare works.
Of course, what the people who say things like “Medicare is unsustainable” usually mean is that it must be privatized, converted into a voucher system, whatever. The thing is, none of those changes would make the system more efficient — on the contrary.
So this business about Medicare in its present form being unsustainable sounds wise but is actually a stupid slogan. The solution to the future of Medicare is Medicare — smarter, less open-ended, but recognizably the same program.
-
I can't take seriously a solution that doesn't have some quantitative analysis
-
Much like your blanket statements about entitlements I guess.
-
cut the military, america doesn't need all those fancy carriers or stealth bombers or over seas bases or those super silent subs etc...
-
Sorry.
If the military is ever cut, it will be cut after everything else.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/04/world/asia/04gates.htmlIn a speech before an audience of Asian defense ministers and military commanders, which included a high-ranking delegation from China, Mr. Gates declared that Washington would not step back from its responsibilities to defend allies, counterbalance regional threats and assist in humanitarian disasters.
He acknowledged the grim economic and political realities facing the American government, saying that “fighting two protracted and costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has strained the U.S. military’s ground forces, and worn out the patience and appetite of the American public for similar interventions in the future.”
Even so, he said, “We recognize that the American defense engagement — from our forward deployed forces to exercises with regional partners — will continue to play an indispensable role in the stability of the region.”
Sadly, the Department of Health and Human Services is able to make no such broad proclamations and assurances to its constituents.
-
all those fancy toys will be one day use against the populations that supported it blindly. when the nation goes broke the fat and lazy become skinny and angry.
In a democracy you can't blame anyone but the dumb ass voters for not looking into the future cause they keep voting for the 2 damn lazy ass status quo parties.
-
But that wasn't an assurance to American constituents. That was an assurance to Asian defense ministers. Although that's actually probably a very illustrative mix up, perhaps unintentionally.
I actually think the DHHS could make quite similar proclamations and assurances of protection, health, life and limb to the American people, especially the less privileged (ie a majority of the population).
Whether Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Ayn Rand hypocrites, Rand or Ron Paul, Obama, Bush, Clinton, Reagan, Romney, Pawlenty, Bachmann, Palin, the defense industry, Congress, lobbyists, the Armed Forces, and pretty much everyone else with power or money in this country care, is, sadly already known.
Howdy, Stranger!
Categories
- 40K All Categories
- 27.1K Neighborhoods
- 5.1K Crown Heights/Prospect Lefferts Gardens
- 7.1K Prospect Heights
- 2.3K Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, Bed-Stuy
- 8K Park Slope
- 549 Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Bushwick
- 442 Flatbush/Midwood/Ditmas Park
- 657 BoCoCa (Boerum Hill, Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens)
- 151 Red Hook
- 104 Gowanus
- 304 Bay Ridge/Bensonhurst
- 130 Coney Island, Brighton Beach, Sheepshead Bay
- 270 Brooklyn Heights, DUMBO and Downtown
- 598 Windsor Terrace / Kensington
- 673 Greenwood Heights and Sunset Park
- 749 Brooklyn and Beyond
- 6.3K Stuff
- 86 Brooklyn Back When
- 1.2K Brooklyn Pets
- 257 Brooklyn Kids
- 241 Brooklyn Eats
- 51 Brooklyn Booze
- 3.6K The Lounge / Random Stuff
- 611 Brooklyn Politics
- 122 Brooklyn Sports and Fitness
- 111 Brooklyn Photos
- 339 Site Issues
- 8 Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
- 6.2K Listings
- 1.1K APARTMENTS and REAL ESTATE
- 1.3K Sales Openings Events
- 2.3K The Classifieds