They have until Monday.

If a bill is not put on the House floor by Monday, it will not pass the Senate and hit the President's desk for signing in time to avoid default on August 2. (Source: WSJ/ Bernanke et. al.)

 

No I do not refuse to acknowledge tax a "higher" tax rate is needed to pay down the debt.

What I refuse to "accept" is that only a tax increase is necessary. That is all you preach, "when FDR did this....When Clinton did that..." They are not in office, the situation of the times is totally different, yet you want to revisit eras that actually contributed to our problems of today.

We are spending way too much, on a myriad of items, from DoE to Education, and everything in between. We waste as much as half of the dollars that we allocate to programs, on duplication, on bureaucracy, on unnecessary programs, on failed programs, on benefits to those who do not need them, on fuel for the humongous government fleet, etc. Yet you do not see a need to cut spending to reduce the deficit.

Damn you are dense.

 

Scuttlebutt says that both President Obama and Senator Boehner were willing to make major concessions to ideology. Obama was willing to cave on Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security. Boehner was willing to give ground on tax increases.

But partisan interests and junior Senators scuttled the deal. Too many Republican senators owe their seats to the Tea Party (I have to agree with Stumbler on that nexus (be still my heart )). On the left, too many Democrats owe their seats and careers to extremist organizations like MoveOn.Org.

One should expect extremism and paralysis here. We're nobody. But the debate on this thread is also being played out in Washington by those supposedly in power, on the brink of disaster. It is sickening.

 

You have absolutely hit the nail square on the head. It's all real and factual, some will never understand and some dont want to understand the real fiscal and social problems that this nation is experiencing.. I just want to wipe the slate clean and start at the beginning again. The United States of America is in true dire straits right now.

 

In economics nothing is certain. Economists cannot prove their theories with controlled, repeatable experiments the way those in the natural sciences can. Our only guide is what has worked in the past.

Because government spending has usually increased since 1933 it is difficult to gauge the effect of a reduction in government spending. The last one I am aware of was in 1937. This resulted in an increase in unemployment after it had been declining since 1933. When government spending resumed, unemployment continued to decline.

As I have documented previously, many more Americans think unemployment is the chief problem than the number who think the deficit is. I agree with the larger number. Because of what has worked in the past, I think unemployment can best be reduced by increases in government spending, paid for by an increase in the top tax rate.

I have also documented that there is little support for significant and specific spending cuts. What rich Republicans think of as "waste, fraud, and abuse," are programs many Americans, including many Republicans, want very much to preserve. The largest and most expensive programs are the most popular.

 

Thanks I knew it was getting to a no win point....but did not have the timing of the finish line.

 

I really do not care if you have not found support for spending cuts, I would never in a thousand years expect you too.

But that does not say that they are not needed, it would be very nice if more politicians did what was right for our country, rather than what was right for their reelection.

There is a lot of support for cutting the waste, you just never look for it. If one dollar is spent foolishly, it is too much, right now. BTW, how much spending on waste, duplication and failed programs, is okay with you?

 

What makes this particularly bad is that a stripped-down, minimal bill, rushed through with a debt ceiling increase, will not cut it.

A mini-bill, passed by Monday, would allow the country to avoid default. But it would likely not stop a credit downgrading. Even a downgrading would be bad. No one really knows how bad. Or if they do, they are not telling us.

To put it in perspective, imagine you are on the board of Bank of America, a company that has an estimated $200 billion in T-bills on its books, listed as assets, and uses that "money" to collateralize everything from its investments to the commercial paper that it uses to manage its own cash flow. Moody's drops the credit rating from AAA. What that means is that the $200 billion on the balance sheet is suddenly short, perhaps by as much as $20 billion. The bank's investments are no longer collateralized. Its commercial paper is no longer underwritten.

Multiply that scenario to approximately three thousand banks.

c.


P.S. And a friend has just pointed out that I called Boehner a senator. My bad. Brain freeze. I've just come in from a 21 mile run in 100 degree heat, and I think I'm having borderline heat stroke. My point, I think, is that the Republican Senate broke his side of the deal.

 

The Misinformed Tea Party Movement

I do not doubt that you can find unpopular programs that have not achieved the goals set for them. Hardly anyone seems to like No Child Left Behind any more. My point is that there is little popular support for major and specific reductions in domestic spending.

Most tax haters over estimate the cost of programs that they do not like. I have read on several occasions that most Americans think less money should be spent on foreign aid, most think about 15 percent of the federal budget is spent on foreign aid, and that 5 percent would be more appropriate. Actually, only one percent is spent on foreign aid.

Similarly, tax haters over estimate the amount of money that even they pay in taxes. The following Forbes article only comments on a poll taken during one teabagger demonstration, but I am confident that the results are characteristic of those who vote Republican.

---------

Bruce Bartlett, 03.19.10, 12:01 AM EDT
For an antitax group, they don't know much about taxes.

On March 16 the Tea Party crowd showed up for yet another demonstration on Capitol Hill in Washington. Curious about the factual knowledge these people have regarding the issues they are protesting, my friend David Frum enlisted some interns to interview as many Tea Partyers as possible on a couple of basic questions. They got 57 responses--a pretty good-sized sample from a crowd that numbered between 300 and 500 people.

The first question that was asked concerned the size of government. Tea Partyers were asked how much the federal government gets in taxes as a percentage of the gross domestic product. According to Congressional Budget Office data, acceptable answers would be 6.4%, which is the percentage for federal income taxes; 12.7%, which would be for both income taxes and Social Security payroll taxes; or 14.8%, which would represent all federal taxes as a share of GDP in 2009...

Tuesday's Tea Party crowd, however, thought that federal taxes were almost three times as high as they actually are.

http://www.forbes.com/2010/03/18/tea-party-ignorant-taxes-opinions-columnists-bruce-bartlett.html

 

This might be sort of surprising, but I wholeheartedly agree with you that there's a lot of BS that does not need the funding it currently receives. The trick becomes determining where to go.
Obviously the polar opposites of "Dont touch the army, cut social services" and "dont touch social services, cut the army" are not sustainable.

 

Jumping in to neither agree nor disagree, but to make an observation: somewhere above Kimiko says that Social Security does not contribute to the deficit.

She is right. For now. On August 2, who knows?

The problem is that SSI has been tapped dry, and its funding has been replaced by vouchers. Those vouchers are only as good as the country's credit.

If T-bills are downgraded (with or without a default), those vouchers will instantaneously lose value, and Social Security will be short.

By how much? Who knows?

 

What you are saying is absolutely true. Obama "moved the goalposts" by coming back and demanding an additional $400 billion (a 50% increase) in revenue, after they had already agreed on the fundamental terms of the deal.

But "they" say Boehner was already having second thoughts, and receiving hellish pressure from his end. "They" say he was looking for an excuse to scuttle it. Obama, true to form, served a very good reason up on a silver platter, but Boehner took it with relief. (He looks like shit, now, though!) I wasn't there. I am only citing the story in the WSJ this morning.

Let's face it: a credit downgrade would be bad, and default would be disaster. They now have less than 48 hrs. to prevent at least one of these bad things from happening. There is more than enough blame to go around.

c.

 

I am here, too. At present.

But on August 2, as fate would have it, I will be on a plane to the Emerald Isle. I have a round-trip ticket... we'll see if I use it... lots of great real estate deals in Ireland these days.....

c.

 

Yeah yeah that's a good explanation for getting he verbal boots put to you Ace.

Hell you fell for it twice fool.:excited:

I'm the one saying ethanol is not subsidized any more (so BP among other corporate welfare cases can keep their billions) and while I don't expect it to last (Iowa is just to politically necessary) so far at least it means you're babbling hysterically as my old grandma about something that does not even fucking exist.

Doesn't that concern you in the least little bit Ace?

I mean really going around screaming in public about things that don't even fucking exist?

That would bother me Ace I guarantee you.

You know, with insanity running through both sides of the family and what not. I'd be a little concerned about seeing things that aren't even fucking there.

 

SSI -T Bills...coupon pays the same and they will be held to maturity so value will be down but they will not lose and be redeemed at face value.

 

That would raise Int rates but those need to be raised anyway...
This is BS as low as they are now for banks and investors holding govt bonds...

Higher rates will bring in more buyers for a return and as long as we do not default other than gold they are still the best place to store money.

10 yr needs to be at 4 and 30 at 5.5

They are out of line with the world right now.

 

That is a horrific miss interpretation of the XIVth section 4

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_amendments_11-27.html

That is written to state clearly during the reconstruction period that the US would not assume debts incurred by the southern states during the civil war. It also states that no states could 'reimburse' owners of emancipated slaves for the loss.