Deficit panel gridlocks as deadline nears

  • Thread starter Thread starter gilliam
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
gilliam said:
WASHINGTON - NOVEMBER 19: Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), a member of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, also known as the super committee, talks with reporters outside his office in the US Capitol on November 19, 2011 in Washington, DC.

sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/11/19/MN9N1M1KG7.DTL
Click to expand...
This one will be on the Dems, since they are insisting on “balance” between tax increases and spending cuts. The issue with that stance is that stance is that the problem, the deficit, is more than 93% a spending problem.

Its kind of like an injured person going into an emergency room that has both a gun shot wound to the chest and cut to their finger. If the Dems were doctors they would be focusing on the cut to the finger.
 
This whole mess is on both parties. Both want to spend like there’s no tomorrow, and both are more concerned about making their “points” than coming to a workable solution for this disaster they call a “budget.”
 
gilliam said:
Both parties try to figure out how to turn the supercommittee’s embarrassing failure into a political win: politi.co/vxGGBT
Click to expand...
And they will. I think the president needs an issue more than the Republicans do. And the great unwashed among us will continue voting as before and things will stay the same.
 
There’s no downside to failure. The Dems get a campaign issue–“a do nothing Congress which refuses to raise taxes on the rich,” and so does the GOP–“an out of control deficit with Dems unwilling to control spending.”

The budget might be helped if the automatic cuts then went into effect. In fact, from a budget cutting standpoint, that would be a better outcome than any possible super-committee deal. But they won’t. Congress has a year to roll back those automatic cuts, and they will. The deficit bubble will continue to grow.
 
We need a clean sweep in Washington. The committee’s goal was not very ambitious in the first place–to take ten years to cut the deficit back to levels before Obama. They still get to use the phony numbers that do not include the huge expenses coming from Obamacare.

A better plan came from Simpson-Bowles and the whole thing was ignored by politicians who wanted a fairy tale solution that causes no pain to their own special interests, and continues to get them re-elected.
 
Trader said:
We need a clean sweep in Washington. The committee’s goal was not very ambitious in the first place–to take ten years to cut the deficit back to levels before Obama. They still get to use the phony numbers that do not include the huge expenses coming from Obamacare.

A better plan came from Simpson-Bowles and the whole thing was ignored by politicians who wanted a fairy tale solution that causes no pain to their own special interests, and continues to get them re-elected.
Click to expand...
Yes, maybe they ought to just pass the Bowles-Simpson plan. But assuming it could even get through Congress, Obama would likely veto it.
 
Also, if nothing is done, the Bush tax cuts will expire in 2012 and not only the tax cuts on “the rich” (actually high middle class earners) will go away, so will the tax cuts on low and middle income earners.

The government will then collect more as a percentage on a smaller income base because the tax increase in a very uncertain recession will make the economy even worse than it is now.

But then, from the leftist point of view “the worse, the better”, right?
 
This failure is nothing short of a failure to govern. Those charged with making hard decisions and managing the operation of Government do not have an option to give up. We put them there to do a job. If they are unable to, then they should all be removed.
 
Yes but the failure starts at the top. How in the world was this super-commitee even ran correctly, in light of how our government runs, when the President never even attended?

IMHO the problem gets back to structure of our Goverment being so far out of wack, that this is the result. What the “cost” will be is a result of the problem, not the problem.
 
tskrobacz said:
This failure is nothing short of a failure to govern. Those charged with making hard decisions and managing the operation of Government do not have an option to give up. We put them there to do a job. If they are unable to, then they should all be removed.
Click to expand...
Money is the lubrication of the political machine. Money is power and control over who gets the money brings prestige and campaign donations. The hypocrisy of the supper committee laid bare for all to see has nothing to do with taxes, and everything with not cutting or slowing down the gravy train. Really now did we expect anything different?

Ever since the legislature started spending money it would never have, bankrolling debt out to the 10th generation, it will be impossible to change habits overnight.

QUOTE
There is a base for cutting taxes, but cutting spending alienates almost all the bases. Real spending cuts would gore everyone’s cow and the congressmen and senators who listen to pleas, demands and pitches day in and day out know that better than anyone else. They know that spending cuts are a thankless task and that for every target that gets applause, there will be two that evoke discomfort and one that brings out horror and disbelief.
QUOTE

sultanknish.blogspot.com/2011/11/impossible-numbers.html
 
How much was actually expected will show in the stock market. If in truth the market becomes stable after yesterday? Then I would assume the majority didn’t expect much of the commitee. If we free-fall into recession? Then I guess we could say the world expected otherwise? The answer to that question remains to be seen.

No?
 
tskrobacz said:
This failure is nothing short of a failure to govern. Those charged with making hard decisions and managing the operation of Government do not have an option to give up. We put them there to do a job. If they are unable to, then they should all be removed.
Click to expand...
Indeed, remove them all. The problem then becomes everyone is against all the reps but their own. I bet if you asked how “their own” voted on any issues, they would not be able to tell you. Such is our electorate.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top