Sequester

[Westside Steve]

With all the whining going on one can't help but wonder...

What in the world is the big problem with just telling everyone, I mean everyone, every organization every American every government employees every politician "hey we are all getting 3 and a half percent less for a while"?

WSS

[VaporTrail]

Here's how it affects me:

 

 

 

[heckofajobbrownie]

Because it wouldn't be good policy. Some areas of the budget need more money, some need less. Some need far less.

 

You have to fix long term fiscal issues and runaway defense spending, not take a short-term discretionary haircut and imagine that you've done something real.

 

Defense and health care/entitlement spending, especially for our aging population. That's the game. Pulling 3.5% out of the NIH or FBI budget isn't. Those may help, but they're not the real source of the problem.

[Westside Steve]

Bad policy??? Damn!

Here's a news flash pal:

After the demagogues are finished painting a picture of the United States as a third world country with a standard of living somewhere below Uganda, we will be rewarded with, wait for it, worse policy.

And guess what?

Nobody is going to tackle the long term problem until we are faced with, or possibly in the midst of, and honest to God depression.

2014 is as long term as these guys are looking.

WSS

[calfoxwc]

Obamao, is he was honest for once, would admit that HE wanted the stupid sequester...

 

to use it as a crisis" but his refusal to work with anyone out of extreme arrogance and marxist crap,

 

has turned it into a gigantic mistake.

 

So, as always, he's trying to bail out of responsibility by whining and bitching that other people

 

won't meet him all the way on his marxist side of negotiations.

 

Not so brilliant. Shep surely is ashamed.

[heckofajobbrownie]

Bad policy??? Damn!

Here's a news flash pal:

After the demagogues are finished painting a picture of the United States as a third world country with a standard of living somewhere below Uganda, we will be rewarded with, wait for it, worse policy.

And guess what?

Nobody is going to tackle the long term problem until we are faced with, or possibly in the midst of, and honest to God depression.

2014 is as long term as these guys are looking.

WSS

 

I'm not sure there was much news in your flash.

[Westside Steve]

I'm not sure there was much news in your flash.

Nope, not at all.

Still I'd say that the across the board 3 and a half percent is better than that.

WSS

[heckofajobbrownie]

Oh, sure. But even easier is just to write a law canceling the whole idea of a sequester.

 

Obama's got a decent reduction package on the table. A normal opposition party should be able to make a deal here. And that's why we're not going to get one.

[calfoxwc]

Obamao has no deal on table that CUTS SPENDING like it needs to be cut, heckbunker.

 

The House has created two bills, and the Senate dems refuse to come up with a

 

plan at all.

 

Obamao wants to continue spending.

 

Please try to get with the program.

[heckofajobbrownie]

Obama's deal proposes two dollars in spending cuts for every one dollar in revenue increases it gets through the elimination of tax exemptions. And today he's floating a bill to kick the sequester down the road two months. You can like it or not like the deal he's proposing, but saying he doesn't have one is a little dim. Because you can go to any political website, or the White House's website, and look at it.

 

Republicans just aren't playing the traditional role of an opposition party. They're simply an anti-everything Obama says party.

[heckofajobbrownie]

David Brooks, for you Steve:

 

"Voters disdain the G.O.P. because they think Republicans are mindless antigovernment fanatics who can’t distinguish good government programs from bad ones. Sequestration is a fanatically mindless piece of legislation that can’t distinguish good government programs from bad ones. Sequestration carefully spares programs like Medicare and Social Security that actually contribute to the debt problem. Sequestration will cause maximum political disgust for a trivial amount of budget savings."

[Westside Steve]

Yes I read that article.

WSS

[Westside Steve]

I'm fully aware that your idea of a proper opposition party is a rubber stamp.

Personally I think we are on the path to financial disaster sooner or later.

It doesn't take very long to realize the budget mechanisms will never be put into effect.

If a woman threatens to leave her husband the next time he hits her but let's it happen again and again, well you get the idea.

 

So kick the can road, great.

As long as the presidents constituents hate rich people, or just Republicans in general, it's a win win for him.

And when the crash comes we will blame whoever is sitting in the Oval Office.

WSS

[heckofajobbrownie]

I'm fully aware that your idea of a proper opposition party is a rubber stamp.

 

And by "fully aware" you mean "I haven't the slightest clue, but the cartoon is easier."

 

And yes, kicking the can down the road would be better than sequester. I hope they do it.

 

As long as the presidents constituents hate rich people, or just Republicans in general, it's a win win for him.

And when the crash comes we will blame whoever is sitting in the Oval Office.

 

Rinse, lather, repeat.

[FairHooker11]

Obama's deal proposes two dollars in spending cuts for every one dollar in revenue increases it gets through the elimination of tax exemptions. And today he's floating a bill to kick the sequester down the road two months. You can like it or not like the deal he's proposing, but saying he doesn't have one is a little dim. Because you can go to any political website, or the White House's website, and look at it.

 

Republicans just aren't playing the traditional role of an opposition party. They're simply an anti-everything Obama says party.

 

piss and moan?

 

"The finger-pointing began during the third presidential debate last fall, on Oct. 22, when President Obama blamed Congress. "The sequester is not something that I've proposed," Obama said. "It is something that Congress has proposed"

 

"for there to be some automatic trigger," Lew said while campaigning in Florida. It "was very much rooted in the Republican congressional insistence that there be an automatic measure."

 

"The president and Lew had this wrong. My extensive reporting for my book "The Price of Politics" shows that the automatic spending cuts were initiated by the White House and were the brainchild of Lew and White House congressional relations chief Rob Nabors probably the foremost experts on budget issues in the senior ranks of the federal government"

 

".Obama personally approved of the plan for Lew and Nabors to propose the sequester to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid"

 

"the final deal reached between Vice President Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in 2011 included an agreement that there would be no tax increases in the sequester in exchange for what the president was insisting on:"

 

"So when the president asks that a substitute for the sequester include not just spending cuts but also new revenue, he is moving the goal posts."

 

government by freakout - Peggy Noonan

 

anti everything Obama says list of people growing everyday! LOLOLOL

[ballpeen]

With all the whining going on one can't help but wonder...

What in the world is the big problem with just telling everyone, I mean everyone, every organization every American every government employees every politician "hey we are all getting 3 and a half percent less for a while"?

WSS

 

 

Nothing.

 

I think this was the plan all along. This way people can say they didn't want to make cuts but had no choice since it was written in to law.

[Westside Steve]

Nothing.

 

I think this was the plan all along. This way people can say they didn't want to make cuts but had no choice since it was written in to law.

Of course.

No one, and I mean no one, should have a problem with across the board 3 percent cut.

No matter how vital you think your own slush fund may be I'm sure you can find a couple percent worth of waste.

Heck gets so angry because it's a simple truth and bears repeating.

The President and the Democrats don't think they need to be serious about budgetary matters. Why should they? Most, or at least many, of their constituents don't really have a stake in it.

Your party governs by cartoon.

 

The president, naturally, want's to punish his detractors and reward his followers.

 

I'm not necessarily saying that a Republican administration wouldn't do something similar.

 

Of course we can bicker about that when it happens.

Right now it's your cartoon.

WSS

[heckofajobbrownie]

You really shouldn't reduce all policy decisions to childish fits of pique. That's probably projection on your part.

 

If you'd like - and I'm not saying you would, because who wants to upset your self-image? - but you could, possibly, if you thought about it, deduce that the Bush tax cuts were unaffordable at our current and future levels of spending and putting some of those tax rates back to where they were would be a good idea policy-wise, and that's why they do it, and also because those taxpayers can most afford it, just like the afforded it in the 90s, and that the middle class is less able to afford it, and that's also why they do it, not because they hate rich people, which is an easy answer, if you don't think too much about it.

[Westside Steve]

You really shouldn't reduce all policy decisions to childish fits of pique. That's probably projection on your part.

 

Except for the fact that this is exactly the presidents methodology here.

Oh, I don't think he understands it very well but he does know this: This bullshit populism has been paying off so far, why change now?

 

If you'd like - and I'm not saying you would, because who wants to upset your self-image? - but you could, possibly, if you thought about it, deduce that the Bush tax cuts were unaffordable at our current and future levels of spending and putting some of those tax rates back to where they were would be a good idea policy-wise, and that's why they do it, and also because those taxpayers can most afford it, just like the afforded it in the 90s, and that the middle class is less able to afford it, and that's also why they do it, not because they hate rich people, which is an easy answer, if you don't think too much about it.

 

Why think about it? You guys know your base.

I don't think even you believe we can bleed enough from " the rich" to get back to prosperity, but that's not the goal. Power is.

 

 

WSS

[heckofajobbrownie]

Of course.

No one, and I mean no one, should have a problem with across the board 3 percent cut.

No matter how vital you think your own slush fund may be I'm sure you can find a couple percent worth of waste.

Heck gets so angry because it's a simple truth and bears repeating.

The President and the Democrats don't think they need to be serious about budgetary matters. Why should they? Most, or at least many, of their constituents don't really have a stake in it.

Your party governs by cartoon.

 

The president, naturally, want's to punish his detractors and reward his followers.

 

I'm not necessarily saying that a Republican administration wouldn't do something similar.

 

Of course we can bicker about that when it happens.

Right now it's your cartoon.

WSS

 

This is poorly thought out and pathetic on a whole host of levels, but what else is new? Also enjoy the "I know you are but what am I?" It really makes me wonder why I even bother.

 

There is no 3% cut on the table. Steve is just making this up, then saying his plan is better than the sequester, which is like saying "Eating cookies is better than eating shit." And then doing a victory dance.

 

You're also accusing the President, who has a plan you can go read if you like, and the Democrats of not thinking they need to be serious about budgetary matters, while you're obviously not being serious about budgetary matters, instead choosing to imagine another simple solution to a complex problem that doesn't solve anything and then doing a victory lap, just like you did in the global warming thread.

 

You. Don't. Know. What. You're. Talking. About. Old. Man.

[heckofajobbrownie]

Why think about it? You guys know your base.

I don't think even you believe we can bleed enough from " the rich" to get back to prosperity, but that's not the goal. Power is.

WSS

 

Oh, for God's sake. You've lost your mind. Obama has made you lose your mind. Remember what you accused Shep of doing during the Bush years? That's you now.

[Westside Steve]

Oh please. You've heard this ridiculous Chicken Little rhetorical.

These clowns, your clowns in particular, don't want any restrictions on spending ever for any reason.

 

I suspect you see the danger and you can see that the real problem isn't going to be touched.

And apparently you don't care.

You just want to force the enemy to raise taxes again and then scream gotcha!

It's all campaign crap, pal.

Right down to you channeling James Carville.

WSS

[heckofajobbrownie]

Steve, you have to stop saying stuff that isn't true:

 

"These clowns, your clowns in particular, don't want any restrictions on spending ever for any reason."

 

This. Is. Not. True.

 

Go look at what's being proposed and come back to me. Or go look at the deal that was very close to being signed between Obama and Boehner.

 

 

The rest of it is more proof that I'm right. You have completely lost your mind, and see everything through this warped "Obama is an evil and power hungry sociopath" lens, just like the most clueless Bush-hater from 2005. Congrats.

[calfoxwc]

Actually, "sociopath" is pretty close to the truth about Obamao.

 

Fast and Furious ....Benghazi.....

 

now, the NRA has it's hands on a "Justice Dept" memo saying that Obamao's intentions on gun control will

 

need to include a national registration, and a complete BAN.

 

And Obamao, by his own press weinei liar spokesman.... said it was Obamao's choice.

 

So now, let the sequester roll - if Obamao won't stop spending us into a financial crisis we have never seen in the history of our country.

 

Must be sad to blindly support a dirtbag marxist president, heckbunker.

 

This whole Obamao admin is a corrupt bunch of somebeeches.

 

Oh, and Obamao's guy, who used to be our Lt. Gov of Ohio - HATES the 2nd amendment,

 

and he is now openly admitting that they are looking at the legal right to TAKE OVER EVERYBODY's IRA's and 401K's.

 

Obamao is now out of control - a marxist pig he is.

[calfoxwc]

BTW, Obamao reneged on that deal. He moved the goalposts in

 

an infantile outburst of demanding everybody "negotiate" by giving up and giving him everything he wants.

 

Didn't work. Good thing.

[Legacy Fan]

http://www.whitehouse.gov/winning-the-future/fiscal-framework

"Step 4: A fairer tax plan that closes loopholes and isn't rigged for those who can game it???"

 

Sales tax only. Boom, done. - except that isn't his plan. His plan is a dog & pony show.

 

 

However, this

based on the values of shared responsibility and shared prosperity.

is fucking-ass terrifying.

[heckofajobbrownie]

Because a "sales tax only" is a bad idea, Leg.

 

You're also dissing the part of the proposal that adheres to what Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan proposed to do, and that's to raise money by closing loopholes on high income earners.

 

“High-income earners use most of the loopholes. That means they can shelter their income from taxation." - Paul Ryan

 

"I can tell you that people at the high end, high income taxpayers, are going to have fewer deductions and exemptions." Mitt Romney

 

That should be a part of the plan that both sides could agree on.

[calfoxwc]

Obamao got his tax rates raised on the rich?

 

Now, he is just dishonestly going for broke with the loopholes also.

 

After that, he'll just move the yardstick again.

 

Obamao is an out of control radical marxist pig.

 

There is no legit defense of him, heckbunker. Huge fail.

[Legacy Fan]

Because a "sales tax only" is a bad idea, Leg.

 

A 10% sales tax based on 2012 consumer spending would yield roughly the same as personal income tax receipts of the same year.

 

Adjust corporate tax structure so that loopholes close as Ryan/Romney suggested. They currently account for 1/3 of income tax receipts. That could increase to 1/2 without much fuss.

 

Based on our current "spend what you don't have" culture I'd bet my kingdom (see?) that the sales tax receipts would surpass current income tax receipts without even breaking a sweat. Keeping more of what you make? History shows that boosts spending at least and probably spurs some investment.

 

This eliminates the financial caste system of our country and the political horseshit that goes along with it.

[Westside Steve]

A 10% sales tax based on 2012 consumer spending would yield roughly the same as personal income tax receipts of the same year.

 

Adjust corporate tax structure so that loopholes close as Ryan/Romney suggested. They currently account for 1/3 of income tax receipts. That could increase to 1/2 without much fuss.

 

Based on our current "spend what you don't have" culture I'd bet my kingdom (see?) that the sales tax receipts would surpass current income tax receipts without even breaking a sweat. Keeping more of what you make? History shows that boosts spending at least and probably spurs some investment.

 

This eliminates the financial caste system of our country and the political horseshit that goes along with it.

Exactly. Everyone needs to contribute. We don't now.

I think if more people were involved in paying for their own benefits, et cetera, they might think harder about the taxing and spending.

But hey, that's the idea right?

 

As to the sales tax I can see the benefits.

Just remember how easy it is to bump it up a half or a whole percent.

Of course if someone actually had to pay it it might be a concern, huh? Like if you don't smoke a cigarette tax sounds like a fine idea.

And most states have 6, 7 or 8 already right?

 

A couple things I do like but could probably live without in a grande bargain are these:

I like mortgage interest deductions I think it promotes home ownership which I believe to be a positive.

Eliminating that deduction could be a potential nightmare for the housing market.

And I like keeping cap gains low enough to spur investment.

It's a good idea to have some equity in life and not rely solely on Big Brother.

I know big brother doesn't see it that way but...

 

And Heck, you don't have to be deranged to see that things are fucked up.

WSS