Yesterday, the federal government hit the debt limit, and the Treasury Department started instituting “extraordinary measures” — which waste taxpayers’ money — to buy a few more months for Congress to dither, grandstand and demagogue, instead of authorizing the issuance of debt that is mathematically necessary in order to spend the money that Congress has already ordered the Treasury Department to spend.
Obviously, Congress’s actions in this regard are completely indefensible as a matter of policy and/or logic. Even if Paul Ryan’s budget plan became law tomorrow, the debt limit would need to increase, and substantially! So there is no possible intellectual justification for the notion of not increasing it. And of course, if you can’t intellectually justify not doing X, then “we’re not going to do X unless you do Y” is not a legitimate bargaining position. (It might be an effective bargaining position, in much the same way that “I’m going to kill your family unless you do Y” might be an effective position, but it’s not a legitimate one.) The time for Congress to argue about the debt is when it’s passing taxation and spending bills that wholly determine the level of borrowing necessary to run the government. Making a scene about the debt when the ceiling approaches, as Democrats (including Senator Obama) have done before, and as Republicans are doing now, is pure political theater, not an actual position that can be defended in any way, shape or form.
But it gets worse! I would just like everyone to ponder, for a moment, the intellectual incoherence of this quote:
“Everything should be on the table, except raising taxes,” House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “Because raising taxes will hurt our economy and hurt our ability to create jobs in our country.”
That quote is intellectually incoherent even if you totally agree with Boehner’s underlying precept that cutting spending is better than raising taxes, and thus we should have much more of the former than the latter. The reason the position is intellectually incoherent, even accepting that precept, is this: Boehner is literally saying that there is not a single imaginable spending cut that could conceivably “hurt our economy and hurt our ability to create jobs in our country” more than even the least damaging tax hike imaginable. Thus, “everything” — EVERY spending cut imaginable — should be “on the table,” but NO tax hikes, of any kind, should even be considered.
Obviously, this is political posturing, and I could perhaps be accused of linguistic nitpicking, especially since Boehner clearly doesn’t mean what he’s saying, even on its face. (Really? EVERY military spending program is “on the table,” for instance?) But even though it’s self-evident b.s., this pseudo-economic baloney has real consequences. It takes this debt limit “debate,” which is already beyond frustrating, and makes it utterly maddening, as the Republicans stake out a negotiating position that’s not even anywhere on the spectrum of reasonable opinion — it’s off-the-charts absurd, comprised of total and complete hooey — with the obvious hope of dragging the endpoint of the negotiations as far to the right as possible, since the Democrats (whatever their manifest flaws on this issue) aren’t starting from a similarly off-the-charts absurd position. (They at least acknowledge what everyone knows, which is that a combination of spending decreases and revenue increases are needed.) Basically, the Republicans have no shame, and their shamelessness is going to pay political dividends: they’re going to get more of what they want because they’re perfectly willing to start from a totally indefensible position, and the public, ever susceptible to demagoguery, and relatively unswayed by facts and reason, is all too happy to gobble it up. Machiavelli would be proud of the GOP, but what they’re doing isn’t leadership.
Anyway, although Tea Party radicalism, feckless grandstanding and shameless demagoguery are the immediate causes of this debt-limit “crisis,” the root cause is structural: we should not have a debt limit at all. Congress already controls the purse-strings, so if Congress would like us to stop borrowing money, then CONGRESS SHOULD STOP F***ING SPENDING MORE MONEY THAN WE TAKE IN. It’s as simple as that. Having this additional, superfluous “debt limit” accomplishes nothing except to give Congresscritters an opportunity for consequence-free political grandstanding. And why wouldn’t they grandstand? There’s no disincentive. The public at large, in all its ignorant glory, fails to demand either spending cuts (except in the abstract) or tax hikes, yet always opposes “raising the debt limit,” even though raising the debt limit is not a policy decision, it’s a math problem — one whose parameters are 100% determined by taxing and spending decisions that are already long made by the time the debt limit “issue” comes up for a vote. But the public doesn’t care about this. The public loves spending and hates revenue, but also hates debt. So of course the politicians grandstand! And both sides are guilty, including Obama himself, back when he was a senator. The GOP is walking us closer to the brink than usual, because of the radicalism and uncompromising stance of its base, but the basic position of “opposing” debt limit increases that everyone knows are necessary is by no means new, and by no means exclusive to the Republicans. And it’s not going to stop happening anytime soon.
So… here’s what Obama should demand, in exchange for capitulating to Boehner’s spending-cut demands. The debt limit should not be raised. It should be eliminated. Get rid of this pointless, duplicative law that does absolutely nothing except provide a built-in structural incentive for Congress to grandstand and demagogue. Henceforth, if Congress wants the avoid an increase in the debt, it will need to actually DO ITS CONSTITUTIONALLY MANDATED JOB, and exercise its power of the purse in such a way as to prevent the debt from increasing.
Alternatively, since I suppose that would be politically toxic (ugh), Obama should demand not an incremental increase in the debt limit to get us through 2013 or whatever, but an debt-limit increase up to the projected debt level in ten years under Paul Ryan’s ten-year budget plan. That number would be far bigger than anything currently on the table. But what possible objection could the Republicans have to it? Indeed, wouldn’t such a proposal, so framed, take away their entire argument for demanding concessions at all? If all Obama is demanding is enough leeway to finance the GOP’s own proposed budget, the Republicans aren’t really “giving” him anything at all, so why should he “give” them anything in return?
“Because raising taxes will hurt our economy and hurt our ability to create jobs in our country.”
Under Bush I and Clinton taxes went up and we had economic growth, under Bush II taxes went down and the economy tanked. Seems like there is a discrepancy here. Apparently cutting taxes won’t magically make the economy better and raising them won’t make the economy magically worse. It’s almost as if its a complex system that requires addressing multiple pieces in order to find an optimal balance. Naw, that can’t possibly be it.
This post would have been far more compelling at tweet-length. I agree that the intellectually coherent — and tactically shrewd — response by Obama should be to eliminate the debt ceiling, or tie it automatically to the budget-making process, if the point is that the Treasury must have annual congressional authority to engage in debt issuance activities. The rest of your post is tempest-in-a-teapot fluff and kerfuffle. Too much coffee this morning?
“Everything should be on the table, except raising taxes.”
The only intellectual incoherence by Boehner is above, emboldened — either everything is on the table, or it isn’t. In any case, the statement isn’t worth analyzing too seriously because it’s obviously not a serious statement. I mean, raising taxes is off the table, but eliminating Medicare and Social Security is? I highly doubt that, unless you’re Ron Paul.
In any case, you’re committing a inductive fallacy in your criticism of Boehner’s statement. Just because he explicitly rules out any tax hikes as being deleterious to growing the economy/jobs doesn’t mean he thinks that no spending cut can have a deleterious effect on growing the economy/jobs.
Finally, David, I agree that one could make the argument that raising specific taxes as part of an overall tax reform effort could have a positive impact on the economy, but it’s extremely dubious that any tax hike in and of itself would positively affect the economy.
Raising capital gains taxes on high-frequency trading would positively affect the economy. It would rein in a socially destructive activity and produce tax revenue at the same time. It’s the equivalent of instituting a tax on thievery.
Plenty of economists would argue that trading taxes (IE, Tobin tax) that curb speculative activity would also be good for the economy. That’s less clear, but there is a case to be made.
But yeah, in general raising taxes won’t going to do any economic good unless they’re directly linked to some form of virtuous public spending (roads, dams, technical education, other infrastructure). But of course, if you believe that all government does is waste money, then taxes should drop to zero and we should all live in the forest.
But of course, if you believe that all government does is waste money, then taxes should drop to zero and we should all live in the forest.
Wow…how many fields did you cut down to build that strawman?
It would have been nice if such outrage was shown when the Democrats, including your boy Obama, was engaged in the same grandstanding. I think AML hit the nail on the head: lay off the coffee and you’ll think more clearly about these things. Quite frankly, Congress is no more obligated to pass an increase in the debt ceiling than Obama is obligated to sign a debt ceiling law that included a repeal of Obamacare attached to it. No one here is obligated to write a blank check to the other.
For that matter, I think this is the most meaningful debt ceiling debate we’ve had in a while. Normally, the minority part just votes against raising the ceiling (see again, Obama) so they can store cheap points while the majority part just takes the political hit. In this case we have legitimate policy grievences that are being played out and the “obstructionist” party is actually trying to effect real change rather than just score cheap political points.
Finally, while I would like to eliminate the normal charade of the debt ceiling votes where a few politicians (agian, Obama) score cheap political points by voting against the ceiling, I think there is one very big reason why we should keep it. I think it’s impossible to get people to seriously cut spending until there’s no other alternative. There are many problems with the current budget process, but one big one is that it’s all theoretical. The debt ceiling is real. Saying we’re running out of money and time is fairly meaningless to most people until you literally are running out of money and time.
But of course, if you believe that all government does is waste money, then taxes should drop to zero and we should all live in the forest.
There’s a difference between being wasteful and being inefficient. Often the government is both, but being inefficient in and of itself is not a sole factor in determining whether the state ought to do something.
Raising capital gains taxes on high-frequency trading would positively affect the economy. It would rein in a socially destructive activity and produce tax revenue at the same time. It’s the equivalent of instituting a tax on thievery.
That sounds a bit simplistic and smells of “too good to be true”. I’m all for being convinced, but my initial skepticism is driven from this:
1) Who gets to define “high frequency” and how are they defining it? How will this tax be collected, reported, and enforced?
2) I suppose a high-frequency trader would argue that high-frequency trades dampen price volatility by increasing the base quantity of trades being made, establishing a stable mode for low-frequency traders that don’t set a floor or ceiling price or make a call or put when telling their trader to make a stock transaction.
3) I am unconvinced that “speculation” in and of itself is an economic ill, as it enhances liquidity and price discovery, and I highly doubt a financial transaction tax such as what you are suggesting could dampen the perceived negative aspects of speculation without in all likelihood also hampering liquidity and efficient capital flows, two things which even Keynesian disciples like yourself would argue are important to foster.
But yeah, in general raising taxes won’t going to do any economic good unless they’re directly linked to some form of virtuous public spending (roads, dams, technical education, other infrastructure).
There’s no such thing as a “virtuous” public action. Government relies on coercion for its existence. There are activities that are by nature of public interest and — necessary and proper — ought to be conducted by the state, but that in and of itself doesn’t inject any “virtue” into the process. If by “virtuous” public spending you intend to mean projects that have the potential of increasing economic activity because they provide some necessary infrastructure or capital which would otherwise be impossible to implement via private capital markets, then I agree. The trouble is, this isn’t 1930 anymore — the big stuff that fall in that category (airports, dams, bridges, ports) are already constructed, and for the most part, private capital markets have proven they can respond to these needs more quickly and efficiently than can government — when they are not hampered by regulation and litigation. What we tend to get from government instead are Bridges to Nowhere — and the opportunity cost of these types of projects have a net effect of reducing optimal capital efficiency and economic output.
Finally, while I would like to eliminate the normal charade of the debt ceiling votes where a few politicians (agian, Obama) score cheap political points by voting against the ceiling, I think there is one very big reason why we should keep it. I think it’s impossible to get people to seriously cut spending until there’s no other alternative. There are many problems with the current budget process, but one big one is that it’s all theoretical. The debt ceiling is real. Saying we’re running out of money and time is fairly meaningless to most people until you literally are running out of money and time.
This.
It would have been nice if such outrage was shown when the Democrats, including your boy Obama, was engaged in the same grandstanding.
I explicitly acknowledged and criticized Obama’s grandstanding twice in this very post, as I have done elsewhere in recent weeks, and I also pointed out explicitly that both parties have done it, and it’s not just a Republican problem. The reason I wasn’t outraged at the time was that I didn’t even know about it at the time. I suspect you may not have, either. Even if you did, countless others didn’t — it was a far less high-profile news story than this. Why? You can blame the media for that, or you can blame the simple fact that there was never a realistic prospect of the debt limit not being raised. Obama was casting an (inexcusable, indefensible) protest vote, not engaging in a game of high-stakes chicken that could realistically result in a default if his demands were not met. Again, his vote was and is inexcusable, but it’s hardly surprising that I didn’t know about it and wasn’t contemporaneously outraged about it. I’m not sure what else you want me to say.
Congress is no more obligated to pass an increase in the debt ceiling than… [blah blah blah]
I fundamentally disagree. Congress is, of course, not legally obligated to pass the increase, because the law is idiotic, which is the whole point of what I’m saying here. But logically, ethically, morally — as a matter of leadership and good governance and not driving the country toward a cliff and risk a totally unnecessary disaster just to make a meaningless grandstanding point — Congress is absolutely, 100% obligated to pass the increase, because CONGRESS HAS ALREADY PASSED THE POLICIES THAT MAKE THE INCREASE MATHEMATICALLY NECESSARY, and it is utterly impossible to avoid the necessity of the increase at this point, even if the Republicans get everything they want. Again, and I can’t emphasize this enough, if the Paul Ryan plan became law tomorrow, a massive increase would still be needed.
In light of what I’ve just said, there is no possible justification for not increasing the debt limit. Absolutely none. It is complete and utter nihilism. If Congress didn’t want to increase the debt, Congress should have increased revenue or decreased spending or both. It didn’t. Now it must increase the debt limit. Absolutely must. Not debatable. Not even close.
Congress is, in fact, completely and absolutely derelict in its duty to this country by not having already passed the increase to the debt limit, because it is currently wasting taxpayer money by forcing Treasury to engage in costly and totally unnecessary “extraordinary measures” in order to give Congress time to dither and grandstand. Did you get that? House Republicans are causing Treasury to waste taxpayer money, for absolutely no purpose, right now, at this very moment. And this is the party of fiscal responsibility?!?
Anyone who thinks taxes should be cut is automatically completely unserious about reducing the deficit.
When you’re in debt, you should cut spending – but you certainly don’t volunteer to take a pay cut.
And please, no, don’t even start with the “but, but, but, cutting taxes will increase revenue” because that canard is as discredited as “trickle-down economics.”
When you’re in debt, you should cut spending – but you certainly don’t volunteer to take a pay cut.
Well currently we are busy borrowing money from all of our friends and neighbors and still spending like a sailor on liberty.
OK, then let’s cut spending. I’m all for that. Let’s start with our massively-overbuilt prison systems, the War on Some Drugs and the multi-billion-dollar foreign war machine.
Oh, wait, Republicans like all those things. They want to cut health care for seniors and classrooms for kids instead.
Dude…did you corner the market on strawmen this weekend or what? Throw out the talking points and try having a real conversation.
1) I’m with you on the war on drugs. American history has already proved that prohibition doesn’t work, and just results in more organized crime.
2) What do you think we should do with criminals if we don’t put them in prison?
3) You mean President Obama’s war machine?
4) Nice ad homs on the Repubicans….you forgot to add “destroy women’s health” and “persecute minorities” though..so no gold star to take upstairs to Mommy.
Travis Mason-Bushman Says:
Anyone who thinks taxes should be cut is automatically completely unserious about reducing the deficit.”
Dang. I was going to make a comment here but it seems I am “automatically completely unserious.” I am going to go swim in the millions of dollars I made on the backs of the poor.
Brendan #9 – I know several folk will correct me if I am wrong, but … there is a fundamental flaw in “Congress is absolutely, 100% obligated to pass the increase, because CONGRESS HAS ALREADY PASSED THE POLICIES THAT MAKE THE INCREASE MATHEMATICALLY NECESSARY” … {don’t blame me for the SCREEEEEMING CAPS !} …
Congress can just as easily choose to reverse the “policies” that they “already passed” … SHAZAAAM ! No need to raise the debt ceiling …
Last time I looked, Congress was not allowed to pass legislation ‘irreversibly binding the hands’ of any future Congress … I don’t remember whose doctrine it was, originally, but “What is done by a legislature may be undone by a later legislature.” … as far as I can tell, that is still part of British (and other) Parliamentary systems …
gahrie #14 – aren’t his points more hanging chaff than “strawmen” ? You know, those countermeasures designed to deflect detection of factual information, like positions ?
@ AML #7 — Fair enough on the wasteful vs. inefficient point.
I tried writing up a big explanation of HFT, but it got way too long winded.
I guess it can boil down to 3 basic factors:
1. HFT firms exploit information in the order book, not fundamental information. They’re not creating information themselves; they’re exploiting information created by the orders of others.
2. HFT’s cherrypick low-risk, profitable trades that provide near zero liquidity benefit and would otherwise go to market makers. And in general, they aren’t bound to provide liquidity in extreme situations in the way that true market makers are (where liquidity is more valuable). Market makers rationally respond by providing less liquidity.
3. HFT’s are a middleman where none is needed. The transactions they execute would happen anyways, just with fractional seconds of delay. The gains they reap would ordinarily be distributed to the trading parties, whose purposes are investment, not rent extraction through strategic trading.
Note I’m referring to a specific type of firm that does HFT based on the order book. There are other motives for HFT, and my criticism doesn’t really extend to those forms of trading.
Hopefully that’s somewhat persuasive — best I could do. I can say that the elite Chicago people we have at Rochester lean towards the opinion that HFT is parasitic, and these are people who share a lot of your prior beliefs. I can’t say that I’m doing a good job representing their views here.
On the “speculation is harmful” point, there’s an old paper by Kenneth Arrow (1973) which articulates how speculation has two socially wasteful effects (informed trading actually reduces liquidity, and human capital is diverted into welfare-reducing speculation). It also creates informative prices. The question it what does the overall tradeoff between informative pricing and the costs of speculation look like. Economics hasn’t answered that question yet.
…My notion of virtuous public spending is productivity-enhancing public spending. Probably could have been more specific about that.
I’ll conclude with a question: How much government spending is “efficient”? What changes would be “efficient”? In my view, we could probably cut from defense, healthcare, and social security, and spend much more on infrastructure (we seem to be below maintenance) and education (I want more money).
Oh, and Brendan is right.
Congress can just as easily choose to reverse the “policies” that they “already passed” … SHAZAAAM ! No need to raise the debt ceiling …
That would be highly significant if it were true.
It’s NOT TRUE.
If Congress tomorrow went back to, say, the Bush budget circa 2006, pre-Democratic Congress, or whatever benchmark you might choose …it would still be necessary to raise the debt ceiling.
This is precisely my point. There is no conceivable way to avoid raising the debt ceiling. The die has already been cast. The debt increases constantly because of obligations already incurred, not policy decisions being made today. As I said, the debt ceiling is a math problem, not a policy decision.
Even the most ambitious Republican reform plans, even if implemented immediately, would, initially, only slow its increase, not stop it in its tracks.
You are factually incorrect. Therefore, I urge you to please reconsider your erroneous position.
Brendan #20 – you do keep repeating that “because of obligations already incurred” … sounds good … possibly even accurate …
It also misses a critical point, one enshrined in the Amercian awareness as “Lucy and the Football” …
Several times, in the recent past, the Dems have said (paraphrased) “Just increase these taxes a little, and we’ll cut spending – Reagan and Bush 1 trusted them at their word, and allowed the tax increases, and the Dems turned round and didn’t follow through with their commitments … remember, “Read my lips;no new taxes !” where Bush 1 trusted the Dems enough to go against that election pledge ? How much did the Dems cut spending back then ?
If I was a Republican, I wouldn’t trust the Dems further than I can throw the Statue of Liberty ! I would not agree to raising the Debt Ceiling until the Dems int eh Senate and the White House committed to and did their part in creating significant spending cuts in pretty much any legislation in the 111st Congress, starting with Obamacare … once there is demonstrable clear-light-of-day proof that the Dems are serious, then raising the debt ceiling can go back on the table …
Again, if the Dems are serious about wanting to increase revenue, one of the simplest ways to do so is to produce more domestic resources, especially oil and gas for energy … how’s the Senate doing on those kinds of projects ?
If they were serious, they would be pushing for current nuclear power plants, the kind that we have been able to build for over a decade, which are even safer than the ones currently producting electricity for the US … how’s the White House doing on pushing those projects ?
It’s really easy to blame The Eeevil Booosh and the Rethuglicans for the evils of the day (with occasional “but both sides do it” pap) – and we have seen for the past 2+ years just how successfully that brings prosperity to our country …
I’m with Casey – “My notion of virtuous public spending is productivity-enhancing public spending. “ – when do you think we’ll see the current Dems and the current White House supporting such spending ?
I’m not asking the Republicans to “trust” the Democrats. I’m asking the Republicans to do their job. They control one house of Congress. Thus, they have at least a significant share of the “power of the purse.” They can stop any budget they don’t like in its tracks, and demand meaningful cuts. Budget negotiations are the moment to do that — not debt limit negotiations.
Further, to the extent the GOP’s power to enact its preferred budget is limited by the Democrats’ control of the Senate and the presidency, Republicans can go to the American people next year and say, “Give us both houses of Congress and the White House, and here, specifically, is what we will do to get America’s fiscal house in order.” That’s all perfectly legitimate.
What’s not legitimate is to pretend that this has anything whatsoever to do with the debt ceiling, which relates solely to giving the government the mathematical ability to pay for obligations already incurred. To make an imperfect but instructive analogy, you’re confusing a decision about whether to get a new credit card and buy new stuff with it (a discretionary budgetary decision) with a decision about whether to pay off the credit card you already maxed out (something you’re simply obligated to do, and will suffer serious consequences if you don’t). The moment to argue about the proper amount of money to spend is before you spend the money, not after you spend it but before the bill comes due (or, in this case, after the bill comes due and the late fees start to pile up, but before the collections agency gets involved). It’s simply not legitimate to say, after authorizing the spending, that you won’t then pay for it.
As a branch of government, structurally, Congress has an absolute obligation to allow the executive branch to pay the bills that Congress ordered it to incur. It’s 100% illegitimate to not increase the debt limit, and therefore, it’s 100% illegitimate to threaten not to increase the debt limit unless you get other concessions. I would refer you back to my analogy about saying, “Do what I want or I’ll kill your family.” That might be an effective tactic, but it’s not legitimate. It’s called blackmail. That’s what the GOP is doing here, except substitute “economy” for “family.”
Meanwhile, I await your straightforward retraction of your factually incorrect statement, “Congress can just as easily choose to reverse the ‘policies’ that they ‘already passed’ … SHAZAAAM ! No need to raise the debt ceiling.”
Also, I look forward to your explanation of why, as a fiscal conservative, you’re OK with your elected representatives wasting your tax money by forcing the Treasury Department to engage in money-wasting “extraordinary measures” so Congress can take more time arguing and grandstanding and dithering.
We all know it comes down to this. We’ve already spent the money. The debt celling question is this, are we good for it or are we not. The checks are in the mail, are they going to bounce or are they going to clear. That is the only question here.
As a general rule, bad things start to happen when you start bouncing checks and missing bill payments.
Now there are other legitimate questions but this isn’t the place to have them.
But AML wanted to talk about waist. Fine, cut the joint strike fighter and the new aircraft carriers. That’s a hell of a lot of waist we can cut from out books right now.
There are other philosophical cuts we can make, things like Dept. of Ed, or Energy, or whatever, but on the ledger sheet, those don’t move the needle. You want to move the needle on the ledger sheet you have got to be as ruthless with the military budget as you are with the NEA (whose budget is equal to what, the cost of moving a carrier group 1 meter?)
I know people talk a lot about entitlement spending. And they are probably right, we do need entitlement reform. But that is a completely separate budget, and issue with it’s own revenue stream. The Federal Government has a significant debt to entitlement programs (in the form of T-bills) but entitlements are simply a creditor of the government, defaulting on that I see as no different than defaulting on the T-bills held by China, or Goldman, or Grandma… Un-capping FICA and continuing to raising the retirement age incrementally perhaps even going so far as to make Social Security for “disability” only, as in it only kicks in when you actually can’t work anymore. That will probably resolve most of Social Securities problems assuming the government doesn’t keep raiding the piggy bank. Health Care is a problem to significant to get into here.
Brendan #22 – you may have missed it – “The moment to argue about the proper amount of money to spend is before you spend the money” – in the 111st Congress, those who said that we shouldn’t be spending so much money, given the way the economy was going didn’t exactly get loud support from your side of the aisle … some of us have been saying all along that new stuff needs to be set aside while existing stuff is dealt with – that Gov’t should be getting out of the way of those who want to increase domestic energy sources, domestic energy supplies, and increased private sector investment …
It’s actually cute that you try the analogy that ““Do what I want or I’ll kill your family.” “ – especially following a Congress and President that essentially said “We don’t care that you want to spend the money you earn on feeding and housing your family – our [Democrat] priorities are much more important, and we’re going to *take* as much of the money you earn as we want because we *can* with our supermajorities in House and Senate and our Democrat White House” – some of us remember that we are “bitter clingers” …
To rectify your credit card analogy, just cuz the prior wife insisted on leasing the expensive car and thus maxed out not only the credit card but also spent the hubbie’s entire income on such things, the new wife doesn’t have to keep making the lease payments … the unnecessary expenses can be cut back, the leased car returned, so that hubbie’s income can suffice … in your analogy, Congresses 108 and 109 and 110 maxed out the US ‘credit card’ with the expensive jewelry and leased luxury car (Medicare D) – then 111 decided that it was important to buy a tricked out stretch Hummer (Obamacare) as part of its “Green” effort – and the GOP in 112 is saying that the Hummer is history while hubbie Obama is saying that he isn’t getting enough Hummers … )those of you who are currently thinking of Clinton should get yer minds out of the gutter !) …
I seem to recall various programs being passed by one Congress, and subsequently cut by a subsequent Congress – so we *know* that it can be done precisely because, in the recent past, it *has* been done …
Based upon that, I stand by my premise – that what Congress hath done, Congress can cause to be un-done …
I admit I’m curious as to what your response will be – if you can somehow justify that Dem programs are sacred and inviolable while GOP programs are fair game ?
dcl:
Ok I am being pedantic here, but you have made the same mistake before…and as a teacher it is simply bugging me way too much.
But AML wanted to talk about waist. Fine, cut the joint strike fighter and the new aircraft carriers. That’s a hell of a lot of waist we can cut from out books right now.
The proper spelling is waste. A waist is something a belt goes around.
I stand by my premise – that what Congress hath done, Congress can cause to be un-done
That wasn’t your premise. Your premise was:
““Congress can just as easily choose to reverse the ‘policies’ that they ‘already passed’ … SHAZAAAM ! No need to raise the debt ceiling.”
If you can’t admit that that’s false — that, even if Congress were to “un-do” tomorrow what you see as the excesses and mistakes of the last 4 years, it would still need to raise the debt ceiling — then you prove yourself (once again) totally unserious, and I have nothing more to say to you about this topic. I’m not going to bother with someone who thinks he’s entitled to not just his own opinions, but his own facts.
Of course the attribution is a bit sketchy, and the quote, as I always heard it, seems to be a miss attributed amalgamation of the thoughts of both Mark Twain and Andrew Jackson…. but … I despise a man that can think of but one way to spell a word, it shows a distinct lack of creativity
Ultimately the correct spelling of homonyms is arbitrary, if at times, annoying when done incorrectly. There, their, and they’re being the most common. Of course there are a few that are almost homonyms that also possess meaning that are rather tangental. Effect affect is the one that comes to mind. A point of grammar that represents a near impossible level of confusion for many a non native speaker. And a few things that are often pronounced as homonyms but do actually have both quite different meanings and different vowel sounds. Our and are is the one that comes to mind here. And by the way it’s herbs because it has a fucking h in it people. Though as a technical matter, Monty Python, in Monty Python and the Holy Grail do actually use the traditional production of Knight, so I suppose we must accept a certain amount of drift in pronunciation over time.
That said, I’m rather bad with vowels, and I use to leave them out, apparently now I’m over compensating…. Ultimately if you got the meaning it doesn’t really matter; unless, of course, this is an english composition class, but it looks rather like a blog comment. By the way, as a typographical matter your ellipsis @25 are miss typeset. In that particular context there should be a space both before and after. At the end of a sentence in, English (as we consult our Bringhurst (page 82-83 of version 2.5) we find this is not done in French), we are to include punctuation, periods included, and eliminate the preceding space. The Chicago Manual of styles calls for a great deal more space than that. But renders something . . . that looks rather ridiculous. Of course ellipsis are inherently a stylistic flourish that are used rather haphazardly, and vastly complicate proper comma usage if one attempts to use them in combination; to wit the form, … and the form…, are both considered acceptable though arguably have slightly different meaning. In other words, there really are things that just are not worth worrying over to this degree. I apologize if an extra i here and there qualifies as such for me and not four you, but clearly you also draw the line somewhere as well.
So – did anyone else notice the deliciously blunt irony of the Sense of Humour of the Gods – whereby Mr Obama’s Irish roots are in the village of Moneygall !!??!!!?
(which is, in and of itself, layered – in that Moneygall apparently comes from “Irish: Muine Gall, meaning “foreigners’ thicket” “ according to Wikipedia – and it was certainly full of thick foreigners on Monday, May 23rd …)
(gasp) Is it possible that Loy the Younger and Mr Obama share a common ancestor ?
But AML wanted to talk about waist. Fine, cut the joint strike fighter and the new aircraft carriers. That’s a hell of a lot of waist we can cut from out books right now.
Where was I talking about waists? The best I did was respond to a Casey straw-man argument. That said, you won’t see me complain cutting the F-35, so long as you restart / continue production of the F-22 and F-18. As for aircraft carriers, it’s all well and good to gasp at the cost, but those floating cities do more to project our power across the globe than anything else in the defense budget. If you want to stop financing carriers, that’s fine, but then accept a world where we cede vast swaths of ocean territory to the likes of China and Russia, not to mention vastly degrade our ability to respond to humanitarian crises like the Indonesian tsunami.
In any case, I had some thoughts bouncing around in my head about this the past few days — the gist of which was, even if this is a faux crisis generated by the GOP for political gain, is not forcing a debt crisis today a far better alternative than waiting for trillions more debt to accumulate and exacerbate the situation to true crisis mode — where indeed, we would have few options? By stroke of luck, I was glad to see this line of thought articulated nicely by Judd Gregg in this article:
This is exactly the point I was contemplating this weekend. Seriously Brendan, if logic was restored and the debt ceiling nonsense was wiped from the books, do you honestly believe the Democrats and the Republicans would ever find a way out of this hole other than until right before we are on the precipice of utter fiscal disaster anyway? And if so, on what historical basis do you draw that conclusion?!?
Frankly, I think it’s worth a second recession, losing the House, and reelecting Obama if it means the GOP can successfully use the debt-ceiling crisis to fundamentally reform entitlements and permanently simplify and fix the tax code. Pelosi, Reid, and her lemmings were willing to run their party off the cliff to pass whatever semblance of single-payer healthcare reform they could manage; I’m willing to support Reps. Boehner and Ryan doing likewise in support of fundamental entitlement reform and a tax system overhaul.