FACT IS, NOTHING HAS CHANGED PEOPLE! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ When a cut is not a cut By Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) - 08/01/11 12:15 PM ET One might think that the recent drama over the debt ceiling involves one side wanting to increase or maintain spending with the other side wanting to drastically cut spending, but that is far from the truth. In spite of the rhetoric being thrown around, the real debate is over how much government spending will increase. No plan under serious consideration cuts spending in the way you and I think about it. Instead, the "cuts" being discussed are illusory, and are not cuts from current amounts being spent, but cuts in projected spending increases. This is akin to a family "saving" $100,000 in expenses by deciding not to buy a Lamborghini, and instead getting a fully loaded Mercedes, when really their budget dictates that they need to stick with their perfectly serviceable Honda. But this is the type of math Washington uses to mask the incriminating truth about their unrepentant plundering of the American people. The truth is that frightening rhetoric about default and full faith and credit of the United States is being carelessly thrown around to ram through a bigger budget than ever, in spite of stagnant revenues. If your family's income did not change year over year, would it be wise financial management to accelerate spending so you would feel richer? That is what our government is doing, with one side merely suggesting a different list of purchases than the other. In reality, bringing our fiscal house into order is not that complicated or excruciatingly painful at all. If we simply kept spending at current levels, by their definition of "cuts" that would save nearly $400 billion in the next few years, versus the $25 billion the Budget Control Act claims to "cut". It would only take us 5 years to "cut" $1 trillion, in Washington math, just by holding the line on spending. That is hardly austere or catastrophic. More from The Hill: ♦ New insurance plans will be required to cover birth control ♦ House Dems grumble about debt-ceiling plan ♦ DeMint may back GOP primary challengers over debt vote ♦ Green groups decry looming environmental cuts from debt deal ♦ AT&T limits data speed for heaviest users A balanced budget is similarly simple and within reach if Washington had just a tiny amount of fiscal common sense. Our revenues currently stand at approximately $2.2 trillion a year and are likely to remain stagnant as the recession continues. Our outlays are $3.7 trillion and projected to grow every year. Yet we only have to go back to 2004 for federal outlays of $2.2 trillion, and the government was far from small that year. If we simply returned to that year's spending levels, which would hardly be austere, we would have a balanced budget right now. If we held the line on spending, and the economy actually did grow as estimated, the budget would balance on its own by 2015 with no cuts whatsoever. We pay 35 percent more for our military today than we did 10 years ago, for the exact same capabilities. The same could be said for the rest of the government. Why has our budget doubled in 10 years? This country doesn't have double the population, or double the land area, or double anything that would require the federal government to grow by such an obscene amount. In Washington terms, a simple freeze in spending would be a much bigger "cut" than any plan being discussed. If politicians simply cannot bear to implement actual cuts to actual spending, just freezing the budget would give the economy the best chance to catch its breath, recover and grow.
I think the best thing to come out of this has been a strategic repudiation for any more 'stimulus' spending and the rest of the progressive Keynesian non-sense. The 'cuts' in this bill are are not serious and when scrutinized in isolation will cause no perceptible pain - Obama's spending rates as a percentage of GDP were already 5% over Bush's metics, and the 'cuts' in this bill were so modest and post-dated in terms of when they kick in it's more of an ideological shift than substance that's for sure.
If only. In truth, what came out of it was that "business as usual" prevailed. Not one department suffered any actual cuts. Obama's spending is enshrined now as unchallengeable until after the next election.
I know Obamabots are mindless zombies, but this thread really caused my to chuckle. Even CNN started saying that Obama really wasn't a part of the debt negotiations with his focus on tax increases. All Obama did was get in front of a camera ever five minutes in a desperate attempt to boost his poll numbers. Boehner and Reid came to an agreement nobody likes but will pass. Obama is in big trouble now for 2012. The economy will either be in recession or very, very weak by Nov 2012. Unemployment for sure will be over 8% If he were any other Dem, he'd be toast now. But luckily there aren't enough Obama zombies to bring him to victory.
Keep in mind that the only thing this whole political theater really accomplished was to push the debt debate into 2013. The difference is then the debt under discussion will be ~$17T instead of the ~$14.5T now...
From Politico: "Vice President Joe Biden joined House Democrats in lashing tea party Republicans Monday, accusing them of having âacted like terroristsâ in the fight over raising the nationâs debt limit. Biden was agreeing with a line of argument made by Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) at a two-hour, closed-door Democratic Caucus meeting. We have negotiated with terrorists,â an angry Doyle said, according to sources in the room. âThis small group of terrorists have made it impossible to spend any money.â "
Geithner has to go. Way too political and ideological for a Treasury Secretary. In front of national TV accusing Republicans of (and I quote) "praying for default". And a blatant liar regarding Social Security and Medicare payment prioritization, about QE, about the Strategic Oil Reserve - the list of lies is actually quite long and growing daily. He even supported the notion of a singular world currency at the Bilderberg orgy. Nice. Geithner simply does not have the capacity to separate Fed monetary policy from rank ideology. A lying weasel not to be trusted IMO.
Spoken like a true Democrat. Only a moronic lefty would equate fiscal restraint with terrorism. In today's Democratic party, white is black, up is down, right is wrong. It truly is bizarro world