I'm looking pretty close with my thread-opening prediction of abject failure. Read an analysis that made sense. The GOP can't vote for a compromise because of Grover and the pledge; anybody from a red district will be primaried for a Yes vote. And the Dems are happy with across-the-board tax rises because then they can cherry pick which tax hikes will be reversed, and which will be retained. So per that theory, a deal before January 1st was always unlikely.
Also the cliff cuts many things that Democrats would never willingly vote in favor to cut (same with military spending and the republicans). I think it was a good agreement after all; I am looking forward to going over and just hope the economy does hiccup too bad.
Yeah true. And post-January 1st the politicians get to look like heroes for passing tax cuts and restoring spending programs, rather than villains for doing tax hikes and cutting programs. Duh, of course we're going over the cliff. At least for a day.
Yes to something like 18-20%, getting rid of the Bush-Obama tax cuts and an increase in the Capital gains tax should get us there, then it is just a matter of cutting lots of shit from the spending side to get us below that 18-20%. In the long run I am in favor of Spending at 18% and Revenues at 20% until we pay back the debt. I know people like you think that is too high on the Revenue side and people like Dpip think that is too low on the spending side.
"People like me" realize the historical revenue to GDP ratio is ~18% and wish "people like you" good luck in collecting 20% for an extended period of time. The key to balancing the budget and reducing the debt is restraining runaway spending and growing the economy and you're proposals aren't going to get us there.
other than military/defense I'd hardly call 2012/13 spending as "runaway" - it's been reeled in quite a bit the last few years. If it's runaway now, it was supersonic for the last decade or so. We've cheated ourselves of proper revenue for far too long - and yes, I even mean from little people like me, the lower-middle-class
Back out health care (i.e., Medicare), and federal spending under Obama as a % of GDP is lower than it was under Reagan. Chart below is Total Spending. Government health care spending is now 6% of GDP, up from 2% in 1980. You do the math. http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/spending_chart_1980_2017USp_13s1li111mcn_F0f
Excellent point above about federal taxes as a percentage of GDP. Normally it should be in the 18%-20% range, but anybody interested in that number supports tax increases in order to end the deficit hysteria as the percentage has been stuck below 16% in Obama's term.
In 2000 the Federal Budget was under $2 trillion, today we don't have a budget but our spending is approaching $4 trillion. It's not a revenue problem and, if history is the marker, you'll not garner more money by simply raising tax rates.
FINE! I agree. Name something SPECIFIC you would cut. Something bigger than big bird. Me? I'd start with DHS and the DIA, but I'm a commie pinko.
Medicare and the military are the obvious places to cut. Medicare because it's a very big item that is rapidly growing, and the military for the obvious reason. Slash them, restore Clinton tax rates, all is good. Now admittedly there will be squawks about Medicare because my cuts mean that old dying people won't get weeks in the ICU, fighting off pneumonia in their last weeks in semi-comatose misery. They'll stay home and die quickly and cheaply. We can deny the geezers their ICUs via Death Panels or we can do it via Paul Ryan's vouchers. Either way gets to the same place. Or we could nationalize medicine, then people could get more treatment near the end of their lives for less overall cost. But that makes too much sense to happen in the States, so I won't push hard for that solution.
I'd be for a dismantling of the DEA completely, and a severe cutting of DHS. After enacting the "fiscall cliff" cuts on DoD. Other than that, I really can't think of too much else to cut. I'd beef up the EPA and FDA and USDA (after getting rid of most farm subsidies they may not need beefed up they'd have staff freed up to do important things like inspections)
This doesn't even make sense, but since you seem to direct it straight at me I'll point out for the 100th time I wasn't a proponent of the War on Terror... although I do take perverse pleasure when Obama explodes Al Qaeda's new #2 via an illegal drone strike.
Why all this talk about cuts? Tax revenues were only 15.4% of GDP in 2011. The recession caused receipts to plunge from 18% to 15%, and the Bush tax cuts had caused receipts to plunge from 19% to 16%. Solve these things and the "spending problem" is pretty much gone.
I had restoring Clinton tax rates on my list. That's the obvious first step. Naturally, neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are advocating such a thing.
ceezmad: I think that the budget need to be balanced and that we need to have a conversation about what services we really want to pay for as a nation, but right now it is not the time for that. Why? Because our expenses kept increasing while our GDP decreased and the income distribution became perverserly concentrated at the top: Since this is the third time (at least) that I make my argument, I'm goin to use some graphs to illustrate my points: 1. GDP in real terms has decreased in the last 4 years, measured per capita and adjusted by inflation. In simple words, our GDP looks bigget only because we are more people and because goods are services are more expensive. 2. At the same time incomes are stagnant at best. For the typical tax payer you are actually getting paid less and that has two effects: a. Pushes tax rates lower, since lower brackets pay less, b. Pushes a lot of people into government assistance, effectively increasing public expenditures. 3. Wealth and income concentration have pushed more of the nation's income in a fewer hands. Most of this concentration has been accomplished by shifting the tax burden from richer people (taxed on income, capital gains, inheritances at the federal level) to the middle and lower income earners at the local level (sales taxes, property taxes). Increasing the tax rate on the top 1% is not only needed to balance de budget or pay the debt, but also to allow the rest of the US to catch a break. So, in short, you might think that I am proposing for the rich to pay our debt, in reality what I am asking is for the rich to pay back for what they "borrowed" from the rest of the population during the last 10 years.
Look, we need to have the conversation that we can never have, because we are a nation of whining crybabies blaming the other party for our issues. Do we want to have a huge military and a social safety net? Most say yes. Do we want clean air and water and energy? Most say yes. Are we going to pay for it? Most say no. So, is it total anarchy low-taxes you're on your own, or higher taxes and a more "European" system? We need to pick. Instead, we'll punt.
Not when Spending is above 24% of GDP. We have both; a Revenue problem (about 2-4%) and a spending problem (about 6-7%). We need to tackle both to fix the issue; if we want to fix the issues, most people talk like they do but at the end they balk when they see the cost of fixing it.
No we don't. Aside from the Bush tax cuts, the lower tax revenues and higher spending due to the recession are tied together. As the economy lethargically improves, more taxes trickle in and less food stamps and unemployment benefits are sent out. That should get the gap to about 18% taxes, 20% spending. Once the Bush tax cuts are solved, then the gap is gone. If the preference is to utilize even more spending cuts to close that gap, then there is a portion of the budget that has exploded since 2001 that could be looked at.
No. You have defined the problem as limiting expenses and revenue to 18-20% of GDP. That is artificial and totally unrealistic in a weak economy. Furthermore, Krugman who has been right about almost everything, debunked the fiscal cliff myth and why cutting expenses is not the way to solve the crisis. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/07/o...rss&adxnnlx=1354885607-Jjys0AIQl5fI3FhblUtB5A&
Yes you keep making the tax the Rich argument every time, I know; you are the VFish of that. As you say GDP is stagnant while spending keeps going up, that is a formula for disaster, which is why we need to fix Spending to a % of GDP. You do not keep charging the Credit card (even at the low interest rate we are getting right now) to keep up with the life style, you change the life style. I am not opposing taxing the Rich people more, I am opposed of thinking that just passing the Bill to the Rich is enough, it is not. Raise in Capital gains is a must, so is the repeal of the Bush-Obama Tax cut and Eventually the Payroll tax need to go back up.