Comments about ‘In our opinion: Congress must find courage to deal with federal budget issues’

'Republicans BAIL on budget talks, blame Democrats' - By David Espo - AP - Published by DSNews - 06/23/11

WASHINGTON — Republicans pulled out of debt-reduction talks led by Vice President Joe Biden with a flourish on Thursday, blaming Democrats for demanding tax increases

Courage to deal with federal budget issues? The Democrats just gave us more taxes and more spending. That takes no courage at all but real stupidity!

A mostly excellent opinion piece.

My only disagreement is with the statement "It might be better for them [the sequestration cuts] to take effect than for Congress to keep pushing uncertainty on the economy."

I think proving to the markets that our govt. is incapable of rational action even with the proverbial gun to the head only serves to introduces even more uncertainty into the markets.

Our problem politically has been that we keep electing those who appeal to our provincial political views rather than those who will talk straight about our problems. Such talk makes for poor sound bites and boring debates. So we get the alternative - folks who want to tackle every problem based on a limited universe of partisan talking points (doesn't matter which party).

I recall decades ago a politician with whom I disagreed on nearly every social issue. He was speaking about economics and refused simple analysis but instead offered real insights and allowed for the fact that there were some things he did not know. Despite our other differences, I was fascinated by his brutal honesty. Of course, he did not win his party's primary.

Honesty was not wanted. Not much changes.

Economists estimate that allowing the sequester to go through will decrease GDP by .7%. Since GDP is only projected to grow at a rate 2-3%, that's a fairly significant reduction.

We can carp all day about the "other party".

Bottom line is this.

Both sides must give to get. Neither side will be 100% happy with any budget legislation that has any chance of passing.

The simpson-bowles did not get a chance because both sides had enough votes to block it.

Why? because it contained things that they did not like.

Obama should have made a wirlwind tour touting the plan as the best opportunity to get a handle on the budget and the deficit.

Until both sides agree to some things that they are opposed to, we will never get a budget.

So, we can blame the "other side" all day long, but proposing partisan budgets that have no chance of passing is pure partisanship.

And it serves no purpose, other than to score political points.

So injecting a trillion dollars into the economy each year from borrowing isn't helping very much because the whole system is anemic. So should we borrow $2 trillion next year?

For the last 4 years, the GOP in congress has done all they could to keep progress at a standstill, with arms folded across their chests, acrimonious, stubborn, they have refused to compromise or negotiate in any way. The hard decisions should include a moral component: integrity, fairness, generosity and compassion to the millions who have been hurting in this economy, an economy brought about by the decisions of the Bush administration, not the current one. Having the wealthy 1% pay their fair share of revenue is only right, and while it won't completely solve the problem, we'd have to pare a little off the top of the bloated Defense budget, it would get us going in the right direction.

Mountainman - until someone figures out how to prevent inflation, and gets everyone from the private to public sector to nor longer want raises, the cost of doing business, government of private business will go up. When Wall Street stops insisting on companies earn more year over year, the problem will be easy to solve.

But until we have this nirvana like state, cost will continue to climb. It is completely unrealistic to expect government not to be subject to the same reality every day citizens and businesses require. But it is reasonable to expect government to slow its growth at a slower rate then the economy as a whole.

Once we get past the realm of unrealistic expectations, we might get to solution. My firm is paid millions each year to help cash rich energy companies figure out how to extract and process oil and gas at lower cost each year. It is completely reasonable to expect out government to take as much effort to ensure out hard earned money is spent delivering the maximum benefit at the lowest cost.

Lets focus on that, rather than fantasyland demands whose sole worth or just politically driven rhetoric.

I know this is conventional wisdom. But I think the priorities are misplaced.
Everyone knows that current deficits are unsustainable. But so is an unemployment rate under 8.5%. And getting the economy humming again, with full employment, has to be the higher priority. Eighteen months of stimulative spending could achieve that, at which time it would make sense to cut spending. And it would be easier, because tax revenues would be so much higher.
This editorial presupposes that debt is causing slow growth. But it isn't. Debt and deficits only harm the economy if they result in inflation and higher interest rates. And that's not happening.
But pulling money out of the economy right now is exactly the wrong remedy. European style austerity hasn't worked in Europe, and it won't work here.

The best way to fix economic problems is to spend more money

barack obama

@Eric Samuelson "[P]ulling money out of the economy right now is exactly the wrong remedy."

This is true. And in order for government to have money to spend, it must first pull it out of the economy. Even when money is borrowed for government spending, this carries with it the promise of future taxation. "Stimulus" spending is nonsensical when you consider where the money comes from. It comes out of our pockets.

'Bush signs stimulus bill; rebate checks expected in May' - CNN - 02/13/08

'President Bush on Wednesday signed the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008, calling it a "booster shot" for the American economy.'

'Univ. of Maryland study finds Fox News viewers to be misinformed on key issues' - By Ryan Witt - Examiner - 12/17/10

'Over 40% of respondents said President Obama started TARP even though TARP was signed into law by President Bush on October 3rd of 2008.'

@JoeBlow: "Obama should have made a wirlwind tour touting the plan as the best opportunity to get a handle on the budget and the deficit."

The reason he didn't do as you suggest is simply because he didn't like the plan. The only plan he likes is raising taxes.

@Tekakaromatagi: "So should we borrow $2 trillion next year?"

That's the plan... And $2 trillion each year thereafter until we can get that guy out of the White House and someone in who loves our country and is not out to destroy it.

@micki: "For the last 4 years, the GOP in congress has done all they could to keep progress at a standstill..."

Oh yeah? For the first two of the last four years the Democrats controlled all three branches of government. They did nothing but run up the debt with Obamacare. You need to thank them for that.

"Having the wealthy 1% pay their fair share of revenue is only right..."

The wealthy pay most of the taxes now. What more do you want from them?

@UtahBlueDevil: "It is completely reasonable to expect out government to take as much effort to ensure out hard earned money is spent delivering the maximum benefit at the lowest cost."

The GAO wrote a report about it awhile back... which was summarily ignored.

Obama's government doesn't want efficiency. It wants revenue to grow the size of government.

@Nate: "It comes out of our pockets."

No, no. The Government pulls only 57 cents of every dollar out of our economy. The rest it borrows from China. It is pulling 43 cents out of China's economy. It must not be hurting China very much since their economy is humming. How does that work?

@Pagan: "Over 40% of respondents said President Obama started TARP even though TARP was signed into law by President Bush on October 3rd of 2008."

Yeah, but 100% of respondents said Obama started Obamacare... which is far more devastating that any TARP to our national debt.