What happened to all of the doom and gloom economic threads?

[koalabear]

They just don't want to take responsibility for it... as always.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid just can't wait any longer. In a frustrated speech on the Senate floor Friday morning, Reid promised to file cloture on his compromise bill to raise the debt ceiling today, before the House GOP (maybe) finishes cobbling together support for Speaker Boehner's plan.

"This is likely our last chance to save this nation from default," Reid said.


Nice try Chihuahua, trying to take credit away from Reid.

 

[RightField]

S&P said they'd downgrade us if:

1) The deal was small.

2) The deal didn't include increased revenues.

3) The deal was a short term fix.


So what did Republicans do? They promptly went out and advocated for a small deal that didn't increase revenues, and tried to kick the can just short enough to make it an election issue. Republicans value their ideology over the success of America. Never doubt that.

Boehner spent weeks hashing out a deal with just under a trillion in increased revenue, then walked out when he realized he couldn't pass $5 of tax increases through his own caucus.

"We got 98% of what we wanted"
- John Boehner

What I read was that it had to be $4T in spending reductions and didn't read anything about tax increases. The original proposal by the Republicans was around $6T in reductions, but the Dems, with control of the Senate, shot all the Republican plans down. To say that the "Republicans" didn't come up with a big enough reduction in spending is pretty silly given the very public history of the events. I'm sure you have some more of your Daffy Duck "facts" to prove that the Republicans didn't make savings recommendations and that it was actually the Dems that were pushing for big spending reductions and it was the Republicans who were holding out for minimal spending reductions.

 

[koalabear]

What the US credit downgrade means to you
Look for higher interest rates on mortgages, just for starters. Rates for other consumer loans, including credit cards, also could be affected.


http://money.msn.com/saving-money-tips/post.aspx?post=be64d65f-ee4e-4dfe-aff9-67c7968b1b42&gt1=33009

 

[mercury14]

They just don't want to take responsibility for it... as always.

It was common for Republicans to say that default is a legitimate or perhaps even preferred way to handle the debt. They were so radically non-compromising that they were willing to take it to the brink or even over it. S&P didn't think highly of that kind of political theater, or the actual willingness of our leaders to default.

 

[richard_daily]

What the US credit downgrade means to you
Look for higher interest rates on mortgages, just for starters. Rates for other consumer loans, including credit cards, also could be affected.


http://money.msn.com/saving-money-tips/post.aspx?post=be64d65f-ee4e-4dfe-aff9-67c7968b1b42&gt1=33009

I'm already locked in on 3 fixed mortgages... anyone smart knows that rates have been due to climb, and should as soon as all the 2013 ARMs come due, and give us another little bump in the road.

You're too simple to understand basic stuff like this though.

 

[mercury14]

What I read was that it had to be $4T in spending reductions and didn't read anything about tax increases. The original proposal by the Republicans was around $6T in reductions, but the Dems, with control of the Senate, shot all the Republican plans down. To say that the "Republicans" didn't come up with a big enough reduction in spending is pretty silly given the very public history of the events. I'm sure you have some more of your Daffy Duck "facts" to prove that the Republicans didn't make savings recommendations and that it was actually the Dems that were pushing for big spending reductions and it was the Republicans who were holding out for minimal spending reductions.

Where is this $6T Republican plan?

 

[koalabear]

I'm already locked in on 3 fixed mortgages... anyone smart knows that rates have been due to climb, and should as soon as all the 2013 ARMs come due, and give us another little bump in the road.

You're too simple to understand basic stuff like this though.

I forgot you was a capitalist Chihuahua slum landlord.

 

[richard_daily]

I forgot you was a capitalist Chihuahua slum landlord.

Let me slow it down for you...

You're. Stupid.

 

[koalabear]

Where is this $6T Republican plan?

Tabled in the Dem Senate, try to keep up MORON.

 

[mercury14]

The Bowles-Simpson bipartisan debt commission said raise taxes and cut spending

The American people said raise taxes and cut spending

Moody's and S&P said raise taxes and cut spending

The Democrats said raise taxes and cut spending

Obama said raise taxes and cut spending




Republicans are against revenue increases of any kind though. And they will not permit Obama to have anything that can be seen as a victory. Even if it's good for America. Doesn't matter - what matters is what's good for the Republican party.

 

[mercury14]

Tabled in the Dem Senate, try to keep up MORON.

So no link?

 

[koalabear]

So no link?

You are a certified MORON.

 

[RightField]

Obama vs. the 1980s Tax reform
Wall Street Journal 8/6/11

—not an infrastructure bank—might save his presidency
By HOLMAN W. JENKINS, JR.

The economic crisis that began in 2008 has thrown up several questions. How can we live with banks that are too big to fail? How can we support financial institutions during a liquidity panic without creating incentives that make liquidity panics inevitable?

To these must be added another question: After a financial crisis, how do we short circuit the political imperative to introduce polices that inhibit recovery by hitting business over the head?

FDR's depredations somehow never became much of a focus of the copious literature of the Great Depression. The historiography of the Obama Depression will not be so forgiving. American business is luckier today, in a sense: Its success is more rooted in a global economy. U.S. companies are profitable even as the domestic economy lags.
.
Thus people like Steve Wynn, whose sharp critique of Obama policy on an earnings call turned heads last month, do not fear to speak up. Las Vegas may be in the dumps, but Mr. Wynn boasts that Wynn Resorts today is "a Chinese company in many respects and [in terms of] revenues and the rest of our financial posture" thanks to its bet on booming Macau.

A great whoosh of buy-in has greeted the idea that post-debt crisis recoveries must always be slow. But unless a lot of CEOs are lying, a policy onslaught designed to fulfill the pent-up wishes of various Democratic constituencies has been the key anti-elixir of growth.

Instead of a "stimulus" to create jobs by financing useful investments that would have paid a growth dividend in the future, we got a debt-fueled permanent expansion of entitlements and the size of government.

In health care, instead of reforms to encourage competent consumers not to treat health care as a free lunch, we got a doubling down on health-care free lunchism.

In banking, instead of new incentives to cause creditors to pull in the reins on risk-taking banks, we got a formalization of too big to fail.

All economic crises begin differently—this one began in housing—but eventually they morph into the same old crisis of forgetting what works. Think about the last big crisis of faith in American capitalism in the early 1980s. The panic was eventually crystallized in dueling Harvard Business Review articles by George Gilder and Charles Ferguson. Mr. Ferguson, an MIT-based consultant, argued the U.S was dooming itself to vassalage unless Washington brushed aside small, poorly-funded entrepreneurs and concentrated regulatory favors and subsidies on giant firms like IBM, AT&T, Digital Equipment and Kodak.

Mr. Gilder championed the then-emerging Silicon Valley paradigm. He quoted technologist Carver Mead: "We depend on the innovations of the citizens of a free economy to keep ahead of the bureaucrats and the people who make a living on control and planning. In the long term, it's the element of surprise that gives us the edge over more controlled economies."

Who won hardly needs to be belabored except that it apparently does need to be belabored. Almost everything Mr. Obama understands as pro-growth consists of bets on "bureaucrats and the people who make a living on control and planning."

Disregarded, meanwhile, is the 1980s' real lesson, embodied in a prescient little book edited by the late Joseph Pechman, dean of tax scholars at the Brookings Institution. Entitled "World Tax Reform: A Progress Report," his 1988 volume showed how country after country was following the U.S. in adopting Reagan-style rate-flattening and tax simplification.

We had plenty of unwise polices in the mix too. Yet, over the next 20 years, policies that allowed private investment and innovation to reap their natural reward paid off. Globalization may be a megatrend, but the United States is still a big economy, and who doubts that if the U.S. were following a sounder course at home that it would matter less what China is doing with its currency or how the Europeans are handling their debt mess?

Mr. Ferguson has since refashioned himself as a maker of leftwing films about the Iraq war and financial meltdown, but his spirit lives on. Mr. Obama now craves a federal infrastructure bank, apparently still unable to see how growth might emerge except by bureaucrats bossing around tax dollars.

And yet the lord smiles on the U.S. Mr. Obama's own fiscal commission—his shamefully ignored Simpson-Bowles Commission—proposed a Reagan-style tax reform. Tax reform is the political fulcrum for addressing the growth shortage, the fiscal crisis and our runaway health-care prices problem. It's the one idea that reaches across the partisan divide. It might be the only thing that could save the Obama presidency.

 

[RightField]

Why Won't Obama Embrace Growth to Create Jobs?
By Larry Kudlow
August 6, 2011

There he goes again. Out on the campaign trail, President Obama is proposing more federal spending as his answer to sluggish growth and jobs. That won't do it, Mr. President.

He wants more infrastructure spending, undoubtedly in the form of an infrastructure bank. That's a terrible idea. It's borrowed from Latin America, where bloated and corrupt bureaucratic construction agencies have helped bankrupt any number of countries in the past.

He wants to lengthen 99-week unemployment insurance, although numerous studies have shown that continuous unemployment benefits are associated with higher unemployment.

And he wants to extend the temporary payroll tax credit, which is not a permanent reduction in marginal tax rates, has no incentive effect, has not worked so far and is really a form of federal spending -- not real tax relief.

Earlier this week, when he signed the debt-ceiling bill, the president ranted on about the need to raise tax rates on successful earners, investors and small businesses. He's trying to bring back tax hikes as part of the phase-two special committee seeking additional deficit reduction, even though his own party rebuffed him on this in the late stages of the debt talks. All this is a prescription to grow government, not the economy.

What the economy needs, Mr. President, is a strong dose of new incentives, with pro-growth tax reform that flattens marginal rates and broadens the base for individuals and businesses. This includes moving to territorial taxation that ends the double tax on foreign earnings of U.S. companies. Plus, we desperately need a complete moratorium on federal regulations. As Sen. Barrasso recently noted, the government put out 379 new rules on business in July alone, amounting to $9.5 billion in additional costs.

None of these pro-growth reforms are in sight. So the stock market is going through a nasty 10 percent correction over fears of another recession (and European debt default).

But at least we got some good news on jobs. The July jobs report came in stronger than expected. It's not great. But at least non-farm payrolls increased 117,000 -- as the prior two months were revised upward by 56,000 -- while private payrolls gained 154,000.

That's definitely not a recession reading. But neither is it a strong performance. If the economy were really rebounding, we would be creating 300,000 new jobs a month.

In the report, the unemployment rate slipped to 9.1 percent from 9.2 percent. But that's mostly because nearly 200,000 workers left the civilian labor force. Another negative is the household employment survey, which fell 38,000 in July after dropping nearly half a million in June. That survey measures job creation among small owner-operated businesses -- or the lack thereof.

Yet when looking at the new jobs report, along with reasonable gains in chain-store sales and car sales, plus the ISM Purchasing Managers reports (which stayed above the 50 percent line), I repeat my thought that we are not headed for a double-dip recession.

Over two years of so-called economic recovery, growth has averaged about 2.5 percent. It fell to less than 1 percent in the first half of this year, largely from a commodity-price shock that included oil-, gasoline- and food-price spikes. That price shock resulted mainly from the Fed's QE2 depreciation of the dollar -- a big mistake.

It eroded real consumer incomes and spending.

Lately, the dollar has stabilized and energy prices have come down quite a bit. That will reduce inflation and support better consumer spending. Businesses are already highly profitable and cash-rich. They are investing some of that, but not nearly enough to create sufficient new jobs. Who would, with all these Washington policies?

Finally, the Fed remains ultra-easy with excess liquidity and a zero interest rate.

So it looks to me like we will return to the sub-par 2.5 percent growth trend rather than dip back into recession. At this pace, however, unemployment may hover around 9 percent right up to election time next year.

More spending won't do it, Mr. President. Tax and regulatory incentives will.

 

[RightField]

America’s debt downgrade is a damning indictment of President Obama’s Big Government disaster
The Telegraph (UK)
8/6/11

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/n...of-president-obama’s-big-government-disaster/

The decision by credit agency Standard and Poor’s to downgrade America’s AAA credit rating for the first time in 70 years is a massive blow to the credibility of the Obama administration, and a damning indictment of its handling of the economy. No doubt the White House will pathetically try to blame the Bush Administration, Republicans in Congress, and of course its favourite target, the Tea Party, for the move by S&P. But without a shadow of a doubt, responsibility for the country’s financial mess and staggering levels of debt lie with the current US president and his administration. They have been in charge of running the economy for over 30 months, during which time the United States has witnessed an unprecedented increase in government spending and borrowing.

As the Congressional Budget Office revealed In January, the deficits generated under the Obama administration are the largest since the end of World War Two:

The deficits of $1.4 trillion in 2009 and $1.3 trillion in 2010 are, when measured as a share of gross domestic product (GDP), the largest since 1945—representing 10.0 percent and 8.9 percent of the nation’s output, respectively… Just two years ago, debt held by the public was less than $6 trillion, or about 40 percent of GDP; at the end of fiscal year 2010, such debt was roughly $9 trillion, or 62 percent of GDP.

The implications of this debt downgrade are extremely serious, not least with 46 percent of US Treasuries owned by foreigners. As The Wall Street Journal notes, the United States now has a score that ranks “below Liechtenstein and on par with Belgium and New Zealand”:


the move by S&P could serve as a psychological haymaker for an American economic recovery that can’t find much traction, and could do more damage to investors’ increasing lack of faith in a political system that is struggling to reach consensus on even everyday policy items. It could lead to the prompt downgrades of numerous companies and states, driving up their costs for borrowing. Policy makers are also anxious about the hidden icebergs the move could suddenly reveal. …. Lessons from other countries, such as Canada and Australia, suggest it can take years for a country to win back its AAA rating.

Since President Obama took office in January 2009, the United States has embarked on the most ambitious failed experiment in Washington meddling in US history. Huge increases in government spending, massive federal bailouts, growing regulations on businesses, thinly veiled protectionism, and the launch of a vastly expensive and deeply unpopular health care reform plan, have all combined to instill fear and uncertainty in the markets. Free enterprise has taken a backseat to continental European-style interventionism, as an intensely ideological left wing administration has sought to dramatically increase the role of the state in shaping the US economy. The end result has been a dramatic fall in economic freedom, sluggish growth, poor consumer confidence, high unemployment, a collapsing housing market, and an overall decline in US prosperity, with more than 45 million Americans now reliant on food stamps – that’s over one seventh of the entire country.

These are increasingly dangerous times, with American leadership being challenged across the globe. Only an historic reduction in government spending combined with pro-growth measures including lower business tax rates to stimulate job creation and attract investment can turn the US economy around. Unfortunately, as Standard and Poor’s decision has shown, this is a presidency in extreme denial over America’s towering debts, leading a nation on a precipice while blindfolded to reality. The United States badly needs another Reagan-style revolution to stave off further economic disaster, preserve American leadership on the world stage, and secure the future of a superpower. Ultimately, greater liberty and freedom, not the deathly hand of Big Government, are needed to turn this great nation around.

 

[mercury14]

Cut and Paste TSUNAMI ALERT!!!

 

[koalabear]

Cut and Paste TSUNAMI ALERT!!!

Kind of like the MORON alerts when you post.

 

[mercury14]

What I read was that it had to be $4T in spending reductions and didn't read anything about tax increases. The original proposal by the Republicans was around $6T in reductions, but the Dems, with control of the Senate, shot all the Republican plans down. To say that the "Republicans" didn't come up with a big enough reduction in spending is pretty silly given the very public history of the events. I'm sure you have some more of your Daffy Duck "facts" to prove that the Republicans didn't make savings recommendations and that it was actually the Dems that were pushing for big spending reductions and it was the Republicans who were holding out for minimal spending reductions.

Google turns up no such $6 Republican deficit plan. The biggest plan that was out there came in the context of the Grand Bargain, which Boehner appeared all for, at $3T-$4T. Then Boehner took it off the table because the Tea Party had him by the nuts. The Republicans immediately went into a mode where they only approved of short term, smaller plans that included no revenue increases. Basically they advocated for exactly what Standard and Poors said would lead to a downgrade. And if the Republican party couldn't get its way (or 98% of its way), they were prepared to default.

S&P didn't like congress talking about defaulting by choice. It's madness and a self-inflicted wound on America by the Tea Party.

 

[RightField]

It's madness by the Dems who have fought every step of the way to minimize any reduction in the extra $1T a year of spending that they've added since "Obama the big spender" was elected. Take responsibility for your party's position and reckless spending...it's failed and it's driving us to the edge of bankruptcy. The tea party is trying to save us from the irresponsible behavior and actions (and spending) of the democrats.

Stop trying to misdirect. The Republicans wanted bigger spending cuts, particularly in light of the fact that the rating agencies said there had to be $4T in spending cuts over 10 years to maintain the AAA rating but the dems wouldn't support it...and with the majority in the senate, all they needed was to vote it down and it wouldn't go anywhere. There's really not much else to talk about. You're tiresome. Why do you continue to try to deceive people? Do you think we're stupid and don't recognize that the dems are spending far beyond our means...(and you try to blame the Tea Party for it?)

Republicans Propose $6T in Spending Cuts
Published April 05, 2011 | Reuters

U.S. Republicans on Tuesday proposed $6 trillion in spending cuts over a decade, including a politically risky overhaul of government-run health programs, while also slashing tax rates as part of their 2012 budget blueprint.

The budget proposal comes as Congress and President Barack Obama are arguing over the 2011 budget -- six months into the fiscal year -- and trying to avoid a government shutdown Friday when money runs out.

The Republicans' 2012 plan, unveiled by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, is sure to deepen a battle over government spending with Obama's Democrats as the two sides ramp up to the 2012 election season.

And like the 2011 spending-cut plan that Republicans rammed through the House of Representatives, Ryan's initiative attempts to kill off Obama's landmark healthcare reform law.

he Democratic-controlled Senate blocked the first attempt and is expected to do so again.

In trying to bring the world's largest economy back to a fiscally sustainable path after a decade of deficit spending, Republicans in the House are proposing an overhaul of two government programs, Medicare and Medicaid, that together account for about one-fourth of all federal spending by providing healthcare for the elderly and poor.

These two programs have served as pillars of the nation's social safety net since the 1960s.

While risking a political backlash from senior citizens, Republicans are hoping their plan will resonate with independent voters and Tea Party activists who have been railing about the rapidly escalating U.S. debt burden.

REPUBLICAN REBUTTAL

Ryan's proposal, a budget blueprint for the fiscal year that starts on Oct. 1, also serves as a conservative rebuttal to the activist government role Obama has pursued.

The Democratic president unleashed hundreds of billions of dollars in government stimulus to combat the deepest recession since the 1930s.

Under Ryan's plan, retirees who now qualify for Medicare would instead be given vouchers to buy coverage on the open market, in an effort to limit cost growth through competition.

State governors, many of them facing severe budget constraints, would be given wide discretion over how to administer the Medicaid health program for the poor.

Those changes would mean Medicare recipients would shoulder more costs themselves and fewer people would qualify for Medicaid, healthcare advocates say.

Top tax rates for individuals and businesses would fall to 25 percent from 35 percent.

The plan would cut government spending by $5.8 trillion over the next 10 years, nearly six times the cuts envisioned by Obama's own budget plan.

Budget deficits, which have hovered at about 10 percent of the economy in recent years, would be brought down to 2 percent of GDP by 2017. Economists consider deficits of around 3 percent of GDP to be sustainable.

Still, the Ryan plan would not lead to a balanced budget within 10 years -- a feature that could disappoint conservative Republicans who are working on their own budget plan, as well as fiscal hawks who have urged Washington to tackle comprehensive budget reforms before the country faces a Greece-style debt crisis.

Though it may pass the House, the plan is not likely get far in the Democratic-led Senate. Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad has said any efforts to balance the budget will have to include increased tax revenues, not just spending cuts.

He and a bipartisan group of five other senators have been working on their own long-term salve for the economy. It's unclear when they will unveil their proposals, however.

Democrats have been criticizing Ryan's plan in the days before its release.

Still, it could serve as the start of a worthwhile discussion about how the country will meet the challenges of a growing debt burden and an aging population, said David Walker, a budget expert who has served as U.S. Comptroller General and head of the Government Accountability Office.

"My sense is his proposal will be a starting point, not an ending point because ultimately you have to do something that not only makes economic sense, is socially equitable and culturally acceptable, you have to do something that is politically feasible," Walker said in a telephone interview.


Read more: http://www.foxbusiness.com/industries/2011/04/05/republicans-propose-6t-spending-cuts/#ixzz1UGV1kfRs

 

[mercury14]

Stop trying to misdirect.

Says the man who is trying to spin it so that the freaking Ryan plan was somehow at all a component of the recent debt ceiling debates. This is disingenuous misdirection to say the least.

The Ryan plan was the House budget, not a debt ceiling bill. The Ryan plan is a turd sandwich and Republicans are running from it as fast as they can ever since the election in NY. Turns out asking seniors on fixed incomes to pay thousands more per year isn't a winning idea.

The Republicans wanted bigger spending cuts, particularly in light of the fact that the rating agencies said there had to be $4T in spending cuts over 10 years to maintain the AAA rating but the dems wouldn't support it.

Liar. The Ryan plan was proposed in January 2010. S&P threw out the $4 trillion number a couple weeks ago.


Not to mention the Ryan plan was sold (unsuccessfully) on pure spin. It would have taken a tremendous amount of resources away from the elderly. Except no Republican was willing to tell the elderly the truth that this would happen.

But because commercial insurers cost more to run than government plans, the Wisconsin Republican's proposal to privatize Medicare starting in 2022 would actually spark a dramatic increase in how much the nation spends on health care for the elderly, according to an independent analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Even as the federal government cut its own spending, seniors themselves would end up paying almost twice as much out of their own pockets _ or more than $12,510 a year, the CBO estimates. And altogether, the total cost of insurance would be higher.

Read more: http://www.stltoday.com/news/nation...19a-11e0-9a04-001a4bcf6878.html#ixzz1UGeC6n9J


And um. More tax cuts for the rich? It.... cut the top tax bracket? Really?

 

[RightField]

The Ryan plan was the initial step in the Republican effort to bring our fiscal house in order. The dems didn't come up with a plan (even though they control 2/3 of the government...someone had to come up with a plan).

Lets not get bogged down in the details or the merits of it....the fact is that the Republicans want to figure out how to reduce spending and the Dems have been fighting it all the way and that's why we only ended up with a pitifilly small number in the spending reduction in the final bill. The tea party is about having us spend within our means and the dems are fighting that. It's the overspending that's causing this crisis.

All the rest of your post is just misdirection and whining. You sure do whine a lot. Don't bother me again until you have something intelligent to share.

 

[mercury14]

The Ryan plan was the initial step in the Republican effort to bring our fiscal house in order. The dems didn't come up with a plan (even though they control 2/3 of the government...someone had to come up with a plan).

No, Republicans knew the Ryan plan had to chance and instead used it to flex their conservative credentials without having to take responsibility for the damage the plan would have done.

Lets not get bogged down in the details or the merits of it....

You mean the "merits" that led Republicans to stop talking about the Ryan plan? The merits of taking Medicare coverage away from seniors on fixed incomes and cutting taxes for the rich even more? The merits that led the Ryan plan's popularity to tank among Americans? Hmm wonder why you don't want to talk about it.

the fact is that the Republicans want to figure out how to reduce spending and the Dems have been fighting it all the way and that's why we only ended up with a pitifilly small number in the spending reduction in the final bill. The tea party is about having us spend within our means

Liar. A week before the debt ceiling bill passed the Dems' plan had deeper spending cuts than the Republican House plan, not including war spending wind-downs. It was even linked on this board. Stop lying.

No, the Tea Party is idealogical nonsense based on "spending cuts". But they don't want to cut Medicare or Medicaid. Or have their kids teacher laid off. Or have their county hospital closed. Therefore the Tea Party stands for nothing.

Except defaulting on the debt as a legitimate economic policy. When S&P said that the political process the US used on the debt ceiling bill was a big part of their downgrade. They were talking about the Tea Party, not the Democrats or John Boehner who were working on a Grand Bargain for weeks (including up to 1 trillion of tax hikes).

 

[koalabear]

No, the Tea Party is idealogical nonsense based on "spending cuts". But they don't want to cut Medicare or Medicaid. Or have their kids teacher laid off. Or have their county hospital closed. Therefore the Tea Party stands for nothing.

Except defaulting on the debt as a legitimate economic policy. When S&P said that the political process the US used on the debt ceiling bill was a big part of their downgrade. They were talking about the Tea Party, not the Democrats or John Boehner who were working on a Grand Bargain for weeks (including up to 1 trillion of tax hikes).

Then they are just as MORONIC as you. The "teaparty" is not happy with the debt ceiling either. Harry Reid's bill is what passed, now make excuses for that, MORON.

 

[RightField]

No, Republicans knew the Ryan plan had to chance and instead used it to flex their conservative credentials without having to take responsibility for the damage the plan would have done.

You mean the "merits" that led Republicans to stop talking about the Ryan plan? The merits of taking Medicare coverage away from seniors on fixed incomes and cutting taxes for the rich even more? The merits that led the Ryan plan's popularity to tank among Americans? Hmm wonder why you don't want to talk about it.

Liar. A week before the debt ceiling bill passed the Dems' plan had deeper spending cuts than the Republican House plan, not including war spending wind-downs. It was even linked on this board. Stop lying.

No, the Tea Party is idealogical nonsense based on "spending cuts". But they don't want to cut Medicare or Medicaid. Or have their kids teacher laid off. Or have their county hospital closed. Therefore the Tea Party stands for nothing.

Except defaulting on the debt as a legitimate economic policy. When S&P said that the political process the US used on the debt ceiling bill was a big part of their downgrade. They were talking about the Tea Party, not the Democrats or John Boehner who were working on a Grand Bargain for weeks (including up to 1 trillion of tax hikes).

Silliness.

 

[RightField]

Here's a quick summary of the democrat economic policy and an accurate summary of the results so far. It's probably a satire, but they did pretty well with it:

http://www.theonion.com/articles/drunken-ben-bernanke-tells-everyone-at-neighborhoo,21059/