Politics and the US Economy

[mercury14]

Many of them I wrote myself. I'm glad that you can't tell the difference.

On one single page alone you C&P'd ten complete articles by ten different authors. Which one did you write yourself?

 

[RightField]

On one single page alone you C&P'd ten complete articles by ten different authors. Which one did you write yourself?

I wrote a bunch over the weekend.

Why don't you come up with a rational thought or idea and not spend all your time calling people "idiot"?

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

At least we can tell that celbarai/merc writes all their own material, all three of them.



They do manage to always sound pretty much alike.

 

[RightField]

Yes, I wouldn't be surprised if they were all the same person.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Many of them I wrote myself. I'm glad that you can't tell the difference. Why are you so intent on ridiculing your debate partners? Are you afraid that there's nothing convincing that you have to say so you have to resort to elementary school critisizms.

You once said you were a Doctor. You don't have the maturity of thought nor a writing style beyond a third-rate education to be able to credibly make that claim. Why don't you give a try to letting your thought and points stand on their own without the puerile verbal pugilistics.

Uh....MDs arent all that smart. And you never catch what insurance wont pay for. It can be dripping out your asshole, but if Bleu Cross wont pay for it you'll be diagnosed with ADD.

 

[firespin]

A nurse a I know once threatened to record a patient's pre-surgical diagnosis as "has a uterus and has health insurance."

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

At the hospital I worked for we used to get a steady stream of geezers tossed out of their nursing homes for conduct issues...sexual BS or physical combat. with other residents. Medicare wont pay for such nonsense. So I refused admission. Cops tried the same thing with homeless bums. I wouldnt admit them, either. What I did was let them shower, launder their nasty clothes, feed them, and send them on their way.

 

[RightField]

What's new today?

 

[RightField]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/26/opinion/26brooks.html?_r=1

David Brooks in the NYTimes says "Dems quite sure that someone else is to blame"

There's some great sections...It had me laughing for half the day. One example:

Democrats are lagging this year because the country appears incapable of appreciating the grandeur of their accomplishments. That’s because, as several commentators have argued over the past few weeks, many Americans are nearsighted and ill-informed. Or, as President Obama himself noted last week, they get scared, and when Americans get scared they stop listening to facts and reason. They get all these crazy ideas in their heads, like not wanting to re-elect Blanche Lincoln.

The Democrats’ problem, as some senior officials have mentioned, is that they are so darn captivated by substance, it never occurs to them to look out for their own political self-interest. By they way, here’s a fun party game: Get a bottle of vodka and read Peter Baker’s article “The Education of President Obama” from The New York Times Magazine a few weeks ago. Take a shot every time a White House official is quoted blaming Republicans for the Democrats’ political plight. You’ll be unconscious by page three.

This is another great section on the democrats allegations about money:

As Nancy Pelosi put it at a $50,000-a-couple fund-raiser, “Everything was going great and all of a sudden secret money from God knows where — because they won’t disclose it — is pouring in.”

Even allowing the menace of secret money, embracing this Paradise Lost epic means obscuring a few inconvenient facts: that Democrats were happy to benefit from millions of anonymous dollars in 2006, 2008 and today; that the spending by Rove’s group amounts to less than 1 percent of the total money spent on campaigns this year; that Democrats retain an overall spending advantage.

 

[mercury14]

At least we can tell that celbarai/merc writes all their own material, all three of them.



They do manage to always sound pretty much alike.

Not sure about Celebrex, but I write my own material. Unlike you , ReichField, and MeeMie who just C&P other people's thoughts.

 

[RightField]

America’s Economy: The Ninth-Freest
The numbers are in: Our lost economic liberty is being noticed.

We’re No. 9!

America has slipped one spot since last year — from earth’s eighth-freest economy in 2010, according to the 2011 Index of Economic Freedom. This 17th annual report, jointly published by the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal, sifts through the wreckage caused by government’s turbocharged acceleration during the Bush-Obama years. America’s slump in the rankings (we’re down from No. 5 in 2008) confirms the urgent need for Washington to revitalize free markets and restrain government intervention.

Among the 179 countries examined in the Index, Hong Kong is ranked first, followed by Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Canada, Ireland, and Denmark. These nations all outscored the U.S. across ten categories, including taxes, free trade, regulation, monetary policy, and corruption.

America barely made the top ten. Bahrain was tenth, with 77.7 points, one decimal point behind America’s 77.8 score. Chile reached No. 11 with 77.4, just 0.4 points behind the United States.

Even worse, with a score below 80, the U.S. is spending its second year as a “mostly free” economy. As it departed the family of “free” nations in 2010, it led the “mostly free” category. Even within this less-than-illustrious group, America now lags behind Ireland and Denmark.

How did our once-unassailable country wind up so winded?

“The national government’s role in the economy has expanded sharply in the past two years, and the federal budget deficit is extremely large, with gross public debt approaching 100 percent of GDP,” explain the Index’s authors, Terry Miller and Kim R. Holmes. “Interventionist responses to the economic slowdown have eroded economic freedom and long-term competitiveness. Drastic legislative changes in health care and financial regulations have retarded job creation and injected substantial uncertainty into business investment planning.”

Miller and Holmes also criticize Washington for abandoning the free-trade posture of earlier years, an area where Democrat William Jefferson Clinton boldly guided his party, starting with the NAFTA trade pact. Washington Democrats these days scorn Clinton’s enriching example. As Miller and Holmes write, “Leadership and credibility in trade also have been undercut by protectionist policy stances and inaction on previously agreed free-trade agreements with South Korea, Panama, and Colombia.”

On fiscal freedom, the Index rates the U.S. as below average. The top American federal income-tax rate is 35 percent, versus a worldwide average of 28.7 percent. At 35 percent, America’s federal corporate tax outpaces the world’s 24.8 percent average and increases U.S. exports . . . of jobs. America’s overall average tax burden was 26.9 percent of GDP, compared with 24.4 percent globally.

America also earns a below-average score for government spending. Worldwide, such expenditures average 33.5 percent of GDP; in the U.S., 38.9 percent.

Compare America with Rwanda, the Index’s most-improved nation. This landlocked African country leapfrogged 18 spots, from No. 93 in 2010 to No. 75 today. How?

“Rwanda scores relatively high in business freedom, fiscal freedom, and labor freedom,” Miller and Holmes observe. “Personal and corporate tax rates are moderate. With a sound regulatory framework that is conducive to private-sector development, Rwanda has achieved annual economic growth of around 7 percent over the past five years.”

As I noted on my visit there last month, Rwanda remains poor, with a long list of challenges. Yet there is no denying its self-confidence and unflagging commitment to pro-market modernization. Rwanda is moving on up.

America remains blessed with wealth, durable institutions, and creative, clever, industrious citizens. Yet its self-doubt is fueled by an insatiable state that constantly devours more of the nation’s output, and with little to show for its gobbling. Depleted, America stumbles downhill.

Miller and Holmes surveyed the globe and reached this conclusion: Rather than multi-billion-dollar stimuli and 2,000-page regulatory behemoths, “the best results are likely to be achieved instead through policy reforms that improve incentives that drive entrepreneurial activity, creating greater opportunities for investment and job growth.”

The path back to American prosperity and preeminence lies in the leadership of both parties in Washington abiding by the previous paragraph.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/257616/america-s-economy-ninth-freest-deroy-murdock

 

[RightField]

This is a good one. It's by Peter Ferrara. It also points out how Obama is just using misdirection again...watch what he does and not what he says. Where's that snake oil from?

Why Today Is 1979, Not 1995
By Peter Ferrara on 1.26.11

In 1979, of course, Jimmy Carter was the incumbent President, and no sophisticated, intelligent person in Washington thought Ronald Reagan had a serious chance of beating him. The RNC was convinced Reagan would be another Goldwater, and its entire focus was to deny him the 1980 nomination. You know what happened.

In 1995, President Clinton had just suffered a shocking, historic defeat in the midterms, with the Republicans taking both houses of Congress for the first time in 40 years. At first, he seemed to be on the same trajectory as Carter. But he pivoted to embrace the policies of the new Republican Congress, while still managing to play off them to hold his Democrat party base. The Republicans nominated the clueless Bob Dole in 1996, and you know what happened.

Hence the question, is today 1979, or 1995? You can't answer that question by looking at where we are today. You have to look at the underlying trends to gauge where we are going to be in the fall of 2012.

Meet the New Boss
Obama partisans can be cheered by the uptick in Obama's polls. But the roots of that are the roots of his downfall. Dick Morris has called this one wrong. The uptick is not due to Obama's Tucson speech, which will have no significant lasting effect (unless the Republicans are stupid enough to be browbeaten into silence). The uptick is due to Obama's extension of the Bush tax cuts, which has allowed breathing room for a real economic recovery to begin this year, long overdue.

But note the fatal flaw in that hopeful policy turn, like in a Greek tragedy. The extension is only for two years, and all that it involves is extending the same tax rates that have been in effect for the last 10 years. There is no tax rate cut to provide additional incentives for economic growth. Worst of all, President Obama has vowed to come back and impose that tsunami of tax increases in the top tax rates of every federal tax in 2013.

What is already scheduled under current law is precisely that. The top two tax rates would increase by nearly 20%, counting Obama's phase-out of deductions and exemptions. The capital gains tax rate would soar by close to 60%, counting the Obamacare tax increase also going into effect in 2013. The tax rate on corporate dividends would triple, counting the Obamacare tax increase as well. Obamacare will also increase the Medicare payroll tax by 62% as well on upper income earners. All these tax increases will pile on the nation's employers and investors at once.

The economic effect of that, and the resulting further political implications, are discussed further below. But the immediate political implications are that this tsunami of tax increases, as currently framed, will be a top central issue in the 2012 elections.

A second top central issue of that election is being framed right now. Obama and the Democrats have already begun attacking the Republicans because they don't want to spend enough, in the Democrats' enlightened view. In the current political environment, this is an incalculable blunder, and the Republicans must recognize that and embrace the issue framed just this way.

The Democrats are married to the view that this will be 1995 all over again. But it is actually much worse for them than 1979, because Obama's leftward extremism has awakened the grassroots, as witnessed by the rise of the Tea Party. In this environment, the 1995 attack on the Republican budget because it doesn't spend enough will be as politically fatal as Obamacare was in the midterms. This year, there will be a widespread grassroots expression that even the Republican budget spends too much. Sen. Jim DeMint and his cohorts are already fanning those flames. That argument will resonate at the grassroots, and among independents in particular, throughout 2012.

In last night's State of the Union, President Obama actually just reiterated the fundamental guiding premise of Obamanomics over the past two years. That is that more government spending is the key to economic growth, both short term and long term. But the reality is that still more government spending will just subtract from rather than add to the economy. More on the State of the Union fallacies next week.

Meanwhile, the Obamunistas are back to their calculated deception, and so certain that us Homer Simpsons out here will fall for it again. Investor's Business Daily framed the issue exactly correctly in its lead editorial yesterday, entitled "The Grand Pivot -- Who's He Kidding?" The editorial began, "Will the man who conned the public into believing he was a moderate, but who has governed as the most immoderate leftist in the country's history, now try to pull the same con so he can be elected again?"

Yup. Even before last night, the Great Con was already underway. On January 18, the Wall Street Journal published a commentary by the President himself announcing a new Executive Order commanding an Administration-wide review of regulatory burdens "to remove outdated regulations that stifle job-creation and make our economy less competitive."

In the business world, this strategy is called "bait and switch." In politics, it's called "Boob Bait for Bubbas." On Monday, the explained what was in the actual Executive Order, saying, "When the agencies weigh costs and benefits, the order says, they should always consider 'values that are difficult or impossible to quantify, including equity, human dignity, fairness, and distributive impacts.'"

The Journal further explained what this means:
Talk about economic elasticities. Equity and fairness can be defined to include more or less anything as a benefit. Under this calculus, a rule might pass Mr. Obama's cost-benefit test if it imposes $999 billion in hard costs but supposedly results in a $1 trillion increase in human dignity, whatever that means in bureaucratic practice. Another rule could pass muster even if it reduces work and investment, as long as it lessens income inequality.

That is why, "No sooner had Mr. Obama told the bureaucracies to subject all regulations to a cost-benefit test than the bureaucrats began telling reporters that they are already a model of modern efficiency, thank you very much." While the EPA has already adopted rules providing for the implementation of cap and trade by regulation that will proceed to carpet bomb the economy starting this year, "the Environmental Protection Agency said in a statement that it was 'confident' it wouldn't need to alter a single current or pending rule." The Journal rightly concluded, "This sounds more like the end of cost-benefit analysis than the beginning."

This regulation Executive Order ploy will go down in the Calculated Deception Hall of Fame along with the "net spending cut" he promised us in the 2008 election campaign, which he followed up with a 25% increase in federal spending. Then there was the "PayGo" legislation adopted in 2009 with great fanfare at the White House signing ceremony, promising us that no legislation could be adopted again that was not fully paid for. That was followed by dozens of spending bills passed by the Democrat Congress exempting the legislation from "PayGo." And remember, "If you like your health insurance, you can keep it"?

Another overhyped ploy is the appointment of William Daley from Wall Street as the new White House Chief of Staff. For the significance of that, witness former Assistant to the President for Economic Policy Larry Summers, whose widely cited academic work included the demonstration that extended unemployment benefits increases unemployment. With Summers at his side, President Obama has given us 99 weeks of extended unemployment benefits, to go with stubbornly high unemployment. But the titans of Big Business, where the real Homer Simpsons live and work, have already fallen for the same ploy.

2011 + 2012 = 1979 + 1980
With the tax and spending issues so decisively framed against President Obama and the Democrats for 2012, as explained above, developing severely adverse economic trends raise the possibility that the Democrats will be cast deep into oblivion in 2012. Indeed, despite the political relief Obama has won by embracing the Bush tax cuts in toto for two years, the underlying economic trends are dangerous enough that 2012 can still be dialed all the way back to 1967, with Obama forced out of the race as President Johnson was that year.

Just as the fear that the Obama tax tsunami would force the economy into a disastrous double dip recession compelled the extension of the Bush tax cuts in 2010, that tax tsunami now scheduled for 2013 will raise the same fears in 2012. What has not been widely recognized, but soon will be, is how disastrously vulnerable America is to another recession right now.

 

[mercury14]

This is a good one. It's by Peter Ferrara. It also points out how Obama is just using misdirection again...what what he does and not what he says. Where's that snake oil from?

Nobody cares about your spam.

 

[RightField]

Nobody cares about your spam.

I guess you speak for them. How nice for you. Tell me, what does everyone think of the deficit?

 

[mercury14]

I guess you speak for them. How nice for you. Tell me, what does everyone think of the deficit?

Yes I speak for everyone except Ish, Frisco, and MeeMie who also believe that spammed C&P propaganda is preferable to reasonable thinking.

 

[Wok]

Yes I speak for everyone except Ish, Frisco, and MeeMie who also believe that spammed C&P propaganda is preferable to reasonable thinking.

So you believe there is no left wing propaganda?

Of course not. If it is "your team", then it must be true...

 

[mercury14]

So you believe there is no left wing propaganda?

Of course not. If it is "your team", then it must be true...

Huh? Off-topic much?

Of course there is propganda on the left. Do you see me spamming it up and down the board? Or even crediting it?

 

[Wok]

Huh? Off-topic much?

Of course there is propganda on the left. Do you see me spamming it up and down the board? Or even crediting it?

Nope. Just making sure. And no, it is not off topic.

 

[RightField]

Does this sort of thing drive you nuts? Too bad. It's a good education for all the people who aren't aware of how dangerous the current economic policies are for our future. It's a story all good Americans should understand and vote accordingly.

They talk about "tax cuts"...but really, the recent extension by two years just keeps existing taxes where they are and have been for the last 10 years and just prevented massive tax increases that Obama and the others wanted...taxes they need to cover their massive spending increases (he said during his election campaign that he'd be a spending hawk and be responsible...but he didn't seem to keep that campaign promise). The problem is the increase in spending, not the amount that he's taking out of our pockets. The only "tax cut" was the reduction in payroll deductions by 2%. That's a nice gesture, but frankly, one that is just temporary (doesn't give us stability) and further jeopordizes our future...it was just a stupid gimmic.

Wall Street Journal
JANUARY 27, 2011.

Deficit Outlook Darkens
Stark Warning for 2011 Fuels Battle Over Government Spending and Taxation

By DAMIAN PALETTA, JANET HOOK And JONATHAN WEISMAN

WASHINGTON—The federal budget deficit will reach a record of nearly $1.5 trillion in 2011 due to the weak economy, higher spending and fresh tax cuts, congressional budget analysts said, in a stark warning that will drive the growing battle over government spending and taxation.

Last year's tax-cut package alone will add roughly $400 billion to the deficit, the CBO said. As a percentage of the nation's economic output, the 9.8% deficit would be the second-largest since World War II, behind only the 10% level in 2009.

The grim outlook landed a day after President Barack Obama outlined plans to push for new spending that he said would help keep the U.S. globally competitive in his State of the Union speech, and the data could complicate that effort. Republicans have dismissed the president's plans as ignoring the more pressing need to reduce the deficit.

IMF Chides U.S. on Deficit Wednesday, the battle lines sharpened. "This report is a reflection of the gross mismanagement of our nation's finances," said Rep. Tom Price (R., Ga.). "It should make every American think twice about the latest calls by the president to increase spending at a time when Washington can clearly not afford to pay its bills."

Democrats argued that the bleak outlook for unemployment justified spending in a still-fragile economy, a line they intend to use to resist the GOP push for cuts. When asked whether current spending levels should be maintained, Sen. Patty Murray (D., Wash.), a member of the Senate Democratic leadership team, said: "We can't have a fire sale."

President Barack Obama said in his State of the Union address Tuesday night that he would be proposing:

• A five-year freeze on discretionary, non-defense spending, reducing the deficit by $400 billion over 10 years
• A five-year plan proposed by the defense secretary to achieve an additional $78 billion in defense savings
• Increased funding for research and development in to clean and renewable energy
• Funding to recruit 100,000 science, technology, engineering and mathematics teachers over the next decade
• A permanent tax credit of up to $10,000 for four years of college
• A six-year plan to repair roads, bridges, and transit, to be fully paid for and including private capital
• A "significant down payment" on a national rail network
• House Republican leaders have said they want to slash spending to 2008 levels, cutting spending by $80 billion for the current fiscal year.

The Republican Study Committee, a conservative caucus of more than two-thirds of House GOP members, wants to cut $100 billion for the current fiscal year. It has also proposed a Spending Reduction Act which would end or cut funding for dozens of programs and agencies over 10 years including:

Mr. Obama saw the dichotomy up close Wednesday in Wisconsin, on a post-speech trip to a state where Republicans made big gains in November's elections. Speaking to workers at Orion Energy Systems, an energy-efficiency and solar company, he said: "If we, as a country, continue to invest in you, the American people, then I'm absolutely confident America will win the future in this century as we did in the last."

But on arriving in the state, he was greeted by a skeptical letter in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel from Wisconsin's newly elected Republican Sen. Ron Johnson. "We must pursue policies that will first limit and then begin to reduce the size, scope and cost of government," wrote the freshman senator, owner of a polyester and plastics maker.

And the state's new Republican governor, Scott Walker, who attended the event, reiterated his own stance on cutting spending after the speech. As one of his first acts in office, Mr. Walker rejected the stimulus-funded high-speed rail link that had been planned between Milwaukee and Madison. "The train has left the station in Wisconsin," he said. "We're going to focus on things we can afford."

The forecast will no doubt frame the coming months of debate. The first real tests of Mr. Obama's spending priorities will come when the White House releases its 2012 budget Feb. 15, spelling out proposed spending increases and cuts.

On the same day, House Republicans hope to begin debating a bill to extend government spending beyond the current expiration date of March 4. Less than a month later, Treasury officials predict the U.S. could hit the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling unless Congress raises it.

The payroll tax holiday expires in a year, and extending it would add to the deficit. The possibility of a bigger revamp likely won't get taken up until after the 2012 elections.

Many of the budget-cutting proposals from Democrats and Republicans focus on a relatively small part of the U.S.'s $3.5 trillion budget: the roughly 15% that accounts for nonsecurity, discretionary spending. But the deficit is being driven by programs that are more politically difficult to cut, such as the Medicare health plan for seniors, military spending and Social Security.

"The United States faces daunting economic and budgetary challenges," CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf said.

The White House and Republicans could try to put together a package of changes that would raise the debt ceiling while cutting spending, though a deal could prove hard to reach and could trigger a backlash from rank-and-file lawmakers in both parties.

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R., Wis.), a key negotiator who delivered the GOP rebuttal to the State of the Union speech, plans to use the new CBO numbers to set a ceiling for discretionary spending for the remaining seven months of the 2011 fiscal year. Republicans are eyeing cuts of between $60 billion and $100 billion in federal spending. White House officials are pushing for mostly flat spending.

Mr. Obama proposed on Tuesday a five-year freeze on nonsecurity discretionary spending, a move officials say will save $400 billion over 10 years. But his State of the Union speech focused more on the need to continue investing in education and infrastructure than on the need to cut spending. He did, however, open the door for potential changes to some of the government's most costly programs—including Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

Republicans argue the White House isn't taking the country's fiscal problems seriously enough.

"To boost private-sector job creation and help the economy grow, we need to cut spending and enact serious budget reforms to ensure we keep cutting spending," House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) said.

The CBO report offered a sobering look at both the short-term and long-term fiscal outlook. It projected the unemployment rate would fall from 9.4% now to 9.2% by the end of this year and then to 8.2% by the end of 2012. It projected the unemployment rate wouldn't fall to typical pre-recession levels—about 5.5%—until 2016.

.Meanwhile, the U.S. debt is expected to increase rapidly in the coming years, compounded by rising health-care costs, the aging baby boomer generation and soaring interest payments. By 2017, the level of U.S. debt subject to the debt ceiling will hit $20.9 trillion, the CBO projected.

Democrats and Republicans are clamoring to introduce proposals to cut spending. Twenty Senate Republicans introduced a constitutional amendment to balance the federal budget. Meanwhile, 13 senators introduced a bill that would prevent lawmakers from receiving an automatic pay raise each year.

Several top Democrats on Wednesday said the CBO report was troubling, but warned Republicans against using the data to slash spending in the short-term.

"I don't think that's the way to solve the problem," Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D., N.D.) said. He called for a fundamental overhaul of tax and spending rules that would address the long-term fiscal problems.

 

[mercury14]

Does this sort of thing drive you nuts? Too bad. It's a good education for all the people who aren't aware of how dangerous the current economic policies are for our future. It's a story all good Americans should understand and vote accordingly.

No matter what, you insist on thinking of right-wing political propaganda as "education". And therefore you make yourself wholly dismissable except for entertainment value.

You're exactly like Glenn Beck, no? Your Alma Mater?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/00/Beckuniversity.png

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Beck_University

 

[unregistered]

 

[RightField]

Of course it's the liberal lack of education that allows them to dismiss the ramifications of the deficit and the debt.

I really don't pay any attention to him, we've already established that he's a liar and a fool. He's like the disheveled people who often hang out at the 59th street entrance to Central Park who ask you to sign a petition to prevent government sponsored alien abductions while they try to tuck their little plastic bag with the little glass bottle on the ground aside with their foot then grab your sleeve as you try to walk by and ignore them. I can see his bloodshot eyes pleading while he says "but you just don't understand"....

He calls the Wall Street Journal "right-wing propaganda". Isn't that alone enough to dismiss any integrity he might have claimed?

 

[RightField]

Of course it's the liberal lack of education that allows them to dismiss the ramifications of the deficit and the debt.

lol...it is the "new" liberal education, you know, the one where they don't teach math or economics and the science program is based on the IPCC model.

 

[unregistered]

 

[unregistered]