The best thing is how the ultimate rationale for their stuff is a fear that if we don’t control our spending then we will eventually default on our debt.
So the solution is to… Default on our debt.
Seems like if we are going to default anyway, we should go on an absolutely crazy spending spree first. We should be building spaceships and aircraft carriers and giant robots with lasers and shit.
THEN we default, and say, “Yo, China. Remember all that money you lent us? Yeah. We used it to buy guns. Turns out, that’s a good investment. We won’t be paying it back.”
I mean, if we’re gonna go down that road, let’s do it with style.
I thought part of the current agreement included kicking the can down the road until December, but it turns out you’re right. The Treasury says the stuff’s hitting the fan on November 3.
They clarify by saying that while tricks will be gone by November 3, daily receipts will enable them to stagger forward until sometime between the 10th and 19th, when they really will be unable to pay the what’s due.
Congress in in recess this week. They return to DC on Monday, and that’s when Ryan said he’d have an answer.
You’re getting your manufactured economic crises mixed up. The government is provisionally funded until mid-December; the debt ceiling needs to be raised (through law) in a few weeks.
The former will shut down the government (yet again); the latter destroys the world’s economy.
Isn’t paul ryan a member of the tea party and one of the key people behind nearly going off the debt ceiling cliff last time?
I’m struggling to think of how anyone would trust this guy in a position of power, much less trust him not to do the same thing again. I might not like Boehner or agree with his politics, but at least i know if he sees the truck coming straight at him, he is going to swerve out of the way and not put the pedal to the metal. With the the new wave of True Believers like Ted Cruz and Paul Ryan, i can’t say this.
No, Paul Ryan isn’t really a member of the tea party. He’s been in Congress since 1999. Hell, two years ago he worked with Patty Murray, the Democratic senator from Washington state to pass the bipartisan budget act of 2013.
The only real link between Ryan and the tea party, I believe, is that they supported him more than Romney in the 2012 election. But currently they have essentially decided that he’s not conservative enough for them any more.
I always thought that his christian beliefs and his goals where pretty far apart. Which wouldnt be a big deal except he makes a big deal about his faith. Also, he is a fan of Ayne Rand, which pretty much makes him a no go for me as a politician or a person.
That Ayn Rand was a seriously weird lady. She once, in her journals, expressed admiration for some freak who kidnapped a little girl (in the late 1920’s I think), murdered her, demanded ransom anyway, and delivered the victim’s body bisected at the waist with the top half propped up on the bottom so at a distance it would look like she was still alive in the car seat next to him. http://michaelprescott.freeservers.com/romancing-the-stone-cold.html
It’s fine to want to reign in government spending and reduce the debt and deficit. I might disagree on the intensity of the issue as I see it more a mid-to-long term issue than an immediate one, especially with interest rates as low as they are not it’s good time to actually invest with government spending (infrastructure and the like.) But even if the argument is government is inefficient with spending money (which even as a lefty I can agree has merit), Ryan still isn’t there.
Every one of Ryan’s budgets places the burden squarely on the poor - cut services for them while cutting taxes for the wealthiest. It is objectively impossible to increase government revenue while cutting taxes (and oh yeah increasing defense spending.) It’s never worked, nor will it ever work. Worse of all though he continues to blame the poor for being poor because they are lazy. Pro tip: Making people even more poor isn’t going to lift them out of poverty.
It is objectively impossible to increase government revenue while cutting taxes
This is actually incorrect.
Since government revenue is linked to the size of the economy, you absolutely can increase revenue while lowering income tax rate.
While it is also not true that lowering taxes will ALWAYS increase revenue, saying that it is impossible to lower taxes and increase revenue is in fact false.
Timex is correct that taxes have a drag on growth. The problem is that our effective tax rates are among the lowest in the modern world, and the GOP continues peddling the notion that even MOAR cuts will spur growth. They do so while willfully lying about the topic on a near-constant basis. They quote the nominal rates while ignoring the reality of our bloated code, they love to talk about federal income taxes and how those pesky 47% grifters pay nothing, when in reality they pay lots of taxes, some of which can be incredibly regressive. The Chicago Booth recently polled 40 economists on whether additional corporate tax cuts would spur job growth over the next five years; not a single one would say yes. Yet cutting taxes for the lower quintiles would increase aggregate demand, and thus have a positive impact on the overall economy. A certain party tried introducing debt-neutral tax cuts for wage earners earlier this year, and a certain soon-to-be House Speaker refused to let it come to the floor.
The letter of Timex’s comment is correct. The spirit of MrGrumpy’s comment is correct.
All the economic plans that Ryan has put out over the last few years, and arguably every Republican economic plan for at least the last 30 years, is predicated on “cut taxes, economy grows”. The problem is that this doesn’t actually happen when you cut taxes for those with the most money already, because they tend to save a good chunk of their money. It works much better if you cut taxes on poorer folks, but how much of that are we seeing in these plans? Even when there is some tax relief across the board, the rich folks get most of it.
So if cutting taxes on the rich doesn’t grow the economy, what does? Well, giving poor folks money does, since they spend it…but that tends to get cut in these plans as well. Or you could raise taxes on the rich, and use the money for things like infrastructure, but we all know what kind of ruckus is raised whenever someone tries that.
I think Ryan has an undeserved reputation for seriousness in budget matters. The word “fantasy” would better apply. As Prof. Calvin Johnson of the University of Texas law school told me, the tax side of Ryan’s plan “is floating in the clouds without any connection to earth or reality.” And of course accomplishing what he hopes to do on the spending side is even more fanciful.
In my opinion, the Ryan budget should be seen as nothing more than a PR document for Republicans so they can say they have a plan to balance the budget, cut taxes, and cure the common cold. It may serve that narrow purpose, although many Republicans are saying that it doesn’t go far enough in slashing spending. I wish I could buy some of the stuff these guys are drinking or smoking.
Timex is correct that taxes have a drag on growth. The problem is that our effective tax rates are among the lowest in the modern world, and the GOP continues peddling the notion that even MOAR cuts will spur growth. They do so while willfully lying about the topic on a near-constant basis.
I actually wasn’t even getting into the aspect of taxation that depresses economic growth, but merely pointing it the fact that revenues are directly related to economic activity and thus can go up while tax rates go down.
You’re in Ohio, right? While I seem to recall you not at all liking Kasich, his policies have resulted in a balanced state budget (actually a surplus, from being in a significant deficit, if I recall), and significant economic growth which resulted in fairly large scale job creation, and focused significantly on cutting taxes. And that’s why he enjoys pretty huge approval numbers, with 62% approval and only 29% disapproval.
On some level, I think it’s worth acknowledging success.
On OH, I don’t live there but an editorial suggests Kasich’s record in OH is mixed:
Economists agree: We’re nothing special. The recovery of Ohio’s job market has generally followed that of the U.S. The biggest government-related boost likely came from the post-recession federal stimulus package, reductions in the short-term interest rate and the auto bailout, not from anything Kasich has done.
“State policies probably had absolutely no impact,” said Vladimir Kogan, a politics professor at Ohio State University.
Brownback, Walker or Jindal have been disasters for their states and they’ve hewed to the Republic playbook far more rigidly than other governors. But from that above editorial (written last year), infrastructure and education are more important than tax rates for attracting business (which is not to say lower taxes are not considered. I would think energy costs for some sectors would also be an important consideration.) Like most things, it’s probably who you ask. Brown for example appears to be very successful in CA but many on the right I imagine would disagree.
He balanced the budget by attacking education and local govt funding, which has resulted in the loss of nearly 25k public sector jobs. Private sector jobs, OH has tracked with national stats, nothing bad, but not great either, and far from your claim of “significant economic growth.” OH is far from some stand-out compared to the rest of the nation. And the attacks on education will bear rotten fruit down the road.
I was indifferent toward Kasich until some of his campaign rhetoric here recently, which shifted me from neutral to wanting to punch him in his face. In particular his comment about teachers hanging out in their lounges moaning about their jobs all the time. I think I mentioned a co-worker who’s ex-enlisted AF, fundamentalist Christian, hardcore Republican, who recently married a 28yo teacher. During lunch a few weeks ago he off-handedly said, “Kasich needs to go.” The rest of us simultaneously stopped chewing, and then asked why. He said his new wife keeps him informed on how much education gets underfunded and what teachers go through these days. My almost immediate response was, “This isn’t Kasich. This is today’s Republican party,” and other co-workers chimed in in agreement. Red state after red state has gone hard after education, making deep cuts into its funding and then sitting back and trumpeting their sound fiscal policies and balanced or near-balanced budgets.
I have no idea what point you thought you were making with your last post though. You seemingly ignored the entire point of my first post regarding the current state of tax levels (and Bartlett’s article on the reality disconnect when it comes to the societal harm inflicted by the spending cuts), and if you’re trying to argue that in today’s climate that additional tax cuts lead to increased revenues I’m open to examples. Personally I think taxes need to go up a bit, but mostly through tax reform rather than rate adjustment.
Back to Paul Ryan: I read a FB post I thought rather amusing yesterday. Republicans prior to the last election spoke of how they would focus like a laser on job creation if given Congress, and the only thing they’ve accomplished so far was going after the estate tax (because those holding millions in assets clearly needed tax relief). They have, however, created one new job opening. Unfortunately, no one apparently wants it.
