I am not unhappy to say that I was wrong about a government shutdown. The morning papers are full of speculations about why the two sides finally came to agreement at the last minute, but I personally find Sir Humphrey’s explanation of these sorts of things as good as any:
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Well it establishes that the Teahadist (with the football) always wins.
Now we’re no longer talking about WHETHER to sentence the American middle class to a lifetime decline into grinding poverty, we’re merely arguing over the rate of the decline and the depths of the poverty, just so some wealthy Randian cultists can indulge their sociopthic fantasies of “I got mine, Jack! Fuck off!”
I expect that the price of extending the debt ceiling will be the repeal of the 13th amendment, and the re-institution of slavery for anyone who cannot immediately pay the exhorbitant price for their freedom, as fairly determined, of course, by the Great and Powerful Oz, errr… Invisible Hand of the Market.
After all, we need to have an Adult Conversation about this whole ‘paying you a wage for the privilege of working’ entitlement we’ve come to expect for the mere sweat of our brows. And we must be Serious about this. After all this ‘wage entitlement’ costs corporations trillions of dollars a year, money that could be better spend Increasing Prosperity for Everyone. (everyone who matters to the Randian cult, that is…)
Afterwards, no doubt, the children of the poor will start to appear on the menus of the fanciest restaurants and Beltway pundits will gush about the ‘bravery’ of our natural feudal overlords as they begin to literally eat the poor.
Anyone who doesn’t see this compromise as an abject defeat for the Democrats is deluding themselves. It changes nothing in the national discussion, it merely gives the teahadists another week of propagandizing and will no doubt result on further giveaways by the Democrats in appease the Republicans.
Never forget: The Democrats actually belive that government serves a purpose; the Repubicans that government is an obstacle to destroy.
I’m not impressed. As somebody, I forget who, said recently, these cuts are akin to slightly reducing your foot pressure on the accelerator as you’re driving towards a cliff. They amount to a few days interest on the debt, as reductions go they’re a joke, and look at the screaming and hyperbole they produced. At some point we’re going to have to move the foot off the accelerator altogether, and apply it to the brake, or go over the cliff. What will this inspire, if reductions at the level of rounding errors drive so many to such hysteria? Mass suicides?
At some point we’re going to have to
raise taxes?
Scott Sumner on what is achievable through taxation. The unexplored option is (like the European nations or Canada) spending more progressively. Thinking you can handle a secular trend of increasing spending by increasing tax rates is like thinking you’re being financially responsible by withdrawing more from the ATM.
um, and what would be so bad about stopping going to war and feeding the military industrial complex??? in a shutdown, soldiers wouldn’t have been paid, but somehow I bet defense contractors would.
“At some point we’re going to have to
raise taxes?”
Looking at the record of the last several decades, with almost continuously rising revenues fairly consistently NOT resulting in a balanced budget, why would any sane person expect a tax increase to result in a reduced deficit, rather than the same deficit at a higher level of spending? At this point, the only people advocating a tax increase to balance the budget are people who simply want more spending, and don’t give a bucket of warm piss about deficits.
Nobody falls for that trick anymore, you might as well give up on it.
At this point, the only people advocating a tax increase to balance the budget are people who simply want more spending, and don’t give a bucket of warm piss about deficits.
Evidence for this patently mendacious statement, please. TIA
Evidence 1: Easily obtained graphs of spending vs revenue over the last 30 years. Specifically this one. Note that, over the last 3 decades, and setting aside the anomalous revenue due to the stock market bubble of the 90′s, the spending and revenue curves have been pretty much parallel, with spending averaging about the same as the revenue the government took in only about three years later. At any time in the last 30 years, a simple three year spending freeze would have balanced the budget.
Now, if you adjust for inflation, the picture is somewhat bleaker: It would have taken a four year spending freeze in constant dollars. :O
That is, I repeat, not a secret, and not a record of revenue shortfalls. It’s a record of spending beyond our means.
As for why I say people advocating tax increase simply want more spending, not a balanced budget, my basis for that conclusion is just the fact that the evidence that continually increasing revenues haven’t balanced the budget, rendering that approach to budget balancing absurdly counter empirical, and my personal experience of watching the same people at liberal blogs alternately arguing, (Sometimes with scarcely a pause to breath.) that raising taxes is necessary to balance the budget, and that balancing the budget is stupid and unnecessary.
Yeah, you’re never going to admit you want the extra revenue just to increase spending. That doesn’t obligate me to be oblivious to what’s going on.
and when will conservatives own up to their desire to reduce spending (but only on “social programs”) by cutting taxes? no they prefer to artificially create deficits (after all we did have a surplus in the federal budget when the last Democratic president left office) and then cite the deficits as a reason to cut spending on programs they don’t like. note that none of the deficit hawks seems to feel the need to cut the military budget.
“At some point we’re going to have to
raise taxes?”
How about cut spending, since raising taxes will just encourage them to spend more? Those entitlement programs need to be removed from government hands as they are not Constitutional and here is a tid bit for curious:
“While not defending the increase of the federal debt under President Bush, it’s curious to see Clinton’s record promoted as having generated a surplus. It never happened. There was never a surplus and the facts support that position. In fact, far from a $360 billion reduction in the national debt in FY1998-FY2000, there was an increase of $281 billion.” Don’t buy anyone claims without research.