From Politico:
The Senate must soon increase the national debt limit to above $13 trillion — and Democrats are looking for political cover.
Knowing they will face unyielding GOP attacks for voting to increase the eye-popping debt, Democrats are considering attaching a debt increase provision to a must-pass bill, possibly the Defense Department spending bill, according to Democratic and Republican sources.
Adding it to the defense bill would allow Democrats to argue that they voted for the measure to help troops in harm’s way — and downplay that their vote also expanded the limit for how much money the country can borrow.
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. And if you do notice what he’s really doing, he’s not spending your money just to waste it or give it to his friends. He’s doing it because he had to. He’s saving lives. The lives of America’s gallant men and women in uniform. Or America’s crippled children. Or to prevent the elderly from living lives of quiet desperation. Or to save the economy. Whatever. As long as you get sucked in, they don’t care what they say. Don’t get sucked in.
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{ 63 comments }
Russ,
It is not that they think you’re a child and the rest of us as well.
The answer is more simple than that. In the long term they don’t have to care because they are set for life no matter; and while the short term may offer some discomfort for them in public opinion, the short term is not going to affect their long term.
In spite of all the evidence to the contrary, the number of thumbsuckers in America whose votes can be bought by providing consistent candy to coat the thumb is sorely underestimated by conservatives, specifically by Republicans.
I haven’t blogged for a while, but when I saw this post I thought that it was one the vids would pick up on. Happily I was right!
I wish I could be more opimistic that vids; sorry I can’t.
Excuse my typo: more optimistic than vids. . .
”
spending your money just to waste it or give it to his friends. He’s doing it because he had to. He’s saving lives. The lives of America’s gallant men and women in uniform
”
Are you kidding? We couldn’t even get parts for our tanks for literally months, let alone smaller vehicles. Military Budget is the most flamboyant syphon off in the history of the world.
My word
!
Sir, I believe you missed the sarcasm or irony in Russ’s closing paragraph, T’was tongue-in-cheek to the max.”Military Budget is the most flamboyant syphon off in the history of the world.”As ex-military I can certainly agree with that, with slight hesitation at your use of the word most.However, having been in the position to know, most of the fault that the military budget is squandered lays at the feet of congress not the military. If you investigate the rules and regulations congress lays on the military in how they use the money you find that there is no way to avoid enormous waste. Real life example: The communication station to which I was attached in 1968 had need of a good reliable, fast, and accurate frequency meter to supplement our old pathetic communications gear. We found one manufactured about 5 Klics up the road from our command, that was the size of a cigar box, had state of the art direct read out of measured frequencies, and was digital. It cost $1,000 at the point of manufacture, and we could have had one for a mere 1 hour drive. We notified our group commander in D.C. of our need and the solution we had found, because we wanted the fix ourselves and we knew that approximately 9 other of our sister Comm Stas had the same need. We were told that the need was genuine and would be put into procurment, that we were not to go up the road and buy the gear ourselves.Because of the tangled web of regulatory idiocy laid on by congress, 6 months later we received our frequency meter, as did the other 9 stations, at a cost of $10,000 each.Congress is where your problem lies.
Like vids said, you missed the sarcasm there; we are with you on this.
Moreover, if you question this action you are obviously an unpatriotic racist (and perhaps an undercover reporter for Fox News).
What no Dan or Muir riding to save the honour of their precious Democrats?
…watch out for those logs!
I’m trying as hard as I can not to get sucked in Russ. But how to keep the faith, when even Mario Rizzo stares, dumbfounded, at the abyss?
http://thinkmarkets.wordpress.com/2009/10/22/we-have-come-a-long-way/
Ah, the long and winding yellow brick road to serfdom.
Imagine having a credit card balance that was 91% of your household income.
Imagine having a credit card balance that was 91% of your household income.
Well put, good analogy.
Well put, good analogy.
Two questions. Who knows what the deficit would have been had Obama not added any additional spending? You guys are all serious fact based analyst right? Anyone? Anyone?
You shouldn’t need to look this up right because being objectivist that you are you already know the answer. Anyone? Anyone?
No one…?? OK I guess Russ will have to tell us the answer because the professor certainly knows it.
OK Russ go ahead give them the answer to what’s behind the curtain.
Anther question. If Professor Roberts or one of his disciples here had been President these last 9 months and got to pass everything he wanted what does he rationally think the deficit could have been?
Anyone?
Again this amounts to 30 years of libertarian policies shattering a vase and them now complaining that Obama hasn’t put it back together in 9 months.
Note when you search the category index here for the “debt and deficits” it only goes back about 9 months.
I for one believe that Our Glorious Leader may have saved us from a comet-born alien invasion.
All hail Barack The Magnificent!
OK so you don’t know the answer…next!!!
I for one believe that Our Glorious Leader may have saved us from a comet-born alien invasion.
All hail Barack The Magnificent!
Idiot.
I’ll take that as Matt also doesn’t know the answer since he could only mount a Pavlovian response. Nice try though… you get a biscuit!!!
Idiot.
Good questions.
But you won’t get an answer to the first one. At best some comment that the Professors hate democrat deficits as much as republican deficits. Government is government, it is too big, it is too bad.
But they don’t seem very consistent in that line of thinking.
Prof. Boudreaux complains about a few millions some liberal town decides to loan to a circus, but keeps very quiet about the billions the Pentagon wastes every day killing people in far away places, for the last 7 years or so. For the biggest budget of all, small government seems forgotten.
to the second one. i think it would be smaller and we’d have had less big banks around, and no investment banks at all…
You want “no investment banks”? You don’t think that investment banks play an important role in the capital markets? This is a silly comment. And why should we have less “big banks”? Is there something wrong with a big bank?
Let’s definitely keep infighting and make sure that turn our focus away from the disgusting lot that we have in DC that have no idea that there is a constitution let along what’s in it.
“Is there something wrong with a big bank?”
Here’s someone who hasn’t been reading the new these last 2 years.
I should have asked my question in a more refined manner. Is there something wrong with a big bank that comes into being as a result of it being better than its competitors and does not rely on corporate welfare to remain in existence?
This absurd distinction that is being drawn between big banks being bad and small banks being good when all of them depend on corporatism and the federal reserve backed banking system to survive is ridiculous.
There would be a lot less big banks, but Obama, Bush the democrats and republicans bailed those banks out, so many thet should not exist still do.
You want “no investment banks”? You don’t think that investment banks play an important role in the capital markets? This is a silly comment. And why should we have less “big banks”? Is there something wrong with a big bank?
Let’s definitely keep infighting and make sure that turn our focus away from the disgusting lot that we have in DC that have no idea that there is a constitution let along what’s in it.
I answered the first question below. Furthermore, the fact is that Obama is not holding spending flat.
Two, I am all for massive reductions in Military spending, auctioing a lot of the good wireless spectrum the military hogs so it can create economic development, removing our troops from Afghansitan, Iraq, Korea, Japan, Europe etc…
Good questions.
But you won’t get an answer to the first one. At best some comment that the Professors hate democrat deficits as much as republican deficits. Government is government, it is too big, it is too bad.
But they don’t seem very consistent in that line of thinking.
Prof. Boudreaux complains about a few millions some liberal town decides to loan to a circus, but keeps very quiet about the billions the Pentagon wastes every day killing people in far away places, for the last 7 years or so. For the biggest budget of all, small government seems forgotten.
to the second one. i think it would be smaller and we’d have had less big banks around, and no investment banks at all…
*) President Bush expanded the federal budget by a historic $700 billion through 2008. President Obama would add another $1 trillion.
*) President Bush began a string of expensive financial bailouts. President Obama is accelerating that course.
*) President Bush created a Medicare drug entitlement that will cost an estimated $800 billion in its first decade. President Obama has proposed a $634 billion down payment on a new government health care fund.
*) President Bush increased federal education spending 58 percent faster than inflation. President Obama would double it.
*) President Bush became the first President to spend 3 percent of GDP on federal antipoverty programs. President Obama has already increased this spending by 20 percent.
*) President Bush presided over a $2.5 trillion increase in the public debt through 2008. Setting aside 2009 (for which Presidents Bush and Obama share responsibility for an additional $2.6 trillion in public debt), President Obama’s budget would add $4.9 trillion in public debt from the beginning of 2010 through 2016.
Bush and Obama have and are causing our massive deficits, which is the correct answer. I fail to see what your point is – GOVERNMNET IS RACKING UP THE DEBT – do you deny this?
Not most on this board … but elsewhere in the blogosphere the general populace has yet to come to the conclusion that our political parties are alike in more ways than they are different.
You don’t give George enough credit. He realized that George W. Bush’s libertarian policies, delivered on a silver platter by the Republican Congress, got us here.
Interesting you would ask the first question. I remember dems raising hell when the deficit was $400 million. I’m sure you weren’t one of them, right? Idiot.
My little pet Chihuahua, thank your for muirpidity #45.muirpidities are stands-alone stupidity that need no context in order to be seen as the idiocy they are.OR #45muirgeo 3 hours ago Two questions. Who knows what the deficit would have been had Obama not added any additional spending? You guys are all serious fact based analyst right? Anyone? Anyone?Hey dipshit, do you see your answer in your own question? Naw, I didn’t think so or you’d wouldn’t have been stupid enough to ask it.The answer is that the deficit would be exactly 800plus billion less if Obama had not grabbed and added additional spending. So we do know for sure that that is so. And, you don’t have to be a financial analyst to understand that one, it is obvious to all of us that can pour pee out of a boot without the instructions being printed on the heel, which of course eliminates you.Now counter that, dipshit.
“The answer is that the deficit would be exactly 800plus billion less if Obama had not grabbed and added additional spending.”
You sure about that? All $800 billion is on this years budget. I’m too busy taking care of H1N1. Why don’t you check this out for us since you’re retired and living off my tax dollars. Let me know what you find.
“The answer is that the deficit would be exactly 800plus billion less if Obama had not grabbed and added additional spending.
Now counter that, dipshit.”
stated MinArcMan…with a Governnment Pension
Uhh you’re WRONG! The stimulus only accounts for $200.
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/06/what-caused-the-budget-deficit.php
— “The first category — the business cycle — accounts for 37 percent of the $2 trillion swing.”
— Second, Bush-era legislation “like his tax cuts and the Medicare prescription drug benefit, [that] not only continue to cost the government but have also increased interest payments on the national debt.”
— Third, “Obama’s main contribution to the deficit is his extension of several Bush policies, like the Iraq war and tax cuts for households making less than $250,000 [...] 20 percent of the swing.”
— Fourth, “About 7 percent comes from the stimulus bill that Mr. Obama signed in February.”
— Fifth, “only 3 percent comes from Mr. Obama’s agenda on health care, education, energy and other areas.”
An $800 billion stimulus may only account for $200 billion so far, but it will account for $800 billion when it is finally all spent. Now add the healthcare plan to that. And whatever else Obama cooks up.
Again this amounts to 30 years of libertarian policies shattering a vase and them now complaining that Obama hasn’t put it back together in 9 months.
It is sheer lunacy to suggest that the last 30 of government policy has entertained any libertarian impulse.
If you want to know what, for the sake of argument, a libertarian dictator would have presented as policy I’ll list a few things here:
1 No U.S. troops in any other country
2 No subsidies or protections, (and especially) no bailouts, for any industry including agriculture
3 A government budget a small fraction of the current
4 No personal income tax
5 An end to prohibition
Seen anything like that in the past 30 years?
Nada!
Now see if you can refrain from making such clueless assertions.
“Who knows what the deficit would have been had Obama not added any additional spending?”
Less, by definition.
“Anther question. If Professor Roberts or one of his disciples here had been President these last 9 months and got to pass everything he wanted what does he rationally think the deficit could have been?”
Less.
Now, some questions for you. What do you believe the deficit should be? Were you concerned about $400 – $500 billion deficits a few years ago? Are you concerned about about $1.8 trillion deficit now? If you gave different answers to the two previous questions, please explain.
Muirdog was VERY concerned and terrified of Bush’s $400 billion/deficits but is NOT concerned about Obama’s $1.4 trillion deficits. Read Orwell.
Two questions. Who knows what the deficit would have been had Obama not added any additional spending? You guys are all serious fact based analyst right? Anyone? Anyone?
You shouldn’t need to look this up right because being objectivist that you are you already know the answer. Anyone? Anyone?
No one…?? OK I guess Russ will have to tell us the answer because the professor certainly knows it.
OK Russ go ahead give them the answer to what’s behind the curtain.
Anther question. If Professor Roberts or one of his disciples here had been President these last 9 months and got to pass everything he wanted what does he rationally think the deficit could have been?
Anyone?
Again this amounts to 30 years of libertarian policies shattering a vase and them now complaining that Obama hasn’t put it back together in 9 months.
Note when you search the category index here for the “debt and deficits” it only goes back about 9 months.
How can you protest against the funding of our brave men and women? It’s unamerican. I for one support our troops.
How can you protest against the funding of our brave men and women? It’s unamerican. I for one support our troops.
Russ-As I know I’ve mentioned to you before, I truly enjoy your podcasts because they give me the opportunity to spend a few hours a week (I’m still churning through a backlog) with people who aren’t afraid to question the status quo.The vast majority of people simply don’t care that we’re becoming (collectively) wards of the state. Worse yet, they don’t even know why they should be upset.
Russ-As I know I’ve mentioned to you before, I truly enjoy your podcasts because they give me the opportunity to spend a few hours a week (I’m still churning through a backlog) with people who aren’t afraid to question the status quo.The vast majority of people simply don’t care that we’re becoming (collectively) wards of the state. Worse yet, they don’t even know why they should be upset.
You are not becoming wards of the state but wards of Exxon, Citibank, United Health Care, GE, Fox ect…. But yeah they do want you to believe the way you do. mNOT4liberty
Is there a difference? I don’t question that corporatism is as bad as statism.
The key is simply to agree to NOT allow such masasive accumulation of wealth. There’s not a single good arguement to counter this proposal.
No one man needs the powe rof a Rupert Murdoch. There’s no reason for it but libertarioan based philosophy allowed such accumulations and now we are all paying for it.
There’s no reason for it but libertarioan based philosophy allowed such accumulations and now we are all paying for it.
Why do you talk so stupid?
Rich people love government, that’s why they imposed it on the rest of us.
Do you hear yourself? Not allowing accumulation of wealth? Who’s the final arbiter of too much wealth? You? The reason there isn’t a “single good argument” to counter your proposal is because it is absolutely absurd.
How about system of government that doesn’t allow for rent seeking?
Where’s the “dislike” button on disqus?
ROTFLMAO, and just how many times, my little Chihuahua, have you reduced your fees since you set up shop?
Of course it is easy to lie on the internet, so no matter what you say here, t’ain’t no one gonna believe you no how, but we all know the answer.
Rack up them there millionaires and bust ‘em!
Only a joke like the muirduck could come up with “The key is simply to agree to NOT allow such masasive accumulation of wealth. There’s not a single good arguement to counter this proposal.”
By the way, little doggie, just WTF is the meaning of masasive? Is this new socialist lingo”
You are the only person at this Cafe that I’ve ever seen write in favor of corporate welfare. Yet you chide us as corporatists.
All governments are oligarchies, with the wealthiest and their elitist friends conspiring to remain high up the hierarchy over the rest of us.
Democracy does not alleviate this, but in fact, facilitates it by allowing more people to occupy the higher levels of the hierarchy.
So you can tell us who is going to “not allow” massive accumulations of wealth.
They think we’re children.
They treat us as a resource at their disposal. Otherwise, they don’t really think in much depth.
They are deal makers, making deals to enhance their prospects for re-election.
More and more I see that the nature of our legislative process prevents any meaningful electoral accountability. So long as these kinds of tricks are commonly allowed, representative democracy cannot function properly.
Just mentioning “the troops” is like flipping some magic switch that causes Americans to lose their minds. In reality, politicians are our slave-masters and our beloved troops will be cracking the whip on us if we ever get out of line.
I think children would be a nice promotion. Tools, more like it. And most of us have played the part.
It’s disgusting that banks like Goldman are on course to pay compensation akin to 2007 levels when just 12 months ago they were teetering on the edge of solvency and were rescued by government bailouts.
I still don’t understand what “too big to fail” really means. All of the poorly-managed banks should’ve failed last year and the well-managed ones should be stepping up now to fill the void. Instead we have politicians who can’t imagine a world without an AIG or GM and won’t let them die.
So you don’t agree with me… or Adam Smith or Thomas Jefferson or James Madison or Thomas Paine?
“The key is simply to agree to NOT allow such masasive accumulation of wealth. There’s not a single good arguement to counter this proposal.”
ME
“The necessaries of life occasion the great expense of the poor… The luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principal expense of the rich, and a magnificent house embellishes and sets off to the best advantage all the other luxuries and vanities which they possess… It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.”
My buddy Adam Smith
In a letter to James Madison in 1785, for instance, Thomas Jefferson suggested that taxes could be used to reduce “the enormous inequality” between rich and poor. He wrote that one way of “silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise.”
Madison later spoke in favor of using laws to “reduce extreme wealth towards a state of mediocrity (meaning the middle) and raise extreme indigence towards a state of comfort.”
I suggest you watch the recent Frontline episode titled , The Warning.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/warning/
Once upon a time, the income tax only applied to about 8% of the population….the wealthiest 8%.
What happened was progressive taxation combined with the effects of inflation led to the large majority of citizens being subject to the income tax.
Got it
!