Obscene

Yeah. It's a real pickle. Theoretically, the house and senate could resolve the structural deficit, but so much of the budget is "mandatory" transfer payments that it would be impossible to campaign on such a platform absent an immanent or ongoing crisis. I believe the budget will be got under control only during such a crisis, and maybe only after one or more absolutely idiotic attempts to address the problem without touching anyone's expected payouts.

I'm going to close my eyes and hope we "grow our way out of it".

Three words: Balanced Budget Amendment

Good luck with that and amending the constitution takes too long. But reinstating Gramm-Rudman which mandated offsets for new spending and tax breaks, which the Clinton Admin adhered to and the Republican Congress let lapse in 2002, is a good start.

Strike. As in an action to get their attention... or, as in two more and you're out. It works either way.

Frankly, I'm a little disappointed in their lack of creativity. Since Fannie and Freddie may come out from under the government, and the government might sell them in the open market, and things that sell in the open market are sometimes sold for a gain, I think that they should recognize a projected gain of eleventy-hundred bizillion dollars on Fan and Fred.

Free Chevy's for everybody!

Could a corporation get away with that kind of accounting?

"How do we stop this expansion of the Federal government?"

Things that can't go on this way forever don't. The only question is what form the end takes. At this point I would bet on the mechanism being a collapse in the market for US Government debt.

Eventually I don't think this budget is obscene. It's common sense born out of necessity. And it's frank. But your question was: "How do we stop this expansion of the Federal government?" With a revolution?

"... the administration emphasized that because Fannie and Freddie may one day come out from under government control, they should stay off the books."

Right. Other things that may happen: The earth may stop rotating, I may be the opening day starter at Fenway next year, and Barney Frank may start to believe in free markets.

But that's not where the smart money plays...

Alice laughed. `There's no use trying,' she said `one can't believe impossible things.'

`I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. `When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.

The Queen is a piker compared to King Obama. He believes impossible things all day long and dreams impossible dreams at night. Would that he limited himself to only half an hour a day!

My goodness. Read some history, or at least some current events. The queen has no power to set or even influence policy.

What say you? The Queen has no power?

Pshaw!

She makes the rules:

"The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday - but never jam to-day."
"It MUST come sometimes to "jam to-day,"" Alice objected.
"No, it can't," said the Queen. "It's jam every OTHER day: to-day isn't any OTHER day, you know."

Sorry Greg. I thought you were talking about the queen that lives with Sam.

I almost replied by asking for some reference sources where I might brush up on the history of the White Queen but then I thought a direct quote in refutation might be more appropriate.

You've lost me with the Sam reference.

Would that he limited himself to only half an hour a day!

And to his own money.

"And to his own money."

Amen. There should be a special tax rate reserved to politicians -- the highest rate applied to any people, transaction, or substance. No deductions.

Brilliant. There's a Carroll for every occasion.

"How do we stop this expansion of the Federal government?"

Perhaps I'm being the "glass half-empty" guy on this, but I don't know if it can be stopped at this point short of a complete collapse under the weight of its own incompetence and internal contradictions.

Its failures only provide further justification and excuse for more of itself. Its like some kind of beast that has no analogy in nature. Because nothing like it does exist in nature it only exists in the abstract and fallacious imaginings that good intentions can trump reality and the ignorance of root causes and their effects. Thus is grows. Unabated. It's a runaway train.

You're right counter intuitively you don't starve the beast you feed it. Force feed the glutton of big Gov't until the morbid obesity kills it. The old soviet union collapsed under its own weight of the bureaucracy. We need a guy like Krugman running policy especially the Fed. Blow the debt through the roof, default on the debt, kill the dollar blame the Fed; kill the Fed...Go back to sound money, creating and manufacturing things other than financial derivatives based on flawed algorithms.

Just like a child doesn't learn to respect fire until he is burned, we need a wake up call and to be taken out behind the woodshed to learn the horrors of big Gov't. Holding our breath waiting for politicians to get religion is an exercise in futility.

Indeed, "the worse things get, the better they get".

"How do we stop this expansion of the Federal government?"

With emergent orders; obviously. Neither of the two of us knows enough, but the knowledge of all of us dwarfs that of Federal gov lackies. It is up to us. Keep up the good fight and be of good spirit.

Can you say Enron? Of course, it's OK if the government does it. It's doubly OK if it's Democrats controlling said government.