It's time to press "reset" on the federal government and start over again from scratch.
While we're distracted by Christmas shopping and the meltdown of Tiger Woods' career, the Democrats in Congress have rammed through the largest and most bloated budget our country has ever seen, spending 1.1 trillion dollars the nation does not have, putting us further into debt to a total which is expected to be over 14 trillion dollars by the end of the year.…
Article comments
— go to most recent comments26 - Mark
Dave - governments generally are structured as playgrounds for rent seekers; a simple reset might not do the trick. A new bios is in order. Whatever 'standing' government is left (if any) must be kept out of wealth transfers - including those that regulation generates.
27 - handyguy
Cannonshop: I understand the reflexive distaste that many people have for the 'bailouts.' But the fact remains that they worked. Nearly all the largest banks have paid back the TARP funds, just over a year later. The net cost to taxpayers was much, much smaller than feared even as recently as 6 months ago.
And although it's impossible to prove a negative, it is certainly not just 'leftist' economists who believe we were pulled back from the brink of a much worse financial crisis.
There are still cautionary notes. Some banks are probably paying back the money too quickly, in order to get out of government pay restrictions, and they [and we] may regret this later. And too many banks are still holding back on giving loans to small businesses and homebuyers.
It's easy to sit on the sidelines and say, "Bailouts, phooey." But how confident are you that things would have been OK without TARP? You have only your ideology for 'proof.'
And I fully support the proposed plans to redirect some of the unspent TARP money to jobs programs. Which of course is one more thing to make conservatives apoplectic.
Making conservatives apoplectic is a fun sport! And so easy!
28 - Baronius
"Were Nalle, Miller, etc., vocal when Bush was sending $6trillion direct to the bottom line as debt and depreciating the dollar by 40%?"
If memory serves, Nalle fortified his home and bought guns, while Miller fled the country. Not exactly votes of confidence.
29 - Cannonshop
Um...Handy, if by "Worked" you mean "made the crash take longer and saved the bacon of rich contributors" then they worked. IF by "Worked" you mean limited damage spread to the bottom 90% of the nation, they worked.
If you think it 'saved' the country, you're on drugs, friend. Things are (and have been) worse than the projections used by TARP and Bailout backers to justify the bailouts in the first goddamn place. All that REALLY got helped, were the money-men backing political campaigns whose joyriding the system in the first place caused the problem. It really DID rescue Wall Street at the expense of Main Street.
And that's ALL it did.
30 - Cannonshop
If you put it in medical terms, it's bandaids pain killers and air-fresheners on gangrene.
31 - handyguy
Cannon, you offer zero proof, no facts, no figures, just assertions. Only solutions based on right-wing ideology can possibly work, correct? Anything else must have failed, because it was thought up by librulls.
Liberals like George W. Bush, Hank Paulson, and [fellow Republican] Ben Bernanke. Were they all world-renowned socialists before fall 2008? Do you really think they are now?
But silly polemics are a lot easier than actually, you know, analyzing something, and possibly admitting that one side does not have all the answers.
32 - Cindy
22 - Cannonshop
he thinks he's 'contrarian' because, like many on the left, he presumes a little time in the service is an automatic dunk into becoming some kind of conservative...like the theft of the term "Progressive", in his case "Contrarian" doesn't mean what he thinks it means...
Actually, it doesn't mean what you think it means. Glenn has explained what he means by that on several occasions and has even written a whole article practically dedicated to explaining what he means. You'd have to actually pay attention to what he writes though.
33 - Cannonshop
Handy, you HAVE been watching the unemployment numbers, right?? You're able to COUNT, aren't you? Do math?
We're in the seasonal 'bump' right now, but the gain in employment numbers isn't as high as the lost jobs over the last year, and the 'employed' are working part-time or full-time at bottom-salary starvation wages.
This is not a conditional improvement.
Small businesses are failing all over the place-even in places like the PNW where the economy's stronger than the rest of the country. This isn't hyperbole, it's fucking HAPPENING.
I can look down the street here, and the same 'for sale' signs are still up from last March-with "PRICE REDUCED" and "FORECLOSURE SALE" tags on them-because there's no buyers, even with 30% and further drops in offered price (not even accepted, the starting point prices).
There's more people on the street pan-handling, car prowls are up, and I get calls three or four times a day from local charities asking for donations because even the bloody food banks are running on empty.
I can look the other direction, and the Salvation Army office up the street's busier than it's been in a decade-that's customers, not volunteers.
WE're not in Detroit's condition...yet, but Things are NOT getting Better. (remember, when they stop paying Unemployment to you because you ran out? they drop you off the rolls for the 'unemployment reporting'. I know people who're there NOW.)
...and we've got actual industries still running around here, which puts western washington ahead of the rest of the nation.
Letting the crooked bastards fail would have been harsh, but it would have been OVER, and their role likely would have been taken by someone else, at less long term cost than we're going to be paying for the next millenia. (assuming the U.S. continues for that long-not a solid assumption, that.)
34 - Glenn Contrarian
Dave -
Glenn, my figures are true. That you can provide different figures which apply to different subjects which are not directly related and certainly not contradictory does not make my figures any less correct.
Of course, of COURSE your figures are true. That's why your ONE reference contained proof backing up only a minority of your claims, and the majority of your claims were backed up by no reference whatsoever.
When Bush increased the budget I also objected.
But did you refer to him and to Republicans in general as treasonous saboteurs? No. You gave constructive criticism...but for anyone who is a Democrat, a liberal, or a progressive, well, they're TREASONOUS!
Don't you see the hypocrisy? No, you probably don't. But most people do.
Because it is not a fact, it is an opinion. You ought to learn the difference. Enormous deficit spending prolongs recession rather than ending it.
Well, gee, Dave - perhaps you should have told Cheney that when he said "Reagan proved deficits don't matter". Furthermore, you're going to have to go back and tell every president since 1900 that stimulus packages don't work, because that's what's been used to pull us out of every recession since then. AND you're going to have to tell the Japanese that the austerity measures that turned their recession into their "economic Lost Decade" were actually a GOOD thing to do!
AND you're going to have to tell the Chinese, whose stimulus spending for this recession was actually greater (in relation to their budget) than our own...and they're doing quite well, thank you very much!
So the governments of history and of the modern-day world think you're wrong. But you're Dave, and you know better, right?
And the spending Obama has engaged in has not been directed at economic stimulus, regardless of the name attached to the bills, it has been used primarily to pay off special interests and bail out irresponsible companies which should have been allowed to go bankrupt.
You've got a small town in the mountains, and it has one grocery store. That grocery store - thanks to its own misconduct - is about to go out of business. The city council can either bail out that grocery store so the people's food supply is uninterrupted, or they can let it fail and many of the people go hungry.
The RIGHT action, Dave, is to save the grocery store, and once it's back on its feet, to encourage growth of more grocery stores. Likewise, in order to keep our economy going, we had to save the too-big-to-fail finance corporations...and then when Obama's reelected, he can go 'trust-busting' and break them up.
You also seem to be somewhat confused about my support for expansion of the War on Terror.
Well, Dave, why don't you tell us what you really, truly meant when you said Bush SHOULD go into the Sudan, and put military pressure Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Iran? Hm?
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to join my fellow Democrats and retired military friends in our secret grand plot to be treasonous saboteurs to cause irreparable harm to American society and the economy. I thought we were just being good Americans, but you pointed out just how evil we really, truly are.
35 - Dr Dreadful
When Bush increased the budget I also objected. You can go back through my articles and find several instances.
Yes, I remember. When Bush increased the budget you didn't throw a hyperbolic conniption and advocate the overthrow of the government. You said, "Tsk, tsk. Dear me. This is not a very good thing", or words to that effect, and went back to bashing Democrats.
36 - handyguy
The unemployment numbers are the result of panic and retrenchment by employers -- not the result of TARP. If the markets had continued over the cliff after March, unemployment might well have reached 12% or more.
Companies will, eventually, calm down and start hiring. As a member of the long-term unemployed myself, I can assure you I am as anxious as anyone for that to happen. But I don't blame the government's emergency measures, nor do I expect the government to employ me. TARP and employment are separate issues.
37 - Clavos
So, try to pull your head out of your partisan assumptions...
A well-turned phrase.
Props.
38 - Clavos
...nor do I expect the government to employ me.
A good thing because, were it to do so, it would engender a short-term improvement in the unemployment figures, but also an increase in the rate of wealth transfer (the government has no money of its own with which to pay its [our] employees), which in turn would ultimately result in yet more unemployment.
As government continues to absorb an ever-increasing portion of the nation's wealth, so our economy is doomed to failure; government produces nothing, it doesn't generate either wealth or goods, it is only a drag on the productive sectors of the economy and will ultimately consume it if left unchecked.
39 - Cannonshop
TARP is just cosmetics, Handy-in case you didn't get me the first time. IT's a BAND AID over gangrene.
Why are Employers retrenching, Handy? could it be because they're going under??
Because they can't get operating capital, because the operating capital's tied to a bailout that was forced on the banks that didn't need it to cover for the payoffs to the bankrupt bankers in and around Wall Street?
IT cost a lot of money, and didn't fix shit-but it DID save the freinds and donors and owners of our Congressmen (which isn't the people who ostensibly voted their asses in) from having to take the consequences of their own corruption and greed-at the expense of the rest of us who're paying the vig, Handy.
Though I have to note, finally GM's ownership matches the quality of their product-both of which are unsurvivably low quality at ridiculously high pricing.
Unlike you, Handy, I have zero faith that squeezing the stone is going to render milk, and I know you don't get out of a bad financial condition by spending money you not only do not have, but won't have later, either.
Uncle Sam is so far beyond broke it's not even funny, and it's not getting any better.
40 - Baronius
"Cannon, you offer zero proof, no facts, no figures, just assertions."
Handy, your comment #36 does the same thing.
41 - Baronius
Cannonshop, what I don't understand is how the UAW can negotiate fairly with a company they own (GM or Chrysler) or a company which competes against a company they own (Ford).
42 - Dave Nalle
To the various folks who point out that my previous budget articles were more civil than this one, so? I don't like the Democrats. What a revelation. As a person who actually cares about the future of this country and the welfare of its people I find it hard to be civil about a political party which exploits and oppresses the poor and the middle class and whose objective is to destroy America's government and way of life.
Dave
43 - Glenn Contrarian
Clavos -
So, try to pull your head out of your partisan assumptions...
I agree - Dave's comment was indeed a nice turn of phrase, even if it was directed at me. Gotta remember that one....
44 - Glenn Contrarian
C-shop -
As far as "Uncle Sam being so far beyond broke" - you DO know, of course, that there was a time that we were even deeper in debt (relative to our GDP) than we are now? It was in the years after WWII...and exactly how did we dig ourselves out of that hole?
At that time, corporate taxes provided 34% of our tax revenue, rather than the 7% it does now. Also, the top marginal tax rate through the Truman AND Eisenhower administrations was above 90%...So instead of paying themselves obscene amounts of money, CEO's REINVESTED that money in their companies...and in their employees, which is when the American middle class began to bloom.
So next time you hear about how high taxes are bad, think about when our economy was by far the strongest in the world...and ask yourself why it was that taxes which were FAR higher than they are now did not result in a major recession.
High taxes do not necessarily harm the economy, as long as those taxes are used wisely to protect the general welfare of the people and continuously build the infrastructure. We've already done it before...and did it from a situation DEEPER in debt than we are now.
So which should you believe - your fellow conservatives who swear that higher taxes will doom us all? Or historical FACT?
45 - Cannonshop
41 they can't. They also can't get a good shake for their membership when they've got a conflict of interest like that (across multiple companies in the same industry).
Employee buy-outs can be a really good thing-it worked for Delta Airlines (at least, in the short term), but when you have multiple conflicts of interest involved, it's as bad a situation as you can name. Management and Labour Representatives are supposed to be in an adversarial relationship-this is how you get fair contracts for Labour without breaking the company. (this is also one of the things that's wrong with Education-managers should NEVER belong to the same union as workers-it fouls the whole concept of Grievance processes and encourages inefficiency, ineffectiveness, nepotism, and all the other plagues that infect large organizations.)
UAW can't "Negotiate" effectively with a company they own, because of this conflict-of-interest. They can "Dictate" but there's no guarantee that the dictates CAN be honoured and still have the company functioning. The lack of a competing force to represent the membership (workers) is also a concern in the Auto industry-because it's the same negatives you get with other forms of single-source-suppliers-there's no reason to serve EITHER constituency particularly well, while there's a HUGE pool to graft from for the men in charge.
AS we have seen already happening over the last fifty years or so in MOST areas of both Corporate, and Public life.
MONOPOLY IS BAD. it's a nice board-game, but it's an economy-buster in real life. GM has somethign on the order of 43 levels of management-they need about three, maybe four, to function effectively. Notably, as 'owner' the UAW hasn't moved to reduce this waste, which by itself could probably pay for the benefits and wages they seek on behalf of their membership. We can't call it ignorance-the UAW's been tied into the industry practically since the industry was founded, they KNOW what's going on. So it's either Impotence, or it's Apathy-and Apathy probably stems from keeping the crisis going as a lever on the members.
Power-play, in other words. That's all hypothetical on my part-there's probably other reasons more often cited, but it 'fits' the situation.
46 - Mark Saleski
dave spurts: I don't like the Democrats. What a revelation. As a person who actually cares about the future of this country and the welfare of its people I find it hard to be civil about a political party which exploits and oppresses the poor and the middle class and whose objective is to destroy America's government and way of life.
pretty sad. you're sounding more and more like the tea party people, who don't think that obama "loves the country like the rest of us.
quite a bizarre blend of arrogance, ignorance, and pop-eyed chicken little-isms.
47 - Cannonshop
He doesn't, Mark. He loves himself, his Party, and The World in that order. C'mon, the guy wrote TWO autobiographies before he'd done ONE notable thing in his career besides graduating from Harvard.
48 - Cindy
So Dave, no article forthcoming on the patriot act provisions?
49 - Cannonshop
Someone SHOULD do an article on those-the thing is a nightmare that, it seems, both parties are entirely too keen to keep going. (how is it, the ONE principled stance the Left had-the stand against the Patriot Act, seems now to be naught but hollow bleating because their man wasn't the one in charge?..oh, yeah, because it WAS.)
50 - Mark Saleski
He doesn't, Mark. He loves himself, his Party, and The World in that order. C'mon, the guy wrote TWO autobiographies before he'd done ONE notable thing in his career besides graduating from Harvard.
and i'm working on a memoir myself. so what?
this is just what you'd like to believe. opinion presented as fact is what has dragged down political discourse in this country...it's ended up as just a bunch of pathetic nut-scratching and head-nodding.
51 - Cannonshop
Mark, sure, it's nut-scratching head-nodding. Just like it is for the followers of the Obamassiah.
Memoirs are exercises in narcissism, they're like self-portraits or self-portrait statues. Writing two of them before you've done anything of note? that's right back to character. You Brag AFTER you've done something to Brag ABOUT, not before. I don't know, maybe that's an alien concept for you, or maybe my standards are too high. (notably, I didn't much care for Limbaugh's little ventures into self-congratulation either.)
52 - handyguy
It is amusing to hear the most partisan rightists on here saying without a tinge of irony that others should "pull their heads out of their partisan assumptions."
I would think we might all benefit from practicing that around here, starting with the author of this article and the person who quoted this gem so approvingly.
53 - Cannonshop
There are times when that occasionally happens, Handy. It's just rare-which one OUGHT to expect from a set of Blogs marked "Politics", neh?
isn't the argument part of the fun?
54 - handyguy
Having an actual, lively discussion of the issues, based on facts, is one thing.
Repetitively yelling the same ideological rants at each other is quite another.
55 - El Bicho
"that's right back to character."
The first book offer came because the publisher thought it was notable he was elected the first black president of the Harvard Law Review. As far as the second, a great many presidential candidates write books outlining their visions for the country.
Here's another thing that speaks to character: someone blathering on about the publishing industry when they obviously don't know anything about it.
56 - roger nowosielski
There can never be a lively discussion about facts. Facts are boring. It's precisely the ideological rants, which marshal whatever "facts" at one's disposal, which make the debate interesting. Underneath "ideological rants" there's a the war of ideas.
Now, that's fun!
57 - Cannonshop
So he got the offer because of WHAT he was, not who, or what he accomplished while there, is that about right? And he took the offer.
Sparkling. Your defense definitely helps the case of him being an empty-headed celebrity whose entire celebrity status is (literally) skin-deep. At least I gave him credit for being intelligent but venal. His supporter mocks his intelligence as well...
58 - roger nowosielski
No question Obama's got an enormous ego. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. But that isn't to say that he loves himself first, before the country.
Perhaps his vision of what's good for the country, and the world, is different from his critics. But that's hardly a reason to think he's a megalomaniac.
59 - zingzing
dave: " I find it hard to be civil about a political party which exploits and oppresses the poor and the middle class and whose objective is to destroy America's government and way of life."
why do they want to destroy these things? don't you think your creation should have some motivation behind its actions? why, oh why do these evil democrats want to destroy america? kinda stupid to do that, don't you think?
and what's the american way of life? i bet it's everything you subscribe to and nothing you don't.
and as much as you'd like to think that it's our party that "exploits and oppresses the poor and middle classes," it's just not true. you guys do pretty much just ignore them. as you should. you're rich, white and relatively close to death. why bother?
60 - roger nowosielski
"relatively close to death . . ."
Now, that's a zinger!
61 - Baritone
"I find it hard to be civil about a political party which exploits and oppresses the poor and the middle class and whose objective is to destroy America's government and way of life."
Dave, that us total and utter bullshit, even for you. You take great pains to expose and denigrate conspiracy theorists, yet you are the king of them all. Nothing you say or write can or should be taken seriously as you have totally fallen off of the edge of the world. You have lost any semblance of reason you ever possessed.
B
62 - Cannonshop
#58 Roger, ALL politicians are at least a little bit megalomaniac-no other personality type could endure the hell known as running for office.
It's how much, what kind, and how destructive the maniac is. I think we differ on this one...a lot. To me, Obama is a classic example of a chicago political sociopath-a Daley Disciple, if you will, and that's VERY dangerous, because such a politico is...inclined...to look the other way at corruption as long as it gets him in, and keeps him there-provided he himself is not outright corrupt, which, given his appointment of so many non-answerable 'Czars' is rather questionable in and of itself, but combined with the Humana thing, where ideological purity rather than contractual performance was made clear to be more a factor in keeping a contract (a Daley-ism), well...
It doesn't look good, and I don't trust him.
63 - roger nowosielski
Well, I had my doubts during the primaries, but for now I try to keep on open mind and hope for the best.
What does he stand to gain having aleady reached the highest office? Besides, some people grow up and try to measure up.
Only the future will tell.
64 - Cannonshop
63. The Office isn't YET permanent. It still expires, and even barring that, there's the question of what comes next, and what sort of society is left behind after Jan. 20 2016.
Will this be a nation of free people, with rights, or a gradually-imposed police state? will anyone notice the difference? Will Party Membership decide your career path? standard of living? will your ideological purity decide whether you get a good job, or flip burgers? will flipping burgers BE a 'good job' (because it's at least a job)?
Will it be bread-and-circuses, or a productive, prosperous society of equals? Will there be upward mobility for those not in the favoured demographics? will there be medicine if you're not from the right kind of family, or with the right (LEFT) kind of background?
Will people be allowed to go as they will, where they will, or will they have to wait for the state-approved trains? Will our money be worth..anything?
Someone accepted by the Elite doesn't have to worry about these-they'll have the answer they want under any conditions. IT's the other ninety percent that will face these questions.
65 - roger nowosielski
There'll be no need for police state if there'll be nothing to gain from pressing one's advantage.
I think humans are capable of reaching their potential if the right set of circumstances are present. At least Aristotle thought so.
66 - Cannonshop
65 Roger, humans have to overcome millions of years of evolution before that can happen-and become akin ot bees or ants, instead of mammalian apex predators.
Tribalism, whether by religion, nation-state, skin tone, hair colour, shoe size, economic background, language, geography, or what have you is ingrained. One has to consciously RESIST it-that's generally not something large numbers of humans are inclined to do. There will always be those who work hard, and those that do not, those that produce, and those that consume, those that create, and those that steal and destroy.
I think it may be the root of the concept of 'Free Will'-to make the choice between being a builder, and a smasher, between someone who makes things better, and someone who tries to take better things they had no hand in creating.
67 - Dr Dreadful
B-tone @ #61:
You must find it as amusing as I do that Dave's #25, in which he attempts to demonstrate that he is fair-minded and also criticized Bush's budgets, contains links to two articles in which he... bashed the Democrats.
68 - roger nowosielski
It's a rather grim view of humanity, Cannon. And it does fly in the face of your recent appeal to ethics as part of our essential makeup.
Make up your mind at least. Are we the descendants of the monkeys, or do we partake of the divine?
69 - Mark Saleski
Will this be a nation of free people, with rights, or a gradually-imposed police state?
bumper sticker political 'discourse'. i suppose the cliches that tumble out here are no different than all the rest of the garbage out there on the internet.
70 - Cannonshop
#67 who wrote the Budgets, Doc? the original post Dave was responding to tried to lay the entire blame on...one man, who doesn't write the budget. (Though dumbshit DID sign it...)
I think it's perfectly fair-minded to hold the guys who write the budgets responsible for what those budgets contain-including overages, don't you? AFter all, they wrote the damn thing.
Mind you, now, the PATRIOT act is entirely on the Republicans-but renewing it? that's the Democrats...
71 - El Bicho
Wow, are you really that dense? In regards to the first book anytime someone is first at something it has a cache that appeals to publishers. Obviously you've never been in any business related to books.
Not really sure how you can separate the who he is from what he is. And why wouldn't he take the offer? How many times have you turned down publishers willing to give you money?
And you mistake not my supporting your ignorance with supporting Obama. You should work on your own empty-headedness before casting aspersions.
72 - Cannonshop
69 Mark, ask yourself that question then consider the Kelo decision, or the status of someone whose name pops up on an FBI database in spite of not committing any crimes. There was a TSA case what, a couple years ago? some KID (and I don't mean young adult) was kept off of a plane because his name was the same as an alias used by a domestic terrorist wanted by the feds.
Ask someone arrested under 'suspicion' and held for up to six months without a hearing under PATRIOT, including denial of counsel, or someone whose assets were seized on an anonymous tip under the Omnibus Crime Bill of '88-seized and sold off, but no conviction, and no restitution.
"Thought Crime" leads to "Police State". Recent decisions on cell-phone and GPS tracking reinforce this.
At some point, in your desperate rush for 'safety' you'll throw your,and others' freedom away. What do you have then? After you've given up...everything, to be 'safe'?
73 - Dr Dreadful
Cannon, that's not what was amusing. It was Dave's attempt to demonstrate that he was hard on Bush by linking to articles in which he did the exact opposite.
74 - Baritone
I can hardly wait until we can all come together to work at the collective. I understand that they're having a contest between Louis Vuitton and Vercase for the new design of our Mao Jackets. The State is All, Comrades!
B
75 - Clavos
I would think we might all benefit from practicing that around here, starting with the author of this article and the person who quoted this gem so approvingly.
Just for the record: I "quoted this gem so approvingly" because it's a well-turned phrase, not because of to whom it referred, but let's say it referred to me (and it well could, I am partisan, stubborn and opinionated -- and happy with being so; I have no intention of becoming more moderate) -- it's still a "well-turned phrase."
i suppose the cliches that tumble out here are no different than all the rest of the garbage out there on the internet.
Or in Washington...