The Republicans want the power to determine how our economy should go. I say let's give it to them!
The president had been speaking for nearly an hour, and his 2013 State of the Union address did not seem to be ruffling feathers overmuch. "But," he said to himself, "That will soon change." After having covered his plans for our nation in regard to economics, tax policies, climate change, defense spending, foreign policy, gay rights, abortion rights, and election reform, President Obama continued:…
Article comments
26 - Dr Dreadful
Hell, even Warren's right sometimes
I did promise Baronius I'd be kinder to Warren, but honestly I can't recall an occasion where he's been right about anything substantive.
pick a common BC Politics resident - Clav, Doc D., Baronius, troll, yourself, or any of the lot. How often do you see any one of them or yourself admit error? Not too damn often, is it? So how can that happen when Clav and Baronius (and Dan M.) are quite intelligent and educated, as are Doc D. and yourself, but out of the lot of you, I've seen maybe one mea culpa every several months, and NEVER on a major issue.
Glenn, I can't speak for the others, but I'm perfectly willing to admit fault if it's shown to me that I am wrong and why. I give you credit for copping to your mea culpas with regularity, but frankly I think the difference between us has a lot to do with our respective approaches to argument.
I think before I type: I'm not going to start pontificating about something online unless I'm reasonably sure of my ground (or earnestly in search of edification). You're pretty good about that yourself when writing articles; but when commenting you regularly assume the role of the proverbial bovine male let loose in the kitchenware department at Macy's. Consequently, your screw-ups are often very easy to point out.
Frankly I'm not demonstrably wrong online very often, and if I am, then you will find my views evolving slowly rather than in some sudden great epiphany, since not only must I be convinced that I'm wrong but I also would like to be competently shown what the truth actually is.
And as far as "major issues" are concerned, take guns for instance. I get convinced that I'm wrong on that one approximately every other day, which is why you will often find me arguing for gun control on one thread and then defending the Second Amendment on another.
27 - Glenn Contrarian
zing -
Again, beware of the false equivalencies, for now you're putting yourself on the "just as bad as everyone else" list...and you're not. You know in your heart that you're not.
I believe that almost everyone on here is as strictly sincere as I am - and this applies to the conservatives as well as the liberals. That's why you almost never see me accuse someone of lying. That's what the anonymity of a blog like this gives us - the freedom to be truthful. When we're face to face, we have to be so careful about what we say because there's things we simply dare not say...but in anonymity there is freedom to bare what's in our hearts.
That's why rather than assume that the other guy is deliberately being untruthful in whole or in part, until I see actual proof that the other guy is not being honest, I'll assume that he's being - at least in his own view - completely forthright.
Now I've got to look more closely at what Dan posted.
28 - Glenn Contrarian
Doc -
but when commenting you regularly assume the role of the proverbial bovine male let loose in the kitchenware department at Macy's. Consequently, your screw-ups are often very easy to point out.
LOL, and I can't gainsay you in the least on that.
One note, though - you said your views change only slowly rather than through epiphany. That reminds me of a lesson I had way back in Psych 101, about the different ways that people learn. I don't pretend to know squat about psychology, but the lesson pointed out that many people learn by building detail upon detail, whereas others learn by gestalt, by grasping the overall concept and then digging down from there. I don't know if you're the former, but I'm clearly the latter - I do learn by epiphany, great and small...and it's a pain in the ass, really, because while once every so often I come up with something intelligent, most of the time I do make a completely unnecessary scene in the china shop until some detail-oriented person like yourself or Clavos points out my rank ignorance or logical clumsiness...for which I am grateful.
29 - Dr Dreadful
Glenn, you're correct that I tend to learn slowly, but that's not to say I never have epiphanies. I just don't act on them as fast as you do.
I'll give you an example involving an issue on which I have done a complete 180: drugs. Long ago, back in Blighty, I worked at a large central library in suburban London. My views on illegal drugs were conventional: they were evil and dangerous and the full might of the law should be brought to bear to stamp them out.
Then, one day, I happened to pick up a series of leaflets that had been donated to the library by a local drug clinic. The information in the leaflets was presented in a way I wasn't used to. There was not the expected "drugs are bad and you need to get off them because they're addictive and your health and life are in danger; here's how we can help". Instead, the information was presented in a calmly factual, even-handed, completely non-judgmental way. The leaflets listed the various common types of narcotic on the market, with clear, concise information about what class or family of drug they were, what they were made from, what forms they came in, how much you could expect to pay for them, the legal penalties for possessing or dealing them, their physical and psychological effects, why people took them, how relatively addictive they were, the health risks and benefits associated with them, and how to use them safely and responsibly. In a separate section of the leaflet were explained the various services provided by the clinic including addiction counseling and rehabilitation, legal advice and prophylactic services.
It was a strikingly different approach. It was as if the clinic saw nothing fundamentally wrong with drugs per se at all. It was as if they were looking at them in just the same way as alcohol or tobacco. Huh.
This got me thinking, over time, about why society accepts the consumption of booze and cigs but not certain drugs that are, in some cases, less unhealthy. I looked into the history of illegal narcotics and how they came to be illegal in the first place (as a huge Sherlock Holmes fan, I was already aware that once upon a time opium and cocaine had been as freely available as headache medicine). I read debates between drug advocates and representatives of law enforcement, and learned that, at least in the case of "milder" drugs like marijuana, even police officers whose job it was to combat them had difficulty justifying their role. From there it was a natural step to contemplate the fantastic cost of a global "war on drugs" that had made little if any impact on the rate of drug abuse and had, if anything, made it worse and created the biggest crime wave the world had ever seen.
I'm now at the point where I'm firmly convinced that all narcotics should be legal, that if this were the case most crime would disappear overnight, and most importantly that every adult should be able to make their own free choice about their use and/or abuse of drugs.
Contrast that with your own volte face on race which, although (I'm guessing) it didn't happen overnight, was still a lot more sudden than the process I described above.
30 - Glenn Contrarian
Dan(Miller) -
If you think the economy of the United States is doing fine under President Obama, we disagree.
It could definitely be doing better, but the disagreement lay in what would make it better. Except for the stimulus (one-third of which was tax cuts, remember) and Obamacare, the president hasn't gotten to do what he felt needed to be done to grow the economy. But if you'll look at Europe's economic troubles, it becomes obvious that austerity measures don't grow an economy - they shrink it. They embraced austerity, and now they realize it was the wrong path to take.
We have excessively high Federal spending now,
And this was NOT the case until the Great Recession hit. As you can see, before the GR hit, our federal spending as a percentage of our GDP was significantly lower than it was from 1982-1997 UNTIL the Great Recession. Looking at ONLY the dollar amount of federal spending is misleading - one must look at the level of federal spending as compared to the GDP.
the Federal deficit is higher than ever before and continues to grow like Topsy.
NOT true, as the numbers here clearly show. In 2009 - the last year of Bush budgets - the deficit had jumped to $1412.69B. This year it's projected to be $901.40B, and by 2017 it's projected to be $612.44B. So, I'm sorry that Obama didn't slash the deficit in half by the end of his first term (as he promised (when he didn't know just how great the Republican obstructionism would be)), but it looks like he WILL slash the deficit by MORE than half by the end of his second term.
An Army veteran rather than a Navy veteran
Ah. Oh well, nobody's perfect.
I agree that over-steering is bad. Yet that is what our Federal, State and even local regulators appear to be doing to the private sector. Politically favored businesses (most recently in the fiscal cliff legislation such as "green" and motion picture businesses) are rewarded with tax breaks and subsidies. That distorts the market in politically favored directions.
Do you really want to have an argument over the level of regulation? I mean, right now - thanks to the LACK of enforced regulation - instead of having robust competition within the banking sector, we've got a small number of banks that control most of the entire sector. Same thing - and to an even greater extent - with health insurance. And don't get me started on what happened thanks to Clinton's repeal of Glass-Steagal (which he signed (and thus owns) after it was passed with a veto-proof majority by the Republican controlled Congress).
And when it comes to tax breaks and subsidies, excuse me, sir, but you left out the huge tax breaks and subsidies given to Big Oil and Big Defense...and that reminds me: your reference points out time and time again how defense spending is falling, as if that's somehow a bad thing. Now it's 'only' 18.7% of the budget, and it's being "crowded out" by entitlements...never mind that the 18.7% of our budget we spend on defense is still FORTY PERCENT of all defense spending worldwide. If you want to cut spending, the FIRST place you should be cutting is Defense - and you can take my aircraft carriers first, and then take the hundreds of M1A1 Abrams that the Army doesn't want and doesn't need but that Congress insisted on approving just so we can keep the defense factories open.
If you were to consider starting a new small business (or to expand one with forty-eight full time employees) would you think now a propitious time to do it? I would not.
Does that mean I should shut down the Adult Family Home I began running this past August? Here's a clue, Dan - high taxes are NOT necessarily a bad thing, because the lower the taxes, the greater the level of income inequality. But perhaps you think that income inequality isn't a bad thing. The Walton family will surely agree, since they have more money than the bottom 40% of American citizens and pay so little that their employees - who are WORKING people, remember - often must depend on public assistance to live. In 2009, in Ohio alone:
The Department of Job and Family Services tapped into its centralized system that caseworkers use to issue benefits and reported to Hagan that 15,484 Wal-Mart workers and dependents received Medicaid benefits in June 2009, and 12,872 Wal-Mart workers and dependents got food stamps.
Dan, the last president to have a budget surplus was Clinton. Before him it was LBJ, and before that it was Eisenhower and Truman...and in all cases we had significantly HIGHER taxes. Since the years immediately preceding the Great Depression, we've never had a budget surplus when taxes were low, but the Depression, the 1982 Recession, and the Great Recession DID come not long after taxes were slashed below 30%.
Is that absolute proof that high taxes are good and low taxes are bad? No...but it sure as hell is a fairly strong indication.
31 - Glenn Contrarian
Doc -
Contrast that with your own volte face on race which, although (I'm guessing) it didn't happen overnight, was still a lot more sudden than the process I described above.
True enough, and well said. In that case, I would say then that we all learn by detail and by epiphany, but it's a matter of degree, of proportion of one to the other.
32 - Dr. Joseph S. Maresca
The debt ceiling was raised a number of times under President Reagan. Times were different. We did not have huge foreign wars on the table. In addition, the economy grew and President Reagan and Tip O'Neill came to a good agreement on preserving Social Security essentially for another three decades.
33 - Glenn Contrarian
Dr. Maresca -
The debt ceiling was also raised 19 times under George W. Bush, when we were still in Iraq and our war in Afghanistan was much more active than today.
And as I pointed out, refusal to raise the debt ceiling would have disastrous consequences - not only in America but worldwide.
34 - Dan(Miller)
Glen,
I mistakenly referred to the national deficit rather than to the national debt. The national deficit is an annual figure representing the amount by which federal spending for the year exceeds federal revenues and uses borrowed funds. The national debt aggregates cumulatively the amounts which remain owed. The "debt" and "deficit" are very different in quality and quantity, as comparison of the table you cite (annual deficit) and another (national debt) from the same source clearly shows.
The national debt has been higher than presently, but only during WWII, following which it declined. The chart that you cite shows a remarkable decline in the projected national (annual) deficit following 2012 while the projected (cumulative) national debt as portrayed at the link above continues to rise. That seems odd. Perhaps you can explain it.
You say, But if you'll look at Europe's economic troubles, it becomes obvious that austerity measures don't grow an economy - they shrink it. That is sometimes the case. However, nations such as Greece that found it necessary to implement austerity measures over violent public objection did so due to the lack of viable alternatives. In such circumstances, austerity becomes a last resort similar to chemotherapy for badly metastasized cancer when surgery and radiation treatment won't work. If chemo does not work, it is unpleasant and the patient dies. If it does work it is still unpleasant but the patient may live at least a little longer. Pursuing the cancer analogy, excessive government spending based on debt is a type of cancer and, if it metastasizes sufficiently, austerity measures can become the only possibly viable option. The United States is en route to that point but has not yet arrived; accounting fictions can postpone our arrival but cannot prevent it. If a visit to Greece without the bother of leaving the U.S. is appealing, the debt ceiling should continue to be raised indiscriminately with no significant spending cuts.
The term "Federal regulation" encompasses many different species. I have long favored vigorous enforcement of the antitrust laws, the need for which has recently been highlighted by the phrase "too big to fail." In my view, if a business is "too big to fail" it is also too powerful to permit. It reduces the level of competition below the level needed for the markets to function efficiently and should be broken up into its functionally separable components. That includes banking.
The type of regulation to which I referred as excessive earlier has for many years promoted the growth of favored sectors while retarding the growth of others. The continuing and apparently accelerating proliferation of new regulations (including IRS regulations in general and those promulgated under ObamaCare) produces business uncertainty and limits the ability of business to make the quick changes required by quickly changing domestic and international markets.
There is another insidious type of regulation, involving favoritism toward political and ideological allies that distorts markets by diverting funds and other resources to them and away from others. Tax breaks recently enacted as part of the "fiscal cliff" deal to help motion picture and "green" business do that.
I know nothing about your Adult Family Home business, including what regulations govern it and the number of full and part time employees. Hence, I have no comments on what you should do with it.
35 - Igor
In fact, the House cannot legally refuse to raise the debt ceiling without creating a logical contradiction. The House has already passed spending laws (for wars, for example) which has been spent and now they must pay their bills. Default is NOT an option because that would be a huge financial cost as we would have to pay higher interest rates. Also, we've never defaulted before: Alexander Hamilton instituted a no-default policy at The Founding and showed how it would be done and proved it's efficacy, and the 14th amendment outranks congress.
The House republicans are plain nuts.
36 - Glenn Contrarian
Dan -
Sorry I took so long to get back to you.
The national debt has been higher than presently, but only during WWII, following which it declined. The chart that you cite shows a remarkable decline in the projected national (annual) deficit following 2012 while the projected (cumulative) national debt as portrayed at the link above continues to rise. That seems odd. Perhaps you can explain it.
What is important, Dan, is NOT so much the debt, but the debt-to-GDP ratio. The debt-to-GDP ratio was highest during WWII - 120% - while it was 102% in 2011. And what paid down the debt? An aggressive progressive taxation policy through the 1950's.
It takes a balanced approach, Dan - we've got to cut spending, yes (like in our DOD), but we've also got to raise taxes. Remember how California was running a perennial deficit and was drowning in debt? Well, three years ago they elected a Democratic governor and supermajorities in the CA Congress (and got rid of that disastrous Prop. 13!!!!), and now they're running a surplus. And they did it by cutting spending (and increasing it in other areas) and raising taxes (which the GOP refused to do for decades).
The United States is en route to that point but has not yet arrived; accounting fictions can postpone our arrival but cannot prevent it. If a visit to Greece without the bother of leaving the U.S. is appealing, the debt ceiling should continue to be raised indiscriminately with no significant spending cuts.
Dan - we're not for NO spending cuts. We're for cutting spending where it's not needed - like Defense. And the debt ceiling is a sword of Damocles, because if the GOP forces us into default instead of raising the debt ceiling, the economic damage (domestic and international) will be catastrophic - then we can ALL be Greece!
In my view, if a business is "too big to fail" it is also too powerful to permit.
We're in complete agreement here - but thanks to Citizens United, refusal to allow passage of the DISCLOSE act, and total opposition to added regulation of any type, the GOP has made the already-remote possibility of breaking up the too-big-to-fail banks a near impossibility.
The continuing and apparently accelerating proliferation of new regulations (including IRS regulations in general and those promulgated under ObamaCare) produces business uncertainty and limits the ability of business to make the quick changes required by quickly changing domestic and international markets.
Yes, IRS regulations would be far simpler if they didn't enable companies like GM and Exxon to get away with paying no taxes at all. We'd also be better off if capital gains was taxed at the same rate as all other income. But when it comes to Obamacare, which is more important to a business - saving a few extra dollars. I mean Papa John's Pizza famously said (in outrage) that they'd have to raise their prices by eleven to fourteen cents per pizza to pay for Obamacare for their employees. Eleven to fourteen cents extra per pizza to make sure their employees actually had access to health care! And that's supposed to be a bad thing???? Good grief! Last I checked, it's a GOOD thing to have healthy employees, especially in the food service industry!
There comes a point, Dan, that worship of the almighty dollar becomes a really bad thing. The Papa John's fiasco above serves as a classic example.
There is another insidious type of regulation, involving favoritism toward political and ideological allies that distorts markets by diverting funds and other resources to them and away from others. Tax breaks recently enacted as part of the "fiscal cliff" deal to help motion picture and "green" business do that.
I wasn't aware of the government reaching out to help the motion picture business, but it only makes sense to invest in our green businesses. You'll disagree with that and we can both fill books with our points, so I'll leave it at that.
I know nothing about your Adult Family Home business, including what regulations govern it and the number of full and part time employees. Hence, I have no comments on what you should do with it.
It's only a small business - we'll only have four or five employees (unless we start more such houses), and yes, the regulations are quite comprehensive but necessary. And besides, there's decent (and reliable) money in poop!
37 - Glenn Contrarian
I'm watching Obama right now on his news conference, and he's calling the Republicans' bluff - he's leaving it up to them, and not negotiating!
No, I'm not thinking he read my article - of course not. But that's what made sense to me. The only difference lay in the fact that he's not entertaining the thought of keeping the $1T coin as a fall-back measure.
38 - Glenn Contrarian
Yeah! He called the GOP's bluff and (as I posited in my article) left the ball completely in the GOP's court. Maybe he does have a coin in his pocket....
39 - Igor
The nice thing about a logical contradiction is that you can prove ANYTHING! Unfortunately, you can also prove NOTHING.
So if the House (which is constitutionally responsible for spending) has decreed that we MUST spend at the same time we must NOT spend more than the limit, they have rendered themselves unintelligible and irrelevant. So the president can do as he wishes.
That's what happens with power.
40 - troll
...Igor - there's a problem with the latitude of your platitude
it's a mistake to look for too close a correspondence between the language and results of formal systems theory and everyday life
kinda like looking for an honest man
41 - Igor
Nevertheless, even if the house republicans are viewed merely as political poseurs, they have surrendered the initiative and the pres can do as he pleases.
The reps even lose the rhetorical war.