As we all know, the United States is running a sizable deficit — a continuation of a trend occurring for several years since the budget surpluses of the Clinton Administration. As several BMG’ers have written on, the “National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform” (in other words, the Obama deficit commission) recently released a draft proposal suggesting a combination of tax changes and spending cuts to deal with America’s fiscal problems. (Ed. note: as Christopher correctly notes in the comments, this draft proposal is not that of the whole Commission, but only of its two co-chairs, Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson. -David)
While there are a number of aspects to this report that should at least be part of the conversation — a few specific spending cuts to discretionary programs, slight changes to Social Security, reforms to the tax code — the overall report is certainly a disappointment. The report barely mentions rising health care costs (which, as the graph Charley displayed in an earlier post, is the largest driver of future deficits), and when it does, it isn’t particularly serious about it (for example, whether a good idea or not, enacting “comprehensive tort reform” will do little to curb health care inflation). The plan also makes the tax system less progressive by reducing the top income rates on the wealthiest while partially making up for this by eliminating tax breaks, some of which are particularly beneficial to middle-class folks.
So I don’t like this particular plan overall, but I wanted to highlight an interesting new feature that the New York Times has released: an interactive budget puzzle that allows you to specify how you would actually cut spending and/or raise taxes in order to reduce the deficit (the Times also provides a couple of background articles accompanying their budget puzzle “game”). I normally wouldn’t devote a whole post to linking to one specific project like this, but this exercise is, in my opinion, something everyone should try out — especially those Tea Party deficit-hound pretenders who like the sounds of deficit-cutting rhetoric but never back it up with actual and substantial cuts. The Times’ budget puzzle isn’t perfect — one might think of other ways to cut spending or raise revenue, and the numbers are necessarily projections and not hard numbers — but this is something that you should convince your conservative friends to check out (I’m hoping RMG’ers try the budget puzzle out!). This is especially so if they think they can solve the budget problem without tax increases or cuts to defense and Medicare, as preposterously claimed by Republicans across the country during this past election cycle.
I think we have cut entitlement’s by 5 – 7.5% raise taxes on everybody by the same amount and than hit the wealthy with a surcharge of another 5% until they pay back the bush gift. We also have to eliminate corporate welfare and close the loopholes that allow them to make billions w/o paying taxes.
In other words we all have to suffer because we were stupid enough to allow bush two full terms. One of which was a perfect storm of republican control of both houses, the SCOTUS and a chickensh*t media that was afraid of them.
Did I forget the faux news propaganda machine that should somehow beheld accountable for lies and mis-information.
This is only the proposal of the two co-chairs, Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson. It does not become the official statement of the commission unless it gets 14 out of 18 members to vote for it.
And I seriously doubt this particular proposal will get the 14 members necessary to actually count as a “recommendation.” It will be interesting to see what parts of this plan do achieve the 14-member hurdle, if any.
I had the 2015 deficit down to $19 billion and 2030 was $160 billion in surplus.
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p>33% in tax increases and 67% in spending cuts.
Would you care to share how you did this?
if I can figure out how to save my choices. BTW…HoyaPaul. What year?
I think it made solid recommendations, Republicans have to get serious about raising taxes, particularly on the wealthy. Frankly I am disappointed the President is keeping the Bush tax cuts for those under $250k, partly because it surrenders the debate to the conservatives, that its okay to waste surplus on tax cuts instead of investments in our future and that its okay to cut taxes during wartime, or that its ok to cut taxes without cutting corresponding programs. Democrats ceded too much ground to the right and popular support on tax cuts, Republicans ceded too much ground on keeping programs funded. Its been a bipartisan corrupt bargain and its run our country into the ground. We need a balanced budget and everyone will need to make sacrifices.
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p>This recommendation is a great starting point, particularly its targeted reductions to payroll taxes which I think hit working people most disproportionately. Its recommendations for social security are spot on and should not be dogmatically opposed by Democrats. That said, it should have made a lot more recommendations regarding cutting tax loopholes for the wealthy and for corporations, and frankly a lot of tax breaks need to be re-examined. Hopefully we can have a budget that is balanced, that provides for our most vulnerable citizens, and that forces everyone to contribute in a fair and equitable manner. I think Britains austerity measures are good metrics for us to follow, and hopefully the GOP makes true on its promises to spare no program and honor no special interest, I won’t hold my breath.
Program 2015 2030
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p>Eliminate Earmarks $14 $14
Eliminate Farm Subsidies $14 $14
Reduce Fed. Civilian Workforce $25 $49
Reduce Size of Military $12 $15
Reduce Troops in Afghanistan & Iraq $51 $149
Medicare Eligibility to 70 $8 $104
Social Security to 70 $13 $247
Cap Medicare Growth to GDP+1% $29 $562
Lincoln-Kyl Proposal on Estate Tax $12 $20
Payroll tax on incomes <$106,800 $50 $100
Eliminate Loopholes and Lower rates $75 $175
Reduce Mortgage Interest Deduction $25 $54
Carbon Tax $40 $71
Bank Tax $73 $103
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p>Surplus $23 $322
Spending cuts/Tax Increases 65%/35%
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p>All dollars in Billions.
And I’d assume that you’d be willing to stand behind this as a Republican member of Congress. Of course, given how Republicans are 100% completely against any tax increases, and also against defense spending cuts or reductions to Medicaid, I’m afraid they would beg to differ with your choices. So be it, I suppose.
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p>The other problem with the Times exercise (which I still think is helpful overall) is with the rather sizable chunk of money saved by capping Medicare growth to GDP+1%. Without more details, this “cap” sounds more like rhetoric than actual cuts. HOW does one “cap” Medicare growth beyond just saying that it is henceforth “capped”? I’m not sure if the Times knows, but I didn’t see it in the draft report.
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p>Yours is a good and honest stab at trying to address the deficit problem, though, Brad.
I don’t agree 100% with the positions of Republican leadership in Washington as I don’t think you agree 100% with those of Democratic leadership.
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p>I ran for State Representative in Massachusetts as a Republican and took the No New Taxes pledge. I firmly believe that there is enough wasteful over spending in Massachusetts to balance the budget without increasing taxes. I would not take that pledge if I was running for Congress. The deficit is a serious problem and it will take serious people willing to compromise to fix it.
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p>I appreciate your saying that mine was “a good honest stab at trying to address the deficit problem.”
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p>I have tried to engage here as a Republican and am all too often demonized simply for being a Republican. I really appreciate your “I disagree with you but you make some decent points” approach.
I followed your link to your plan. What am I missing on how to save mine?
You can share your deficit plan by going down to the lower-right hand corner of the budget puzzle page, hitting “Share,” and then clicking on “Permalink.” That gives you a link that you can put into a blog comment.
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p>I wish they had something a little bit user-friendly, but that works OK.
The Times system offers an extremely narrowly tailored range of options that fundamentally distorts the options available (typical NYT coverage, incidentally). I don’t think this is a fair challenge to either tea partiers or anyone else. As just one example, only extremely minimal cuts can be imposed on what is by far the largest area of federal discretionary spending: the military. Asking people to cut the budget this way is like asking them when they stopped beating their partner: there are only losing answers.
I think the Times system is based on the recommendations of the deficit reduction commission.
No option for health care that looks like it does in every other industrialized country. No option to return taxes to Eisenhower levels, when the wealthiest Americans paid their fair share and all classes prospered mightily.
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p>We’re in deep, deep shit if these are the only options on the table.
There are plenty of Democratic choices such as cutting military spending by $241 billion ~32% and increasing taxes on upper income people by $354 billion a year. There are Republican choices like cutting non-defense discretionary spending by $147 billion a year or $64 billion in cuts to Medicare and Social Security.
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p>What there aren’t are far left wing ideas such as a National Health Care system or top marginal tax rates of 90%. There are also no far right wing proposals such as eliminating the Departments of Education and Energy or the privitization of Social Security.
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p>As I show above, based on the numbers provided by the Times, we could have a surplus in 2015 with a combination of spending cuts, tax increases and changes to Medicare and Social Security.
That’s interesting, because most Americans want it, or something similar.
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p>Cutting military spending to the same levels supported by the rest of the industrialized world is far left?
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p>In the rest of the industrialized world, these “far left” ideas are called “stuff that works really well, why wouldn’t we want to do what works best?”
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p>IF these are “far left” they are only far left because of:
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p>1. Triangulating Democrats that keep forcing the conversation further and further right.
2. A ridiculous mainstream media that insists the answer lies in between the far-right Democrats and the insane-right Republicans, presents false choices (“Omigod, we need to slash Social Security or it’ll go bankrupt!!!”) and refuses to acknowledge that both parties are way, way to the right of the average American.
I characterized a $241 billion cut to military spending as a Democratic idea, not far left.
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p>Most Americans want Medicare for everyone…unless it means waiting lists for procedures or limits to which doctors they can see which it inevitably will.
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p>The industrialized world is slowly (and in some cases quickly) dismantling their Nanny state programs as they prove to be ultimately unaffordable.
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p>As far as your assertion that the average American is to the left of the Democratic Party, I would ask you to explain this Gallup Poll that seems to indicate that 75% of people in the US describe themselves as either moderate or conservative as opposed to only 21% who describe themselves as liberal.
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p>I doubt any of this will satisfy you but I find it interesting that I am the only poster here who has been willing to document what spending I would cut and what taxes I would increase.
I’d agree with you on the following items:
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p>Eliminate Earmarks $14 $14
Eliminate Farm Subsidies $14 $14
Reduce Troops in Afghanistan & Iraq $51 $149
Payroll tax on incomes <$106,800 $50 $100
Reduce Mortgage Interest Deduction $25 $54
Carbon Tax $40 $71
Bank Tax $73 $103
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p>However, I’d make (1) larger cuts to defense spending than you suggested, (2) institute certain new taxes (a millionaire’s tax, bring back Clinton-era rates, and remove loopholes while keeping higher rates than that in the Simpson-Bowles plan), (3) raise the Social Security retirement age, but only to 68, among a few other differences. My plan (link) was 65% tax increases and 35% spending cuts, and ended up with a ~$120B surplus by 2030.
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p>So at least there’s a few things on which both sides, like you and I, could compromise. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem likely that this will happen in Washington. Democrats are certainly not absolved of blame, but let’s face it — there’s no realistic way to get to a surplus with 100% spending cuts and 0% tax cuts. Republicans have to be willing to compromise as well.
Do you want to raise taxes on the lowest income earners by 50% by raising the 10% rate to 15%? Do you want to raise taxes on the poor by lowering the EITC? Do you want to raise taxes on the poor by reducing the Dependent Child Tax Credit from $1000 to $500?
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p>Extending the Bush tax cuts for the poor and middle class would cost $2.3 trillion. Continuing them for the rich would cost $700 billion.
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p>Do you really want to go back to Clinton era rates and raise taxes on the poor and middle-class by $2.3 trillion over 10 years? I know I don’t.
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p>I am probably with you on a millionaires tax increase for people earning over $2 million a year. That would exclude the vast majority of small business owners.
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p>I would probably also go along with raising the Estate Tax as long as it was treated the same way welfare payments, the EITC and regular income taxes are treated. The more dependents you have the less taxes you pay.
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p>So Paul, you’re at 65% tax increases and 35% spending cuts. I’m at 35% tax increases and 65% spending cuts. Sounds like we could eventually get to 50/50.
It’s a little misleading to suggest that returning to the Clinton-era tax rates would result in a 50% increase on the lowest income earners. Remember that the 10% category was a new bracket applied only to the first $14,000 or so of income, and that the 15% still applied to a significant amount of income past that very low threshold.
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p>My point being that, yes, I would agree with the rates being set at those present in the Clinton era. With the necessary inflation adjustments in the brackets and possible tweaks to the Earned Income Tax Credit, we could easily assure that no lower-income individual or family was paying more than they are currently.
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p>More importantly is making sure that the top rates go back to those under the Clinton Administration. Frankly, the top rates should be quite a bit higher (say, closer to 50%), which is why both a higher estate tax and the millionaire’s tax makes sense. After all, the rich probably have the most to lose if the entire American system collapses because of debt worries.
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p>2. First off, the “nanny states” are doing just great – why would they want to dismantle themselves? For example, Germany is the second-largest net exporter in the world, just passed by China which is something like 20x more populous. Germany’s unemployment is 6.1% and falling. In fact, most all of the “nanny states” are doing much better than we are, economically. I don’t know of any attempt to make any of these countries look remotely like the US in terms of worker rights and social safety net.
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p>3. Indeed, Americans have been bamboozled into being scared of the word “Liberal”. But when polled on individual issues, it turns out that they overwhelmingly want the Liberal option – Medicare for all, higher minimum wage, having the rich taxed fairly, etc.
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p>4. As to balancing the budget: cut military spending to 2% of GDP, implement Medicare for All, and return taxes to Eisenhower-era rates. I suspect that would solve the problem nicely.
How is Greece doing? How is France doing? How is Britain doing? How is Spain doing? How is California doing? How is New York Doing?
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p>Americans haven’t been bamboozled. They have woken up to the destruction caused by liberal policies. Liberal policies run all of our large cities and we see what cesspools they are.
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p>Liberal policies have led to inter-generational poverty and 75% out of wedlock births by African Americans.
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p>Of course I think you would advocate overturning the tax cuts passed by that Right Wing Nut Job John Kennedy who cut the 90% tax rates of the Eisenhower era.
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p>Who is going to pay for Medicare for all? We can’t even pay for Medicare for the elderly?
This is a little over the top. Liberal polices have caused “destruction”? I don’t see how that is justified by what you say here. Especially your claim that liberal polices “have led to inter-generational poverty and 75% out of wedlock births by African-Americans.”
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p>And keep in mind that the Kennedy tax cuts came in a very different political situation. The Eisenhower rates of 90% on top income earners, I’m sure we’d both agree, WERE a significant drag on the economy. But the top rates now are a mere 35%. So I’m not seeing the relevance of bringing up the Kennedy tax cuts in the present situation.
to Manny. As for the destructive nature of liberal policies I was echoing the sentiments of renowned conservatives such as Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Bill Cosby, Juan Williams to name a few.
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p>As for the 90% tax rates, Manny advocates:
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p>Paul, you and I would agree that those rates were a drag on the economy. Manny? Not so much.
Do you have any evidence for your claim that a 90% marginal rate cuts growth?
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p>Here’s some of my refuting evidence, from http://www.slate.com/id/2245781/
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p>
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p>Looks like we’ve had plummeting GDP growth when we’ve had crazy-low taxes on the rich.
Marginal tax rate means little in this context.
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p>The Eisenhower years were pre Subpart F years, and pre Abusive tax shelter years. The only people who paid 90% were rich and stupid people. The rest sheltered the income in corporations, abroad, or in real estate shelters.
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p>Of what use is a chart that shows a high marginal rate, if few paid it?! Look instead to the actual tax paid (in this chart as a % of GDP, source:
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p>
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p>Note that as the rate decreased in 1960, the tax revenues began to increase rising to an historic peak in 2000.
http://wealthforcommongood.org…
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p>The wealthiest Americans have gone from a total effective Federal tax rate of 51.2% in 1955 to 16.6% in 2007.
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p>The median American’s effective Federal tax has doubled, from 7.4% in 1955 to 13.6% in 2007.
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p>That pretty well tells the whole story.
I wonder if you don’t contemplate the data your report, or else you’re deliberately deceptive.
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p>Your link takes you to a bar graph that shows that the effective tax rate of the top 400 taxpayers was in fact 51.2% and now the comparable effective rate is 16.6%.
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p>That is, your link shows the effective rate on income actually reported in 1955 to IRS. But, as I earlier posted in the linked revenue graph, revenues in 1955 were appreciably lower that post 1960.
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p>What happened to the greater tax revenue that you would expect? Likely, there was some income in those pre 1960 years that, legally or illegally, was not being reported to IRS. That unreported income wasn’t taxed yet does show up in GDP: good evidence that higher tax rates causes higher rates of tax avoidance, but not necessarily higher revenues.
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p>Actually, if you look at the revenue graphs, tax revenue generally follows the economy, ebbing during recession and peaking in boom time. On average the rate looks to be about 16.5% of GDP regardless of the in power Party and in spite of what policy makers attempt.
Really? If so, where’s your evidence? I’d love to see it.
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p>As taxes on the rich have plummeted, taxes on the middle class have moved up, now they’re doubled. That’s what’s kept revenues constant. Or are you also contesting that taxes on a median wage have about doubled?
First off, using Greece as proxy for all things “nanny state” is like using Adolph Hitler to prove that vegetarianism leads to sociopathy. Of course you’ll agree that:
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p>1. Since we know plenty of vegetarians who are not sociopaths, we can prove that vegetarianism does not always end in sociopathy.
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p>2. To see if vegetarianism tends to lead to sociopathy, we need to study a large pool of vegetarians and see if they’re statistically more likely to be sociopaths.
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p>When one looks at the “nanny state” EU as a whole, their unemployment rate is about the same as ours (9.6% vs. 9.0%). However, my understanding is while the US does not count “discouraged workers” in our figures, the EU does. Counting discouraged workers brings our figures well above 15%. So, unemployment may in fact be far worse in the US than in the “nanny state” EU.
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p>As to debt? Huge difference. The US debt is officially $13.7 trillion. However, that doesn’t include the $2.5 trillion in T-Bills owed to the Social Security trust fund, so the real total is $16.2 trillion. US GDP is about $14.6 T, so our debt is about 110% of GDP.
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p>The EU, by contrast, has a far-lower debt of 74% of GDP. 110% vs 74%. Wow!
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p>So a quick look seems to indicate that not only do the “nanny states” provide superior health care for all residents, a comprehensive social safety net, and loads of vacation – they are fundamentally in better economic shape than is the US.
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p>As to Greece, your poster-child for nanny state unviability…
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p>Greece’s debt was recently revised upward to 127% of GDP, after the EU forced it to come clean on everything. So, not much higher than ours.
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p>Greece’s unemployment rate is about 12%. Higher than ours, unless I’m right about the difference in the way in which unemployment is calculated in the US and EU.
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p>I look forward to seeing your own statistics that demonstrate that “nanny state-ism” is a big flaming bag of poo.
Total outstanding Federal Debt is $13.7 Trillion. Debt held by the public is $9.14 trillion. The $4.6 trillion difference is the debt held by the Social Security Trust Fund and increasingly the Federal Reserve. Total debt held by the public is roughly 65%.
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p>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U…
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p>You seem to ignore that Spain, Britain, France, New York and California were also on my poster. Let’s see, California has the highest base sales tax in the nation at 8.75% and a graduated income tax with a top rate of 10.55% for people making over $1 million. The 9.55% rate kicks in at incomes just over $47,000.
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p>And yet California faces a $20 billion deficit or roughly 16% of its budget. They also have an unemployment rate over 12%.
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p>Gosh. I guess taxes just aren’t high enough there.
It’s the aggregate statistics that count.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/busi…
Is that a problem?
You usually come across as reasonable:(
What did I say that you found unreasonable?
Blanket talk of supposedly destructive liberal policies and negativity about Europe. Mostly tone that I usually expect to hear from certain others whom we usually accuse of not wanting to actually debate. It just took me by surprise coming from you.
in a way similar to what you did with moderates and conservatives, you come up with a number that implies that 56% of respondents describe themselves that way as opposed to only 40% who do so as conservatives. See how different things look when you tell the whole story? Reading your post alone, you would never know that.
Manny said that the majority of the American people are to the left of the Democratic Party.
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p>Are you saying that the “moderates” consider themselves to the left of the Democratic Party? If you do please cite a reference and show your work.
Look at the Gallup Poll you linked to in your post and do the arithmetic. The graph entitled “2009 Detailed Political Ideology” is the source for the numbers. Nine percent very conservative plus, 31% conservative, plus 35% moderate will yield your 75% figure. However, looking at it from the other side, the same 35% moderate plus 16% liberal plus 5% very liberal adds up to the 56% I quoted. It’s as reasonable presenting it that way as it is the way you did. Neither ideology has sole claim on the moderate bloc.
I wasn’t suggesting that 75% of Americans are conservative or to the right of the Republican Party. Manny stated that the majority of Americans are to the left of the Democratic party. It would seem to be him that is claiming the moderate bloc for liberals.
an option to reduce the entire military budget to “greater than the next-most-heavily-armed country,” rather than the current “greater than the rest of the world combined.”
But let’s face it — this Times challenge is about 1000% times better than Tea Partiers running around and claiming that they can reduce the deficit by providing little in real numbers at all. At least this forces them to put a little meat on their rhetorical bones.
why I still think this is a good exercise is because of its educational value.
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p>Yes, you’re right that not all the military cuts are on the table, there are other potential cuts and/or tax increases, etc.
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p>However, and I think this is important, the Times is providing a useful educational moment here — which is exactly what the media is supposed to do. Most people, for example, have a ridiculously skewed assumption about how much the US spends on foreign aid. This budget puzzle makes it clear that foreign aid is but a very small portion of the budget. It also makes clear that doing things like reducing earmarks and farm subsides, whatever the benefits of doing so, get you very little of the way towards reducing the deficit.
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p>The more people that look at this exercise, the more people who will hopefully see through the Republican deficit bamboozlement of the past election cycle and understand what the US budget really looks like.
Social Security is just fine:
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p>http://vps28478.inmotionhosting.com/~bluema24/s…
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p>The attack on Social Security is nothing other than the Predator Class taking another crack at working Americans. It’s offensive in the extreme, and it’s staggering that an ostensibly Democratic president has launched the attack.
Single payer health care would make a big change in the budget. So would cutting unnecessary weapons programs. That said, I didn’t find this to be that difficult — you tax people at generally the same rates as during the longest sustained prosperity in American history (Clinton years), and recognize the costs of banking and pollution that are currently externalized elsewhere in the economy.
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p>It doesn’t take imagination, it takes courage.
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p>Doing even a few of those things above would prevent the structural budget deficits from becoming a serious long-term problem.
The stakes are higher than they have ever been. We need to fix our problems NOW and that fix will mean Draconian cuts to programs, all programs. Defense, Medicare/Medicaid, education, everything. I am all in for cutting foolish programs, and funding for smaller “senseless” spotter frog studies, but we need to gut the bigger ones. Pull back soldiers from Japan, Korea, Germany. Stop sending money to the Middle East for oil and Japan/Korea for our cars.
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p>The housing market has got to be fixed and fixed quickly. Get the foreclosed properties foreclosed on and back into the market.
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p>Increase the gas tax. But I don’t like the mortgage interest deduction because I think that will hurt the housing market.
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p>We need something very drastic to fix things or our bond market will fail and it’s back into the shitter we go, even deeper this time!
And unemployment halved.
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p>We need a New Deal.
and I think they are bogus. I don’t mean that the New Deal didn’t work, I just mean the country (and the world) has changed so much that the correlations are too error prone.
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p>We can’t ignore the efficiencies that exist in todays world vs back then. Sure we had machinery, but there was still a huge demand for hands-on labor, 50 guys with shovels vs specialized equipment with a single operator, assembly lines vs robotics, Information systems (databases) vs. hundreds of clerks (although maybe the government still works the old way). Then we have the unions controlling who gets what jobs and what minimum salary can be paid. Then there is the EPA with their regulations and 5 year studies before any work can be done, how will the new dam effects fish migration, International trade deficits vs. today, the global economy (with job functions shipped overseas now), global competition, energy imports, US defending world at every corner, off shore options for American investors… The social net we have now which allows so many to continue living without having to really “fight” to survive. (Before anyone attacks this remark, I’m not criticing this, I am merely saying we now have a net to catch people with public housing, food stamps (cards), education… where if you are poor you can still live somewhere, get clothing allowance, get food, go to school with free lunches, free healthcare… vs poor people in the 1933-1937 had nothing which changes their mindset about many things).
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p>Just a very different world now than then.
to say that several programs need “draconian” cuts, and it’s at least honest that you mention defense.
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p>But you can’t talk about the need for draconian cuts in spending without also talking about the need for tax increases. Now, I know that you, JohnD, have been far more honest than most Republicans about the need for higher taxes. But can you and fellow like-minded conservatives (to the extent that they exist) convince the national party of this need? Somehow I doubt the will to compromise on the part of Republicans will occur, and that will indeed mean the US risking going “back in the shitter”, as you say.
Paul,
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p>Can you and fellow like minded liberals (to the extent they exist) convince the national Democratic Party of the need for major cuts to spending programs?
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p>Somehow I doubt the will to compromise on the part of Democrats will occur and that will indeed mean the US risking going back into the shitter as you say.
You, John and everyone else, and let’s add the team at RMG while we are at it. The whole country will be fixed up in a jiffy.
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p>A basic problem with America is that it doesn’t pay enough attention to Massachusetts. We basically started the whole thing, and to the degree we have been in charge it has been better or worse.
As I noted in a different comment above, I’m not suggesting that Democrats/liberals are completely innocent on this score.
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p>However, we already have evidence that the Democrats are more willing to compromise on the need for major spending cuts than Republicans are on tax increases — witness the Obama health care bill. It makes several cuts to Medicare spending (the most important area of the budget to control). Yet this was precisely one of the things Republicans criticized Democrats for.
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p>I think there is some willingness on the Democratic side to compromise, but I’m waiting to see even one Republican in Washington suggest that they’re willing to compromise on tax increases (and I don’t mean this bogus “compromise” to extend all tax cuts temporarily. I mean real compromise that will help the budget — like a millionaire’s tax or increases in the estate tax).
If someone gives me a $20 bill and says split it with you, and I give you $5, have I compromised? I don’t think so. You say the Democrats compromised on Obama’s healthcare and I don’t see where. Obama cut a deal with big Pharma for sure, but that wasn’t compromise. The public option was dropped but that’s only giving me the $5 I mentioned above.
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p>The Democrats will be compromising now because they just were told by the public to stop going in the direction they “want” to go. They’ll compromise because to refuse would mean an even larger demise in 2012.
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p>But I agree with you about Republicans not compromising too and I sincerely hope they do not take the landslide elections of 2010 to mean “do not compromise”. The fix will be a shared contribution. You want to raise our taxes on gas, or income tax, you better be ready to cut spending by a whole bunch. Without large spending cuts I wouldn’t support a nickel of new taxes, otherwise I’ll gladly compromise…
…many of us saw public option as starting with a compromise while no compromise would have been single-payer. Even then public option was the key component liberals latched onto so it felt more like $15 out of $20 rather than $5.
when Kevin Kline brought in his accountant (Charles Grodin) to save a kids’ program Sigourney Weaver liked. It was fun. Like fantasy football.
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p>Here’s my cuts:
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p>Sorry, millionaires!
Of course, I don’t have to get re-elected.
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p>But I even produced a surplus.
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p>http://www.nytimes.com/interac…
This is a report Herbert Hoover would have loved! Hey America! We listened to Herbert Hooverian economics 1929-1932 during another financial downturn. How’d that work out?