Comment Re:Rewrite the Constitution or face default! (Score 1) 1042
If you remember right, the argument for tax cuts because of the so called surplus centered around the concept that if Washington kept it, they would spend it.
Which is a large part of why we're in this situation now. If they could vote to cut taxes that deeply, then they could have voted to spend it to reduce the debt too, but they didn't. It was irresponsible pandering if they're really concerned about the debt. And after that, what happened? Did the tax cuts magically supercharge the economy, reducing the deficit and getting us on our way out of debt? No, of course they didn't.
So I'm not so sure that anyone would appose moderate tax increases that specifically went to paying off the national debt assuming that no more debt was being incurred. But that's the biggest problem right now, Washington seems to have a need, either by law or inherent design, to spend every last dime it can and it doesn't really matter which political party is in charge when the opportunity comes around.
Saying it has to be one way or the other makes no sense. If you can get the votes to cut taxes or spending, you should be able to get the votes to force the money to be used to pay down the debt.
The quarter percent figure comes from media outlets like Charlie Rose, McLaughlin group, and others. I do not have cable (I gave it up willingly about 7 years ago) so I rely in PBS, CBS, Fox broadcast, and the internet for news and information.
Ok, I can accept that. I checked around too and I'm seeing similar estimates.
As for the republicans not willing to increase taxes, they are right in not doing that. It will damage the already damaged economy. It will by necessity cause more people to rely on government services when they cannot find or keep jobs. The economy is way to fragile right now to impose new taxes on. Closing loopholes that are in effect targeted tax cuts put into the system at one point and time for a specific reason, will cause companies to move to other counties to do business. We need to wait until the economy is robust, then start with the tax increases. Like I said before, it doesn't have to all happen right now.
I really don't buy the claim that any closing of loopholes or raising of taxes will damage the economy at this point. Companies are already just sitting on their cash and not hiring, and they aren't going to hire as long as demand is low. And demand will be low as long as people can't find jobs. It's a vicious cycle that is usually broken by government spending in the short term to provide jobs to stimulate demand, which allows for more hiring. Then the stimulus can be backed down. Cutting government spending at this point will harm the economy. We've seen that happen before. We should be spending on infrastructure right now while it will get us the most value and benefit for the economy.
lol.. Maybe I should slow down a bit. It takes more then one side to argue. In other words, it's only a bargaining chip is someone apposes something that is placed with it. So far the opposition is over a balanced budget amendment to the US constitution and cuts in spending. The dems fired back with raising taxes knowing it would be apposed by the republicans. They joined the argument from an argumentative standpoint. Neither side is innocent here. They both share the blame in taking a single item and loading it with political wishes.
Of course they're both going to play politics with it. I'm just saying that it didn't need to be turned into a crisis like this. The TP saw this as an opportunity and created the crisis to get what they wanted. We could have raised the debt ceiling as a separate issue, like it almost always is, and averted the default risk. Then we get on with the debate about how best to eliminate the deficit. If they can't come to an agreement, then the voters will help them out come November next year.
You do realize that the majority of the tea party republicans ran against and defeated republicans right? To say they never had a problem when Bush was in office is sort of disingenuous. They might have not had as much of a problem, but the tea party republicans won the vast majority of their victories against existing republicans.
If utter silence is how they expressed not having much of a problem with him, then sure, I guess I can't dispute that. Republicans had control of Congress and the White House for years and years, but did nothing to fix anything, yet they love to point out Obama's spending, even though Bush kicked it off and wasn't the one who had to deal with the economic nightmare. Why is it that the Tea Party had no trouble getting themselves all over the news once Obama got elected, but couldn't muster any of that anger over the massive debt buildup under two terms of Bush?
So then Obama is playing politics with the pay of seniors and service people.
By the way, could you point me to one of these compromises? I mean where is his plan that would have been this miraculous compromise?
They didn't release the plan because until there's an agreement, there is no workable plan, just a lot of posturing for the base with plans that everyone knows are dead before they're written. He did make the compromise offers publicly though, letting Republicans know that they were willing to make compromises. Unfortunately the TP was completely unwilling to make any compromise at all, and said so repeatedly, so nothing got done. Can't expect only one side to compromise.