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well, this is a country where folks elect their representatives to do waht they ask. and a good many of the congresspeople taking what some percieve as an unreasonable position are doing precisely waht their constituents asked of them
i will not get into a discussion of moral or immoral.
but these folks in congress are acting as they were told to act by their voters.
the downside of having voters play a role in the process
they represent the local views of their consituents in the national forum.
the underlying current of tension that has always existed in this country and what makes much of it great but also frustrating comes from the regional differences.
can make things pretty challenging at times.
but as long as everyone accepts the decision outcomes we will muddle through
No one should listen to a word any Senator says until January.
I remember reading somewhere -- Nate Silver? -- that when the census asks people about their ethnic origin, most will put German or Irish or Polish or Latino etc. But there is a defined group of citizens that declare their ethnic origin as "American" -- they are white and are found predominantly in Appalachia and upcountry parts of Alabama and Georgia. Does anyone remember that?
These are really bad comparisons. Most Palestinians have no desire to be equal citizens with full rights in Israel. A minority want that, and a minority want to drive the Jews out of the region via war, but the plurality support a two state solution where they would be full citizens of an independent Palestinian state.
That's not to say the current situation is better or worse than the Jim Crow or apartheid comparisons--it's just not really comparable to either.
Mostly the House exists just to screw things up.
voting for a tax rate increase will live in their voting record forever, get them branded 'traitor' by some party members and something that they will have speak to as long as they are in office.
they need a 'but' as a rebuttal. they need a real 'get'.
that is the president's challenge
can he? will he?
because the president always has to be the bigger person in these discussions
Yeah, that was on the original FiveThirtyEight (though I'm sure the original research was done by an academic). Describing oneself as being of "America" origin is a prime indicator that one votes Republican.
I think this is part hyperbole and part wrong. You have to know where you are in the success cycle. The Liberal state has in large part won, but could use some time to consolidate its victory especially around ACA and in a different way the Supreme Court. Claiming touching entitlments is the same as accepting a big lie is very wrong, and misses the boat.
It is much more harmful to the Liberal state to have more years of economic foundering and the attendent rise of radicalism that comes with economic hardship than almost any ideological trojan. The entitlment changes need to be evaluated from the standpoint of economic and personal harm (or help), the symbolic ideology is not nearly as important (though not irrelevent).
Additionally and perhaps more importantly politicians are elected to govern. Running your car into a ditch to prove a point is a terrible way to govern. I agree that governing means short and long term considerations (bad analogy alert) - sometimes you let the hostage die, but the economy is too big a hostage and too fragile to mess with.
Just because the GOP has decided to stop governing does not absolve the Democrats from their responsibility. That doesn't mean you alwyas have to accede to the crazy guy in the red hat, but you can't just refuse to talk to the crazy guy - you have to try to negotiate something and only go over the cliff if that is the best option.
Governor Cuomo would disagree.
They already voted for a tax increase. That's why rates are going up January 1. That's baked into the cake, the question should be negotiation over what happens after the Bush tax cuts expire.
War pigs and all that.
Unfortunately they don't list the D/R/I split so it doesn't count because you won't be able to unskew it.
completely agree with your last paragraph above
and for the record the entire party has not refused to govern. there is a subset that is now of the belief that you have to destroy the village to save it.
that is not hyperbole. they mean it.
I don't disagree with this, but so far they have not come to him (at least openly) with what that 'get' is. Obama can't be both sides of the negotiation. If they (the GOP) wants something then they actually have to ask for it, and work for it. So far they have not put anything forward that I can tell.
Perhaps you could give me an example of what this get it that still allows both sides to come away with something, because the only thing I have seen from the GOP so far is "accept basically what Romney campaigned on". And that is ridiculous.
As I said before the GOP in the House needs to put their big boy pants on and get to work, or off the cliff we go.
Big time.
The upcountry parts of Alabama and Georgia *are* Appalachia.
that is not hyperbole. they mean it.
Understood. I trust that you understand how infuriated the rest of us are with the part of the GOP that has meekly allowed, over a long period of years, that toxic subset to become and remain as powerful as they are. Your party is seriously effed up, Harvey.
This is spin by a guy that naturally sides with the faction that is trying to leverage from a position of weakness.
Tax rates cannot continue to decline - it's just a mathematical impossibility (at least, when you consider supermajorities do NOT want -- for example -- Medicare cut).
It's the flipside of your 502 -
Present a poll that asks if you want to cut 'spending' generically and lower taxes - you certainly get people (and voters in elections) saying ABSOLUTELY!
But - when you get into specifics... when you frame questions around specific programs, you don't get the same answers.
Revenue as a percent of GDP is at modern day lows. Yes, some of that can be traced back to economic conditions today -- but taxes as a part of income have been on a near straighline decline for 30 years, while the things we institutionally spend on and discretionary spend on increase.
I'm not unsympathetic to Republican congressional concerns... but Democrats have ideological partisans, too - and if they had their druthers, not one single dime would be cut from entitlements or safety net programs (in fact, they'd want those budgets increased).
The President might well have a leading role in that negotiation -- but I just don't see the other side being willing to negotiate here... the supposed 800 billion in 'revenue' based on unspecified 'loophole' closures isn't mathematically possible (much less legislatively possible in the time remaining) unless you're talking about closing various 'loopholes' that are going to squarely land on the backs of middle class taxpayers (be it EIC, child deductions, or mortgage deductions). The numbers simply are not there to come anywhere close to 800 billion on loopholes.
A negotiation here needs to the take form of:
OK- we can't accept a complete sunset of the 2001/2003 rates... we'll agree to those rates +1 point... with the WH "saying, no - that won't work... make it +3 points and I'll toss in another 100 billion in spending cuts".... "+3 is too close to the original rates... +2 and you kick in 200 billion".... "+2.5 and 200 billion".
Update: Everything evil we know about War Z seems to have been fabricated entirely by one disgruntled forum mod. He's recently admitted to making all of it up.
So, all those bad things about War Z are not true.
I'm still probably not going to play it.
actually, a good negotiator does try and work both sides of the equation.
steve
i don't think so. however infuriating it may seem you have folks who are absolutely convinced that the government needs to reduce its debt/deficit and operate more efficiently. i completely agree with that sentiment.
now, there are other elements that are batsh8t crazy but the above basic premise is not
The entire party willfully decided to ride that tiger, chief. There is no functional way to separate the Tea Party from the GOP. They are the same creature. If the old guard GOP is upset that they no longer control their party they should consider that when they started to sell themselves off to the maddness wing back in the day, *we ####### told you so.*
Why?
c'mon. i have negotiated agreements both written and otherwise for fifty years. more even
if you are not looking through the other guy's eyes you are a sh8tty negotiator
the president needs to identify not with a congressperson's principles but with his/her fears.
what is it that they fear? what do they need to not be afraid?
sure a good many are going to call the president a rat b8stard and never do anything. but the president doesn't need all, he needs some
EDIT: To be clear, I do think that long-term balance sheet management is a good thing in general. I just think that we shouldn't hold unemployment insurance and the payroll tax holiday hostage in order to get it done. What's immoral, in my opinion, is making working class folks pay the price if the negotiators fail to make a deal on the long-term budget deficit. There's no reason that the burden should fall on them.
Like it was said earlier. If you want something then start the process that will lead to it don't stonewall and demand that you get what your losing campaign pledged. That simply isn't realistic.
Now of course the initial plan might simply be a tactic of the GOP to show their base they tried to get the things they pledged to get but the mean old Dems wouldn't do it and so to save the country we compromised. So come out in 2014 and give us a ton of money and vote for us.
Sure. Of course. So why do you suggest that the Tea Party / GOP should be rewarded for explicitly refusing to engage the other guy and being intentionally shitty negotiators? Their opening offer, after pretending that they didn't even need to make an offer, was "let's go with the plan that was just soundly and completely voted down in the 2008 general election."
What, precisely, is keeping them from 'looking through the other guy's eyes," Sun Tzu?
Sure. But at some pointboth sides have to submit proposals they want and begin to compromise. And the House GOP can't even submit an actual proposal - it is all handwaving and generalities. Sure there are exact $ figures, but not where the money is coming from - what deductions change, how are entitlements changed? You can't expect Obama to propose stuff preemptively giving in to the GOP especially in light of how that has worked the last four years.
If the GOP does not want to go over the cliff then they have to do something, it is as simple as that.
you are referring to national polls and congresspersons focus on district almost always before 'the public'. i am interpreting the public as the national electorate in your post.
the tea party congresspeople were elected to not vote for a tax rate increase, not compromise with the president and to reduce spending.
the fiscal cliff accomplishes all those things
i know you like to frame me as being out of touch and stupid but it's not going to work
these congressfolks are doing 'precisely' what their constituents want
QFT. 1000 times this.
But here's the thing:
Neither Medicare nor Social Security have a single thing to do with the annual budget deficit nor the national debt generally beyond the fact that Social Security actually finances (via inter-governmental borrowing) the largest part of it.
Changing those programs nor cutting benefits will not change those numbers by a single dime... It will have zero impact on the annual budget deficit and it will have zero impact on the national debt in total.... unless someone is proposing cutting the national debt by specifically ripping up SSTF IOUs - and I haven't heard anyone, even on the farthest reaches of the right suggest that as even an idea up for debate.
Consequently, if we're TRULY talking about the "deficit" and "debt" -- then there are only two things that are on the table:
1) Discretionary spending, which does not include one dime of what SS or Medicare pays
2) Revenue (which does not include payroll taxes)
That's it - pure and simple.
Any attempt to add entitlements into the equation can only be traced to two things -- either a fundamental failure to understand what the deficit and debt actually are, or, an ideological opposition to those programs while using this debate as a smoke screen to obscure that lack of a relation to the deficit/debt.
None of this means I'm unwilling to discuss changes to those programs. I absolutely am - and in fact, I've posted many, many different ideas for where I could see changes to Medicare especially.
However, I am simply not willing to just "pretend" that the deficit and debt have a damn thing to do with entitlements because one party to these negotiations sees tactical advantage in pretending that they do.
It's an unworkable framework for a deal -- it would be as if my realtor insists that we bring in my car dealer to talk about buying a new car at the same time I'm house hunting because "hey, it's all money!"
1) I obviously don't think you're out of touch or stupid. I just disagree with you about the thing we're arguing about.
2) The fiscal cliff was created by both Democrats and Republicans. They both bear a measure of responsibility for it. I'm saying that the entire agreement is immoral, and I'm doing a bit of "pox on both their houses".
3) If you have the data to back up your position that the majority of Congresspeople come from districts significantly out of touch with the national mood on tax and spending issues, I'd be interested to see it. But I really doubt it's the case. Deficit reduction is an elite hobbyhorse, not something that moves regular folks. Taking the livelihoods of regular folks hostage in order to accomplish deficit reduction is wrong.
lyndon johnson and ronald reagan knew how to listen for what the other side wasn't saying that mattered. to some extent so did president clinton.
it's tough but necessary when the other side is struggling to find a way to make a deal and not look like they got rolled
They want taxes to go up without a vote for them to go up rather than taxes not to go up (for 90+% of them) but with a vote for a tax increase on some?
I know the political pressure blows that way for a bunch of reasons, but polling shows that in fact is not what most people (even in red districts) want.
The cliff means taxes will go up. If that is OK then it is OK, but that is what it means. Voting for versus allowing to happen versus voting present are all just semantics that matter more to pledges and such but not to most folks.
ok, i did not write a majority of congressfolks
i was referring to the tea party. i thought that was pretty clear.
the tea party congress members are following the 3 items i listed above. no taxes. no spending. no compromise
The fiscal cliff is not something that the Tea Party wanted, and it's not something that the left base wanted, and it's not something that most Americans wanted. It's something that was produced greatly out of elite concerns for deficit reduction, and typical elite lack of concern for how their deals might affect the lives of everyone else.
**The payroll tax holiday ending, which is explicitly part of the fiscal cliff deal, will result in an increase in taxes for a huge portion of Americans. On top of that, the fiscal cliff was structured to put the extension of the Bush tax cuts on the negotiating table, leading to a much higher likelihood of their expiring.
...
If the TP reps are doing precisely what their constituents want, and if they are never going to be incented to do anything outside of those narrow, reelection criteria goals, then what exactly are they, the "other side," "not saying" that the POTUS should be listening for?
The problem isn't that Obama doesn't listen for opportunities to compromise. He does that #### second nature. It's all he ever does. The problem is that the TP caucus is an intransigent, radical bloc who will blow up the nation in order to serve their own private, personal ideological goals. The problem isn't the president. The GOP can either address the TP cancer or it can kill them.
Look I agree Social Security is completely irrelevent fiscally, but so what? I mean I want team Blue to stick up for the safety net, I really do, but HW is right the GOP will need something. I am not willing to give away the store, but some reasonable changes to ancillary (to the fiscal cliff) programs is not a completely crazy price to pay to avoid a double dip recession. The economy is not just a thing, it is millions of people and harm to the economy hurts them just like changes to the safety net do.
I am saying this is not a matter of idealism or high minded principles we are willing to die onthe hill for, this is a matter of governence and pragmatic compromise (which to be honest I don't think the GOP will engage in and so off the cliff we will go). In Washinton when making deals the real estate agent, car dealer and dozens of other people are at the table for many deals - that is how it works.
sure he does. as one example before the election telling me what the tea party was founded upon and trotting out surveys that show what the tea party has 'become' versus how it got started.
yes, the tea party morphed as others seized upon it for their own purposes. but at it's beginning it was all about cutting spending.
it's disappointing because then folks pile on and the original contention gets lost.
and now his most recent post suggesting that i am claiming that a majority of folks in congress have a desire to go over the cliff. well that's nuts. certainly the democrats do not. nor does a subset of republicans.
but there are republicans who do. and for the reasons i listed.
Are you claiming that the 1.45% kicked in by workers/employers (along with premiums paid by beneficiaries) pays for the entirety of the Medicare program?
I would love for someone to show me a time when Obama refused to compromise. Because seriously he does that all the time (to his credit) and usually gets a better deal than I thought he would.
now that the fiscal cliff (boy i hate that phrase already) the tea party is now on board with going over the edge
you can claim the group is senator kerry in that they were against it before they were for it
if the choice is working with the president on a deal that includes taxes going up with a vote that will haunt them forever or just letting something happen they will take the latter.
Then they can't be negotiated with. Period. If their drop-dead demand is "no compromise" then they're beyond negotiation and any complaint that Obama isn't looking deep into their bloodshot, radical, crazy-person eyes and hearing the things they "don't say" is just ######## of the highest order.
I disagree with everyone, all the time.
i am writing despite having a clearly superior position he needs to keep listening
that is if he wants a deal. which i assume he does
That plus premiums plus the trust fund (EDIT: plus employer match)-
Yes... The annual budgets are widely available. I defy you to find me a single dime from the discretionary budgets (which is where the general revenue/income tax receipts go) that goes to CMS. Go ahead and look - I'll wait.
Who needs an economy? I have this great safety net now!
well, i was there at the beginning and began to distance myself as it evolved in the direction beyond focusing on spending. the anti-immigration for one is not my thing, has never been my thing and i think it's bad for the country for about 100 different reasons
You just said the TP caucus' short list of demands was "no compromise." What are we supposed to be listening for? The conn from the mothership whistling in our ear?
Now, this may be a different phenomenon from people in Appalachia calling themselves “American”. But maybe not; I figure the Scottish and German and English all got pretty good and mixed up there over the years. If you don’t have a defined connection to a particular foreign culture, do you really have an ethnicity?
Sure they can. Don't raise taxes, and freeze or (gasp!) cut spending. I missed the part wherein those simple things became so "radical."
I don't know how it coincides with the views of the people (royal) you insist on ostrasizing, but it's comical to suggest that the option of reducing government spending shouldn't be on the table in talks about reducing the deficit.
i didn't claim it was easy for cr8ssakes
do you want me to tell you fibs?
When a country is in a liquidity trap, as the U.S. is, cutting spending leads to larger deficits. Look at the UK, or Greece, or any country that has tried austerity.
So giving into Republican demands for spending cuts is exactly the wrong thing to do if one is concerned about the deficit.
fundamentally i am opposed to subsidies.
fundamentally i am opposed to sending people money for just 'being'
fundamentally i am opposed to spending money to encourage things that would happen via natural order
Same. When people ask my ethinicity I always just sort of look at them blankly. I mean, I guess technically you could say I'm German, but I've never even been to Germany. Nor has anyone in my my family out to about three generations. And God only knows where my ancestors came to the vaguely Germanic area from.
Citizenship-wise, I'm American. I'm white for demographic and discriminatory/anti-discriminatory purposes. I don't really think of myself as having an ethnicity.
More than 75% of Supplementary Medical Insurance's (SMI) Trust Fund revenue (the trust fund for Medicare parts B and D) comes from general revenue (i.e. federal income taxes). Or at least it did in 2009.
So is raising taxes, then -- beside the fact that even letting the Bush cuts expire won't put much of a dent in the deficit. The cry for higher taxes has more to do with envy and "fairness" than actually accomplishing anything.
quality of the person is more important than the number of persons
And when, exactly, will the right time be?
It's also comical to suggest that spending isn't on the table. Have you even looked at the POTUS/Dems position?
I'd prefer to cut subsidies, etc, as well. But not while we're trying to climb out of a liquidity trap. If that's the stimulus necessary to re-prime the economic pump, so be it. There's nothing at stake morally or religiously. It's just a public policy action. The end game should be rebuilding the economy. Stimulus helps in that regard. Even subsidies for people I think should get a haircut and get a real job.
Taxes in the US are far more progressive than in most European states with greater social welfare benefits. Increased taxes on the 1% alone are not going to pay for increased/sustained benefits in the US, but that has not stopped politicians from talking out of both sides of their mouths.
Mea culpa - I always forget about Part B (and yes, it's a big oversight on my part)... Supplemental Medicare does have a general revenue components. I could weasel around with the unfunded Part D implications and some of the Part C mess (a big chunk of which ACA already whacked), but I'll just stick with mea culpa....
I agree with your larger point. You should not discuss Medicare in the current context. Our current budget 'problem' is largely a political one. The long term budget problem is structural and is essentially 100% about Medicare (demographics).
Of course, that's not simply a 'who pays' question. It's also a demographics/cost control question. (Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses between the ages of 14 and 26...)
Old people, Harvey. OLD PEOPLE!
Now see - here I disagree (on the payroll tax cut) for the same reasons previously stated.... if we're including the 'payroll tax cut' in the negotiations, then we're talking about more than just debt/deficit... we're talking about two additional things: stimulus and entitlements.
...and I still wind up back at the same point - it's not possible at the current time to talk about those things in this context when I'm wholly convinced that the folks who want them on the table, want them on the table because they've got a 80/50 year long ideological opposition to them existing as a thing to begin with.
Absent an acknowledgement that those programs are fundamentally around to stay, and fundamentally not going to be voucherized, intentionally weakened for purposes of undermining, privatized, etc -- no dice.
Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan can wheel out their grandmas all they like -- but every ounce of reason I have knows damn well that they consider such government sponsored programs mistakes and something to be gotten rid off or somehow transferred to the 'private marketplace'.
EDIT: to be clear - I'm saying the payroll tax cut sunsets in the current 'fiscal cliff' negotiations... I accept that as given.
You cut spending programs during boom times, not recessions or tepid recoveries. Keynes 101.
That's a function of having less income inequality, so it gets causation a bit backwards. In terms of top income tax rates, top rates in the UK are 50%, in Sweden 57%, in Germany 45%, in France 75%, in Italy 43%, in Austria 50%, etc. etc.
for all the griping i can think of worse things than medicare
but social security has morphed far beyond its original intent and needs to be attacked in a serious way
zonk
i am struggling to understand why anyone would oppose keeping the payroll tax cut. that's your stimulus right there.
But do you think that will actually happen? Because I don't.
Besides, if spending programs make bad economies good, wouldn't they make good economies great? And great economies greater? And greater economies greatest? Why stop the money?
Keynsian economic policies allegedly represented the solution to unemployment. And yet, even though they've been orthodox for years, here we are. Maybe time for Economics 101 instead Keynes 101.
Negotiating GOP style. Give the GOP what it wants, Democrats get nothing, call it negotiation.
Just an observation(and means nothing at all), but every time the payroll tax is announced, there's a gas price spike that eats into almost or all of the benefit of the cut in taxes.
Relying on the payroll tax cut to be a stimulus is not going to help much.
Disagree.
Well I am in favor of extending it, but I am also in favor of extending unemployment benefits. When unemployment benefits run out that will be an anti-stimulus right there. Combine with taxes being raised (including payroll), and spending cuts all over the place and that is a bad deal.
It happened under Clinton. I am absolutely certain that had the 2007-8 collapse not been systemic to the financial industry (and thus the long, slow, flat-bottomed U-curve "recovery" Obama would have done it as well.
DLC Democrats are Keynesians.
Because you get booms and busts. Bubbles. By regulating government spending and taxes you are to a degree regulating your economy. So your lows aren't as low as they could be nor are they high as they could be. That is the trade off to avoid massive unemeployment, riots, revolutions, and civil wars.
there is stuff in the short term and stuff in the long term
somebody is going to have to take a hit. i would prefer it be everyone over the age of 50 because that is where most of the wealth is concentrated but unfortunately you cannot construct anything so clean as to make that happen.
and you are now conflating an individual item (payroll tax cut) with the overall fiscal cliff plan
i was merely speaking to that specific item. not stating that keep that and let everything else happen.
Keynes 101 is Economics 101. It's simply the best theoretical framework we have. It's not perfect, but it's so far above and beyond any other option it's not even close.
You are forgetting VAT, sales taxes, and gasoline taxes, all consumption taxes that are regressive and prevalent in Europe.
Yglesias on the payroll tax.
So...what's going on right now?
Maybe it shouldn't be. Keynes promised "full employment" and the end of the business cycle. His theories have been orthodox for decades, and yet we have high unemployment and a boom or bust economy. The solution, however, is always "well maybe try more Keynsianism?"
It's become so orthodox nobody even thinks particularly critically about it anymore. When the press asked Bernanke how QE3 would help Main St., Bernanke said it would help by drving up housing values so people felt more comfortable spending money. In other words, QE3 will create another housing bubble and that's just what the doctor ordered.
The answer is always spending. I find that extremely suspicious.
absolutely. the corporate tax rate is a silly concept.
for the record i am also in favor of phasing out the mortgage interest rate deduction over 10-15 years.
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