Dems Want to Up Debt Ceiling to Almost 2 Trillion

[Embar Angylwrath]

Are they nuts????

Are we watching political suicide???

After hearing the concerns Mass voters had about out-of-control spending (healthcare was the proxy for that), the Dems want to up the debt ceiling... the amount of debt this nation will have to pay in later years... to 1.9 trillion dollars. They keep this up and there won't be any Dems left in Congress.

[Lurker]

Look, I know this is one of the top links on Drudge Report and it's hard to resist the urge to parrot your sources of propaganda, but this is incredibly stupid even for you.

We either raise the debt ceiling or the United States defaults on it's debt and destroys the world economy. We raise the debt ceiling every year, Republicans and Democrats, because we have no choice.

Stop being a poo-flinging monkey.

[Embar Angylwrath]

We have a choice Lurker. We are not slaves to a deficit. That's what separates delusional leftists like yourself from right-minded people.... like those in Mass.

[Lurker]

I love this new act of yours! Over the top parody of wingnuts never gets old.

I'll play along...

Explain to the "delusional leftists" how we can trim 1.5 trillion from the annual budget. Or are you actually suggesting we default on our debt and destroy the global economy?

[Ddrak]

Uh, they are raising it BY 2 trillion, not TO 2 trillion. It's going up to just over 14 trillion.

It seems in line with past raises though, so nothing particularly sacreworthy.

Dd

[Harlowe]

A couple things - this is in line with what Bush did during his tenure. Bush raised the debt ceiling 7 times in the eight years he was in office, nearly doubling the debt during his presidency and keep in mind, he entered office with a budget surplus. You didn't hear those on the Right crying about it then, stomping their feet and chanting "we don't have to be a slave to deficit", so really, it's theatrics to cry it now. Though we live in different economic times, I do recall Obama being against raising it back in 2006, I think he said something like "shifting the burden of bad choices onto the backs of our children and grandchildren".

So it's business as usual, but that's not why we put him in office. Hopefully the loss in MA will be a wake up call for that party to grow a pair and get tougher, more cohesive and stop being touchy-feely buddies with Wall Street. Message is important. Good ideas don't mean shit if you can't do anything with them. Hell, Bush was able to get a great many bad ideas passed without a super majority. There is no reason the Dem's couldn't stop acting like a herd of fucking cats. It takes stronger leadership imo, it's organization and putting a lot more energy into controlling the message.

I think putting so much time into healthcare immediately was a huge mistake and not really what the focus should have been. You focus on what is scaring, concerning your people first. Yes it's populist, but gaining some degree of confidence first is a must before jumping into larger issues that are going to be a battle. Working on the economy, job creation, putting some new banking rules in place. Things that would have resonated with the public first, then work on healthcare reform. If people had the confidence that you were getting shit done and not being soft with Wall Street, they would have been much more supportive and less vulnerable to misinformation on the healthcare reform. Hell if they would have focused on reform without the public option, they probably could have dodged a bullet on that. Take it in pieces, so it goes down easier.

I don't know if Afghanistan was a good idea either. Can we afford two wars? Also not making a big, huge shit about holding up the TSA position would have been a good opportunity to shove that "helping the terrorists" game right back at the republicans.

They are being pussies imo. They need to be tough, they need to get right there in the mud with the Republicans because, like it or not, that works with the general population.

[Embar Angylwrath]

Harlowe -

In the past, the debt limit was incrementally inreased. It took Bush years to double the debt limit. It took this Congress one year. What happens next year, and the next, and the one after that? Two trillion a year? Is that what we can expect with this group?

[Garrdor]

Uh oh, if we spend all teh moneyz to fix the nation - the American Dream™ will die!!!

GODDAMNIT I WANT MY McMansion™ !!!

[Harlowe]

The bail-out was a Bush-Obama issue. It doesn't lay squarely on Obama's shoulders. Also, it kept us from getting into a deeper recession. Not to mention it wasn't Obama's mess to begin with.

It wasn't perfect, but it did save our collective asses.

[Lurker]

I think putting so much time into healthcare immediately was a huge mistake and not really what the focus should have been. You focus on what is scaring, concerning your people first. Yes it's populist, but gaining some degree of confidence first is a must before jumping into larger issues that are going to be a battle. Working on the economy, job creation, putting some new banking rules in place. Things that would have resonated with the public first, then work on healthcare reform.

Two of the first things Obama accomplished after taking office were the stimulus package and a very progressive budget. Both were aimed at shoring up the economy. I don't remember there being any political will at the time to enact more legislation and spend more money on top of all that.

They got done what it was possible to get done in regards to the economy, and then they moved agressively to try to enact health reform. If not for the lockstep opposition and the time wasted trying to negotiate with them, health reform would have been done long ago. If it fails at this point then, yeah, time wasted. If they manage to not fuck things up then we'll have a huge progressive step in the right direction, both socially and fiscally.

=====

It took Bush years to double the debt limit. It took this Congress one year. What happens next year, and the next, and the one after that? Two trillion a year? Is that what we can expect with this group?

This could turn into a continuing series. I'll call it "Embar vs. Reality".

14 trillion is not twice as much as 11.3 trillion. And lets not forget the source of the current deficits or what direction the numbers are heading.

[Fallakin Kuvari]

It wasn't perfect, but it did save our collective asses.

Did it, though? We've hardly seen any of that money used.

[Lurker]

You've hardly seen any of the money used on projects for your state. That's still in the pipeline.

Direct aid to states, tax cuts for the working poor and middle class, and direct aid to the poor and unemployed is quite a different story, and those items provide the most bang for the buck stimulus (except for the tax cuts which are mediocre stimulus).

[Fallakin Kuvari]

Unemployment and Welfare are the most "bang for your buck" stimulus?

Silly, I thought creating jobs would be.

[Lurker]

Yuk yuk. Direct aid to the poor and unemployed provides more economic stimulus than tax cuts during a recession, and they did provide a huge amount of stimulus last year, boosting GDP, saving jobs, and pulling the country out of recession. Obviously, jobs are a better economic stimulus than anything, but job creation by the Government is hard to do unless you have a huge public works project. It'll take time to get all the smaller state projects going.

[Jarochai Alabaster]

Obviously I'm no economic expert, but in a free market economy isn't job creation primarily the responsibility of the private sector?

[Fallakin Kuvari]

I'm not either, but wouldn't more taxes on the private sector result in less new jobs?

[Ddrak]

I remember reading something somewhere that said over 50% of US jobs were directly or indirectly from government funding, so arguing it's the private sector's responsibility isn't really accurate. It's a combination of public and private effort. Similarly increasing taxation on the private sector doesn't necessarily result in less jobs - the interaction is complex and depends on what you actually do with the tax money.

Dd

[Embar Angylwrath]

I remember reading something somewhere that said over 50% of US jobs were directly or indirectly from government funding, so arguing it's the private sector's responsibility isn't really accurate. It's a combination of public and private effort. Similarly increasing taxation on the private sector doesn't necessarily result in less jobs - the interaction is complex and depends on what you actually do with the tax money.

Dd

That's a pretty fuzzy statement Dd (the part about direct and indirect jobs). One could argue that all taxpayer dollars result in direct or indirect jobs (except for money sent to foreign nations). Hell, one could make the case that even welfare money indirectly supports jobs, because the the recipient churns the money back into the economy in the form of rent, mortgage, food, utilities, etc. But that's not the whole picture.

Its about the most EFFICIENT USE of taxpayer dollars. Greater efficiency translates to lower taxes since a greater efficiency can get more output per unit spent. People across the world use this basic concept every day... why spend two dollars on a loaf of bread when I can have the same loaf for a dollar.

That's the issue with a nationalized government. It isn't efficient, it wasn't designed to be efficient, and it never will be efficient. So tax dollars funneled through a bureaucracy are, by definition, inefficient. (Excepting issues like national defense spending, spending on national debt, etc). The corrolary is that more could be done with less, if we just got the middleman, the national government, out of the way. No nation should ever crow that national spending results in jobs, that's a cheer of the defeated.

Think about it... if you were running an organization, would you applaud the fact that over 50% of your revenue came from one source? If, as you say, that over 50% of the US economy is controlled by the Feds... to me, that's a nightmare, and it should be to every other sane American as well.

[Ddrak]

I'm pretty sure the number's not that high, now I do some research. It's somewhere between 20% and 25% from what I can tell with some quick google searching. By "indirect" I basically meant counting government/military contractors as government jobs.

It isn't so cut and dried as saying "the public sector is less efficient than the private sector", because it's demonstrably untrue. Even discounting the obvious defense (which is god-awful inefficient anyway), there's been very little gains in a lot of privatization efforts in utility companies. I'd similarly argue health care is a clear winner when under a single payer system than a network of private organizations.

Similarly, having worked for small companies, a large company and a government department, there was very little difference in waste and inefficiency between the large company and the government. They were both driven by petty squabbles and personal powermongering that tended to put personal power above any sort of efficiency. The small company was simply too small for that to work.

I'm all for private enterprise where it makes sense, but the basic laws of a free market break down when you either don't have the "don't buy anything" option or the average person simply can't make a well-informed choice.

Dd

[Partha]

I'm not either, but wouldn't more taxes on the private sector result in less new jobs?

You mean like in the 50's, when the tax rate was incredibly high and there were no jobs...oh, wait.

Or maybe like in the 90's, when Clinton raised the tax rate and the economy went into a death spiral...oh, wait.

Nevermind.