Comments on: Weve Seen This Movie Before

By:

Tue, 12 May 2009 21:43:40 +0000

barker, I’m uncomfortable b/c I tend to think of myself as a little more optimistic about this country’s capacity to eventually make the right decision than my agreement on your point suggests.

By: barker13

barker13 — Tue, 12 May 2009 20:55:06 +0000

Re: Kroner; 12:20 PM --

"barker13: I don't disagree with any of that."

(*HANDSHAKE*)

"All I was saying is that this piece seems to pile a whole lot of criticism and then offers "solutions" that are not really going to solve the problem."

Fair enough.

I for one sure as heck wish Mr. Holtz-Eakin would address our various comments. I assume he's a busy man, but my feeling is, if he can make the time to "contribute" and you and I and others can take the time to read and comment, the least Holtz-Eakin can do is address a few of the key points we've (collectively) made.

Re: Spartacus; 3:19 PM --

barker: re your 6.54AM post,

"I (uncomfortably!) agree with you for the most part..."

Why "uncomfortably?"

"...a lot of this stems from the fact that people don't have to pay for the government goodies they receive."

Yes.

(The Founders warned us about democracy.)

BILL

By:

Tue, 12 May 2009 19:19:11 +0000

barker: re your 6.54AM post,

I (uncomfortably!) agree with you for the most part about the almost universal resistance to fiscal responsibility. However, I believe that a lot of this stems from the fact that people don't have to pay for the government goodies they receive. So, naturally, they want more and more.

This, I believe, is the single greatest failure of the Reagan presidency. He gave credibility to the unproven notion that you could cut taxes and still balance the budget. To his credit, he was not nearly as irresponsible as were Republicans over the last 8 years. But, the rhetoric he used in fighting for tax cuts, became, over time, dogma for the Republican party.

Now, any attempt to raise taxes to pay for governmet spending that the people demand is reflexively rejected by Republicans and conservatives even while they refuse to offer meaningful ideas for cutting the budget.

Conservatives should be offering realistic ways to cut spending and pay for what is not cut.

By: kroner

kroner — Tue, 12 May 2009 16:20:25 +0000

barker13: I don’t disagree with any of that. The deficit is a huge problem that most politician have no real interest in addressing because more tax cuts and more spending are popular. And with good reason. Who doesn’t want something for nothing? Entitlements are the biggest examples of this attitude. I don’t pretend to know what the solution is. All I was saying is that this piece seems to pile a whole lot of criticism and then offers “solutions” that are not really going to solve the problem.sinz54: I like you increased retirement age suggestion.

By: sinz54

sinz54 — Tue, 12 May 2009 11:34:16 +0000

Rel: Does that "discretionary" spending - Education, Homeland Security - really matter compared to the size and growth of entitlements, most of which go toward current and future retirees?"

Every bit helps.
I was merely responding to the charge that we don't propose specific cuts anymore. That entitlement reform is urgently needed doesn't change the fact that the Department of Education is a waste of taxpayer's money, and we could easily save $300 billion from the Federal Budget even before we touch entitlements.

You know I care about entitlement reform. I was the one who had the guts to admit we need to raise the retirement age, something that fell like a lead balloon around here.

By: barker13

barker13 — Tue, 12 May 2009 10:54:38 +0000

Re: Kroner; 11:46 AM --

"The conclusion of this piece seems to be that we need entitlement reform, and nothing short of that will solve the problem, which everyone has known for a long time now. So needless to say I was a bit miffed when there were no proposals offered for how exactly we can go about reforming entitlements."

Kroner. With respect... you're not "getting" it either.

The politicians aren't going to "reform" entitlements. Right now they're busy increasing and expanding entitlements.

Kroner. Understand this: At a certain level a person and his or her family are pretty much safe and secure from the ill effects of the nation's decline. At that level are powerful Senators, Members of the House, presidents and former presidents and their families... you get the picture.

You've got a whole bunch of extremely powerful people who will personally "profit" more from keeping the Ponzi scheme going for as long as possible and pushing aside the day of reckoning for as long as possible than they and their families and their associates would benefit by "reforming" the system.

You're familiar with the term "milking the system," I take it? We're talking the folks skimming the heavy cream off the top!

Kroner. The institutional imperative of a Member of the House or a Senator or a governor is to steer as much federal money to his or her district or state as possible. Congress is know as the SPENDING branch rather than the savings branch for a reason.

(*SNORT*)

Oh, sure... you get the occasional "rebel." You'll notice however that it's President Obama, not President Paul in the White House today.

Nope. Again... if Reagan couldn't "fix" things... if Gingrich and the "Class of '94" ended up failing... if a Republican President (Dubya) with BOTH Houses of Congress in Republican hands for six years only made things worse...

(*SHRUG*)

Re: MSheridan; 9:35 AM --

"By the way, barker13, I sincerely hope you were joking in your last post about hoping for a military coup or benevolent dictatorship..."

You ever watch "Smallville," Kroner? This is the point I'm at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecb_38t5TTs

"...I don't care how you do it..."

BILL

By: balconesfault

balconesfault — Tue, 12 May 2009 10:47:43 +0000

$700 billion/year on the military. There’s no way to deal with the long term budget stability without addressing this elephant in the room.

By: kroner

kroner — Mon, 11 May 2009 15:46:51 +0000

The conclusion of this piece seems to be that we need entitlement reform, and nothing short of that will solve the problem, which everyone has known for a long time now. So needless to say I was a bit miffed when there were no proposals offered for how exactly we can go about reforming entitlements.

I want to address some of the things that are proposed here.
"Rewards to risk-taking, flexible labor markets, and accumulation of physical and human capital."
In other words, you want to encourage long term growth. That seems to be Obama's view as well, except that his philosophy differs on how that's best achieved. Accumulation of capital is the goal of spending now on education, improving health care infrastructure, investing in new energy technologies, etc. As for encouraging risk taking, that seems to be what led to a lot of the current problems. If people are too conservative with their money that can be bad for growth, but some shift toward saving is necessary considering the path we were on was clearly unsustainable. It led to speculative bubbles and too much debt all around, both among the financial institutions and individuals, to disastrous consequences. I'm not sure that we need to discourage people from learning their lesson.

"Any federal check that is independent of taxes is a spending policy and we need to be honest about that."
As you well know, there's no difference between a tax cut and the government handing someone a check. The main distinction between these two and spending is that the government doesn't dictate how the money is used in the economy. It's a small distinction from a budget standpoint, but an important one in how they are perceived by a large portion of the American public who believe that spending is evil and tax cuts are awesome. So this whole ploy to relabel the tax cuts you don't like (EITC, etc), but not the ones you do (lowering the corporate tax rate for instance) reeks of intellectual dishonesty.

By: barker13

barker13 — Mon, 11 May 2009 15:25:46 +0000

Douglas,

I don't believe MSheridan "got" your point. Here... let me give it a shot:

Re: MSheridan; 9:35 AM --

"...I'd welcome with open arms any movement toward intelligent discussion of solving our horrendous budget difficulties."

MS. Bad news. You're NOT going to get that discussion - not in the sense of the discussion actually leading to reform... not in the sense of actually "solving" our problems.

Get this straight. Our problems are simply going to get worse. Bad to worse. Worse to... er... even worse.

"I would be glad to see a Republican Party that was also serious about balancing budgets and prioritizing spending."

You're not going to see that. Well... backing up... you'll see some of that... but you certainly won't see the change required to "solve" our nation's fiscal problems even if the Republicans can manage to take back both Houses of Congress AND the White House in 2012 or by 2016.

At best the USA will "rebound" to a certain extent every now and then as we continue our downward slide towards disaster. Sometime between 2025-45 I see the 50 states (and actually... it'll be at least 52 states in the future, perhaps more depending upon what happens with Mexico and Canada) splitting with several "Americas" being the result.

"By the way, barker13, I sincerely hope you were joking..."

Just what this country needs... more "hope."

(*SMILE*)

OK, MSheridan... give us your scenario of how via the democratic system as it now exists with the reality and trends that exists today... tell us how we're going to get "change" and "solve" our problems under any viable scenario.

BILL

By: Rel

Rel — Mon, 11 May 2009 15:03:55 +0000

sinz54 – Does that “discretionary” spending – Education, Homeland Security – really matter compared to the size and growth of entitlements, most of which go toward current and future retirees? The GOP used to be more specific about being the “party of productivity”. They incentivized productive work by lowering income tax rates. Now, they join the Dems in incentivizing retirement. A renewed party of productivity would follow your prescription of urging later retirement, etc., as an alternative to higher taxes down the road.