Very good Nate Silver piece on Debt Ceiling negotiations.

[sirkickyass]

The basic premise of the article is that the GOP "no new taxes" position is significantly to the "right" (I use quotes because I think it's questionable whether this position falls into a traditional right vs. left framework, but that's another story) of the average Republican voter.

The link: https://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytim...-tax-stance-far-outside-political-mainstream/

And the money section of the article:

The average Republican voter, based on this data, wants a mix of 26 percent tax increases to 74 percent spending cuts. The average independent voter prefers a 34-to-66 mix, while the average Democratic voter wants a 46-to-54 mix:

Now consider the positions of the respective parties to the negotiation. One framework that President Obama has offered, which would reduce the debt by a reported $2 trillion, contains a mix of about 17 percent tax increases to 83 percent spending cuts. Another framework, which would aim for twice the debt reduction, has been variously reported as offering a 20-to-80 or 25-to-75 mix.

With the important caveat that the accounting on both the spending and tax sides can get tricky, this seems like an awfully good deal for Republicans. Much to the chagrin of many Democrats, the mix of spending cuts and tax increases that Mr. Obama is offering is quite close to, or perhaps even a little to the right of, what the average Republican voter wants, let alone the average American.

However, all but 7 Republicans in the House of Representatives, or 97 percent of them, have signed the pledge of Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform stating that any net tax increases are unacceptable. One might have believed this to be simply a negotiating position. But the proposal that Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell floated yesterday, which would give up on striking a deal and instead rely on some procedural gymnastics to burden Mr. Obama with having to raise the debt ceiling, suggests otherwise. Republicans in the House really may be of the view that a deal with a 3:1 or 4:1 or 5:1 ratio of spending cuts to tax increases is worse than none at all.

If we do take the Republicans’ no-new-taxes position literally, it isn’t surprising that the negotiations have broken down. Consider that, according to the Gallup poll, Republican voters want the deal to consist of 26 percent tax increases, and Democratic voters 46 percent — a gap of 20 percentage points. If Republicans in the House insist upon zero tax increases, there is a larger ideological gap between House Republicans and Republican voters than there is between Republican voters and Democratic ones.

Broken out that way the impasse in which Cantor is walking out of meetings and declaring proposals that are catered to the Republican base's preferences to be totally unacceptable is highly perplexing.

 

[Agoxlea]

Why it isn't political suicide to gamble with our credit rating beats me, especially considering the House Repubs are holding our for something that isn't even wanted by most of their base. Regardless of your political views, this should be unacceptable.

 

[babe]

Newt Has The Plan

I'm not generally favorable to Newt Gingrich or moderate republicans in general, but a couple of days ago on Sean Hannity's show he laid out the plan for how Republicans can outmaneuver the Dems on this subject for this election cycle.

Paint Obama as an anti-jobs failure for supporting the union's objections to Boeing's new plant in a right-work-state. I think it was North Carolina or something close.

Offer legislation guaranteeing social security payouts as obligated linked to spending cuts in other areas. He mentioned a management efficiency group working out of Ohio which has a plan to cut $500 Billion on strategic efficiency measures not even program cuts. A lot of wasteful spending directed at bogeyman fears and ignorance. . . . not to mention decades of unchecked empire-builder managers continually pushing their staff and budgets beyond reasonable need. . . .

Force the Dems to reject the plan and then paint them as the grinches who forced the government to cut social security.

I see and accept that some of you are dedicated to the ideals and hopes of unfettered government, and that since government is the only hammer you know everything looks like it just needs more governmental hammering.

But like portrayed in the old movie A Bolt of Lightning, the story of patriot John Otis who started out as the British Governor of Massachussets' own prosecutor, he withdrew from his post and represented the merchants of Boston who were being proscribed from importing various goods the Crown had assigned exclusive marketing rights to English merchants in the American market:

"The People, Sir, They will Resist".

If you look at that poll in the OP, the majority of Americans prefer spending cuts. Obama is not going to be elected, and a whole lot of Democrats will not be elected this cycle, if they don't just start going along with massive spending cuts.

 

[sirkickyass]

I'm not generally favorable to Newt Gingrich or moderate republicans in general, but a couple of days ago on Sean Hannity's show he laid out the plan for how Republicans can outmaneuver the Dems on this subject for this election cycle.

You mean the guy whose Presidential campaign staff fired him? A tactical genius to be sure.

He mentioned a management efficiency group working out of Ohio which has a plan to cut $500 Billion on strategic efficiency measures not even program cuts.

$500 billion cut without any program cuts sounds like a free lunch. Link please.

If you look at that poll in the OP, the majority of Americans prefer spending cuts. Obama is not going to be elected, and a whole lot of Democrats will not be elected this cycle, if they don't just start going along with massive spending cuts.

I'm seriously questioning whether you even bothered to read the original post. The entire point was that Obama has offered various packages approximating spending cuts/tax increases in which between 75 and 83% of the package is spending cuts. The statement that Obama is not going along with massive spending cuts is entirely counter to reality. To Keynesians, he frankly looks like a sleeper agent giving away the keys to the castle. I would go so far as to say that if this was 1994 Obama would be a Republican.

If you click on the link you'll see that the percentage of respondents in the base poll that agreed with the apparent GOP position that everything must be done by spending cut rather than any tax increases is 20%. Even among registered Republicans, only 26% believed that. Referencing the poll as evidence that the GOP position enjoys broad based support is ridiculous.

 

[babe]

So I now have actually read your link. Newt is articulate and might yet get his campaign off and running. As I said, I was listening to his comments on a radio program, Sean Hannity on Wednesday, and he was headed to make a speech somewhere in the midwest on Thursday, and his comments were reported in the news cycle. He referred to an outfit trying to promote specific changes/improvements along the lines of things businesses do to improve efficiency, who assert that the $500 Billion can be saved by following similar management policies. That's a believeable figure to me based on my sum total direct experience/observation. But he has a book out that is a NY Times Bestseller:

https://books.google.com/books?id=LwauijGXprsC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Newt is someone who is credible because of his involvement in producing some "balanced" budgets in the nineties. His personal failings will be exploited but I think even your all-too-ready statements first-off are tantamount to mere political skank of your own.

After reading the link, I think I can stand on my statements. What you have is a poll done by an outfit I have known for half a century being a pusher for issues rather than an unbiased reporter. But if you look closely at how they constructed this poll, as reported, and the questions as they presented them to their sample of people, you have results that any reasonable person who just doesn't want to make a case for Keynesian policy will read as either a 2-1 voter sentiment that reduced spending is preferable to Keynesian spending policy, or a 5-1 swing that less spending is more of an answer.

To just make my take concise, I read the poll, and the question that was asked and how it was done, and in my opinion the article is a stretch to make such a conclusion. The poll itself is more supportive of my position.

 

[The-Joker]

Nate Silver is a good porn star name.

 

[LunaticWolf]

The Republican field is confusing because you have the traditional big-government republicans mixed with Tea Party small government constitutional republicans.

What I can't believe is that democrat voters want 46% of the plan to get to surplus being taxes raises! To get enough to cver the annual debt is a huge tax hike, especially considering taxes could already be considered high.

 

[babe]

The Republican field is confusing because you have the traditional big-government republicans mixed with Tea Party small government constitutional republicans.

What I can't believe is that democrat voters want 46% of the plan to get to surplus being taxes raises! To get enough to cver the annual debt is a huge tax hike, especially considering taxes could already be considered high.

Here is the LaRouche take on the debt ceiling negotiations: Obama is under pressure from foreign bankers, London, to keep trying to pump up our bubble by transferring more faux currency into the bankers' hands, ala "bailout handouts".

LaRouche gets criticized by our typical teaparty types, falsely I believe, for his brand of FDR economics/Democrat non-Anglo or American socialism. Some say he's even a communist agent provocateur. One thing is for sure, George Bush and his family sure don't like him. And most of our movers and shakers who are swimming with the elites/corporate interests.

https://larouchepac.com/node/18765

I usually maintain my reservations about most of what's "out there", but we truly are dangerously over-extended on our obligations already.

Like Brigham Young found out when he first dealt with economics here in Utah's wilderness, money is necessare but not sufficient for people to prosper. He issued "tithing script" in lieu of coin or currency which simply wasn't here, and he had a reliable "tax" in that people would bring in goods to pay their "tithing". But if people had not had faith in his scrip enough to roll outta bed and get to work, there would have been no "stuff" or services or infrastructure built and the scrip would have been worthless, useful only as toilet paper.

If Obama had done more like FDR in running the printing presses while actually requiring productive work in exchange for it, instead of handing it over to bankers to cover their losses in the books, we would be on the way to a real recovery.

But because the money was spent just trying to keep the bubble pumped up, we have not actually been getting people to roll outta bed and go to work.

Kicky probably will squeal about all this, since his clients are likely hooked on the bailout mentality, but the majority of Americans today are clearly outraged by this kind of profligacy, no matter how conservative Obama's rhetoric or negotiating posturing may be about spending cuts. He is still propping up failed bank scams.

No FDR here, folks. You better just get out and go to work to make what you need somehow.

 

[moevillini]

...I usually maintain my reservations about most of what's "out there", but we truly are dangerously over-extended on our obligations already....

not exactly sure if this is referring to household debt or strictly gov't debt, but in terms of over-extended obligations, an editorial in today's WSJ mentions that the overall household debt to personal income ratio is 115% - down from 130% in 2008.

The historical ratio from 1975 - 2000 was around 75%.

we've been living on borrowed funds, to put it mildly.


https://www.frbsf.org/publications/economics/letter/2009/el2009-16.html
some historical perspective on this from the Federal Reserve Bank (May 2009)

 

[babe]

not exactly sure if this is referring to household debt or strictly gov't debt, but in terms of over-extended obligations, an editorial in today's WSJ mentions that the overall household debt to personal income ratio is 115% - down from 130% in 2008.

The historical ratio from 1975 - 2000 was around 75%.

we've been living on borrowed funds, to put it mildly.

I think the restoration of Glass-Seagel will do a lot of good. It will keep us from having to do more bailouts of bubblescamer speculation engines like Goldman-Sachs. I am actually more hopeful than the LaRouchePAC types or the conservatives. The fact is many American household have been making rational "budget cuts" of their own and living within their means. A lot of small businesses are also being operated responsibly, too. Which means people are rolling out of bed and going to work making stuff that's necessary or useful.

If we can only get our governments to behave that rationally and apply significant cost-saving efficiencies to their operations I believe we will simply work our way past all we've suffered at the hands of the bubblemeisters.

 

[moevillini]

But because the money was spent just trying to keep the bubble pumped up, we have not actually been getting people to roll outta bed and go to work.
...the majority of Americans today are clearly outraged by this kind of profligacy...

No FDR here, folks. You better just get out and go to work to make what you need somehow.

they're only outraged by the OTHER guy's profligacy, NOT their own - - in part because they're BLIND to it when they're doing it themselves.

 

[babe]

they're only outraged by the OTHER guy's profligacy, NOT their own - - in part because they're BLIND to it when they're doing it themselves.

Another universal human insight, clearly often the case. I'm optimistic because in my observation there has been a large shift in people, often in the younger set, towards not doing that way and being that blind.

I think we have made the turn and the future politics will begin to reflect even politicians' realizations that these voters will not keep electing them if they don't manage the finances sensibly.

 

[The Thriller]

I would think that this pledge will become less and less popular as the date approaches.

I think the Repubs will take the brunt of America's frustration if the debt ceiling isn't increased. All but perhaps the very rich (or retarded aka tea baggers and those morons who place this pledge ahead of our country's well-being) I think support more or less, Obama's plan. Even repubs support some tax increases...

Nothing would shoot down the GOP's chances of the white house in 2012 like old folks not receiving their checks or troops fighting without pay or the economy tanking (again).

 

[moevillini]

not exactly sure if this is referring to household debt or strictly gov't debt, but in terms of over-extended obligations, an editorial in today's WSJ mentions that the overall household debt to personal income ratio is 115% - down from 130% in 2008.

The historical ratio from 1975 - 2000 was around 75%.

we've been living on borrowed funds, to put it mildly.


https://www.frbsf.org/publications/economics/letter/2009/el2009-16.html
some historical perspective on this from the Federal Reserve Bank (May 2009)

heard a discussion on the radio this morning: apparently after dropping over the past year, levels of personal debt have started going up again - - the discussion was whether or not that indicated households were buying again, and stimulating the economy - - but the consensus seemed to be that what was actually happening was that people were not spending any more, but they weren't paying down their existing debt to as great a degree as they had been either, so their total indebtedness seemed to increase


also, here's an interesting article
https://posttrib.suntimes.com/opinions/6508424-474/dana-milbank-bachmann-puts-in-her-2-cents-on-debt-limit.html

Now, she’s [Michelle Bachman] putting that theory to the test. On Wednesday, she argued that failure to raise the debt limit — a prospect that even Republican congressional leaders say could lead to economic catastrophe — might not be such a bad thing.

“This is a misnomer that I believe the president and the Treasury secretary have been trying to pass off on the American people, and it’s this: that if Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling by $2.5 trillion, that somehow the United States will go into default and we will lose the full faith and credit of the United States,” Bachmann said. “That is simply not true.”

To prove it, she and two Republican House colleagues — Steve King of Iowa and Louie Gohmert of Texas — announced legislation that would require the federal government, in a debt-ceiling crisis, to prioritize payments to the troops and to U.S. creditors.

With Bachmann sharing the stage, King explained that the government could pay creditors and the military and fund Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid without increasing the debt limit.

“My response would echo that,” Bachmann added.

Of course, this list omitted items such as veterans’ benefits, unemployment insurance, homeland and border security, the FBI, federal prisons and air traffic control.

No biggie, said King.

He offered that he has heard no convincing argument that refusing to increase the debt ceiling would lead to financial ruin.

“The answer I get back after I press that is no one knows,” he said, “and no one has the nerve to find out, because we’ll do anything to avoid such a scenario.”

Until now, that is. The Bachmann-King-Gohmert plan, similar to those floated by other conservatives, is the economic equivalent of the old Cold War strategy in the event of a nuclear attack: If we just duck and cover, maybe it won’t be so bad.

To some extent, irrationality persists on both sides. Senate Democrats, rather than doing useful work, have debated a pointless “sense of the Senate” resolution that millionaires should pay more in taxes.

But Republicans have a bigger problem. Even when leaders try to be responsible — both House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have said that default is not an option — they are being undercut by their rank and file.

McConnell, on Laura Ingraham’s radio show, warned the zealots within his own ranks not to trifle with default.

“It destroys your brand,” he said. “If we go into default, (Obama) will say that Republicans are making the economy worse and try to convince the public, maybe with some merit, if people start not getting their Social Security checks and military families start maybe getting letters saying service people overseas don’t get paid.

“It’s an argument he could have a good chance of winning.”

Do-nothing approach

To address that problem, McConnell has proposed the cynical solution of basically doing nothing to reduce the debt until after the elections in November 2012.

This, naturally, has caused some of the ideologues, including the Bachmann-Gohmert-King trio, to dig in further....

Both sides will be able to find plenty of ammunition to fire at the other side if this doesn't get resolved. What's really sad is when you start to feel that getting that ammunition is more important than solving the problem.

 

[The Thriller]

Serious question...

Who's going to blink first?

The repubs? who might cave to their outrageous NO TAX INCREASES stance.
Or the Demo winnies who have sucked at this game for years? I remember not too long ago they voted to extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. What wusses for not standing up for what they supposedly believed in and campaigned on.

Or will neither blink and the American people be left shafted?

 

[Mission Accomplished]

I'm pretty sure that it was during the Bush administration that the bailout money went to the banks that put us in this mess. This is great for Obama he is trying to reach a compromise and those Republicans that are crying wolf that raising taxes and closing corporate loopholes are going to be out in the could. Maybe GE might have to scale back on all of their former IRS accountant that help them to pay hardily any taxes. If these companies love the country that gave them the rights to make their billions then they should help pay to keep it great.

By the way here is to hoping that Fox News will fall as Rupert Murdoch falls!!!! Than maybe there won't be droves of morons voting in teaparty tards like Bachman and Palin types. The most comical part is that taxes are at an all time low; yet these Fox News watchers are trying to use the name of real American heroes.

 

[babe]

Serious question...

Who's going to blink first?

The repubs? who might cave to their outrageous NO TAX INCREASES stance.
Or the Demo winnies who have sucked at this game for years? I remember not too long ago they voted to extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. What wusses for not standing up for what they supposedly believed in and campaigned on.

Or will neither blink and the American people be left shafted?

I hardly think our one-party system with two puppets for entertaining and confusing the public is really at a standoff. The RINO?/DINO? Party is just runnin' outta booze while the corporate lobbyists and their puppets try to pull some magician stunts for the ignorant public.

It's more like our mainstream party "leaders" are both winking at each other while they run the usual rhetoric about who's the real cookie monster.

 

[babe]

I'm pretty sure that it was during the Bush administration that the bailout money went to the banks that put us in this mess. This is great for Obama he is trying to reach a compromise and those Republicans that are crying wolf that raising taxes and closing corporate loopholes are going to be out in the could. Maybe GE might have to scale back on all of their former IRS accountant that help them to pay hardily any taxes. If these companies love the country that gave them the rights to make their billions then they should help pay to keep it great.

By the way here is to hoping that Fox News will fall as Rupert Murdoch falls!!!! Than maybe there won't be droves of morons voting in teaparty tards like Bachman and Palin types. The most comical part is that taxes are at an all time low; yet these Fox News watchers are trying to use the name of real American heroes.

You're factually correct, it was our little blue-blooded "NumbSkullBoner" GeorgiePorgieII who started the GoldmanSachs/GM/Bailout business. That's why we voted out Bob "BailoutBob" Bennett here in Utah. The republican mainstream, perhaps with some of the candidates like Newt but certainly with "Utah's own" Mitt & Jon RINOs, are running a slick exploitation of the public. You can bet the bank they will not reduce the size of government nor turn off the spigots the rich have and are using to divert public cash into their coffers.

The problem is the dems are no different. Well, and the problem is our media watchdogs even FauxNews have been co-opted by these elitist governance types who are still just continuing their scam. More important than the wink-wink budget play, we need to re-install Glass-Seagal regulation of the Wall Street interests who have been running the bubble scams along with the Great FedRes Banking Scam.

Real progress in restoring our constitutional republic where government serves the people at large requires turning off all the spigots where the current governance crowd, the bankscambunch of the last hundred years, have been enriching themselves on the public funds.

 

[Surely]

I'm probably going to get railed for this, but I see no problem with asking the federal government to be more responsible with how they spend our money.

 

[moevillini]

I'm probably going to get railed for this, but I see no problem with asking the federal government to be more responsible with how they spend our money.

I'm not sure why anybody would argue with your general point - the arguments start when we try to define "responsible spending"


at any rate, I'd like to keep this on topic so I apologize for my next statement, but I somehow can't help but see parallels between the gov't debt situation and the NBA contract situation...

both seem to have elements of one side thinking the other side isn't being truthful and thinking (hoping?) the other side is going to blink first

somehow it seems there could be an interesting poll question made out of that!

I hardly think our one-party system with two puppets for entertaining and confusing sthe public is really at a standoff. The RINO?/DINO? Party ...

I've certainly heard the "in name only" phrase before, but never seen the acronym put so amusingly!!! RINO - DINO is pretty good