How Big Is The US Debt?
- Thread starter wkmac
- Start date
PT Stewie
"Big Fella"
2 movie lines come to mind "What makes a man truly noble is his ability to compromise"and "A politician is a person who kisses a baby while stealing their lollypop" I wonder which fits best
texan
Well-Known Member
You are on a roll today Stewie.
packageguy
Well-Known Member
For our president, it's not big enough......
PT Stewie
"Big Fella"
Fiscal Cliff Bill Loaded With Pork
- Asparagus, rum, and racetracks all got big breaks in the New Year's Day bill
By LAUREN FOX
January 2, 2013 - Last-minute legislation to avoid the so-called 'fiscal cliff' included goodies for a wide range of industries, including American asparagus farmers.
Congress might have caught itself from falling over the fiscal cliff Tuesday, but the deal comes with a hefty price tag. Included in the $4 billion bill is an expiration of the payroll tax break, along with tax exemptions for everyone from the rum industry to NASCAR bigwigs. Here are five groups that are high-fiving each other over the breaks they got in the fiscal cliff deal.
Rum Producers
It is U.S. policy to tax rum producers like Diageo and Bacardi nearly $14 for every gallon of rum they make outside the country and sell in the U.S. But the tax is merely gimmick that gets reinvested in the Virgin Islands and the Puerto Rico in the form of aid. The alcohol industry's more than $13/per gallon kickback has been extended as part of the fiscal cliff negotiations. Pro Publica estimates the tax break gives Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands a total of $480 million in aid for rum production.
Electric Scooter Riders
People using electric scooters will continue to get a discount on their taxes. Drivers of two- and three-wheel plug-in electric vehicles get a tax break in the legislation. As a way to incentivize alternative energy transportation, Congress voted to continue to give 10 percent of the cost of the electric vehicle - up to $2,500 in tax credits to individuals who purchase plug-in wheels.
Hollywood
Making movies in America is big money, and Congress is doing its best to ensure the movie industry doesn't pack up and leave. Television and movie makers can continue to gross $15 million in breaks for filming in the U.S., $20 million for filming in low-income areas, an incentive for Hollywood that costs the country about $430 billion to maintain.
Motorsport Race Track Owners
A program that allows race track owners to deduct a total of more than $40 billion a year for their tracks, bleachers and concession stands also passed in the bill. Groups like NASCAR can continue to write off the maintenance costs of their tracks in a tax break that is similar to one amusement parks benefit from. The only catch is that the venue must have held an event on the premise sometime in the last three years.
Algae and Asparagus Growers
Congress voted to extend $59 million in tax credits for algae growers, who are trying to find a way to produce a biofuel from the plant. And asparagus producers got an extension of their market loss assistance payment, which compensates farmers who for lost revenues because of a spike in foreign asparagus imports.
- Asparagus, rum, and racetracks all got big breaks in the New Year's Day bill
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PT Stewie
"Big Fella"
Hurricane Sandy relief bill “pork” complaints is reportedly a sticking point fiscally conservative lawmakers. The $27 billion relief legislation crafted to offer Super Storm Sandy disaster aid will reportedly be stalled until after the Congressional session, which ends on Wednesday, resumes.
Republican Representative Darrell Issa had this to say about the spending initiatives in the Hurricane Sandy relief bill:
The Bennington Banner notes multiple “pet projects” which have caused angst among Republican lawmakers who likely want to help Hurricane Sandy victims. Some of the disputed hurricane relief bill pork measures in $336 million in Amtrak expenses and $2 million in taxpayer funds to repair a room on one of the Smithsonian buildings in Washington D.C.
The publication also reports that the Super Storm Sandy relief legislation also includes $8 million to purchase new vehicles for federal agencies. A total of $4 million for repairs to the Kennedy Space Center were also added to the disaster relief bill.
Do you think that bills which will spend taxpayer money should be specific to only one topic to prevent pork from delaying passage and pushing forward pet projects?
Read more at Hurricane Sandy Relief: ‘Pork’ Spending Stalls Passage
Republican Representative Darrell Issa had this to say about the spending initiatives in the Hurricane Sandy relief bill:
“Your two senators packed this with pork. They had the opportunity to have a $27 to $30 billion dollar legit relief packages, packed it with pork, then dared us not to vote for it.”
Representative Issa was referring to New York Senators Kristen Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer. Some of the disputed items in the Super Storm Sandy disaster aid bill include a $150 million in funding for Alaskan fisheries. The bill would also have reportedly increased spending to the national flood insurance program, which is expected to max out its borrowing limit next week. If the flood insurance program cannot borrow more money, it will reportedly only be able to pay 12,000 of the estimated 139,000 of the Hurricane Sandy related claims, according to The Atlantic Wire.
The Bennington Banner notes multiple “pet projects” which have caused angst among Republican lawmakers who likely want to help Hurricane Sandy victims. Some of the disputed hurricane relief bill pork measures in $336 million in Amtrak expenses and $2 million in taxpayer funds to repair a room on one of the Smithsonian buildings in Washington D.C.
The publication also reports that the Super Storm Sandy relief legislation also includes $8 million to purchase new vehicles for federal agencies. A total of $4 million for repairs to the Kennedy Space Center were also added to the disaster relief bill.
Do you think that bills which will spend taxpayer money should be specific to only one topic to prevent pork from delaying passage and pushing forward pet projects?
Read more at Hurricane Sandy Relief: ‘Pork’ Spending Stalls Passage
texan
Well-Known Member
Senators Got 154-Page 'Fiscal Cliff' Bill 3 Minutes Before Voting on It.
By Matt Cover | January 2, 2013
(CNSNews.com) – The U.S. Senate voted 89-8 to approve legislation to avoid the fiscal cliff despite having
only 3 minutes to read the 154-page bill and budget score.
Multiple Senate sources have confirmed to CNSNews.com that senators received the bill at approximately
1:36 AM on Jan. 1, 2013 – a mere three minutes before they voted to approve it at 1:39 AM.
Senators Got 154-Page 'Fiscal Cliff' Bill 3 Minutes Before Voting on It | Peace . Gold . Liberty
By Matt Cover | January 2, 2013
(CNSNews.com) – The U.S. Senate voted 89-8 to approve legislation to avoid the fiscal cliff despite having
only 3 minutes to read the 154-page bill and budget score.
Multiple Senate sources have confirmed to CNSNews.com that senators received the bill at approximately
1:36 AM on Jan. 1, 2013 – a mere three minutes before they voted to approve it at 1:39 AM.
Senators Got 154-Page 'Fiscal Cliff' Bill 3 Minutes Before Voting on It | Peace . Gold . Liberty
wkmac
Well-Known Member
People make a big deal that legislation is not read but the public has deceived itself that Congress has ever really read most legislation. Michael Moore in making Fahrenheit 9/11 asked Congressman John Conyers about why he voted for the Patriot Act and in the discourse Moore mentioned reading the bill to which Conyers stated the following (a direct quote):
Get mad and blame Conyers or hate Moore all you want but you've been living in a dreamworld Neo. I tip my hat to Moore for asking the right question, may not have been his intent, but it got Conyers to at least admit it on celluloid. And not that he's the first either.
Ron Paul is/was famous as Dr. No but aside from voting to keep Congress inside Constitutional restraints, another reason for so many No votes was the simple fact that so much legislation is never forthcoming enough to allow anyone to read it. Would you walk into a voting both to vote for a candidate that you've never even heard of? I know scores of Americans who do just that very thing and I'll bet good money some of them are even in this forum and represent both sides of the fictional political spectrum. Nothing like controlled opposition.
The idea is to cut a deal in which you are able to tack on something to bring the pork home to the district so you can maintain your office and regardless of anything else, you're gonna vote for it out of sheer self interest and be damn what the rest of it does. Even Paul himself fell more than once into that hog trough. You can't live with the hogs and not expect to ever get any mud on you.
Ever wonder why the latest bill for example to fund some military jet also within it's pages has funds set aside to build a park in one town, pave a road in another and yet in the bill is also a mandate that all tires for the new jets must come from BillyBob's World of Tires and Wheels? I've got the congressional leadership vote locked in with campaign funds and perk trips abroad to make the home folks think their guy is important and now we spread out the pork and special interests to get the votes to carry the day. You need my vote, so what can you give me or better yet, I'll vote for your bill if you will co-sponsor and vote for mine. Now we have 2 pieces of terrible legislation that they can friend##k us with. Tip O'Neil is famous for saying, "All politics is local" and he was right on many levels.
You wanna know who runs Washington so to speak? A bunch of 20 and 30 somethings called legislative assistants who actually write the legislation (most times handed to them by think tanks and special interests) and work the deals behind the scenes. They may have some clue what is in the legislation but find out what lobby group controls them and then you have a better idea. The President and the Congresspeople are pure window dressing. Fictional make belief characters, sock puppets contorted and controlled by the storylines sold to us like some wrestling script sheet with all the heroes, villains, heels and babyfaces that our heart would desire. And we even get the Battle Royal eg fiscal cliff every so often to keep us buying tickets for the next match and filling those seats.
PT Stewie in another post (I liked it too and nice job PT) quoted Robert the Bruce (the elder) from Braveheart and the Jeffery Pelt character in The Hunt for Red October that you also liked. Both quotes albeit fictional are yet instructional in how politicians really work. The dialogue with the Robert the Bruce quote centers around the fact that Senior was trying to explain to Junior the importance of playing both sides in a conflict or in other words being 2 faced at all times in order to serve self interests.
In the case of Pelt talking with Jack Ryan, it was a straight out admission of the treachery and deception that politicians play and although both are fictional portrayals, I would assert them instructive and also a true representation of the real. Your response suggests deep down you know that to be true as well. Now the question begs, why do you continue to support a system whose outcomes are known to be the workings of absolute dishonest men and yet expecting outcomes of honest and wholesome results?
Should WE not begin to grow a set, wake the friend##K Up and Man the friend##k Up. Following Tip O' Neil's quote towards a conclusion, if "all politics is local" then "make gov't itself local."
moreluck
golden ticket member
A whole lot of people are about to find out they’re one of the evil “rich” people Obama has been railing against.
Via Daily Mail:
Via Daily Mail:
Middle-class workers will take a bigger hit to their income proportionately than those earning between $200,000 and $500,000 under the new fiscal cliff deal, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.
Earners in the latter group will pay an average 1.3 percent more – or an additional $2,711 – in taxes this year, while workers making between $30,000 and $200,000 will see their paychecks shrink by as much as 1.7 percent – or up to $1,784 – the D.C.-based think tank reported.
Overall, nearly 80 percent of households will pay more money to the federal government as a result of the fiscal cliff deal.
‘The economy needs a stimulus, but under the agreement, taxes will go up in 2013 relative to 2012 – not only on high-income households, as widely discussed, but also on every working man and woman in the country, via the end of the payroll tax cut,’ said William G. Gale, co-director of the Tax Policy Center.
‘For most households, the payroll tax takes a far bigger bite than the income tax does, and the payroll tax cut therefore – as [the Congressional Budget Office] and others have shown – was a more effective stimulus than income tax cuts were, because the payroll tax cuts hit lower in the income distribution and hence were more likely to be spent,’ he added.
Earners in the latter group will pay an average 1.3 percent more – or an additional $2,711 – in taxes this year, while workers making between $30,000 and $200,000 will see their paychecks shrink by as much as 1.7 percent – or up to $1,784 – the D.C.-based think tank reported.
Overall, nearly 80 percent of households will pay more money to the federal government as a result of the fiscal cliff deal.
‘The economy needs a stimulus, but under the agreement, taxes will go up in 2013 relative to 2012 – not only on high-income households, as widely discussed, but also on every working man and woman in the country, via the end of the payroll tax cut,’ said William G. Gale, co-director of the Tax Policy Center.
‘For most households, the payroll tax takes a far bigger bite than the income tax does, and the payroll tax cut therefore – as [the Congressional Budget Office] and others have shown – was a more effective stimulus than income tax cuts were, because the payroll tax cuts hit lower in the income distribution and hence were more likely to be spent,’ he added.
wkmac
Well-Known Member
PT Stewie
"Big Fella"
Boy is your Irish showing. Let no one call you The Quiet Man!
He'll regret it till his dying day, if ever he lives that long.
moreluck
golden ticket member
Our $16.5 TRILLION deficit begs to differ.
Via WaPo:
Via WaPo:
One thing you won’t hear when President Obama delivers his State of the Union address Tuesday: An ambitious new plan to rein in the debt.
In recent days, the White House has pressed the message that, if policymakers can agree on a strategy for replacing across-the-board spending cuts set to hit next month, the president will pretty much have achieved his debt-reduction goals.
“Over the last few years, Democrats and Republicans have come together and cut our deficit [over the next decade] by more than $2.5 trillion through a balanced mix of spending cuts and higher tax rates for the wealthiest Americans. That’s more than halfway towards the $4 trillion in deficit reduction that economists and elected officials from both parties say we need to stabilize our debt,” Obama said during his weekend radio address.
By the administration’s math, Washington needs to enact only another $1.5 trillion in 10-year savings to hit the $4 trillion target, White House economic adviser Jason Furman told reporters last week. At $1.2 trillion, the automatic cuts, known as the sequester, quite nearly fit the bill.
The problem with this scenario? It would indeed stabilize the national debt, compared with the broader economy, for the next 10 years. But the debt would fluctuate between 73 percent and 77 percent of gross domestic product, according to new projections by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office — the highest level in U.S. history except for the period after World War II.
In recent days, the White House has pressed the message that, if policymakers can agree on a strategy for replacing across-the-board spending cuts set to hit next month, the president will pretty much have achieved his debt-reduction goals.
“Over the last few years, Democrats and Republicans have come together and cut our deficit [over the next decade] by more than $2.5 trillion through a balanced mix of spending cuts and higher tax rates for the wealthiest Americans. That’s more than halfway towards the $4 trillion in deficit reduction that economists and elected officials from both parties say we need to stabilize our debt,” Obama said during his weekend radio address.
By the administration’s math, Washington needs to enact only another $1.5 trillion in 10-year savings to hit the $4 trillion target, White House economic adviser Jason Furman told reporters last week. At $1.2 trillion, the automatic cuts, known as the sequester, quite nearly fit the bill.
The problem with this scenario? It would indeed stabilize the national debt, compared with the broader economy, for the next 10 years. But the debt would fluctuate between 73 percent and 77 percent of gross domestic product, according to new projections by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office — the highest level in U.S. history except for the period after World War II.
moreluck
golden ticket member
Washington (CNN) – In personal and biting terms, House Speaker John Boehner argued that President Obama’s failure to find agreement with Republicans is a result of his lack of
“courage” and “guts” to do what it takes.
“To do the kind of heavy lifting that needs to be done, I don’t think he’s got the guts to go do it,” Boehner told a group of television reporters and anchors in a breakfast ahead of the president’s State of the Union address.
He even doubled down on that accusation, when pressed.
“He doesn’t have the courage to take on the liberal side of his own party. I’m sorry but it’s just clear as a bell to me,” said Boehner.
Boehner repeatedly talked about the president’s “liberal” agenda he laid out in his inaugural address, suggesting it is a signal that the president’s focus for the next two years will not be reaching across the aisle, but helping Democrats retake control of the House
“courage” and “guts” to do what it takes.
“To do the kind of heavy lifting that needs to be done, I don’t think he’s got the guts to go do it,” Boehner told a group of television reporters and anchors in a breakfast ahead of the president’s State of the Union address.
He even doubled down on that accusation, when pressed.
“He doesn’t have the courage to take on the liberal side of his own party. I’m sorry but it’s just clear as a bell to me,” said Boehner.
Boehner repeatedly talked about the president’s “liberal” agenda he laid out in his inaugural address, suggesting it is a signal that the president’s focus for the next two years will not be reaching across the aisle, but helping Democrats retake control of the House
this interview is a bit too superficial on the debt, and ive heard very soon america wont be able to afford its debt:
"JS: You, in essence, say that it’s false that the government can’t afford to fund any program that it wants. Explain how that would work. If tomorrow there was the political will, which is unlikely at this point, but if there was the political will to fund college education for everyone, how would the government do that under your thinking?
SK: Okay well, first, it’s not just under my thinking. I mean, this is something that Alan Greenspan, for example, the former Chairman of the Federal Reserve has very candidly said. In fact, in his words —
Alan Greenspan: There’s nothing to prevent the federal government from creating as much money as it wants and paying it to somebody.
SK: As much money as it wants and paying it to someone. So it’s not a Kelton idea. It’s not an MMT idea. It’s not a theory. It’s just simply the way things work in the modern era with the type of financial and monetary system we have today. So, the way it would work is this: if Congress wanted, as your example, to fund public universities and colleges, to make them tuition-free for everyone, then what they would do is pass a bill that says that Congress is authorizing the payment to cover the tuition for anyone who wants to attend a public college or university in this country and that the government will pick up the tab. So, the legislation gets written. You don’t find the money, you find the votes and so if enough members of Congress vote to pass legislation like that, it will result in the authorization, the budgetary authorization for the government to go ahead and spend that money.
JS: And will the government have to take those funds from elsewhere?
SK: So the answer to your question is no, the government doesn’t go out in advance and collect up U.S. dollars so that it can then spend those dollars covering those tuition payments. The government is the source of the U.S. dollar. In fact, it holds a monopoly on the issue of the currency. You and I can’t create U.S. dollars, it would be illegal. But the federal government has the monopoly issue. They control the U.S. dollar. It’s where the money comes from. So when they want to spend, whether it’s on defense, or education, or infrastructure, anything else, they issue the currency into existences. They spend the dollars into existence. They don’t go out and find the money first.
JS: It sounds great. Then why aren’t we doing that?
SK: Basically, government deficits compete with private lending. In other words, they compete with the private banking sector. And so, it’s one reason that there might be some opposition to the idea that the government should loosen the purse strings and provide more financing for public projects, for public works, for education, infrastructure and the like. It’s because it competes with private lending.
JS: You have said that the government’s deficit is always mirrored by an equivalent surplus in another part of the economy. What do you mean by that?
SK: As an accounting identity, as a matter of just accounting logic, if the government runs a budget deficit, it is spending more money into the economy than it is removing by taxing and collecting other payments to government. So, for example, suppose the government spends 100 into the economy but it only taxes 90 back out. OK we write down, someone writes down that the government has run a budget deficit and their books record a minus 10. So, we say the government has engaged in deficit spending. Minus 10 goes on their books. But what we do is we tend to overlook the fact that somebody out there in the economy is now holding 10 that they wouldn’t have had otherwise and that that’s a plus 10 on their books. So, the mirror image is that the government’s deficit becomes a financial surplus somewhere else in the economy. Their minus 10 is matched by a plus 10 on somebody else’s balance sheet.
JS: How would you describe the economic philosophy that is driving the Trump administration? I mean, maybe philosophy is too fancy of a word to bestow upon Trump, but how do you see what his economic philosophy and policy has amounted to in his two years in power?
SK: What the Republicans have demonstrated it that they are very, very willing when in power to take the reigns of the budget authority and to deliver on their agenda and their agenda has been to transfer as much as possible to the people at the top and to big corporations. And so, we saw this with the recent tax cuts, right? I mean, when the Republicans had the opportunity to do so they said, “OK, we understand that running budget deficits has a positive effect on someone else’s balance sheet.” In other words, we can make a lot of people rich by having our budget in deficit because it will result in surpluses somewhere else. OK, where do we want those surpluses to go? And then they figure out who are their special interests, the campaign donors and so forth, big corporations and they said alright, this is what we’re going to do.
So, I don’t think it’s really an economic philosophy or an economic agenda. I know it was sold that way, right? It was supposed to be about getting us four percent growth and really juicing the economy so that jobs just rain down and we got wage pressure and everybody was better off. The old trickle-down, supply-side stuff. I mean, that’s the rhetoric that’s used to sell the policy but at the end of the day, I doubt that there was much of a belief on the part of the Republicans who pushed this stuff through that it was actually going to work that way. They’re interests are much more short-term. They just understand that the government’s red ink becomes the black ink somewhere else in the economy and they wanted to deliver a big financial windfall to the people that they serve."
Intercepted Podcast: Donald Trump and the Media Temple of BOOM!
"JS: You, in essence, say that it’s false that the government can’t afford to fund any program that it wants. Explain how that would work. If tomorrow there was the political will, which is unlikely at this point, but if there was the political will to fund college education for everyone, how would the government do that under your thinking?
SK: Okay well, first, it’s not just under my thinking. I mean, this is something that Alan Greenspan, for example, the former Chairman of the Federal Reserve has very candidly said. In fact, in his words —
Alan Greenspan: There’s nothing to prevent the federal government from creating as much money as it wants and paying it to somebody.
SK: As much money as it wants and paying it to someone. So it’s not a Kelton idea. It’s not an MMT idea. It’s not a theory. It’s just simply the way things work in the modern era with the type of financial and monetary system we have today. So, the way it would work is this: if Congress wanted, as your example, to fund public universities and colleges, to make them tuition-free for everyone, then what they would do is pass a bill that says that Congress is authorizing the payment to cover the tuition for anyone who wants to attend a public college or university in this country and that the government will pick up the tab. So, the legislation gets written. You don’t find the money, you find the votes and so if enough members of Congress vote to pass legislation like that, it will result in the authorization, the budgetary authorization for the government to go ahead and spend that money.
JS: And will the government have to take those funds from elsewhere?
SK: So the answer to your question is no, the government doesn’t go out in advance and collect up U.S. dollars so that it can then spend those dollars covering those tuition payments. The government is the source of the U.S. dollar. In fact, it holds a monopoly on the issue of the currency. You and I can’t create U.S. dollars, it would be illegal. But the federal government has the monopoly issue. They control the U.S. dollar. It’s where the money comes from. So when they want to spend, whether it’s on defense, or education, or infrastructure, anything else, they issue the currency into existences. They spend the dollars into existence. They don’t go out and find the money first.
JS: It sounds great. Then why aren’t we doing that?
SK: Basically, government deficits compete with private lending. In other words, they compete with the private banking sector. And so, it’s one reason that there might be some opposition to the idea that the government should loosen the purse strings and provide more financing for public projects, for public works, for education, infrastructure and the like. It’s because it competes with private lending.
JS: You have said that the government’s deficit is always mirrored by an equivalent surplus in another part of the economy. What do you mean by that?
SK: As an accounting identity, as a matter of just accounting logic, if the government runs a budget deficit, it is spending more money into the economy than it is removing by taxing and collecting other payments to government. So, for example, suppose the government spends 100 into the economy but it only taxes 90 back out. OK we write down, someone writes down that the government has run a budget deficit and their books record a minus 10. So, we say the government has engaged in deficit spending. Minus 10 goes on their books. But what we do is we tend to overlook the fact that somebody out there in the economy is now holding 10 that they wouldn’t have had otherwise and that that’s a plus 10 on their books. So, the mirror image is that the government’s deficit becomes a financial surplus somewhere else in the economy. Their minus 10 is matched by a plus 10 on somebody else’s balance sheet.
JS: How would you describe the economic philosophy that is driving the Trump administration? I mean, maybe philosophy is too fancy of a word to bestow upon Trump, but how do you see what his economic philosophy and policy has amounted to in his two years in power?
SK: What the Republicans have demonstrated it that they are very, very willing when in power to take the reigns of the budget authority and to deliver on their agenda and their agenda has been to transfer as much as possible to the people at the top and to big corporations. And so, we saw this with the recent tax cuts, right? I mean, when the Republicans had the opportunity to do so they said, “OK, we understand that running budget deficits has a positive effect on someone else’s balance sheet.” In other words, we can make a lot of people rich by having our budget in deficit because it will result in surpluses somewhere else. OK, where do we want those surpluses to go? And then they figure out who are their special interests, the campaign donors and so forth, big corporations and they said alright, this is what we’re going to do.
So, I don’t think it’s really an economic philosophy or an economic agenda. I know it was sold that way, right? It was supposed to be about getting us four percent growth and really juicing the economy so that jobs just rain down and we got wage pressure and everybody was better off. The old trickle-down, supply-side stuff. I mean, that’s the rhetoric that’s used to sell the policy but at the end of the day, I doubt that there was much of a belief on the part of the Republicans who pushed this stuff through that it was actually going to work that way. They’re interests are much more short-term. They just understand that the government’s red ink becomes the black ink somewhere else in the economy and they wanted to deliver a big financial windfall to the people that they serve."
Intercepted Podcast: Donald Trump and the Media Temple of BOOM!
Quantitative easing involved printing money to pay our debt. Greek austerity was just that, reducing or eliminating benefits that made life much harsher for many in Greece.
maybe i mixed up the word for american austerity, it might have been something other than QE.
brownmonster
Man of Great Wisdom
Remember the outrage over the debt when Obama was president?
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