Thursday, January 19, 2012

Raising the National Debt

Sure, it's going to go through.

Republican Study Committee Chairman Jim Jordan offered the following statement as the House prepared to vote its disapproval of President Obama’s decision to raise the debt limit by another $1.2 trillion:

Interest payments on the national debt will cost more this year than the entire federal budget did in 1972, and that’s with interest rates at historic lows. We have to stop the crazy spending if we’re going to stop this crazy borrowing. Fiddling around the edges won’t get the job done. We need to cut, cap, and balance the budget.”

Actually, Congress and the Executive Branch should be "cut, capped, and balanced."  Takes two to tango.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

These are the results when we tax the affluent at 15 percent.

Beer, Bicycles and the VRWC said...

No, these are the results when government is unable to control it's spending habits. It is the results when government becomes everything to everyone. When it supplies everything from baby formula to healthcare.

Taxing (soaking) the rich to fund government is absurd. What happens when the rich are taxed out?

Jim said...

Soaking the rich? What a joke! Are you hurting at a 35% marginal rate?

Beer, Bicycles and the VRWC said...

The joke is this: You can tax them at 100% if you like. It won't make a pinch of $hit if government won't quit spending (which is my point). And why do you have a right to take the earnings (property) of another just because you think it's unfair that they have it? If it is made legally, why should you care?

(I expect some sort of answer that will drip of the "need to help others" and "social responsibility", but nothing about "personal choice" or "property rights". Oh...and I will be either, stupid or evil or both, because that's how it rolls.)

Jim said...

Nobody wants to tax "them" 100%. That's a straw man.

...just because you think it's unfair they have it?

This is another straw man. Only the most radical have said this. Nobody begrudges Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, or Warren Buffett their wealth.

why do you have a right to take the earnings (property) of another

I've never taken the earnings of another. However, the government has the right to and so do the states. It's in your beloved US Constitution and the constitutions of the states.

I'll disappoint you by not offering the answer you "expect". Your personal choice and property rights depend on the governments (unless you want to hole up in a cabin up in the wilderness with a cache of weapons and bags of rice and beans, Ted).

Yes, we need to balance the budget. We need to reduce spending if we can. But most people want most of the things that governments do whether you want them or not. It takes taxes to make that happen.

But you don't care about the deficit or the national debt. You only care about starving the beast by whatever means you can. If you don't want the services that most people do, feel free to find another democracy that will fill your needs.

Beer, Bicycles and the VRWC said...

@Jim: Read my comments and try again, please.

You must have attended the public schools. What you said (mostly) agrees with me. But since you clearly did not read for content and meaning, you come off looking less-than-brilliant.

neomom said...

One could confiscate 100% of the wealth - not just income - total net worth of every one the super rich (those 400 that Michael Moore complains about) and not even covered the deficit for this year. Let alone the debt or any more years now that you have wiped the out..

Hmmmm....

Something tells me that we don't have a "revenue" problem,.. We have a spending problem.

PS - that marginal rate is Fed only, start adding all the state and local taxes to find out how much the government takes

Jim said...

One could confiscate 100% of the wealth... yada yada.

Nobody is suggesting that it would or that we should do that. (BTW confiscating the wealth to pay off the deficit would come close).

Something tells me that we don't have a "revenue" problem,.. We have a spending problem.

Yeah I know. Every Republican that wants to starve the beast tells you that. On the other hand, I WANT the services that governments provide. They could be a little better at it, but even Target doesn't satisfy me on every visit.

2012 deficit is projected at $1.6T. What are you going to cut to make that up.

Beer, Bicycles and the VRWC said...

I'm going to tell everyone to STFU and use the Ryan plan to reform Social Security and Medicare. I'm going to cut every regulatory agency by 1/2. Most of them need to do less anyway (all of them need to do nothing, but Jimmy-boy won't buy that). Kill Obamacare and HHS.

Bang $1.6T.

If states want to pick up the regulatory slack, they are welcome to do so.

Jim said...

Why would you reform Social Security? How would you or Ryan reform Social Security?

So you are arbitrarily going to cut thousands of jobs without knowing what they do or why? That's not going to help the economy.

By his own figures the Ryan budget will increase the deficit by $6 Trillion over the next 10 years.

Repealing PPACA will ADD to the deficit, not cut it.

all of them need to do nothing, but Jimmy-boy won't buy that

I don't know who "Jimmy-boy" is but I know I wouldn't buy it. I WANT people looking into what's coming out of smoke stacks, what's going to my food, how pig s**t and nuclear waste are disposed of, what my medications will do and how safe my next airplane trip will be. (Just to name a few.)

Beer, Bicycles and the VRWC said...

I've noticed that "Jimmy-Boy" loves to erect his own "Straw Men". He assumes that it's all or nothing. We MUST keep spending at the rate we do or we'll have tainted food, dirty air and water and old people and children will find themselves on the street in the cold, starving.

He also enjoys cherry-picking comments, moving sentences that go together into a different order to create the illusion of something that wasn't said.

He has no answers or solutions and is unwilling to try anything other than the status quo. It is the very definition of insanity.

"Progressive" policies have not and will not work. They are unsustainable. Welfare only enslaves. Regulation gives us security at the expense of Liberty. It gives us "taxation without representation". It takes away the rights and abilities of states to run their own business by giving them the heroin of "federal money". Big Government is a job killer and a destroyer of Liberty.

But Jimmy-Boy is OK with that. Because it gives him security.

I'm done here.

neomom said...

Short answer to the how to address the 2012 $1.6T deficit? Go back the spending levels from the dark ages of 2006.

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