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Who's going to take the blame for the fiscal clif

Who's to blame for going of the the fiscal cliff?

  • Democrats

    Votes: 8 12.7%
  • Republicans

    Votes: 32 50.8%
  • Other (please elaborate)

    Votes: 23 36.5%

  • Total voters
    63
The actual worker-to-retiree ratio in 1975 was 3.2-to-1. Today, it is 3.1-to-1. The SS Trustees predict it will drop to 2.0-to-1 in 2070. They do that by projecting that both legal and illegal immigration will be flat over most of the next 75 years. Wanna bet?


Any well-informed analyst would caution that either approach is tantamount to attempting to dismantle the system. Understand there is no actually demonstrated need to do anything at all. If the SS trustees are even slightly off in their projections of GDP, or of no net immigration, or in their assuimption that life expectancy will continue to grow at the same rate over the next 75 years as it did between 1975 and 2000, then the SS Trust Fund will never be exhausted and the system will be able to pay 100% of currently scheduled benefits in perpetuity. This is the other side of the coin. Better look at that one as well.

Then there is the SSAs own view of things to consider, that differs from yours: The Future Financial Status of the Social Security Program
 
Are you trying to tell me that humans have nothing to do with the deficit spending?
I'm trying to tell you that glaringly bad math skills are what led you to question the notion that revenue increases would decrease deficit spending. Mission accomplished, as far as I'm concerned. The number of diversionary irrelevancies you choose to raise won't change anything.
 
I'm trying to tell you that glaringly bad math skills are what led you to question the notion that revenue increases would decrease deficit spending. Mission accomplished, as far as I'm concerned. The number of diversionary irrelevancies you choose to raise won't change anything.

I'm wondering who's going to take the "credit" for going over the cliff. My answer is Obama. Taxes go up, Spending (particularly on the Military) goes down. It's could be a win-win for some depending on how you look at it. Big step for elevating our debt problems.

It's a bigger loss for the conservatives, no matter how they spin it, they are loosing on two fronts; more taxes, and the military is getting cut.
 
Which August was that? It seems like there's one every year.


No, he's pretending that such policies are a plain necessity in the face of the worst economic collapse in 75 years regardless of what short-term damage those policies might do to the deficit. Only it isn't pretending.


Actually, the DC area is at least among the most highly educated regions in the country and has often been ranked first in that regard.

As for the cliff, it arose as a manufactured provision that neither side liked or expected ever to have to deal with again. Once it came to loom on the actual horizon, Republicans assumed that their stance would be bolstered by the 2012 elections, so they did nothing earlier. And now they have no coherent idea of what to do at all.



Yup, yup yup, you're right again. The holy and wise democrat Party tried and tried to make this right, but the evil Republicans destroyed all of the offers they made repeatedly to create a fair and balanced solution.

By the by, can you link to the written offer or submitted bill that the Democrat party has offered on this? We all wait with anxious anticipation.
 
It is the Republicans that are the losers and they want us all to be losers too.
Misery loves company.

shrug...

I don't agree with you.
 
everybody loses; congress gets cleaned out, the president gets a recession for his second term, and the American people get improperly phased in austerity.
 
Boehner should not comprimise with Obama. The Republicans in DC should let us fall off the fiscal cliff and then blame Obama.
 
I'm trying to tell you that glaringly bad math skills are what led you to question the notion that revenue increases would decrease deficit spending. Mission accomplished, as far as I'm concerned. The number of diversionary irrelevancies you choose to raise won't change anything.
So humans have nothing to do with deficit spending?
 
I'll take the blame. We need to go over the fiscal misnomer. everybody needs to pay more and the government needs to spend less. this is the only way that will happen politically. I just wish the cuts and the tax increases across the board were larger.
 
I'll take the blame. We need to go over the fiscal misnomer. everybody needs to pay more and the government needs to spend less. this is the only way that will happen politically. I just wish the cuts and the tax increases across the board were larger.

I don't trust the government to stop spending money foolishly AT ALL. I am very much against raising anyone's taxes until the government can show that they can spend money WISELY. I'm sick and tired of the government collecting ALL the money that they do with taxes (income, sales, estate, death, etc., etc.), and still they cry poverty. Our government is too big and too fat and too greedy with other people's money.

I want to add to this and say that in another post I made in another thread, I included a link to the site below which tells us that our federal government is taking in about 200 billion dollars per MONTH!!! :shock:

http://webster.house.gov/legislation/faqpsa.htm
 
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It isn't by definition, but but most people do collect more in benefits than what they have paid in as premiums. Those are nominal dollars of course. There is meanwhile that $2.7 trillion surpluis still sitting on the books. People paid to put that there.


All of my degrees are in economics, and I am at the back end of a (rather lucrative) 40+ year career as a practicing professional in that very field. What have you been up to?

1. Its not a surplus, its money that has not yet be distributed. A lot of that money has been paid by workers under the age of 40, not current or soon to be retirees. It'll be completely distributed by 2034, at which point all of those 40 & unders (now around 60) who have been carrying a majority of the load for the last 30 will have to accept reduced benefits right as they are about to retire.

But SS alone isn't the problem. Medicare + public employee pensions are also a ticking timebomb, and the three combined are going to cause serious problems unless action is taken.

2. And in your 40 years, you've never heard of deadweight loss? :confused:

But, I'm in favor of a national property tax based solely on land value before improvements. One of my professors explained it to me like this. You have three factors which go into the economy. 1. Natural resources 2. Labor 3. Investment. Two of those three values are variable, can expand infinitely (long term), and its value can be negatively distorted by taxes. Land on the other hand is not variable, cannot expand over time (at least to my knowledge) and its value cannot be negatively distorted by taxes. Land derives its value solely from natural resources, and the surrounding community. So community developments are paid for by those who see the greatest increase in property values, and natural resources are partially owned by the public, rather than rent seekers.
 
Unless Obama + Dems are willing to make changes to entitlements, including changing the retirement age, I cannot take any of their proposals seriously.

Besides, the obvious point I think Dems are missing is that higher taxes is not the solution. We'd actually raise more revenue if we switched to a flat tax system, or a non-income tax system, such as a national property tax. It would also cost less to regulate, taxpayers wouldn't have to pay as much in tax-filing services, and the economic dead-weight loss would be far less.

SS has not contributed one nickle to the nations debt so stop with that. Obama has already proposed cuts and even put SS on the table. The Republicans are at fault here just like with the debt ceiling Personally I hope Obama calls their bluff because I willing to bet the country will see the Republicans for what they really are and it isnt patriots. They created the mess we are in.

The flat tax will never work and is a joke

http://www.businessweek.com/magazin...aking-swiss-accounts-less-swiss-10272011.html
 
1. Its not a surplus, its money that has not yet be distributed. A lot of that money has been paid by workers under the age of 40, not current or soon to be retirees. It'll be completely distributed by 2034, at which point all of those 40 & unders (now around 60) who have been carrying a majority of the load for the last 30 will have to accept reduced benefits right as they are about to retire.

But SS alone isn't the problem. Medicare + public employee pensions are also a ticking timebomb, and the three combined are going to cause serious problems unless action is taken.

2. And in your 40 years, you've never heard of deadweight loss? :confused:

But, I'm in favor of a national property tax based solely on land value before improvements. One of my professors explained it to me like this. You have three factors which go into the economy. 1. Natural resources 2. Labor 3. Investment. Two of those three values are variable, can expand infinitely (long term), and its value can be negatively distorted by taxes. Land on the other hand is not variable, cannot expand over time (at least to my knowledge) and its value cannot be negatively distorted by taxes. Land derives its value solely from natural resources, and the surrounding community. So community developments are paid for by those who see the greatest increase in property values, and natural resources are partially owned by the public, rather than rent seekers.

So the answer to our revenue problems is abandoning the income tax altogether? At a time when income maldistribution is higher than before the Great Depression?
That would be disasterous in every way. Like David Stockton says, we blew it with those large tax cuts in the top brackets starting when he was budget director for Reagan. We didn't get the boost in growth that was promised and we allowed the top 5% to quintuple their net worths to a mind boggling $40 TRILLION in 30 years. Wealth growth like that in only 5% of the population is unsustainable. And now the Govt. is in debt. We need a return to the more progressive rates that have succeeded in the past to encourage growth in all income groups. This kills 2 birds with one stone. Revenue returns to a more realistic 18 to 20% of GDP insted of 14% and maldistribution of wealth is diminished.
The alternative is Stocktons suggested wealth tax on those 5% which would raise enough to cut our debt in half but is unnecessary since paying off our debt is not really all that worthwhile or even smart.
 
So the answer to our revenue problems is abandoning the income tax altogether? At a time when income maldistribution is higher than before the Great Depression?
That would be disasterous in every way. Like David Stockton says, we blew it with those large tax cuts in the top brackets starting when he was budget director for Reagan. We didn't get the boost in growth that was promised and we allowed the top 5% to quintuple their net worths to a mind boggling $40 TRILLION in 30 years. Wealth growth like that in only 5% of the population is unsustainable. And now the Govt. is in debt. We need a return to the more progressive rates that have succeeded in the past to encourage growth in all income groups. This kills 2 birds with one stone. Revenue returns to a more realistic 18 to 20% of GDP insted of 14% and maldistribution of wealth is diminished.
The alternative is Stocktons suggested wealth tax on those 5% which would raise enough to cut our debt in half but is unnecessary since paying off our debt is not really all that worthwhile or even smart.

Fallacy of misleading vividness.


A property tax would be naturally much more progressive than an income tax. It also reduces rent seeking and land hoarding, which would vastly decrease the number of non-chronic homeless (recent evictees).
 
SS has not contributed one nickle to the nations debt so stop with that. Obama has already proposed cuts and even put SS on the table. The Republicans are at fault here just like with the debt ceiling Personally I hope Obama calls their bluff because I willing to bet the country will see the Republicans for what they really are and it isnt patriots. They created the mess we are in.

The flat tax will never work and is a joke

Bloomberg View: Why a Flat Tax Won

It hasn't yet.


and that article only describes the problem with an OPTIONAL flat tax :doh

Did you even read it?
 
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SS has not contributed one nickle to the nations debt so stop with that. Obama has already proposed cuts and even put SS on the table. The Republicans are at fault here just like with the debt ceiling Personally I hope Obama calls their bluff because I willing to bet the country will see the Republicans for what they really are and it isnt patriots. They created the mess we are in.

The flat tax will never work and is a joke

Bloomberg View: Why a Flat Tax Won

Can you actually point to and logically link any legislation passed by only by republicans that actually contributed to or caused the economic downturn, or for that matter, the majority of the debt?

You might say the wars, but then, a Dem controlled House voted for them. Also, The debt rose less than 5 Trillion during the 8 years of President G.W. Bush. It has risen almost 7 Trillion under Obama. Obama cannot even use the excuse of the Wars, we all but pulled out of Iraq around two years ago.

Was it Reps who introduced and have continued to support Welfare? NO.

Was it Reps who introduced the Fair Housing act and amendments to it? NO. Was it Reps who supported Low income housing goals and allowed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to use sub-prime mortgages to meet those goals? No. Was it Reps who passed credit laws that allowed the existence and expansion of Derivatives so that "fair" housing goals could be met? Yes, they did have something to do with that one. Was it Reps who pushed "privacy" in credit agencies and forced the use of credit agencies? I'm not totally clear on this one, They may indeed of had a hand in it.

Was it Reps who created the EPA and who support it today? No.

Was it the Reps who supported Unions? NO.

Was it Reps who changed medical law not only allowing the uninsured to use private hospitals but forced private medical facilities to accept non-paying patients? No.

Was it Reps who negotiated and had control of the Senate when NAFTA and South Korean Free trade treaties were put in place and ratified? No. Although, I think a fair number of them did still support them.

You have made the assertion that our current "mess" was entirely caused by Reps, now support that stance.
 
Can you actually point to and logically link any legislation passed by only by republicans that actually contributed to or caused the economic downturn, or for that matter, the majority of the debt?

You might say the wars, but then, a Dem controlled House voted for them. Also, The debt rose less than 5 Trillion during the 8 years of President G.W. Bush. It has risen almost 7 Trillion under Obama. Obama cannot even use the excuse of the Wars, we all but pulled out of Iraq around two years ago.

Was it Reps who introduced and have continued to support Welfare? NO.

Was it Reps who introduced the Fair Housing act and amendments to it? NO. Was it Reps who supported Low income housing goals and allowed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to use sub-prime mortgages to meet those goals? No. Was it Reps who passed credit laws that allowed the existence and expansion of Derivatives so that "fair" housing goals could be met? Yes, they did have something to do with that one. Was it Reps who pushed "privacy" in credit agencies and forced the use of credit agencies? I'm not totally clear on this one, They may indeed of had a hand in it.

Was it Reps who created the EPA and who support it today? No.

Was it the Reps who supported Unions? NO.

Was it Reps who changed medical law not only allowing the uninsured to use private hospitals but forced private medical facilities to accept non-paying patients? No.

Was it Reps who negotiated and had control of the Senate when NAFTA and South Korean Free trade treaties were put in place and ratified? No. Although, I think a fair number of them did still support them.

You have made the assertion that our current "mess" was entirely caused by Reps, now support that stance.

You are obviously not very well informed
Nixon created th EPA and Reagan signed the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act that forbid hospiutals from denying treatment of the sick and injured
And lastly it was Reagan who first proposed NAFTA and HW Bush signed the treaty himself.

Bush fought 2 wars and cut taxes twice while doing it. He increased the Federal payroll more than any previous President too. Then the economy crashed further reducing revenue. Then there was the prescription drug benefit which was also unpaid for. Blamimg Obama for the high deficits is foolish, he has increased Govt. spending less than any modern President.
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Of all the falsehoods told about President Barack Obama, the biggest whopper is the one about his reckless spending spree.

As would-be president Mitt Romney tells it: “I will lead us out of this debt and spending inferno.”

Almost everyone believes that Obama has presided over a massive increase in federal spending, an “inferno” of spending that threatens our jobs, our businesses and our children’s future. Even Democrats seem to think it’s true.

But it didn’t happen. Although there was a big stimulus bill under Obama, federal spending is rising at the slowest pace since Dwight Eisenhower brought the Korean War to an end in the 1950s.
Obama spending binge never happened - MarketWatch
 
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I'm sure the Media will do its best to blame Republicans.
 
Bush fought 2 wars and cut taxes twice while doing it. He increased the Federal payroll more than any previous President too. Then the economy crashed further reducing revenue. Then there was the prescription drug benefit which was also unpaid for. Blamimg Obama for the high deficits is foolish, he has increased Govt. spending less than any modern President.
Obama spending binge never happened - MarketWatch

Did I blame only Obama? No. Did I only blame Dems? No.

The last budget deficit under Bush and with Rep control of Congress was around $162 Billion, the next year, the year Dems took control of Congress, it jumped to over $400 Billion.

One of the things I was pointing out is that some of our problems go back decades and while some want to only blame Reps, it simply is not true. You can no more blame everything on Obama than you can on G.W. Bush. I even pointed out that not all contributing factors can be blamed on a single party.

Do I believe that the Dems have had more to do with it? Yes. But the only ones that contributed? No. However, if you want to lay blame, you have to look at all factors that contribute and in the last 50 Years, the Rep have had the Presidency and Majority in both Houses for only 4 of those 50 years. And only 6 Years since FDR, over 80 years total. If you or anyone else thinks that all of our current problems and the current mess was totally created in those 4 out of the last 50 years, you are too much of a fool to take any of your arguments seriously.
 
Who do you think will get the most blame when the Government fails to pass a budget plan for the future in time?

The government will.
 
Republicans will get the blame, Obama will use his inaugural and SOTU Address to blame them, the media can't wait to run that story 24/7, and Republicans will be left in the unenviable position of being unable to even defend themselves without looking like whiners......


......for about..... 9 months. Remember how incredibly unpopular Obamacare was? How it was a tidal wave, a shellacking, and Obama was sure to lose over it? Yeah. People move on.
 
Of course its both. Remember...this was all set in motion when the 'super-committee' failed to come up with an greed upon set of budget cuts. Congress cant pass a basic operating budget and what spending legislation they DO manage to pass always heaps on more debt and deficit spending. Oh...and lets not forget...back in November a whole lot of people in this country reelected the same crop of clowns as their 'representatives'. Lets not ignore their responsibility as well.
 
1. Its not a surplus, its money that has not yet be distributed.
Receipts minus outlays equals surplus. Since the revisions of 1983, SS has built up more than $2.7 trillion worth of those.

A lot of that money has been paid by workers under the age of 40, not current or soon to be retirees. It'll be completely distributed by 2034, at which point all of those 40 & unders (now around 60) who have been carrying a majority of the load for the last 30 will have to accept reduced benefits right as they are about to retire.
Gee, that's exactly the situation the boomers (then aged 19-37) faced back in 1983. They resolved it by raising taxes on themselves. Can anybody here take a hint?

As for your 2034 number, it's bunk. First of all, the offcial number is 2035, and second of all, it is based on severey pessimistic assumptions. It has only been during the "bad years" of the Great Bush Recession that the projections of the SS trustees have been even close to realistic. Consider that in 1997, they projected the SSTF would be exhausted in 2029. In 2007, they projected it would be exhausted in 2042. So ten years went by (about evenly divided between strong years under Clinton and weaker ones under Bush), but not only did exhaustion fail to get ten years closer, it got three years further away, 35 years to 32. That's a good measure of how distorted the SS trustees reports are. To be sure, all projections are and should be done to the pessimistic side, but SS (and Medicare) have taken things to unjustified extremes.

But SS alone isn't the problem. Medicare + public employee pensions are also a ticking timebomb, and the three combined are going to cause serious problems unless action is taken.
Drop the "ticking timebomb" nonsense if you want serious people to take you seriously. All of Medicare's problems arise within the hopelessly inefficient, for-profit, fee-for-service health care system that it is plugged into. PPACA made a long overdue start at redefining our health care financing systems, but while it extended the Part-A actuarial projections by about a decade, there is a lot of work left to be done.

As for allegations of a looming public sector pension crisis, the whole idea is a corporate, hard-right invention aimed at the trained seals. The argument here is basically that since lack of union protections among other things allowed corporations to plunder and then destroy private sector pension systems, public sector systems now seem attractive by comparison, so to be fair, we'd really better destroy those as well.

2. And in your 40 years, you've never heard of deadweight loss?
From your experience in economics thus far, do you consider dead-wieght loss to be a micro effect or a macro effect? How about national tax and revenue sysems?

But, I'm in favor of a national property tax based solely on land value before improvements.
You will change your mind.
 
Republicans will get more of the blame, because they've done a worse job at pushing their spin of the message in recent times and because by and large the media's template on this issue is that it's the Republicans.

In reality, it's both. While increasing revenues through taxes, and even flat out raising taxes on some people, may very well be PART of the solution it absolutely isn't the first part of the solution nor is it the most important part of the solution. History tells us that increases in taxes simply corresponds with increases in spending, and there's no reason to believe that won't be the case here. Especially considering the fact that it's now being focused singularly on tax hikes. As pointed out by the OP, increasing the taxes on those over $250k will fail to deal with 90% of our deficit spending.

We may arguably have a revenue problem, but that problem is miniscule next to our psending problem. However, this isn't ABOUT solving problems...it's about playing politics, and hte Democrats see a political advantage here so they're pushing it not because it's what's "best for the country" but because they believe it's what's best for Democratic electoral efforts. Unfortunatley, what ACTUALLY needs to happen isn't good for either sides electoral efforts, which is whyu it won't get done and we will continue to have this BS
 
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