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Obama to ask for increase to debt ceiling in a 'matter of days'

teamosil said:
No, I wouldn't say it's 100% on either party ever. 2006-2008 the Democrats controlled Congress, but not the white house, so really only a plan that was at least palatable to both parties could be passed because of the veto. 2008-2010, that'd be mostly the Democrats, but the minority party always has a great deal of influence too as we saw for example with all the compromises the Democrats had to make to get health care through.
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Pardon me if I got the impression that you made Congress responsible for spending. To be consistent, they would be the ones responsible for the spending from 2006-2010, no?

teamosil said:
Congress is who decides how much we spend.
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teamosil said:
Congress, after all, is the one who decides how much to spend.
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teamosil said:
it's not me that tacks responsibility for spending on the Congress. That's the constitution that does that. And for very good reasons. That is supposed to be the primary check on the executive.
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teamosil said:
The executive branch spends as directed by Congress and lets them know when they owe more.
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"Resulting"? The economic collapse wasn't caused by the deficit. Obviously. There are three main theories for what caused it. 1) Too many ARM home loans, rates went up, they got called in, people panicked. 2) Too much money going to the rich to spur investment, not enough going to working people to provide the actual revenues required to sustain the puffed up valuations created by all the investment. 3) Hi finance hijinx. In reality it's probably a combination of all three along with a hundred other less central causes.
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Resulting was a poor choice of words, I meant to say resulting deficits. The economic collapse was in no way attributable to the federal deficit.

I'm not. You seem to be stuck in the standard conservative binary thinking mode. Both parties share the blame. I keep saying that over and over.
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Once again, pardon me if I got the impression that you made Congress responsible for spending. Thanks for the cheap shot though, I appreciate it.

Er what? None of those things make sense in reverse. The Democrats didn't threaten to destroy the economy and their deficit reduction proposals are larger, not smaller...
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Really? Can you link me the Democrat's proposed deficit reduction plan that was larger than the Ryan budget? Democrats knew, as Republicans did, that if a compromised wasn't reached that the debt ceiling would not be raised, in your parlance, "destroy the economy". Failure to compromise is a reflection of the failure of leadership; something Obama demonstrated quite well by remaining on the sidelines.
 
teamosil said:
What kiddo? Are you talking about actual printing of money? Like with a printing press? Or are you talking about borrowing money? If you're talking about physically printing bills, obviously you understand that they haven't changed anything with that. They print it based on rates that bills deteriorate and whatnot. If you're talking about borrowing money, and you're calling it "printing money", explain yourself.

It doesn't make sense. It's just a right wing thing. They think "printing money" sounds more irresponsible than "borrowing money" so they decided to just call it that and all the yokels just go with it...
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You do recognize the difference between foreign and domestic investors purchasing US treasuries and the Federal Reserve purchasing treasuries, right?
 
Henrin said:
Not what I said. When you feed the beast in revenues they have more to spend. You assume much in your position here, not only about how economics works but how the organism works, but here I am only looking at the organism. The position is that if we increase taxes and cut little by little that the cuts will continue to happen and deficients will not increase. That is a bad assumption and a faith based idea.
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It doesn't appear that you have a response to my argument. If raising or decreasing revenues determined how much we spend we wouldn't have a deficit that fluctuates between zero and $1.4 trillion. They aren't connected.
 
teamosil said:
You think deficits are less popular than taxes? I'd say it's the other way around.
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You tell me. Do the majority of Americans currently favor tax increases to fix the deficit?
 
Rhapsody1447 said:
Pardon me if I got the impression that you made Congress responsible for spending. To be consistent, they would be the ones responsible for the spending from 2006-2010, no?
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You're just thinking too simplistically about it. You're looking for answers like "it is the Republicans fault" or "it is the Democrats fault" or "it is either the president's fault or Congress's fault"... It's binary thinking. The most glaring of all the flaws in the way Republicans reason...

In reality, Congress has probably 75% control over the budget, the executive 25%. The executive can veto a budget, he starts the ball rolling with his proposal, he can use the bully pulpit, etc, but Congress makes the final decision.

Rhapsody1447 said:
Really? Can you link me the Democrat's proposed deficit reduction plan that was larger than the Ryan budget? Democrats knew, as Republicans did, that if a compromised wasn't reached that the debt ceiling would not be raised, in your parlance, "destroy the economy". Failure to compromise is a reflection of the failure of leadership; something Obama demonstrated quite well by remaining on the sidelines.
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For example, during the debt ceiling hostage crisis, the Republicans proposed $3 trillion, Obama proposed $4 trillion. During the super committee the Republicans were pushing for a $2 trillion plan, where the Democrats were pushing for $3 trillion.
 
Rhapsody1447 said:
You do recognize the difference between foreign and domestic investors purchasing US treasuries and the Federal Reserve purchasing treasuries, right?
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Go ahead and lay out your position if you think you have an argument there.
 
Rhapsody1447 said:
You tell me. Do the majority of Americans currently favor tax increases to fix the deficit?
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That's true, but that isn't because they like enjoy being taxed. It's because they're finally manning up and deciding it is time to bite the bullet and do the hard thing to get this budget under control.
 
teamosil said:
It doesn't appear that you have a response to my argument. If raising or decreasing revenues determined how much we spend we wouldn't have a deficit that fluctuates between zero and $1.4 trillion. They aren't connected.
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I wasn't talking about generally, but in the idea of cutting the deficient/debt. If you increase revenues you can stand to spend more than you otherwise could without the increase. IS that not factual?
 
Rhapsody1447 said:
So by that logic, the Democrats are 100% responsible for the Federal Budget from 2006-2010 and the resulting economic collapse and record deficits? Every year, by law, the President is required to submit a budget to Congress. The irony is Obama's budget failed to even garner ONE VOTE in the Senate. All Republican and even Democratic-led budget proposals have consistently failed in the Senate. The Senate failed to even PROPOSE a budget in the first 2.5 years of the Obama presidency. To absolve Obama of all spending decisions is both dishonest and naive. You do realize the disconnect between blaming Bush for record spending and defending Obama by blaming Congress within the same paragraph, don't you?

I never defended Bush and his spending policies. The fact you would even bring him into this argument shows your attempt at diverting from the fact that the Senate hasn't passed a budget in three years. Are you willing to admit this is irresponsible or not?



Why not just accept the Republican's massive deficit reduction proposals instead of rejecting those, then threatening to destroy the economy in order to get their own preferred, smaller, deficit reduction proposals through? It's hilarious to me that those same soundbites were prominent throughout the 2008 Democratic campaign to criticize Bush for his deficits and spending. The fact that the Democrats would even pretend that they are being tough on the deficit is what sounds crazy. I'm not one to discount the Republicans political posturing as I find many of them to be doofuses, it just amuses me to see hyper-partisans like yourself attribute all failures in compromise on the side you disagree with.
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The President got his budget passed in 2006-2010. How does that make it the Dems responsibility? You logic is as flawed as Bush's. Reducing taxes while doubling spending does not work. If you don't believe me than how about the Cato Institute? When you combine the ridiculous spending of GW with the financial collapse and recession his policies brought us and you get the mess we are in now. Growing the GDP while putting tax rates back to pre 2000 levels will go a long way to getting things back on track.
Govt. will always grow as the country grows, what has happened now is that one party is not responsible enough to handle the finances and now they want another go at "starvng the beast". It's not going to happen.

The Grand Old Spending Party: How Republicans Became Big Spenders | Stephen Slivinski | Cato Institute: Policy Analysis
 
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Henrin said:
I wasn't talking about generally, but in the idea of cutting the deficient/debt. If you increase revenues you can stand to spend more than you otherwise could without the increase. IS that not factual?
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Maybe that is technically true, but it isn't relevant. The US could "stand" to spend several tens of trillions a year and accumulate hundreds of trillions in debt before it reached a point where it was unable to keep spending, so a few hundred billion, or even a trillion, more or less in revenues doesn't really change that line in any appreciable way.
 
iguanaman said:
The President got his budget passed in 2006-2010. How does that make it the Dems responsibility? You logic is as flawed as Bush's. Reducing taxes while doubling spending does not work. If you don't believe me than how about the Cato Institute? When you combine the ridiculous spending of GW with the financial collapse and recession his policies brought us you get the mess we are in now. Growing the GDP while putting tax rates back to pre 2000 levels will go a long way to getting things back on track.
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The Senate did not pass a budget in 2009-2010. I didn't make it all the Democrat's responsibility, I was following the logic laid out by teamosil that the Congress is responsible for spending. I never defended Bush's spending policies as I've already explicitly said in this thread. It is interesting to note, however, that revenues reached record levels soon after Bush's tax cuts were put into place.

I won't address your claim that Bush's policies brought on the financial crisis. I always assumed it was the Democrat's position that it was Gramm-Leach Bliley and the evil financial institutions that created the financial crisis.
 
teamosil said:
That's true, but that isn't because they like enjoy being taxed. It's because they're finally manning up and deciding it is time to bite the bullet and do the hard thing to get this budget under control.
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I never made the claim people enjoy being taxed. The "starve the beast" argument was that large deficits would shift populist opinion towards reducing spending.
 
Henrin said:
Not what I said. When you feed the beast in revenues they have more to spend. You assume much in your position here, not only about how economics works but how the organism works, but here I am only looking at the organism. The position is that if we increase taxes and cut little by little that the cuts will continue to happen and deficients will not increase. That is a bad assumption and a faith based idea.
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When you tank the economy and cut taxes which brings revenues down to 15% of GDP leaving govt. income at 2000 levels you get a big deficit. No amount of responsible spending cuts would have prevented that.
 
Rhapsody1447 said:
I never made the claim people enjoy being taxed. The "starve the beast" argument was that large deficits would shift populist opinion towards reducing spending.
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Actually it was meant as a way to kill Social Security and Medicare. Which is exactly what the GOP are trying to do now.
 
Rhapsody1447 said:
I never made the claim people enjoy being taxed. The "starve the beast" argument was that large deficits would shift populist opinion towards reducing spending.
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That doesn't really work logically. Say that they have a medium desire to reduce spending when the deficit is at a medium level and a high desire to reduce spending when the deficit is at a high level. Then when the deficit gets high they will jump up to high desire to reduce spending, but once it gets paid back down to a medium level, they'll just drop back to a medium level of desire to reduce spending. Trying to create problems because you want to make the public solve the problems you create is a ridiculous way to run a country.

Random question- why do you have that quote as your sig? Does that mean you are pro-union or anti-union? It seems like just a matter of fact statement of what "right to work" laws do.
 
teamosil said:
You're just thinking too simplistically about it. You're looking for answers like "it is the Republicans fault" or "it is the Democrats fault" or "it is either the president's fault or Congress's fault"... It's binary thinking. The most glaring of all the flaws in the way Republicans reason...

In reality, Congress has probably 75% control over the budget, the executive 25%. The executive can veto a budget, he starts the ball rolling with his proposal, he can use the bully pulpit, etc, but Congress makes the final decision.
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I'm not looking to attribute our deficit problems to one person or party, nor have I. It seems YOU are the one that wants to blame the opposition party for spending policy whether they are in control of the White House or Congress.

For example, during the debt ceiling hostage crisis, the Republicans proposed $3 trillion, Obama proposed $4 trillion. During the super committee the Republicans were pushing for a $2 trillion plan, where the Democrats were pushing for $3 trillion.
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Can you link me to these said plans? I've yet to see any deficit reduction proposal that matched Ryans in scope. Using these figures to argue that Democrats were more serious about deficit reduction is disingenuous considering the Republican's deals contained a balanced budget amendment, the most drastic piece of legislation to reform future deficits.
 
Rhapsody1447 said:
It is interesting to note, however, that revenues reached record levels soon after Bush's tax cuts were put into place.
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That is total bull****. Raw income tax revenue did not surpass the 2000 level until 2005 -- four years after the first Bush tax cuts. Income tax as a percentage of GDP has NEVER recovered to it's 1997/98 level (which I choose to avoid the dotcom-inflated figure of 2000) -- not even close.

Government Taxes and Revenue Chart: United States 2000-2009 - Federal State Local Data

Historical Source of Revenue as Share of GDP
 
Rhapsody1447 said:
I'm not looking to attribute our deficit problems to one person or party, nor have I. It seems YOU are the one that wants to blame the opposition party for spending policy whether they are in control of the White House or Congress.
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I think I've told you like 10 times now that I blame both parties, so lets just agree that we both think both parties are to blame.

Rhapsody1447 said:
Can you link me to these said plans? I've yet to see any deficit reduction proposal that matched Ryans in scope. Using these figures to argue that Democrats were more serious about deficit reduction is disingenuous considering the Republican's deals contained a balanced budget amendment, the most drastic piece of legislation to reform future deficits.
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Well, Ryan's plan wasn't a serious plan, it was just grandstanding. The public opposed it 58 to 35. Obviously they knew it would never clear the senate or the veto because of it's ludicrously devastating effects, so it was just a safe way for them to look like they want to make big cuts. Of the serious plans though, the Democrats have been making the bigger proposals at every turn. For example:

Obama to Propose $4.4 Trillion Deficit Reduction Plan - ABC News
Super Committee Democrats Go Big with $3 Trillion Plan - Politics - The Atlantic Wire

It just makes sense, right? Domestic spending, military spending and revenues are all part of the problem, but Republicans are only willing to address 1/3 of those them. They want to cut domestic spending a bit more deeply than Democrats do, but they can't seriously propose cutting it three times as deep as the Democrats are willing to agree to. That would be tantamount to intentionally collapsing us into a third world country. They can't match the Democrats on deficit reduction without giving up some of their sacred cows and thus far, they've been unwilling to do that.
 
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teamosil said:
That doesn't really work logically. Say that they have a medium desire to reduce spending when the deficit is at a medium level and a high desire to reduce spending when the deficit is at a high level. Then when the deficit gets high they will jump up to high desire to reduce spending, but once it gets paid back down to a medium level, they'll just drop back to a medium level of desire to reduce spending. Trying to create problems because you want to make the public solve the problems you create is a ridiculous way to run a country.
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Can you name me a more effective restraint on the spending propensities of the executive branch and the legislature than revenues and deficits? No, it's not making the public manage the country. Politicians can only afford to deny public opinion for so long before they take action or risk losing reelection. What is predetermined is not spending but the politically tolerable deficit. Raise taxes by enough to eliminate the existing deficit and spending will go up to restore the tolerable deficit.

teamosil said:
Random question- why do you have that quote as your sig? Does that mean you are pro-union or anti-union? It seems like just a matter of fact statement of what "right to work" laws do.
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It's an interesting use of the word 'fair share' to demonize free riders who are not paying into the system yet reaping the benefits.
 
AdamT said:
That is total bull****. Raw income tax revenue did not surpass the 2000 level until 2005 -- four years after the first Bush tax cuts. Income tax as a percentage of GDP has NEVER recovered to it's 1997/98 level (which I choose to avoid the dotcom-inflated figure of 2000) -- not even close.

Government Taxes and Revenue Chart: United States 2000-2009 - Federal State Local Data

Historical Source of Revenue as Share of GDP
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I'm sorry did your link disprove my claim that revenues reached record levels after the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003? From your first link, and own omission, the data clearly shows that raw income tax revenue peaked in 2007. How does this make my claim bull****?

Of course, as a percentage of GDP income taxes would be lower. That's the whole point of the tax cut in the first place.
 
Rhapsody1447 said:
Can you name me a more effective restraint on the spending propensities of the executive branch and the legislature than revenues and deficits? No, it's not making the public manage the country. Politicians can only afford to deny public opinion for so long before they take action or risk losing reelection. What is predetermined is not spending but the politically tolerable deficit. Raise taxes by enough to eliminate the existing deficit and spending will go up to restore the tolerable deficit.
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Deficits and revenues have little to no effect on spending, so yeah, there are tons of better ways to restrain spending. Although, really we shouldn't be talking about restraining spending, we should be talking about restraining deficits. Spending can be good or bad, it isn't necessarily bad. If we spend $100 and it generates $150 in value for society, that is good and we should do as much of that kind of spending as we can. If we spend $50 and it generates only $50 in value for society, that is bad and we need to cut that kind of spending as much as we can. But, that aside, the clear way to apply pressure to politicians to reduce the deficits is voting of course. That's the whole point of our system of government. Even the deficit based strategy you are proposing works via voting. Your theory is that exploding the deficit will force the public to get concerned about the deficit and use their votes to apply pressure. It's just a backasswards way to do it. If you have the votes to enact that plan, you have enough votes to just reduce the deficit without the theatrics.

Rhapsody1447 said:
It's an interesting use of the word 'fair share' to demonize free riders who are not paying into the system yet reaping the benefits.
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Oh, you're going with the "poor people don't pay enough taxes" angle?
 
teamosil said:
Maybe that is technically true, but it isn't relevant. The US could "stand" to spend several tens of trillions a year and accumulate hundreds of trillions in debt before it reached a point where it was unable to keep spending, so a few hundred billion, or even a trillion, more or less in revenues doesn't really change that line in any appreciable way.
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So the wealth loses and the inflation that causes people to harder lives is irrelevant? On the other hand, it is only relevant that the government can spend more?
 
Henrin said:
So the wealth loses and the inflation that causes people to harder lives is irrelevant? On the other hand, it is only relevant that the government can spend more?
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Not really sure what you're talking about
 
teamosil said:
Deficits and revenues have little to no effect on spending, so yeah, there are tons of better ways to restrain spending. Although, really we shouldn't be talking about restraining spending, we should be talking about restraining deficits. Spending can be good or bad, it isn't necessarily bad. If we spend $100 and it generates $150 in value for society, that is good and we should do as much of that kind of spending as we can. If we spend $50 and it generates only $50 in value for society, that is bad and we need to cut that kind of spending as much as we can. But, that aside, the clear way to apply pressure to politicians to reduce the deficits is voting of course. That's the whole point of our system of government. Even the deficit based strategy you are proposing works via voting. Your theory is that exploding the deficit will force the public to get concerned about the deficit and use their votes to apply pressure. It's just a backasswards way to do it. If you have the votes to enact that plan, you have enough votes to just reduce the deficit without the theatrics.
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What ways do you think would be more effective at restraining spending than reduced revenues and deficits? Ideas originated within government? I agree that voting is the way to make it happen, but the public at large is rarely concerned with restraining spending unless deficits/regulations become intolerable. Spending is at the forefront of the upcoming election and I would say the American public used their voting power dramatically in 2010 to protest deficits and spending.

Oh, you're going with the "poor people don't pay enough taxes" angle?
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Think moreso about the definition of the term "fair share".
 
Rhapsody1447 said:
I agree that voting is the way to make it happen, but the public at large is rarely concerned with restraining spending unless deficits/regulations become intolerable.
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Well, unfortunately that's what we have to live with then. Trying to play games to trick the public into supporting a position they don't want to support or whatever is no way to govern. First because as I pointed out, it's useless. At best it would just serve to artificially raise the deficit, then bring it right back to where it was before you did that. Second because if you have the votes to do some strange deficit-creation-to-trigger-deficit-panic scheme, you have the votes to just decrease the deficit instead. Third because if the public was going to freak out about the national debt enough to actually force change they would have done it decades ago. Fourth because in a democracy the voters aren't a hassle that the real decision makers need to figure out a way to shove past, that is the end goal- government that does what the people want it to.

Rhapsody1447 said:
Think moreso about the definition of the term "fair share".
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The thing where conservatives kind of hint about what they mean and try to get liberals to guess what their position is never works. Whatever connections you are making are not going to be immediately apparent to somebody that sees the world very differently than you.
 
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