The *Budget Fight* Thread (Jan-Feb-March 2013 Edition)

1/15/13: Updated thread title to encompass more than just the debt ceiling.

Are you ready to.... hearaboutmorepoliticalbrinksmanshipadnaseumanddiscuss?

The sequel "The Fiscal Cliff Thread" and latest and greatest place to go to discuss blame, propaganda, and the loathing and loving of the Federal budget, an more!

Politico.com: Conservatives Look to Next Battle

“Obama was at the height of his power on the tax issue because, if nothing happened, he won. It’s flipped in the other three situations,” said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, who gave members a pass on the cliff legislation that cleared the House late Tuesday. “There’s not one fight and Obama gets to go home…We’re back here next month, same damn thing.”

...

They [the lawmakers who voted for the compromise] can make excuses about this one because of the position they were in, but there really aren’t any excuses about the debt ceiling,” said Club for Growth President Chris Chocola. “They really have the advantage on the debt ceiling, but they have to be willing to use it. It’s not clear that they’ll use it, but they have the chance.”

...

Amy Kremer, head of the Tea Party Express, kept the door wide open to supporting primary challengers against incumbent Republican senators in 2014. "We’re still here and we’re actively engaged and we’re going to hold them accountable,” she said. “I think it’s going to be a battle, absolutely going to be a battle.”

...

Brent Bozell, president of the conservative group ForAmerica, said he’s in “a ****y mood” after the deal, but stressed that there’s still time for Republican Hill leaders to prove they‘re serious about cutting spending — or risk the prospect of 2014 primaries. “If they can regain some momentum and if they’re willing to truly fight and that’s the key, to truly fight in the coming battles,” he said.

These groups all sound like Dr. Claw from the Inspector Gadget cartoon.... "I'll get you next time Obama, NEXT TIME!!!"

It's a canard.

For 8 years, unless they were deficit hawks in sheep's clothing, the GOP said little to nothing, despite lowering taxes and funding a war.

And now...the debt is a problem?

Please.

End the sham.

The debt rising 60% in 4 yrs not a factor?

Are the tax cuts not now the Obama tax cuts?

Sham is right

Grover Norquist annoys me.

Yahoo.com: Fiscal cliff deal not great, but it shields Americans from tax hike (McConnell Op-Ed)

The first day of a new Congress always represents a fresh start. This year, it also presents a perfect opportunity to tackle the single-greatest challenge facing our nation: reining in the out-of-control federal spending that threatens to permanently alter our economy and dim the prospects and opportunities of future generations of Americans.

Really? So our economy and unemployment are no longer a challenge facing our nation, particularly unemployment for the young people?

By acting, we’ve shielded more than 99% of taxpayers from a massive tax hike that President Obama was all-too willing to impose. American families and small businesses that would have seen painfully smaller paychecks and profits this month have been spared.

Except your paychecks will be smaller thanks to us not extending the payroll tax cut. Just not "painfully" smaller. But he's especially talking to those in the $250k-400k income range who weren't asked to pay for any of this.

I have news for him: the moment that he and virtually every elected Democrat in Washington signed off on the terms of the current arrangement, it was the last word on taxes. That debate is over. Now the conversation turns to cutting spending on the government programs that are the real source of the nation’s fiscal imbalance. And the upcoming debate on the debt limit is the perfect time to have that discussion.

Are you going to deliver this in front of a live audience of 17,000... I love the "I have news for him..." segue... this is just begging for some type of RAW treatment. I think Obama made it clear the debate on taxes isn't over. Senator, do you want to name the programs that are a real source of the nation's fiscal imbalance? Are these popular programs? Can you be more specific than Mitt Romney was discussing his financial plans?

While most Washington Democrats may want to deny it, the truth is, the only thing we can do to solve the nation’s fiscal problem is to tackle government spending head on — and particularly, spending on health care programs, which appear to take off like a fighter jet on every chart available that details current trends in federal spending.

What?! The GOP is proposing to do something on health care? What is it, tell me, tell me! Are you going to implement the type of reforms that large health care related industries? Cause last time I checked your party was blatently trying to protect health care corporations talking about how its an important, "One-Sixth of the economy" sector. I look forward to seeing your plan for this.

For the sake of our future, the President must show up to this debate early and convince his party to do something that neither he nor they have been willing to do until now. Over the next two months they need to deliver the same kind of bipartisan resolution to the spending problem we have now achieved on revenue — before the 11th hour.

Wait, did he say that the Democrats need to deliver a bipartisan resolution? Did someone tell him what the definition of "bipartisan" is and how the Democrat's by themselves can't deliver a "bipartisan resolution."

Really GOP? This is your leader in the Senate and this is what he writes about?! Have you ponited to any solutions that the GOP would put forward as a "bipartisan" resolution? At least he didn't mention that the Senate hasn't passed a budget in some X number of days.... while forgetting to mention the GOP would block any Senate budget the Democrats would put forward.

Congress has become an event for mass media...

It's all a sham

I think it's likely that the House of Representative/Republicans will cause the country to default on it's bills in a couple of months. Obama shouldn't negotiate at all on this issue and should repeatedly call for Congress to send him a clean bill from now until the deadline. When we go into default, Obama should get on TV and read the names of congressmen that caused the country to default and for the markets to crash.

I think it's likely that the House of Representative/Republicans will cause the country to default on it's bills in a couple of months. Obama shouldn't negotiate at all on this issue and should repeatedly call for Congress to send him a clean bill from now until the deadline. When we go into default, Obama should get on TV and read the names of congressmen that caused the country to default and for the markets to crash.

Allegedly that's how he got the fiscal cliff bill passed on Tuesday. He threatened to dedicate the next 4 years to telling everyone how the GOP sent us over the cliff.

They can't keep on threatening to tank the economy every time the debt ceiling comes up. If Republicans want to fight spending they need to do it when the spending bills are made.

Threatening to not pay bills on things congress agreed to purchase is chicken ****.

I really hope Obama sticks to his guns and refuses to even discuss spending in relation to the debt ceiling. If Republicans want to come up with ways to cut spending that's great but they should be completely separate from the debt ceiling and Obama shouldn't even open the door to discussions that are tied to the debt ceiling. Using our credit rating as leverage in a debate about spending cuts is ridiculous. Even debating it every year is bad for our credit. It's like threatening to walk away from your home mortgage every year. If you don't want to pay for the house you shouldn't have bought it.

The problem for the GOP is they don't even have the votes to stop the debt ceiling from being raised. They'll be in the position of having to refuse to even let it come up for a vote.

It seems that tax rates was the strongest card Obama had. Now that's gone and the Debt Ceiling battle is coming up. What is the plan? Did they have a plan? Is the Tea Party going to be in charge of the US economy again in a few months?

The debt rising 60% in 4 yrs not a factor?

Are the tax cuts not now the Obama tax cuts?

Sham is right

Exactly.... Wasn't a problem when Reagan increased the debt +185% ( from 1 trillion to 2.8 Trillion) over eight years. Bush Senior raised the debt +60% in his four years in office... Bush Junior (+95% in his (6.2-12 trillion dollars )eight years....

Oh my though when Obama inherits the worst economy since the great depression and the worst deficit in US History.... "Oh my", then they call foul when he doesn't fix it immediately... then they call foul when

the resulting deficit THEY CREATED, results in the debt going up 60% under a Democratic President.

Paul Ryan and the rest of the GOP, never met a spending bill he didn't love when Bush was in office... doubling the national debt.... new found fiscal conservative though when a democrat get into office... ..

Here is the bottom line... Bush left the economy in fulll contraction.... GDP contracted 8.9% in Q4 '08, 6.7% in Q1 '09..... That was what was going to kill us. That is a million times more lethal than the deficit...

What's worse than a 16 Trillion dollar debt with a 15.77 trillion GDP? A 14 Trillion dollar debt with a 8 trillion dollar GDP!!!.

What is killing us right now isn't the deficit which is bad and will get increasingly worse...... what is killing us economically is the uncertainty caused by all these meaningless political confrontations which keeps the US industry from reinvesting the 1.6 Trillion they stored up in their coffers over the last 4 years. What is killing us is the uncertainty caused when Michael Backman says the US paying it's debt doesn't matter..... Which causes sphincters all over the world to pucker. When Biehner says he's going to allow the US go default in it's debt if he doesn't get what he wants...

You guys make it sound like the distinction between GOP politics and GOP policies is a newly discovered earth-shattering calamity.

This is GOP politics. This is how the GOP plays the game. Everybody knows it.

Debt is still a problem. Government waste is still a problem. Lack of smart investments is still a problem. Income disparity is still a problem. Let's make sure we focus on those problems and work on them. Pointing at GOP clowns does nothing. Everybody knows they are clowns, but you are making it look like these clowns are the only ones concerned about our fiscal problems.

It seems that tax rates was the strongest card Obama had. Now that's gone and the Debt Ceiling battle is coming up. What is the plan? Did they have a plan? Is the Tea Party going to be in charge of the US economy again in a few months?

Obama wanted to disassociate the tax increases from the budget cuts... It's hard enough to get one agreement out of these guys... no need to make it overly complex.

As for raising the debt ceiling I think Obama's position is much stronger on that.... He's refusing even to entertain negotiations on that. It's not a political issue and hasn't been in US history... excepting the last time.. If the GOP wants to put the global economy into recession, if they want to increase the interest rate the US pays after shrinking our economy... If they want to do devastating harm to US interest and destroy the reputation of their own party... then let them. He's not going to allow them to hold a gun to their own head and get him to negotiate so they don't kill themselves.

GOP shameless self interest is basically the only thing you can count to motivate the GOP...... and Obama's got that for the debt ceiling increase.

---------- Post added January-3rd-2013 at 02:38 PM ----------

Pointing at GOP clowns does nothing. Everybody knows they are clowns, but you are making it look like these clowns are the only ones concerned about our fiscal problems.

The GOP aren't merely clowns... clowns are distractions, the GOP has the power to obstruct solutions as well as crater the entire country.... You must pay attention to them and you must ensure everybody else is paying attention to them too so they take the full brunt of public distain when they do things like allow the US credit rating to be downgraded.... or heaven's forbid we default on our debt.....

So they are not just an empty distraction.... they are are very real threat..... And yes you have to paint those amongst them who are proven to be threats as such so the public will know them.

---------- Post added January-3rd-2013 at 02:46 PM ----------

Allegedly that's how he got the fiscal cliff bill passed on Tuesday. He threatened to dedicate the next 4 years to telling everyone how the GOP sent us over the cliff.

Obama has already said he would not negotiate on raising the debt limit. Congress voted

President vows not to negotiate on debt ceiling

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/president-vows-not-negotiate-debt-ceiling-143532898--politics.html

The GOP leaders voted 19 times collectively to increase the debt ceiling under bush... It was never a political issue... Not for Bush, for Clinton, for Bush Senior on back to Kennedy.... Only under Obama did the GOP make it a political hot potatot...

Obama should play hardball and dare them to shoot themselves in the chest by allowing us to default.

During Bush Presidency, Current GOP Leaders Voted 19 Times To Increase Debt Limit By $4 Trillion

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/04/14/158424/republican-leaders-debt-limit-hypocrisy/?mobile=nc

As for raising the debt ceiling I think Obama's position is much stronger on that.... He's refusing even to entertain negotiations on that.

...

Yeah I saw that - he's basically saying that Congress spent that money and is now refusing to pay for it. I'm curious to see how far this thing will go, with the GOP saying that Obama spent the money and Obama saying that the Congress spent the money.

It seems that the GOP will face a significant pressure from the right to refuse the debt ceiling legislation without concessions from Democrats. If Obama refuses to negotiate, which he indicated, things could get pretty interesting. The Debt Ceiling can pass the House with support from Democrats, but will Boehner bring the bill to the floor? And if so, what consequences he will suffer for that? On the other hand, he has already gotten re-elected as the Speaker, so maybe he won't be in too much of a bind. Fascinating stuff.

It's not a political issue and hasn't been in US history... excepting the last time.. If the GOP wants to put the global economy into recession, if they want to increase the interest rate the US pays after shrinking our economy... If they want to do devastating harm to US interest and destroy the reputation of their own party... then let them. He's not going to allow them to hold a gun to their own head and get him to negotiate so they don't kill themselves.

GOP shameless self interest is basically the only thing you can count to motivate the GOP...... and Obama's got that for the debt ceiling increase.

Failing to extend the Debt Ceiling would mean that a lot of rich folks lose a lot of money... so there will be a lot of pressure to do something. If Obama refuses to negotiate, the tremendous pressure will be on Boehner to bite the bullet and bring the bill to the floor for passing with Democrat support. Poor Boehner.

Personal opinions:

The Republican negotiating tactic of "I will refuse to allow you to save the nation from imminent catastrophe unless you do things that I don;t have the votes to do, on my own, and that I wouldn't do, if I had the votes" is despicable. (But not surprising. Just as the fact that their supporters enthusiastically cheer this tactic isn't, either.)

But, it really wouldn't be a terrible idea to do some minor budget cutting, either. IMO, if the Dems were to insist on zero spending cuts, then their position wouldn't be a whole lot better.

If they really want to have war of Political Theater, maybe they could demand equal cuts from entitlements, and defense. (The GOP can **** bricks over THAT).

I was reading something about the deficit reduction that has occured. Simpson-Bowles is said to have $4T in debt savings over 10 years.

There are discretionary caps for spending; which is projected to save $1T (need $3T to hit S-.

The revenue from tax increases is $600B (still $2.4T short of S-.

So the question over the debt ceiling is this: I suspect 2014 is finally the year we get the "grand bargain" many are pushing for, and it will include tax reform (and more revenues) plus changes to entitlements. I was reading some of the Senate speechs from Democrats, and it seems like some of the Dem Senators are more willing to tackle entitlements than I previously thought (won't make the left-left happy but neither extreme will be happy).

I would expect Obama to be now saying 1:1 raises in revenue for any cuts, so if the GOP doesn't get any consessions they will be looking at $1.2T even on both sides to get to the $2.4T proposed by S-B. If the GOP is able to get more cuts (like $600B) they changed the equation and it's more like $900B-$900B to get to the $4T.

I've been known to miss on my political guessing games, but I'd bet the GOP tries to punt the debt ceiling to after 2014 elections.

I know that there are a lot of variables but I'd love to see where we would be if Bush never cut taxes and we were still paying at Clinton rates.

I know that there are a lot of variables but I'd love to see where we would be if Bush never cut taxes and we were still paying at Clinton rates.

and the dot com era never ended..........

Obama can order a $1 trillion coin minted

Coin kept in treasury. Boom, no debt ceiling. **** congress

http://www.cnbc.com/id/43931430/The_1_Trillion_Coin_Solution_to_the_Debt_Ceiling

and the dot com era never ended..........

I said... I know that there are a lot of variables.

But it seems to me that it's hard to raise taxes. Just as it's hard to cut funding. We had tax rates and a surplus. We can talk about cutting funding all day long. The fact is that we had higher tax rates and ran a surplus. Bush comes along and all the sudden a tax cut is a great idea because we were running a surplus. Now, here we are, bickering about the smallest of tax increase.

I said... I know that there are a lot of variables.

But it seems to me that it's hard to raise taxes. Just as it's hard to cut funding. We had tax rates and a surplus. We can talk about cutting funding all day long. The fact is that we had higher tax rates and ran a surplus. Bush comes along and all the sudden a tax cut is a great idea because we were running a surplus. Now, here we are, bickering about the smallest of tax increase.

Yeah well you can raise taxes all you want when the economy is good. When the economy sucks you cant raise taxes.

Bad news for you, but our economy isn't driven by our tax policy. It's driven by the economy.

Yeah I saw that - he's basically saying that Congress spent that money and is now refusing to pay for it. I'm curious to see how far this thing will go, with the GOP saying that Obama spent the money and Obama saying that the Congress spent the money.

You are exactly correct in your framing of the situation... Except of coarse when Congress say's Obama spent the money, or is looking to spend more money by increasing the debt ceiling... They are refuting the United States Constitution...

No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.

Even if Obama unilaterally raised the debt ceiling to 100 trillion dollars... which arguable he could do under the 14th ammendmdnt to the Constitution...although it would be precident setting.

The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.

Constititonally he could not spend a dime of it of the funds remaining under the debt ceiling, except to pay back what congress already authorized spent. Only Congress has been granted the power of the purse to raise taxes, and to spend money under the US constition....

Obama is asking for Congress to raise the debt ceiling, not to spend more money, but to pay for what Congress has already spent.

I know that there are a lot of variables but I'd love to see where we would be if Bush never cut taxes and we were still paying at Clinton rates.

The CBO has produced a document, in which they look at where CBO projected 2012 would look like, in 2001, and what 2012 actually looks like, and attempts to break down how much of said difference are due to which causes.

Here's a link to the CBO's summary page for the document. (There's a link to the entire document, on that page.)

The NYT took the data from that document, and made it into a picture, if you'd rather.

Short summary: Yes, the Bush tax cuts are part of the reason for our deficits. But they aren't the whole reason. They aren't even the biggest reason. (The biggest reason, is the recession.)

The debt rising 60% in 4 yrs not a factor?

Are the tax cuts not now the Obama tax cuts?

Sham is right

stay true to yourseld dude!

(even if it smells rather turdish)

Short summary: Yes, the Bush tax cuts are part of the reason for our deficits. But they aren't the whole reason. They aren't even the biggest reason. (The biggest reason, is the recession.)

Well we really can't predict what would have happened had Bush not cut taxes. You can certainly have an opinion, but you really don't know.