On Tuesday night, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 2560, the "Cut, Cap and Balance Act." I was proud to vote against it. The House Republicans have presented us with their vision for America's future. This is a vision in which the country turns its back on the achievements of the last century and chooses not to invest in meeting the challenges of the next century. The Republicans aim to use a crisis of their own making to hamstring future Congresses, limiting their ability to make necessary infrastructure investments, to care for the poor, aged and disabled, and to respond to national and international crises.
The 18 percent spending cap mandated by the bill would return the government to spending levels not seen since the establishment of Medicare and Medicaid. The impending retirement of 70 million baby boomers means that that these spending levels are woefully inadequate unless we condemn them to a severely diminished quality of life. The bill would enshrine constitutional protections for tax cuts and loopholes for wealthy individuals and corporations, requiring a two-thirds majority in both the House and the Senate for the government to increase the currently unsustainably low revenue levels of roughly 15 percent of GDP. This would necessarily result in unprecedented cuts in student loans and grants, transportation, education, environmental protection and enforcement, in other words, the physical and human infrastructure of our economy.
With H.R. 2560, the Republican Majority is demanding that in return for avoiding an economically disastrous default on our debt, we make $111 billion in immediate spending cuts. These cuts seriously increase the likelihood of a double-dip recession. Last month, the economy added an anemic 18,000 jobs. In fact, the private sector added 57,000 jobs, but 39,000 public sector jobs were lost in addition to the 49,000 public sector jobs lost in the prior month. This is a continuing trend; half a million public sector employees have lost their jobs since 2008, 200,000 of them teachers (while student enrollment has increased by 750,000). Firing more government workers will only decrease aggregate demand, making it that much harder to sustain the recovery. We have witnessed this before. In 1937, President Roosevelt responded to similar pressure by significantly reducing federal spending before the Great Depression was fully in the rear-view mirror. The economy would not recover until the increased spending and hiring that accompanied the WWII armaments buildup got the country moving again. After the war, spending on education and housing for our GIs, the Marshall Plan for Europe and the construction of the Interstate Highway System established a permanent middle class and sustainable prosperity.
As an appropriator I have learned that budgets are the firmest expression of our values. This is not the time for the Democratic Party to sacrifice our values, values held by a majority of the American people even in the face of opposition that has reached unprecedented levels of ideological radicalization. We must address our long-term deficits, but we must do so in a balanced manner, combining rational spending cuts and increased revenues. In the budget deals agreed to under Presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Clinton, tax increases made were balanced with spending cuts. The experience of the 1990s shows us what a rationally balanced budget looks like, accomplished not by constitutional engineering, but by legislation and compromise. The tax rates that prevailed during that period allowed us to invest in our future and meet our obligations, and we enjoyed the greatest period of sustained economic growth in our history, with 20 million new jobs created. Those taxed at the top rate of 39.6 percent brought home more after tax income than at any prior time in American history. Now, however, we are being told that even one cent of increased revenue would be economically destructive. This strains credulity and is disproved by history.
After the failure of the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution was designed to give Congress the freedom to both raise revenue and expend funds to meet the needs of a growing nation. In Federalist Number 30, Alexander Hamilton wrote that "a complete power... to procure a regular [supply of money] and adequate supply of it, as far as the resources of the community will permit may be regarded as an indispensable ingredient in every constitution." Tuesday evening we were asked to amend the Constitution after two and a quarter centuries to permanently limit the ability of our government to foster competitiveness in a global economy, to generate greater equality of opportunity, to treat our seniors with dignity and respect and to defend and define this great nation as the ever shining beacon on the hill. Let's not sell short our people or our future.
You have a Republican House and Democratic Senate. Anyone with an ounce of common sense would see this as a recipe for compromise. Unfortunately, common sense is in woefully short supply in Washington at the moment, and 92% of the general public is statistically disgusted with Congress per Rasmussen Reports.
As goes the House midterm election so goes the next Presidential election within a couple of percentage points. This has been the case for the last decade. I would strongly suggest you either start putting forth viable compromise proposals or start polishing your resume. You are going to need it.
Let's review the facts:
Government has massively increased both real spending and it's percentage of the economy. From 22% of GDP 30 years ago to 1/3 of the economy today, government dominates our economy.
Here are the past 10 years of Federal spending (inflation adjusted) including all military spending:
2001: ....$2,328
2002: ....$2,474
2003: ....$2,598
2004: ....$2,685
2005: ....$2,810
2006: ....$2,819
2007: ....$2,881
2008: ....$2,981
2009: ....$3,198
2010: ....$3,552
2011: ....$3.513 (after cuts)
Without changes to the trajectory of spending, Medicare is expected to more than double.
In your diatribe, you mentioned nothing like means testing Medicare or SS. Oh but that would have been unpopular with the over 65 vote. So why not embrace President Obama and the Gang of 6 with a comprehensive plan that actually involves further taxation of the wealthy, cutting military and cutting social programs so that we have long-term budget that has some chance of leaving our children a country still gives them opportunity
Since the Bush tax cuts, the defense budget has more than doubled.
Then, there is the ability to cut the costs of medical care.
Costs of medical care are higher in the U.S. than anywhere else. And, growing at a faster rate. Yet, U.S. healthcare is not in the top 30 in results.
Best not to look at just one thing - what is paid to patients. Why not look at why the underlying costs of medicine are so high in the U.S. compared to other countries that have much better results?
Why not look at a healthcare system that, currently, pays more than 30% to healthcare insurance companies - for which Medicare administrators take only 5.5%?
Why not look at a Social Security system that exempts taxing those making over $105k, but still pay them out?
Cutting isn't the issue, really. You might consider looking at the root cause instead of symptoms.
Effective laws by Congress that prevent waste like this is the problem. Privatizing accomplishes nothing.
Congress pass a law that required cutting physician reimbursement over 7 years ago to help bring down costs yet they have literally kicked the can down the road every six months though today it would require a cut of more than 25% in reimbursements. The argument about shortages of physicians is made more comical considering it is the regulatory regime of training slots, AMA and state regulators that is acting to restrict med school slots.
Finally, SS is a savings plan and the payout was designed to match your paid in contribution. The problem with the system is the gov't's unwillingness to simply match the actuarial payouts and STOP over payouts.
So close.........................
It's time to Cut the Crap, and Balance the budget by Acting in the best interests of ALL of our people, not just the 1% or so that give millions in campaign funds, in exchange for billions in profits not taxed by Congress.
Mortgaging future generations, in order to provide tax cuts for the wealthy is insane. Why did it pass Congress in the first place, and why was it extended in 2010?
Shared sacrifice means everyone, not just the middle class and the poor. The rich have been getting richer for the past 30 years, and continue to do so today.
Seems to me, if you need money, you go to a bank, because that's where the money is.
By all means, eliminate Government waste, but that still won't be nearly enough to balance the budget.
End the wars, and collect taxes from those with money to pay them.
When President Bush took office, Fed chair Alan Greenspan said the US would have an 800 Billion Dollar Surplus by 2011. http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/testimony/2001/20010125/default.htm
What happened?
The Middle East, and the Bush tax cuts.
We're living with what those policies produced, why are they still being promoted?
Thomas Jefferson:
The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.
To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.
That is what is going on now, and what the right wing extremists want to see escalated.
Little people, poor people need protection from these thugs, not the other way around. The right wing extremists want to protect the thugs from the middle class and poor. BIg Business have bought and paid for the right wing extremists who voted for this Cut and Crap Act.
More cronies? Former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin became an executive-committee chairman at Citigroup. Treasury still owns 11% of Citi stock. As Obama raked in the campaign cash from Goldman Sachs. Geithner’s replacement as head of the New York Fed, William Dudley, former chief economist at Goldman Sachs.
They ignore Fannie and Freddie in the financial regulations overhaul.
Bail out GM and Chrysler, turning over the bulk of the company’s ownership to the unions. TARP goes to foreign banks to cover their losses. Bill handed to the little guy.
Progressives like crony capitalism. How can they possibly mount effective political campaigns without money? They make deals with big business. They protect the big guys from competition and they pour money into Democrat coffers. All the money that flowed into Wall Street. Why? They were “too big to fail”. Small and mid-sized banks were shuttered?
Take enormous risks and if they pay off they make enormous profits and wealth for management. If the risks don’t pay off? Go to the government with dire predictions of the economy unless the government steps in and when it does, the bankers get their bonuses and we get the bill.
A better Jefferson quote might be:
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."
James Madison:
As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights. Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.
If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions.
It is sufficiently obvious, that persons and property are the two great subjects on which Governments are to act; and that the rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted. These rights cannot well be separated.
There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.
Well, that is a start. It would be better if you were leading a coalition of people who voted against it. Better yet, a coalition that had a program that you could tout.
You are against wickedness and stupidity and that is good.
What are you for? Who else is with you?
Because you are not a sovereign state with your own fiat currency. You are a currency user not a currency creator.
See here->http://www.huffingtonpost.com/warren-mosler/mercy-cant-they-get-anyth_b_903742.html
Maybe you should be more productive at work instead of whining about people that are more successful than you are. Your attitude is why you are miserable.
So if it happen, just hope the sheeples are smart enough to pick a good government.
"Unhappy events abroad have retaught us two simple truths about the liberty of a democratic people. The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of a private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.
Franklin D Roosevelt: message to Congress proposing the monopoly investigation, 1938 ===
Those values being to fire up the printing press whenever some additional kleptocratic crony from Wall Street or the military industrial complex demands another handout. Somehow, if the American people knew about the "values" you were talking about, I think they would be repulsed by them.