It's a wacky wacky world out there.
Newscorp schadenfreude, delicious.
Casey Anthony trial (there's only hundreds of other children killed every year, but there's one or two a year that merit any media attention, the rest are just... well, you know... Uninteresting.)
The most socialist, liberal, kenyan, foreign, black, "urban", democrat, president is trying to convince the hyper-right wing members of the house that he wants to cut... ***4 TRILLION DOLLARS*** from the debt. And they WONT TAKE YES FOR AN ANSWER!!! (thank god -ed) Seriously... They claim it's because they refuse any "tax raising" during a weak/bad economy. The real reason is because the way our system of government is currently set up, the incentive is for the opposition party to block ANYTHING that the president wants. I mean, if the president were to show "indifference" a deal might actually be struck. But as it stands, because the President is sooooo gung ho to get a "grand bargain" done, every incentive (politically speaking) is to not make the deal. The president is to the FRIKKIN RIGHT OF WHAT REPUBLICANS WANTED JUST A FEW MONTHS AGO and still they cant say yes. Its absurd.
In my opinion this is actually great news. Granted it is never a good plan to count on your opponent to cut his right arm off before the shootout at the OK corrale, but if he's getting ready to do it... well by all means, don't try to stop him. If the republicans manage to take this to the last possible moment, and end up with either a "clean debt ceiling raise" or even better if Obama uses the Constitutional option, I think the outcome would be the best for all involved. The president wants a deal, which in my opinion is a horrible deal, the republicans want a different deal (so they say) thats a horrible deal, maybe circumstance will force them to 'kick the can down the road' as has happened 100 times before.
It's funny, if you go look at the CBO projections for the next 10 years, the debt actually GOES WAY DOWN. I know, you don't hear that from CNN, you dont hear it for FOX or MSNBC. You dont hear it from politicians, and you almost never hear it from pundits. How about the
Do Nothing Plan
So how does doing nothing actually return the budget to health? The answer is that doing nothing allows all kinds of fiscal changes that politicians generally abhor to take effect automatically. First, doing nothing means the Bush tax cuts would expire, as scheduled, at the end of next year. That would cause a moderately progressive tax hike, and one that hits most families, including the middle class. The top marginal rate would rise from 35 percent to 39.6 percent, and some tax benefits for investment income would disappear. Additionally, a patch to keep the alternative minimum tax from hitting 20 million or so families would end. Second, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Obama's health care law, would proceed without getting repealed or defunded. The CBO believes that the plan would bend health care's cost curve downward, wrestling the rate of health care inflation back toward the general rate of inflation. Third, doing nothing would mean that Medicare starts paying doctors low, low rates. Congress would not pass anymore of the regular "doc fixes" that keep reimbursements high. Nothing else happens. Almost magically, everything evens out.
But every pundit, politician, and news anchor doesn't mention this... We have a HUGE BURDEN THAT WE'RE LEAVING OUR KIDS AND WILL DESTROY THE UNIVERSE. Only if congress chooses to do such a thing.
How is it that congress today (with the presidents help) is hell bent to cut medicare, cut medicaid, cut social security, cut funding for all kinds of research, cut NASA, all kinds of stuff... When if they just didn't do anything at all, the problem would, to a great degree, take care of itself.
Morg "We need to cut in order to not bankrupt the country when we vote for this other stuff that we don't have to vote for but want to in the future!" anti
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/18/2011 05:34AM by morganti.
