American Politics: the Lost Generation

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

FLoW,

I quite understand the difficulty.

I do not agree, however, that TP was being disingenuous. Without getting into the specifics of this case, I can say that for my own part connections are sometimes considered implicit by my opponent, but I see too many ways to make connection. By asking the connection to be made explicit, I have sometimes incurred exasperation on the part of my opponent, but typically they have provided the explanation with considerable grace, and more importantly: there is at that time zero confusion what is meant.

To do otherwise, to say, "Clearly, it should be (x)," without elaborating why it's clear, often, is to put your opponent at deliberate disadvantage. They have to guess on what grounds you think it's "clear". Works out great for you. They could guess wrong, they could get some details wrong which you consider salient, and then the conversation derails into making corrections. All you have to do at each wrong guess is say, "I never said that," and of course, you're right, because to start with you hadn't said anything. It's valid, but it's not at all nice.

Conversely, I suppose, a person could hold everything up with pedantics, but that is not typical of TP's style.

Of course -- do what you want. Just seems to me like the wrong issue.

Okay. Did you personally not understand that a balanced budget requirement could result in reductions in entitlement spending? Just curious.

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

I'm not asking for a long period of time to implement the amendment, I'm asking for a reasonable period of time to balance the budget over. A year is simply to short a time. The government would be too vulnerable to sudden increases in expenditures. (Like if say, the russians would invade, there'd be some kind of natural disaster, any of any other number of unforeseen consequences)

I should just directly note that any kind of balanced budget amendment would completely cripple the US' government's ability to wage war, both offensively, and, to a great extent, defensively as well.

The form of such an amendment clearly would be an issue. I'd lean towards one that permitted one-year overruns to be made up the following year. That's how a lot of the states manage it.

[Galactus]

The form of such an amendment clearly would be an issue. I'd lean towards one that permitted one-year overruns to be made up the following year. That's how a lot of the states manage it.

The states don't really have to deal with the kind of stuff a federal government does though. I'd put a decade as the minimum amount of time required for the budget to be balanced, if someone at gunpoint forced me to enact one.

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

The states don't really have to deal with the kind of stuff a federal government does though. I'd put a decade as the minimum amount of time required for the budget to be balanced, if someone at gunpoint forced me to enact one.

I understand your concerns -- that kind of amendment is a last resort. It's just that political dynamics seem to have led to congenital overspending, and the looming entitlement time bomb is pretty scary. But absent some sort of hammer, I don't see the political will to address it. And there's no guarantee that third parties are going to be willing to continue purchasing large amounts of U.S. debt ad infinitum.

Heck, I'd be willing to make it not even an axsolute balance. Just some percentage close to that. And maybe the better way to do it is as a limit on total debt rather than on annual deficits to give more flexibility once we got things under control.

[Galactus]

I understand your concerns -- that kind of amendment is a last resort. It's just that political dynamics seem to have led to congenital overspending, and the looming entitlement time bomb is pretty scary. But absent some sort of hammer, I don't see the political will to address it. And there's no guarantee that third parties are going to be willing to continue purchasing large amounts of U.S. debt ad infinitum.

Heck, I'd be willing to make it not even an axsolute balance. Just some percentage close to that. And maybe the better way to do it is as a limit on total debt rather than on annual deficits to give more flexibility once we got things under control.

Meh, last resort is always a default. That's nasty, and should put a serious crimp in any attempt at further borrowing unless it's *really* neccessary.

[TrackerNeil]

Honestly, I think most Americans care about the national debt only in the abstract, because they certainly aren't willing to endure any hardship to pay it down. If you don't believe me, ask yourself these questions:

1) Exactly which tax are you willing to increase (and pay) to help decrease the debt?

2) Which services are you willing to forgo for the same purpose?

For most Americans, the answer to those questions is "someone else's." We Americans aren't big on self-sacrifice, that's for sure. We can blame the banks for the recent economic downturn, but we conveniently forget that the banks weren't giving those shady loans to themselves.

[ThinkerX]

With regards to TrackerNeils post:

http://blogs.reuters.com/rolfe-winkler/2010/03/04/not-till-theyve-nothing-left-to-lose/

When it comes to reform, they all argued, nibbling around the edges ain’t gonna cut it.

Banks need more capital, Fannie and Freddie need to be wound down, banks’ risky activities must be corralled, tax incentives that encourage borrowing must be done away with. Most importantly, perhaps, we need to end the cycle by which the financial system lends too much and too easily only to be bailed out by a compliant Fed when things go wrong.

Throughout there was much indignation as to why such sensible reforms haven’t been enacted. Wall Street’s lobby machine got most of the blame, the rest went to “the people” for their perceived lack of outrage. But of course people are mad, and though the lobby machine is strong, it’s not the real obstacle to reform.

We are.

We don’t really want reform. More to the point, no one wants to make the necessary sacrifices that reform would entail. As Jack Nicholson might put it: We can’t handle the truth!

Take a look at the list in paragraph 5. What those reforms all have in common is that they make credit more expensive. Instituting any of them means less lending. A lot less lending. It means a deep and prolonged recession. Crucially, it means much higher unemployment.

Just for instance, try to imagine winding down Fannie and Freddie. Everyone in Washington knows it has to be done. But doing so means housing finance — all of it — would simply disappear, hammering the economy. So no one is even contemplating how.

Yet the most vocal supporters of financial reform, which should properly be called “lending reform,” also whine that banks and the government aren’t lending enough! As blogger Yves Smith remarked to me on the side “there’s no pretty way out of this. We can’t have our cake and eat it too.”

To get real reform, we have to sacrifice jobs. And Americans aren’t yet willing to make that trade, no matter how mad they are about bailouts.

That said, I have a suspicion that health care costs, as such are going to start falling fairly dramatically before much longer - mostly because the whole medical industry is, at this point, essentially in a giant bubble which is starting to burst. To my way of thinking, the current health care bills are less about reform than they are in prolonging this bubble a little longer.

[Shryke]

Tom Coburn: The only man in the Senate with the balls to say "I'm for the LRA!"

The Lord’s Resistance Army, led by Joseph Kony, is one of the nastiest, most brutal and evil organizations on the plant. The leadership of the LRA has been indicted for crimes against humanity, including murder, rape, sexual slavery, and enlisting of children as combatants. You can read a few recent grizzly details in this Human Rights Watch report. The point, however, is that it’s little surprise that the Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act of 2009 has widespread support in the Senate, including 63 Cosponsors.

But because the Senate’s rules are dumb, and because Senator Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma) is a moral monster, guided by a poisonously misguided ethical compass and a callous disregard for human welfare, there’s been no vote on the bill thanks to Coburn’s hold.

Some more about Coburn's favorite Ugandans: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord%27s_Resistance_Army

The LRA is accused of widespread human rights violations, including murder, abduction, mutilation, sexual enslavement of women and children, and forcing children to participate in hostilities

[Tempra]

Honestly, I think most Americans care about the national debt only in the abstract, because they certainly aren't willing to endure any hardship to pay it down. If you don't believe me, ask yourself these questions:

1) Exactly which tax are you willing to increase (and pay) to help decrease the debt?

2) Which services are you willing to forgo for the same purpose?

For most Americans, the answer to those questions is "someone else's." We Americans aren't big on self-sacrifice, that's for sure. We can blame the banks for the recent economic downturn, but we conveniently forget that the banks weren't giving those shady loans to themselves.

I think the formation of a specific national debt tax would receive more support. I for one would accept that tax. However, when you just increase the income tax and treat it as a general slush fund for government spending, it will receive much more hostility.

[TrackerNeil]

I think the formation of a specific national debt tax would receive more support. I for one would accept that tax. However, when you just increase the income tax and treat it as a general slush fund for government spending, it will receive much more hostility.

Maybe, but I honestly don't think most Americans are that analytical. They hear "new tax" and the response is knee-jerk, whether that tax funds universal health insurance or debt repayment or any other worthy goal. Instead of rationally evaluating the need and the cost, they'll complain about current taxation and tell politicians to cut government waste. It's as if Americans think that, on the pie chart of government spending, there's this giant wedge labeled, "Useless Crap", that can be painlessly cut without any reduction in services. If it were that easy to identify and trim waste, our elected officials would have done it. Any such efforts are thwarted by the simple truth that spending in your district, Tempra, is pork, while spending in my district is necessary investment.

[alguien]

Tom Coburn: The only man in the Senate with the balls to say "I'm for the LRA!"

Some more about Coburn's favorite Ugandans: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord%27s_Resistance_Army

Pardon my French, but holy fucking shit. What a completely moronic evil little asshole. :angry:

One of my favorite causes is Invisible Children, which works to help kids who have either been kidnapped or had their families murdered by the LRA. What they've gone through is absolutely terrible.

Seriously, fuck that guy. [ETA: I'd say more, but I'm not going to go there]

[alguien]

Hypocritical "Family Values" GOP politicians are the gift that keep on giving.

It's no good for a family values Republican to get picked up on a DUI. But substantially worse to get picked up for a DUI after leaving a gay nightclub with an unidentified man in a state vehicle.

That's the sorry state that befell California state Senator Roy Ashburn (R-Bakersfield) early Wednesday.

In better days Ashburn, a fierce opponent of gay rights, was fighting marriage equality and organizing anti-gay marriage rallies as part of his "Traditional Family Values" campaign.

[Lord Mord]

FLoW,

Okay. Did you personally not understand that a balanced budget requirement could result in reductions in entitlement spending? Just curious.

Sure. OTOH, I thought that it wasn't about reducing entitlement spending, but was instead a leg in a strategy to reduce healthcare costs. Such a connection I can certainly surmise but definitely prefer to have spelled out.

[Lord Mord]

The difficulty of a "national debt tax" is that we all know or can be reasonably sure that it would not really stay a "national debt tax." It'll somehow get pooled, or gradually siphoned off.

Or else it'll simply prove an example of risk homeostasis. "Oh, well, there's a safety net, now -- we've got a whole new tax to offset new spending, so we can spend a little more!"

It's a kind of institutional rabies. The sad truth is that the only way to stop a legislator from advocating more spending is to kill it.

[Andriy Czarchenko]

Maybe, but I honestly don't think most Americans are that analytical. They hear "new tax" and the response is knee-jerk, whether that tax funds universal health insurance or debt repayment or any other worthy goal. Instead of rationally evaluating the need and the cost, they'll complain about current taxation and tell politicians to cut government waste. It's as if Americans think that, on the pie chart of government spending, there's this giant wedge labeled, "Useless Crap", that can be painlessly cut without any reduction in services. If it were that easy to identify and trim waste, our elected officials would have done it. Any such efforts are thwarted by the simple truth that spending in your district, Tempra, is pork, while spending in my district is necessary investment.

Tom Schaller wrote two articles about this on fivethirtyeight.com about a month ago.

[AndyP]

Maybe, but I honestly don't think most Americans are that analytical. They hear "new tax" and the response is knee-jerk, whether that tax funds universal health insurance or debt repayment or any other worthy goal. Instead of rationally evaluating the need and the cost, they'll complain about current taxation and tell politicians to cut government waste. It's as if Americans think that, on the pie chart of government spending, there's this giant wedge labeled, "Useless Crap", that can be painlessly cut without any reduction in services. If it were that easy to identify and trim waste, our elected officials would have done it. Any such efforts are thwarted by the simple truth that spending in your district, Tempra, is pork, while spending in my district is necessary investment.

TN

Well the reality is that all to often politicians feed them a line of crap about waste and abuse.

[Watcher]

Honestly, I think most Americans care about the national debt only in the abstract, because they certainly aren't willing to endure any hardship to pay it down. If you don't believe me, ask yourself these questions:

1) Exactly which tax are you willing to increase (and pay) to help decrease the debt?

2) Which services are you willing to forgo for the same purpose?

For most Americans, the answer to those questions is "someone else's." We Americans aren't big on self-sacrifice, that's for sure. We can blame the banks for the recent economic downturn, but we conveniently forget that the banks weren't giving those shady loans to themselves.

Slash the military budget, reduce the amount given to mercenaries private security company, increase oversight of those contacts. Put some sanity back in the correction system, find ways to reduce the recidivism rate, legalize marijuana and release all non-violent marijuana prisoners. Put a sensible guest-worker system in place and slash the border patrol budget, focus their job on catching dangerous people, not simply someone looking for a job. Reform health care. Won't completely balance the budget but will slow the rate it increases.

[lokisnow]

Maybe, but I honestly don't think most Americans are that analytical. They hear "new tax" and the response is knee-jerk, whether that tax funds universal health insurance or debt repayment or any other worthy goal. Instead of rationally evaluating the need and the cost, they'll complain about current taxation and tell politicians to cut government waste. It's as if Americans think that, on the pie chart of government spending, there's this giant wedge labeled, "Useless Crap", that can be painlessly cut without any reduction in services. If it were that easy to identify and trim waste, our elected officials would have done it. Any such efforts are thwarted by the simple truth that spending in your district, Tempra, is pork, while spending in my district is necessary investment.

conversation I had in January with my ex:

But what they really have to do is cut out all the waste. there's so much waste, they don't spend the money properly.

Me: you work for [defense contractor]

Her: and there's a lot of waste in defense too, and there are some cuts that need to be made there, but I was mainly talking about all the pork which is the majority of all the waste.

Me: how much of the federal budget do you think makes up pork?

Her: Oh god, I don't know, it's a lot. Most of it. They waste everything.

Me: Just throw a number out there, guess.

Her: I really don't know. Something really high.

Me: just guess

Her: 70 or 75 percent.

Me: one tenth of one percent.

Her: that's got to be wrong

Me: there's really only a few hundred pork projects in a given year, less than a thousand, and most of those are for local projects under a million dollars. our federal budget is in three trillion.

Her: Well they still waste a lot. If thats what the budget is, that's proof that most of it is wasted.

Me: Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and Defense make up 70-75 percent of our budget, not waste, and those are the four things that are completely untouchable, no one is ever going to manage to cut them, ever. so all the savings has to come out of the other 25%, peoples salaries and jobs, education and services like maintaining the surface of this interstate we're driving on for example. How much would you want to pay to use this road if the government didn't care for it?

Her: well they should just cut out all the waste and then cut our taxes.

re: a national debt "tax" oh that's an interesting idea, but it would just wind up like the social security trust fund, it would be completely liquidated and less than a penny of the tax collected would go to paying down the national debt.

maybe if there was some method by which each of your pay checks was assigned a unique tracking number, that tracking number would be correlated with all the withholdings from that particular check at the IRS, you could go to a website, type in your tracking number and it would jump you to the line item in the spreadsheet with your tracking number in column A, the amount withheld for the national debt tax in B, the national debt before your payment in column c and the national debt after your payment in D (and the date in E) and you'd see a whole array of tracking numbers in the spreadsheet representing all the paystubs that week. news organizations and fact checkers could create data mining tools and crawlers to make sure that no shenanigans were being taken place and the government and financial institutions would be required to post publicaly the new total for the national debt at the closing bell on wallstreet everyday (so you know the real world of how much debt there is left) and if it for some reason the debt wasn't reduced by the total amount received that day and paid against the debt the govt would have some splaining to do.

The real trick would be to funnel the money so that it went straight to--and only too-the agency overseeing the paying down of the debt. if it didn't pass through any other pipelines but was directly electronically transferred only to that department and was immediately paid against the debt I think you could get some support for it. but all of the government will want to 'wet their beak' in that particular pipeline of debt-tax and it would instead just become a slush fund for everyone.

Or as soon as a republican is elected to the whitehouse they'll start some random war in south america (to show how creative they are!) and then appropriate the national debt tax money with emergency powers and it will never ever go back to paying down the debt. meanwhile we'll rack up more republican debt by not paying for the republican wars. a shame a shame.

[Galactus]

To be honest, there IS a lot of waste. Most of it in the US military (which every economist I've heard of claims to be one of the most innefficient organizations in the country, mainly with regards to "basic" supplies, not wepaons, but say, milk, or boots)

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

. It's as if Americans think that, on the pie chart of government spending, there's this giant wedge labeled, "Useless Crap", that can be painlessly cut without any reduction in services. If it were that easy to identify and trim waste, our elected officials would have done it.

I couldn't agree more. True waste isn't in anyone's interest. But promises by politicans of controlling spending by eliminating "waste, fraud, and abuse" have been popular for many decades, and spending keeps going up anyway.