US Politics XXXVIII

[Shryke]

A trillion dollar interest payment is something to fear.

Why?

[Andriy Czarchenko]

A trillion dollar interest payment is something to fear.

Is it? Compared to what? The fact is that you´re just using a big number no-one really understands to describe something without any real context.

[Shryke]

Shryke,

Yeah, because raising taxes during an economic downturn is exactly what saintly John Maynard Keynes recommends.

This is just you avoiding the point.

After all, if we're being Keynesian here, incuring debt right now is exactly what the government is SUPPOSED to do.

But obviously, once the economy gets back on track, raising taxes should be a priority in order to balance the budget. They are, after all, by far the largest part of the deficit you are so worried about.

[Tempra]

Is it? Compared to what? The fact is that you´re just using a big number no-one really understands to describe something without any real context.

Interest payments are considered mandatory spending for the yearly budget. Adding nearly a TRILLION dollars of mandatory spending is a big deal. For 2010, our interest payments were $164 billion of the $2.184 trillion in mandatory spending. Interest, therefore, represents 7.5% of our mandatory spending. If our interest balloons to 900 billion, our interest payment is going to be a much higher percentage of our mandatory spending unless our GDP/budget increase similarly. Do you think that is going to happen? If not, how are we going to deal with this problem? Cut out more "waste?"

[The Progressive]

Lol, did Scot actually admonished Trebla for raising incredibly pointless hypotheticals as a way to advance his argument?

[The Progressive]

Interest payments are considered mandatory spending for the yearly budget. Adding nearly a TRILLION dollars of mandatory spending is a big deal. For 2010, our interest payments were $164 billion of the $2.184 trillion in mandatory spending. Interest, therefore, represents 7.5% of our mandatory spending. If our interest balloons to 900 billion, our interest payment is going to be a much higher percentage of our mandatory spending unless our GDP/budget increase similarly. Do you think that is going to happen?

Yes

If not, how are we going to deal with this problem? Cut out more "waste?"

Or raise your taxes.

[Shryke]

Interest payments are considered mandatory spending for the yearly budget. Adding nearly a TRILLION dollars of mandatory spending is a big deal. For 2010, our interest payments were $164 billion of the $2.184 trillion in mandatory spending. Interest, therefore, represents 7.5% of our mandatory spending. If our interest balloons to 900 billion, our interest payment is going to be a much higher percentage of our mandatory spending unless our GDP/budget increase similarly. Do you think that is going to happen? If not, how are we going to deal with this problem? Cut out more "waste?"

And again, why is A TRILLION so scary?

It's called inflation.

A million would have been an insanely inconceivable number to someone from like 100 years ago. Now it's pocket change to the government.

[Shryke]

Also, turns out Cantor's story is even MORE full of shit then before:

1) The bullet was a random stray bullet fired by someone into the air.

2) The office in question isn't in his district. It isn't labeled as having anything to do with him. It's not even listed on his website. There is absolutely no way for anyone without inside knowledge of his office to even know said building had anything to do with Cantor.

3) Finally, the window hits wasn't even the window of the office of the people who work for him. It was the window of ANOTHER office in the same building.

So basically, a stray bullet randomly hit a window in the same building as someone vaguely and not publicly connected to Cantor.

And obviously, it's all the Democrats fault.

[TrackerNeil]

Tracker,

So, conservatives who have for years repeatedly said the Federal Government doesn't always have the power to do what it attempts to do and have opposed such laws (patriot act Medicare drug benefit) proposed by purportedly conservative administrations are hypocrites too?

If they say one thing and do another, yes they are.

[Andriy Czarchenko]

Interest payments are considered mandatory spending for the yearly budget. Adding nearly a TRILLION dollars of mandatory spending is a big deal. For 2010, our interest payments were $164 billion of the $2.184 trillion in mandatory spending. Interest, therefore, represents 7.5% of our mandatory spending. If our interest balloons to 900 billion, our interest payment is going to be a much higher percentage of our mandatory spending unless our GDP/budget increase similarly. Do you think that is going to happen? If not, how are we going to deal with this problem? Cut out more "waste?"

There is actually nothing scary about the word TRILLION however much you´d like it to be so. Stop trying to use it as a scary boogieman and we may even have a honest discussion about the issues some day. Unfortunately I´ll have to leave now, maybe tomorrow. :ohwell:

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

What's constitutional is whatever the courts say is constitutional

Well, then I assume you had no objection to how the Court ruled in 2000 regarding the election, because the law is whatever the Court says it is.

From what I've been reading the legal scholars seem to think the courts are going to call most or all of the reform law constitutional.

Which is exactly what I said....

However, conservatives should feel free to hunt down an activist judge who will overturn the will of the House of Representatives, a supermajority of the Senate, and the President of the United States.

You mean like the court did when it threw out the military tribunals enacted by Congress and the last President?

[TrackerNeil]

Well, then I assume you had no objection to how the Court ruled in 2000 regarding the election, because the law is whatever the Court says it is.

I didn't like the ruling, and I thought it made the country look shady, but I can't speak to the constitutional aspects of the case. No hypocrite, I.

You mean like the court did when it threw out the military tribunals enacted by Congress and the last President?

And this matters to me...why? As a liberal, I think it is perfectly acceptable to take one's concerns to the courts, and for those courts to overrule the public will when they deem it necessary. It's conservatives who have decried that practice and invented the term "activist judge", so you'd think they'd be a bit more respectful of majority will.

[alguien]

I believe Parris McBride weighed in on GRRM's blog on subject we were talking about earlier:

Please give me a link to a reputable news source about 'pro-choice' violence against conservatives.

Because I don't recall any news item about Terry Randall finding a bomb attached to his car, I don't recall a prominent 'leftie' talker inciting their listeners to do anything more radical than help get people registered to vote and to throw the bums out.

I've been involved and active as a Democrat, a liberal and a strong leftist since I was a child, I was a peace marshall at anti-war rallies in DC and defended private property against the anarchists who wanted to tear it all down. Even during the Bush years, our strongest signs and slogans on the left called for impeachment, declared that Bush and Cheney et al were committing war crimes and should be sent to the sent to the Hague for trial. The signs of the extremists on the right declare that if they don't get their way they'll start shootin' the place up.

Please, there's no room left for disingenuous false equivalencies.

[tzanth]

Random thought: Do the tea baggers represent a millennial movement? They don't seem to have much in the way of a unifying ideology except a profound hatred for anything associated with the status quo. They don't want to build or achieve anything, but strive for the destruction of the current system. They blame current problems on a host of causes ranging from the truely crazy -demons, dieties, conspiracies etc.- to the tired and trite e.g. corruption, greet etc. Yet they all seem to think that a miraculous change in American demographics will somehow deliver electoral victories in November, ushering in some mythological system with a combination of lower taxes, less government, a bigger military, and better medicare. Doesn't that sound like a millennial cult?

[TrackerNeil]

Interesting article on Slate regarding the Democrats' prospects this autumn.

[TrackerNeil]

Random thought: Do the tea baggers represent a millennial movement? They don't seem to have much in the way of a unifying ideology except a profound hatred for anything associated with the status quo. They don't want to build or achieve anything, but strive for the destruction of the current system. They blame current problems on a host of causes ranging from the truely crazy -demons, dieties, conspiracies etc.- to the tired and trite e.g. corruption, greet etc. Yet they all seem to think that a miraculous change in American demographics will somehow deliver electoral victories in November, ushering in some mythological system with a combination of lower taxes, less government, a bigger military, and better medicare. Doesn't that sound like a millennial cult?

And like many cults, proving them wrong usually only strengthens the belief. As an undergrad I did a paper on that kind of thing and was amazed at how durable peoples' irrational beliefs can be. The birthers are an excellent example of folks whose beliefs are not only untouched by contradictory facts, but even buttressed by them.

[Lord of Rhinos]

And this matters to me...why? As a liberal, I think it is perfectly acceptable to take one's concerns to the courts, and for those courts to overrule the public will when they deem it necessary. It's conservatives who have decried that practice and invented the term "activist judge", so you'd think they'd be a bit more respectful of majority will.

Except that an activist judge is someone who decides the constitution says something it has never been interpreted to say before. A right to privacy and hence abortion was a new right (or at least one that hadn't been noticed before). An activist conservative judge would be someone who suddenly found payroll taxes to be unconstitutional.

[TrackerNeil]

Except that an activist judge is someone who decides the constitution says something it has never been interpreted to say before. A right to privacy and hence abortion was a new right (or at least one that hadn't been noticed before). An activist conservative judge would be someone who suddenly found payroll taxes to be unconstitutional.

Or, perhaps, one who decided that corporations have all the First Amendment rights of actual human beings.

Judge John Jones, who presided over Kitzmiller vs. Dover, once said that an activist judge is a judge who hands down a ruling you don't like.

[Lord of Rhinos]

The original way that fiction came about could be considered activist, but it has been around for an awfully long time now. I guess that the SCOTUS applying the firmly established rational of corporations=people to campaign contributions doesn't strike me as that activist compared to Roe v. Wade and for conservatives Roe v. Wade is the benchmark of judicial activism (along with gay marriage). In any case, what I'm trying to say is you seem to be using a false equivalency here. The mandate (which I support and think is probably constitutional) deserves to be challenged in court. If it is thrown out that doesn't constitute judicial activism because it is not a well established rule.

I agree with you that conservatives often overlook judicial activism when it is in there favor but this is not a case of such activity.

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

I believe Parris McBride weighed in on GRRM's blog on subject we were talking about earlier:

Parris' actions and intentions were not shared by everyone else in the antiwar movement, no $atter what she may claim. And if she wants to play the Vietnam card, maybe she should sit down for a cup of coffee with Bill Ayers.