Thus endeth the myth about Republicans and fiscal sanity.
2006: “Senate Votes to Raise Debt Limit “
2003: “Government hits national debt ceiling”
2000: “President Clinton announces another record budget surplus”
1998: “Clinton Unveils His Balanced Budget”
Good ol’ moderate liberal Bubba. A true DLC’er. And the thing that frightens us Republicans is the near universal agreement on the left to go the DLC route.
Dugger
Dugger,
Clinton balanced the budget because the government was divided. One party rule offers no incentive to cut governement. That goes for Democrats or Republicans.
I am not sure that Dugger has really said anything at all here. Strip away the obtuse adjectives and cliches and there is nothing left to argue. What is the DLC ‘route’?
Fiscal responsibility is about narrowing the difference between what you spend and what you collect. Clinton was able to do that because he promoted policies that improved the tax base, raised taxes on upper tiers of taxpayers, reduced spending by aggressively tightening agency budgets and reducing government waste.
Dugger or anybody who calls themself a “fiscal conservative,” please respond by telling us what GWB has done to maintain fiscal responsibility.
Elrod
“Clinton balanced the budget because the government was divided’
And because te economy was strong (although the Internet bubble was a factor).
And zad,
What Frank said. You are inexperienced here .. arguing against prototypes rather than human beings. W is a big spending moderate Republican. Like Bubba was a moderate D. My defense of W merely addresses the silly ’spawn of satan’, mind reading viriolic hate directed his way. Personally, I’m not sure about Iraq and think he spends too much.
Dugger
He hasn’t… Just remember that is not revnue that’s the problem; it’s spending. elrod may be half right: Clinton didn’t balance the budget because the government was divided, but one party rule offers no incentive to cut government.
A balanced budget and a surplus to the biggest deficit in history.
IN. EIGHT. YEARS.
That takes talent, right there.
Funny how these wingers keep defending their Leader, no matter how bad a job he does. The are androids. No other explanation for it.
Frank D, please let me know what specific line-item you want taken off the current Federal budget in order to get spending in line with receipts. Bear in mind that non-Social Security spending cuts must amount to about $600 Billion of a budget of about $1.9 Billion. Let’s not even consider the GDP effect of this reduction on the income multiplier or national assets. If you can come up with something substantive, let’s talk.
I’m not defending Bush’s inability to veto a spending bill…
As for budget cutting, I’ll go for the “Sowell plan”: cut every single item across the board by 10% a year until expenditures are less revenues.
That’s right, cut everything by 10% a year, until expenditures are equal to, or less than revenues — with no tax increases.
Dugger, I am “inexperienced?” – at what? Debating a shadow maybe.
I am arguing that Republicans are talking out their butts about the budget and fiscal responsibility. For twenty-five years they have espoused fiscal responsibilty but not delivered. Sure, they cut taxes. That’s the easy part. But they don’t have the votes or the stomach to do the hard part – the part that puts more homeless elders and potholes on streets guarded by fewer cops and firefighters.
Dugger, if you want to really debate this issue as more than a partisan hack espousing National Party talking points, I hope that you will stop your ineffectual namecalling and actually debate your position.
cut everything by 10% a year, until expenditures are equal to, or less than revenues with no tax increases.
Didn’t they already do that? Oh no, that was just for domestic services, right? Education, Soc. Sec., medicare, infrastructure
To quote Al Franken:
“Too much money. That was our problem five years ago.”
Frank D, this is your plan? Seriously?
So we will build 10% fewer roads and have 10% fewer police and firefighters. We will close 10% of veteran’s hospitals and pay 10% less in unemployment insurance. We will equip American soldiers overseas with 10% less body armor and have 10% fewer homeland secuity first responders.
Well, I can’t say you don’t have a plan. It is political suicide and essentially turns us into a third-world country but good luck with it.
Guys, Frank has to keep things really simple. Don’t cause him to think too hard.
zadura — speak to buma.
Maybe you two, together, can work out the difference between a 10% cut in the budget, and a 10% reduction in services. I have neither the time nor the inclination
Incidentally, how many firemen and policemen are paid by the federal government?
Remind me…
By the way, we could probably cut our budget by 60% or 70% before we got down to the level of 10 third world countries combined
work out the difference between a 10% cut in the budget, and a 10% reduction in services
Budget pays for services= less $$ in the budget=fewer services. So, your’re right, Frank, a 10% decrease in the budget does not = a 10% decrease in services. It’s probably a lot more.
we could probably cut our budget by 60% or 70% before we got down to the level of 10 third world countries combined
… and the federal gov’t is working on that every day.
Just as long as Halliburton gets paid on the first of the month.
duros62: I’m just getting sick and tired of people with nothing to say telling me I’m wrong. A 10% cut in the budget means we spend 90 cents instead of a dollar. It doesn’t mean we hire people who are 5 foot 3, instead of 5 feet 10.
Maybe you were thinking that the USDA would cut everybody’s Food Stamps by 10% or something?
{Aside: please indicate which “domestic services” were cut already}
See, you don’t understand, so you make fun of me — that’s the Liberal way!
duro: Of course, cutting the budget may mean reducing services. It could also mean curtailing promotions, early retirements, reductions in hiring, as opposed to “freezes” which allow for one – to – one replacements, changing office locations to save rent, or consolidating offices to save rent, repairing instead of replacing government cars. All that can be done before any services are reduced.
It doesn t mean we hire people who are 5 foot 3, instead of 5 feet 10.
BWAHAHAHA!
ROTFLMAO!
Stop Frank, your killin’ me, here.
Less $$ in the budget=fewer services.
That is all I’m sayin’.
And, dude, I’m not making fun of you, don’t be like that.
zad,
What name calling? That you are inexperienced here? Thats true otherwise you wouldn’ have asked me to explain positions that I haven’t taken. Otherwise the only name calling I see is partiisan hack and how do you know if I get talking points (actually have never gotten talking points).
You assume too much. You are inexperienced here. I could easily demand you explain Ward Churchill’s positon on 9-11. After all, he is of the left. But that would be ‘assuming’.
Dugger
Well, I’m all for that, Frank. But I don’t think it’ll happen.
Frank;
They could start with cutting off eligibility to an income level below yours
for access to Medicaid. That should equal about 10%
Frank, do you know what the rate of payout of services vs. administrative cost is for your Government? The Government we have is actually extremely cheap. Here’s a brief sketch.
The question about what would happen if 10% were taken out of any Federal budget can easily be determined by looking at the amount of administrative costs vs. direct goods/services or transfer payments. Typically admin. costs run from as low as 1% for SSI and Medicare to 10-15% in R&D programs where due dilligence costs are high. If you reduce the budget for Medicare by 10%, even if you had all service and processing costs handled by the recipients themselves, an entirely impossible task, the amount of transfer payments would be cut back by about 9%. So this begs a serious question for you. How do you want that impact to be felt? Do you want all recipients of medicare to have their checks reduced by 9% or just find a group of them, say all of those in your state, and put them out on the street to die homeless and penniless?
Finally, I always laugh when people talk about budgets without deep knowledge of the ripples those changes have. You do lose police and firemen for two reasons. First, DHS money goes directly to first responders to pay for the upgrades to service and facilities under enabling Federal legislation. Second, because all payments trickle through the economy from Federal, to State to Local, where local governments simply don’t have the tools to finance local operations. In my great state of California, this starts with Feds who cut back transportation funds, which causes state governments to tighten their belts and reduce state education payments, which force local politicians to decide between schools, police and firemen. So we get rid of effective community policing programs and lower teacher salaries. Your state may have a different approach.
Dugger, you are right. I am inexperienced. People with experience on this board know that you don’t really have or defend positions. You just call people names and change the subject. You can call me experienced now, which is to say, I will ignore you in the future.
Cleo, what in the hell are you talking about?
How about 10% less military expenditures? How about finding the $9 billion “lost” in the Pentagon? How about defunding Iraq? That ought to help out.
factcheck:(no one has ever named himself more inappropriately) Those numbers are peanuts in this equation.
The 2006 est Receipts are { http://tinyurl.com/ok39w } [pdf]
2,285,491,000,000
10% = 228,549,100,000
Let’s see you knock that off with some Pentagon cuts…
How about we cut military pensions 10%? Military pay 10%? Every year.
You may be right, Z, but it doesn’t matter. The Federal government shouldn’t be responsible for how the States handle cutbacks.
Suppose I gave you an allowance of $50 a week (OK you’re a young kid, I’m a cheap Dad), and you’ve already got a $50 a week nicotine habit — a little more than a carton, where I live.
One day, I tell you, “Sorry, son. I have to cut your allowance by $10 a week.” What are you gonna say? “But, Dad, I’m smoking a carton a week!”?
What would I care? I don’t want you smoking at all…
If what you are arguing is that the budget can’t be reduced, even as revenues continue to climb (meaning the defecit is invincible), then either Clinton pulled off a miracle, or you all should stop complaining about Bush, or both.
Frank, there’s no logic in your first argument. It is simply an argument by analogy. California pays more in Federal taxes, as do most blue states, than they get in services and transfer payments. Your analogy works fine as long as a situation exists in which I am a child actor and I earned the money that you are giving as an allowance. But that’s neither fair nor equitable.
On your second point, I would never argue that nothing could be done to balance the budget on the spend side. Al Gore, for all his wonky faults, created the National Performance Review, which saved over $50 billion through government streamlining and personnel reductions. But that was a blue-ribbon panel that took years and only found 2% savings…
If you want to cut the budget at this point, you can’t get there with administrative trimming. Cut off funding to military R&D? Sure. Cut off funding to medicare? That’ll work. Cut off veteran’s benefits? Why not. This is why the debate is flawed. We are at the point where the costs that are cut hurt people or eliminate national assets. That’s where we differ on what can be done on the spend side. So, I submit to you, because I truly believe that you, Frank, are smart enough to see that this issue will need to be solved in other ways. Or we’re in for a world of hurt.
OK, the easy way (i.e., the liberal way) keep raising taxes and let spending increase.
Now I could put the ball in your court, couldn’t I?. You know that, according to economics 101, tax cuts have produced more revenue.
So spending must be cut.
I never suggested that only reducing adminstrative expenses would do the trick. I was suggesting you could reduce administrative expenses first.
And, if spending has to be cut, it has to be cut.
We are at the point where the costs that are cut hurt people or eliminate national assets.
That’s where we differ, all right. We are not at that point. We are at the point where if we go on spending, we will be hurting people.
Have you been to a VA Hospital lately? It’s full of WW II outpatients picking up free cardio care and expensive heart pills, at taxpayers’ expense. They’re all most likely eligible for Medicare or their own company’s retirement health plan or both, but they don’t want to make a co – pay.
If we don’t stop that, we’ll be paying it for years.
Things like that can be done. Think about it — the money for these services has been going up slowly but surely, year after year, and yet somehow, it is believed that it cannot be reduced to some point in the past.
The expenditures must ever be increased, the number of eligibles must ever be increased, inflation drives the cost of the expenditures up, so sooner or later Democrats will be in power, and taxes will be increased, naturally productivity will decline, unemployment will rise, more benefits will be paid, and round and round we go.
Spending must be cut — period.
You don’t like 10% — fine. Pick a smaller per cent. Stick to it. Sooner or later, expenditures will equal revenues. Stop it right there. The following year, there will be a surplus. Nothing tricky about it.
How’s this — don’t increase expenditures at all, until they are matched by revenues?
‘How s this don t increase expenditures at all, until they are matched by revenues?”
Pay as you go. What a unique idea!!!!
Frank, you haven’t left the Party, the Party has left you !!!