Tag Archives: revenue

Sequester week: 5 excuses the GOP is using to crash the government

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Marc Ambinder looks at 5 reasons why the GOP might risk the sequester, which could also be called 5 excuses the GOP is using to crash the government (emphasis, parenthetical comments below are mine):

(PRIDE, HURT FEE FEES) 1. The White House may have oversold its victory in convincing Republicans to jettison Grover Norquist’s tax pledge and for winning tax hikes with a correspondingly miniscule amount of spending cuts when the issue first came to the foreground at the end of the year. Democratic triumphalism made Republicans feel like they had lost big-time, when in fact, there really was no alternative…

(LIES) 2. The sequester, many GOPers have come to believe (have they?), was Barack Obama’s idea. Therefore, since it was his idea, if it happens, Republicans will be able to blame him for its consequences…

(SHIRKING) 3. The sequester does not directly hit GOP constituencies at first. It hits government workers, primarily, in terms of layoffs and furloughs. Actual pain will first be felt by people who rely on government services that aren’t entitlements. So maybe, (maybe?) soft Republicans won’t be disgusted…

(HOSTAGE TAKING) 4. Maybe: The best way to force the White House to make a deal is to let the sequester happen, and then let its effects swirl around a bit, and let panic set in.

(STRAIGHT UP LAZINESS) 5. Spending has to be cut. The sequester does it summarily, but it does indeed accomplish a core goal of the revanchist wing of the GOP.

There’s actually a new excuse! #6 –

(STUPIDITY) 6. One of the new John Boehner sequestration talking points is that Republicans couldn’t possibly accept any new revenue, even the revenue he was publicly offering two months ago, because there are still wasteful government programs. As Boehner wrote Wednesday, “no one should be talking about raising taxes when the government is still paying people to play videogames, giving folks free cellphones, and buying $47,000 cigarette-smoking machines.”

Guess what?

  • The $47,000 smoking machine… turns out to be a piece of medical research equipment used by the Veteran Administration: “VA Researchers are using the smoking machine to cause chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in mice by the same mechanisms by which the disease occurs in Veterans and others who smoke cigarettes,” 
  • Paying people to play video games is not some federal grant to mail checks to good-for-nothing slackers to lounge around playing their newfangled machines while honest God-fearing Americans go to work. It’s a grant from the National Science Foundation to test the hypothesis that some cognitive loss owing to old age can be slowed through certain video games.
  • Giving folks free cell phones [to the poor] has existed since 1984, and obviously moved from landlines to cell phones, on the theory that a phone is vital for things like being able to contact police or fire departments, get a job, and so on. Recipients get 250 free minutes a month — which, at less than ten minutes a day, doesn’t leave room for lots of chatting about Justin Bieber.

Yep, you’d have to be a complete idiot to take anything the GOP says at face value – especially when they talk about “raising taxes.” In the current debate over revenue and sequestration cuts, it sounds like the President and the Democrats want everyone’s taxes raised. Nope. In reality, it means that the President wants to close tax loopholes for the wealthy to acquire some additional revenue to put towards the deficit, which would make the spending cuts less deep. Reality and the Republican Party is the difference between information and disinformation.

The GDP dropped because government spending dropped: your move, GOP

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Economic growth for the Q4 GDP was down -0.1%. Why? Because government spending dropped. Steve Benen explains:

So why did we see slight contraction in the GDP? In large part because spending cuts — federal, state, and local — shaved more than a full percentage point off GDP growth. I realize the right doesn’t want to hear or believe this, but when Washington spends far less — in this case, the cuts focused on defense — it takes capital out of the economy and undermines growth. It is, as a practical matter, a form of austerity, which helps hit the brakes on the economy. This is Economics 101 and yet Republicans continue to insist that it is the only policy they really care about. It’s something to keep in mind as the Beltway’s preoccupation with debt reduction, not the recovery, continues unabated. It’s also a reminder that the automatic sequestration cuts may very well push the nation closer to a recession this year.

Jonathan Chait says there’s good news: “…the contraction is sort of a fluke — consumers and businesses are spending away, and a decline in government spending is entirely accountable for the contraction. (Defense spending dropped 22 percent over the quarter.)” But here’s the bad news:

“The budget “sequestration” will lop more than a trillion dollars of spending cuts out of the economy, creating similar effects as we saw this last quarter. The Obama administration had hoped the threat of these cuts, half of which come out of defense, would force Republicans to compromise on some kind of long-term deal that would eliminate all the short-term austerity and replace it with gradual, long-term deficit reduction. But that seems unlikely to happen. Obama wants the long-term plan to include a mix of higher revenue through tax reform with cuts to Medicare and Social Security. Republicans insist the deal must consist entirely of cuts to social programs, and any higher revenue is unacceptable. The GOP’s stated plan is to just implement the sequestration cuts.”

Brian Beutler notices a Democratic strategy is emerging, which involves chipping away at the sequester (and the deep cuts to social programs) with popular cuts to raise revenue, such as oil company subsidies:

Reid tipped his hand to his party’s subtler strategy. “There are many low-hanging pieces of fruit out there that Republicans have said they agreed on previously,” Reid added. “I’m not going to go into detail, but one of them, of course, is deal with oil companies.” That’s a tip of the hand. As the sequestration deadline approaches at the end of next month, Republicans will be be stuck with an absolutist line. Letting the sequester hit would be better than replacing it with even a penny of revenue; and their offer, from the last Congress, is to replace the entire sequester largely with deep cuts to social programs for the poor. Democrats will have a counteroffer. Perhaps the parties can’t agree on a complete sequester replacement. But they can pay it down for a few months with popular cuts and revenue raisers, including by eliminating tax subsidies for oil companies.

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Meanwhile, rabid Fox ‘news’ viewers will continue to imagine members of the Republican Party are on their side because… guns? No gays? No abortion?


image: DailyKos

It’s Republicans, not Democrats, who would love to drown our Medicare in a bathtub (and Social Security and any other social or safety net program you can think of). Why? So wealthy people like the Romneys can write off $77,000 for dancing horses and so the GOP can funnel more of our tax dollars via subsidies and tax cuts to their buddies in defense and oil.

Sen. Pat Toomey’s dumbass payment priority plan

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Think Progress: “Now that Congress has to raise the debt ceiling again in the next few months, Toomey is back with his bill…

“[...] As ThinkProgress explained at the time, Toomey’s plan is unworkable and doesn’t prevent the U.S. from defaulting on its obligations. These charts from the Bipartisan Policy Center show why. Once the debt ceiling has been breached and Treasury has exhausted the extraordinary measures at its disposal to avoid default, the government will be limited to only the revenue that comes in each day. BPC lays out what happens:”

###

Congress is obligated to pay ALL the federal government’s bills — not just the ones that Republicans like the best.

Morning Bunker Report: Wednesday 6.6.2012

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WHAT ROMNEY / REPUBLICANS STAND FOR———————————————

“But if people only watch the three big networks … a lot of people will assume that Obama really is just doing a great job and he just can’t get those crazy Republicans to help him out.” – Mike Huckabee, commenting on what people would think of President Obama without Fox News

Romney should probably stop talking about the auto-industry rescue altogether — The Republican has repeatedly argued that GM and Chrysler should have relied on private funding to restructure and get back on their feet. That, of course, was impossible. In early 2009, the credit markets were frozen and there was no private funding available. (When a company called Bain Capital was approached, it refused to invest.) And so it appears that Romney is shifting once again, not only taking credit for a policy he attacked, but also saying taxpayer support “was fine,” after arguing for three years it wasn’t fine. The new twist is that Romney is on board with public support after, but not before, bankruptcy, but that doesn’t make sense, either — GM and Chrysler would have never survived the bankruptcy process without federal intervention. Romney could simply try the truth — he should admit, “I was wrong” — but that seems to be the only position he hasn’t tried yet. – Steve Benen

 
images: sandandglass

How things change! Emails show how Romney pushed Massachusetts health bill: Romneycare – The emails show the Republican governor was closely engaged in negotiating details of the bill, working with top Democratic state leaders and drafting early copies of opinion articles backing it. Mr. Romney and his aides, meanwhile, strongly defended the so-called individual mandate, a requirement that everyone in Massachusetts have or buy health insurance. And they privately discussed ideas that might be anathema to today’s GOP—including publicly shaming companies that didn’t provide enough health insurance to employees. – WSJ

This can’t be re-stated enough: if Romney wins, he’ll pay himself  $5 million – One of the perks of being a Republican president: Under his plan, Romney’s tax rate would fall from its current 14.7 percent to 13.1 percent, while under Obama’s tax plan, Romney would pay a 34.3 percent rate. The difference in these rates means about $5 million for Romney’s tax bill. By the way, Romney’s $5 million personal tax cut would add to the deficit. You know, because he’s a fiscal hawk and really, really cares about the deficit and debt. – Bob Cesca

Hey, struggling homeowners! Mitt Romney hates you.

Nobel-winning economist predicts Romney recession – Economist Joseph Stiglitz is hitting the media circuit to promote his new book.. Speaking to reporters in New York on Monday, the Nobel Prize-winner and former World Bank chief claimed that if former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney (R) is elected president in 2012, the risk of another recession will go up “significantly.” “The Romney plan is going to slow down the economy, worsen the jobs deficit and significantly increase the likelihood of a recession,” he said. – Raw Story

Lindsey Graham wants more wars – SO YES TO TAXES! Mr. Graham is openly talking about revenue increases to offset the costs. Even South Carolina’s ardently conservative House members, Mick Mulvaney, Joe Wilson and Jeff Duncan, said last week that they were ready to talk.  [...] “The debate on the debt is an opportunity to send the world a signal that we are going to remain the strongest military force in the world,” he said. “We’re saying, ‘We’re going to keep it, and we’re going to make it the No. 1 priority of a broke nation.’ ” To that end, his arguments grow increasingly complex, involving a near-term confrontation with Syria and what he is sure will be a military strike on Iran late this summer, “an air and sea campaign from hell,” he tells an audience in Sumter. A large screen at the Third Army command center in nearby Shaw Air Force Base seemed to back him up on that. It broadcast a multicolored map of Iran with its air defenses demarcated in loud, red circles. – NYTimes

Rep. Jeff Landry (R-LA ) blatantly lies about Obama giving TSA waivers to Muslims – on conservative talk radio Monday… Landry [blatantly lied about the Obama administration and an imaginary] Transportation Security Administration program that lets Muslim passengers through security without even so much as a sideways glance. [...] The TSA gives no waivers, special rights or exceptions based upon religious beliefs. The only people who get special treatment are those willing to pay for it by submitting to a pre-screening process. Minorities, such as Muslims, Sikhs and people who appear to be from the Middle East, have typically reported facing even greater scrutiny by TSA agents than other passengers. Rep. Landry appears to have invented the claim as a way of illustrating another imagined controversy: that Obama is secretly punishing people of his own faith because of his spiritual preference for Muslims. — Raw Story

WHAT THE PRESIDENT / DEMOCRATS STAND FOR ————————————

“Nobody has seen a communist in over a decade.” — Bill Clinton, quoted by The Hill, criticizing House Republicans for failing to reprimand Rep. Allen West (R-FL) who claimed as many as 80 Democrats in Congress are members of the Communist Party.

Michigan had sixth highest rate of growth in 2011: no wonder Romney keeps etch-a-sketching his earlier opinions on Detroit and letting it go bankrupt — New data released today by the Bureau of Economic Analysis revealed that Michigan, the home of the American auto-industry, had the sixth highest rate of growth in the nation in 2011. […] For comparison’s sake, the Michigan economy shrank by 9 percent in 2009. Now the state boasts the sixth highest rate of growth in the nation. An unprecedented turnaround that occurred in just two years. — Bob Cesca

Some Republicans are now willing to increase taxes, as Democrats have been pushing for all along (but only to preserve military spending) – In March, Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) pointed out that a “vote to extend the Bush tax cuts in their entirety would, in essence, be the vote to lock in sequestration” by cutting down on revenue to offset government debt. The Times report today pointed out that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is unlikely to allow sequestration to be averted without a debt reduction package that includes increased government revenue. Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) was more blunt speaking to the Times, noting that the Republicans that supported last August’s Budget Control Act — 28 in the Senate and 174 in the House — were given the choice of automatically-triggered military spending cuts or tax increases. Van Hollen said: The consistent pattern here is they have chosen to defend special interest tax breaks over defense spending. They made that choice. – Think Progress

Tax cuts for the wealthy, austerity for the rest of us: pension cuts – “In both San Diego and San Jose, voters appeared to overwhelmingly approve ballot initiatives designed to help balance ailing municipal budgets by cutting retirement benefits for city workers,” the New York Times reports. Wall Street Journal: “Since the recession, dozens of state legislatures and city councils throughout the U.S. have scaled back benefits and jobs in an attempt to plug large budget holes. But unlike most efforts to rein in pension costs, the San Jose measure targets current workers and retirees rather than focusing only on workers that have yet to be hired.” – Political Wire  

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer charges GOP with Obstructionism – “It’s not ‘our way or the highway,’ it’s ‘our way or no highway.’ No jobs. No progress. No consensus. No agreement,” Hoyer said. “So what the Republican hardliners are doing, are saying, [is], ‘We won’t agree in conference, we won’t come to agreement, we won’t help create jobs in America … unless we get our way.’” — Roll Call News

[I]t seems Wisconsin Democrats have managed one significant, if largely symbolic, victory for the night by apparently reclaiming control of the Wisconsin state senate. There were four state senate recalls tonight. Dems needed one to flip control of the state’s upper house. Three of those the Republicans won handily. But they appear to have won the 21st district. […] 16 of the 33 seats are again up for election in 5 months. – TPM

Scott Walker steps right up into the pocket of those who got him there — Make no mistake. A star was born last night. You will now see Scott Walker, the goggle-eyed homunculus hired by Koch Industries to run their midwest subsidiary formerly known as the state of Wisconsin, everywhere in the energetic precincts of the revived American right. He will be on the covers of their startlingly advertising-free little magazines. He will be the darling of every wingnut blogger in the extended monkeyhouse; poo will be flung high and far in celebration of him. He will have a high-profile speaking role in Tampa this August, and it is very likely that there are people in Iowa who already are booking house parties for the late autumn of 2015 in his honor. He will be a bigger presence on Fox News than are Brit Hume’s jowls or Shep Smith’s gradually swelling public rage. I will tell you what: Willard Romney better be damned glad that he’s already clinched the nomination, and that Walker didn’t win this recall a year ago. And, because they are a timid flock of ruminants, the rest of the elite political press corps will wander, sheeplike, in his general direction, grazing amid the unmitigated manure of his victory speech here last night. Oh, Lord, are we going to be hearing about what a “turning point” in Walker’s career that speech was. – Charles P. Pierce

Tax rates: Obama vs. Romney

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shortformblog:

Obama vs. Romney on tax rates: As you can see, rates are largely the same—except for the nation’s richest and poorest. The poor would pay almost twice as much in taxes under Romney’s plan; meanwhile, the very richest in the country would be forced to cough up about 10% more of their income under Obama. The net effect? In short, Romney’s plan would reduce federal revenues to about 17% of GDP—down .9% from where they are now. Obama’s budget would raise revenues 19.2%, with most of that money coming from those making over $250,000 a year.

(Graphic and data courtesy of The Washington Post / Tax Policy Center).

Attn teabaggers: here’s what happens if the debt ceiling is not raised

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Salon | What happens if the debt ceiling bomb explodes?:

In some quarters of the American political system, there are people — predominantly of the Tea Party Republican persuasion — who believe that Congress doesn’t need to raise the debt ceiling. If the U.S. government isn’t allowed to borrow any more money to pay its bills, runs their line of thinking, that’s fine and dandy. Finally, we’d be forced to tighten our belts and “live within our means!” Ignore the fearmongers predicting disaster — they’re just trying to scare markets and voters.

[...] Let’s start with the basic numbers. According to the Bipartisan Policy Center, the U.S. Treasury will have about $172.4 billion in revenue in August that can be applied to $306.7 billion in outstanding bills. If the U.S. Treasury is forbidden from borrowing any additional funds, it will therefore have to cut total August spending by about $134 billion, or 44 percent. …Click on over to this cool interactive widget at Bloomberg Government and decide for yourself who gets paid and who doesn’t if Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling.

Spreadsheet breakdown:

cont:

[...] Now, there are plenty of Tea Partyers who would no doubt be happy to get rid of the EPA, food stamps, unemployment benefits, Medicaid and any number of other government spending programs…

Since this is usually “all about me” when we’re talking teapartyers, and so many teapartyers are receiving Social Security and Medicare benefits, why shouldn’t the rest of us — the working people, the unemployed, the college students — all agree that Social Security / Medicare should be cut if the limit isn’t raised? Those two programs total $77.8 billion out of August’s budget — which is over 25% of all the money due. The majority of us don’t receive those benefits and we’re learning quickly that only two things should matter: ME and MINE as opposed to YOU and YOURS. In other words, boot straps.

…There are lots of different ways to divvy up government spending according to your personal priorities… if the U.S. government cut its spending [by 44%] for both August and September, GDP growth [c]ould drop by 2.3 percent from the previous quarter.

[...] Choose your poison: global market chaos, savage cuts to the social welfare safety net or recession. Or, heck, all of the above. …Slower economic growth means less tax revenue, which would force even more budget cuts. Laying off hundreds of thousands of federal employees would further boost the unemployment rate. And if the U.S. government ever did end up authorized to borrow money again, the yield it would likely have to offer to attract buyers for its damaged goods would undoubtedly skyrocket — putting further pressure on government finances.

Of course despite this alarming situation, those tax cuts for the wealthy are #1 on the list of important things for teapartyers and their corporate sponsors and their Republican leaders — Boehner, Cantor, Kyl and McConnell. This budgeting lesson should clearly illustrate how we’re all paying to provide the wealthy with their tax cuts. There’s no way the federal government obviously needs more revenue, right? We’ll just cut YOUR programs and services instead of mine.

UPDATE:

Thursday’s meeting was cordial. Cantor did not say a word. Coincidence?

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What’s this tell you:

NY TIMES: “Unlike the tone of previous meetings, which had gotten increasingly contentious, the atmosphere at the one-hour-and-20-minute meeting on Thursday was cordial, officials from both parties said. The House majority leader, Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, who clashed with Mr. Obama on Wednesday, did not say a word.”

Only the adults spoke this time.

Sparta 2011: America is Greece, according to Mitch McConnell

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“We have a debt as big as our economy. We look a lot like Greece already. And it’s going to have to have broad impact on every aspect of our society in order to get this problem under control.” — Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who was unable to identify a single specific concession he’d ask of wealthy people.

Strikers clash with riot police during a demonstration in central Athens Tuesday June 29, 2010. Greek labor unions held nationwide 24-hour general strike to protest overhaul of social security, labor law. The reforms are part of the government’s efforts to pull Greece out of its financial crisis.

credit: Alkis Konstantinidis via nickturse

The Republican fallacy of America’s “out of control spending”

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Brian Beutler at TPM takes a look at what IS and IS NOT “the culprit of deficits and our supposedly out-of-control spending:”

In the wake of the Bush tax cuts, and the Great Recession, tax revenue has fallen through the floor to near-historic lows. As a percentage of GDP, it’s fallen 24 percent since 2001, and if you correct for inflation, the government is collecting nearly 20 percent less per person than it was a decade ago. At the same time, the population-adjusted costs of mandatory spending programs — driven by Medicare, including its new prescription drug benefit, and Medicaid — have increased by over 30 percent. And, of course, defense spending has skyrocketed. But if you isolate domestic discretionary programs, a decade later we’re spending no more on a per-person basis than we were back then.

The idea here is that since this money is largely devoted to education, health care, and other services that benefit broad swaths of the population, the amount of it should grow roughly with population size. This stands in contrast to defense spending, which is why the committee did not correct defense spending for population growth. We took the numbers and put them in a slightly different context, so you can see by what percentage spending and revenues have risen and fallen on a population adjusted basis over the last decade. Makes it pretty clear what is and is not the culprit of deficits and our supposedly out-of-control spending.

Besides the obvious suggestion of cutting a little something from defense (maybe? for once?), the next obvious suggestion would be to let the Bush tax cuts for the rich expire. Our government needed revenue when it was created and it still needs revenue today.

Besides, the rich have made out like bandits since 1980 with the bottom-to-top income redistribution and trickle up of Reaganomics and tax breaks and deregulation and shipping American jobs to China and India:

“The top 1 percent now gets almost a quarter of the nation’s total income — a larger share than at any time since the 1920s. The top 1 percent have also received about 40 percent of the benefits of the Bush tax cuts.” — Robert Reich

Bill Moyers explains how the average American has made out in the past 28 years this way:

“…from 1950 through 1980, the share of all income in America going to everyone but the rich increased from 64 percent to 65 percent. Because the nation’s economy was growing handsomely, the average income for 9 out of 10 Americans was growing, too – from $17,719 to $30,941. That’s a 75 percent increase in income in constant 2008 dollars.

But then it stopped. Since 1980 the economy has also continued to grow handsomely, but only a fraction at the top have benefited. The line flattens for the bottom 90% of Americans. Average income went from that $30,941 in 1980 to $31,244 in 2008. Think about that: the average income of Americans increased just $303 dollars in 28 years.

That’s wage repression.”

The Tea Party claims to be so worried about their children and grandchildren inheriting our debt. Where’s their fear of handing down a two-class system of the super-rich and the minimum-wage workers and unemployed to their grandchildren? And why doesn’t it bother these people that when Republicans say the country’s spending is “out of control,” they mean the spending on everything else but defense and funding more tax cuts for the wealthy?

Great budgeting ideas from Texas!

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Cut $27 billion from education, nursing homes and  health care for the poor.  Sounds typically Republican, I know, but stay with me.

THEN because you’ve saved money on these crap programs (children, the elderly and the poor should learn to suck it up), you can now afford to give yacht owners a tax break! Exciting, isn’t it? There will be so many jobs and economic development…somehow!

Yacht owners will save America:

  1. Because you have no revenue, cut education and other social safety net programs,
  2. Give tax breaks to yacht owners and continue the previous tax breaks to the wealthy,
  3. …
  4. Profit!

They’re just trying to copy Paul Ryan’s 2012 Path to Poverty budget.