The Glade 4.0

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/01 ... ebt-limit/

We need to raise the debt ceiling again!

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"Life isn't divided into genres. It's a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you're lucky."
— Alan Moore

Is TARP actually costing money? I was under the impression that the vast majority of TARP funds were being paid back.

The answer to that going to depend largely on which side of the mouth those that are making decisions are using at the time.

If you listen to the current rhetoric regarding the proposed bank taxes, the new "tax" on a targetted industry is an attempt by the federal government to protect the investment taxpayers made to the those companies to keep them afloat, despite the fact that the majority of the banks being targetted by this tax have already repaid their funds, and the "investments" by the government have returned a profit. However, the companies whos bailout is not being repaid, and at this point is most likely never going to be seen again (GM, GMAC, AIG, Fannie, Freddie and Chrysler) are not included in the sector, or given an exemption on repayment. It should of course be of no surprise that 3 of those companies (2 depending on how you view GM and GMAC) are heavily Union, and now Union owned, and 2 are quasi-federal agencies.

Being a government cynic, it would not surprise me at all if this increased deficit and bond release is a political weapon intended to stop the perceived hemorrhaging to occur in November.... Democrats will claim we need this money to spend on projects to boost employment and put American's back to work... if the Republicans go against this increase (likely), the sponsors can claim its obstructionist and they are out of touch with the needs of America, if they don't go against it, because there is no way any benefit (as if there would be any) would be seen or disproven by November, the Dem's can claim they are focused on the issues most important to Americans while pushing their involvement in the healthcare issues behind the smoke screen

I think it's seriously unlikely that Republicans will form more than token opposition to lifiting the debt ceiling. Not doing so would cause the US to default and the entire economy to collapse.

Remember Congress has basically straight-out stated that it is impossible for them not to run a deficit. If you add military spending to what they label as "nondiscretionary" spending they are already in the red. Every other government program could be completely cut and they would still be in debt.

I would hope, with the current sentiment, that the fiscally responsible members of both parties would make more than a token fight and force some serious examinations of the way business is done in the country, and start holding people (*cough* Obaman *cough*) to their own stated position when it comes to passing bills with pork, etc.

This is not just about Obama and "pork." The status of the nondiscretionary spending is not challenged by either party at all. Add the military budget to that and the government is already in the red. Even if we were to completely eliminate the military budget, which obviously won't happen, adding in the Dept of Education puts them right back into the red again.

Quite frankly, you can't heap all the blame on Congress for this. Given the totally unreasonable demands the American people have of Congress when it comes to spending, can you really blame them for essentially funding things by stealth taxation through inflation? Even hinting at slashing SS or Medicare is political suicide, but doing so is necessary to not run a deficit. Congress has no other way to placate Americans and keep their offices. The libertarians essentially expect Congress to voluntarily make themselves unemployed to take a stand against the people that elected them out of some kind of moral obligation, an utterly ludicrous suggestion.

So? Do you blame your high school physics teacher that taught you Newton's Universal Gravitation because it made it so you can't fly?

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

No, but if I and the rest of my classmates, who pay his salary, insisted he was wrong, could you blame him for teaching us that we can fly to keep his job?

I think you're exaggerating the level of political suicide for Congress as a whole to support slashing nondiscretionary programs. It's political suicide for one person to suggest it, but if you got enough politicians on board it would be far less so.

As for "making themselves unemployed" it's not as if members of congress aren't highly employable once they leave office.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Yes. When you all go jump off a cliff based on what he taught, it's his fault.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Amazing how people only see the cliff now, as opposed to over the last 8 years, when a combination of tax cuts (jammed down our throats through the reconcilliation process that republicans now demonize in regards to health care) and massive deficit spending turned a budget surplus and projected deficit reduction into a record budget deficit and massive increase in national debt.

But that guy had a cool cowboy accent. And a ranch. So it was all good.

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

You know what? You're nothing but a **** hater.

By the way, there is no such thing as tax cuts unless they accompany spending cuts.

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

Yeah, because that same guy didn't get shouted down about how this problem was going to come up by people who think Social Security is a sacred cow.

There was no projected deficit reduction or budget surplus either. Those were fabrications. We've been over that before.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

This. It cannot be reiterated enough. The surplus was a myth.

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Holy shitsnacks!

This country has been dying for a lot longer than 8 years, ffs.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

According to your criteria, pretty much every country in the world except China, India, and some places in Eastern Europe are "dying."

Which criteria? I haven't listed any.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Yeah, no one here ever criticized Bush's spending habits. There were never any threads here during Bush's administration detailing why bailing out banks and other major financial institutions was a disastrous policy. No one on this board was predicting a economic collapse until Obama was in office. None of that happened.

Selective memory much?


Nth-ing this. "Debt held by the public" did, in fact, decrease for several years at the end of the Clinton administration. However, other forms of governmental debt increased during those years by a greater amount, with the net result being that total national debt increased every year during the Clinton administration.

Don't believe me? You can easily verify this yourself. Let's use the Treasury Department's own numbers:
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np

These figures are Total Public Debt Outstanding:

02/01/1993: $4,176,491,860,224.29
02/01/1994: $4,522,736,108,206.24
02/01/1995: $4,810,859,576,867.71
02/01/1996: $4,987,850,076,950.12
02/01/1997: $5,315,795,971,480.01
02/01/1998: $5,490,064,235,079.64
02/01/1999: $5,588,099,467,924.97
02/01/2000: $5,702,651,446,667.03
02/01/2001: $5,703,346,472,448.65

As you can see, the total total debt increased each year.

Secondly, starting in 1997, they began publishing figures for both d"ebt held by the public" and "intragovernmental holdings" (money borrowed from long-term government liabilities like Social Security and Medicare in order to pay current liabilities). Fortunately, this is the first year claimed as a "surplus" by the Clinton administration. These numbers can also be verified in the Schedules of Federal Debt.

blue = Debt held by the public
green = Intragovernmental hodlings
red = total federal debt
09/30/1997: $3,789,667,546,849.60 + $1,623,478,464,547.74 = $5,413,146,011,397.34
09/30/1998: $3,733,864,472,163.53 + $1,792,328,536,734.09 = $5,526,193,008,897.62
09/30/1999: $3,636,104,594,501.81 + $2,020,166,307,131.62 = $5,656,270,901,633.43
09/30/2000: $3,405,303,490,221.20 + $2,268,874,719,665.66 = $5,674,178,209,886.86
09/30/2001: $3,339,310,176,094.74 + $2,468,153,236,105.32 = $5,807,463,412,200.06

Now, let's break down what this really means:

1997 to 1998:
Debt held by the public decreased by $55.8B
Intragovernmental holdings increased by $168.9B
Total debt increased by $113.0B (= $168.9B - $55.8B)

1998 to to 1999:
Debt held by the public decreased by $97.8B
Intragovernmental holdings increased by $227.8B
Total debt increased by $130.0B (= $227.8 - $97.8B)

1999 to to 2000:
Debt held by the public decreased by $230.8B
Intragovernmental holdings increased by $248.7B
Total debt increased by $17.9B (= $248.7B - $230.8B)

2000 to to 2001:
Debt held by the public decreased by $66.0B
Intragovernmental holdings increased by $199.3B
Total debt increased by $133.3B (= $199.3B - $66.0B)

Can you see, now, where the fabled "$230B surplus" came from? There was no surplus in that year. In fact, there was a $17.9B shortfall. Government outlays still exceeded government receipts in 1997, 1998, 1999, and 2000. The federal government still had to borrow money -- increasing the federal debt -- in order to meet its obligations. The only thing that changed was the source of its borrowing. For a number of reasons, it was more convenient during the Clinton administration for the government to borrow more money out of the Social Security and Medicare funds (a several other miscellaneous sources) than to issue more "publicly held" debt in the form of openly traded government bonds and treasury bills. This is why you see total debt go up during these years, and why intragragovernmental holdings always went up by a larger amount than the decreases in publicly held debt.

Money borrowed out Social Security has to be paid back. Money owed is money owed. Debt is debt.

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Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

Stathol, prepare for incoming TLDR fallacy.

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones