What do you think of the Ryan Budget proposal?

I think it sensible and responsible legislation. I too agree it does not cut deep enough and shy of many Republican/Tea Party campaign promises to bring heavy duty reform to the Federal budget but just enough to limit the size of the targets the Dems would try and pin on them for this, in their eyes, too painful of reform.

It (or something like it) needs to happen. I didn’t particularly like the bias in the article (”Mr. Ryan is showing Americans that there is an alternative to Mr. Obama’s vision of the U.S. as a high-tax, slow-growth, European-style entitlement state….Democrats are already returning to their old stand of denouncing any change as a “war on the elderly and poor” plus calling it ObamaCare), but it is the sort of thing we need in general. Token cuts don’t truly address the problem, which one can’t argue isn’t a serious problem, lib or conservative.

I don’t think it is not going far enough. We’ve let this problem grow for decades, and there are going to be unforeseen detrimental repercussions to huge cuts like this. Don’t know what, but they’ll happen. So I agree when the author says Some House conservatives are grousing that Mr. Ryan’s proposal doesn’t cut spending enough to balance the budget in 10 years. This is a foolish complaint.

I love the idea of cutting ineffective programs and corporate welfare by definition, but the devil is in the details. Obviously there are programs that no one can argue are actually effective, but I don’t support cutting funding for NPR or Planned Parenthood. I view those as important staples in American culture. Those on the far right argue NPR is heavily liberal, but moderates know it is just a little left of center. Cutting funding for Planned Parenthood seems more religiously driven than not, which is something I abhor completely. Pushing Christianity in the Republican party is generally a complete deal breaker for me.

If the plan is to cut the federal workforce by 10%, what happens to those jobs? Everyone has been screaming about job loss and unemployment since the recession hit, so I worry 10% during a still fragile point in the recovery might be dangerous. Economics in general is a dark art. There isn’t a tried and true way to tackle how to recover the world’s largest economy from a deep recession while cutting spending. The best ideas may work, or they may fail. It’s a well-calculated experiment, and a high stakes one at that.

Cutting personal and corporate taxes to 25%. I don’t know if that’s ideal or not. There’s the Laffer curve, sure. But I don’t know if that’s the ideal number to stimulate maximum growth in this environment. I don’t like corporations finding loopholes, but there’s a rational argument that corporate taxes just get pushed onto the consumer anyway. Maybe 25% is the right amount, it isn’t easy to find that out for sure.

But I like it in theory, and will closely watch its effects. If it helps the wealthy more than the middle class, I’ll be enraged. Timing and judgement is everything in this whole fiasco. I hope we have the best and brightest on it.

I wish there was a party that was fiscally conservative and socially liberal.

Yikes. It seems like a budget for a county that does not care about its citizens, especially the most vulnerable. But, it appears that we have a number of people in our country who don’t care about others, and this kind of budget is the result. There are ways to cut the deficit and not destroy the hope and happiness of people, but it requires that those who are rich, and more importantly those who mistakenly think they might become rich, to be taxed more fairly. I am curious about the reluctance of those who get so much in this country to be willing to give so little back.

I like the idea of cutting spending, and I agree that medicare and medicaid need to be reworked. But his goal of cutting the debt by 4 trillion in what is it, 10 years?... is not needed. Just getting us to a point where we’re not adding to it anymore, or its starting to go down, would be more than enough for me. The cuts he’s proposed are TOO deep, but are a great starting point for negotiations.

During the Clinton years the president and that congress (initially Democratically controlled, then Republican controlled, then split controlled) were able to shrink the size of the deficit every year (the deficit being the “annual addition to the debt”) until Clintons last year when the deficit was a mere 18 billion dollars (one of the lowest of the last century). Something akin to their plans would be what I would go for. A gradual reduction in spending that lowers the annual deficit and eventually starts taking away from the debt all together. If you make enough to cut 4 trillion dollars in ten years, you’re going to SERIOUSLY hurt the American people by imploding a lot of their programs.

One huge flaw in his plan is he wants to lower the highest tax bracket to 25%. If anything that bracket should be raised. We have had nothing but budget problems since Reagan lowered it in the 80’s. I’m not saying take it back to the 90% range where it was in the 50’s, but it needs to go back up.

I also have to applaud Ryan for actually putting a concrete plan on the table. Republicans for the last few years have been preaching about how they have a “plan” to cut the debt and everything… but whenever anyone asked them to show it, all they got was a couple pages of nonsense that basically said we want to cut taxes and cut spending and “rework” programs, with no actual numbers or plans.

I think it is an ill-conceived and ill-considered budget plan that puts the burden for cutting the deficit on the backs of the elderly and the poor. It is exactly what I would expect from the Tea Party.

@cockswain

You need to think about both NPR and Planned Parenthood as far as government spending. Why would the government support these. Government run news agencies gives me chills. And Planned parenthood is simply abortion planning. I have no problem with either group but why do we need the government to support them. If you’re worried about religious influence, you should be just as worried about anti-relion influence. Better if the government stays out of that business.

As for the 10% cut in government, it is a planned atrition. As people quit, they simply don’t replace them. No one gets fired or laid off. A hiring freeze is a common tool for business and it works to reduce costs without lay-offs.

Fiscally conservative and socially liberal is a tough one. Kind of like looking for a spendthrift tightwad.

Better than having the whole world sell off their dollars, dump our bonds, and stop financing our immoral debt.
Not much good to say about a civilization that spends their parents and grandparents wealth, and then borrows money to keep partying, knowing full well that their children and grandchildren will be slaves to debt.
Gotta do something sometime. It is only just that it be us so the kids have a half a chance to even be able to talk about their tax rate.
And you could raise the top bracket to 100% and still not make a dent in the long term deficit or the debt.

@tedd

I think you may be misreading those numbers. Even under the Ryan plan we continue to go deeper into debt. The difference is how much debt. The Ryan plan cuts $6.2 trillion off the debt projected in the Obama budget and $4 trillion off the debt projected by current spending levels. In fact even under the Ryan plan we amass $23 Trillion in debt by 2021. That’s why I say it doesn’t go far enough.

@Jaxk Astonishingly, I have in fact thought about NPR and Planned Parenthood in terms of gov’t spending. I haven’t reached the same conclusion as you. For starters using the phrase “gov’t run news agency” is using effective language to inspire images of cold war era Russia, or modern day China, Iran, or North Korea. It evokes the notion of Big Brother telling us what to think and shielding us from the truth. This is not what NPR does. Receiving public funds does not make you a tool of gov’t propaganda in most cases, and this is also the case here. NPR is largely funded by the public, and federal funds are only around 2–5% of their revenues. So this won’t kill them off, it will just hurt them a bit. Further, the only reason I believe the few hundred million they do receive fell under GOP scrutiny is because the GOP doesn’t think they are fair. Admittedly they handled the Juan Williams thing terribly, but this is a political move, not a fiscal one.

I generally have a lot of respect for your wealth of knowledge, but you’ve dropped the ball by dismissing the mission of Planned Parenthood is planned abortions. I can only assume you actually aren’t very familiar with them, or else you wouldn’t have stated that. But it’s OK, we all make mistakes. For your edification, here is a link to their website: http://www.plannedparenthood.org/ I’m guessing your instinct will be to say, “Hell, I don’t need to look at that,” but please take a moment to do it anyways. Just hover over the “Health Info and Services” tab to see a brief summary of the activities in which they are involved. The are not just an abortion clinic. I think they are an important American organization, and completely believe that this is the sort of social and healthy good that a gov’t should assist in supporting for the good of its citizens.

Regarding the 10% cut, I appreciate the clarification. If accurate, it puts my mind at ease. I thought 10% cut meant 10% layoffs or early retirement. If it is just not back-filling positions, I’m good with that. But it seems it will take a long time to hit that number. Many years I’d surmise.

”If you’re worried about religious influence, you should be just as worried about anti-relion influence.”
If you could clarify what you mean, I’d appreciate that. I worry about anti-religious efforts that would quash one’s freedom to privately enjoy their religion, but I fully support stripping Christian bias and views from every part of gov’t.

You and I must have different definitions of socially liberal. I don’t think that socially liberal means to wastefully spend money. It means things like equality of rights, without bias for or against certain beliefs or lifestyles. If money is to be spent, I consider programs that effectively promote such rights to be public goods, and exactly what I envision the ideal role of the gov’t of a truly free nation.

@Jaxk I think both planned parenthood and NPR will have a positive net benefit on the budget. By reducing unwanted pregnancies we are reducing the number of likely welfare recipients and criminals a generation from now which will have a massive positive impact on our budget.

NPR is one of the few organizations that isn’t beholden to corporate money for it’s existence. As a result, they are not required to champion corporate causes like the right wing media such as Fox News and CNN. I question the media’s ability to cover stories such as the healthcare reform laws fairly, when every other commercial is funded by Health Insurance lobbies. Or cover energy policy when BP is running PR adds on the very same networks that are now failing to cover major problems with the design of deep water drilling blowout preventers that are being used in all deep water oil wells. Having untainted media is critical to a healthy democracy so the people can make informed decisions.

From a budgetary point of view, one can simply see that the manipulation by the media in favor of corporate interests has made a profound negative impact on budget over the years, playing no small role in getting us into the financial clusterfuck our Republican leaders have legislated us into through deregulation, and corporate cock-sucking.

The problem with conservatives and neutral media outlets is that the truth has a liberal bias these days.

I’ve received an email (from a Democratic group) that says the proposed budget will eventually eliminate Medicare. Is that true? If so, what the hell?

@augustlan Yes, the proposal replaces it with a set payment toward private insurance.

Then I’m against it. I truly believe we should be moving towards single payer health care, and not privatizing it even more.

@marinelife: That is the part that really jumped out to me, probably because of my mother. As a senior citizen, wouldn’t private health care be more expensive to an individual?

@augustlan @marinelife Can you post some sort of valid source for this? It’s important if true, but it can be difficult to decipher the truth from political rhetoric. I don’t want to have misinformation about such a critical component of this bill, let alone spread that misinformation, or use it to support a position.

TL :DR

I haven’t gone over it with a fine-toothed comb yet, but at a glance I think it goes a little too far in some places, not far enough in others, and gives the Pentagon a pass when they should feel the same budgetary axe that everyone else is.

That said, I applaud that there is a specific plan. If nothing else a proposal that can be edited and debated is better than what we had before.

@cockswain: slate Second paragraph mentions medicaid/medicare.

@cockswain

I find it interestingthat you would be concerned about corporate influence but not government influence where the money is concerned. And it seems to be a rather hollow argument since most of the news media is liberal and harpooning corporate America. Seems as though, if the advertising was impacting the coverage, most news would be sympathetic to corporations. It’s not. Finally why would the government support NPR but not Fox or MSNBC. I just can’t see where government funding for a news station is justified, whether or not they are biased. And public funding does not eliminate bias, some would argue it creates it.

I did as you asked and took a look at their site. I don’t see a reason for the government to be involved in thing like ‘sex and sexuality’, ‘men’s sexual health’, not to mention abortion, ‘body image’, ‘sexual orientation and gender’, and so on. Hell, I thought we wanted the government out of our sex life, not helping us with it. Just for the record, I did hate going to that site because I didn’t want to give them the extra hits they will use to give themselves more credit.

As for the religious argument, it’s not mine. But if you assume that any pro-life stand is a religious argument (I don’t) then you’d have to assume the other side is anti religion. Frankly I don’t think the government should be funding any private organization that takes a stand on major political iussues. You can have your say, just not with taxpayer money.

And finally, things like ‘wastefully spend money’ are very subjective. What you consider waste and what I consider waste can be quite different (such as the NPR and PP issues). I’m not sure what ‘Rights’ you have in mind. I assume gay marriage is your issue. Anybody can and always have been able to marry. The issue is whether there are any government benefits associated with that marriage. Note that they are benefits not rights. In order to address the benefits, you need to look at why the government would bestow such on anyone. If you think it is to recognise a couple for finding thier ‘Soul-Mate’, you’ve missed the point. That’s not a function of government.

@gorillapaws

I have little interest in a dialog with some that is obsessed ‘cock-sucking’. If you want to address an issue, I’d be happy to debate that issue without sexual obsession.

@Jaxk Planned parenthood provides low cost contraceptives and sexual health care. Without PP and organizations like it you would likely see an incredibly boom in birth rates in poverty stricken areas, as well as a huge boom in the already out of control American STD problem (did you know one in four US girls has at least one STD??? And thats not just the poor, thats middle and upper America too).

I have used Planned Parenthood 4 times in my life, never once for an abortion, and I am a male. Their low costs provided emergency contraceptives I couldn’t have otherwise afforded, and even condoms for free. I have had g/fs use planned parenthood for basic gynecological needs (check ups, infections, etc) which they wouldn’t have been able to receive otherwise.

The government funds it because we don’t want millions of babies born to poor parents to flood the already hardest hit schools and districts with more mouths to feed and people to control. Not to mention a massive outbreak of STDs, which can be anywhere from mildly irritating, to crippling, to deadly.

Furthermore, Planned Parenthood receives an infinitesimally small portion of not only the entire budget, and not only discretionary spending, but even of the proposed cuts in the Ryan plan. Think getting a 50 cent discount on buying a house. He put it in to appease the Religious Right, plain and simple.

And about the numbers in the budget @Jaxk (this is totally separate from the PP) .... The budget proposal by Ryan, and usually by anyone, is assuming we maintain current spending levels. To spend the money to put is 23 trillion in debt by 2021 we would have to be paving the roads with gold. One time expenditures, such as the bailout, or the wars, will not be included in future budgets because they won’t be there anymore.

@Jaxk I’m not obsessed with cock-sucking. I’m not sure how you arrived at the diagnosis of obsession based on a single comment. My comment was tasteless, but no mores than phrases like “Obamacare” which you seem to toss about as freely. Also, it’s interesting that you seem to be so concerned with balancing the budget, and then ignore all of the fiscal counter-points we’ve raised with regards to these issues. Perhaps ad hominems is all you have.

@Jaxk I wish I could give you an award for most cantankerous man. But your subtle humor is not lost on me. I’m sorry for forcing you to lend credibility to an organization that thinks men’s sexual health is a subject that requires education. And thanks for drawing attention to @gorillapaws obsession with cock sucking.In fact, perusing his/her last several questions, you’ll see they are all about cock-sucking, like “what is the best way to suck the most cocks”, or “what is your favorite color cock to suck.” So good on you for heading that off before we went off on a huge cock-sucking tangent.

But while we’re on that subject, I don’t see the gov’t support of Planned Parenthood as intrusion into our sex lives in the same fashion as you. I see it as providing resources surrounding the various aspects of human sexuality, a subject common to us all. There isn’t an intrusion if one seeks out their assistance, or they educate people to prevent the spread of disease. Nor do I think there is anything wrong with education on the subject of men’s sexual health, nor providing counseling services to gay people. All of these benefit our society in many ways. So yes, with regard to the question of budget, I strongly view these as important roles for ideals gov’t to fulfill for its citizens. If that doesn’t qualify as a public good, I don’t know what you’d consider worthy of a gov’t funded public good.

NPR is highly valued as one of the most ethical news stations in our nation. While I’m certain that statement caused you to cackle with amusement, I believe they are a national treasure. I listen to NPR all the time and find their integrity and objectivity something to be lacking in most other media outlets. In concert with the CPB, they have provided excellent and educational programming for decades. So yes, I prefer that my gov’t support such an endeavor as a public good. Plus it’s nice to not have commercials. But we’ll just have to respect each other’s view on that one since it’s doubtful we’ll share a common opinion on it.

Your paragraph regarding religion is intelligent and I respect why you think that way. But as @gorillapaws mentioned, a society without means to terminate unwanted pregnancies pays a far greater cost in a generation. You may find this paper interesting, although admittedly debatable. In fact I may have discussed it with @gorillapaws elsewhere on here before. But it is worth keeping in mind.

@tedd

You need to look at Obama’s budget and current spending levels. Bush’s last budget was 2.9 Trillion. Obama has maintained spending levels around $3.7 trillion every year he has been in office. TARP is done, Stimulus is done, yet the budget Obama just prosed does not decrease it continues up throughtout the next decade. This problem is huge and that’s why it’s critical.

Take a look at the graphs on the link I posted in the question. Even Ryan’s budget never drops below $3.5 Trillion and our revenues currently are less than $2.2 Trillion for 2011. You really need to look at the numbers and see how far out of whack we’ve gotten in the past few years.

As for PP, my argument is not about whether they are good or bad. Sexual training is simply not a federal government function. There are clinics and support groups for you STDs and such. They don’t need to be funded by the federal government. Especially since we’re broke.

@cak Thanks for the link. I’m not entirely certain on which side of the fence I stand on this one. In particular, I like this quote: moving Medicare to a voucher system seems only mildly unfortunate—and nothing as compared with a debt-driven economic crisis that could stem from inaction.

I feel the HCR was a watered down version to appease both sides, and as a result isn’t nearly as effective as it could be. The way I see it, I think I’d prefer single-payer based on everything I’ve read over the last couple years, but fully privatized is better than this hybrid crap we have going on now. 100% of one or the other, not some meeting in the middle. It’s like a tug of war, instead of a moving in one unified direction. But this is a bit of a derailment, so sorry @Jaxk

@gorillapaws

The comments I mentioned were merely designed to deflect from the issue and try to put people on the defensive. As for any legitimate issues, I am perplexed. Congress has been controlled by Democrats for more than 4 years now, the Presidency more than two. In that time the debt has grown from $8 Trillion to $14 Trillion, yet you continue to swipe at Republicans for this. Surely Democrats must take SOME responsibility for what is happening on their watch.

I have always been critical of the Bush spending. But let’s be real, he ran deficits in the $500 billion range. Obama has increased that threefold and has no plan what-so-ever to turn it around. His latest budget puts us at $27 trillion in debt by the end of this decade. Cutting that to $23 trillion is hardly making a dent but You and other Democrats can’t seem to find anything to cut. It does no good to scream ‘it’s the Republicans fault so it’s OK to keep spending’.

As for the NPR issue, as I said above, I don’t see the corporaste bias you do. The fact that you think CNN is right wing may have something to do with that.

@cockswain

No need to be sorry, I see this as pertinent to the question and part of the Ryan Plan.

@cockswain

You’re right we are unlikely to agree. I see government as limited to governing. Obviously you do not.

Your link was interesting. If I take it at face value, it sounds like an argument to sterilize everyone in poor neighborhoods. That is afterall where most of the crime originates.

And just a point of order, abortion is legal with or without Planned Parenthood. They’re just the most vocal supporter.

@Jaxk I just wanted to clarify one point, that the national debt was just shy of 14 trillion when Bush handed the reigns to Obama. It was not 8 trillion…. In fact it surpassed 8 trillion in the early 90’s (courtesy Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush).

@Jaxk You seem to think of the budget being made by Obama as some kind of concrete plan for decades to come. Its the budget for 2011 and only 2011. To assume that even if Obama was president until 2020 he would somehow run it to 27 trillion is simply idiotic propaganda. To think that any president could run the debt to that number in 8.5 years is frankly idiotic. We would literally be paving the roads with gold to accomplish the task. It took us all of the Reagan, Bush 1, Clinton, Bush 2, and now Obama presidencies to put about 11–12 trillion of our current debt on the tab…. Thats 30 years of overspending on military, wars, bailouts, stimulus packages, tax breaks, etc…. and only about ⅓ of the total you’re fearing.

Obama is spending a lot of money, yes, granted, 100% true. He’s doing it to keep us from teetering back into a recession that was almost a depression. Now its very clear to me you disagree with the philosophy of the government spending as a means to avert economic disaster, but around half the country is in agreement with the plan and voted him in (not to mention we have that whole FDR and the first depression thing as evidence it works…).

I’m thrilled to see an actual Republican plan for once rather than the usual “We’ll cut taxes and reduce spending” nonsense with no actual numbers to back it up. And honestly there are parts of the plan I like, obviously things need to be cut. BUT do not buy everything that they are telling you hook line and sinker. Obama isn’t going to run us to nearly 30 trillion dollars in debt in 8 years. You can see that if you look at the chart they use to show debt over the years (which just glancing at it and knowing our national debt history, its been doctored anyways)... but never in the history of our country has the debt just continue to grow on a perfect 45 degree angle (chart wise).

Ryan seems to have some sense in him, and knows that the actual final budget is going to be a compromise, and he’s smart enough to ask for the moon first when all he wants is an airplane. Rest assured, the world and/or the United States will not end if we don’t make a gabillion-zillion dollars in cuts to our budget and debt…. hell the Founding Fathers intended us to have a debt, they invented the damn thing… Believe it or not a healthy debt level actually helps the economy.

@tedd Well said. I do think people conveniently link Obama to huge debt and omit the fact that Bush signed the first stimulus, and whoever was president would have been convinced by his economic advisers to sign the second. And I agree it is nice to actually see a fiscally conservative plan from the conservative party for the first time I can recall.

It completely cuts Medicare and gives huge tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires.

Sociopathic and ignorant. It would be nice if Republicans at least tried to base their economic policy on, you know, economics, rather than on poorly written fiction.

@Jaxk, no federal money pays for abortions done by Planned Parenthood.

You probably know that, too.

And you also probably knew that Bush’s “deficits” didn’t take into account the money he spent in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Maybe if Democrats were as dishonest in their bookkeeping as Republicans, you wouldn’t find so much to complain about. Oh, who am I kidding. Of course you would.

@Qingu

Abortions, I kow that. It doesn’t affect my argument even if it was real.

I understand why you’d bring up the war spending and why you wouldn’t mention any numbers. Having the war spending off budget wasn’t a trick it was a good idea. That way when the war ends, you simply stop the supplemental spending. Now with Obama’s scheme, you must cut the budget and we have all seen how easy that is. Another jackass plan by Obama.

If you take the two wars and all the deficits from Bush’s 8 years in office, it is less than Obama’s first 3 years. And that’s the problem. Stick your head in the sand and say it ain’t so but that’s how it works.

@tedd FDR ruled over a decade of depression. I can’t believe you would call that a success story. His obsession with tax and spend, extended the depression. Europe emerged from the depression 3–5 years (depending on which country you look at) before we did. How can you say FDR helped? Even at the end, he put 12 million men in uniform, which fixed the unemployment problem. So I’d have to assume, if FDR is the example, we need to go to war and put another 12 million (needs to be inflation adjusted) men in uniform so that Obama can say he fixed the problem. FDR was such a failure he was reluctant to run for a third term because he didn’t think he could run on his record. Hell, I agree. Why he was reelected is beyond me.

As for the budget projections, read the ‘sources’ below the graphs. The numbers come from the House Budget Commitee and the CBO. They are not made up and represent the best estimates from those groups. I’m assuming since everyone was so hot to tout the CBO during the health Care fiasco, they should honor them now.

Obama’s last budget projections (page 15, table 4) were from 2009. That was the only budget he submitted so that’s all we have to go on. He showed a deficit of about $1.1 trillion in 2009 ( he blew past that number without slowing down). Then projected a deficit of $703 billion in 2010 (hell I think he blew past that in March, 2010) and finally the current year that was projected to be $498 billion deficit (we are already way past that). So if you are looking to Obama’s promises to be fiscally responsible, he doesn’t even know what that means. Hell, even his speech today, after blaming the Republicans for the budget, he went on to talk about more new spending. Investing in the future as he puts it (he loves that phrase). If he doesn’t stop the spending, there won’t be a future.

And Ryan is a smart guy. I love him. He knows that the budget cuts he’s proposing are not enough. We still need to handle Social Security and all the duplication of agencies within the federal government and with the states. Hundreds of billions in that last part. But he also knows that this is a good first step and about as much as he could get in this political climate. They will be coming back to this well.

@tedd

Sorry I misseed your post about the debt numbers. The debt was $10 trillion when Obama took office and it was $8 trillion when the Democrats took congress. Check your numbers.

@Jaxk First, your point about Obama spending more in 3 years than Bush did in 8, FALSE. Incredibly false. He’s on par to outspend him in under 8 years if he maintains his average, but he has not done so yet.

Second, his 1.1 trillion dollar 2009 deficit, was shared with Bush. The budget years end in October, so in other words the first 2–3 months (October 2008-January 2009) of the 2009 budget were Bush’s. When Bush left office the deficit for for 2009 was already just shy of 1 trillion dollars. In the remaining 9 months, despite bailing out the automotive companies and passing the 700 billion dollar stimulus, Obama only increased the deficit to 1.1 trillion. (Interesting side note, if you added all the deficit made by Bush and Obama together, it would still be less than the deficit accrued by the Reagan administration).

Third, if you honestly think FDR extended the Depression, then you have been completely warped by Republican propaganda. FDR took office in March of 1933, the Depression was widely considered to be over by the end of the 30’s. FDR had the game plan of basically ensuring people had jobs. Dig a ditch, then the next team fills it, then you dig it again. Keep people employed. So honestly even if it were WW2 that ended the depression (which it most definitely was not) you’re basically saying it was because we paid a bunch of people to go be troops…. it was a gigantic stimulus where everyone got a job. The only difference is they were off fighting a war instead of building roads, bridges, and dams. (I will give it to you though, you’re not one of these deniers trying to take the blame for the Depression away from the 3 Republican presidents who preceded FDR, where it squarely belongs). And FDR wasn’t just re-elected, he was overwhelmingly re-elected winning 61% of the vote in 36, and 55% in 40. Its also interesting to look at this graph here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Debt1929-50.svg and notice that the national debt doesn’t really go up until WW2 starts…

Fourth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_national_debt If you scroll down a bit more than half way you’ll find the end of Budget year national debts. You need to keep in mind when it says debt for the year 2008, it means BUDGET year (in other words from October the year before, thru October of the year listed). As I already pointed out about 0.9 Trillion of the 2009 deficit was thanks to Bush Jr, so if you add that to the deficit from 2008 you end up in the 11–12 Trillion ball park when Bush handed off to Obama. (So we were both wrong on the numbers). Also, the deficit at the end of the 2010 Budget was 13.5 trillion.

Here is a Seattle Times article detailing how seniors’ health care costs would be greatly increased under the Ryan plan.

@tedd

FDR is a tough one. We have all been taught virtually from birth that he was one of our greatest presidents. I believed that for most of my life. Unfortunately if you take a closer look at his terms, it just doesn’t pan out. He did some good things, dams, roads, etc. but the most pressing issue of his time, the depression, he failed.

When the depression hit, Hoover compounded the problem by raising taxes. He doubled the lower rates and raised the top rate from 25% to 63%. When FDR took office the tax rates were already way too high. FDR did nothing to fix this and went on a spending spree. Government spending throughout the thirties was 40% of GDP and there is no way that can be considered reasonable. Unemployment remained in the mid teens throughut the thirties and only dropped to single digits in 1941.

When Europe began to recover (about 1936), it appeared as though we may as well. Unfortunately FDR decided to raise taxes again and implement Social Security which in effect made taxes even higher, and we dropped right back into depression. If the truth be told, it wasn’t WWII that saved us but rather the post war boom. When the soldiers returned home, unemployment began to rise. But the world was destroyed and we were the only country left with the industrial capacity to rebuild it. During the late forties and fifties, we produced fully half of the worlds GDP. That’s what catapulted us back to prosperity.

Your attempt to manipulate the debt numbers is really beneath you. You want to assign the TARP to Bush even though Obama spent half of it. And you want to ignore the fact that what Bush did was a loan. A loan that has been substantially paid back. You can’t expense TARP to Bush and then credit Obama for the repayment. Nice try.

The debt as of Jan. 20, 2009 (remember inauguration day) was $10,626,877,048,913.08. Now you can try and manipulate that however you wish but it may be time to start being honest with yourself. With the debt over $14 trillion right now, I’m guessing that it will exceed Bushes debt by the end of this year. I may miss it a little but with a $1.7 trillion deficit projected, I won’t miss it by much.

@Jaxk you can expense the whole damn bailout to Bush, it was his policies that lead to the catastrophic failure. It turns out that when you deregulate banks and then appoint a former insider to oversee investment bankers who subsequently ignores all of the shady stuff they were doing, investment banks will try to do whatever they can to maximize profits even on the backs of their own investors (who’d a thunk it?).

As far as FDR being an economic failure, is this coming from the same economists who think voodoo economics actually works (because we have 30 years of data that says it doesn’t).

@gorillapaws I don’t agree it is reasonable to pin that on Bush solely. There was a shadowy derivatives market that Brooksley Born attempted to shed light on during the Clinton years. The economy was booming, and Greenspan, Rubin, and Sommers shot her down. Greenspan admitted his mistake after the recession hit.

@Jaxk (and everyone else): what do you think about the criticisms that Ezra Klein brings up?

Beyond being sociopathic and ignorant it also seems downright dishonest.

@cockswain that may be, but the Republican had nearly a decade to fix it, and they didn’t want to. Instead, they pushed for further deregulations that massively increased the problem.

I’m not certain it’s fair to just call it a Republican thing though. I get the impression that when the economy was booming, Greenspan had tremendous clout. What he said, Congress didn’t know better but to agree with him. I’m not blaming it purely on Greenspan, but definitely him fighting any regulation appears to have played a more significant role than the actions of the GOP Congressmen in general.

My source for what I’m saying is this Frontline documentary, The Warning. I’ve seen some of it’s facts repeated in other places since, so I’m fairly comfortable with it’s analysis. Check it out, it’s a fascinating story.

@cockswain If you’ve not read it, this is a hell of a read: Recipe for Disaster: The Formula That Killed Wall Street. Also, take a look at the documentary __Inside Job__.

@cockswain I thought it was David X Li’s Gaussian Copula and it’s misuse that earned the moniker The Formula That Killed Wall Street.
More accurately, it was everything coming together in a perfect storm.

@jerv lol

@gorillapaws That was funny :D
Great minds…

Well guess what I’m reading next. This must be a good one.

Inside Job is in my queue, I’ve been hearing good things

I like reading on this subject. There are a lot of opinions on the causes, and many books have now been written. I think the best chance one has of deciphering the best approximation of truth is to read as much as one can to find the common points.

Apparently we think if we can fix the blame, we don’t need to fix the problem. The truth is many pieces of legislation contibuted to this mess. The gutting of Glass-Steagal at the end of the Clinton era. The defense of Freddie and Fannie by the democrats saying there was no problem. The counting change for ‘Mark to Market’. Yes even Sarbanes-Oxley during the Bush years contributed by robbing revenue and competitive advantage. There has been no deregulation under either Republican nor Democratic rule. Merely piling new regulation on top of old. And everyone contributed to this mess.

@Qingu

After reading the article, it sounds like an opinion piece with no substantial data to determine the truth. The overall conclusion seems to be that nothing can be done and that all the spending is for essential services. That strikes me as strange since we’re looking at laying-off 900,000 government workers as non-essential. Go figure.

@Jaxk it is an opinion piece. But I think it brings up some good points… which you managed to completely ignore.

Let’s focus on one. Do you believe that Obamacare will result in $200 billion in savings?

@Qingu

No.

@jerv

Great article. It is the best explanation of how the derivatives market got started, I’ve heard. And no name calling, how refrshing.

@Jaxk “Apparently we think if we can fix the blame, we don’t need to fix the problem. ”
Yep, and both parties prefer finger-pointing over problem-solving.
The Dems think a bigger shovel will help us dig out of this hole, the GOP thinks that if we keep going the same direction we were (generally downwards) then that will get us out, and while they bicker over who is right, we all get buried.

@jerv

Which takes us back to my original question. Ryan’s plan seems to be the first realistic attempt to address the problem. Whether it is the best plan or not is debatable but in lieu of any other plan it seems to be the best so far.

@Jaxk, so you disagree with Paul Ryan, whose plan is based on Obamacare savings being real?

Here’s a CCN editorial about the Ryan budget, for another perspective.

As I’m learning more, I do have concerns about this Medicare voucher plan. It is somewhat experimental. The advantage of putting the power in the hands of the states to administer is that some state may cleverly innovate a great system for others to follow. But my concern is there will be states that will get it wrong to the detriment of those who rely on it.

@jaxk , if I might get a bit personal I’d like to ask you something and you’ve every right to tell me to knock it off. Based on your history on this site, I’m led to guess you are an entrepreneur, probably 50–60ish years of age, and well-off as a result of your hard work. How do you pay for your health insurance? Assuming you’re the age I’m guessing, these costs may be very high for you. What do you think of the specifics of Ryan’s Medicare plan? Are you for the voucher system?

A bigger concern with the voucher plan is that it in no way will cover the costs of health care for many people.

That was another question I had. HCR is supposed to control costs from exorbitantly rising, but I’m not clear on how that mechanism works. A criticism of this proposed voucher plan is that it will not keep pace with the historic rate of health care costs. But…shouldn’t this rate be changing as a result of HCR?

These questions aren’t easy to find answers to. For me at least.

@Qingu

Maybe you misunderstand my point on Obamacare. I am not so much worried that his number could be wrong and that we could not bank on the savings, He has spent the savings. So it’s not a matter of how much we save so much as how much more deficit it creates. If Ryans projection is wrong it affects the savings estimated by his plan.

If we want to look at Ryan’s plan and say it doesn’t reallyt save $6 trillion it only saves $5.8 trillion, I’m fine with that. That’s actually more in line with the debate I had in mind. But if the point is that the plan is crap because he relys on some of Obama’s numbers, I don’t get your point.

So when you answered “No” when I asked “Do you believe that Obamacare will result in $200 billion in savings?” ... you actually meant “Yes”?

Sorry I misunderstood.

@cockswain

I have no problem with your general questions. Mostly fairly accurte with your assessment. I pay for my own health insurance and it ain’t cheap. I’m not really well off but I used to be. The recessions and investing in my business have taken a toll. I live week to week just like everyone else. If we can get the economy rolling again, and jobs created, I should do fine. And I would be fine with the voucher system.

@Qingu

Sorry that wasn’t clear. When I said “no” what I actually meant was…well….NO. I’m not sure where the confusion is here.

Here is another editorial I just read, this one by Paul Krugman. Yes, he is liberal, but he’s also a Nobel Prize winning economist. Hopefully Obama receiving a Nobel Prize has not caused anyone to decide that Nobel Prizes must therefore be devoid of prestige or value.

If anyone would care to address these statements, I think that would be worthwhile:

and also:

A more sober assessment from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office tells a different story. It finds that a large part of the supposed savings from spending cuts would go, not to reduce the deficit, but to pay for tax cuts. In fact, the budget office finds that over the next decade the plan would lead to bigger deficits and more debt than current law.

In fact, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that by 2030 the value of a voucher would cover only a third of the cost of a private insurance policy equivalent to Medicare as we know it. So the plan would deprive many and probably most seniors of adequate health care.

But there’s certainly more than that to discuss.

@Jaxk Do you still take zero exception to the voucher plan? Are you certain you would have taken as neutral a stance had it been released by a Democrat? Surely you can’t have zero opinion on a health care law that aims to have you paying ⅔ of your own premiums at age 80 (assuming that I’m understanding that correctly). Or maybe you do on principle, I don’t know. It comes back to a fundamental philosophy on the role of gov’t. Earlier on this thread, I unfortunately joined a long line of Fluther victims to one of your acerbic comments, when you stated “I see government as limited to governing. Obviously you do not.” Thankfully I usually find such witticisms of yours endearing, and I’m able to not make it personal. Whether or not the ideal role of gov’t providing or subsidizing health care as a public good seems to be worth discussing.

@cockswain I think that that comment right there might lead to a question regarding what the role of government is which I think might actually get to the root of the budget debate. I will say that many see the role of government as limited to fixing roads and arresting criminals (except for white collar ones) while others think Uncle Sam is our babysitter.

Thanks, and I certainly hope such a discussion could ensue. Ideally most Fluther discussions would dissect an issue in an organized, civil manner with an increasingly sharper knife. And obviously the bulk of the citizens feel the ideal role lies between the endpoints you describe.

@cockswain

Fair questions. I didn’t mean to make that a nutral stance so much as I consider it a fair trade-off. Everything has two sides, an up side and a down side. Medicare is in trouble. With our current system medicare payments are low and the medical industry is moving away. It is becoming harder to find a doctor and without a doctor what good is the coverage? With the plan on the table, yes you may have to pay some of you costs but availability is much broader and coverage becomes your choice. Also there are many ways to reduce health care costs. The Obama plan has been to go for universal coverage while the Republicans were looking for reduced costs.

One piece that sticks in my craw is the interstate competition. The federal government was designed to be small with very limited power. But one of the primary duties of federal government (at least as far as the constitution goes) is interstate commerce. The feds have used this clause to regulate everything including things lke milk and grains that are grown for personal use. Why would we not allow interstate competition for health care insurance? It boggles my mind. Limiting malpractice lawsuits has been shown to reduce costs. What Ryan’s plan does is move these fixes to the states and get the Washington political machine out of the way. It sounds like a reasonable solution.

As for the comment that government should stick to governing, actually I do believe it. I think where we have disagreement or where you think I’m being slightly hypocritical are things like SS or Medicare. The truth is I would be happy if they just gave me back all the money they took and we’d call it square. They can’t do that because they have no money, they spent it. Just because I did’t agree with them when they took, doesn’t absolve them of the responsibility to do what they commited when they took it.

There is a lot of money spent in Washington on things that have no business being there. They subsidize any program that suits thier fancy and once started, everybody screams that it’s necessary. Money for the arts, heck what will those arving artists do. money for NPR, gee I like no commercials. Hell, Reid can’t let go of Cowboy Poets Festival. Does this have anything to do with governing or do we expect government merely entertain us.

As threatened, here is the question so we can debate that end of things there without derailing this thread much further.

Enjoy :)

Thanks @jerv. Coincidentally, I asked the same question over a year ago and got 20 answers. Probably worth asking occasionally.

@Jaxk I’m going out for some beers, I’ll write something tomorrow or so. Got a busy weekend it looks like.

As a complete, unrelated aside, my wife is visiting her sister in Costa Rica right now. She just sent me a picture of the tarantula she found in her pants when she put them on. That’s probably my worst nightmare.

@cockswain Sadly, the search engine is quite literal, so repetition is inevitable. Then again, the answers change over time so it is worth worth repeating every once in a while. Since you asked that one, dissatisfaction has grown, the Tea Party has risen to greater prominence… things have changed.

I wasn’t implying you should have drawn attention to that thread instead of making a new one, if that was the impression you got. Fluther questions have a very short lifespan, and probably very few are still following even this one. BTW, that’s my wife arguing with WasCy on that thread I linked.

I know, but the OCD neat-freak part of me sometimes has a hard time accepting duplication and repetition, and I assume that I am not the only jelly who has that mental quirk.