I would say that the government should run neither deficits nor surpluses. Running surpluses means that the government is taking in more taxes than it is spending on services. Since the entire point of taxation is to pay for services (not counting the social engineering done with tax policy and which has everything to do with on what taxes are levied and nothing to do with surplus or deficit), any money collected beyond that is too much. Running deficits means the government is spending more than it is taking in, which is clearly unsustainable in the long term. Deficit spending can be vital in certain emergency situations, but allowing the large national debt to accrue was irresponsible. We need massive spending cuts and some temporary tax increases to retire the national debt, then we can have a pay as you go system with no funny accounting tricks. Good luck getting elected proposing anything that amounts to sound fiscal policy though, because any opponent can offer more services, lower taxes, and just kick the debt can down the road.
So your goal would be to elimiinate the multi-quadrillion dollar government bond market, and dumb down government finance to the equivalent of a child's lemonade stand?
To answer the original question, and to allude to something mentioned here -- not long after getting the surplus, we started wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the hope of keeping surplusses was gone anyway. If we manage it again, the money will burn a hole in the government's pocket and they will find a new grand project they think is worth the while.
In response to Major: The $700 billion is the cost projection for a permanent extension. A 2-year extension wouldn't cost nearly as much. You seriously believe a two year extension will last two years? What are you trying to say here? That he shouldn't compromise, and in effect, let those millions of people lose their unemployment benefits? Or that he should, so you can yell at him about compromising with Republicans? I'll tell you exactly what I think he should be doing and should have been doing before the election. Refuse to pass an bill that extends the "temporary" Bush Tax Cuts if the bill includes retaining the expired tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. Threaten a veto and mean it. Possibly compromise by raising the income limit for the retained tax cuts to $1,000,000, but no higher. If the Republican Party defeats it, use the bully pulpit to accuse them of raising taxes on the middle class in order to cut taxes for the wealthy. It would have been nice to have done this before the midterm election. Bummer. Again, accuse the GOP, who defeated retaining tax cuts for the middle class and small business, of breaking the backs of the American middle class by defeating an extension of the Bush tax cuts in order to cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans, because that's what is happening. An extension of the Bush tax cuts, which were to expire after ten years, is cutting taxes for the wealthiest Americans. Hammer this home. He should have done it before the freakin' election. The President doesn't have control over this at this point. He can't just yell and scream about unemployment benefits and make it happen. He can't taunt the GOP into giving in since there is no election coming up soon. The reality is that the Dems screwed up by not resolving the tax issue before the election. At this point, they are in a bind. The GOP can simply wait this out if they want, and then when they have control of the House, pass a ball extending all tax cuts permanently and force the President into that or letting rates go up on the middle class. So you are saying that because Obama and the Democratic leadership in Congress didn't act before the election, they and the President should surrender. Got it. We got two landmark pieces of legislation and more major accomplishments than any administration in 40 years. 40 million people will have access to health care soon, a Democratic Party goal for at least half a century. The financial system will be undergoing the most significant regulatory changes in decades. As a sidebar, we also avoided a 2nd Great Depression. Given the circumstances, I'd say it worked out pretty damn well. That's your opinion. I think we could have done a hell of a lot more. Read this post of mine for an example of one of the things the President should have been paying more attention to. http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=195470
YES! Who do you think is going to support "tax cuts only for the top 2% of Americans" in an election year? Do you think that's a winning position for a GOP Presidential candidate or congressional candidates? If the GOP does this, the Dems will clean up. If they don't, the tax cuts expire. Republicans are great at putting Dems into those kinds of ugly binds. This will be the first opportunity for Dems to turn the tables on a tax issue. But I will stipulate this only works on a two year extension. If it's a 1 or 3 year extension, the whole thing falls apart. If you want Obama to be "tough" and engage in hardball politics, this is it. It's not a good policy choice, but it's a GREAT political choice. I agree they should have done it before the election - I've been arguing that forever. But they aren't before the election anymore. So now you have to work with the reality today. People aren't going to care WHY their taxes went up - just that they did. And that Dems are normally the taxers while the GOP loves lowering taxes. Knowing what you do about the quality of Democratic messaging, do you really think the Dems win in this argument if taxes go up? No, I'm saying they should live in the real world of December 2010 instead of employing a strategy for October 2010. The circumstances are different and the reality is that the GOP has the tactical advantage here. The Dems are basically in a checkmate situation. Yes, it is my opinion that accomplishing more than any President in the last 40 years is a pretty good achievement and worked out pretty well. I guess if you want to ignore all of that and say "well, he didn't appoint a lot of judges, so he's failed", that's your choice. From my perspective, that's like telling someone who just built an entire house with their bare hands, "why didn't you include a pool?".
Tax rates are relevant when it comes to hiring and where companies do business (see Texas). As for generating revenue, tax rate hikes won't help much (or they would hurt), as this chart shows: Spoiler You can raise taxes all you want, you will never generate revenues more than %20 of GDP. We've only cracked %20 once in 60 years, and that was with our current tax rates in place. Only way to balance the budget is to get spending down to that level, period. And it's not that hard to do, you don't need to raise taxes at all: Spoiler See how simple it is to get to 19% GDP. Budget balanced, nothing magical about it. Only reason to raise taxes is envy, it's entirely counterproductive.
Who do you think is going to support "tax cuts only for the top 2% of Americans" in an election year? Do you think that's a winning position for a GOP Presidential candidate or congressional candidates? If the GOP does this, the Dems will clean up. If they don't, the tax cuts expire. Republicans are great at putting Dems into those kinds of ugly binds. This will be the first opportunity for Dems to turn the tables on a tax issue. But I will stipulate this only works on a two year extension. If it's a 1 or 3 year extension, the whole thing falls apart. If you want Obama to be "tough" and engage in hardball politics, this is it. It's not a good policy choice, but it's a GREAT political choice. Major, you are assuming something that I'm not, and it is that the Republicans in Congress will agree to make only the top tax rate expire, not all of the rates. I believe they will hold out for all the rates expiring, which will leave us exactly where we are now on that issue. They think Obama will cave. I think he will, too. I hope I'm wrong, because I agree that it would be a good issue in two years, if the expiring date is two years. Anything longer than that, and the Republicans will simply say "That's happening next year. Who knows what the economy will be like then?" And so on, and so on. I agree they should have done it before the election - I've been arguing that forever. But they aren't before the election anymore. So now you have to work with the reality today. People aren't going to care WHY their taxes went up - just that they did. And that Dems are normally the taxers while the GOP loves lowering taxes. Knowing what you do about the quality of Democratic messaging, do you really think the Dems win in this argument if taxes go up? My argument has never been that the Democratic Party would have "won" the midterms. My argument is that the losses would not have been as severe. No, I'm saying they should live in the real world of December 2010 instead of employing a strategy for October 2010. The circumstances are different and the reality is that the GOP has the tactical advantage here. The Dems are basically in a checkmate situation. And so no one should complain? That's the distinct feeling I'm getting from you and from others here. That anyone who believes Obama ****ed up should just shut up. They simply "don't understand." It gets worse after "don't understand." Yes, it is my opinion that accomplishing more than any President in the last 40 years is a pretty good achievement and worked out pretty well. I guess if you want to ignore all of that and say "well, he didn't appoint a lot of judges, so he's failed", that's your choice. From my perspective, that's like telling someone who just built an entire house with their bare hands, "why didn't you include a pool?". This response astonishes me more than anything else you've replied with. You seriously believe that appointing progressive lifetime Federal judges isn't a vital issue, but rather one to ignore and/or joke about? That preventing the lifetime appointment of judges of the likes of Alito, Roberts, and Thomas isn't a vital issue? Preventing the appointment of similar judges on the lesser Federal courts isn't vital? That the incredible delay in even sending nominees before the Senate isn't a terrible blunder? Mind blowing. I guess if you want to ignore all of that and say "well, he didn't appoint a lot of judges, so he's failed", that's your choice. That's not what I said at all. Show me where I said that, Major. Go ahead. EDIT: I saw the thread saying he has agreed to do exactly what I posted above, after I posted it. Extend ALL the Bush Tax Cuts for two years, and I saw your response, Major. That's all you've got? This is a terrible defeat for the Democratic Party, led by Barack Obama. I'm sick about it. What a ****ing whimp.
Yes, I was. I stated that in my very first post. Everything I stated in this thread was predicted on the scenario I presented. I specifically said: Yeah - I'm only referring to the potential compromise being discussed. If anything changes then we have the dumbass Dems again. I fully agree with this. The Democrats would have benefitted tremendously by bringing it up before the election. But they didn't, so that's where we are now, unfortunately. No - I fully understand the complaining and disappointment. I was right there with you b****ing about the fact they ditched the tax issue prior to the election. It was the one issue where they had the winning hand and they folded. But that said, I don't think any solution that just involves "being tougher" is a solution to anything for Democrats. It ignores the political realities that (a) the GOP is simply better at messaging and (b) the GOP doesn't care what collateral damage they do to gain power. When you have that kind of opponent, toughness is overrated because your opponent can just wait you out while the boat sinks. Simply put, they have to be smarter, not tougher. Fixing their messaging problem will take a long time. It's not something that can be fixed this month - the issues run far deeper than that and it's a party-wide problem. And I don't think Dems, by their nature, are willing or should be willing to destroy people's lives in order to win political points. The currently GOP will happily let all the tax cuts expire if it helps them paint Democrats at tax hikers and win the next election, no matter what kind of damage it does in the meantime. They'll happily sacrifice national security to prevent Obama from getting a "win" with START. The Dems aren't like that - it's part of the reason why I respect the Dems more as a party. I don't want both parties acting tough and screwing over people in an attempt to simply gain power. It does tie one hand behind the back for Dems, but that's the reality of the situation they find themselves in. They can govern or they can play politics - I prefer the former. My "they need to be smarter" comment is regarding exactly this. They aren't going to win these fights head-to-head. They need to find ways to put the GOP on the defensive instead of taking them on in these kinds of disputes. They need to outsmart and out-strategize the GOP, instead of out-toughing them. That's one thing Clinton was excellent at. I think it's an important issue, and I think it's dumb that there are a ton of openings. But health care and financial reform have a shelf life. Those can only be done in the first two years of a Presidency (same with stimulus, but that was dictated by economic conditions). Obama can still fill all the vacancies in this 2nd part of his term that will be dominated by those kinds of things. If he has to prioritize, I put the health care and fin-reg in the first two years and the other stuff in the next two years. Part of the reason the judges didn't get confirmed is the anonymous hold system the Senate has. It takes a huge amount of time to get around these holds and would have killed the rest of the big-item agenda. With the GOP controlling the House in January, there isn't going to be much getting done going forward. The Senate will now (if they want to) have the ability to waste all that time to force their way through these holds. I have no idea if they will, but they certainly can.
For Major But that said, I don't think any solution that just involves "being tougher" is a solution to anything for Democrats. It ignores the political realities that (a) the GOP is simply better at messaging and (b) the GOP doesn't care what collateral damage they do to gain power. When you have that kind of opponent, toughness is overrated because your opponent can just wait you out while the boat sinks. Simply put, they have to be smarter, not tougher. Fixing their messaging problem will take a long time. It's not something that can be fixed this month - the issues run far deeper than that and it's a party-wide problem. And I don't think Dems, by their nature, are willing or should be willing to destroy people's lives in order to win political points. The currently GOP will happily let all the tax cuts expire if it helps them paint Democrats at tax hikers and win the next election, no matter what kind of damage it does in the meantime. They'll happily sacrifice national security to prevent Obama from getting a "win" with START. The Dems aren't like that - it's part of the reason why I respect the Dems more as a party. I don't want both parties acting tough and screwing over people in an attempt to simply gain power. It does tie one hand behind the back for Dems, but that's the reality of the situation they find themselves in. They can govern or they can play politics - I prefer the former. My "they need to be smarter" comment is regarding exactly this. They aren't going to win these fights head-to-head. They need to find ways to put the GOP on the defensive instead of taking them on in these kinds of disputes. They need to outsmart and out-strategize the GOP, instead of out-toughing them. That's one thing Clinton was excellent at. So, Major, you clearly prefer the Democrats to govern, rather than play hardball politics and possibly win elections. You have an awful lot of advice for the Democratic Party. Tell me this, Major... if that is the case, why aren't you a Democrat? Why aren't you working within the party to reform it. To produce a better, smarter, more effective, and election winning party? It's easy to complain when you don't participate in the political party process. It's also easy to give advice when you're on the outside, looking in. The party could really use intelligent voters just like yourself. Consider it. Consider becoming involved. I think it's an important issue, and I think it's dumb that there are a ton of openings. But health care and financial reform have a shelf life. Those can only be done in the first two years of a Presidency (same with stimulus, but that was dictated by economic conditions). Obama can still fill all the vacancies in this 2nd part of his term that will be dominated by those kinds of things. If he has to prioritize, I put the health care and fin-reg in the first two years and the other stuff in the next two years. That's a heck of an assumption, that the President would have better luck during the next two years getting nominated judges confirmed, with a very reduced majority in the Senate. And the fact that he's sent so few nominees to the Senate is inexcusable. This is not something that should have been distracted by two years of pushing for healthcare and financial reform. In my opinion, this is one of Obama's biggest blunders. Part of the reason the judges didn't get confirmed is the anonymous hold system the Senate has. It takes a huge amount of time to get around these holds and would have killed the rest of the big-item agenda. With the GOP controlling the House in January, there isn't going to be much getting done going forward. The Senate will now (if they want to) have the ability to waste all that time to force their way through these holds. I have no idea if they will, but they certainly can. Again, I don't see why there should have been a problem getting nominees before the Senate, or using a least a bit of political capitol, if any was really needed, getting those nominees confirmed. I see no cause and effect.
Honestly, it's because, on theoretical policy positions, I'm probably split closer to 60/40 between Dem and GOP ideas. The current GOP is intellectually bankrupt, so I don't support them at all; but philosophically, I do think government needs to be smaller. I think SS and Medicare need to be seriously reformed and redesigned. I don't think the solution to either is simply raising taxes. I think a pro-business policy is generally a good thing. I'm against some core Dem agenda items like card check, etc. Ultimately, my general political philosophy is that government can be a very powerful positive force, but that excessive government can be a very negative force. So at the end of the day, philosophically, I'm not really wedded to either party. Practically speaking, I'm a Democrat right now (and have been for a while) because the other party is worthless. But given a more moderate and functional GOP (yes, that's in fairy tale land), I would probably be mixing and matching a lot more. I think having two healthy and rational parties generally produces the best overall government. I agree that he should have sent more to the Senate. But the lack of confirmations probably won't be impacted much by 53 vs 59 Senators. Most of these things are just single-Senator holds. The process is kind of bizarre, but my understanding is that to break these holds, you basically have to shut down the Senate for a few days. Many of these judges will get confirmed with 70 or 80 votes if those holds get broken. But with all the other agenda items, the Senate never had the luxury of shutting down for a few days to break each individual hold. Going forward, it should have plenty of time for that. I tried to answer as best I could above, but really, I'm not familiar with all the intricacies of the anonymous hold process. But here, Obama had no political capital - it just took 1 random GOP Senator to withhold any nomination; in most cases, you don't even know who the Senator is (I don't know why). There's nothing Obama really has the ability to do about that due to Senate rules. There's not even any specific person to put pressure on. I do think the rule needs to be changed, and I think there was some bi-partisan talk on that, but I'm not sure if that went or will go anywhere.
Pretty much, yeah. The government needs to provide (a very limited number of) services. They should be collecting taxes in order to pay for those services. They should collect as much as is needed to cover their costs and that is it. As it would be impossible to collect the exact right amount, I would prefer collecting a little more than needed and providing refunds than undercollecting and going into long term debt. As they need to spend (on things like payroll) before they receive the tax money, there would still be room for short term bonds. Anything else is really beyond what I want my government doing.
So, during a recession, your government would raise taxes or cut services? And vice-versa during an expansion?
If they were able to properly forecast, then yes (raise taxes, not cut services which would already be down to essentials). Otherwise, there would be short term borrowing that would need to be paid for in the next budget in the case of a recession. Unforeseen expansions would simply be refunded. The level of taxation should be low enough that it would have very little if any effect.
Major Honestly, it's because, on theoretical policy positions, I'm probably split closer to 60/40 between Dem and GOP ideas. The current GOP is intellectually bankrupt, so I don't support them at all; but philosophically, I do think government needs to be smaller. I think SS and Medicare need to be seriously reformed and redesigned. I don't think the solution to either is simply raising taxes. I think a pro-business policy is generally a good thing. I'm against some core Dem agenda items like card check, etc. Ultimately, my general political philosophy is that government can be a very powerful positive force, but that excessive government can be a very negative force. So at the end of the day, philosophically, I'm not really wedded to either party. Practically speaking, I'm a Democrat right now (and have been for a while) because the other party is worthless. But given a more moderate and functional GOP (yes, that's in fairy tale land), I would probably be mixing and matching a lot more. I think having two healthy and rational parties generally produces the best overall government. So you agree that the GOP is worthless, you find flaws with the Democratic Party, but you don't believe it would be worth your time to get involved with either party in an attempt to reform them and make them more like the "vision" you have of, I guess, "the perfect political party." You will never find a "perfect political party," Major, or the "near perfect political party," or the "damned good, but not perfect political party," or even the plain, old "good political party." What you may discover eventually, Major, is the simple truth that one is better than the other on those issues most important to you, and that it is better to work for that party than to stay outside of that part of our political system. To use a bit of a quote from a couple of musicians I admire, "you can't always get what you want, but if you try sometime, you might find you get what you need." Staying out of the political party process seems like the easier course to you, doesn't it. It can get pretty messy, I admit. It isn't pretty. It can be very difficult under the best of circumstances. It also happens to be what drives our political process. I used to consider myself an independent. I discovered that, for me, being involved with a political party beats sitting at a remove and writing thoughts about the process from Mount Olympus. As my mother might say, it's better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. I agree that he should have sent more to the Senate. But the lack of confirmations probably won't be impacted much by 53 vs 59 Senators. Most of these things are just single-Senator holds. The process is kind of bizarre, but my understanding is that to break these holds, you basically have to shut down the Senate for a few days. Many of these judges will get confirmed with 70 or 80 votes if those holds get broken. But with all the other agenda items, the Senate never had the luxury of shutting down for a few days to break each individual hold. Going forward, it should have plenty of time for that. Again, I think he should have handled this differently. He should have been more forceful in the media and with Congress. He should have been, heaven forbid, LOUD.
