Are republicans willing to let the economy fail to win an election?

As somebody else already pointed out, it's different because the House Dems don't have the power to prevent a vote on the bill.

 

The GOP has already passed two bills that raise the debt ceiling. The bill they passed has overwhelming public support. The POTUS has proposed nothing. The Dem. Senate waited until two days before this "deadline" to propose anything, then refused to allow a vote on their own bill because it doesn't have enough support. They have not passed or even proposed a budget in over 800 days.

So I ask, how is the GOP tanking the economy?

What's really happening is the economy is heading for a double dip and Obama needs a scapegoat. A market panic or default would be very useful for him if he can somehow blame it on the GOP. He's doing his very best to try and scare the markets.

Obama has given up on trying to change reality and is instead trying to change perception, but it won't work.

 

You're telling me that Obama has said absolutely nothing about possible spending cuts that could be on the table, has not been negotiating with the Republicans, has not offered a very good package that would be accepted by a GOP not obsessed with a conservative witchhunt, and are claiming that it's Obama who is intentionally trying to destroy the economy.

I feel like I'm talking to someone who lives in a completely different reality from me.

 

This is what happens when one allows themselves to become convinced that there is only one point of view that is valid and worth listening to. He has bought the narrative being spewed in the echo chamber to which he subjects himself.

To be fair, there are those on the left who do the same thing.

(They are worse than us protestations in 3... 2... 1...)

 

Obama has offered no proposal that can be scored by CBO, that can be debated by Congress. Nothing but backroom dealing behind closed doors, and even there no proposal in writing the public can look at. So much for transparency. The "negotiations" consist of the GOP negotiating with themselves downward as Obama rejects every proposal.

His "plan" consists of leaking numbers to the press, with nothing to back it up.

Wait that's not exactly true. Obama is required by law (the terrible 1974 Budget Act) to submit a budget at the beginning of the year. It actually increased the deficit and was voted down 97-0 in the Senate.

 

Ryan plan increases the deficit as well, it just balances the budget by oh, 2030, and it does so by oh, slashing aid programs to the poor and education while maintaining tax cuts.

Reason that plan was voted down 97-0, if you're going to be honest in posting that number, is because all the Democrats knew the President was moving on with a new plan, and for once, refused to stick with whatever the GOP tried to stick them with.

 

Usung a phantom $1T. Come up with real $$$and there'd be no issue.

 

The Ryan plan increases the debt, it reduces the deficit.

Unless you want a balanced budget right away (I do), all plans increase the debt.

 

I support and would vote for a Balanced Budget Amendment. It works in Texas with a few accounting tricks, but it better than what we have going at the Federal level which is insanity. You match revenues with expenditures just like the rest of have to do and it works. You don't, you go under, eventually. No amount of phony complexity can obsure this simple fact.

 

No it doesn't. Texas, like basically every other state in the country, had to be bailed out by the federal government in the stimulus bill.

Really? You've never borrowed money for anything? Car loans? House loans? If you lose your job, does your spending immediately go to $0?

 

Balanced Budget Amendment would handcuff us fiscally.

Most people do not have "balanced budgets". That's why lowering interest rates boost economic activity.

 

Yes, we operate largely on a cash basis, so I guess we aren't like other people. But we are like others in that if you spend more than you have, you eventually have to catch up or go bankrupt. You can borrow, but you have to pay it back. There is a penalty for default. I doubt that the stimulus bill (which one?!) bailed Texas out. I don't recall any time where Texas was on the verge of financial collapse. I must have missed that one. Nevertheless, a balanced U.S. gov. budget, would create a great climate for growth and lower interest rates. Is your claim that we are better off with a government on the verge of default than a government with a balanced budget and a surplus? Surely not. And by the way I am neither a Republican or a Democrat, just an advocate of common sense.

 

You're welcome...

Texas closes a $6.4 billion shortfall with stimulus funds.

 

Texas has a lot that most states just don't offer though. Our oil and energy business alone provides more money for our state than most states make in total. We also have a pretty big technology area in the Dallas area. It's why Texas doesn't have a state tax, we simply don't need it

 

The same phantom $1T that was perfectly acceptable to include when it was part of Ryan's proposal earlier this year.

 

In addition to Gladiator's post.....

How does a balanced US government budget directly create a great climate for growth? Not to mention that American interest rates have been pretty low for quite some time now, so you don't need a balanced budget to have low interest rates. I'm not saying deficits don't matter, but it falls under the Keynesian theory of "Fixing the economy is more important, as when the economy is good, you can create a surplus to deal with harder times." That is, unless you decide to spend that entire surplus on a war.

And while I haven't been in Texas in years, given how little the Texas government does, I wouldn't be surprised to hear that most of us wouldn't know that the government was in trouble budget-wise.

 

Actually, funnily enough, it increases the deficit if you think of it in terms of overall macroeconomic effects. It comes close to if you're just looking at the raw numbers.

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3458

And we've already seen a $250 billion dollar error. And what of the secondary effects of these spending costs? They will drive the deficit up as well, as an austere government is the worst conduit for economic growth. If you take into accounts the costs that will come from, for example, a devastating slashing of education investment, or the contractionary environment among the poor and middle class that hold this country aloft, you quickly realize it is a net loss.

You want to deal with America's debt? Time to slash the prison complex, end the war on drugs, stop funding foreign dictators and Israel, slash military spending, reduce the nuclear arsenal, create a fair tax system, get rid of market-distorting subsidies---ethanol, USDA, and etc.,create a public option health care system, and start thinking of entitlement reform for high income earners. Those are the kinds of bold actions that are needed, not further attacks on the poor and middle class, which for some reason, are the most lambasted targets, instead of bankers who get their money laundering from drug dealers, and speculating on food bubbles.

 

You lie.

Ryan hisself has said those monies are not part of his budget.

 

That is correct. And as of yet, there has been no indication we can't afford our annual payments on our debt.

You did miss that one. One third of the stimulus bill (approx $250 billion) was direct aid to states to help close their budget shortfalls at a time when they would have undergone total disaster if they had to cut core services. It's for precisely the same reason a national BBA is a bad idea. When a recession hits, state revenues collapsed at the exact time core services increases due to poverty. The states had no ability to address that nightmare and were rescued by the federal government.

We're on the verge of default by choice. The only reason we can't pay our bills is that the government doesn't want to pay our bills - they easily have the ability to do so if they so choose.

I agree with the idea of a generally balanced budget - we shouldn't be running big deficits during strong economic expansions. I disagree with the idea of forcing it by law at all times - that's just bad government. As I said earlier, it's a 5th grader's solution to a calculus problem.

 

Personally I had to stop at about the 5 minute mark because he'd just said too many misleading and inaccurate things about Obama not having a plan and not having offered a plan and, worst of all, suggesting that by waiting the Democrats or Obama will "get what they want." The Democrats get nothing they want out of any of the many solutions the president (or Reid) has proposed. In every single one, he gives up the farm to the GOP. In the 'grand bargain' he proposed 4 trillion in cuts, including deep and difficult ones to issues of extreme importance to the American people and to Democrats: Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. At first he offered to do so with only 1.2 trillion in new revenue and all of it falling on the rich, who were never supposed to have those cuts anymore anyway as laid out in the original law through which Bush temporarily gave the rich an enormous tax cut. His statement about Dems having had a 60 vote super-majority when one of those 60 was Lieberman, a person who had just strongly supported McCain and been on his short list for VP and had also, through that entire time, not ruled out running as a Republican in the future. The only reason he stayed in the caucus was so he could retain his prized committee assignments, and anybody who pays attention knows that. Rubio was full of crap on this point as well.

Rubio is extraordinarily well spoken, affable, and obviously smart. He is persuasive in the mold of all the greatest politicians: he is able to make complicated arguments simple enough to grasp and so he is able to share his point of view on complicated issues neither by glossing them over nor by over-simplifying them. I think he is very gifted and I think there is a great likelihood of him being the first Latino president. As Republicans go, I think we could probably do a lot worse. He does not seem to be completely crazy, which is a great asset in a contemporary Republican contender.

Unfortunately, his argument here is completely undercut by his unwillingness to tell what he has to know is the truth. Whether or not Obama has made plans or proposals and not shown them to a freshman Senator, Rubio damn well knows that Boehner has seen the proposals as have Cantor, McConnell and even a Fox News rep who got a one hour meeting in which they were shared. And anybody who reads a newspaper knows the crux of these proposals. They have been laid out here ad nauseum. For Rubio to hold up a blank piece of paper as he did is to be deeply dishonest. Shame on him for that, especially right now.

But will he be president one day? I'd give him better than even odds.