It's simple, taxes must either increase substantially or we must spend a lot less...

What else did he suggest then? that's all that you quoted, all I heard was that Paul ryan's cuts were going to kill my mom.

 

This is pure gold and should remain as part of his standard stump speech.

 

So in other words, you neither listened to the speech or even read what I quoted. Here are some examples from the speech:

* Changing the way health care is reimbursed: health care economists believe that pay-for-procedure is one of the major causes of runaway costs.

* Independent Advisory Board. As explained by Krugman:


The main thing, though, is the strengthened role of and target for the Independent Payment Advisory Board. This can sound like hocus-pocus — but it’s not.

As I understand it, it would force the board to come up with ways to put Medicare on what amounts to a budget — growing no faster than GDP + 0.5 — and would force Congress to specifically overrule those proposed savings. That’s what cost-control looks like! You have people who actually know about health care and health costs setting priorities for spending, within a budget; in effect, you have an institutional setup which forces Medicare to find ways to say no.

The entire goal has to be to force the rate of growth in cost of health care to slow. As has been noted elsewhere, the Ryan plan does nothing at all to address costs. All it does is shift the burden of paying insurance from the government to seniors - using more expensive private care as the basis. This doesn't change our country's finances as a whole. Instead of bankrupting government, we just bankrupt the non-wealthy retirees - but that doesn't actually do anything about spiraling costs.

 

That is my position exactly. I get to go to the polls in my prcinct, meet some friends and in TX get to be a delegate to the senatorial district convention, and possibly the state convention, not likely the national convention. The actual interaction with Obama's paucity of audacity or GOP lite or whatever he is about is about 30 seconds in the booth.

I guess I could vote for Nader. I never did before, have argued for years what a waste that was, but Obama is almost making me think that others are right that the Dem Party is hopeless.

I still think that any analysis of American history or election laws leads to the conclusion that it is going to be easier for the people to take over one of the corporatist parties than to start their own third party.
Either will be incredibly hard.

 

I don't understand what that has to do with anything, but no I don't own a home. I've been casually looking for several years but avoided purchasing. The math just didn't add up as home prices insanely inflated over the past decade.

Are the tax laws regarding the MID so complicated that only tax lawyers can comprehend them? For what it's worth if I did decide to buy I would get the full amount of interest deducted since I already itemize without it.

Can you provide any articles by economists arguing that the MID should never be scaled back? I would be interested in reading that, but good luck finding strong opinions for it that are not somehow tied to the Mortgage Bankers Association, National Association of Realtors, or National Association of Home Builders.

 

I guess that's partially why we've been disagreeing. You're not from Houston. I live in Houston, and my arguments are geared towards owning/renting a home in Houston. Houston home prices haven't been insanely inflated over the past decade.

I would be very interested in hearing how your itemized deductions exceed the standard deduction without including MID or property taxes.

 

i read everything you quoted and that wasn't in it.

I am very skeptical of pay for outcomes as it might leave a stone unturned medically speaking. It sounds great if it works but i just don't see it as a hardline solution that we need.

I think if we are to gamble on these options (which I am not against) we need to hedge our bets in other areas.

I believe if your priority is keeping medicare as great as it possibly can be then you cannot also spend so much money in other areas.

 

Yeah, there is a large difference. I should probably mention beforehand that my "anti-housing" views are largely based on my experiences living on the "coasts." I would be lying if I said I haven't thought about moving to a more affordable region of the country.

Maryland state and local income taxes.

 

From what I quoted:


We will change the way we pay for health care - not by procedure or the number of days spent in a hospital, but with new incentives for doctors and hospitals to prevent injuries and improve results. And we will slow the growth of Medicare costs by strengthening an independent commission of doctors, nurses, medical experts and consumers who will look at all the evidence and recommend the best ways to reduce unnecessary spending while protecting access to the services seniors need.

...

And if we're wrong, and Medicare costs rise faster than we expect, this approach will give the independent commission the authority to make additional savings by further improving Medicare.

You certainly may be right on this - it's an unknown that is really most theory. But right now, it's one of the few ways economists on both sides of the aisle believe we can contain costs.

Agreed. There needs to be a backup "what if this doesn't work" plan.

 

Good post. Like I said, I could not discern if it was politically r****ded or brilliant. On first glance, it appears daffy - but there might be some political craftiness to it, as you illuminate. Washington is crazy.

The thing is, both steps (even if they culminate in an impressive policy) make Obama look really bad. First, he caves to ultra-stupid conservative pressure, then he's the tax-raising type. Now, folks invested in the process may be able to see beyond that (i.e., that both are reactions to nonsensical GOP wankerness), but the average schmuck just won't get it and won't care to get it. He's operating more cerebral than is good for him. IMO

 

Sorry, sometimes I just don't have time for humor. I was just trying to make sure that thumbs' statement was correctly interpreted, since I felt like I understood what he was saying. I didn't catch the tongue in cheek nature of your comment. This medium makes catching that stuff more difficult.

 

It's just another politician's empty promise.

February 2009:

<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/SaQUU2ZL6D8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

I know this thread has evolved away from the initial point, but to regress a bit, I thought this, which I took from boing boing was a pretty good way to illustrate the issue:

[rquoter]
To understand the U.S. federal budget, divide by 100,000,000

Philip Greenspun divided the U.S. 2011 federal budget by 100,000,000 and wrote a little parable:

<blockquote>We have a family that is spending $38,200 per year. The family's income is $21,700 per year. The family adds $16,500 in credit card debt every year in order to pay its bills. After a long and difficult debate among family members, keeping in mind that it was not going to be possible to borrow $16,500 every year forever, the parents and children agreed that a $380/year premium cable subscription could be terminated. So now the family will have to borrow only $16,120 per year.</blockquote>

[/rquoter]

Either we need to significantly raise taxes, or need to eliminate about half of the government, including about half of the military. That is just the way it is. For all their bluster about the need to make "meaningful cuts", the most aggressive plan put forth by that party on the right side of the isle was nothing more than a drop in the bucket. The fact that they won't talk about the third rails of military cuts and raising taxes proves to me that the Republicans are no more interested in really fixing the problem than the Democrats are.

 

they aren't, they are interested in derailing programs they don't like

 

Yeah, I agree with this. From a political strategy perspective, my response to him (and Dems in general) tends to go along the lines of "brilliant idea, brilliant opportunity ... terrible execution".

He's going to have to message this much better than he has done for most of his Presidency to make it work. He seems to be going a bit back into campaign mode, so that's a plus, but we'll see how it plays out. I do think it's also tricky trying to actually lead while the other side has the luxury of just playing political games. Dems benefitted from this in the mid 2000's, but the GOP is simply better at it.

 

i agree with rachel maddow last night, the way he broke the numbers down in that speech was brilliant.

he could have gone back and said yeah, i did what i had to do on tax cuts to get other things passed or he can just look forward. no need to remind people that you had to compromise on one of your biggest campaign issues.

 

obama spent money on the stimulus, his plan, and the bailout, bush's

 

You do realize that outside of the one-time stimulus spending ($700 billion) and the tax cut compromise, nothing Obama has done has really been deficit-negative? The on-going deficit is a result of (a) dramatically lower revenues due to a near-Depression and (b) continued increases in mandatory spending that were in place long before Obama.

This chart explains it fairly clearly (prior to the tax cut extension):