The 14th Amendment solution

This actually works for Republicans. The majority of voters probably don't know who B oehner is, so they'll just blame the president.

 

To anyone who even remotely thinks a balanced budget amendment is a good idea, I have never seen a realistic response to my two questions:

1. How would you ensure that the United States can deficit spend in a real emergency? Such as a war against China, or oh I don’t know, a war against Afghanistan thatpretty much everyone has supported or World War II in the past?

2. Assuming that there are loopholes for deficit spending in those scenarios, how do you make sure that this is properly enforced to begin with? What’s to prevent Obama from saying “We’re in a really, really important war in Afghanistan, so I guess I gotta go over the deficit this year.”

 

Every BBA offered has provisions to allow Congress to authorize deficit spending by some super majority.

 

Meaning that we’re going to have a conversation like this every ******* year, except much worse as it’ll require even more than 60 votes and the options would be even more extreme than what is being discussed right now ( as none of the plans being presented would actually fix the entire deficit).

What could possibly go wrong?

 

Ha...ha... BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Obama... bipartisan... wait... wait... BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

 

You mean Fed has hundreds of billions of cash sitting in its accounts for the purpose of quantitative easing?

Well it doesn't, those money are created, heck it doesn't even have to do anything but add a couple zeros electronically, but its no different than printing money.

 

Seems to be Obama's modus operandi in situations like this. Always looking to avoid any confrontation. Even when he had a much larger democrat presence in congress and far more popularity. In this regard, he's certainly your typical democrat - i.e. a wuss.

 

I'm sure you think this is clever, but it's really just annoying a la gwayneco. If you have an opinion, state it, and provide rationale. Otherwise, please go away.

 

He doesn't have one, obv.

Like most GOPst'ahs today-

Obama proposing Bob Dole's HealthCare Plan, with ideas invented by the Heritage foundation? = communist Obamacare

Debt ceiling/deficits don't matter a la Reagan/ Cheney = bankruptcy/let's force default/no more borrowing etc
etc ad nauseum

It never ends. The only problem is that now they so dominate their party it creates real problems.

The root of the problem, I suggest, and many conservatives suggested - is that throughout the 80's and 90's and 00's they achieved many of their goals about rolling back regulation blah blah blah etc.....yet the "magic" of laissez-faire solutions didn't really appear/did not result in greater efficiency gains, as all their theorists promised... let's face it, at the end of the day, the absence of something (taxes/regulation/etc) sort of just leaves you with a void in which you're forced to either get results or ignore them.


THey didn't get them, and it has sort of left them in a state of denial since.

 

And so Obama gives the Tea Party 90% of what they want, but because there's no balanced budget amendment, he's not bipartisan.

I can't wait for the day when the GOP regains its sense and teaches these wackos to know their place. And I'm certain it will happen.

 

Cut, Cap, and Balance is 100% of what the "TEA Party" wants. So if you take the balance part off, it's 67% of what the TEA Party wants. Take of the Cap (which would be a spending cap at 18% of GDP, the average amount of revenue we bring in every year) and it becomes 33% of what the TEA Party wants. Also, the cuts aren't actual spending cuts, but a reduction in the projected increase in spending, so that's 0% of what the TEA Party wants.

Make no mistake, the negotiations that have been going on between Boehner and Obama have been in bad faith, and not on Boehner's end. Obama makes offers and then moves the goal posts.

Also, there was a vote in the House on a clean debt limit increase a month ago, and it failed by an overwhelming bipartisan margin.




And now I will admit that my last post was a smidge catty.

 

What they want is cuts to current spending levels, not cuts in the proposed deficits.

Unfortunately due to the last couple decades of spending, this is not going to happen over night. Quite frankly, it will never happen. When our government and people do not see the seriousness of spending 2 dollars for every 1 dollar in income, it will never be fixed. Raising taxes is not the end all solution that liberals want us to believe. Yes, its needed, but we need major cuts across the board and we need at least 80% of our population paying their fair share of taxes. This will never happen because the 50% not paying taxes will make sure to keep politicians in office who will continue their handouts. We need politicians who will do the right thing, not politicians who are looking to get reelected.

 

Nonsense. Cut, Cap, and Balance are all the same thing. If you force a balanced budget, and you have 18% of GDP in revenues, then you automatically get a Cap and you automatically force Cuts. It's all a bunch of theatrical nonsense.

Besides which, the Tea Party consists of less than 25% of only one of the three bodies involved in this process. What they want is not even what the GOP wants.

 

Pretty much sums up every time Obama has tried to work with the GOP.

 

About 12 years ago, before a ridiculous tax cut and a couple of wars, we had a balanced budget.

The only plans proposed by Democrats have included revenues as a tiny portion of the puzzle. Most of the proposals have been spending cuts. Nonsense like this is why people make fun of GOPers for just making stuff up.

50% not paying taxes is complete and utter nonsense - another made up lie by the GOP. The only Americans who don't pay taxes are homeless people who live in shelters. If you think that's 50% of the country, you're stupid. If you don't, you're lying.

 

I was just thinking with Boehnor trying to rush through a bill didn't the current House put in a rule that bills can't be voted on until they had been publicly posted for 72 hours?

 

My god, this is the most idiotic math since Dustin Hoffman was counting cards in rainman.

Let's say you and I operate a concern together at 50% ownership. In fact, we sell dry goods; and not just sell, mind you, we are among the foremost dry goods men in the entire lower 48.

Our fine textiles are worn coast-to-coast; our sundries are seen among the finest of gentelmen and ladies as well as the noblest of the common man.

Today, I propose that our arrangements are unsatisfactory. And in fact, so unsatisfactory, that we shall not obtain any more credit without my consent, us being 50% owners and having nominal rights of veto power over the acts of our concern.

I propose, that in order to obtain more credit - you consent to my 3 conditions: 1. A massive cut in spending; 2. That i castrate you with an oyster fork, and 3. That I sell your wife and issue into slavery.

After protracted negotiation - I reluctantly consent to no longer persist in my goal for your castration, or the enslavement of your wives and progeny. Accordingly I am forfeiting 66% of what I want. However, rather than agreeign to such a reasaonable course of action on my part, you doth protest.

Intransigence is thy name.

Or just mega-dumb would suffice.

 

This seems like a shrewd political move to me. If Republicans thought Obama might use the 14th Amendment to take unilateral action, they would avoid coming to an agreement and let him do so -- and then excoriate him in the 2012 election campaign as a partisan tax-and-spender and, worse, a political usurper claiming new powers for the executive. At the same time, they get to tell their own hardliners that they didn't compromise their conservative principles and didn't concede anything in negotiations to the antichrist. Plus, they still get the short-term benefit of not running the country into default. And, since the deficit will still grow and the new debt limit will again be reached, they'll get another bite at the apple for passing spending cuts and for trying to make Obama look bad.

I think Republicans would love for Obama to use this tactic. Even if he ended up not doing it, the idea that he might do it would incent Republicans to not negotiate. I think Obama is right to kill this idea in its infancy.

 

I want to know why dozens of people without formal economic backgrounds are effectively hijacking this debate.

A BBA is wholly unnecessary. The countries with some of the best deficit scenarios---yes, socialist paradises Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Canada etc. don't have a BBA, and they didn't need one to balance their budgets properly. These countries also always seem to have plenty to spend on their own citizenry, and are by far the most generous in foreign aid based on percentages of GDP.

Yet America has a party that still thinks socialism in any form is death, and somehow a balanced budget amendment makes sense...and not even the more lenient one Germany embraced...with reduced deficit spending allowed. A BBA is like stopping a business from being able to take business loans. It is the most ineffective way to solve a problem---by eliminating a policy tool to do so. It drives austerity as the primary focus rather than economic expansion. etc. and etc.

It's like watching a bunch Phys Ed. high school teachers debate the themes of Vonnegut's works. I think the Republicans embrace the free market mainly because they don't understand how the f**k it works.

Their foremost expert on economics is a former doctor who espouses Austrian economics. Jesus.