Actually, I think the Republican leadership is going to, today, go as far into the day as they can and then come up with some "compromise" that works for them, and for a lot of reasons.
First, everyone--meaning the American public--would/will blame them if this doesn't get settled and the government really does shut down.
Second, stupid as they've been with this whole thing and as desperate as they are to appease the Tea Partiers, they really did learn from the shutdown in 1995. They got burned by that one and they certainly don't want that to happen again.
Third, news is coming out about the actual, additional, higher costs to the government--read: you and me--if there is a shutdown. (http://finance.yahoo.com/news/The-price-of-a-government-cnnm-3294374261.html?x=0)
Finally, it's been pointed out by the President and the press that money--paychecks--would be kept from military personnel, should there be a shutdown. The Republicans sure don't want to be held to blame for that, if nothing else.
What's really shameful to me about the Republican leadership's drive in this debate this week is that they've been pushing for policy changes from the Democrats that have absolutely nothing to do with money, finance or budgeting.
For instance, they've been pushing the Dems for easing restrictions on clean air from the EPA.
Does that have anything to do with the budget?
Certainly not.
The Republican overlords--read: the corporations--want to pollute more and pay less for doing it so they're pushing their minions here to weaken our pollution restrictions.
And now? Today? What's the issue?
The Republican leadership in Washington is pushing for totally de-funding Planned Parenthood, according to news reports.
To heck with those women--especially the poor ones. We don't want to help them with their families, God forbid. It's better we take that money and fund more bombers for the Department of Defense.
So look for a settlement, y'all. Count on no government shutdown.
Could it still go the other way? Sure, but I wouldn't put any money on it.
Links: http://thinkprogress.org/2011/04/08/anti-abortion-republicans-planned-parenthood-shutdown/
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110407/ap_on_re_us/us_spending_showdown_military
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How do you justify blaming republicans, or calling the cuts they want extreme using numbers and facts? Not a rhetorical question.
What percentage budget cuts would you consider extreme? Where is the baseline--the current budget, the pre-Obama budget?
What percentage of cuts are the republicans asking for?
What percentage of the budget increase under Obama are the republicans asking to be repealed?
What percentage of the government actually gets shut down if the budget isn't passed?
When you compare the cuts to the actual budget, you'll see that the cuts the Republicans are asking for are insignificant, like someone switching to a cheaper cellphone plan to try to keep their house from being foreclosed.
Hey. I thought you weren't Republican, Mr. Sevesteen. Why are you defending them? Curioser and curioser.
Actually, I'm partly serious here and partly just having fun.
On the serious side, I justify what I say by emphasizing that they only want to take the cuts from social programs and the middle-class (which you should be against) and the poor, for starters. They don't want to touch one of the biggest expenses in the budget and that is defense.
THAT'S how I can defend that, Mr. S.
Here's an example of an extreme cut: doing away with the energy savings for the poor. That's blatant and obvious.
Exactly, Mr. S--the cuts they're asking for are small to the point of insignificant.
So here's an idea (I put it up here earlier, too): take it ALL from defense.
They truly, truly won't even miss it, we spend THAT much on defense.
True.
You contend that the Republicans are to blame if we were to have a partial government shutdown (while Congress gets paid...) for insisting on cuts of less than 1% of a budget that should have been passed last year when Democrats had control of both houses. If the Democrats had proposed cuts of a similar size and been turned down, I might agree to blame Republicans, but they refused to make a decision at all until after their elections were secure, or they had someone else to blame.
We need a realistic plan to get the deficit under control. The absolute minimum standard is that any budget doesn't make it worse--anything less than that is completely irresponsible. The Republican plan is irresponsible because it is nowhere near big enough, but the Democrats are making noises that it is *too* severe.
We need to keep our commitments to our servicemen, and not use their paychecks as bargaining chips. One of the few cuts that should be off the table. Cut recruitment, offer early outs, cut airplanes, ships and missiles--fine. Cutting the pay of people who aren't allowed to quit is completely immoral.
Cuts of the size necessary will be difficult, but primarily for politicians who will have less to hand out in favors. The argument isn't whether or not we will make cuts, but which ones and when--do we make them now when there is still some choice, do we make them by merely printing more money, thereby stealing value from everyone that has current dollars? Do we wait until China quits loaning to us?
Sevesteen, come one. 'Fess up on this one.
As reported in the news and as usual, the Republicans demanded that the Dems compromise and soft-headed little wussies they are, they did.
Then, when those goals were reached--specifically, 33 billion dollars in cuts--the Repubs both raised the demandds for cuts--into the 40 billion range AND added policy changes. One of those changes was to strip the EPA of some air cleaning authority for their corporate overlords. The other, as we all know, was to gut Planned Parenthood.
As I predicted, the Repubs pushed on all this, hoping for all they could get out of the weanie Dems. For once, they Dems said "enough" and called their bluff. I knew they'd all compromise, if even at the last minute. No one wanted a shutdown.
No one but the goofball, unrealistic, ultra-Right Wing Tea Party.
We were in financial trouble as a country during the Bush administration, before Obama's massive increases. The 'cuts' are only cutting the amount of the increase, and not by much.
What sort of increase in debt do you think is sustainable?
Okay, as Ronnie the Raygun used to say "There you go again..."
I never once said I support an increase in debt. Not once. And I don't. See earlier postings. Either keep the debt the same or reduce it, eventually, once we're out of this worst economy in 80 years, since the Great Depression.
And where to take it from?
Heck, that's easy.
Take it right from defense. It's there, we spend FAR too much on it, it's just making the corporations and military-industrial complex Pres. Eisenhower spoke of rich, fat and happy and it's a gross waste of our wealth and capacity.
Problem easily solved.
What I don't support is holding up a budget over policy issues like abortion and women's rights, as this gang of thugs--I mean--the Republicans--just did.
I won't argue with you on defense...it is a valid place to cut.
But we need to cut far, far more than even the republicans have suggested. We cannot balance the budget by merely cutting the military and taxing the rich some more, we can't do it by cutting the other guy's projects. Cuts MUST come from both sides of the aisle.
This isn't merely economic, although that is a big part. Government is getting amazingly intrusive--there's a recent story about a school forbidding lunch brought from home, because the officials don't approve of the content. Somehow we have reached a point where the school thinks they should do this, or that they can do this.
Okay, sure, cut the budget. Agreed.
But not now. Not yet.
Not during the worst economic downturn in 80 years, since the last Great Depression. Read Paul Krugman--with an open mind.
And yes, cuts need to come from "both sides of the aisle."
Tell that to the Tea Party and Reublicans. Good luck with that.
The Repubs right now are pushing for--no kidding--more tax cuts for the wealthy and coprations.
That's insanity.
This is where we differ. Somehow you believe that spending money you don't have will cure financial problems--if that were the case, why would we ever stop spending? I believe that spending money you don't have is the cause of most financial problems, and we should stop doing that.
No, that's a mistaken conclusion. An honest one but mistaken, nonetheless.
I don't believe that we should spend, spend, spend especially with borrowed money. It's the Right Wing's obsession with spending--especially Republican presidents (see data on Reagan and the 2 Bushes) that got us here. We cleared the decks, somewhat, with Democrat Clinton, remember.
I just know some history. This present time may be like 1933 when the government cut back on spending and it took us back into a deeper recession in the middle of the Great Depression.
My point is also to tax corporations, at least a minimum amount--something you and I will never agree on--and the wealthy, just a bit more, that's all. Then close some loopholes--and please don't call that a tax increase--and we'd be a long way to fixing our problems.
No one can deny we spend too much and that we need to cut back on that and debt and deficit spending. The only questions are how, where and when.
I'll be glad to go back to any Clinton budget, even adjusted upwards for inflation and population growth.
Corporate taxes are even more subject to the Laffer curve. I don't see how US income can be calculated for multinational corporations, which is why I think we should tax corporations at the point of sale instead--it is more difficult to loophole out of, and puts domestic production on a more equal footing with imports.
Nonsense. Nothing punishes or burdens the middle- and lower-classes more than a point of purchase or value added tax. It's as regressive as can be and benefits the wealthy greatly.
If we simply take the tax deductions off the books that benefit taking manufacturing and even headquarters of the companies off the books alone, it would bring companies back on shore, for starters.
If you tax a company that makes a million widgets a million dollars, (and tax their competition equally) you don't think the price of each widget will go up by at least a dollar?
In answer to your question:
a) No. Hell no. I'm not talking about taxing them heavily---and on one would be and
b) so what if it did? if it's a good "widget", surely the American economy can afford that. We have to pay for the roads and bridges and schools, etc., etc. somehow.
I'm not sure what your 'no' is referring to, since you are dodging the question. A million dollar tax may be excessive, it may be insufficient, it depends on whether we are talking about $1 widgets or $1000 widgets, and on what other taxes exist.
And if we were just talking about paying for roads and schools, we wouldn't be having this argument.
Costs will be passed on. A dollar in cost (including tax) added at the back end will be passed on, and on average will be at least a dollar at the point of purchase. The result to the poor is the same as if you'd added on at the cash register--except it is easier for corporations to play games and avoid the tax if it is added earlier.
You asked a specific question: "If you tax a company that makes a million widgets a million dollars, (and tax their competition equally) you don't think the price of each widget will go up by at least a dollar?"
I answered it directly and specifically yet you say I'm "dodging the question."
Yes, if taxes are not allowed to be dodged, if tax loopholes are closed, the price of the item will go up incrementally. But again, we have to pay for infrastructure somehow--all countries do this to some degree and, going back to a question I asked a long time ago, is there no social responsibility of the company to pay at least some tax so the countries they work in function? I contend yes. You seem to be fighting for the corporation to pay millions of dollars to the small few executives at the top of the corporation--because after all, they can set their own high, obscene salaries (and please don't say that doesn't happen)--instead of being responsible and paying a bit of that in taxes.
It appears to me that you were saying 'no, hell no, if you raise taxes the costs won't be passed on', then started talking about not taking that much.
How much you tax is a separate question from where the tax is applied. Tax is a cost of doing business. It isn't logical to believe that a business won't pass the cost of higher taxes on to its consumers--unless they can loophole out of those taxes somehow.
So the net cost to the consumer will be going up whether a dollar is collected at the register a million times, once for each widget sold, or whether the corporate office has to write a single million dollar check. The big difference is that if you collect it at the register, it is harder for the manufacturer to loophole out of paying.
CEO pay is a completely separate issue.
No, actually CEO pay is intricately involved, especially now, with CEO's having their corporations write them outrageously high, multi-million dollar paychecks which, just like the higher cost of taxes you always mention, raise the cost of their doing business and so, raise the cost of the product. Sure, the market still comes to bear on the price of the good and it won't sell if it's not competitive and of value but the CEO pay plays a big role in the company's existence, it's costs, the product costs and in what the company gives in taxes as part of working in a functioning society with the requisite roads and schools and sewage, etc.
Are you saying we need government policy dictating how much a CEO can be paid? Otherwise this is a separate issue.
I'm saying there needs to be social responsibility from the corporation to both the stockholders and society at large, to not allow their CEOs to be so grossly overpaid, period. It shouldn't happen at all but especially when they've taken away pensions for the workers and health care coverage, etc. And if corporations cannot or will not do that, then government could--and likely should--set a maximum percentage amount the CEO can be paid over what the workers are paid.
You'll love that.
So why bother with your claims to support smaller government? Your solution to everything is another rule.
It should be up to the board of directors what to pay the CEO. A good CEO is worth an outrageous salary, if he brings more value than he costs--where would Apple be without Steve Jobs, for instance?
"...why bother with your claims to support smaller government?"
Because if something is broke, you fix it.
Steve Jobs is actually a pretty good example, in a way, because his salary has, at times, been $1.00 per year. Besides, Jobs really is an example in my favor, additionally, because the ideas from Apple--and so, their success--is clearly straight from him, not some corporation or group of corporate shills. He thinks of and creates these things and they're wildly successful. I think there are plenty of people in the world who think that, once Jobs is gone, God forbid, the company will suffer greatly.
Lee Iacocca also took $1 in salary-I picked Jobs for my example on purpose. Neither of them was really working for $1. Both were expecting to be well compensated if they were successful at saving the company.
There are some great CEO's who deserve huge salaries. There are some drastically overpaid CEO's. Sometimes a good CEO just isn't a good fit with that company or that industry.
How would your CEO pay restrictions work--Does Jobs have to take a pay cut because Rick Wagoner wasn't worth his salary?
How w
It's a very simple idea, it's old and I didn't come up with it. All you do is cap all CEO's salaries at a certain percentage--still extremely high--over what the average worker for the company makes.
It's simple, as I said, it's elegant and it makes sense.
The rest of the company's profits could then go back into R and D and/or back to the employees as incentive to work harder and smarter. Everyone wins.
Lots of unintended consequences there, lots of opportunities to game the system. The CEO of McDonalds would not be entitled to as much pay as the CEO of Fog Creek Software, despite being responsible for thousands or hundreds of thousands more money. A CEO wants a raise, but runs against the cap? Outsource all the janitors, or get rid of a division that provides entry level jobs.
Sure, that's always possible but, first, this is still an improvement over this system now, without a cap and second, it is still a publicly-traded company and the CEO and management would still be beholden to the company itself and the stockholders.
...and the country itself, for that matter.
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