60 minutes

[Westside Steve]

I actually see the reverse. The tax cuts aren't going to rev up the economy. The high end cuts won't have much effect. They have some effect, but we pretend it's bigger than it is for political purposes. From an economic standpoint, the tax cuts on high earners are hardly what stands between us and prosperity. It'd be nice if they were, but they're not.

 

Most people who know have serious doubts that the economy is going to come revving back by 2012 - or 2014 for that matter. It's simple under too much weight to do that. We're stuck here. Plus, there are a handful of major potential shocks to the world economy that could pull it right back down at any point.

 

Pushing the tax cuts two years down the road helps Republicans because it will bring out this debate all over again, and just in time for the election. Republicans get to say "They wanted to raise your taxes in a recession, and we stopped them. Elect them again and they will."

 

As for the deficit panel, I'm for a lot of that too.

 

 

Well if things still suck in 2012 Obama's gone and likely the new pres will sweep in enough to take over the senate.

Probably.

He's safe with a minor improvement.

And whether the extension will boost the Dow enough to impress the voters in two years is a gamble.

Still raising them is a loser in the short term possibly longer.

And I don't think the administration wants to make that bet.

I wouldn't if it was my job on the line.

 

Best case scenario keep the cuts until there's at least a minor bubble and let 'em go then.

Then try at least to save a buck.

But.....

 

 

BTW the one thing that scares me about the deficit commission is the mortgage interesst deduction.

WSS

[heckofajobbrownie]

I think I disagree with every single one of your points, my man.

 

Also, whether or not Obama wins a second term will certainly be affected by the strength of the recovery, but there are a million things that could happen between now and then that affect his re-election. There's no telling now.

 

You're also wrong - keeping the middle class cuts and ending the cuts for top earners has strong public support. It was at 57% in the last poll I saw.

 

Nor do tax rates and Dow performance correlate like you imagine. See: Clinton, Bill.

 

You seem to buy into the idea that tax rates are like a knob for economic growth - if you lower them, the economy surges; if you raise them, the economy contracts. This is pablum.

[Westside Steve]

I think I disagree with every single one of your points, my man.

 

Also, whether or not Obama wins a second term will certainly be affected by the strength of the recovery, but there are a million things that could happen between now and then that affect his re-election. There's no telling now.

 

Correct.

But it won't take much of a boost since nobody really hates the guy personally so far. I think there's still good will out there.

 

You're also wrong - keeping the middle class cuts and ending the cuts for top earners has strong public support. It was at 57% in the last poll I saw.

 

Yes indeed.

Still if the economy's still terrible it trumps that populist trend. But if we're yanking the tooth might as well get it done.

 

Nor do tax rates and Dow performance correlate like you imagine. See: Clinton, Bill.

 

I just guess that there will be an uptick due to the two year stability. Anyway I'd roll the dice.

 

You seem to buy into the idea that tax rates are like a knob for economic growth - if you lower them, the economy surges; if you raise them, the economy contracts. This is pablum.

 

 

I'm not looking at anything as being set in stone Heck.

 

WSS

[dogma]

Schumer suggested the middle class tax cut-off be $100,000,000 but the dems don't want the middle class to include people who make that much money.

[calfoxwc]

1. The tax cuts extended won't buoy our economy to dramatic heights, but will NOT hurt and drag the economy down.

 

2. The idea to extend the tax cuts for those "upper" class, is because the $250,000 is too low. It's in the bracket of

a whole bunch of smalll to medium businesses. And all this uncertainty, with the leftist whining by Obamao about

"energy prices must necessarily skyrocket"... is killing any chance of those corps investing in R&D, and resources.

 

3. The debt is soon to prove our economy is devasted already. This debt cannot be sustained, and cannot even

be paid for, without dramatic cutbacks in the size of our gov.

 

The dumbass "debt panel" that wants to extend retirement age, cut back on ss, etc? It's dumbass.

 

CUT BACK ON THE SIZE OF GOV>

 

Cut the entire energy dept, the entire Dept of Education, the entire spending on humanties and NPR, FOR EXAMPLE..

and cut way back on foreign aid til we get our own house in order again.

 

4. The Bush admin debt was workable. It was relatively small. Note the word "RELATIVELY".

 

5. The Obamao debt is dramatically so outrageously huge for years, that CHINA, and RUSSIA, and GERMANY,

to note a few, are saying we must not continue.

 

6. Did I read that somebody said the Tea Partiers didn't believe in being Republicans anymore? That's ridiculous.

The Tea Partiers want the Republicans, ALL OF THEM, to stop being pansies, and stop the excessing taxes,

and stop the assault on our Constitutional Rights, and STOP the crap about taking wealth, and giving it to new voters,

and stop giving it away to poor countries. WE are NOW POOR. Take SOME of the freakin money saved from cutting the Dept of ED,

and send it to the states for state funding of our schools. Take some of the money from cutting the Dept of Energy, and use it

as grants to develop new technology training in our colleges. Cut out a lot of the fluff depts in our gov.

 

7. I have to go watch Glenn Beck now.

[heckofajobbrownie]

I'd like to think there aren't lots of people who think like this - that they want to cut the deficit/debt, and think they can do it by eliminating the Department of Education, foreign aid, and NPR, and by extending all tax cuts.

 

I'd like to think a lot of things.

[calfoxwc]

I DO think you know better than that. There are a lot of other cuts to be made. The direction of spending

 

on gov bureacracy sp? MUST be reversed.

 

To just "cut ss" and raise taxes, is like a school board cutting busing and going "pay to play" when a school levy

 

doesn't get passed, instead of freakin cutting the huge salaries of admin, and stopping new plans to build a new football

 

stadium.

 

But then, I think a lot of smart stuff.

[Westside Steve]

I'd like to think there aren't lots of people who think like this - that they want to cut the deficit/debt, and think they can do it by eliminating the Department of Education, foreign aid, and NPR, and by extending all tax cuts.

 

I'd like to think a lot of things.

 

 

I think there are a few but most everybody has just one or two perks that they'll feel are untouchable.

And therein lies the rub.

WSS

[heckofajobbrownie]

There are far more than a few.

 

Check the polls of what Americans are willing to cut. There's only one answer that comes back from a plurality of Americans, and that's foreign aid.

 

So how serious are we supposed to take these people, like Cal and millions like him, who scream about Obama's spending, and yet have no idea where the spending actually is?

 

Who scream about the Obama debt, but don't know what the causes of it are?

 

Who scream about reducing the deficit and the debt, but think you can do it by cutting the department of education and NPR funding and never raising taxes?

 

You don't like to admit it, Steve, or maybe you don't even see it. But there's a real discussion going on in elite conservative circles about just how factless and lost the Fox News-Rush-Drudge world has become, and how difficult this circular firing squad of misinformation is making it to govern sensibly.

 

I'll clip David Frum's piece from the weekend on this very subject.

[heckofajobbrownie]

Republicans lost the presidency in 2008 in large part because of the worst economic crisis since World War II. Republicans have now regained the House of Representatives for the same reason. In the interval, Republicans ferociously attacked the Obama administration’s economic remedies, and there certainly was a lot to attack. But the impulse to attack, it must be recognized, was based on more than ideology; it also served important psychological imperatives. Not since Jimmy Carter handed the office to Ronald Reagan — arguably not since Herbert Hoover yielded to Franklin Roosevelt — had a president of one party bequeathed a successor from another party so utter an economic disaster as George W. Bush bequeathed to Barack Obama. And while the Bush administration took wise and bold steps to correct the disaster, the unpopularity of its Troubled Asset Relief Program bequeathed the Obama administration a political disaster alongside the economic disaster.

 

It’s an uncomfortable memory, and until now Republicans have coped with it by changing the subject and hurling accusations. Those are not good enough responses from a party again entrusted with legislative power. If Republicans are to act effectively and responsibly, we need to learn more positive and productive lessons from the crisis.

 

Lesson 1: The danger of closed information systems. Well before the crash of 2008, the U.S. economy was sending ominous warning signals. Median incomes were stagnating. Home prices rose beyond their rental values. Consumer indebtedness was soaring. Instead, conservatives preferred to focus on positive signals — job numbers, for example — to describe the Bush economy as “the greatest story never told.”

 

Too often, conservatives dupe themselves. They wrap themselves in closed information systems based upon pretend information. In this closed information system, banks can collapse without injuring the rest of the economy, tax cuts always pay for themselves and Congressional earmarks cause the federal budget deficit. Even the market collapse has not shaken some conservatives out of their closed information system. It enfolded them more closely within it. This is how to understand the Glenn Beck phenomenon. Every day, Beck offers alternative knowledge — an alternative history of the United States and the world, an alternative system of economics, an alternative reality. As corporate profits soar, the closed information system insists that the free-enterprise system is under assault. As prices slump, we are warned of imminent hyperinflation. As black Americans are crushed under Depression-level unemployment, the administration’s policies are condemned by some conservatives as an outburst of Kenyan racial revenge against the white overlord.

 

Meanwhile, Republican officeholders who want to explain why they acted to prevent the collapse of the U.S. banking system can get no hearing from voters seized with certainty that a bank collapse would have done no harm to ordinary people. Support for TARP has become a career-ender for Republican incumbents, and we shall see what it does to Mitt Romney, the one national Republican figure who still defends TARP.

 

The same vulnerability to closed information systems exists on the liberal side of U.S. politics as well, of course. But the fact that my neighbor is blind in one eye is no excuse for blinding myself in both.

[calfoxwc]

Say, Heck, that's pretty good stuff.

 

Did you write "Alice in Wonderland", too?

[heckofajobbrownie]

I have no idea what that means.

[calfoxwc]

Always your convenient answer. LOL.

 

Go read Joseph Campbell's "Hero of a Thousand Faces" and you'll have your answer.

 

You are so predictable, you little lollymolly...

[Westside Steve]

Not to insult Frum, Heck, but don't you ever get the feeling he and Brooks are the counterparts of Fox's Beckel and Williams?

Kinda the non threatening conservatives?

 

Seems to me he spends almost as much time attacking the Becks and Palins of the party as the Dems.

Just a thought.

WSS

[heckofajobbrownie]

That's because, like many sensible conservatives, they're trying to take conservatism back from the cranks. Because they aren't conservatives. That's job #1. Because they have no party that represents them anymore.

 

He's hardly the only one.

 

It's also because Beck and Palin are uniquely misinformed and detestable. And there probably aren't two bigger kingmakers in the party right now.

 

What does that tell you?

[calfoxwc]

Well, Heck.

 

Name one thing Beck and Palin are "misinformed" on. As in, they don't buy into corrupt liberal spin from CNN?

 

Are you getting up the courage to start your own thread, or are you going to be chicken little forever?

[Mr. T]

If you have not noticed by now, Heck is nothing more than a puppet. Heck, cannot or is not capable of free thinking other than always toting a party line. People like Heck are dangerous to our form of government.

 

IMO: Heck would love to have censorship over all media outlets that allow free speech.

[Westside Steve]

That's because, like many sensible conservatives, they're trying to take conservatism back from the cranks. Because they aren't conservatives. That's job #1. Because they have no party that represents them anymore.

 

He's hardly the only one.

 

It's also because Beck and Palin are uniquely misinformed and detestable. And there probably aren't two bigger kingmakers in the party right now.

 

What does that tell you?

 

 

Well for one thing that you like Frum for little other reason than the fact that he attacks some of the right that you don't like.

 

It doesn't seem you're on board with much of he has to say on other issues.

 

WSS

[heckofajobbrownie]

Well for one thing that you like Frum for little other reason than the fact that he attacks some of the right that you don't like.

 

It doesn't seem you're on board with much of he has to say on other issues.

 

WSS

 

Like I said, he's hardly the only one doing it.

 

Perhaps it should be about what he's saying and not the fact that I'm pointing you to it. Not that I'm surprised you went there again.

 

 

[Westside Steve]

Like I said, he's hardly the only one doing it.

 

Perhaps it should be about what he's saying and not the fact that I'm pointing you to it. Not that I'm surprised you went there again.

 

 

Where was that?

 

That he's the last word on cometing pundits but dead wrong on nearly everything else?

WSS

[heckofajobbrownie]

I don't think he's dead wrong on everything else.

 

Here's how it works: if the source is from the left, he's a "Kos diarist" or something like that. If he's a conservative, he's somehow the wrong kind of conservative. Either way, we never get to the substance of what anyone says. Which is why I don't bother quoting anyone very often. Or start threads. It doesn't elicit anything but an odd comment on why we must not listen to so and so.

 

I'll try someone else on the subject we've been tossing around for weeks, Warren Buffett, from this morning:

 

"When Amanpour pointed to critics' claims that the very wealthy need tax cuts to spur business and capitalism, Buffett replied, "The rich are always going to say that, you know, 'Just give us more money, and we'll go out and spend more, and then it will all trickle down to the rest of you.' But that has not worked the last 10 years, and I hope the American public is catching on."

[heckofajobbrownie]

I'll try Kevin Drum too:

 

This Politico story about the travails of tea party members of Congress really is spectacular:

 

A band of conservative rebels has taken over the House, vowing to slash spending, cut the deficit and kill earmarks. And of course they’d love a seat on the powerhouse Appropriations Committee so they can translate their campaign zeal into action, right?

 

Not really. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) was asked to be an appropriator and said thanks, but no thanks. Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), a tea party favorite, turned down a shot at Appropriations, which controls all discretionary spending. So did conservatives like Lynn Westmoreland (R-Ga.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), an ambitious newcomer who will lead the influential Republican Study Committee.

 

....“Anybody who’s a Republican right now, come June, is going to be accused of hating seniors, hating education, hating children, hating clean air and probably hating the military and farmers, too,” said Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), a fiscal conservative who is lobbying to become chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. “So much of the work is going to be appropriations related. There’s going to be a lot of tough votes. So some people may want to shy away from the committee. I understand it.”

 

Kingston said he’s approached Bachmann, King and Westmoreland about the committee, and they all told him they weren’t interested.

 

 

I can't even think of anything snarky to say about this. I'll just repeat what I've said before: not only do tea party politicians have no real interest in the deficit, they have no real interest in cutting spending either. They know perfectly well that most spending isn't waste and they know perfectly well that most spending is pretty popular. Voting against the occasional "welfare" proposal is fine, but the idea of actually being forced to vote against meaningful amounts of spending instead of just railing about it on Fox News is another thing entirely.

 

How long will the rank-and-file tea partiers continue to fall for this charade? Long enough, I suppose. The faux earmark ban should hold everyone at bay for a few weeks, and a well-considered selection of other meaningless symbolic votes should keep everyone on board as long as they're staggered appropriately throughout the year. It's a fine line to walk, but I guess I feel pretty confident that the Republican leadership can pull it off.

[heckofajobbrownie]

Yes, these people are turning down a seat on the most powerful committee on Capitol Hill. The one that controls the purse strings.

 

Now, is it because they're not serious about cutting the deficit? Are they just telling people like Cal what they want to hear? Or is it because, like so many on the right, they don't know what causes the deficit in the first place?

 

Could they be that dense? As lost as the people on this board? As clueless as the Tea Party rank and file? I think they are. Their public statements certainly suggest they don't understand the basics of the problem.

 

Except, unlike the folks in here, this is their job.

[dogma]

Yes, these people are turning down a seat on the most powerful committee on Capitol Hill. The one that controls the purse strings.

 

Now, is it because they're not serious about cutting the deficit? Are they just telling people like Cal what they want to hear? Or is it because, like so many on the right, they don't know what causes the deficit in the first place?

 

Could they be that dense? As lost as the people on this board? As clueless as the Tea Party rank and file? I think they are. Their public statements certainly suggest they don't understand the basics of the problem.

 

Except, unlike the folks in here, this is their job.

Bachman and Joe Miller both received government money.

They know which way the political pendulum has swung and they want to set things up so that their party has control so that if and when the economy improves they'll forget about earmark bans and go back to the tried, but untrue "trickle down" BS.

Plus the insurance companies are not going to want them to repeal health care reform and the insurance companies have been some of their biggest donors.

Just like the "contract on America" this Tea party is a pile of bull that will lose it's ideals once the lobbyist hit hard with cash.

[calfoxwc]

Okay, it seems all you want to do is say really dumb stuff as a retort.

 

I guess you may have been Heck's roomie at the YMCA...

 

You haven't been to a tea party. You just don't know diddley.

 

But you keep blabbering on, yah?

[dogma]

Okay, it seems all you want to do is say really dumb stuff as a retort.

 

I guess you may have been Heck's roomie at the YMCA...

 

You haven't been to a tea party. You just don't know diddley.

 

But you keep blabbering on, yah?

You win.

Which is worse Heck's roomie or being Beck's "Yes man"?

I know diddly when I hear it and he and other conservative drum pounders do say really dumb stuff.

Your wit is reflected in your willingness to carry their torch.

So to speak.

 

The TeaParty has as much chance to survive Washington as any other ambitious political party has.

I like their Ear Mark ban idea. Let's see where it goes.

You've told me that I don't know diddly and so I'll place my faith in your wisdom.

[heckofajobbrownie]

Here's more Frum for you, Steve:

 

Lesson 4: Even from a conservative point of view, the welfare state is not all bad. G. K. Chesterton observed that you should never take a fence down until you understand why it had been put up. We should remember why the immediate post-Depression generations created so many social-welfare programs. They were not motivated only — or even primarily — by “compassion.” They were motivated as well by the desire for stability.

 

Social Security, unemployment insurance and other benefits were designed as anti-Depression defenses, “automatic stabilizers” as economists called them. When people lost their jobs, their incomes did not drop by 100 percent, but by 30 percent or 40 percent: they could continue to pay rent, buy food and sustain society’s overall level of demand for goods and services. State pensions created a segment of society whose primary incomes remained stable regardless of economic conditions. The growth of the higher-education sector and of health care had a similar effect.

 

This shift to a more welfare-oriented economy helps explain why business cycles in the second half of the 20th century were so much less volatile than they were in the 19th century. And fortunately enough, this shift put a floor under the economic collapse of 2008-09. Retirees who lost their savings had to cut back painfully. But at least their Social Security checks continued to arrive. People who lost their jobs might lose their homes. But they continued to buy food and clothing. And the industries that sold those basic necessities continued to function — unlike in 1929-33, when the whole economy collapsed upon itself.

 

Those who denounce unemployment insurance as an invitation to idleness in an economy where there are at least five job seekers for every available job are not just hardening their hearts against distress. They are rejecting the teachings of Milton Friedman, who emphasized the value of automatic stabilizers fully as much as John Maynard Keynes ever did. Conservatives should want a smaller welfare state than liberals in order to uphold maximum feasible individual liberty and responsibility. But the conservative ideal is not the abolition of the modern welfare state, and we should be careful of speaking in ways that communicate a more radical social ideal than that which we actually uphold and intend.

[calfoxwc]

Most conservatives never had a problem with ss, and unemployment comp, and welfare.

 

But, the "Great Society" inadvertently, or not so much inadvertently, created a subculture of entitlement,

 

and dependency. so much so, that a pretty well-known "welfare mom" said when she was living at home,

 

her mom told her to have babies, it was her job, to have the home have an income.

 

We really needed to reward the intentional leaving of fathers in the poor communities, the intentional

 

having of children... to get monetary rewards? No, we didn't.

 

Safety net is one thing, a welfare state of subsidized irresponsibility is another. Conservatives see the former as

 

damage to our society. A lot of liberals see the latter as growing a voter base of trapped but loyal dependent Dem

 

voters.

 

The "Great Society" should have been funding the education of those kids in those poor families. The grants, and

 

funding of their schooling and supplies and living expenses would have been a lot cheaper in the mid to long run.

 

And, the subculture wouldn't have been deprived of the opportunity to not just survive in subsidized poverty,

 

but to climb out and thrive. And, be ABLE to break away from the self-destructive dependency on gov dole.

 

And no, nobody on any side things a safety net is bad. It's a balance. Right now, the balance has been

 

way to the bad side, and it's further bad under this regime.

[dogma]

Most conservatives never had a problem with ss, and unemployment comp, and welfare.

 

But, the "Great Society" inadvertently, or not so much inadvertently, created a subculture of entitlement,

 

and dependency. so much so, that a pretty well-known "welfare mom" said when she was living at home,

 

her mom told her to have babies, it was her job, to have the home have an income.

 

We really needed to reward the intentional leaving of fathers in the poor communities, the intentional

 

having of children... to get monetary rewards? No, we didn't.

 

Safety net is one thing, a welfare state of subsidized irresponsibility is another. Conservatives see the former as

 

damage to our society. A lot of liberals see the latter as growing a voter base of trapped but loyal dependent Dem

 

voters.

 

The "Great Society" should have been funding the education of those kids in those poor families. The grants, and

 

funding of their schooling and supplies and living expenses would have been a lot cheaper in the mid to long run.

 

And, the subculture wouldn't have been deprived of the opportunity to not just survive in subsidized poverty,

 

but to climb out and thrive. And, be ABLE to break away from the self-destructive dependency on gov dole.

 

And no, nobody on any side things a safety net is bad. It's a balance. Right now, the balance has been

 

way to the bad side, and it's further bad under this regime.

I agree with the attempts to reform welfare and I understand the repeated, ad nauseum, refrain that "The Great Society" created a dependent culture.

What I wonder is when do conservatives turn their frugal eyes towards other entitlements?

Why is it always welfare?

Michele Bachman loves to go off on this kind of stuff, but we never hear her talk about the farm subsidies she received just for being a farm owner.

There are all kinds of ways this government is being ripped off but all we hear from the right is complaints about welfare moms.

Meanwhile we've had job creating(?) tax cuts for years and no jobs.

Who's paying for those?

Let's hear some complaints about the "Welfare Daddy Warbucks" for a change.

[calfoxwc]

That's a poor analogy. American farmers who work 10-16 hrs a day growing the food America eats, as well as so many countries in the world.

 

When you have a $750,000 combine for harvesting, a $13,000 planter, a $ 235,000 tractor or two,

 

and the price of a bushel of soybeans is 10.00, and a bushel of corn is 6.50, and

 

and drought hits before you can harvest your crops, or a flood hits...

 

you really think that is the same thing as poor people living off welfare in some project?

 

I know I'm always saying that liberals don't think, they "feel"...

 

but your angst about the entitlement problems has really led you astray.

 

The subsidies for farmers helps them stay being farmers, and helps offset a little of the costs of farming

 

so that American can have food on the table. Society gets a huge ass return on that investment.

 

With the welfare problem, society gets a seriously bad negative return on THAT investment.

 

Now, really, if it has a negative return, or zero return, don't spend it.