We are broke! Slash spending! Spending bad! Deficits bad!
It's always worth noting that this General Rule has its exceptions, such as War; whenever military action is contemplated, questions about whether or not it Can Be Afforded are suddenly Un-American.
But there are other areas in which nobody ever seems to wonder about what it costs.
The Congressional Budget Office released updated projections today
to find that the federal budged deficit is smaller than at this point
last year, and smaller than at any time since the 2008 financial crisis.
There are three main reasons for that: the slowly-improving economy is
putting more people back to work, which means fewer safety net payments
and more tax revenue; defense spending cuts; and the tax hikes from
January 1 2013 have gone into effect.
Conclusion?
Much of this is to be expected - as the economy recovers, there will
naturally be an increase in tax revenue and a drop in social safety net
spending. At least part of this, however, is due to President Obama's
ideal version of a "grand bargain" on tax hikes and spending cuts -
mostly tax hikes on upper income-earners and spending cuts that fall
heavily on the military. It also is not a sign that President Obama is
some kind of deficit hawk. He's just a textbook Keynesian.
Well, more a Cliff's Notes Keynesian, though given the dismal bog that is our anti-science Congress, whatever.
Maybe if we had real Keynesianism we'd have had actual economic growth and Amercans would have better lives!
Does cutting the budget cause a slowdown in growth? As we all know,
Washington isn’t “cutting” anything, but rather reducing the rate of
growth in government programs. In the sense that the “normal” growth in
spending for a government program is cut back slightly, it may affect
certain procurement programs like weapons purchases. This would indeed
be a loss of economic activity and thus put a damper on the economy.
Gosh. So cutting spending in a recession is bad?
Here though is the load of which you you should get.
Regardless of any justification for cutting spending by scholarly
papers, the need to cut the budget and cut it now is a necessity. What
Krugman and other “stimulus” advocates never mention is the politics of
budget cutting, which is not concerned with the numbers of deficit
reduction as much as it is with the art of the possible in negotiating a
fix for our short and long term deficit problems.
Does anyone seriously believe if we get back to robust growth in the
economy — 4% or more — that the political will to deal with our long
term debt problems, our entitlement problems, and further deficit
reduction will exist? It isn’t so much that the deficit and debt are
“immediate” crisis in the sense that unless we balance the budget by
next year, the economy will collapse. But once the economy improves, and
revenue begins to recover, the need for deficit reduction disappears
and Congress will go back to business as usual.
That’s the political reality. Without a spur to their behinds,
Congress won’t deal with our debt and deficit problems. And that spur —
uncontrolled deficits and a continual increase in our national debt —
will disappear once the good times are rolling again.
See, we can't have robust economic growth spurred by increased government spending, because if we had that, it would solve the deficit problem, and that would completely destroy the political will to enact the government spending cuts we would need to enact to solve the deficit problem that would have been already solved by the robust economic growth spurred by increased government spending.
Rick Moran's gift for not understanding anything, and thus inadvertently clarifying the deep idiocy of his own side's propaganda, is glorious to behold. All hail the Ignoramus Savant.
I've never much hidden my overall dislike of the US constitution.
As a general rule, large groups of upper class Englishmen are incapable of producing anything except a bunch of crap you can never clean up properly, and the Founding Fathers were nothing if not upper class Englishmen, and hence, hateful twerps.
That an allegedly free people cannot stop unironically using puerile, self-abasing terms like "the Founding Fathers" speaks to our to our perdurable national mania for tongue-bathing obvious moral degenerates as long as they have some type of "patriotic" pedigree. That an allegedly free people cannot put a stake through the rotten heart of such vampiric malignancies as the Electoral College, the Senate, and (shudder) New Jersey speaks to the undeniably ossifying effect of our continued braindead, onanistic adoration of a shoddy, slapdash, cloddishly compromise document written by a gang of wig-wearing, fractious, syphilitic, slaveowning dickheads.
So much is clear, uncontroversial, and refreshingly devoid of hyperbole.
Hence I found this op-ed in the NYT more than a little surprising, yet quite welcome.
AS the nation teeters at the edge of fiscal chaos, observers are
reaching the conclusion that the American system of government is
broken. But almost no one blames the culprit: our insistence on
obedience to the Constitution, with all its archaic, idiosyncratic and
downright evil provisions.
Shit yes!
To quibble, "evil" is useless as an analytical criterion, so I'd pinch-hit "undemocratic" for "downright evil." But the rest is unexceptionable.
Not kidding here, either. There is an intense censorship effect in Our Free Society against the idea that it is at all fair game to, of all things, think critically about the US constitution. This to me is the most interesting part of Seidman's piece:
Our obsession with the Constitution has saddled us with a dysfunctional
political system, kept us from debating the merits of divisive issues
and inflamed our public discourse. Instead of arguing about what is to
be done, we argue about what James Madison might have wanted done 225
years ago.
As someone who has taught constitutional law for almost 40 years, I am
ashamed it took me so long to see how bizarre all this is.
Bold mine.
You're just not supposed to think of the constitution as something certain people thought of and put into practice in specific historical circumstances. Even though that is all that it is. It is not Holy Writ, and to think of it as such is one of the following: childish, wicked, or dickish.
Because democracy demands that if you wonder why Wyoming has the exact same Senate representation as a state where people live voluntarily, you've just peed on Jefferson's grave.
I would cheerfully pee on Jefferson's grave. And on Wyoming.
But the Founders built well, knowing that the Constitution—the
documentary embodiment of the Rule of Law replacing the Rule of Man (or
Rule of the King, as practical matters had it in the 1780s)—would work
only if it became an object of reverence in place of a monarch among the
people.
As a matter of history, this is fanciful garbage. As a matter of exemplifying modern "conservatism" as nothing more, or less, than dickless, vaginaless, mindless, conformist idolatry... well done, PowerLine!
I mean...
Hence most constitutional law professors treat the Constitution as a plaything from which to extract whatever outcome they want.
Because, you'll never catch out a "conservative" jurist ever doing anything of the sort.
These fuckers, they snort what they sell, and then they tell you, like butter wouldn't melt, that their powdery nostrils and red-rimmed crazy eyes simply prove that they so very dearly love the Jelly Doughnuts of Freedom.
Well-dressed & entirely rational, not in the least bit absurdly paranoid conservative cheerleader Michelle Malkin has the scoop: It's a fashionista conspiracy!
Talk about wearing your politics on your sleeve. An elitist clique of fashion designers has banded together to raise money for celebrity-in-chief Barack Obama and browbeat their customers into supporting him. Even worse, the Beautiful People who dress the Powerful People are putting increased pressure on conservatives to stay out of the business altogether.
Out: Haute couture. In: Hate couture.
Much too lazy to do a 180° treatment of that paragraph (Substituting "armament industry" for fashion designers, Romney for Obama, lib for con, yada.) but certainly you can imagine.
You can also imagine the incredible "pressure" being applied:
Diane von Furstenberg pitched in two $85 tote bags and has grown more strident about her partisan agenda as Election Day nears. At a fashion event in her New York Meatpacking District store last month, she yelled at clients: "Everyone here better be a Democrat; no Republicans!"
Wow. Not sure pressure is a strong enough word. Fortunately Malkin found someone (Pro-Romney because he doesn't like to pay taxes or a living wage to women indentured in his sweatshops? Who knows?) to reveal that it's not mere pressure but a threat! And to do a 180 that reveals where the true attacks on women come from.
Young New York City designer Bradley Scott also spoke up against ideological "persecution" in his industry. "It's really offensive for me, as a designer, to be issued an unveiled threat by someone who could exert an enormous amount of influence over my customers, store buyers and magazine editors," he told me on Tuesday. "I for one want absolutely nothing to do with this attack on women. This pressure upon designers should offend every woman in this country, not just the conservatives."
As far as I can determine the real conspiracy here was making Ann Romney appear as if she's a blind woman who lets a six-yr. old Disney Princess fan choose her clothes.
Richard Perry/The New York Times
Mitt Romney and his wife, Ann, left, made cherry pies with Linda Hundt,
the owner of Sweetie-licious Bakery Cafe in DeWitt, Mich.,
during a campaign stop in June.
Heaven FOR-FUCKING-FEND a moderator in a debate over who should be the leader of the free fucking world should be armed with a perfunctory grasp on reality, which she could then use against whichever one of the candidates who happens to be lying his grinny mouth off. I mean, can you imagine?! If that happened, it would almost be like the word "journalism" actually meant something, and if it did, well, the National Review would find itself sans staff.
Here, a Mormon uses the original verse from the Psalm while detailing his porno addiction. (I wonder if that all began at a Marriott.)
Righteousness:As to whiny complaints about being accused of talking through one's magic Mormon hat, "who the cap fits, he must wear it."— M. "Zen Rasta" Bouffant
“And, once again, tithing is ten percent off the top. That’s gross income, not net. Please, people, don’t force us to audit.”
From BuzzFeed's Andrew K., on the Comunication Platform That Shall Not Be Named:
Interesting strategy. RT @markknoller: Romney says he's not releasing more tax returns so as to keep his tithes to Mormon Church private.
Unlike all of you people, I trust our very serious media personalities and journalists to accept this newest development in Camp Romney with the obsequiousness it deserves, and not go around "wondering" and "asking questions" and what have you. In case you hadn't noticed, Barack Obama has thus far refused - refused! - to answer or atone for the color of his skin, his political views or his skulking about the White House.
Let's allow the American Media to do the job we hired them to do, OK?
Politico has an interesting background piece on Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) which includes an anecdote showing his "keen sense of how his status had changed once he won his first election to the House in 1998."
A reporter he knew from his days as a congressional aide approached him to wish him well.
"Congratulations, Paul," said the reporter, who was several years older than Ryan.
"It's Mr. Ryan, now," he replied.
No surprise. Is there anything else any one needs to know about this colossal jerk?
Aside from being unnecessarily insulting, his argument makes little sense. Everybody has access to roads and bridges, but not everybody builds successful businesses.
Nobody builds succesful businesses without roads and bridges, is the point.
