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[eznark]

Amazing idea. A party economy. Allow people to deduct party costs and watch an explosion of parties bloom. Party stores, liquor manufacturers, glostick makers, auto repairmen, mortuaries, and grave diggers would see a huge boost! We'd have a huge uptick in municipal and state funds from all the DUIs.

And the effect on morale? Why aren't we doing this already?

Tax cutting tea bagger. Disgusting.

 

[besada]

Tax cutting tea bagger. Disgusting.

Phase II? Nationalize the liquor stores. And Frito Lay.

I dream of a Federal Party Planning Committee.

 

[Chichikov]

Amazing idea. A party economy. Allow people to deduct party costs and watch an explosion of parties bloom. Party stores, liquor manufacturers, glostick makers, auto repairmen, mortuaries, and grave diggers would see a huge boost! We'd have a huge uptick in municipal and state funds from all the DUIs.

And the effect on morale? Why aren't we doing this already?

I don't know if people have the confidence to party while the deficit is so high.
We must first cut social security.

 

[thekad]

Another depressing jobs report tomorrow? Time to suck more demand out of the economy!

 

[RustyNails]

I don't know if people have the confidence to party while the deficit is so high.

We can boost economic confidence by having government subsidies on parties.

 

[ToxicAdam]

So you are that confident that Mittens will win?

I've been this confident since the beginning of the year.

 

[Chichikov]

We can boost economic confidence by having government subsidies on parties.

Oh shit, I jumped the gun.
That talking point was for after.

 

[Dude Abides]

I don't know if people have the confidence to party while the deficit is so high.
We must first cut social security.

They don't have the confidence to party because there's so much uncertainty about what the government is going to do with regard to party spending and party regulation. The increasing role of big government in our partying economy has really made the party sector shy to invest in new parties. Thank God the GOP is out there fighting for our right to party.

 

[Chichikov]

For long I have lamented the absence of the Beastie Boys from our political discourse.
But no more.

 

[besada]

No blood for confetti! Fuck Big Party!

 

[mckmas8808]

.

 

[mckmas8808]

mckmas8808]So if it's up to the GOP tax rates will never go up ever again right? If that's the case how can we ever balance the budget?

 

[gcubed]

So if it's up to the GOP tax rates will never go up again right? If that's the case how can we ever balance the budget?

umm, eliminate everything but defense? tons of money!

 

[tekumseh]

Are people still pretending like this Republican primary is still a race?

I guess if Perry jumps in, that could change the dynamics. But his window to get in is closing fast.

That reminds me .. I need to start finding Gruco an avatar.

Perry is a national nonstarter right from the beginning. No possible way he will be able to sufficiently explain his alternating positions on succession for Texas with his subsequent begging for federal aid. Not to mention the fact that he has the enormous millstone of the Cameron Todd Willingham situation around his neck which will NOT play well nationally. Unless he's collecting campaign money to supplement his retirement, he's already wasting his time...

 

[slidewinder]

Deficits will once again not matter once there's a Republican in the White House and the "free market" brownshirts no longer feel such a pressing need to cripple the economy and keep as many Americans out of work as possible.

 

[MrGame&Watch]

I think Obama should say he's willing to eliminate all entitlements and do without tax increases. If the GOP doesn't agree to this, I think it's time we give up on a republic. One party system is the way to go!(china)

 

[PantherLotus]

brownshirts? really?

 

[Stinkles]

Is this the first entire generation where republicans have knowingly done the opposite of what's actually good for the economy for purely political reasons? As opposed to the normal venal ones,

 

[Skiptastic]

So if it's up to the GOP tax rates will never go up ever again right? If that's the case how can we ever balance the budget?

Growth in the economy and increased jobs with no rate changes will result in greater tax revenues. Greater tax revenues, combined with decreased spending, can lead to balanced budgets. Or you could just keep the rates where they are and get rid of deductions. Boom, higher tax revenues. At the end of the day, growth and jobs (increasing the tax base) is the only path to balancing the budget and paying down the debt. Higher or lower tax rates really won't matter without it (though it's always easier with growth and higher taxes to cover your expenditures...)

I'm torn because our spending doesn't seem to reflect the realities of our tax revenues, so that says spend less. But I see a country that needs infrastructure improvements and overhauls like crazy, which says spend more. Okay, so we want to spend more, so we need to tax more. Well, we're in a recession, and you tax more, you tend to damper growth, which is what we need. So we're really in a bad way. (A lot of this is theoretical, of course.)

Again, you can have a balanced budget with the tax rates we have today. If you couldn't, that whole debt commission wouldn't have said "lower individual tax rates and get rid of deductions". What is infuriating about the Republican verbiage, however, is the thought that "no higher taxes" means "no increased tax revenue". Like, we can't stop rich people from deducting things that make it so they pay less as a tax rate than poorer people. That's fucking stupid. We cannot balance our budget without increased tax revenue, without causing MASSIVE upheaval.

Also, if you're serious about balancing the budget or lowering debt, you don't talk about "if we didn't pay for X program, we could pay for Y program." You say "We could use the money spent on pointless program X to balance the budget/reduce the debt." I've just heard that from both sides (whether it be X program could pay for schools or we can give tax cuts and save money from X program) and it pisses me off. But I'm probably more serious about balancing the budget and lowering debt than a rational person ought to be. Just my two cents.

 

[Invisible_Insane]

No rational or serious person believes that the government's primary objective in the short term should be deficit/debt reduction.

 

[Skiptastic]

No rational or serious person believes that the government's primary objective in the short term should be deficit/debt reduction.

Not at the moment, no. The primary objective is get people working and the economy growing. Which, in turn, will reduce the deficit and the debt. So...it is their primary focus?

DAMN YOU LOGIC!

 

[Suikoguy]

Damn Bachmann you were susposed to wait before doing the REALLY crazy shit like this:

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/07/07/263476/breaking-bachmann-pledges-to-ban-pornography/

Tonight, Michele Bachmann became the first presidential candidate to sign a pledge created by THE FAMiLY LEADER, an influential social-conservative group in Iowa. By signing the pledge Bachmann “vows” to “uphold the institution of marriage as only between one man and one woman” by committing herself to 14 specifics steps. The ninth step calls for the banning of “all forms” of pornography. The pledge also states that homosexuality is both a choice and a health risk.

That may be too far to the right for even the primaries...

 

[Clevinger]

a health risk? what?

 

[ToxicAdam]

It will be interesting to see what Pawlenty does with that pledge. He seems like he is angling for a VP spot and that could hinder his chances.


--- /// ---

Has this been posted here yet?

For those just tuning in, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, under the Obama administration, started a program to run guns in hopes they would lead them to Mexican criminals.

In short: the ATF did not keep adequate track of the guns, and they now are turning up in crime scenes, including at the scene of a murdered US border agent and myriad other crime scenes, as our local reporter Lori Jane Gliha is covering expertly.

The Obama administration and Justice Department stand accused of not fully cooperating with the congressional investigation into this scandal.

Over the weekend, the acting director of ATF came forward on his own, with his personal attorney, and essentially told congressional investigators that the Justice Department was trying to delay his testimony before the Hill.

This story keeps getting weirder and weirder. The White House has refused comment because of an ongoing investigation at the Department of Justice.

Page 16 of the stimulus

For an additional amount for ‘‘State and Local Law Enforcement Assistance’’, $40,000,000, for competitive grants to provide assistance and equipment to local law enforcement along the Southern border and in High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas to combat criminal narcotics activity stemming from the Southern border, of which $10,000,000 shall be transferred to ‘‘Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Salaries and Expenses’’ for the ATF Project Gunrunner.

Shovel ready?

 

[Jackson50]

Amazing idea. A party economy. Allow people to deduct party costs and watch an explosion of parties bloom. Party stores, liquor manufacturers, glostick makers, auto repairmen, mortuaries, and grave diggers would see a huge boost! We'd have a huge uptick in municipal and state funds from all the DUIs.

And the effect on morale? Why aren't we doing this already?

Brilliant. Forget the green economy. And I'm doing my part.

Damn Bachmann you were susposed to wait before doing the REALLY crazy shit like this:

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/07/07/263476/breaking-bachmann-pledges-to-ban-pornography/

Tonight, Michele Bachmann became the first presidential candidate to sign a pledge created by THE FAMiLY LEADER, an influential social-conservative group in Iowa. By signing the pledge Bachmann “vows” to “uphold the institution of marriage as only between one man and one woman” by committing herself to 14 specifics steps. The ninth step calls for the banning of “all forms” of pornography. The pledge also states that homosexuality is both a choice and a health risk.

That may be too far to the right for even the primaries...

I doubt this will prove damaging in Iowa. It is a peculiar system that amplifies the normally marginal, fringe ideologues; remember, Pat Robertson outperformed an incumbent VP. But NH will not prove amenable. Moreover, the establishment will balk at her nomination.

 

[Chichikov]

Has this been posted here yet?

Page 16 of the stimulus

Shovel ready?

People will focus on the fact that Project Gunrunner was a clusterfuck of Breaking Bad proportions.
But that misses the point.
How the hell is increased drug enforcement supposed to stimulate the economy?

Man, it's like someone designed that story in a lab to personally piss me off.

 

[RustyNails]

Damn Bachmann you were susposed to wait before doing the REALLY crazy shit like this:

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/07/07/263476/breaking-bachmann-pledges-to-ban-pornography/



That may be too far to the right for even the primaries...

MB has no ambitions on winning the general elections. Her idea is to get total exposure in the GOP primaries, and she will bend over backwards to appeal to her loon base. She has turned extreme right. She also changed her "wait and see" approach over debt ceiling vote to a complete "No" vote. I particularly like CBS' report on Bachmann's surprise move

In an ad out today, Republican presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann reiterated her vow not to vote to raise the nation's $14.3 trillion debt limit, saying "we can't keep spending money that we don't have."

Yet back in April, Bachmann voted in favor of the House GOP's budget plan, drafted by Rep. Paul Ryan. While that plan promised to cut the deficit by trillions over a decade, it did not eliminate budget deficits; indeed, the plan, if implemented, would mean $6 trillion in added debt over a decade.

As Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer said in April: "The bottom line is that the Ryan budget calls for significant increases in the debt ceiling."

Bachmann's spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for an explanation of why Bachmann backed a plan that increased the national debt but opposes an increase in the debt limit.

MB wants to crash and burn with the loudest explosion as she possibly can.

 

[BigSicily]

I thought some might find this interesting. Yesterday, I made the point that one of the potential problems in the CBO projections (which predict a bad future already) is that they assume borrowing costs will remain small:

Which, as you can see, really isn't a solution at all. Yes, there can be mild spending cuts as proposed by several democrats (many in good faith), but they are dramatically too small. Realistically, they are overwhelmed as the CBO projections will underestimate the debt increase if history is any indication as borrowing costs will increase. A single disruptive event can trigger such a disruptive event.

Today I saw that Reuter's James Pethokoukis, who admittedly is a conservative, reported on a new Macroeconomics Advisors paper on this very topic. The noteworthy thing about this is that the source is reputable and the Obama administration has utilized their work previously. And the picture they paint is much worse than I fathomed:

One of the outside economic-analysis firms that the White House likes to quote is Macroeconomic Advisers. Here’s what the firm said yesterday about where the U.S. economy is heading (bold is mine):

• Assuming current fiscal policies remain in force, our economic model suggests that interest rates will rise considerably over the next decade, with the yield on the 10-year Treasury note reaching nearly 9% by 2021.
  
• Private interest rates will rise as federal borrowing competes for saving that might otherwise finance private investment.
  
• In addition, yields could rise if there is growing risk associated with current fiscal policy. If such risk is systemic, it raises yields generally. If it reflects a growing probability of sovereign default, it raises Treasury yields relative to private yields.
  
• Rising rates would be a precursor to something worse: a full-fledged fiscal crisis with further sharp increases in yields, declines in stock prices, and a plummeting dollar.

This is bad. Really bad. The official budget forecasts ones typically hears about in the media are from the Congressional Budget Office. And those forecasts assume Uncle Same can borrow at low interest rates, like, forever. The super-cautious CBO baseline predicts the U.S. government will add an additional $6.8 trillion in debt over the next decade, bringing cumulative debt held by the public to $18.2 trillion. Debt as a share of the economy would be 76.7 percent. The forecast also assumes short-term interest rates average 3.3 percent, long-term 4.8 percent.

But MA thinks long rates will hit 9 percent. This would cause U.S. indebtedness to explode. The CBO, at the request of Rep. Paul Ryan, recently looked at how various interest rate scenarios would affect U.S. debt (chart and graph via the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget):

Note the scenarios that has interest rates at close to 9 percent. It would add an additional $5 trillion to the national debt by 2021. That would push the U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio to an alarming 98 percent of GDP.

Link to rest of article

Lets hope this is an incorrect prediction, because this would be catastrophic. There's a lot of partisan political back-and-forth here, but the ramifications of the actions and policy being decided on will set us off on a course leading toward a chain-of-events which will make this type of event occurring in just the next decade more or less probable -- and given the clowns in charge, that's scary. It's something we should all fear.

 

[SomeDude]

sorry to go off topic a little, but is anyone here a secessionist?

 

[PantherLotus]

sorry to go off topic a little, but is anyone here a secessionist?

LMAO -- I read this and I was like, wait, SomeDude would probably love this guy. Of course, it was you.


Edit:
I do have to admit it's at least some noteworthy accomplishment that you can troll this and other PoliGAF threads for more than a year without a ban.

I dare any of you other kids to go into a console game-specific thread and troll them, or to any culture-specific thread and try trolling them. But PoliGAF? Wild fucking west out here.

 

[BigSicily]

Rep. Paul Broun: Let’s LOWER The Debt Ceiling!

Man simply put, "da fuck"?

It's quite sad that such is the system we live in where it's considered batshit, "da fuck" insane to even consider, you know, reducing the absolute size of government.

Which is what he's proposing. You do realize that everything we're talking about, all the "spending cuts," aren't really cuts in absolute budget sizes, but a cut in the rate of growth of spending. I find it amazing that given two decades of growth in the size of state due to the continual and automatic increases in funding the bureaucracy has worked into law, there aren't even a few programs whose funding requirements have been met as their goals are bounded or increase at a sub-inflationary rate with the excess funding having gone to waste. And if you can agree there are even just one or a few, then the occasional purging and resetting of the debt cap given the current status quo isn't worthy of "da fuck," rather your thinking is.

While I don't expect you to become a convert, you won't become an apostate for reading the following, trust me. It's worth reading all types of information: Why the budgetary game is a big scam.

So if it's up to the GOP tax rates will never go up ever again right? If that's the case how can we ever balance the budget?

About tax increases and "how can we ever balance the budget" -- I already made a partial case in this post to you that the current problems are not a revenue problem, they are a spending problem. Even if we increase revenues via taxation to match spending 1:1, like in the second graphic, the rate of spending is increasing so fast it'll outstrip everything. And the traders aren't swayed by petty ideological arguments as many here are, they will see it coming -- regardless of who's in office -- say fuck you and call it for what it is: the potential downfall of the West. We're playing with fire.

 

[DownLikeBCPowder]

mckmas8808]So if it's up to the GOP tax rates will never go up ever again right? If that's the case how can we ever balance the budget?

Maybe reduce spending? Ever increasing taxes, fines, and fees are not a panacea that address the disease.

 

[RiccochetJ]

Maybe reduce spending? Ever increasing taxes, fines, and fees are not a panacea that address the disease.

Care to tell us where?

 

[SomeDude]

LMAO -- I read this and I was like, wait, SomeDude would probably love this guy. Of course, it was you.


Edit:
I do have to admit it's at least some noteworthy accomplishment that you can troll this and other PoliGAF threads for more than a year without a ban.

I dare any of you other kids to go into a console game-specific thread and troll them, or to any culture-specific thread and try trolling them. But PoliGAF? Wild fucking west out here.

I'm not trolling, why is secession a taboo topic?

 

[Clevinger]

Care to tell us where?

The Ron Paul avatar might give you a hint.

Spoiler

Everywhere.

 

[BigSicily]

Care to tell us where?

Somehow we survived just fine in 2008. Or with 2005 spending levels as percentage of GDP, or 2000 or 1995 for that matter. IMHO, under the shrewd leadership of Bill Clinton and the Congress, he reduced the size of government smartly and efficiently so that it was a smaller fraction of GDP that at any time in the previous, what, quarter century?

And given the rapid and ubiquitous advances in information technologies, there is no reason government shouldn't be able to achieve even higher gains in productivity (as measured in output per unit of spending per unit of revenue, if I did that right) than under the Clinton Administration, paralleling the scaling seen in the private sector over the same period. The caveat being we need competent leadership.

So, please, don't pull these silly political games.

 

[Clevinger]

Somehow we survived just fine in 2008. Or with 2005 spending levels as percentage of GDP, or 2000 or 1995 for that matter.

"We" being you. God forgive the people who are currently being helped and - oh, dear lord, the tragedy - survive because of our government spending.

 

[Dr. Pangloss]

Profiles on Michele Bachmann and her family for those interested. It mainly gives credence to her evangelistic Christian roots.

Here's one on gay relations/rights:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/06/14/michele-bachmanns-unrivaled-extremism-gay-rights-to-religion.html?cid=hp:mainpromo2
A few dozen people showed up at the town hall for the April 9 event, and Bachmann greeted them warmly. But when, during the question and answer session, the topic turned to gay marriage, Bachmann ended the meeting 20 minutes early and rushed to the bathroom. Hoping to speak to her, Arnold and another middle-aged woman, a former nun, followed her. As Bachmann washed her hands and Arnold looked on, the ex-nun tried to talk to her about theology. Suddenly, after less than a minute, Bachmann let out a shriek. "Help!" she screamed. "Help! I'm being held against my will!"

Arnold, who is just over 5 feet tall, was stunned, and hurried to open the door. Bachmann bolted out and fled, crying, to an SUV outside. Then she called the police, saying, according to the police report, that she was "absolutely terrified and has never been that terrorized before as she had no idea what those two women were going to do to her." The Washington County attorney, however, declined to press charges, writing in a memo, "It seems clear from the statements given by both women that they simply wanted to discuss certain issues further with Ms. Bachmann."

Lots of politicians talk about a sinister homosexual agenda. Bachmann, who has made opposition to gay rights a cornerstone of her career, seems genuinely to believe in one. Her conviction trumps even her once close relationship with her lesbian stepsister.

Another on the wife's place in the family or something they haven't really taught since the 1970s:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/michele-bachmanns-husband-shares-her-strong-conservative-values/2011/06/21/gIQAyNmvzH_story.html?hpid=z2
“He is her godly husband,” said Peter Bachmann, Dr. Bachmann’s oldest brother, who lives on the family dairy farm across the eastern border in Wisconsin. “The husband is to be the head of the wife, according to God.” It is a philosophy that Michele Bachmann echoed to congregants of the the Living Word Christian Center in 2006, when she stated that she pursued her degree in tax law only because her husband had told her to. “The Lord says: Be submissive, wives. You are to be submissive to your husbands,” she said.

 

[TacticalFox88]

I'm not trolling, why is secession a taboo topic?

There's no way you actually believe all your drive by posts. The mods must take pity on you.

 

[slidewinder]

To some extent, they are -- that is, if you look at just the numbers and dynamics of our current budget. Forget about the ideology, labels and our silly little tribalistic instinct to fight for 'our' side and just look at the facts as presented by the CBO:

The GOP is holding out because, conceptually, raising taxes is equivalent to 'solving' the problem by the following solution:

Yeah, cute; a couple of graphs from those balanced and well-meaning truth-tellers over at the Weekly Standard. Meanwhile, from the very cover page of the CBO report those graphs purport to represent:

So what's the difference between those two scenarios? Oh, the usual: In one, the Bush tax cuts expire, and some effort is made to bend the insane health care cost curve down a little; in the other, the same old liars, hypocrites, and broken-headed ideologues keep getting their way.

 

[Oblivion]

Somehow we survived just fine in 2008. Or with 2005 spending levels as percentage of GDP, or 2000 or 1995 for that matter. IMHO, under the shrewd leadership of Bill Clinton and the Congress, he reduced the size of government smartly and efficiently so that it was a smaller fraction of GDP that at any time in the previous, what, quarter century?

Why do you always talk about the Clinton years and always fail to mention his tax hikes on the rich?

Also, I love the 'we have a spending problem not a revenue problem' argument. It's like when Colbert was debating some tea bagger chick who said the same thing, and Colbert responded with "I completely agree with you that we have too much money while at the same time not nearly enough".

 

[mckmas8808]

PREDICTION!

+140,000 jobs
Unemployment rate drops to 9.0%

Stocks don't move too much because it's already priced in.

 

[Anno]

Painful jobs number =/

 

[eznark]

In the tradition of Recovery Summer I officially declare this the Summer Of Jobs

Brutal

 

[balladofwindfishes]

And the traders aren't swayed by petty ideological arguments as many here are

Aren't they suppose to create jobs when their taxes are cut?

Isn't that what you seem to argue often.

How is that not an ideological argument that traders are ignoring. Because in the last decade, business owners have just been pocketing the tax cuts as extra profit to artificially inflate their stock price, while continuing to layoff people, cut benefits and lower pay, dramatically.

 

[mckmas8808]

That's the last time I EVER include the ADP numbers in my prediction. WOW! Terrible numbers.

 

[eznark]

That's the last time I EVER include the ADP numbers in my prediction. WOW! Terrible numbers.

I like that your prediction coincided with the actual numbers bring released. I was very confused there for a second.

Also, futures.....

 

[Gallbaro]

Well the good thing is that government jobs are shrinking.

Inevitability is a bitch.

 

[loosus]

Well the good thing is that government jobs are shrinking.

Yeah, that's just fucking great.

 

[Incognito]

unbelievably bad numbers. i fear this will provide leverage for republicans (who don't have any, but in the perception arena...) and obama will cut a deal. hopefully (big IF) this jobs report is a big goddamn wake up call to the obama econ team.