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Paul Ryan Speaks On The "Catastrophic Trajectory" Of US Debt
Shared Scarcity versus Renewed Prosperity
Economic Club of Chicago Remarks as Prepared for Delivery by Paul Ryan
May 16, 2011
Thank you so much, Anne, for the kind introduction.
I want to thank you all for inviting me to speak. It was especially
gracious of you to host me, even though I’m a Packers fan and I assume
most of you are Bears fans.
But that doesn’t mean we can’t work together. As chairman of the
House Budget Committee, I stand ready to do whatever it takes to help
you re-sign Jay Cutler.
I’m here to talk about the economy today – about the need to get four quarters of strong, consistent performance.
That wasn’t another Jay Cutler joke, I swear. It could be, but it’s not.
I’ll come to the point. Despite talk of a recovery, the economy is
badly underperforming. Growth last quarter came in at just 1.8 percent.
We’re not even creating enough jobs to employ new workers entering the
job market, let alone the six million workers who lost their jobs during
the recession.
The rising cost of living is becoming a serious problem for many
Americans. The Fed’s aggressive expansion of the money supply is clearly
contributing to major increases in the cost of food and energy.
An even bigger threat comes from the rapidly growing cost of health
care, a problem made worse by the health care law enacted last year.
Most troubling of all, the unsustainable trajectory of government
spending is accelerating the nation toward a ruinous debt crisis.
This crisis has been decades in the making. Republican
administrations, including the last one, have failed to control
spending. Democratic administrations, including the present one, have
not been honest about the cost of the tax burden required to fund their
expansive vision of government. And Congresses controlled by both
parties have failed to confront our growing entitlement crisis. There is
plenty of blame to go around.
Years of ignoring the drivers of our debt have left our nation’s
finances in dismal shape. In the coming years, our debt is projected to
grow to more than three times the size of our entire economy.
This trajectory is catastrophic. By the end of the decade, we will be spending 20 percent of our tax revenue simply paying interest on the debt – and that’s according to optimistic projections. If ratings agencies such as S&P move from downgrading our outlook to downgrading our credit, then interest rates will rise even higher, and debt service will cost trillions more.
This course is not sustainable. That isn’t an opinion; it’s a
mathematical certainty. If we continue down our current path, we are
walking right into the most preventable crisis in our nation’s history.
So the question is, how do we avoid it?
The answer is simple. We have to make responsible choices today, so that our children don’t have to make painful choices tomorrow.
If you look at what’s driving our debt, the explosive growth in
spending is the result of health care costs spiraling out of control.
By the time my children are raising families of their own, literally
every dollar we raise in revenue will be paying for three major
entitlement programs.
Some of this is demographic – every day, ten thousand baby boomers retire and start collecting Medicare and Social Security.
But a lot of it is simply due to the fact that health care costs are rising faster than the economy is growing. Revenues simply cannot keep up.
It’s basic math – we cannot solve our fiscal or economic challenges unless we get health care costs under control.
The budget passed by the House last month takes credible steps
to controlling health care costs. It aims to do two things: to put our
budget on a path to balance, and to put our economy on a path to
prosperity.
I am here today to stress the point that these goals go hand in hand.
Stable government finances are essential to a growing economy, and
economic growth is essential to balancing the budget.
The name of our budget is The Path to Prosperity.
See, right now, we’re finally having a debate in Washington about how
to address our fiscal problems. But we’re still not having the debate
we need to have.
To an alarming degree, the budget debate has degenerated into a game
of green-eyeshade arithmetic, with many in Washington – including the
President – demanding that we trade ephemeral spending restraints for
large, permanent tax increases.
This sets up a debate in which we are really just arguing over who to
hurt and how best to manage the decline of our nation. It is a
framework that accepts ever-higher taxes and bureaucratically rationed
health care as givens.
I call it the “shared scarcity” mentality. The missing ingredient is economic growth.
Shared scarcity represents a deeply pessimistic vision for the future
of this country – one in which we all pay more and we all get less. I
believe it would leave us with a nation that is less prosperous and less
free.
To begin with, chasing ever-higher spending with ever-higher tax
rates will decrease the number of makers in society and increase the
number of takers. Able-bodied Americans will be discouraged from working
and lulled into lives of complacency and dependency.
Worse – when it becomes obvious that taxing the rich doesn’t generate
nearly enough revenue to cover Washington’s empty promises – austerity
will be the only course left. A debt-fueled economic crisis will force
massive tax increases on everyone and indiscriminate cuts on current
beneficiaries – without giving them time to prepare or adjust. And,
given the expansive growth of government, many of these critical
decisions will fall to bureaucrats we didn’t elect.
Shared scarcity impedes economic growth, results in harsh austerity, and ends with lost freedom.
In a recent speech he gave in response to our budget, President Obama
outlined a deficit-reduction approach that, in my view, defines shared
scarcity. The President’s plan begins with trillions of dollars in
higher taxes, and it relies on a plan to control costs in Medicare that
would give a board of 15 unelected bureaucrats in Washington the power
to deeply ration care. This would disrupt the lives of those currently in retirement and lead to waiting lists for today’s seniors.
Now in criticizing the President’s policies, I should make clear that
I am not disputing for a moment that he inherited a difficult fiscal
situation when he took office. He did.
Millions of American families had just seen their dreams destroyed by
misguided policies and irresponsible leadership that caused a financial
disaster. The crisis squandered the nation’s savings and crippled its
economy.
The emergency actions taken by the government in the fall of 2008 did
help to arrest the ensuing panic. But subsequent interventions – such
as the President’s stimulus law and the Fed’s unprecedented monetary
easing – have done much more harm than good, in my judgment.
In the aftermath of the crisis, we needed government to repair the
free-market foundations of the American economy, as it did under Reagan
in the early 1980s, by restraining spending… keeping taxes low…
enforcing reasonable, predictable regulations… and protecting the value
of the dollar.
Instead, leaders in Washington embarked on an unprecedented spending
spree… enacted a deeply flawed overhaul of financial rules… passed a new
health care law that raised taxes by $800 billion… and encouraged a
sharp departure from a rules-based monetary policy, which created even
more economic uncertainty.
In the 2010 election, the voters sent a message: This isn’t working. Washington needs to try something else.
We know what that something else must be, because we know what has
always made growth possible in America. We need to answer that call for
new economic leadership by getting back to the four foundations of
economic growth:
First, we have to stop spending money we don’t have, and ultimately that means getting health care costs under control.
Second, we have to restore common sense to the regulatory
environment, so that regulations are fair, transparent, and do not
inflict undue uncertainty on America’s employers.
Third, we have to keep taxes low and end the year-by-year approach to
tax rates, so that job creators have incentives to invest in America;
and
Fourth, we have to refocus the Federal Reserve on price stability,
instead of using monetary stimulus to bail out Washington’s failures,
because businesses and families need sound money.
Let me deal with each in order.
The first foundation, real spending discipline: it’s pretty simple.
You can’t get real, sustainable growth by continuing to pile on the
debt. More debt means more uncertainty, and more uncertainty means fewer
jobs.
The rating agency S&P just downgraded the outlook on U.S. debt
from “stable” to “negative.” That sends a signal to job creators. If
S&P is telling them that America is a bad investment, they’re not
going to expand and create jobs in America – not at the rate we need
them to.
Mounting debt also threatens our poorest and most vulnerable
citizens, because those who depend most on government would be hit
hardest by a fiscal crisis. We have to repair our safety net programs so
that they are there for those who need them most. This starts by
building on the successful, bipartisan welfare reforms of the mid-1990s.
Our reforms save the social safety net by giving more power to
governors to create strong, flexible programs that better serve the
needs of their populations. Most important, they make these programs
solvent.
As we strengthen welfare for those who need it, we propose to end it
for those who don’t. We end wasteful corporate welfare for those such as
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, big agribusinesses, and others that have
gotten a free ride from the taxpayer for too long.
All of these steps are necessary to getting spending under control.
But they are not enough. We cannot avert a debt crisis unless we
directly address the rising cost of health care.
Getting health care costs under control is critical, both for solving our fiscal mess and
for promoting growth. One reason that many people aren’t getting raises
is that rising health care costs are eating into their paychecks.
The second foundation addresses the growing scourge of crony
capitalism, in which Washington bureaucrats abuse the regulatory process
to pick winners and losers in the private economy.
Congressional Republicans continue to advance reforms that stop
regulatory bureaucrats from strangling job growth and innovation with
red tape. We’ve advanced legislation to stop the EPA from imposing
job-destroying energy caps on American businesses.
We’ve advanced legislation to revisit the flawed Dodd-Frank law,
which actually intensifies the problem of too-big-to-fail by giving
large, interconnected financial institutions advantages that small firms
do not enjoy.
But most important, we propose to repeal the new health care law and
its burdensome maze of new regulations. It’s bad enough that the law
imposes an unconstitutional mandate on every American; it also imposes
new regulations on businesses, which are stifling job creation.
Let me share with you a figure that serves as a devastating
indictment of the new health care law: So far, over 1,000 businesses and
organizations have been granted waivers from the law’s onerous
mandates. These waivers may prevent job losses now, but they do not
guarantee relief in the future, nor do they help those firms that lack
the connections to lobby for waivers.
This is no way to create jobs in America. True, bipartisan health care reform starts by repealing this partisan law.
The third foundation recognizes that we cannot get our economy back
on track if Washington tries to tax its way out of this mess.
The economics profession has been really clear about this – higher marginal tax rates create a drag on economic growth.
As the University of Chicago’s John Cochrane recently wrote: “No
country ever solved a debt problem by raising tax rates. Countries that
solved debt problems grew, so that reasonable tax rates times much
higher income produced lots of tax revenue. Countries that did not grow
inflated or defaulted.”
Higher taxes are not the answer.
Finally, the fourth foundation calls for rules-based monetary policy
to protect working families and seniors from the threat of high
inflation.
The Fed’s recent departures from rules-based monetary policy have
increased economic uncertainty and endangered the central bank’s
independence.
Advocates of these aggressive interventions cite the “maximum
employment” aspect of the Fed’s dual mandate – its other mandate being
price stability.
Congress should end the Fed’s dual mandate and task the central bank
instead with the single goal of long-run price stability. The Fed should
also explicitly publish and follow a monetary rule as its means to
achieve this goal.
These are our four foundations of economic growth. And the
House-passed budget starts the long, arduous, and necessary process of
restoring these foundations and building a prosperous future.
We lift the crushing burden debt by cutting spending and reforming
those government programs that drive the debt. We reduce the deficit by
over a third in the first year of our budget, putting an end to the era
of trillion-dollar deficits. The House-passed budget doesn’t just put
the budget on a path to balance – it actually pays off the debt over
time.
We can’t achieve this goal by simply rubber-stamping increases in the
national debt limit without reducing spending in Washington.
Speaker Boehner made this clear in a recent speech at the Economic
Club of New York: If the debt ceiling has to be raised, then we’ve got
to cut spending. The House-passed budget contained $6.2 trillion in
spending cuts. For every dollar the President wants to raise the debt
ceiling, we can show him plenty of ways to cut far more than a dollar of
spending. Given the magnitude of our debt burden, the size of the
spending cuts should exceed the size of the President’s debt limit
increase.
The House-passed budget also gets health care spending under control
by empowering Americans to fight back against skyrocketing costs. Our
budget makes no changes for those in or near retirement, and offers
future generations a strengthened Medicare program they can count on,
with guaranteed coverage options, less help for the wealthy, and more
help for the poor and the sick.
There is widespread, bipartisan agreement that the open-ended,
fee-for-service structure of Medicare is a key driver of health-care
cost inflation. As my friend Jim Capretta, a noted health-care policy
expert, likes to say, Medicare is not the train being pulled along by
the engine of rising costs. Medicare is the engine – and the rest of us are getting taken for a ride.
The disagreement isn’t really about the problem. It’s about the
solution to controlling costs in Medicare. And if I could sum up that
disagreement in a couple of sentences, I would say this: Our plan is to
give seniors the power to deny business to inefficient providers. Their
plan is to give government the power to deny care to seniors.
We also disagree about how best to deliver the tax reform that Americans have long demanded from Washington.
Here’s a quick story about tax policy. Twenty-five years ago, GE CEO
Jack Welch introduced himself to this very club by saying, “I represent a
company that doesn’t pay taxes.”
I guess some things never change.
We have to broaden the tax base, so corporations cannot game the
system. The House-passed budget calls for scaling back or eliminating
loopholes and carve-outs in the tax code that are distorting economic
incentives.
We do this, not to raise taxes, but to create space for lower tax
rates and a level playing field for innovation and investment. America’s
corporate tax rate is the highest in the developed world. Our
businesses need a tax system that is more competitive.
A simpler, fairer tax code is needed for the individual side, too.
Individuals, families, and employers spend over six billion hours and
over $160 billion per year figuring out how to pay their taxes. It’s time to clear out the tangle of credits and deductions and lower tax rates to promote growth.
The House-passed budget does that by making the tax code simpler…
flatter… fairer… more globally competitive… and less burdensome for
working families and small businesses.
By contrast, the President says he wants to eliminate deductions, but he also wants to raise
rates. That includes raising the top rate to 44.8 percent. That would
amount to a $1.5 trillion tax increase on families and job creators.
The President says that only the richest people in America
would be affected by his plan… Class warfare may be clever politics, but
it is terrible economics. Redistributing wealth never creates more of
it.
Further, the math is clear – the government cannot close its enormous
fiscal gap simply by taxing the rich. This gap grows by trillions of
dollars each year, representing tens of trillions in unfunded promises
to future generations that the government has no plan to keep.
There’s a civic side to this as well. Sowing social unrest and class
envy makes America weaker, not stronger. Playing one group against
another only distracts us from the true sources of inequity in this
country – corporate welfare that enriches the powerful, and empty
promises that betray the powerless.
Those committed to the mindset of “shared scarcity” are telling
future generations, sorry, you’re just going to have to make do with
less. Your taxes will go up, because Washington can’t get government
spending down.
They are telling future generations, you know, there’s just not much
we can do about health care costs. Government spending on health care is
going to keep going up and up and up… and when we can’t borrow or tax
another dollar, we’ll have to give a board of unelected bureaucrats the
power to tell you what kind of treatments you can and can’t receive.
If we succumb to this view that our problems are bigger than we are –
if we surrender more control over our economy to the governing class –
then we are choosing shared scarcity over renewed prosperity, and
managed decline over economic growth.
That’s the real class warfare that threatens us – a class of
governing elites picking winners and losers, and determining our
destinies for us.
We face a choice between two futures. We can continue to go down the
path toward shared scarcity, or we can choose the path of renewed
prosperity.
The question before us is simple: Which path will our generation choose?
In 1979, my mentor, Jack Kemp, captured the essence of why we must choose the path to prosperity:
“We can’t progress as a society by using government to diminish one
another. The only way we can all have more is by producing more, not by
bickering over how to share less. Economic growth must come first… for
when it does many social problems tend to take care of themselves, and
the problems that remain become manageable.”
You know, there’s a question I get a lot from people at town halls.
When you go around the country showing people a chart that shows that
our debt is on track to cripple our economy, people start to ask you
whether any plan, even a plan like the House-passed budget, can save America from a diminished future.
They say, Congressman Ryan, I know you have to sound optimistic in public. But in private, do you really think there’s anything we can do to save this country from fiscal ruin? Or should we just be bracing for the worst?
It’s a difficult question. It’s one that gives me pause. Frankly, it’s one that keeps me up at night.
But the honest answer is the one I’m about to give to you: Nobody
ever got rich betting against the United States of America, and I’m not
about to start.
Time and again, just when it looked like the era of American
exceptionalism was coming to a close… we got back up. We brushed
ourselves off. And we got back to work – rebuilding our country,
advancing our society, and moving the boundaries of opportunity ever
forward.
We can do it again. America was knocked down by a recession. We are
threatened by a rising tide of debt. But we are not knocked out. We are
America. And it is time to prove the doubters wrong once more – to show
them that this exceptional nation is once again up to the challenge.
Thank you.
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Sometimes the best articles are the ones that elicit a wide array of responses from all corners. It's a good opportunity to see *who* believes in *what*. Useful information for future comments/discussions.
We have true trolls, wannabe trolls, leftists, piss-ants, angry washouts, clueless teenagers, and financial dropouts here. Post a polarizing comment, pull the pin, and then step back and watch the show!
There are a handful of legitimate contributors, though, who espouse insightful conversation and seldom deign to put you down if you have an honest question to ask. RockyRacoon is one. Not too many on this particular thread, though. Too many angry trolls. LOL!
were the pumpkins from your blackhawk down crisis garden?
yea ... i bought the seeds with silver coins, and then canned the vegetables.
except the guy delivering it is a hypocrite.. you have the tax and spend elite leftist and then you have tax and spend elite neo-cons like Ryan who did vote for TARP and for Patriot act and for bailing out auto industry conveniently in his district...
So I gave it one star because a snake is a snake is a snake...no matter how sweet he talks to you!
you must be a purist looking for 100% perfection. good luck. many of us have made mistakes in our life, like ryan's tarp vote.
i gave it a five star because to do nothing won't work given the trajectory of the debt.
the best way to
control the opposition ..
is to become the opposition ...
quote from some old guy..
I like most the points...maybe not number 10 and add 1, a minumum corporate tax...they are not paying their fair share.
Here you go...
- End the gold-plated $300b F-35 program.
- End US loans to the IMF ($105b last year). Why should US taxpayers work until they're 67 so Greek tax evaders can retire at 52?
- Unwind all the private bank debt on public balance sheets. There's $2.7 trillion.
- Wind down Fannie and Freddie, 5% of securitizations a quarter thus encouraging private securitization using covered bonds.
- Shut down our current useless overseas adventures and save a $billion a week.
- Fail to renew the Bush tax cuts
- Tax everything - income, capital gains, dividends - at the same marginal rate. Why should there be any difference?
I'm all for supporting the military, but couldn't we cancel about $100b in "new development" spending for new hardware, and instead hire a hundred top-shelf hackers at $1 million each to take out our enemies' servers and provide electronic confusion so their own hardware won't be usable?
BAM! $99b saved.
Paul Ryan the man who says, we're winning 6-0, we can't lose.
The same guy who says if we're losing by 0-6, it extrapolates out to losing 350-0 by the end of the game, and somehow we can still win?
Paul Ryan knows dick, and if he didn't have one, I wouldn't expect even that.
Ben Bernanke
Paul Ryan
Alan Greenspan
What do they have in common?
All 3 know jack shit, about money, numbers, and our economic system.
If I pile endless amount of shit ontop of itself, eventually I can walk into space.
Paul Ryan, the man who has an unbelivably stupid budget, that is about as real as Bernie Madoff's books, and somehow says that all the projections will become real, and that this destroyed economy will borrow what...100 trillion dollars or some shit?
Paul Ryan is one of the reasons we're in trouble.
Because while it wasn't Paul Ryan who set the stage, it was an actor JUST like him...aka bigtime dipshit.
Same dipshit head, different person.
Paul Ryan the guy who says we need to make 'responsible choices', by cutting welfare/ss/social sepending that WILL kill people, all in the name of paying off a load of fraudulent debt.
Paul Ryan says paying off fraud is responsible? That IS what he is saying. Not just paying it off, but cutting things people need, to pay it off.
I guess that means not pulling out is prudent?
Throwing a lit ciggarette out of the car window is safe?
Well these might be a little easy for one to understand it's wrong, it does highlight exactly the sort of logical fallacy Paul Ryan suffers from terminally (as in career wise).
Saving Paul Ryan....all he needs to do is shut up. It's the part where he opens his mouth where he fucks everything up.
Paul Ryan, another dipshit clueless about everything, but somehow, he's got the 'Gump Plan' to prosperity, which of course, doesn't include seniors (since they won't have medicare).
Seriously, I would have been afraid of being lambasted in front of class, say in 6th grade, for providing such a bullshit conclusion, will bullshit numbers, and a whole lot of ???????? marks.
The Ryan Plan deserves an F using 6th grade standards. That's reality. If you haven't realized it yet, welcome to it.
must be a dnc operative. talking points - "cutting welfare/ss/social sepending that WILL kill people" - right out of the playbook.
i guess your plan is to tax, spend, borrow and print us to prosperity.
haha - yep, know many like that - can quote shit like crazy.....
Except that it will kill people. That's the part that's hard to swallow, I know, but part of growing up is taking responsibility for your actions.
In this case, you would prefer to kill your grandmother than tax banker-gangsters who use government money to impoverish people through price manipulation.
That's just something to which you need to reconcile yourself.
Please explain how cutting back on the Ponzi schemes of SS and Medicare will "kill people". Nobody said cut it off completely...what's being discussed is a scaling down of these grossly overreaching programs that are vastly different than they were when originally launched. A phased downsizing will not "kill people", but give ample time to allow people to adjust. I personally know several people who have gamed the welfare system for most of their lives and should not be on any type of program, be it welfare, unemployment, or SS.
You're obviously a DNC troll that advocates using the same language always used when anyone dares to wean America off the government teat.
"...you'd prefer to kill your grandmother..." Give me a break. Go back to your hole and don't come out until you're ready to engage in an adult conversation.
DNC! That's funny.
Don't give me passive-voice abstractions: what is the material reality of your CUTS? Answer: the truth. Ron Paul Ryan cares only about separating people from medical care and taking away the old age pensions guaranteed to them.
He's a thief. One perfectly content supporting the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people by an Apartheid settler colony.
Wake me up when this ass clown stops sucking off the killers for hire and banker-gangsters! Until then he's just another brigand doing the wet-work of Big Capital - separating the working masses from their earned wealth.
Ron Paul wanted to jail the banisters and shut them down permenanetly. Paul Ryan voted to bail them out.
Ron "John Birch Society" Paul emits an enormous volume of heated wind.
He wanted to chair the subcommittee of monetary policy.
But he's got no problem with letting poor grandmothers die, either.
Get over your fucking self with this people are gonna die shit - where were you when they foisted Obamacare on all of us with the inherent rationing and shit. You liberal mother fuckers should all die and that would solve about 95% of the problems. IMHO. :-)
"Obamacare" is nothing more than a bailout of the insolvent insurance industry by supplying them with a market by force.
In other words, it's just another giveaway to useless banker-gangsters such as yourself. Incidentally, it also cut $500,000,000 from Medicare. That's a TON of dead people, so why didn't you support it?
How many WWII vets denied health care would satisfy you?
does nancy pelosi and your fellow dnc'ers want to kill grandma too since she's put medicare on the table for cuts?
btw: it's your dnc'ers who receive the overwhelming majority of bank cash for their campaigns.
as you would say: it's time to grow up and accept the facts of your actions.
lol - it's like preaching to Ricky from Trailer Park Boys - no clue. But I admire your stamina.
Unlike you, GOP boy, I don't support the two party duopoly. Never have; never will. Your little health reform was another bailout of the banker-gangsters.
Both of them are owned by the people who own you, and I've got no interest in being a whore for Big Capital.
Which makes one of us. Get off your knees, lieutenant. It's unbecoming of an officer.
well, i wish i was as articulate as you, and pure, too. and i'm so glad that you of all the voters in the usa are wise enough to know what is best. all kidding aside you foolishly - like many who have 1/10th the information needed to debate - assume much. little do you know, and if you had read these pages long enough you would know i am an all silver and gold, crash the jpm type. but then again it's so easy and intellectually lazy to jump to wild conclusions on little information. probably why you don't have two quarters to rub together. fool.
and btw: i'm my own man. i work for myself.
Ron Paul and Paul Ryan are two separate people. I'll be glad to engage in a real conversation with you - even if we eventually disagree on some points - but you need to get your facts straight.
It would also help if you refrain from making statements (i.e., "Ron Paul Ryan cares only about separating people from medical care...") that are obviously incorrect, and instead fill your comments with things you can support with links or articles.
What facts should I produce?
What evidence do you require to show that slashing medicare and cutting people off from their old-age pension at a time of severe unemployment/underemployment will cause mass suffering and social dislocation?
What evidence do you need that destroying the infrastructure of the country will damage the general welfare?
These seem to be self-evident. But if you need evidence, search the interweb for "Shock Therapy" and "Jeffery Sachs".
Do you REALLY believe that making these draconian cuts on the most vulnerable people in our society, rather than (for example) taxing banker-gangster derivatives turnover, is an appropriate means of affecting social policy?
My, but you're a bitter little elf.
Who was it? Which loved one was it that lost their battle with cancer or passed away with an insufficient estate to cover their bills? How did you become so enraged with the world around you that all you can think of is to blame others and say it's the duty of *other* people around you to fork over their hard-earned money and support your health care in perpetuity?
Don't forget that any money the gov't pays to you for your annual gloved-finger-up-the-tailpipe physical usually comes first from the paychecks of people like me...and most everyone else here on ZH. You're simply advocating the use of the gov't to strong-arm your neighbors into spending their money on you. Legalized extortion.
You're not singing a new song. We've all heard this before, and it's a major part of the problem you claim is rubbing you the wrong way.
Take a look at Europe/Canada and see how their socialism has worked for them so far.
No, the DNC is anything but funny you 'Oh, I so concerned about the sick and elderly' dumbass. If you are that concerned about them do something positive for one or two and quit whining on here.
Sorry to bum you out. The DNC is a permanent laugh track.
Your empathy is heart-warming. I'm sure your mother is proud of you. Next time she does your laundry tell her how much you care!
"I can't wait for you to die, old woman. Because then I'll be able to gamble more with Uncle Sam's welfare. After all, your life is not as important as my new man-purse."
You know, you just tagged yourself as nothing more than an immature ingrate who's unworthy of our time anymore.
It's one thing to moan and complain. It's another thing entirely to bust up on someone's mother.
Not cool at all. You haven't gained the respect of anyone here by doing that. In fact, you lost any you had.
I'll tell you how cutting back on Medicare and SS will kill people.
Right now Medicare does not pay enough to make doctors want to take Medicare patients as clients. Same with the Oregon Health plan where I live and work in the medical system. There is a shortage of doctors. There are not enough doctors to see all of the people on Medicare and the OHP. They get their care through the emergency departments of hospitals.
Cut Medicare and SS and those people can NOT afford to buy health insurance. Will the law allow the hospitals to turn them away? I doubt it. The hospitals and the doctors will have to eat the cost, and go broke doing it. That will make it uneconomical to be a doctor or to operate a hospital.
Economics, bitchez!
Yes, the cost will go down because demand will go down. It is part of the race to the bottom that the right wingers like Ryan want for the American people.
gh
Barack? what, no golf today?
Union Halls let out early today...
Are we using government school 6th grade standards?
Then you meant 'lamasterbating' instead of lambast?
they didn't care then...not now neither
Sorry folks; but reality indicates that this whole debt issue is meaningless. At least 50% of all who post here will be dead of some form of cancer within the next 20 years; thanks to Fukushima. This will surely solve all the deficit issues with the entitlement programs, as the average life span will be cut by at least 20 years.
Fukushima? LOL you can't be serious.
Ryan voted for TARP. Welfare for the rich, austerity for the poor. What a fucker.
Un-Employment costs Americans $1 billion dollars per 10% of people collecting benefits.
So 20% would be ruffly $2 Billion dollars and so on..
TARP cost Americans $800 Billion Dollars..
So you can assume that you could carry the Un-Employed of America… all 30% (http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment-charts) going forward for 22 years PLUS!
For the Next 22 years PLUS! We, America could cover our Un-Employed easily... from just one of the Rip Off’s that “We the Sheepeople” have suffered at the hands of the AAA rated Corps!
But lets all get together an squeeze the Middle.. the Middle didn’t give a Fuck when it was the poor niggers across town! But now that it is in a white “Hard Working” neighborhood! They want it to stop! Maybe its Karma.. when will Karma have her fill of pay back for people who watched and even voted for the poor of this Country to suffer?
I think all of you fucking scumbags deserve it really and I will enjoy watching you all get what you have coming! God Willing! So! Drill Baby! Drill!! That shit!
But did Ryan vote for or support...the "stimuluis" or QE 1, 2, ^?
***** "Economic growth must come first… for when it does many social problems tend to take care of themselves" *****
which is code for.. less taxes for the people who already pay NO! FUCKING TAXES! and faith based social security..
He is a Liar and a threat to the security of this nation.. like every other Republican Mouth piece.. but fret not Republicants! the dumbocrats are right there with you!
Lobby Dollars Rule this nation.
There is no other / better way to describe it.
The Catch Phrases that are pre-tested for broad market release.. that are used to capture the sheep minds ruin this Country.
Here is the best part.. no one cares enough to try to change it! either blissfully ignorant! or enjoying the last 20 years of hard work within the system allowed!
the problem is that no one will get off their fat ass until there is a fire! until it effects peoples day to day in some heartfelt way.. NOTHING! will change, except for the continuing worse!
Paul Ryan (R-WI) http://goo.gl/oCayR Tea Party / Koch Brothers OWN this Lobby Whore! No Wonder he sounds EXACTLY! Like Scott Walker!
Paul Ryan (R-WI) http://goo.gl/sLNnZ Who Owns! This Lobby Whore! Paul Ryan? Spoiler Alert! You won’t be surprised even a Little.
Paul Ryan (R-WI) http://goo.gl/hOHqX Voters pay him 5 X’s(ish) less than his Lobby Masters! “We the Corporate Dollars” Not! “We the People”
Why do we need growth?
Do you ever really think about that?
Why do we need growth?
What makes growth happen?
Why did this country grow?
Can we continue to grow forever?
How far can we "grow"?
What is "growth"?
What is a good standard of living?
Is there a different goal we can aspire to?
gh
Ryan: "I call it the “shared scarcity” mentality."
I call it the "equal misery for all" mentality. In the end, we all end up impoverished. Progressivism is the path and plan.
"Progressivism" did NOT! get us here!
Lowering the living standards for all! did!!
Tax Breaks or 0% Taxes Paid by the top 1% of this Country.. that is what YOU! Voted for! "Lower Taxes and Less Government"! they did NOT! Lie!! they lowered Taxes for those with the Best Lobby! They just forgot to tell you that you were NOT! part of the lowering percentile!
Both got us here, actually. Woodrow Wilson, FDR, LBJ, and Obama all flew the flag of Progressivism while they took advantage of their respective crises to further the cause.
Unfortunately, the Republicans allowed the banks to get inextricably deeper into our financial fabric.
They're both to blame. The Progressives want soft socialism in the end, and Republicans want to control the corporate money flow.
EDIT: Really? Someone junked me for this? You know, junking someone and running off without letting the person know who you are is kinda worthless. A junk doesn't count or even make an impact if you just make it an anonymous game of ding-dong-ditch.
This is where I stopped reading and realized that this guy was an establishment shill.
Yep - would much rather have heard that instead of refocusing the Fed, we would get rid of it. Put those MF'ers on the unemployment rolls for a change.
Debt problem? What debt problem - we have no debt problem?
Blind MF'ers
Has lower corporate taxes lead to increased employment?
Does that include small businesses and sole proprietorships, the types of businesses that actually do most of the job creation, or just the big corporations shipping jobs overseas?
Exactly Lizzie - as taxes go up...corporations find ways / loopholes to evade the tax burden. With the multi nationals choosing to keep their offshore profits, offshore in lower tax regimes, this shoud be obvious.
The British learned this lesson some years ago in regard to Hong Kong. High tax rates led to lower tax revenues as Chinese businesspeople found ways around the taxes. It was worth their risk of getting caught. The British smatened up and lowered taxes (flat) to 15%, with stiff penalties for evasion. Guess what? Buisness boomed and tax revenues rose!
The tax code in the US is 1MM pages long (slight exageration), and written by people who know where the loopholes are, who then go to work for the multinationals. Duh.
The answer is to make the tax code transparent and simple (possibly flat). The rate at 20 to 25% sounds reasonable.
Remember that only 50% of the entire US population pays any tax! Now...with transparent and lower (flat?) tax rates, companies hire , people make money, and > 50% of the people will pay taxes. Tax revenue will rise.
A man who was born in Kenya, who never learns to speak English, does well in his country and eventually invests in $70,000 of IBM stocks. He has a taxable estate in the United States when he dies.
There are 4,212 pages in the Internal Revenue Code. The regulations sit on my desk and are the length of a tall man's arm. Every taxpayer is assumed to know everything in these pages. Every human on earth is imputed with knowledge of their US tax liability. It is a crazy system.
In Switzerland, filing a tax return is optional!
That's nothing. Approx 60% of ALL TAX CODE ON EARTH is written in german, for german taxpayers to adhere to. Somewhere around 10x the size of the US tax code.
That is amazing, but the Germans are not taxed on their worldwide income, are they? They have source rules, right?
Yeah, taxes are the fucking problem - NOT spending. WTF!!!!!!
..
..
Too little too late. Default is the only option responsible politicians will have. The question is only how?
http://saposjoint.net/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=2626&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&sta...
How about a Forced Jubilee, in which bailed out banker-gangsters zero out debt owed to them.
Or else their assets get taken.
That's a couple more options to throw into the hopper.
My cure:
1. National Bank. Offers only checking, savings, CDs and government treasuries. This bank fully insured by taxpayers unlimited amount.
2. Private banks compete for business. Offer as crazy of CDS, derivatives, stock leveraged, investment schemes as they want, but taxpayers not on the hook if they fail. No FDIC or SIPIC protection on the accounts. Let the free market work.
3. Progressive federal "flat" tax rates that applies equally to individuals and all forms of businesses: from $0 to $100,000 of income (passive or wages) pay 5% of your wages, from $100,000 to $300,000 pay 10%, from $300,000 to $1 million, 20%, from $1 million and above 30%, if you make over $10 million a year 35%. NO DEDUCTIONS WHATSOVER. You get married, your single, you own a home, or a solar panel, you have no kids or six, you donate to charity or start a business, doesnt matter.
Put us tax lawyers out of business.
Did you know is Switzerland if you are a UK person you can move there and negotiate your tax liability in advance? You can say, hey, I am Phil Collins, I want to move to Bern, and pay like $500,000 a year in taxes, okay? Okay.
Yep, that's true ;) or you could say , for the first 10 years, i want to pay only 10%
The top Celebrities in Switzerland
Frida Lyngstad - Singer
The former singer Frida Lyngstad of the legendary Swedish Band ABBA moved to Switzerland in 1986. She lived first in Rechthalten-St. Ursen near the city of Fribourg/Freiburg with her husband Prince Ruzzo Reuss. Today she lives in the ski resort of Zermatt in the Canton of Valais and in Sweden.
Roger Moore - English Actor
The English Actor Sir Roger George Moore (James Bond) was born October 14 1927 in Stockwell, London. He lives in Crans-Montana in the Canton of Valais since the end of his acting carrier. He is also often in Gstaad where he is a member of the famous "Kings Club".
Tina Turner - Singer
The American Singer has lived with her life-partner Erwin Bach in the small village of Erlenbach on the Zürcher Goldküste (Lake Zurich gold coast) since 1986. You see them quite often in the restaurant Kunststuben in Küsnacht close to their residence.
Nana Mouskouri - Singer
The Greek born singer Nana Mouskouri lives in Geneva on the Swiss Riviera since the mid sixties. The 74-year-old singer has sold more than 250 million records since she started her career in 1957. I live here like the Swiss, but without having to give up my Greek identity.
Shania Twain - Singer
Canadian born Shania is a Singer and Songwriter in the country & western and pop music genres and currently lives in Corseaux at Lake Geneva with her husband Lange and their son Eja. In Switzerland she is well known and liked.
Alain Delon - Actor
The French Actor was born in 1935 in Hauts-de-Seine, France. He received Swiss citizenship in 1999 and the company is managing products sold under his name, is based in Geneva.
Cecilia Bartoli - Mezzo-Soprano Singer
The Mezzo-soprano opera singer lives together with her life partner Oliver Widmer on the gold coast on the north end of Lake Zurich. However, she also spends part of her time in Rome, Italy, her native country.
Phil Collins - Singer
The English Singer announced the separation from his third wife, Orianne Cevey in March 16, 2006 when they were still living in Begnins overlooking Lake Geneva. He continues to reside in Switzerland to be near the children and lives now in Féchy.
OK ... so let all countries aspire to become money-laundering economies like Switzerland ...
wonderful! ....
more race to the bottom, Bitchez!!
It is only money laundering if the funds are acquired illegally.
Sure ... keep telling yourself that ...
http://in.reuters.com/article/2011/05/03/britain-swiss-tax-idINLDE7420UR...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jul/31/ubs-tax-avoidance-us-swit...
These are the 'strong' countries who can somewhat bargain with the money-laundering Switzerland, all the other 'weaker' countries will never see a penny of all the money illegally transfered in Switzerlad ...
of course, on behalf of all tax-paying citizens of the world, FUCK SWITZERLAND AND THE LIKES!!!
How do you discern legally-obtained loot from illegally-obtained loot?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_Secrecy_Act
Now, let's take the
Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) provisionever wondered how people like Mubarak and Ghaddaffy can move millions and billions in banks without 'raising suspicion' ...
but if we do a transaction of $10,000 or more in cash it MUST be immediately reported.
all legal, right?!
It's called let the Oligarchy screw up vast majority of people under the pretense of a 'free' economic system ... where 'free' stands for 'free lunch' for the Oligarchy
I worked in Zurich, I know. I guess that is the problem isn't it, today people can't tell the difference between legal and illegal. Just because something is immoral, doesn't make it illegal. I think the biggest problem in the world is people now equate legal with moral. Big mistake.
Yup. Amoral.
Oh, by the way, ... also Fuck Paul Ryan and all the people like him ...
after raping the middle class and transfering the wealth to people who, instead of investing it here, moved it to Switzerland, he calls on us to give up more and more, because we don't have enough money.
Yo, shit-head, of course WE have no more money to give! You're looking in the wrong direction, if you're looking for money ... you should look at all the people who made up like thieves over the past 30 years ...
So, as I said, FUCK Paul Ryan and the likes!!!
Full Reserve Banking...
Gold standard is a red herring, fractional lending was invented specificially to allow the manipulation of the amount of gold in circulation because it's a scarce resource. You still get the booms and busts, the inflation and deflation caused by the bankers.
To stop it you need full reserve banking.
YOU don't have ANY money. YOU borrow your money from banks. ALL OF IT! You have 50 TRILLION dollars of debt and only 14 trillion dollars. YOU muppets! You are not going to make that go away by reducing the government deficit. You could ELIMINATE the fucking national debt ENTIRELY and you would STILL be 35 TRILLION in debt.
Jesus fucking christ. The stupidity is astounding. I really need to become a banker.
+1
Especially the last 2 sentences.
+
Bravo to Mr. Pike for recognizing that MMT drivel. MMT is a joke and nothing more than Greenbacker quackery, a horribly failed experiment with paper money that has now been renamed in order to sucker in a new generation of people. Go back to your Ellen Brown cult where you belong.
Very Bullish...very bullish indeed!
Here's Matt Taibbi's take on Ryan...
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/tax-cuts-for-the-ric...
dupe