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Previewing Four More Years Of The Divided States Of America
Do not expect any changes to the trends of polarization and party non-conformists is the message from JPMorgan's CIO Michael Cembalest. As he explains moderates like Blue Dog Democrats and Rockefeller Republicans are now artifacts in the Natural History Museum, having given way to their more ideological offspring (through retirement or after having been beaten in primaries).
If anything, Cembalest believes the House may become even more partisan after apparent losses by moderates in both parties.
After a better than expected night for Democrats given Senate results, the fiscal cliff looms...
With the status quo maintained, a divided government goes back to work to solve the Mutually Assured Fiscal Destruction problem. The President may have picked up some leverage over House Republicans who still have to run again, but we’ll see. The fiscal cliff does not have to get resolved by December 31, since some items can be resolved in the spring and back-dated. Defusing the cliff (see options #1 and #2) would help growth in 2013, and perhaps reignite business capital spending, which has stalled (see chart).
It would also help avoid a relapse in personal consumption, which is growing at a 2% real rate before any fiscal belt-tightening.
However, defusing the cliff contributes to rising Federal debt unless the growth payoff is huge. In recognition of that reality, 80 US CEOs published a letter calling for Washington to strike a long-term fiscal “grand bargain” that includes higher tax revenues (but not in 2013). Here’s our latest Federal debt chart as a way to visualize the problem. The contours show the Congressional Budget Office Baseline Case and Alternative Case. As explained last week, while the Baseline Case represents “current law”, it has become increasingly preposterous, since it includes items that Congress passed but has been deferring for a decade (changes to the Alternative Minimum Tax and Medicare), and a wholesale resumption of 2001 tax rates that Congress has no intention of implementing. The CBO should put a unicorn next to it as an indication of how likely it is to happen.
What might a second Obama administration do on the debt?
Nothing is urgent now, given plenty of public and private sector demand for Treasuries at sub-2% rates. However, we will have to watch how rating agencies react if the Budget Control Act Sequester is unplugged. The President’s proposal (purple square above) stabilizes the Federal debt over a ten-year horizon as per CBO forecasts, almost entirely through higher taxation on those with more than $250k in adjusted gross income (via tax increases and large reductions in allowable deductions and exemptions). The plan does not appear politically feasible given Republican control of the House. If the President only passes increases in tax rates on the top two brackets, then as shown by the green diamond, the debt does not stabilize.
House Republicans could push for more discretionary spending cuts along with tax increases, but after the caps set in the Budget Control Act, discretionary spending is already projected to be very low (chart above).
The elephant in the room is the chart above: close to 100% of US tax revenues are already eaten up by mandatory spending on entitlements and other programs, and interest. However, electoral results suggest the country is in no mood to address entitlement issues right now, will defer them to another day, and continue to shift towards a high-Federal debt economic model that bears some resemblance to Europe and Japan.
As noted last week, in the 1950’s, the solution to 80% Federal debt was not taxation, austerity or inflation, but growth. Will the President pursue a pro-growth agenda? George McGovern, who passed away recently, wrote a 1992 editorial about a post-Senate investment in the Stratford Inn (“A Politician’s Dream is a Businessman’s Nightmare”), its bankruptcy, and how he wished he had known more about the private sector and the impact of government before he took office. He wrote:
“Today we are much closer to a general acknowledgment that government must encourage business to expand and grow. Bill Clinton, Paul Tsongas, Bob Kerrey and others have, I believe, changed the debate of our party. We intuitively know that to create job opportunities, we need entrepreneurs who will risk their capital against an expected payoff. Too often, public policy does not consider whether we are choking off those opportunities.”
The capital spending decline and piles of corporate cash suggest that businesses are reacting to a slow-growth world, but may also be waiting to see which strain of the Democratic Party is embodied by a 2nd Obama administration, and its partners in the Senate. Something tells me that the ghost of the now-disbanded Democratic Leadership Council, composed of pro-growth centrists like Nunn, Robb, Breaux and McCurdy, is not about to reappear.
Full 'Eye On The Money' article PDF here
Source: JPMorgan
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In the Deep South, the Blacks call Vienna sausage 'dog dicks'.
Wow, this election and Sandy have been highly illuminating regarding the true nature of many posters here at the Hedge...
You sound like you are in serious internal pain....maybe you should seek help...
BTW, the attitude on display here is the real face of the Tea Party... and it ain't pretty....
Yeah I would say that about 1/4 to 1/3 of the posters in this thread are peckerwood White trash who are generally pretty racist and pretty much a$$holes. Grew up with this is rural PA and didn't have much use for it then either.
There are plenty of reasons you will have to hate/dislike people you meet. Never understood why you should use race as an automatic disqualifier.
Hey race doesn't matter to me, bro. I have no idea whether you are black, white, or brown, but no matter what color you are, you are DEFINITELY a douchebag.
Race doesn't matter to you when you throw out a stream of racist comments on here? Please.
I'm a teabagger and I didn't vote. I also prefered Obama as the devil I know. Tell us how you feel about four more years of Bronco Bamma.
I am under no illusion about BHO...
But I cannot accept a party that promotes superstition and the repudiation of science....
The government has no business being involved in either superstition or science to begin with. But if you favor a powerful government through which decisions are made by remote strangers that's what you get.
You promised us that you crawled back into the Gulch...
Where's your documentation?
Remember Jimmy Carter in a sweater, saying to turn down the heat in winter?
This gridlock is the stealth plan for global warming and oil conservation.
It's the real plan, just gridlock, so nobody takes blame for the only politically possible way to break the growth model of economy.
I remember trudging through the slush inside the grocery store in the winter. The shampoo was frozen because of the regulations on termperature settings in commercial buildings.
Yeah, I do. And if we'd listened to Lil Peanut back then, we'd be in less of a world of hurt now.
The "growth model of economy" has been broken all along; you just woke up now.
Congrats!
I was never asleep...
Well your avatar has been "meditating" for several hundred years...it was an honest mistake.
Fair enough.
The "Daibutsu" was my neighbor, back in the 1970s.
Nice quiet neighbor, always well composed...
Are you high??? Carter's solution was, everybody roll over and die, there's nothing we can do to save ourselves. What a fucking loser that guy was.
Too bad there's no Ronald Reagan coming to save us this time around. He was the last really great American. We have turned into a nation of dwarfs.
The sad thing is that you actually believe this shit....
Constantly one of the dumber posters on here and that is saying something.
Yup. Instead we adopted the Reagan energy policy which was to make it reign black gold and spend trillions in the process to ensure it kept flowing. Been a policy that worked for a while but it has left us hungover, overextended, and with empty pockets.
You clearly get it...
Remember Jimmy Carter in a sweater, saying to turn down the heat in winter?
That cat didn't have a 15 foot mural of himself in every elementary school lunchroom....he didn't stand a chance for reelection.
Making shit up again I see....
Nope.........
http://i1161.photobucket.com/albums/q511/rolliver/110612_nowyouseeit_20121106_135702.jpg
"every school lunchroom"....
My fuck are you that shallow?...
OK, go ahead and find one of Romney in a public school classroom, and post the link.
<crickets>
LMAO....
One of my young interracial cousins is more concerned about Michelle Obama in the school cafeteria. He and his sister say that the First Lady ruined their lunch. He also mentioned that the US debt was 15 trillion dollars one day when we were talking about math. Kids ain't stupid.
Its a mural at one voting place. Who gives a sh!t. Stop being distracted by nonsense stories from the partisan media which have no substantial impact on things.
Gawd, Flak, could you possibly be more of a douche?
Why don't you take that up with the hateful bigots here.... You know, the *real* douches...
Between Sandy and the election a lot of them are coming out of the woodwork...
The latest word out of the IPCC is that white people cause hurricanes. That's why the storm was named Sandy and not Shawnesha.
They are afraid they'll be called racists.
say chicago, you're a racist. Go to Chik-Fil-A, racist.
Be mexican and kill a black in self defense... you're a white racist killer.
If you're refering to the recent headline making case that fellow was of Peruvian and Jewish decent and he's guilty of murder. Manslaughter at the least. Even the authors of the Stand Your Ground law (white Republicans, I might add) have said that it didn't protect Zimmerman but it would have protected Martin as he was the one who was rightfully defending himself. Zimmerman is likely hoping for an activist judge who will ignore the intent of the law as written.
Come on, Texas. Get it started. Secede. It's not like the military has enough left in the bank to fight you.
Yes, please do. We promise not to fight you about it this time. Go. Don't wait. Go. Now. Go!
May you live in interesting times. That's all.
And have you stopped beating your wife as well?
GMad,
I'm not a Texan, and I'm not one of those either hoping for or expecting the Zombie Apocalypse. When I put my rational hat on, however---noting that the bar is set pretty low around here for rational---it seems to me the benefits of the Republic have been had, and that the country is reaching the natural endpoint of democracy feared by many of its most vocal proponents over the last few hundred years. Some states and some areas of the country are closer than others to either self-sufficiency at best, or else being an efficient producer/trader in the David Ricardo sense. Other areas are not capable of taking care of themselves, and will always be a burden. Burdens, granted the right to vote, will attempt to share (the burden). Most people are comfortable with ignoring large swathes of the world where humans suffer ("turn this page" in the lingo of the charity set), choosing instead to buy a 52" LED, iPad or good bottle of Biondi Santi, rather than forego personal consumption for the benefit of those in need. That same sentiment is currently limited by man-made boundaries, but as conditions worsen, I suspect those boundaries will be violated. Our concern will reduce to an ever-smaller subset of the species. Heck, we've already shipped a bazillion jobs overseas, preferring the benefits of cheap stuff to subsidizing those of our fellow citizens with easily replaced skills. It's hardly a big step to hang other fellow citizens out to dry. That is probably neither admirable nor good, but it is our nature. There just aren't enough lifeboats for all. Individually, of course, each of us retains the right or ability to make choices as to our own generosity, but on a regional or state level democracy will focus on smaller and smaller areas of concern.
Should a state or region attempt to secede, begging and pleading are the only things the central authority will be able to do. For the same reason the US will not attack Iran, the military is incapable of enforcing domestic solidarity. It's spent. Iraq and Afghanistan did that.
Modern society has speeded everything up. Thousand year empires are no more. We had a heck of a run.
As all of the fuckheads on facebook danced and high-fived their sheep asses to the sound of more free shit...I reminded them of this. I get a lot of "likes" on my posts, but this one has been quite untouched. Dear assholes, this isn't a fucking football game. THIS IS MY DUGHTER"S FUTURE you are handing over to the greatest transfer of wealth in history. Fuck you sheep.
FACEBOOK POST:
www.usdebtclock.org
tick tock tick tock..........Warning: Cliff Ahead. Enjoy the happy, cuz there is Hell around the corner.
And that would have changed with a Mitt and Putz victory in what meaningful way?
You're right. Let's just collapse the fucking thing. You vote Obama or go third party or did you not vote? Show me your horse.
"You're right. Let's just collapse the fucking thing. You vote Obama or go third party or did you not vote? Show me your horse."
I get that, as a fellow parent, it's much more difficult to accept the idea that collapse is optional. It isn't. Prepare accordingly, for your family's sake (there is still time, but not much). And trust me, it didn't matter who you voted for.
So 4 more years of no budgets?
anyone saying that the electoral results resemble pre-1861 boundaries will be tarred and feathered.
there you go..a civil war fought on facebook and twitter..fixed it.
oh wait..that isn't real.
Cut the foodstamp budget in half and watch the red states attempt to eat themselves.
Cut it in half and watch the blue states eat THEIR CHILDREN.
neither is that..ok it is a little.
Blue states have already slaughtered 50 million of their children. It's called abortion and boy is this country gonna pay for that. You thought the price tag for slavery was high? You ain't seen nothin' yet.
I tremble for my country.
Because it is a great fiscal policy for mothers who are largely younger and minority to have unplanned/unwanted children. You ramble and throw out racist barbs all the time yet this position you advocate is a really an economic disaster.
Slaughtering the future. That's your solution?
You are a sickening example of a moral vacuum where a human being ought to be.
Giving people individual choice you Christian facist. A lump of cells is not life. I find it hilarilously ironic that you are vehemently against abortion yet are an ardent supporter of war and the death penalty.
sometimes they use a vaccuum, but that's not really the debate here. It's really a property issue balanced with a health and social one. Libertarians understand this. Religion, last time I checked, is out of bounds.
When there are not enough young workers to support an aging population we'll finally see a return to prosperity!
It's city versus country. The blue cities are surrounded by suburbs and rural seas of red. Cut food stamps - or hyperinflate the dollar, crash the economy - and cities will be on fire, surrounded, cut off, and quarantined. We don't need city centers anymore. They will destroy themselves, and the country will go on.
conan? is that you? i am going to grow up to be that wizard..." it was here that i met my master...it was nooooooo accident"!
heh...oops..thats not funny
It's now (and has been) a case of not hoping for the best, but simply expecting (eh, knowing) the worst will come. I hate the grim future that awaits, but I embrace the ashes that the fire will leave behind. War is hell, Depressions are hell, but you learn and adapt and when you do, that perserverance remains even when it is not required. Prepare physically, prepare fiscally, but most of all prepare mentally. Paradigms are shifting and my (25 years old) generation will be on the front lines of this fiscal debt-laiden otracity that has been covering our earth like a virus.
Take the country back from the thousand or so who run it. Wake up and see the lies and the cover-ups. Wake up and prepare to be part of the movement that can move the needle to where we need to be to last. I want a revolution, a peaceful, intelectual, rational, and lasting revolution. Quixotic, perhaps, possible...that's for us to decide. I believe.
At the end of the day, it might as well be us who make the difference.
I look forward to the ashes.
What's going to be even more awesome is when you're sitting in a leveraged to the gills mcmansion in 60 years and come across this post while surfing the internet, trying to avoid the harsh realities of why your great grandchildren have such a shitty existence/future. I'll leave it at the problem is vastly more complex than generation gaps and wealth gaps and humans have yet to find the answer (and feeling around in the dark probably isn't the most efficient method).
shitting the bed is the only way to cleanse. Burn your house down and embrce the ashes, hero.
As 25 year old, I highly doubt you understand anything about depression.
All my life I have to study, work and fight better then the guys from Asia or Eastern Europe or be an other recipient of European "social welfare", which sounds a hell of a lot better then it is.
My own kids think depression is when they can't have the latest frigging iThing.
And you Gringos with your knee jerk reaction to "European style socialism" because of Obama, shit, the typical Scandinavian evil socialist countries are much better controlling the spending then your beloved Reagan ever was.
I can't stand the hero worship of Obama, the Norwegians should be shot for giving him (and Barossos EU) the Nobel Peace Price, but maybe you have 5% better chance of not getting your self in an other war then with the sociopath Romney.
Other then that, I don't see any difference between Bush/Obama/Romney.
But I love that the disgusting Sean Hanititty can eat up his words, but hey, he will make millions spewing crap on the Murdoch's relief to humanity channel.
Peace & brgds
Absolutely correct. I didn't live during a depression. Yet.
Yet, I do fear that it's hell. I have Grandparents that lived through it in 1930's Philadelphia and the deep south. Ben Bernanke may have studied the economics of it his entire academic "career", but the most important part of living through a depression is your mental survival and fortitude. These experiences have been, thankfully, shared with me from my family. Knowing, believing, and most importantly ACTING towards rebuilding and implementing rational ways of (for lack of a better term) living is paramount. Hence "Take the country back from the thousand or so who run it. Wake up and see the lies and the cover-ups. Wake up and prepare to be part of the movement that can move the needle to where we need to be to last."
Instead of dismissing a 25 year old who has never lived in a depression, see the fear and disdain of a 25 year old who is preparing for a possible one.
You don't have to live through something to fear it or act to prevent it.
My hat is off for you, I respect a thoughtful young person.
I'm not old enough for 30's, enough to be born to be born in Finland in 50's, live with single mother on minimum wage, it makes you hate poverty with all your heart and do everything possible to not be in that position again.
I have tried to tell everybody in my family that what we are going to go through soon will make everything in our lifetime look easy, after the biggest criminal heist in history, so I agree with you, but I still don't think you can understand the suffering coming in our way.
I do not wan't to see the ashes.
Peace & brgds
Where do we sign up for dat free obama phone?? Anybody know?
A Reagan era program...you see once you stop taxing and start printing money for corporations there is only one way to stop it.
why not be honest?
That's a question you'll have to ask yourself. During Reagan's presidency tax revenue increased, but spending increased faster. We never stopped taxing, we just leveraged what we taxed into more debt. You see, unless you keep the growth in spending under the growth in revenue, you have perpetual deficits. Every new dollar of revenue is leveraged into several new dollars of debt, instead of extinguishing existing debt, until you get spending under control. The people voted yesterday to not get spending under control as long as a strong, broad safety net is currently, or might soon prove to be, beneficial. They don't buy that spending is the issue, given that every dollar they remit in taxes magically becomes $1.30 in government spending.
Interesting to see how Obama goes with entitlments. If he is serious he will immediatly pull all the radio ads encouraging food stamp enrollment. Also crack down on disibility , free phones etc.
he does not need that shit any more for votes so if he were serious he would cut this shit.
Somehow I think not since he needs to be the well loved king and does not care about the cost since it aint his money.
I doubt this is a good outcome for the USA, at least it is a good one for Romney and even Ryan, since 'they' would only have tried blowing them again.
" In the 1950’s, the solution to 80% Federal debt was not taxation, austerity or inflation, but growth."
Wasn't the top tax rate in the 1950's 90%? Growth came from the U.S. being producer to the world,after destroying much of the world's industrial capacity in WW2.
The top rate was 90%, but there were all kinds of loopholes. You are correct about the destruction of everyone else's industrial capacity. So eventually we will have to bomb those factories and non-controlled oil rigs.
And very few inhabited the 90% tax bracket.
The 91% tax bracket was occupied by those whose taxable income was $1.4 Million, at a time when median income was less than $3000. That was probably just a few hundred people.
Wasn't the top tax rate in the 1950's 90%?
Yes, it was the gradual cuts to 31% that explain why we have such a strong and booming economy and such great employment numbers.
On the (entertaining) plus side - he's back: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/07/alan-grayson-election-results_n...
Too bad we don't need more entertainment in deference to good governance.
I was hoping he and Debbie 'Was her name Schultz?' would have floundered in a boat in the Atlantic during Sandy. Good Lord this state can breed them dumb...
4 more years of heavy McRib consumption.
I lost a bet. I must eat my own feces in fronnt of my bar crowd :(
4 more years, bitchez!
Many of us started to see this coming in the 2000-2004 years. For the rest of you, live and learn.
All of us live in the dysfunctional USSA. Do not pretend otherwise.
Lot of gnashing of teeth today - is it really warranted? Same shit, different day.
Maybe the tooth-gnashing reaction is all part of the plan.
It is sort of interesting, it's almost as if people thought somethign was going to change.
The people have spoken... now I'm gonna open a gun shop or a cannabis dispensary.
But you'll be taxed to death so it's pointless to do anything productive. I admire your courage.
Being productive supports the parasites. Go Galt.
How about going Corzine or did I just get Corzined?
State ballots and means nothing until the Feds act. Right now there is simply too much money to be made on the 'War on Drugs' so it will continue in Obama's 2nd term. Decriminalize hemp/pot and several other drug classes is a no-brainer. It gets a bit murker with hard-core drugs with more pronounced effects but there is not one objective measure by which the War on Drugs has succeeded since Nixon launched it.
I'm in favor of an end to all prohibition but the sensible line for selective legalization is that naturally occurring substances would be legal while the much more powerful refined versions of those substances would not. Opium but no heroin. Mushrooms but no acid. Coca leaves but no cocaine. And pot for every chicken.
That's a pretty reasonable stance and generally where I fall too.
There was quite a bit of secession talk around the bar last night. Methinks it might not be a bad idea, as long as the gulf coast is on board.
See - this really is part of the solution, and I want to secede for very different reasons than you do, probably. Live and let live.
I've thought about that too. Could form a country around the Confederate States Constitution (before getting all apoplectic - read it, it's the US constitution with some clarifying tweaks......and banning of slavery) and peacefully secede from the current US. But. how/why would the power brokers give up all that power just like they didn't 150 years ago.
Sounds great.....wish it could happen........no way it would it seems though.
So, when did this election become about women's reproductive rights, healthcare, racism or rich vs poor?
Per numerous polls, the most important issues to Americans are the economy/jobs, government debt and government corruption/reform. yet, overwhelmingly, the public voted for the democrats, who have not helped to improve the economy, and have increased debt by 50%. Additionally, the bluest of states, massachusetts, voted in a criminal (tierney) and a liar (Warren). Further, they had a moderate in Brown. Whereas Warren is an extreme left wing party hack.
If the most important issues are not addressed by congress b/c of the partisanship, then why elect the most partisan politician?
Party agenda has been put before the good of the nation, and you, the electorate, has allowed that.
They have divided you. You are to blame for the failure of your government to address your most pressing issues b/c you have allowed them to make it a contest based on government funded condoms, and not on responsible governance.
Never, NEVER, underestimate the stupidity of the American people.
Yes, blame the plebs for being too naive and getting themselves into a situation where rape was the only plausible outcome. It's certainly less scary than going after the rapists.
Divide and conquer worked. The electorate proved that women are no more than vaginas, blacks are no more than their skin color, gays are no more than who they have sex with, the poor are no more than their empty pockets, etc. identity politics worked. Appealing to reason and rationality did not. So much for the peace dividend - we create enemies if there are none. The human species is fatally flawed.
The Supreme court has ensured your right to have an abortion. You can have government funded abortion parades. You can have an abortion hall of fame with records: most abortions in a single season; most lifetime abortions; doubles; singles; triples and home runs.
There is no war on women. You bought Obama's imaginary war on women hook line and sinker. He just used you. You were divided and conquered. You just voted on a non-issue. You just put your brain on the shelf and let Rachel Madow lead you by the nose. Do you feel used? Do you feel stupid? Did you sit on the couch and watch the SuperPAC scare ads?
This country is on the verge of economic collapse and you voted for the guy that is going to double the debt, b/c he told you the republicans are abortion boogiemen.
This fiscal cliff senario is simply a gift to the president. He gets a $535 Billion tax increase AND a pittiful $132 Billion in cuts, which is a 60% deficit reduction right there, AND he gets to blame Congress, mostly intransigent Republicans, for the economic downside. If he's smart and can read charts, surely he sees we're sliding into recession, and there are events unfolding around the world that might drag us down with them regardless. So why not paper over the next recession by having a "fiscal cliff", and the opposition, to blame for it? What's the problem here?
i think you will find that the 535 and 132 billions are over a teny year period..the deficit is over 1 trillion per annum = 10 trillion in ten years.
No, it isn't. It's annually. Look at the percent of GDP impact at the bottom of the chart.
hmmm...maybe i stand corrected...my understanding was that those gdp numbers were over a ten year period.
535 billion in one year from expired tax cuts etc would equate to a c.25% increase in the tax take of 2.3 trillion in one year.
if this 25% is true, then the fiscal cliff would be severe indeed.
Well, policitians like to quote things like tax increases over ten-year periods because they only plan to collect a small portion of it over their tenure in office. President O has been talking about an $800 Billion tax increase on themillionaresandbillionares for some time. He can't come out and claim it's an $80 Billion per year tax increase because it's not. He knows it would be more like $40 Billion the first year, relying on a completely unrealistic projection of economic growth raging unabated for a decade that increases revenue to over $100 Billion in the out years. What will actually happen is that he'd get $35 Billion the first year, $38 Billion the next, then on the third year the next recession will unexpectedly cut income and generate losses, so the tax will only bring in $25 Billion, etc.
In the words of Cartman: "Shit is going down!"
I call BS on the notion that no taxation is pro growth and/or that businesses, especially small ones, make expansion or start up decisions based primarily on whether there will be a tax decrease down to -0%.
US tax rates are not prohibitive to business growth. Most start ups fail in the first year when they have no employees. Of those that survive and start to grow, the factor that determines their success is not 0% tax rates, but rather, the controlling factor is revenue from sales of goods/services.
In turn, sales are enhanced if prospective customers have money, plastic, begged, borrowed or stolen, to spend; and, it doesn't matter whether they earned/borrowed/stole the money from public employment or private employment, government or private pensions and disability plans or stolen from any particular source.
It is largely a matter of ideology and belief that results in the framing of economic outcomes by placing emphasis on a claim to entitlement to 0% tax and/or a claim to entitlement to unfettered by regulation license to put anything on the market, whether it is harmful or not.
Note that phrasing: conservatives do not have a monopoly on the perjorative use of the word "entitlement" ...
bitchez :-p
You got any anecdotal stories from your struggle in opening and running a business that you care to share with the class?
And what does he expect this growth to consist of? And at what cost?
Sure, you could remove all environmental regulations, but that would just result in a short term boost now at a high cost for later generations. It's not a "fix", it's delaying the issue.
What needs to happen is getting the middle class to spend again, because they are driving the economy. The only way to achieve this is by lowering THEIR taxes (read: not those of the top 1%...because trickle down economics clearly don't work). It also means that corporate tax breaks aren't the way to go as they are already lower than they were under Clinton...yet Clinton's years saw more growth than we have now. So clearly corporate tax rates aren't the solution either. Cutting benefits for the middle and lower classes would be a disaster as they would still have to pay for those services...therefore preventing them from spending on other things (growing the economy in the process).
In short: Unless the middle class is supported more, nothing will improve and growth won't be achieved in the medium to long term. It will be key to prevent stupid knee jerk policies that cost us all dearly in the future...like removing environmental regulations.
Environmental regulations exist because the corporations want them to exist. Regulations empower corporations with the unassailable power of government in their quest to poison your fellow citizens. Stop helping them.
Corporations making those agencies corrupt doesn't mean environmental regulations are bad!! It simply means they aren't effective and more oversight is needed.
Instead of saying "environmental regulations are bad" when the DEP messes up, you should be saying "what's wrong with those guys, they should do their job".
They won't though as they are being paid by the very same people they should regulate. Money needs to be removed from politics for that to happen, as in, that annoying "corporations are people my friend" nonsense has to stop.
Either way, removing environmental regulations isn't the way forwards...it would cost future generations too much. And without them, you'd have companies like BP showing you the finger when you demand them to pay up for stuff like the most recent oil spill. Hell, they are already doing the absolute minimum to ensure safety, or break rules on purpose because their lobbyist friends made sure the fines are lower than the cost of compliance.
More oversight? The little guy doesn't have time to investigate every thousand page piece of legislation on the books or to follow up on how that legislation is being enforced. Only the rich have the ability and motivation to follow such a complex system. The little guy trusts politicians to do "the right thing" but corporations pay politicians to do otherwise.
There's no such thing as getting the money out of politics. Government was invented to keep the little guy out of the way while the elites do as they please. It's as if you don't even know what game you are playing.
Anticipated 2012 interest paid on federal debt is approximatly $210 billion... and that's at just over 2% interest rate.
Federal deficit for 2012 approximately 1.1 trillion. Now, if we had no debt at all we'd still need to cut 900 billion to balance the budget.
AND, the CBO's calculated federal debt under Obama's next 4 years is anticipated to go to 20 trillion.
What happens when the bond vigilante's come after us, and the interest rate goes to 6 or 7%? see Greece and spain.
I still think it's funny to see so many GOP'ers claim that would have been fixed under a GOP president...when in reality a GOP lead government increased spending more over the past few presidencies than their Dem counterparts.
The main reason we are in this mess isn't because spending has increased drastically, it's because economic growth is gone...the very thing that paid for all of it.
Government spending has opportunity costs. Money spent by the government is no longer available for constructive investment.
You're automatically assuming those saved funds would be used for something more productive or rational...which isn't necessarily the case.
Money is spent more rationally by those who earn it than by those who don't.
agreed..the middle class will increasingly repay debt and will avoid the upcoming maxim "he who borrows for what isn't his'n, repays the debt or goes to prison" or votes for "NO MORE CHANGE"
No, we assume that the owner has a fundamental right to being secure in their property, even if policy wonks think government can spend it better. I think my church could spend it better. As long as we're tearing down the wall of separation between church and state by compelling people to be altruistic by paying taxes towards the state religion called redistribution of wealth, let's go all the way.
The real problem is that those "funds" aren't anywhere. They do not represent actual savings; actual production. The Fed printed up $800 Billion in unbacked money last year and plans to print another $Trillion over the next year, mostly to enable the federal government to borrow at super-low interest rates that would be pushing 20% if we had to actually borrow a $Trillion each and every year from someone else's actual savings. That dilutes the money supply, so we have $4 gas, etc.
Who has claimed that? All I've ever said is that with a republican president the real issues would be brought to the fore by a largely-Democrat news media looking to kicjk the hell out of him. A Republican president would have his feet held to the fire. 5 Million frustrated people would not quit looking for work without the media crucifying a Republican president for claiming that improving unemployment numbers equal an improving economy. They'd finally ask, "Is not counting people simply saying they don't count?" A Benghazi under a president Romney would be Nightline material for months - no needing to dig through the internet to learn details. Suddenly, a trillion-dollar deficit would actually be news. And every encroachment on personal liberty by a president alien to their politics would be picking a fight.
BTW, spending increased by One Trillion annually, from $2.7 Trillion in 2007 to $3.7 Trillion in 2010. If a Trillion dollar's growth isn't drastic enough for you then I'm speechless. Well, except to say if the majority of the electorate believes as you do, that spending hasn't increased drastically, and economic growth is a government function, then that goes a long way to explain who'll be sworn in next January.
Better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.
You are an ignorant partisan fool.
The Gods Of The Copybook Headings
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
and the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."
The fallacy here is that we have "polarization" because Blue Dog Democrats and Rockefeller Republicans gave way to more "ideological" offspring.
To the extent that Republicans embrace freedom, they are in fact NON-ideological, because FREEDOM ITSELF IS NON-IDEOLOGICAL.
Freedom is like BEING - it just is. On the other hand, those who encroach on freedom - from the ideas or philosophy ruminating in their MINDS - must do something AGAINST freedom, that is, they take some action to meddle in the lives of others.
Today we have one party, the Republicans, who are a typical political party, which may bend to graft, corruption and greed (think Tom DeLay), but which also houses most of the libertarians in mainstream politics.
We have another party that has become - and is daily becoming - more and more ideological; that is, increasingly divorced from reality (remember, MIND).
Our struggle today is between the Realists (Beings) and Ideologues (Minds).
Polarization, yes. Ideological offsprings, no. You're either a human being or a human mind.
"There is nothing so dangerous in this world as a human mind on the loose."
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the dog returns to its vomit and the Sow returns to its Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook headings with terror and slaughter return!
replace "Gods of the Copybook Headings" with "the psychos of wall street" ... there ..fixed it for you, i think it scans AND rhymes better.