We're doomed. Doomed I say!
The election is over... and not a damn thing has changed. The Federal government needs to cut its spending (that would include unemployment insurance) and raise revenues (that would include higher taxes). What do we get? Hypocrites on this side willing to let the hypocrites on the other side spend more if the other side agrees to tax less. That is, we are making the problem worse from both angles.
Look, I am for extending the "Bush Tax Cuts" (what a silly name for something even DUMBER... temporary tax cuts... come on, all tax cuts AND tax increases are temporary... for pity's sake!) only because I understand economics reasonably well and I know how to add and subtract (the left opposes the cuts, of course, but then again those folks don't understand economics and have no math skills whatsoever). Under no circumstance would I trade tax cuts for extended unemployment "benefits". The quicker people move in with each other contracting households, accept employment that they no reject, and get their own house in order... the better off the people will be. The Oil is not there for another bizzilion singe family homes where everybody and the family dog get their own room and bathroom. Got it?
The American people sent a message to D.C., a message that already seems to have been forgotten. I look forward to 2012 with great anticipation, even if the Repubs run the only person that can't beat Obama, because our elected officials continue to doing the same things over and over.... and expecting different results.
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16 comments:
What can either side do at this point? I always said this was a trap election year if the repubs let unemployment slide everyone will hate them and the demorats will point at them and say thats the reason things are so bad.
We cannot keep paying these people unemployment but once they cut off 4 million people the real economy will show through. If they keep paying them then maybe they can manage another victory in 2012.
If the unemployment benefits are not extended then I believe we will see civil unrest by Spring.
Rock and hard place time is here.
UI will be extended. We won't call it by its real name (welfare) but that's what it is. I agree. 2011 is it. At least we will stop hearing about " when things improve" and other such nonsense. Who wins in 2012? Who cares. It's a job only a crazy person would want. The depression will be in full swing with no recovery on any horizon.
I dont think you believed the Tea Party or anyone else was actually going to do much, because almost all of the Federal spending is NOT for Isreal or for illegal aliens or for new playgrounds in each town, but for the following NEAR-NECESSITIES:
Social Security
Medicare
Medicaid
Interest on the Debt
Defense
Unemployment insurance
Veterans benefits
Student loan defaults
Farm supports
Federal employee retirement
Thats 90% of the Federal budget right there. The states are in a similar situation (non-flexible programs).
You're gonna have to raise taxes, after 30 years of electing Reagan-like con-men to cut your taxes. Just a question of who gets taxed (the very rich) and when (soon).
Ooops, I forgot food stamps too. There's just not anything to really cut.
Cut education and pay for all the rest :)
And I do believe illegal aliens have a big hand in the various pots mentioned.
Gonna get real interesting real soon I expect.
Bur:
Every item on that list will needs be cut. Every single one... most by over 30%. ANd it WILL happen... Either by international boycott of the debt, or no f-ing around monetization, or some combination of the 2...
We are exactly where the more rational of the doomer's said we would be... things are NOT going back to 2007 or 1999...
Life will go on, but over time that life might look more and more surreal to those expecting somebody else to take care of them....
At this point it doesn’t really matter what congress does, or the Fed, or whoever. Extend, pretend, eat, drink and be merry. Enjoy the Indian summer for as long as it lasts.
Of course they should all be cut. If you don't have the revenue, you don't spend. But in the real world, it isn't gonna happen. Small cuts at best, and all absorbed by the children, or not at all.
Obama has now proposed (and Congress has to approve) a freeze in the cost of living for our Federal pay. They are so desperate to make it look like they are going to do SOMETHING, ANYTHING, that they are now futzing with the civil service, attempting to save a measly $2 billion with a COLA freeze. The whole Federal civil service only costs around $44 billion. We are cheap, and now we are mad at the "supposed democrat" .. we haven't had a cost of living freeze since 1985! Spending on us bought our silence. They are wasting time and continuing the delusion. That is why the (Federal) spending ain't gonna get cut by much in the end.
The press even now is filled with opinion polls saying "go after the rich" for more money. Good! The same thing happened during the depths of the Great Depression. Maybe some demographic wars would improve the news on TV. :)
As I said the other day, pull up your easy chair and get some popcorn, because I think that we may see a trial run in Texas, starting in January, 2011, for how a GOP controlled federal government would try to tackle budget issues in 2013.
For anyone in government, or dependent on government spending. . . . "Ask not for whom the budget cuts come, they come for thee."
Did anyone see Bernanke on 60 minutes last night? Guy looked visible shaken. How he spoke seemed to say a lot more than what he said. We’re doomed is right.
The defense security corporations will lobby to keep DOD and TSA alive. Military Keynesianism rules the day.
The med/pharma corps will lobby to keep Medicare/Medicaid alive.
The banksters will lobby to keep the various loan programs alive.
The agri industry will lobby to keep food stamps and agriculture programs alive.
Walmart and Real Estate will lobby to keep social security flowing.
Ain't nothing gonna change.
The corporations own us and they will keep concocting paper fantasies for whatever it takes.
As George Carlin said, there's a club and you ain't in it.
Rational Liberal
"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal"
~ Aristotle
Rational:
You sure you are a Liberal? You sound AWFULLY libertarian at times...
And lay off beating on the corporations and our corporatocracy... that's Cloal Guys and My job... get your own turf...
Just kidding.
You must now have read my older posts... I bloody well HATE our corporate system, which I blame gutting the Constitution and funding all of the silly Leftist BS we have now.
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