Tag Archives: Deficits

April 27, 2011 · 8:12 pm

Debt proposals: The Courageous Progressive Caucus Budget | The Economist

I’m glad to see this proposal finally getting some attention….

This is the one that makes real sense and has the right priorities….

And this is from “The Economist” which is not exactly a left-wing publication…

Mr Miller’s column notes that “the  Congressional Progressive Caucus plan wins the fiscal responsibility derby thus far; it reaches balance by 2021 largely through assorted tax hikes and defense cuts.” Which is pretty interesting. Have you ever heard of the Congressional Progressive Caucus budget plan? Neither had I. The caucus’s co-chairs, Raul Grijalva of Arizona and Keith Ellison of Minnesota, released it on April 6th. The budget savings come from defence cuts, including immediately withdrawing from Afghanistan and Iraq, which saves $1.6 trillion over the CBO baseline from 2012-2021. The tax hikes include restoring the estate tax, ending the Bush tax cuts, and adding new tax brackets for the extremely rich, running from 45% on income over a million a year to 49% on income over a billion a year.

Mr Ryan’s plan adds (by its own claims) $6 trillion to the national debt over the next decade, but promises to balance the budget by sometime in the 2030s by cutting programmes for the poor and the elderly. The Progressive Caucus’s plan would (by its own claims) balance the budget by 2021 by cutting defence spending and raising taxes, mainly on rich people. Mr Ryan has been fulsomely praised for his courage. The Progressive Caucus has not.

I’m not really sure what “courage” is supposed to mean here, but this seems precisely backwards. For 30 years, certainly since Walter Mondale got creamed by Ronald Reagan, the most dangerous thing a politician can do has been to call for tax hikes. Politicians who call for higher taxes are punished, which is why they don’t do it. I’m curious to see what adjectives people would apply to the Progressive Congressional Caucus’s budget proposal. But it’s hard for me to imagine the media calling a proposal to raise taxes “courageous” and “honest”. And my sense is that the disparate treatment here is a structural bias rooted in class.

via Debt proposals: The courageous Progressive Caucus budget | The Economist.

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April 27, 2011 · 8:18 am

House Republicans Under Attack on Medicare Overhaul – NYTimes.com

Hopefully, the GOP has just committed Political suicide….

It’s starting to sound like it….

In central Florida, a Congressional town meeting erupted into near chaos on Tuesday as attendees accused a Republican lawmaker of trying to dismantle Medicare while providing tax cuts to corporations and affluent Americans.

At roughly the same time in Wisconsin, Representative Paul D. Ryan, the architect of the Republican budget proposal, faced a packed town meeting, occasional boos and a skeptical audience as he tried to lay out his party’s rationale for overhauling the health insurance program for retirees.

In a church theater here on Tuesday evening, a meeting between Representative Allen B. West and some of his constituents began on a chaotic note, with audience members quickly on their feet, some heckling him and others loudly defending him. “You’re not going to intimidate me,” Mr. West said.

After 10 days of trying to sell constituents on their plan to overhaul Medicare, House Republicans in multiple districts appear to be increasingly on the defensive, facing worried and angry questions from voters and a barrage of new attacks from Democrats and their allies.

The proposed new approach to Medicare — a centerpiece of a budget that Republican leaders have hailed as a courageous effort to address the nation’s long-term fiscal problems — has been a constant topic at town-hall-style sessions and other public gatherings during a two-week Congressional recess that provided the first chance for lawmakers to gauge reaction to the plan.

via House Republicans Under Attack on Medicare Overhaul – NYTimes.com.

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April 26, 2011 · 5:29 pm

No Inflation-Unless You Eat, Drink, Drive or Fly

Amazing how Government statistics exclude most of the things most people do every day….

From CNN.com:

Avoid all of the food and beverage companies that are raising prices and you’ll be shedding pounds in no time. Of course, you may not be eating or drinking much of anything. But that’s another story.

McDonald’s (MCD, Fortune 500), Hershey (HSY, Fortune 500) and Coca-Cola (KO, Fortune 500) all announced new price hikes or reiterated previous increases in their latest quarterly earnings reports over the past few days. The reason is obvious. Commodities are running amok.

It’s costing restaurants and food makers a lot more money to produce or buy food as the price of cattle, wheat, sugar, corn and just about every other agricultural commodity has surged in the past year.

And even though the Federal Reserve may think that higher commodity costs are “transitory” — which is the econobabble way of saying “Don’t worry about it!” — companies aren’t so sure.

That could be bad news for consumers, who are already coping with soaring gasoline prices.

MORE:   Food and beverage companies raising prices — The Buzz – Apr. 26, 2011.

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April 18, 2011 · 9:03 pm

Half of households pay no income taxes, super rich see taxes fall | The Raw Story

More interesting information for Tax Day:

The Internal Revenue Service and the Tax Policy Center in Washington have some statistics that will likely make last-minute filers extra-irate today: The super-rich are paying less in income tax than they used to, and nearly half of all U.S. households don’t pay any income taxes at all.

The IRS tracks the 400 highest adjusted gross incomes, and how much they pay in income taxes, each year, reports the Associated Press. In 2007, the last available year for IRS data, the average income in that set was around $345 million, and they paid about 17 percent in federal income taxes. In 1992, the average income tax rate for the same set was 26 percent.

Think tank Tax Policy Center also has data that show that about 45 percent of households receive so many tax breaks that they won’t pay federal income tax at all for 2010. The tax code contains $1.1 trillion in credits, deductions and exemptions, around $8,000 per taxpayer.

“It’s the fact that we are using the tax code both to collect revenue, which is its primary purpose, and to deliver these spending benefits that we run into the situation where so many people are paying no taxes,” Roberton Williams, a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center, told the AP.

via Half of households pay no income taxes, super rich see taxes fall | The Raw Story.

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April 18, 2011 · 12:28 am

Simpson Says Tax Increases are Necessary

And a little more on taxes…

At a panel discussion in Denver on reducing the nation’s debt, former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-WY) said tax increases were needed to help balance the budget, according to the Colorado Statesman.

Said Simpson: “We’ve never had a war with no tax to support it, including the Revolution. People are told in Congress if they raise taxes by a nickel, they’ll be strung up by their heels in the town square.”

Simpson also recounted how he confronted anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist and they exchanged words over the legacy of Ronald Reagan, claimed by both as their personal hero. When Reagan was president, he raised taxes 11 times, Simpson said, a bit of history that made Norquist squirm.

via Simpson Says Tax Increases are Necessary.

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April 18, 2011 · 12:26 am

Taxes reach historic low

Something to ponder at Tax Time….

From the Orange County Register:

For the past two years, a family of four earning the median income has paid less in federal income taxes than at any time since at least 1955, according to the Tax Policy Center. All federal, state and local taxes combined are a lower percentage of per-capita income than at any time since the 1960s, according to the Tax Foundation. The highest income-tax bracket is its lowest since 1992. At 35 percent, it’s well below the 50 percent mark of much of the 1980s and the 70 percent bracket of the 1970

via Taxes reach historic low – News – The Orange County Register.

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April 16, 2011 · 9:47 pm

Big Mike Explains the Deficit…And How to Fix It

And he does it much more clearly than the traditional media or anyone in Washington does…

This is definitely worth watching.

It’s amazing how clear he makes things in only three minutes:

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April 15, 2011 · 9:01 pm

The Republican Medicare Masacre

This is a very clear summary of the Republican Budget plan that they voted on today…

Basically, it ends Medicare for anyone currently under age 55.

Do you want to be old and at the mercy of insurance companies?

Do you have enough money saved to pay the additional $7000 per year it would cost you to pay for this insurance?  That is if the insurance companies will even offer it…

Think long and hard, folks…

Elections have consequences….

From the NY TImes:

Representative Paul Ryan and the House Republicans are portraying their budget proposal for the next fiscal year as a courageous effort to finally bring federal spending on Medicare under control. An analysis issued last week by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office finds that the Ryan proposal would sharply reduce federal spending — but at the price of shifting more of Medicare’s costs onto beneficiaries and their families.

How much more? Calculations derived from the C.B.O. analysis show that in 2022, when the Ryan plan would kick in, the typical 65-year-old would pay $6,400 to $7,000 more per year than would be paid for comparable coverage under traditional Medicare.

Mr. Ryan’s proposal would change Medicare from an entitlement program in which the government pays for a defined set of medical services into a “premium support” program in which the government would give beneficiaries money to help them buy private insurance. He contends that competition among health care plans and more judicious use of health care services by beneficiaries can help bring down the cost of health care and reduce the federal government’s burden.

But the C.B.O. says a private plan offering comparable benefits would be a lot more expensive than traditional Medicare because the private insurer would have higher administrative costs, would need to make a profit and, in an extrapolation of current trends, would pay hospitals, doctors and other providers substantially more than Medicare does. Beneficiaries would have to pay higher out-of-pocket costs or buy skimpier policies.

The Ryan plan has no chance of becoming law while the Democrats still control the Senate and the White House. But if health care becomes a defining issue in the 2012 elections — as it should — everyone under the age of 55 is on notice that Mr. Ryan’s plan would impose heavy costs on them when they reach age 65.

via The Republican Medicare Reshuffle – NYTimes.com.

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April 14, 2011 · 8:37 pm

Woe to You, Legislators! Or Ayn Rand vs the Bible

Great Blog post from Jim Wallis at Sojourners….

I’m not much for organized religion, but I like a lot of what this guy has to say…

I’ll let the excerpt speak for itself and encourage you to click the link to his full post…

It is reported that Congressman Paul Ryan makes every member of his staff read philosopher Ayn Rand, the shameless promoter of the gospel of aggressive self-interest. This makes sense to me as I read Congressman Ryan’s new budget proposal. I wish he had his staff reading the Bible instead.

While widely lauded by conservatives, Congressman Ryan’s budget isn’t really about deficit reduction. It’s about choices — choices that will determine what kind of a country we become. And Paul Ryan has made the choice to hurt people who don’t have the political clout to defend themselves. Two-thirds of the long-term budget cuts that Ryan proposed are directed at modest and low-income people, as well as the poorest of the poor at home and abroad. At the same time, he proposed tax cuts up to 30 percent for some of our country’s wealthiest corporations. Let me say that again: Two-thirds of the cuts come at the expense of already struggling people and families, while corporations posting record profits get tax breaks. In short, the most vulnerable members of society are being attacked by Ryan and his supporters. This makes them bullies.

In dramatic contrast, Ryan has chosen to help the people who need help the least. Wealthy individuals and companies reap a windfall of benefits in Ryan’s plan — with tax cuts and breaks, continued subsidies and loopholes for every powerful special interest, and increased corporate welfare payments from the government. Congressman Ryan and his supporters have carefully and faithfully rewarded the rich people who make their campaign contributions, and, in most cases, have also rewarded themselves as rich people. This makes them corrupt.

And, as self-professed budget hawks, they have completely ignored the most consistently egregious, wasteful, and morally compromised area of the whole federal budget — our endless and unaccountable military spending. Paul Ryan and the Republicans would cut nothing from the Pentagon profligacy. This makes them hypocrites.

via Woe to You, Legislators! – Jim Wallis – God’s Politics Blog.

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April 13, 2011 · 11:10 pm

Daily Kos: Introducing the People’s Budget

Now, we’re talking…

This is the kind of budget I could really support!

From DailyKos:

One of the complaints the progressive blogosphere commonly levels against the Democratic leadership in DC is about negotiating strategy. Generally, the complaint is that the Democratic leadership in Congress and in the White House make opening bids that are already compromises, which results in final legislative deals skewing further to the right than necessary. Perhaps the most frequent specific example of this complaint is that Democrats in Congress should have started the health care debate by proposing a single-payer plan, and might have ended up with a public option in the final bill as a result.

Whether or not you agree with that complaint in either the general or the specific, if it is applied to the budget fight the Democratic leadership in DC should have started with The People’s Budget (PDF), which the Congressional Progressive Caucus introduced today. It’s a budget that produces a surplus by 2021 without cutting services for the poor and middle-class. It thus provides a stark contrast with the recent proposal by Rep. Paul Ryan, and a left-flank to the principles outlined by President Obama.

Here’s a general overview of the People’s Budget:

Reduces unemployment—and thus the deficit—through extensive investment in infrastructure, clean energy, transportation and education;

Ends almost all the Bush tax cuts, creates new tax brackets for millionaires and enacting new fees on Wall Street;

Full American military withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan, along with other reductions in military spending;

Ends subsidies for non-renewable energy;

Lowers health care costs by enacting a public option and negotiating Rx payments with pharmaceutical companies;

Raises the taxable maximum income for Social Security Withholding

via Daily Kos: Introducing the People’s Budget.

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