What started as a deficit reduction project on August 2, 2011 with the passage of the Budget Control Act of 2011 (BCA) ended on New Year's night with a $4-trillion increase to the national debt over the next ten years.
The problem for America is that there is no good solution to the pickle BO put the Republicans in in August 2011 when the chosen option resulted in the predictable result we saw on New Year's night. The government would have defaulted on some obligations or been partially shut down on August 3, 2011 without the BCA thereby permanently politically wounding anyone who was against it so that they would not live to run for reelection another day – unless they were prepared to go to the mat for this issue.
Facing no agreement in the Senate &/or a veto by BO – the possibility of a resolution by a majority in the House to not raise taxes on singles making over $400,000 per year & couples making over $450,000 per year would have hit virtually everyone hard including bringing on another recession with full blame going once again to the Republicans. Although this would have brought us closer to John Galt's world & could have awakened people to what was happening thereby hastening the needed revival it also could have destroyed what is left of the Republican Party which means we have no chance in the short run of turning things around.
So Republicans could pick their poison with either of the above votes or decide to stop & fight by starting to say that BO has no intention to ever be financially responsible counting on the majority of the electorate actually caring themselves. Republicans who are fighting deserve all the support the rest of us who understand the dilemma can provide.
The mistake made by the Republicans in August 2011 was thinking that BO wanted to negotiate or solve the financial problems. The sequester was agreed to because Republicans thought that BO & the Democrats in Congress would find the automatic-mindless spending cuts as repulsive as they did – in reality the sequester was music to Democrat ears especially when it did not go into effect until after the election setting up the stakes on New Year's night. BO has everyone talking about everything except economic growth & as long as that continues it is just a matter of how much of his objective he wins. Republicans need a growth message – not one of austerity & tax increases.
In summary BO is playing a winning hand, @ least in the short run, by taking America's wealth from the successful & giving it to people who have found it easier to apply for some government program, like food stamps or the ever growing disability program, than try to go to work in an economy that BO has crippled. It is clear there is no way out with BO in control of the power – that is the losing hand some Republicans (five in the Senate & one hundred fifty one in the House – see below) are playing unless they get support from enough people like most of this readership. Our work is made harder because of the portion of the electorate who has been brainwashed into a mindset of thinking they are entitled to or deserving handouts.
The fiscal cliff & sequester drama will be repeated in the next few months when the next confrontation occurs re the debt ceiling, sequester (that was merely delayed two months on January 1), & the Continuing Resolution to fund the government that expires on March 27. Republicans & many pundits are kidding themselves by saying these future confrontations will all be about spending cuts this time – not tax increases. BO made it clear before flying out of Washington that he was going to attack these measures by closing tax loopholes which has the effect of raising taxes again & of course the effective tax rate. BO has no intention to ever address spending reductions & the sooner Republicans recognize this & more importantly start to say it clearly the better off we will be.
Since February 2010 I have documented countless times the different spending-cut gimmicks - rather than substantive spending cuts - our elected reps have resorted to to make it look like they are financially responsible.
One of the lowest-class gimmicks regarded calendar year – fiscal year obfuscation; i.e., whether the spending cuts they were considering was on a calendar year or fiscal year basis – as if any significant percent of the voting citizenry knew when the fiscal year starts.
The majority in the House of Representatives in the last Congress, including eighty-seven Tea Party members, had campaigned on cutting spending $100-billion their first year in office – virtually the same amount of spending cuts required by the sequester this year & in each of the next eight years. Taking the promised total $100-billion out of a $3.8 trillion spending plan does not seem like a hard task if they really wanted to do it. But what voter was to know they were not talking about $100-billion during calendar year 2011 but rather $100-billion prorated on a fiscal year basis that had started three months before they took office & really was only seven months total after considering the time it took to get the legislation passed. I don't remember any campaigner saying they would cut $100-billion on a prorated basis for the 7 months left in the current fiscal year with greater cuts to follow in future years. In any event the $100-billion spending cuts turned out to be about $300-million after all of the other gimmicks & phantom cuts were stripped out.
Now this latest fiscal cliff & sequester boondoggle again involved the fiscal year – calendar year gimmick but this time in reverse. In August 2011 when this entire matter began the manmade fiscal cliff could have been reached on September 30, 2012 – New Year's eve for the fiscal year. But the elected reps were very calendar conscious & realized the circus show just put on would not be good for their political careers so they moved it to January safely after the election with no intention whatsoever to work on it before then.
Some readers may remember the list of questions I wrote that should have been answered by both Mitt & BO in the second presidential debate that was held in a town hall format - What will they do to avoid the fiscal cliff & sequester scheduled for January 1 that will affect virtually every American? Too bad that neither the moderator or Mitt followed up with this because it was just one more mine in the field BO escaped from without answering.
The agreement reached 1) does not reduce the deficit but actually adds to it, 2) overestimates whatever small increase of revenue, if any, will be collected from the top income earners – tax rate increases never produce the expected revenue calculated on a static basis, 3) has no pro growth component that is needed to get the middle class back to work, 4) punishes the most successful people with higher income tax rates for no good reason, 5) does nothing to stabilize Social Security or Medicare, 6) totally abandons the Republican pledge to defund ObamaCare, & 7) continues the class warfare that unnecessarily divides America.
If you are out of work or underemployed working part time jobs there is no happy new year in sight for you or really the rest of us.
Below are the lists of Senate & House votes for people who voted against the tax measure.
Most impressive is Marco Rubio voting (with Rand Paul & Mike Lee) against the measure in the Senate. Paul Ryan & Dave Camp (W&M Chairman) voted for it in the House signaling to many that tax reform is dead until 2016 @ the earliest. The list includes the usual good ones like Jeff Flake (now to be senator from AZ), Mike Pence (now to be governor of IN), Michele Bachmann, & Steve King. I am particularly happy to say that Rob Woodall & Tim Scott (now to be senator from SC) voted against the bill. If all of these people & the others on the list stick together & don't fold we have a chance – especially with enough backing.
To save my NJ neighbors some time Frelinghuysen, Lance, LoBiondo, Smith, & Runyan voted yes. Garrett voted no.
| Senate NAYs ---8 | ||
| Bennet (D-CO) Carper (D-DE) Grassley (R-IA) | Harkin (D-IA) Lee (R-UT) Paul (R-KY) | Rubio (R-FL) Shelby (R-AL) |
| Not Voting - 3 | ||
| DeMint (R-SC) | Kirk (R-IL) | Lautenberg (D-NJ) |
House Totals
| | Ayes | Noes | PRES | NV |
| Republican | 85 | 151 | 5 | |
| Democratic | 172 | 16 | 3 | |
| Independent | ||||
| TOTALS | 257 | 167 | 8 |
House---- NOES 167 ---
| Adams Aderholt Akin Amash Amodei Austria Bachmann Bachus Barrow Bartlett Barton (TX) Becerra Berg Bilirakis Bishop (UT) Black Blackburn Blumenauer Bonner Boustany Brooks Broun (GA) Bucshon Burgess Campbell Canseco Cantor Capito Carter Cassidy Chabot Chaffetz Coffman (CO) Conaway Cooper Cravaack Crawford Culberson DeFazio DeLauro DesJarlais Duffy Duncan (SC) Duncan (TN) Ellmers Farenthold Fincher Flake Fleischmann Fleming Flores Forbes Foxx Franks (AZ) Gardner Garrett | Gibbs Gingrey (GA) Gohmert Goodlatte Gosar Gowdy Granger Graves (GA) Griffin (AR) Griffith (VA) Guinta Guthrie Hall Harper Harris Hartzler Hensarling Huelskamp Huizenga (MI) Hultgren Hunter Hurt Issa Jenkins Johnson, Sam Jones Jordan King (IA) Kingston Labrador Lamborn Landry Lankford Latham Long Lummis Mack Marchant Massie Matheson McCarthy (CA) McCaul McClintock McDermott McHenry McIntyre McKinley Mica Miller (FL) Miller (NC) Moran Mulvaney Myrick Neugebauer Nugent Nunes | Nunnelee Olson Palazzo Paulsen Pearce Pence Peterson Petri Poe (TX) Pompeo Posey Price (GA) Quayle Rehberg Renacci Rigell Rivera Roby Roe (TN) Rogers (AL) Rohrabacher Rokita Rooney Roskam Ross (FL) Scalise Schilling Schmidt Schrader Schweikert Scott (SC) Scott (VA) Scott, Austin Sensenbrenner Smith (NE) Smith (WA) Southerland Stearns Stutzman Terry Tipton Turner (OH) Visclosky Walberg Walsh (IL) Webster West Westmoreland Whitfield Wilson (SC) Wittman Wolf Woodall Yoder Young (IN) |
| Buerkle Burton (IN) Graves (MO) | Lewis (CA) Lewis (GA) Paul | Stark Woolsey |
Hi Doug - I am vacationing in Florida and the local media repeated over & over in a negative light that Marco Rubio voted against the bill to avoid the fiscal cliff. It is not easy being a Republican these days in Congress.
ReplyDeleteI admire you Doug. You are doing a good job, but as they say you are knocking your head against a wall - meaning your thoughts and comments are true, but you need thousands, no - millions of people on your side, not thousands.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how many people got re-elected this past election. People were saying, "throw the bums (congress) out." How many of them were re-elected?
RTE - Happy New Year BZ - You know I admire & rely on your opinion. Do you have another suggestion? If we stop trying we just go right down the tubes with no fight for one of God’s great gifts to the world – America.
And a Merry Christmas to you and Carol.
ReplyDeleteDo not stop what you are doing. You will slowly get more and more people who share your views,which
are good. Your views on economy are very good and correct. Only drawback, it takes time to gain followers. Lots of time. It would be good if your views were published in various publications, to gain followers. I know you had articles published in WSJ.
It would be better yet, if you had several people with millions of dollars to back you.
You never know, maybe someone who reads your comments, will come to you with money, for your cause.
When you least expect it - some one comes to your aid.
RTE - Google provides me with statistics. ReturnToExcellence is currently read by 3,000 people per month. On one day recently there were 300 people from China alone who found the blog on the internet. After the USA, Ukraine is usually second in readership. I think this is a start I never imagined – but that is the American way even without the millions you mention.
Debt ceiling debate will be fight of decade. We must win NOW else our foreign creditors will later harshly restructure our debt and spending. Argue this over and over every day over blog sites. Tweet as many Congress representatives, not just Michele Bachmann a champion we can rely on.
ReplyDeleteGo ahead and risk a gov shutdown. If we had one in Aug 2011 we might today be much better off. If we have a gov shutdown agree to no more than a $500 billion increase over 12 months. This will be just under half our projected 12 month deficit and force us to better prioritize spending. Again it is much better we do this than a group of sheiks, Chinese, and IMF accountants.
If not now when. Just do it NOW.
Again Doug - outstanding post with relevant details.
A Blessed New Year to you and Carol & thanks for the interesting info, Doug!
ReplyDeleteHi Doug - Bottom line is the Republican Party has no fight, no guts and no courage. Why anyone would be dumb enough to follow John Boehner into Little Big Horn is beyond me with the exception of the following; They are worried about getting re-elected. The idea of putting up a real fight and risking it all absolutely terrifies them.
ReplyDeleteSay what you want about the Pelosis, Obamas, and Reids but one thing I admire is they have no fear of attacking. Compare that to the cowards that most Republicans in Washington are and there is your difference.
Traditionally Republicans have always been satisfied playing second fiddle, particularly in Congress. When through the sheer incompetence of the Democrats (Jimmy Carter, Dan Rostenkowski) the Republicans actually take control they spend their time as wimps attempting to appease the Democrats.
Obama and the Democrats know the Republicans lack the courage to take it to the limit and risk everything, a question Vito Corleone asked his emissary about a rival.
Unfortunately we know the answer to that question when it comes to the Republicans. On a positive note I waited for Boehner to cave to change my party affiliation from "Republican" to "Unaffiliated". I must say it felt liberating.