GDP numbers in. They are ugly (1.3%)

[sandorski]

The second half of this year *should* be better, simply due to the recovery in Japan after the tsunami. However, the Debt Limit shenanigans are currently stifling stability. If a reasonable deal can be had, there could be a significant upturn for the rest of the year.

 

[dank69]

Lol...I generally don't keep with such things...please forgive me.

I was really just pointing out that it isn't as clever or original as some would have you believe. It has been applied to Clinton and Bush, and now Obama, and all the mouth breathers are latching on to it.

 

[a777pilot]

I finally got around to figuring out what "post turtle" was and found this:

While suturing a cut on the hand of a 75 year old rancher, whose hand was caught in the gate while working cattle, the doctor struck up a conversation with the old man. Eventually the topic got around to Obama as our president. The old rancher said, 'Well, ya know, Obama is a 'Post Turtle''.

Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him what a 'post turtle' was.

The old rancher said, 'When you're driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that's a 'post turtle'. The old rancher saw the puzzled look on the doctor's face so he continued to explain. 'You know he didn't get up there by himself, he doesn't belong up there, and he doesn't know what to do while he's up there, and you just wonder what kind of dumb ass put him up there to begin with'.

That's it. You got it right.

 

[dank69]

Not exactly. What he's referring to is the sentiment of small businesses. In NY we're seemingly bent on eliminating them by these means. Permits and other fees are staggering and are constantly changing such that they are becoming a significant barrier to making a profit.

Call me old fashioned but I believe business owners should draw a salary and reinvest all profits into growing the business further. Permits in NY have always been a clusterfuck, this is nothing new. Most of those small businesses were just middlemen to begin with, and with the proliferation of the internet it is becoming harder and harder to convince people to pay you to keep merchandise in stock when they can just buy it online with free shipping.

 

[dullard]

Clearly you cannot read. I already corrected that misstatement. And you continue to fail to understand what the bill would have done.

CUT

Cuts total spending by $111 billion in FY 2012. The savings is divided as follows:

Yes, there will be a small cut.

CAP

Total federal spending is scaled back based on the glide path for the fiscal years below:
...

Yes, an unenforcible cap that will be ignored like all previous attempts to limit spending have been ignored.

BALANCE

Requires the passage of a Balanced Budget Amendment before raising the nation’s debt limit.

That balance part must be passed prior to Aug 2nd for this bill to have any teeth. What part of before the debt limit raise and the Aug 2 deadline don't you understand?

You are left with minimal cuts, no true cap, and either (a) no balanced budget at all or (b) a vote for 18% spending in a few days.

What part about them voting for 18% immediately do you think is wrong? The only way it would be wrong is if we go with the no balanced budget route. In which case this cut (miniscule), cap (unenforcable and ignored), and balance (not using that route) bill is almost useless.

 

[dphantom]

Yes, there will be a small cut.

Yes, an unenforcible cap that will be ignored like all previous attempts to limit spending have been ignored.

That balance part must be passed prior to Aug 2nd for this bill to have any teeth. What part of before the debt limit raise and the Aug 2 deadline don't you understand?

You are left with minimal cuts, no true cap, and either (a) no balanced budget at all or (b) a vote for 18% spending in a few days.

What part about them voting for 18% immediately do you think is wrong? The only way it would be wrong is if we go with the no balanced budget route. In which case this cut (miniscule), cap (unenforcable and ignored), and balance (not using that route) bill is almost useless.

sigh...
one last time, the passage of the balanced budget amendment does not mean an immediate cut to 18%. The amendment MUST be ratified by the States before it goes into effect. The passage of the amendment is a requirement to raising the debt ceiling. The drop to 18% expenditures of GDP happens only when the States ratify the amendment.

Read the whole text of the act and the House and Senate resolutions which clearly stipulate when this goes into effect.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Call me old fashioned but I believe business owners should draw a salary and reinvest all profits into growing the business further. Permits in NY have always been a clusterfuck, this is nothing new. Most of those small businesses were just middlemen to begin with, and with the proliferation of the internet it is becoming harder and harder to convince people to pay you to keep merchandise in stock when they can just buy it online with free shipping.

It all depends. There are small businesses which do not compete with the likes of had been Amazon. Since I've relocated here many are gone. I lost a good mechanic for example. He was getting by, but then he was hit with a huge tax bill and told that his road drainage (which he'd been trying to have fixed) needed to be taken care of now or face huge fines. Thing is that this was a government responsibility payed for by taxes. They rewrote the regs so it was his financial problem, raised his taxes, threatened him for things they ignored, and oh yeah don't forget to pay for those construction permits. He moved out of state. With governments cost shifting and hunting for money it is not hard to understand the fear of spending what may be needed for shakedowns later

 

[ProfJohn]

The rest of us stopped laughing a long time ago. Without a turn away from trickle-down economic thought/policy, the economy will continue in the doldrums, wealth will continue to concentrate more at the top, and average joe will still be completely boned. But hey, fuck it.

Rich did better under Clinton than they did under Reagan or Bush...

 

[dullard]

sigh...
one last time, the passage of the balanced budget amendment does not mean an immediate cut to 18%. The amendment MUST be ratified by the States before it goes into effect. The passage of the amendment is a requirement to raising the debt ceiling. The drop to 18% expenditures of GDP happens only when the States ratify the amendment.

You are correct that it won't drop to 18% immediately. No one is denying that. You are denying that they'll vote for the 18% immediately. That is the only issue here.

When it goes into effect is not materially important to this discussion. If you want a thread on WHEN it'll take place, go ahead and start a new thread.

The vote will have to happen in a few days. If that failed bill ever passed, then members of congress would have to vote for a ~5% cut in spending (that spending cut will occur later, we all know this so stop saying it) but the vote will occur almost immediately.

You should read the act. See I can make a pointless demand too.

 

[ProfJohn]

Current government outlays as a percentage of GDP is around 25%. Tea Party wants it at 20% immediately and eventually lowered to 18%.

Bull shit... are you even paying attention??

As of yesterday the Boehner bill did not even include a cut for 2012. We will spend more money next year that we did this year.

And if there is a real cut it will end up being small. Less than $100 billion.

 

[werepossum]

Call me old fashioned but I believe business owners should draw a salary and reinvest all profits into growing the business further. Permits in NY have always been a clusterfuck, this is nothing new. Most of those small businesses were just middlemen to begin with, and with the proliferation of the internet it is becoming harder and harder to convince people to pay you to keep merchandise in stock when they can just buy it online with free shipping.

Look at it this way. Say you have a small business importing and selling widgets. You've done well, and now you have a corporate net worth of $2 million and a cash surplus of $500,000 to which you are adding $50,000 a year after paying your current expenses of $500,000 per year. This makes a pretty successful but not atypical small business. You have several things you'd like to do - buy your own building, expand operations to get a bigger share of the widget market, start a factory building your own widgets, expand into the whatzit market. Maybe even hire some more help to cut your own hours down to sixty hours per week and your bookkeeper doesn't have to clean the kitchen. After taxes you expect a suitable employee to run you another $40,000.

Now say you know for a fact that a new tax hike, regulation, or health care benefit is going to cost you another $25,000. Obviously you're not going to do any of the things you'd LIKE to do, because this new expense is going to cost you half your profit. In fact, you'll probably look for ways to cut costs or even contemplate selling or closing your business. Your annual return on investment is already at a measly 2%; now that's getting cut in half. You'd be better off loaning your money to the federal government and not working at all. So far, this should be beyond argument by even the dimmest bulb.

Now comes the speculative part, the part where the fear comes in. Say your President has said that under his energy plan, your energy costs would "necessarily skyrocket." Can he implement this? If so, does that mean that your $25,000 energy bill jumps by $5,000, or $10,000, or $25,000, or $100,000? Say your President has passed new health care entitlements, but much of the bill merely empowers federal regulatory agencies and your health insurance carrier cannot tell you how much this will escalate your costs. Will your $50,000 health insurance costs rise by $5,000, or $10,000, or $25,000, or $100,000? Will you have to drop company-provided health insurance altogether? If so, will that cost you your best employees to larger companies? Say your President has said that he thinks we should have mandatory health insurance for all employees, even part timers. Will he implement it? What will it cost you to provide health insurance for the ten college students that pull orders at night?

It should be readily apparent that a medium to small business is a delicate thing. You don't have divisions to sell off, or factories to move overseas, if additional costs are forced on you. You don't want to lay off employees because D.C. mandates employer-provided dog-sitting or child empowerment classes - you know these people, you know their families, they are your friends. So if you have any fears that the President or Congress is going to slap new costs on you, you sit on your profits, hoping to build as big a pile as possible to that you can weather whatever comes your way. Or at the least, have the resources for an orderly shut-down, trying to save something of your life's work, if government or larger competitors or a crashing economy forces you to close the doors.

And all these fears are on top of the normal fears about the economy and the competition, all the things that Congress and the President cannot control.

 

[ProfJohn]

No it didn't, because nearly half of it was tax cuts. We're only now realizing that the great recession was much worse than anyone would admit and we are no longer in a position to do a damned thing about it.

We spend $666 billion and got 2-3 million jobs out of it...

All we need to do is spend another $1.5 trillion and we can get unemployment back to 2008 levels... until the money runs out...

 

[ProfJohn]

Do you understand how an amendment to the US Constitution is done??? It has to pass the House, Senate and be signed by the President. Then it is submitted to the States for ratification generally over a several year period.

That 18% does not take effect when the bill is passed.

The 18% figure does not go into effect until 2+ years after the balance budget amendment goes into effect.

They essentially have 2+ years to balance the budget .

 

[Fern]

-snip-

That balance part must be passed prior to Aug 2nd for this bill to have any teeth. What part of before the debt limit raise and the Aug 2 deadline don't you understand?

You seem to be saying that balanced budget part will be taking effect quickly?

If so, that would be completely wrong. You are not a US citizen, are you?

The process to amend the Constitution, which is what the "Balanced" part of the bill is, is a lengthy and difficult process. It's no exaggeration to say it would likely take a year or longer.

Each of the 50 states must hold an 'election' to try and pass it. We have tried in my lifetime and the process took years and was ultimately unsuccessful. I don't see why it would be different this time.

Fern

 

[ProfJohn]

Clearly you don't understand how an amendment is done. The president, if he signs, is simply doing it as part of ceremony as it isn't required. The point is by August 2nd, 2011, the house would have to vote for the balanced budget. That vote is for 18% spending. That vote comes almost immediately. The whole discussion is about them voting for 18% soon. I mean, if they didn't want it, why would they vote for it? They'd be voting for a 5% cut in spending during this difficult part of the economy (technically not a recession, so I guess the whole debate is wrong from the start).

You are so wrong it is pathetic.

If the balance budget passes both houses it goes to the states for them to ratify. That could take years. Even if they passed it over night we would still have 2+ years to balance budget.

It is right in the balanced budget amendment:
`Section 9. This article shall become effective beginning with the second fiscal year commencing after its ratification by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States.'.


They probably need to length the 2 year period. But let's be honest, getting this through the states will take years if it ever gets done.

 

[dullard]

You seem to be saying that balanced budget part will be taking effect quickly?

If so, that would be completely wrong. You are not a US citizen, are you?

No, you are wrong. I have only said the congress VOTE must come by then. The states must still ratify it. That could take days, years, or centuries (if at all).

Lets go back to the original post and analyze it:

Originally Posted by senseamp
And Republicans want to cut government spending by 5% of GDP in the middle of a recession.

1) Republicans want to cut government spending.

I'd have to pretty much say that is true (with maybe a few minor exceptions). Do you have ANY evidence against it? If so, please share.

2) Cut by 5% GDP.

Again, true. The timing may take many, many years. But that is the about amount that they want to cut. Do you have ANY evidence against it? If so, please share.

3) In the middle of a recession.

The vote will come in a few days. But, this part is false based on the fact that we aren't in a recession now. The cuts won't happen for many years. But the vote will happen now. Do you have ANY evidence against it? If so, please share.

Once you address all 3 issues, we can continue talking.

 

[Doppel]

I finally got around to figuring out what "post turtle" was and found this:

While suturing a cut on the hand of a 75 year old rancher, whose hand was caught in the gate while working cattle, the doctor struck up a conversation with the old man. Eventually the topic got around to Obama as our president. The old rancher said, 'Well, ya know, Obama is a 'Post Turtle''.

Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him what a 'post turtle' was.

The old rancher said, 'When you're driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that's a 'post turtle'. The old rancher saw the puzzled look on the doctor's face so he continued to explain. 'You know he didn't get up there by himself, he doesn't belong up there, and he doesn't know what to do while he's up there, and you just wonder what kind of dumb ass put him up there to begin with'.

lmao I like that.

Nice, you finally caught on to a 10+ year old meme

Not a popular one. I'd never heard of it and have been on the internets for a while.

 

[dphantom]

The 18% figure does not go into effect until 2+ years after the balance budget amendment goes into effect.

They essentially have 2+ years to balance the budget .

exactly. some of the dim libs were stating it goes into effect immediately then when called on it switched to say the vote happens immediately. well duh.

At any rate, this problem we have is not a revenue problem it is a spending problem and until a mechanism is in place to control spending, we will never end deficits.

 

[dullard]

You are so wrong it is pathetic.

Name ONE thing wrong with what I posted.

The only thing wrong is you (and a couple others) thinking that I mean the balanced budget cuts would happen immediately. I never once said the balanced budget would occur immediately. The cuts would take time. The vote is immediate.

 

[ProfJohn]

It will take 38 states to pass the Balanced budget amendment.

We are no where close to that number.
Bush won 31 states in 2004

The 1988 election is the last time someone carried more than 38 states.

I don't think people realize how hard that 38 state thing will be.
We have only passed one amendment in the last 40 years and that one took 200 years to pass 🙂

 

[werepossum]

lmao I like that.Not a popular one. I'd never heard of it and have been on the internets for a while.

I HATE that, because I'm a country boy and have rescued quite a few post turtles - and had a few irate conversations about putting them up there.

What kind of sadistic bastard balances a harmless turtle atop a fence post, to slowly die of heat exhaustion, exposure and/or thirst?

BTW I first heard it about Bush.

 

[dullard]

It will take 38 states to pass the Balanced budget amendment.

We are no where close to that number.
Bush won 31 states in 2004

The 1988 election is the last time someone carried more than 38 states.

I don't think people realize how hard that 38 state thing will be.
We have only passed one amendment in the last 40 years and that one took 200 years to pass 🙂

Which is why this bill is useless. The balanced budget part will never occur. The caps will be ignored (just like the current debt cap kept getting moved over the years) and the cuts are miniscule.

That is why I want a better bill:
1) Give us hard cuts NOW not some committee that might recommend cuts that might or might not pass.
2) Give us $10 trillion or more in long term cuts (medicare mostly).
3) Raise SS income cutoff to cover 90% of income (where Reagan wanted it but he forgot to have the cutoff change with time to keep it at 90%) so SS is fixed forever.
4) Raise the debt ceiling to a realistic level so we can stop squabbling.

I'll settle for #4 now and #1-#3 later though. Too bad the house voted that down overwhelmingly.

 

[ProfJohn]

Name ONE thing wrong with what I posted.

The only thing wrong is you (and a couple others) thinking that I mean the balanced budget cuts would happen immediately. I never once said the balanced budget would occur immediately. The cuts would take time. The vote is immediate.

Right here. There is NOTHING in the vote about 18% spending.

The point is by August 2nd, 2011, the house would have to vote for the balanced budget. That vote is for 18% spending.

Second falsehood. There is NO 5% cut in anything they are voting for. Nothing!

They'd be voting for a 5% cut in spending during this difficult part of the economy

 

[Fern]

Not really, all polls have suggested the uncertainty of gov't has played very little part in businesses hoarding cash and that's a fact you'll just have to deal with at some point.

Are you suggesting a poll of the average person on the street can be used to divine the motives of large corporations and how they act? What their business strategies are?

Now, if you've seen a poll taken by CEO's, CFO's etc, now that would be indicative. If you have, please link it up.

Here's a poll of CFO's. LMK if you can't access it. I have a subscription, I don't know if one is needed. If so, I'll cut and paste it: http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/14580896?f=search

Corporations do not usually sit on piles of money. Corporations want to make profit, sitting on money is not profitable, so they usually reinvest in their business or invest in new LOBs (lines of business). Something has changed that, the question is why are corporations acting differently now?

Fern

 

[ProfJohn]

Which is why this bill is useless. The balanced budget part will never occur. The caps will be ignored (just like the current debt cap kept getting moved over the years) and the cuts are miniscule.

That is why I want a better bill. Give us hard cuts NOW. Give us $10 trillion in long term cuts (medicare mostly). Raise the debt ceiling to a realistic level so we can stop squabbling.

Starting a balanced budget amendment process is the best thing we can do as a country.

It will put us on the track to solving ALL of our government spending problems.

Even if you remove the 18% of GDP part it would still be a good bill. As long as we make raising taxes difficult then a balanced budget amendment is a good thing.

It is a shame we didn't get one when Clinton was in office and we HAD a balanced budget...