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Post by JP5 on Oct 19, 2013 0:05:23 GMT
So, let' see now. We had to BORROW over $328 BILLION over the last 5 months just to avoid bumping in to the debt ceiling. And Democrats and their supports say we do NOT have a spending problem?  Both records have occurred in the last 2 years under Barack Obama. "U.S. debt jumped a record $328 billion on Thursday, the first day the federal government was able to borrow money under the deal President Obama and Congress sealed this week. The debt now equals $17.075 trillion, according to figures the Treasury Department posted online on Friday. The $328 billion increase shattered the previous high of $238 billion set two years ago. The giant jump comes because the government was replenishing its stock of “extraordinary measures” — the federal funds it borrowed from over the last five months as it tried to avoid bumping into the debt ceiling. Under the law, that replenishing happens as soon as there is new debt space." Read more: www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/oct/18/us-debt-jumps-400-billion-tops-17-trillion-first-t/#ixzz2i7ab26Hm Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter |
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Post by ShivaTD on Oct 19, 2013 11:11:52 GMT
I've already addressed this in another thread where it was brought up but will summarize it again here.
The actual national debt is a combination of outstanding Treasury Securities and unpaid invoices (bills) that have yet to be paid by the Treasury. Based upon the news story the Treasury has been using "accounting practices" (that it admits it's been doing) to keep the bills paid without exceeding the "debt ceiling" that only relates to outstanding Treasury securities and doesn't account for outstanding invoices (bills) that must be paid.
Basically our government went "broke" five months ago and had to start resorting to "robbing Peter to pay Paul" just to keep the government operational. This is sort of like an individual not paying their mortgage note on the day due and waiting until their next paycheck to pay it. They can be within the "grace period" of the note but are actually "in debt" because the mortgage note is an outstanding bill that wasn't paid on time. Eventually, if they continue under the same criteria, they will fall outside of the grace period and go into default on the loan.
The amount of Treasury securities that had to be sold to "bring the US back up to date" merely reflects how critical the situation was. The Treasury had used every measure possible to keep paying the bills even when they didn't have enough actual money on hand to do that because they had to resort to "robbing Peter to pay Paul" for five months. They had "pushed the grace period" to the maximum over the last five months apparently and the next step was the actual default on our obligations.
The "Tea Party" kept saying, "No big deal because the Treasury can still pay the bills" and this story reflects how wrong they were in making that statement. They were roughly wrong by about $328 billion where the Treasury was in arrears because of "accounting practices" used to pay the bills.
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Post by snarky on Oct 19, 2013 11:56:47 GMT
did you forget that a shtload of that $$$ is for 2 off the books wars that were rolled into that 17 trillion?
oh...please.... when teabaggers bitch & moan about fiscal responsibility...then spend 10s of millions of dollars repealing ad nauseum a bill that has became 'the law of the land~ john boner' after the prez was RE-elected with overwhelming numbers AGAIN (& that time he ran on the ACA)...
THEN they shutdown the government over it... & threatening to not raise the debt ceiling which basically means not paying bills ALREADY accrued...ie being deadbeats ( THAT is fiscal responsibility?)... costing us an addition $24,000,000,000.00 that is insane.
how many people have filed bankruptcy & lost their homes due to medical bills that they already ACCRUED to perhaps CONtinue breathing & staying alive? yaaaaaaaaaaa.................. those 'deadbeats' are fiscally irresponsible, but not teabagging neoCONS?
stunning.
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Post by ShivaTD on Oct 19, 2013 12:46:15 GMT
THEN they shutdown the government over it... & threatening to not raise the debt ceiling which basically means not paying bills ALREADY accrued...ie being deadbeats ( THAT is fiscal responsibility?)... costing us an addition $24,000,000,000.00 that is insane.
The overall negative impact of these repeated budget battles over funding is far greater than just the $24 billion direct cost to the federal government. It will have longer lasting negative impacts on the GDP, job growth, expansion of enterprises (and even contractions of existing enterprises), as well as reduced federal and state tax revenues that will last many months and even years into the future. The cumulative cost could soar into the many of trillions of dollars over time.
The problem right this minute is that potentially another "budget and debt ceiling" battle is on the near horizon. If the Congress cannot reach a simply bi-partisan solution well in advance of the upcoming budget and debt ceiling deadlines it's going to cost even more than the trillions of dollars that the US economy has already lost or will lose because of the past battles.
The federal government's ability to pay its bills should never be used as a weapon for partisan politics which is exactly what we've seen happen repeatedly in the budget battles between the Republicans and Democrats. That has to end immediately and never repeated in the future.
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Post by snarky on Oct 19, 2013 14:07:16 GMT
The $24 billion direct cost to the US government because of the shutdown is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to assessing the total economic impact of the partial shutdown.
oh indeedily doodily 'tis true. all the cashish the rank & file couldn't depend on getting in the form of paychecks- tightened their belts by not paying into the commerce because of being a fed worker... the periphreal biz'nez sectors that depend on tourism...or CONtracts for various US govment depts. as long as a WW2 memorial made a good photp op though 'eh? & the bizarre freak show on behalf of a sm group of radicals to the world that may reCONsider what & who we have become. |
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Post by ShivaTD on Oct 19, 2013 14:18:25 GMT
This is something I don't understand about the Tea Party movement and politicians. In another thread it presented a study that Tea Party members knew a lot about science and implied that this might mean they understand "cause and effect" and I questioned that.
When it comes to their recent obstructionism of passage of legislation to fund government and raise the debt they pushed a $24 billion bolder down a mountain side and it resulted in multi-trillion dollar avalanche. For some reason they don't seem to understand the cause and effect relationship between the boulder and the avalanche
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Post by JP5 on Oct 19, 2013 14:51:33 GMT
I've already addressed this in another thread where it was brought up but will summarize it again here.
The actual national debt is a combination of outstanding Treasury Securities and unpaid invoices (bills) that have yet to be paid by the Treasury. Based upon the news story the Treasury has been using "accounting practices" (that it admits it's been doing) to keep the bills paid without exceeding the "debt ceiling" that only relates to outstanding Treasury securities and doesn't account for outstanding invoices (bills) that must be paid.
Basically our government went "broke" five months ago and had to start resorting to "robbing Peter to pay Paul" just to keep the government operational. This is sort of like an individual not paying their mortgage note on the day due and waiting until their next paycheck to pay it. They can be within the "grace period" of the note but are actually "in debt" because the mortgage note is an outstanding bill that wasn't paid on time. Eventually, if they continue under the same criteria, they will fall outside of the grace period and go into default on the loan.
The amount of Treasury securities that had to be sold to "bring the US back up to date" merely reflects how critical the situation was. The Treasury had used every measure possible to keep paying the bills even when they didn't have enough actual money on hand to do that because they had to resort to "robbing Peter to pay Paul" for five months. They had "pushed the grace period" to the maximum over the last five months apparently and the next step was the actual default on our obligations.
The "Tea Party" kept saying, "No big deal because the Treasury can still pay the bills" and this story reflects how wrong they were in making that statement. They were roughly wrong by about $328 billion where the Treasury was in arrears because of "accounting practices" used to pay the bills.
First off....you didn't address the OP at all....which was about the over-spending. I know how the mechanics of the accounting games work. But the underlying cause of ALL of it....is the over-spending we've been doing for decades. Excmple: ALL those years I paid in to Social Security and Medicare.......there were so many of us Baby Boomers, that the were really over-charging us considering it was supposed to be a "direct pay" system.......meaning what we paid in was supposed to go directly to those on SS and Medicare with none left over. However, there WAS excess because of our numbers opposed to those who were already getting the benefits. BUT WHAT DID OUR GOV'T DO??? Did they save that excess? Did they place it in a trust where it would grow until the numbers on it switched....as it now has? NOPE. THEY SPENT IT! And they SPENT IT ON OTHER THINGS. You see.....our federal gov't has a spendinng problem. They don't have a revenue problem. The Republicans and most Independents realize this...and have for years. Not ALL Republicans, of course, as many of them are over-spending as well. But I don't know of ONE Democrat leader who says it's a problem and seeks to remedy it; NOT ONE. And that's the problem. |
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Post by ShivaTD on Oct 19, 2013 15:23:53 GMT
First off....you didn't address the OP at all....which was about the over-spending. I know how the mechanics of the accounting games work. But the underlying cause of ALL of it....is the over-spending we've been doing for decades. Excmple: ALL those years I paid in to Social Security and Medicare.......there were so many of us Baby Boomers, that the were really over-charging us considering it was supposed to be a "direct pay" system.......meaning what we paid in was supposed to go directly to those on SS and Medicare with none left over. However, there WAS excess because of our numbers opposed to those who were already getting the benefits. BUT WHAT DID OUR GOV'T DO??? Did they save that excess? Did they place it in a trust where it would grow until the numbers on it switched....as it now has? NOPE. THEY SPENT IT! And they SPENT IT ON OTHER THINGS. You see.....our federal gov't has a spendinng problem. They don't have a revenue problem. The Republicans and most Independents realize this...and have for years. Not ALL Republicans, of course, as many of them are over-spending as well. But I don't know of ONE Democrat leader who says it's a problem and seeks to remedy it; NOT ONE. And that's the problem.
I agree that the US has been over-spending for decades but the statement about Social Security is false. FICA/Payroll/Self-employment taxes were increased under Reagan to generate a surplus so that "we" (the baby boomers) would not have our future benefits cut. Those excess revenues were collected and went into the Social Security Trust fund and then loaned out to pay for shortfalls in general revenues to pay for general expenditures. Income taxes were reduced because the government could borrow from the SS Trust Fund to pay for general expenditures such as our wars against Afghanistan and Iraq that were partially funded with money borrowed from the Trust Fund.
In short, the Bush Tax Cuts were possible to some degree because SS taxes could be borrowed and spent to fund general expenditures.
That borrowing from the SS Trust Fund a component of the National Debt that is paid for with general tax revenues because all of the borrowing by the US government is related to funding general expenditures. In short we, the American Taxpayers, owe the SS Trust Fund almost $3 trillion that has to be paid for with income taxes because lower income taxes failed to fund the general expenditures like our massive military budget.
Here is a problem for the Tea Party and Republicans. As one of those that was over-taxed related to Social Security and Medicare I was promised in 1985 that my benefits would not be cut when I retired. That's why we were paying this "over-taxation" to begin with. The Tea Party and the Republicans are now trying cut Social Security benefits by raising retirement ages and changing the COLA formula to reduce payments to cover inflation being caused by the government. They're basically saying anyone that paid this over-taxation should be screwed out of what they were promised when they were forced to pay it.
Sorry Republicans but you can't over-tax me to lower income taxes then refuse to collect enough in income taxes to repay the borrowing from the taxes I've already paid and instead cut the benefits that I've paid in advance to collect when I retire.
I'd say it's time to start making wealthy investors that never contributed to Social Security/Medicare to begin with to pay for the borrowing from the SS Trust Fund that allowed them to be taxed at 1/2 of the rate of working Americans.
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Post by JP5 on Oct 19, 2013 16:42:19 GMT
First off....you didn't address the OP at all....which was about the over-spending. I know how the mechanics of the accounting games work. But the underlying cause of ALL of it....is the over-spending we've been doing for decades. Excmple: ALL those years I paid in to Social Security and Medicare.......there were so many of us Baby Boomers, that the were really over-charging us considering it was supposed to be a "direct pay" system.......meaning what we paid in was supposed to go directly to those on SS and Medicare with none left over. However, there WAS excess because of our numbers opposed to those who were already getting the benefits. BUT WHAT DID OUR GOV'T DO??? Did they save that excess? Did they place it in a trust where it would grow until the numbers on it switched....as it now has? NOPE. THEY SPENT IT! And they SPENT IT ON OTHER THINGS. You see.....our federal gov't has a spendinng problem. They don't have a revenue problem. The Republicans and most Independents realize this...and have for years. Not ALL Republicans, of course, as many of them are over-spending as well. But I don't know of ONE Democrat leader who says it's a problem and seeks to remedy it; NOT ONE. And that's the problem.
I agree that the US has been over-spending for decades but the statement about Social Security is false. FICA/Payroll/Self-employment taxes were increased under Reagan to generate a surplus so that "we" (the baby boomers) would not have our future benefits cut. Those excess revenues were collected and went into the Social Security Trust fund and then loaned out to pay for shortfalls in general revenues to pay for general expenditures. Income taxes were reduced because the government could borrow from the SS Trust Fund to pay for general expenditures such as our wars against Afghanistan and Iraq that were partially funded with money borrowed from the Trust Fund.
In short, the Bush Tax Cuts were possible to some degree because SS taxes could be borrowed and spent to fund general expenditures.
That borrowing from the SS Trust Fund a component of the National Debt that is paid for with general tax revenues because all of the borrowing by the US government is related to funding general expenditures. In short we, the American Taxpayers, owe the SS Trust Fund almost $3 trillion that has to be paid for with income taxes because lower income taxes failed to fund the general expenditures like our massive military budget.
Here is a problem for the Tea Party and Republicans. As one of those that was over-taxed related to Social Security and Medicare I was promised in 1985 that my benefits would not be cut when I retired. That's why we were paying this "over-taxation" to begin with. The Tea Party and the Republicans are now trying cut Social Security benefits by raising retirement ages and changing the COLA formula to reduce payments to cover inflation being caused by the government. They're basically saying anyone that paid this over-taxation should be screwed out of what they were promised when they were forced to pay it.
Sorry Republicans but you can't over-tax me to lower income taxes then refuse to collect enough in income taxes to repay the borrowing from the taxes I've already paid and instead cut the benefits that I've paid in advance to collect when I retire.
I'd say it's time to start making wealthy investors that never contributed to Social Security/Medicare to begin with to pay for the borrowing from the SS Trust Fund that allowed them to be taxed at 1/2 of the rate of working Americans.
You can try to paint a rosy picture of them spending the SS fund by borrowing from it continually all you want....but bottom line is they took money we sent in for purposes of SS and spent on other programs!! That is undisputable fact. It's also why we never want to send D.C. more money than it needs to run the gov't as was proposed in the beginning....for national defense and infrastructure and a handful of other important things. Now, they are in the citizen's face all the time wanting more tax money, coming up with new ways to spend it....and over-spending on STUPID things because they have the attitude it's free money.
Your comments about it having something to do with the Tea Party.....that wasn't even in existence way back when the federal gov't was spending our SS money on other things......or Republicans, is quite laughable, actually. It's ALWAYS been Republicans throughout the decades who want to decrease spending. It's ALWAYS Democrats who want to increase it and come up with more and more programs to tax the American people for. ALWAYS!! That is also disputable. The only Democrat who has done anything about spending in recent years was Bill Clinton....when he was FORCED to after the Republicans swept into House control which sent him a HUGE message. He actually then sat down with Newt Gingrich and they went line-by-line through the budget cutting things......which brought up the SURPLUS we ended the 90's with. It could be done again...IF there were ANY Democrats onboard with that concept. But sadly there are not.
And if you want to discover who is really going to change your SS and Medicare.....look at Obamacare. It's right there in the details......both are going to be cut pretty drastically over the next 10 years. But I guess you'll somehow continue to blame Tea Party members and Republicans....even though Obamacare was 100% partisan in his enactment. In fact, the ONLY thing bi-partisan about Obamacare was that a few Democrats crossed over in the House and voted with Republicans AGAINST Obamacare. It was passed strictly partisan lines in the Senate 60-39 with ZERO Republican votes. And it was passed in the Democrat majority House with no votes and ALL Democrats votes.....with a few Dems voting with Republicans. So if you want to look at strictly PARTISANSHIP; look no further than Obamacare. Never before has a monumental piece of legislation been passed along a straight party-line vote with ZERO support from the other side.
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Post by ShivaTD on Oct 19, 2013 20:38:11 GMT
Let me clarify my personal opinions because somehow that seems to be lost.
The increase in the debt occurs over time and the $328 billions does not represent a single day of debt accrual.
I oppose "Obamacare" and always have but I'm not an idiot and I know that it will not be defunded, delayed, or dismantled so long as the Democrats control the Senate and the White House. The 42 attempts by the Republican controlled House to defund "Obamacare" were the actions of idiots because they knew that it was never going to happen.
Refusing to fund the government and to raise the national debt because of amendments to defund and delay "Obamacare" was both foolish and costly to America. It incurred over $20 billion of additional spending by the US government and is also going to have far-reaching negative consequences to the US economy costing hundreds of thousands of jobs and trillion dollars in lost GDP growth because of the shattering of consumer confidence that went from an five-year high in May down into negative territory today. The only thing that can make this worse is for Republicans to refuse to extend federal funding and raise the debt ceiling in early 2014 as that would further degrade consumer confidence that is the backbone of the US economy.
We both agreed that adding partisan provisions to the legislation to fund government and raise the debt ceiling was wrong. It didn't matter if it was Democrats buying Republican votes or Republicans trying to defund or delay Obamacare it was wrong period.
What I argued for in 2009 was that Medicaid be fully funded so that it could meet it's original Mission Statement of providing health care services for those that required health care but couldn't afford it. I did so for two reasons. First of all Medicaid is at least technically Constitutional because it is a state run program. The federal government merely provides funding to the states which complies with Article I Section 8 that enumerates a responsibility to Congress to provide for the "general Welfare of the United States" which is different than providing for the "general welfare of the People" such as we see with Social Security and Medicare. Providing funding to the States is providing for the general Welfare of the States regardless of how they might spend it. As I pointed out in 2009 the only reason we had a health care crisis was because Medicaid never fulfilled it's Mission Statement due to a lack of adequate funding. Funding Medicaid would have been far less expensive than "Obamacare" and would have ended the health care crisis for a fraction of the cost. Why Republicans didn't propose this is unknown to me.
I've opposed Social Security and Medicare but also know that they are existing programs that would have to be pragmatically replaced and I've made a proposal that would do that. It will take 40-45 years to transition from the existing "welfare" program to an "investment" program that provides far greater benefits. The pragmatic problem is that we cannot reduce the disposable income of workers, especially low paid workers, to accomplish this. We need to take FICA/Payroll taxes and use them to create private investment accounts where the person is vest 100% in the program. That means we need to secure new revenue to replace the revenue that would be lost but required to fund Social Security/Medicare benefits for those already working that have been subjected to the "welfare" taxation of FICA/Payroll taxes. I've estimated the cost to be about $40 trillion for the transition and the only people that can afford to fund this are predominately those that have never contributed a dime in FICA/Payroll/Self-employment taxes because they have unearned income and not earned income.
On top of that I've also addressed reducing the need for welfare by addressing poverty by revising our tax codes so that the same exemptions and rates apply to everyone. I made a simple proposition that obviously hasn't been read. Republicans want to reduce welfare spending without addressing the problem which is poverty and that is a non-starter IMHO. Not only does my proposal reduce poverty by creating fair taxation it also ends federal deficits immediately. Republicans have never even come close to the proposals I make to reduce welfare spending, correct the inequities of our tax codes, and to fund government.
Basically Republicans haven't addressed any of this. They have not made any proposals that would reduce poverty that would in turn reduce the need and expense of welfare. They haven't made any proposals that would ensure that anyone requiring health care services but can't afford them would receive those services. They haven't made any proposal that would improve "Social Security" as opposed to simply cutting benefits to save money. They haven't proposed anything that is actually good for America recently. They can't even say they're serious about reducing the deficits while they're demanding more DOD spending when the DOD budget is the elephant in the living room when we address discretionary spending.
I actually want to reduce the size of government using pragmatic proposals where Americans are better off but Republicans don't really want to reduce the size of government and don't want to actually balance the budget by collecting enough tax revenue to pay for the authorized expenditures that need to be paid.
Now, are we clear on this. I make proposals that address and correct problems while Republicans whine and complain and, if anything, make proposals that make the problems worse without offering anything constructive.
My proposals cut the federal government by over 50% and do so not only without harm to the American People but actually leave them better off. Republicans can't even come close to that.
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Post by JP5 on Oct 20, 2013 0:38:50 GMT
SHIVA: "I know that it will not be defunded, delayed, or dismantled so long as the Democrats control the Senate and the White House."
You are correct for the most part. That's because the Dems made much of the funding "mandatory" which means it doesn't have to go through the House. However, any additional spending DOES have to go through the House.....because they control the purse strings. That means that the Senate AND Obama cannot get more money for Obamacare as long as the Republicans control it and stick together on that point. So, you'd better hope they mandated enough and that the taxes and enrollment is what they expected it to be. Otherwise, it's in trouble.
Any additional taxes also much originate in the House....and ONLY the House. In fact, many believe that since Obamacare began in the Senate, it was unconstitutional on that point....and still could be challenged on that point. While Obama and the Democrats made a point to always call it a "penalty"......instead of a "tax," Chief Justice Roberts found that it was, in fact, a tax. And as you know....ALL tax legislation must originate in the House. ONLY the House has the power to tax.
This is what happens when a political party passes a massive government program ALL by themselves.....and foists it on the other 1/2 of the nation......without any bipartisanship at all. It's partisanship at its worst. And it's why Obamacare will forever be an albatross around the necks of Democrats, IMHO. |
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Post by ShivaTD on Oct 20, 2013 10:25:42 GMT
SHIVA: "I know that it will not be defunded, delayed, or dismantled so long as the Democrats control the Senate and the White House."
You are correct for the most part. That's because the Dems made much of the funding "mandatory" which means it doesn't have to go through the House. However, any additional spending DOES have to go through the House.....because they control the purse strings. That means that the Senate AND Obama cannot get more money for Obamacare as long as the Republicans control it and stick together on that point. So, you'd better hope they mandated enough and that the taxes and enrollment is what they expected it to be. Otherwise, it's in trouble.
Any additional taxes also much originate in the House....and ONLY the House. In fact, many believe that since Obamacare began in the Senate, it was unconstitutional on that point....and still could be challenged on that point. While Obama and the Democrats made a point to always call it a "penalty"......instead of a "tax," Chief Justice Roberts found that it was, in fact, a tax. And as you know....ALL tax legislation must originate in the House. ONLY the House has the power to tax.
This is what happens when a political party passes a massive government program ALL by themselves.....and foists it on the other 1/2 of the nation......without any bipartisanship at all. It's partisanship at its worst. And it's why Obamacare will forever be an albatross around the necks of Democrats, IMHO.
The House passed the The Affordable Health Care for America Act (or HR 3962) in November 2009 and sent it to the Senate. In consideration of that House legislation the Senate passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (H.R. 3590) in December. Under the reconciliation procedures the two measures were reviewed and the House adopted the Senate version but the legislation did originate with the House measure that the Senate acted upon.
It is true that additional funding, if necessary, needs to come from the House but there are a lot of budgetary tricks that can be used by the White House to avoid the necessity of additional funding for several years to come. At that point it would have to be determined as to what the additional funding might be needed for. If, for example, it was required so that millions of Americans would receive the full subsidies for the insurance they already have then it would be a hard position for Republicans to deny that additional funding.
Telling low to middle income Americans that they would have to cough up even more money out of their pockets to pay for the mandatory insurance they're required to have wouldn't be very popular with the American People. It's bad enough as it is.
One place this is likely to come up is for the 5.2 million really poor Americans in (Republican) States that have refused to expand Medicaid. The funding provisions for the expansion of Medicaid are in place but because the Supreme Court ruled that the States did not have to accept the expansion of Medicaid, even though the Federal government was paying all of the costs for the first three years and most of the costs after that, many Republican States refused to expand Medicaid. This created a crack in the floor that the 5.2 million really poor Americans fell through. They don't qualify for Medicaid today and they're below the income level for the subsidies for health insurance.
I don't know what the House Republicans are going to do about this if additional funding is necessary because of the Supreme Court decision and the refusal of "Republican" states to expand Medicaid. If additional funding is required and the GOP House doesn't provide it then it will be considered as an "attack on the poor" by almost all Americans. If anyone needed government assistance for health care services it would be these people that have fallen through the crack. They are some of the people that Medicaid was actually created to provide health care services for.
I don't even know if House "Tea Party" Republicans want to carry that label although they're already "attacking the poor" in America today with many of their proposals that cut off federal benefits that mitigate the effects of poverty.
But it could be moot because there might be enough funding already to cover these individuals with nothing more than a change to "Obamacare" to provide 100% subsidies for private health insurance through the exchanges but I don't actually believe there is enough funding. I believe that private insurance to cover 5.2 million people is far more expensive than Medicaid that only has to pay for those that actually require medical services but can't afford them which is only a fraction of that 5.2 million people.
So I don't know what House Republicans are going to do about these situations because many could arise. What I do know is that if their actions harm the American People then I know that they won't be looked upon favorably by most Americans. We've just seen that with the budget showdown where the negative opinions of the GOP increased dramatically across America. Even support for the "Tea Party" dropped by 40% among Republicans because of the showdown.
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