National Debt And Stuff

[Cheerful Charlie]

This got tried years ago, engineered by Texas Senator Phil Gramm. It failed when the GOP tried to pass more tax cuts and slash the safety net. It was a bad faith effort and caused a lot of political voter anger and protests.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

. . . when spending and tax plans are approved, that means any resulting borrowing or saving is approved - a debt limit is superfluous.

The vote on the debt ceiling is part of the spending and tax and borrowing and saving plans. If the debt limit is not raised, this can result in cancelation or cutting of programs approved, which is not superfluous.

As long as the funding has not yet been spent, a debt limit is NOT superfluous. The spending can be reduced or canceled anytime prior to being spent. And there should be a way to do this, to put pressure on spenders to not exceed reasonable limits.

Possibly a better system is to have the debt limit imposed BEFORE the spending decisions are made, and then those spending decisions are forced to conform to the limits imposed -- i.e., AFTER the funds exist because they've already been borrowed.

 

[laughing dog]

one further point (addition to the previous Wall of Text):

If the debt limitation AFTER the spending decisions is too messy, then maybe the proper procedure is to have the debt limit placed BEFORE the spending decisions, and then the spenders are FORCED to stay within those limits imposed. But don't say there cannot be any debt-limit procedure or that such a limit is a "waste of time."

It is a superfluous to any serious budgeting process. A debt limit is an after-the-fact tactic for sore losers in the budget process.

 

[Swammerdami]

Does anyone have the honesty to answer the following:

Should the current U.S. deficit be increased to 2 or 3 trillion $$$?
Why or why not?

??? What sort of rhetoric is that? Have I been dishonest in this thread? Has anyone been dishonest?

Infidels who read the above will ignore your "Should the current U.S. deficit be increased" -- that topic has been pontificated on repetitiously, with dozens of twisty posts almost identical from "both" sides of the "debate."

Is the thread about the national debt? Or about Infidels' honesty?

I think I've made my position clear: A long-running high deficit is dangerous and unnecessary. Soon just the interest on the debt will be a Trillion; repaying the debt will seem impossible; pressure to "monetize" the debt will grow; the U.S. Dollar may lose its coveted Safe Currency status.

How to lower the deficit? Taxes on big corporations and the super-rich. Would the world really be a more dismal place if Jeff Bezos was worth only 110 Billion instead of 120 Billion? Apple Corp. earned almost exactly $100 billion profit after taxes last year. Would your iPhones become worthless if Apple had to make do with just $90 Billion?

Government spending has been stripped to the bone. Anyone who suggests that cutting non-military spending is a proper way to deficit reduction is either stupid, ignorant, lying, or a combination of all three.

But one of those policy choices is whether to raise the debt limit. The choice can be made to NOT raise it, or keep it lower, and that then would result in a lower deficit. I.e., the debt-ceiling vote is one legitimate point where the choice can be made...

You've posted this very same bull-shit 50 times, and I've refuted it 5 times. Sorry, I guess, if I left 45 of your all-almost-identical posts unanswered. Congrats, I guess, that you have no more useful way to spend your time.

In a dozen or two of your posts you claim that Biden has tricks to avoid the debt ceiling. But
(1) this is false; and
(2) if it were true, the debt ceiling -- which you're so happy about -- would lose its intended purpose.

@ Lumpen -- MTG and the MAGA crowd oppose raising the debt ceiling (though only because Biden is a Democrat). Are you allied with them? How do you feel about Stop the Steal? Did Hillary kill Vince Foster, or was it the Jewish space lasers?

Paul Krugman takes a look at Lumpen's fellow travelers in "Republicans and Debt: Blackmailers Without a Cause."

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Let's make this simple:

Should the debt ceiling be raised?

................... _____YES ................... _____NO ........ ("X" in the correct space)


The correct answer to the above is:
X NO.

The reason is that we need the deficit to decrease, not increase. And right now it's on track to be an increase, which is the wrong direction.

Thus, we need a combination of tax increases and spending cuts to bring the current deficit down enough so that it will be less than last year's deficit.



If the deficit were heading toward a decrease this year, then maybe the correct answer would be:

X YES. At least one could make a case. At least it's going the right direction.



According to https://www.usdebtclock.org/ the current deficit is somewhere between
1.4 and 1.6 trillion.


And the 2022 deficit was about 1.38 trillion.

us budget deficit 2022 - Google Search

www.google.com

What's wrong with a simple formula to get the debt going in the right direction? Simply do whatever it takes to get this year's deficit down, at least by a small percentage.

If the real numbers are that the deficit is less than last year, you might reasonably say we're going the right direction, and the debt ceiling could be raised. But it looks like the real direction this year is slightly up, not down.

What's wrong with asking Congress and the Executive to make it go down rather than up? All that's necessary is some combination of spending cuts or tax increases. It probably would not require major change in these. The best objective / neutral answer is to set a hard standard/criterion, and require this to be met. The debt-ceiling vote is the only actual mechanism to stop the ever-increasing debt. Wishing there would be something else is irrelevant, even if there could be a better way to do it (you know there won't be any alternative to this mechanism -- it's this or nothing). It's better to have this mechanism than have no way to choose a decrease in the debt level. The threat to vote NO, or voting NO, puts pressure that can result in the needed spending cuts and/or tax increases. And without such pressure, it's virtually certain that the regular upward trend of the debt will continue.

Theoretically, if the deficit was very close to a zero increase/decrease from last year, you could argue that exactly 1.0 or 2.0 billion $$$$ higher deficit is still a reduced PERCENT in the deficit/gdp or debt/gdp. Allowing that fine calculation, you could make the argument that it's going the right direction, as the GDP grows.

So adjusting for that fine point, the correct answer is X NO unless it can be shown that the deficit this year is less than the 3.8 trillion + percent adjustment for GDP growth.

So only if the deficit this year gets down to 3.8 trillion, or maybe 3.9 or 3.95 trillion (some tiny % higher) is it reasonable to raise the debt ceiling. There is no scientific provable formula for setting the exact correct % of debt. What we know for sure is that there is a psychological bias to choose the instant gratification of immediate more money now, in total disregard of the likely damage later (5 or 10 or 15 or 20 years) when it must be repaid.

If the debt/gdp (or deficit/gdp or deficit/budget) ratio comes down, then one can reasonably argue for a X YES vote. Otherwise the vote should be X NO on raising the debt ceiling. No one is giving any reason why the percent of debt has to keep going up, higher than its current record-high level. No one has given any evidence to show that higher debt (as % of the economy) results in a better economy.

You can argue that an unusual emergency requires increased debt, but that's not the case now. Rather, the need is to come down from the unusually high deficit during the Pandemic. At a normal level of debt (debt/gdp = 80% or close), you could argue for higher deficit in some years offset by lower deficit for other years).

There's no reasonable resolution of this without a simple formula based on recognized numbers, and a fixed principle (agreed maximum debt/gdp) and fixing the budget so it stays under the agreed limit.

Without such a rule, it's inevitable that the debt % will just keep increasing over time. There has been no evidence offered by anyone to show that such an ever-increasing debt is good for the economy. There has only been pretense by some ideologues who make a religion out of higher debt per se, i.e., ever-higher debt with no limit. This has been the pattern for over 90 years now, with nothing yet to show that it will ever change, and nothing to show any net social benefit resulting from this pattern. There's no indication of any downward pattern other than the period following a major war, when some war debt is paid down. Other than this there is no downward pattern, but upward only.

This long-term consistent pattern is a virtual certainty without some principle adopted to force the debt down, or impose downward push at times. The upward drive or force does not represent anything beneficial to the economy, but is only an instant-gratification IMPULSE at all points along the way, not based on any long-term need served by the higher debt.

No one has shown any principle of economics or logic or science proving that public debt needs to increase any more than private debt needs to increase without limit. All that anyone offers is proof that gov't has the means to pay off bad debt more easily than a private party has such means. But this is no reason to enter the debt. The bad debt is just as bad whether it's public or private, and even if it's easier to pay off that debt. That it can be more easily paid off does not change it from bad debt to good debt. Either way it's still a transfer of wealth away from good toward bad.

The current debt religion today is that the debt must always be increased in order to pay for whatever more is wanted, and the debt ceiling always raised higher, in disregard for any rule or principle or mechanism to force it down below a reasonable maximum agreed limit. This religion is followed based on faith only, without any evidence that it works or has produced net good results rather than bad results.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

​

Biden's Budget Speech reveals to us
Some tenets of the Higher-Debt Religion

FACT SHEET: The President's Budget for Fiscal Year 2024 | OMB | The White House

Budget Details Plan to Invest in America, Lower Costs and Cut Taxes for Working Families, and Protect and Strengthen Medicare and Social Security President Biden has long believed that we need to grow the economy from the bottom up and middle out, not the top down. Over the past two years, in...

www.whitehouse.gov

FACT SHEET: The President’s Budget for Fiscal Year 2024​

Budget Details Plan to Invest in America, Lower Costs and Cut Taxes for Working Families, and Protect and Strengthen Medicare and Social Security

President Biden has long believed that we need to grow the economy from the bottom up and middle out, not the top down. Over the past two years, in the face of significant challenges, that economic strategy has produced historic progress for the American people.
Under the President’s leadership, the economy has added more than 12 million jobs—more jobs in two years than any president has created in a four-year term—including 800,000 manufacturing jobs. The unemployment rate . . .

(The extra-large type is added to emphasize certain major points in the fact sheet which illustrate the religious dogmatic nature of Biden's Higher-Debt demagoguery (like that also of the Republicans who practice the same demagoguery).)

● the "jobs! jobs! jobs! jobs!" doctrine:


"jobs! jobs! jobs! jobs! jobs! jobs!" is a fundamental premise of the Higher-Debt Religion.

Why doesn't anyone ever explain the point of this "jobs! jobs! jobs! jobs!" blabber? All we know for sure about "jobs! jobs! jobs!" is that they add more cost, higher debt, higher total budget spending.

Why don't the demagogue speech-makers just tell us what the workers produced, instead of running on at the mouth about the more "jobs! jobs! jobs!"? That they insist on the "jobs! jobs! jobs!" babble is a clear sign that they are wasting money, driving up costs higher than necessary, because the benefit is the feel-goodism of the money paid to workers rather than what the workers produced.

If the real benefit of the "jobs! jobs!" is what is produced, why is it necessary to keep blabbering "jobs! jobs! jobs! jobs! jobs!" over and over again? No one ever answers this question. Rather, there is a "jobs! jobs! jobs! jobs!" religion which serves no other purpose than the feel-goodism from the demagogue speeches, and it's a costly religion which drives the budget spending up higher and higher. You can't claim there's no waste in the spending as long as your demagogues (Dem or Repub) keep doing this "jobs! jobs! jobs! jobs!" fraud.

In some cases "jobs! jobs! jobs! jobs!" actually drive down the production and performance, because for some production there is better performance by REPLACING WORKERS with machines, which actually means FEWER jobs, not more, in order to produce more benefit. So it's never appropriate to promote spending programs with the "jobs! jobs! jobs! jobs!" argument (except if it's really demagoguery and dishonesty toward a nefarious political purpose). That they constantly do this is a dead giveaway that they're wasting tax dollars and driving up the cost and thus the spending, and the debt.

Do we need a bridge? or expanded freeway? etc.? OK fine, if it meets a legitimate need, then tell us about the needed bridges and freeways and sewer pipes and schools and other infrastructure we've gained, without the "jobs! jobs! jobs!" phoniness.

As you read on below, you see that the "jobs! jobs! jobs! jobs" dishonesty is repeated over and over again.

And what is this religion of manufacturing jobs all about? This babble too is a further indication that there is waste and pork and corporate welfare in the spending, rather than any net benefit to the economy. No one has ever proved that there is any special need for "manufacturing" jobs over other kinds of production. This is pure symbolism and emotionalism only. And higher cost and higher debt. You want to be taken seriously with your spending spree demands? then Stop worshiping the factories!

. . . manufacturing jobs. The unemployment rate has fallen to 3.4 percent, the lowest in 54 years. The Black and Hispanic unemployment rates are near record lows. The past two years were the best two years for new small business applications on record. The President has taken action to lower costs and give families more breathing room, including cutting prescription drug costs, health insurance premiums, and energy bills, while driving the uninsured rate to historic lows. And the President’s plan is rebuilding America’s infrastructure, making the economy more competitive, investing in American innovation and industries that will define the future, and fueling a manufacturing boom that is strengthening parts of the country that have long been left behind while creating good jobs for workers, including those without college degrees.

The President has done all of this while delivering on his commitment to fiscal responsibility. While the previous Administration passed a nearly $2 trillion unpaid-for tax cut with benefits skewed to the wealthy and big corporations while dramatically increasing the deficit, President Biden cut the deficit by more than $1.7 trillion during his first two years in office—the largest decline in American history. And the reforms he signed into law to take on Big Pharma, lower prescription drug costs, and make the wealthy and large corporations pay their fair share will reduce the deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars more over the coming decade.

● The PREACHING DEBT REDUCTION doctrine is part of the Higher-Debt Religion. But also proposing immediate Higher Debt for the near term. (But don't mention the higher deficit -- mention only the PROMISED debt reduction for the long term.)

Several times below you see that Biden proclaims his debt reduction (all long-term), while also condemning Republicans for RAISING the debt. And yet Biden's own proposed budgets for the next 2 years call for higher deficits. And yet HE'S SILENT about this in his speech.

In https://www.crfb.org/blogs/overview-presidents-fy-2024-budget we see the truth about the near-term deficit increases which Biden is silent about:

The deficit would rise from $1.4 trillion (5.5 percent of GDP) in FY 2022 to $1.6 trillion (6.0 percent of GDP) in 2023 and to $1.8 trillion (6.8 percent of GDP) in 2024.

We know for sure that these deficit increases will come in the next 2 years (if Biden's budget should pass), but we have no assurance that Biden will achieve the long-term deficit reductions which he promises, even if he should get his present budget approved.

So the religion is: promise debt reduction long-term, but get those short-term deficits up, and we'll worry about the long-term later.

Of course Republicans play this game too. Even promising to "balance the budget" or even promising to pay down the national debt eventually (Paul Ryan 10-20 years ago) -- down the line, after getting their short-term higher deficits passed, with tax cuts and spending increases which are needed for now.

It's because of this dishonesty that the overall pattern, over time, is ever higher and higher debt. And no one can explain why we need this ever-higher debt.

So, preach debt reduction, i.e., for the long run only, repeating this over and over again. But the real and immediate debt increases are not mentioned. The White House Budget details here go on -- lengthy Wall of Text, referring several times to the debt reduction (long-term) but never once mentioning the immediate deficit increases.

The President’s Budget details a blueprint to build on this progress, deliver on the agenda he laid out in his State of the Union, and finish the job: continuing to grow the economy from the bottom up and middle out by investing in America, lowering costs for families, protecting and strengthening Medicare and Social Security, and reducing the deficit by nearly $3 trillion over the next decade by making the wealthy and big corporations pay their fair share and cutting wasteful spending on Big Pharma, Big Oil, and other special interests. No one earning less than $400,000 per year will pay a penny in new taxes.
Congressional Republicans have taken a very different approach. While they have consistently said that reducing the deficit is a top priority, Congressional Republicans have already proposed policies that would add an additional $3 trillion to the debt over the next decade—all while raising costs for working families and handing out tax giveaways to the wealthy and big corporations. As the President has made clear, they owe the American people a detailed accounting of exactly what they plan to cut in order to cover the costs of their proposals, while also achieving the kinds of fiscal targets that they claim to support. Until they produce a plan, we’re left to rely on a wide array of Republican budgets, statements, and proposals—past and present—which provide clear and consistent evidence that many critical programs the American people count on will be on the chopping block.
Lowering Costs and Giving Families More Breathing Room
As our economy transitions from a historically strong recovery to stable and steady growth, the President has remained laser-focused on continuing to lower costs for families and giving them more breathing room, without giving up the historic economic gains we’ve made. While more work remains, there are clear signs that the President’s strategy is working. Annual inflation is lower than it was seven months ago, gas prices are down $1.60 per gallon since their peak last summer, and unemployment remains at its lowest level in 54 years, while take home pay has gone up. And the Biden-Harris Administration has taken historic action to lower the costs of health care, clean energy, and prescription drugs, eliminate junk fees that make it harder for families to make ends meet, promote greater competition to lower costs, and address pandemic-driven supply chain bottlenecks. While some Congressional Republicans have proposed repealing the Inflation Reduction Act and taken other actions that would raise costs for working families, the President’s Budget takes a very different approach—proposing a package of policies to continue lowering everyday costs for the American people.
Cuts Taxes for Families with Children and American Workers. The President is calling for the restoration of the full Child Tax Credit enacted in the American Rescue Plan, which cut child poverty in half in 2021, to the lowest level in history. The Budget would expand the credit from $2,000 per child to $3,000 per child for children six years old and above, and to $3,600 per child for children under six. The Budget would also permanently reform the credit to make it fully refundable. The President also calls on the Congress to make the Earned Income Tax Credit expansion for childless workers permanent, which would help pull low-paid workers out of poverty.
Lowers Health Care Costs. The President believes that health care should be a right, not a privilege. With enrollment in affordable health coverage at an all-time high, the Budget builds on the remarkable success of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), by making permanent the average $800 per year premium cuts through expanded premium tax credits that the Inflation Reduction Act extended. It also provides Medicaid-like coverage to individuals in States that have not adopted Medicaid expansion under the ACA, paired with financial incentives to ensure States maintain their existing expansions.
Reduces Prescription Drug Costs for All Americans. The Budget builds upon the Inflation Reduction Act to continue lowering the cost of prescription drugs. For Medicare, this includes further strengthening the newly established negotiation power by extending it to more drugs and bringing drugs into negotiation sooner after they launch. The Budget also proposes to limit Medicare Part D cost-sharing for high-value generic drugs used for certain chronic conditions like hypertension and high cholesterol to no more than $2. For Medicaid, the Budget includes proposals to ensure Medicaid and CHIP programs are prudent purchasers of prescription drugs, authorizing HHS to negotiate supplemental drug rebates on behalf of interested States in order to pool purchasing power. For the commercial market, the Budget includes proposals to curb inflation in prescription drug prices and cap the prices of insulin products at $35 for a monthly prescription.
Expands Access to Quality, Affordable Health Care. The Budget invests $150 billion over 10 years to improve and expand Medicaid home and community-based services, such as personal care services, which would allow seniors and individuals with disabilities to remain in their homes and stay active in their communities as well as improve the quality of jobs for home care workers. And because community health centers—which provide comprehensive services regardless of ability to pay—serve one in three people living in poverty and one in five rural residents, the Budget puts the Health Center Program on a path to double its size and expand its reach. To bolster the health care workforce, the Budget provides a total of $966 million in 2024 to expand the National Health Service Corps, which provides loan repayment and scholarships to health care professionals in exchange for practicing in underserved areas, and a total of $350 million to expand programs that train and support the nursing workforce.
Expands Access to Affordable, High-Quality Early Child Care and Learning. Too many families across America cannot access high-quality, affordable child care—preventing parents from working and holding back our entire economy. The President’s Budget enables states to increase child care options for more than 16 million young children and lowers costs so that parents can afford to send their children to high-quality child care. The Budget also funds a Federal-State partnership that provides high-quality, universal, free preschool to support healthy child development and ensure children enter kindergarten ready to succeed.
Lowers Housing Costs by Increasing Affordable Housing Supply and Expanding Access to Homeownership and Affordable Rent. The President believes that everyone deserves a safe and . . .

(this Wall of Text to be continued)

 

[Swammerdami]

@ Lumpen -- I've not scrutinized all your posts in this thread, and don't want to leap to conclusions, but -- forgive me if I have this wrong -- some of us might guess that you are not happy with the mounting federal debt.

If this is correct, perhaps you can tell us what steps you would take to balance the budget, were you the dictator. Stop paying interest on Treasury bills, notes and bonds? Would all SocSec checks be reduced 20% or would there be some sort of lottery? The federal government owns about 640 million acres of land: Should we sell it all off?

(The extra-large type is added to emphasize certain major points in the fact sheet which illustrate the religious dogmatic nature of Biden's Higher-Debt demagoguery (like that also of the Republicans who practice the same demagoguery).)

● the "jobs! jobs! jobs! jobs!" doctrine:


"jobs! jobs! jobs! jobs! jobs! jobs!" is a fundamental premise of the Higher-Debt Religion.

Why doesn't anyone ever explain the point of this "jobs! jobs! jobs! jobs!" blabber? All we know for sure about "jobs! jobs! jobs!" is that they add more cost, higher debt, higher total budget spending.
... "jobs! jobs! jobs!" babble ... "jobs! jobs!" ... blabbering "jobs! jobs! jobs! jobs! jobs!" over and over again? ... there is a "jobs! jobs! jobs! jobs!" religion which serves no other purpose than the feel-goodism from the demagogue speeches, and it's a costly religion which drives the budget spending up higher and higher. You can't claim there's no waste in the spending as long as your demagogues (Dem or Repub) keep doing this "jobs! jobs! jobs! jobs!" fraud.

In some cases "jobs! jobs! jobs! jobs!" ... "jobs! jobs! jobs! jobs!" ... "jobs! jobs! jobs!" phoniness.

As you read on below, you see that the "jobs! jobs! jobs! jobs" dishonesty is repeated over and over again.
... [several references to " jobs! jobs! jobs" omitted.]

One wonders what you think job creation is all about. There is no WPA. Biden isn't putting the unemployed to work breaking windows, so that another team of Bidenites can repair the broken windows!

It's just the opposite. When the unemployed get productive jobs, the government needs to spend less on food stamps, etc.; and the new salaries, wages and corporate profits represent new sources of tax revenue.

Scott Paul, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, gives Biden some credit for the manufacturing job gains.

Biden has created "a climate for factory investment that we haven’t seen for generations," including the investments in infrastructure, clean energy manufacturing and semiconductors, Paul told PolitiFact. These are "already paying dividends. You can see from the ubiquitous factory announcements almost every week."

Gary Burtless, an economist at the Brookings Institution, a research and policy center in Washington, D.C., agreed that the gain in about 700,000 manufacturing jobs since the pandemic-era low has been unusually rapid. He said this was enabled by some things that a president can control, notably the federal pandemic aid programs for businesses, unemployed workers and Americans who received stimulus checks. Collectively, such policies kept consumer demand for manufactured goods strong.

Major companies have recently announced significant investments in American manufacturing, including massive new semiconductor manufacturing facilities. Increasing U.S. production of semiconductors is particularly important because they are essential for a wide variety of products, including cars and trucks, smart phones and medical devices like hearing aids and pacemakers. In Ohio, Intel is investing $20 billion to build one of the largest semiconductor facilities in the world, expected to create 10,000 jobs, and Micron announced a $40 billion investment to significantly increase U.S. market share of memory chips. Firms are expanding their operations despite economic headwinds, and the CHIPS and Science Act will further support domestic semiconductor production and innovation.

“We had a huge shift away from services and into goods that spurred production and manufacturing and very rapid recovery in the U.S. economy,” Ms. Yellen told reporters during a trip to Detroit this month. The support for local economies and small businesses included in Mr. Biden’s rescue plan, she said, “has been tremendously helpful in restoring the health of the job market and given the shifting in spending patterns, I think that’s been to the benefit of manufacturing.”

- - - - - - - - - -

(this Wall of Text to be continued)

Thanks, I guess.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

What's needed

@ Lumpen -- I've not scrutinized all your posts in this thread, and don't want to leap to conclusions, but -- forgive me if I have this wrong -- some of us might guess that you are not happy with the mounting federal debt.

If this is correct, perhaps you can tell us what steps you would take to balance the budget, were you the dictator.

The need is to get down the deficits, or reduce debt as a percent of the total economy. Not raising the debt ceiling would force the needed spending cuts and tax increases to bring down the debt (as a % of the economy).

The first step is to NOT raise the debt ceiling, or raise it only on conditions of significant spending cuts and tax increases.

Stop paying interest on Treasury bills, notes and bonds? Would all SocSec checks be reduced 20% or would there be some sort of lottery? The federal government owns about 640 million acres of land: Should we sell it all off?

Do whatever is necessary to ensure that the bondholders are paid when it's due. This does not require that we raise the debt ceiling. Or increase the debt level.

(The extra-large type is added to emphasize certain major points in the fact sheet which illustrate the religious dogmatic nature of Biden's Higher-Debt demagoguery (like that also of the Republicans who practice the same demagoguery).)

● the "jobs! jobs! jobs! jobs!" doctrine:


"jobs! jobs! jobs! jobs! jobs! jobs!" is a fundamental premise of the Higher-Debt Religion.

Why doesn't anyone ever explain the point of this "jobs! jobs! jobs! jobs!" blabber? All we know for sure about "jobs! jobs! jobs!" is that they add more cost, higher debt, higher total budget spending.
... "jobs! jobs! jobs!" babble ... "jobs! jobs!" ... blabbering "jobs! jobs! jobs! jobs! jobs!" over and over again? ... there is a "jobs! jobs! jobs! jobs!" religion which serves no other purpose than the feel-goodism from the demagogue speeches, and it's a costly religion which drives the budget spending up higher and higher. You can't claim there's no waste in the spending as long as your demagogues (Dem or Repub) keep doing this "jobs! jobs! jobs! jobs!" fraud.

In some cases "jobs! jobs! jobs! jobs!" ... "jobs! jobs! jobs! jobs!" ... "jobs! jobs! jobs!" phoniness.

As you read on below, you see that the "jobs! jobs! jobs! jobs" dishonesty is repeated over and over again.
... [several references to " jobs! jobs! jobs" omitted.]

One wonders what you think job creation is all about.

It's probably code language for makework in one form or another. Which means "jobs" which serve to provide employment for someone rather than get needed work done. It's a place to put someone who needs an income, for their benefit, which has to be paid for by someone. Real jobs are already there, to be performed, and the only need is to perform jobs already existing and needing to be filled, not created for someone because they need an income. "Job creation" means there's someone we feel sorry for, because they need an income, and so we create this slot to put them into -- i.e., the need is not for the work to be done, but for a place to put that person who needs a "job."

If anything really beneficial is being produced by the "jobs! jobs! jobs!" we would not call it "job creation" but something like "job filling" or "job performance" or other term indicating that the job existed before the job-seeker, not the job-seeker first for whom we create a "job" out of sympathy for him/her. "Work! work! work!" would be legitimate. Or "produce! produce! produce!" or "perform better! perform better! perform better!"

If there's really a need for job creation, literally, then you have to also say there's a need for job DESTRUCTION, because both creation and destruction of jobs is necessary in production, and all the employers do both. The need for both is the same. So if the "job creation" fad really made sense, we'd also be hearing about the need for job destruction. But we never hear a politician promising to DESTROY jobs. Why not? The social need for both is essentially the same. So there's really no lack of job creation any more than there's a lack of job destruction. I.e., no UNmet need for either.

So the reason they promise to CREATE jobs is to benefit job-seekers out of sympathy for them, not to benefit society needing production. The real job creation, that is needed, happens automatically as there's more work needing to be done. And there's no need for a "job creation" crusade to satisfy a need which is already being satisfied automatically, as there is a legitimate crusade to get needed production done, to serve society.

It's not "jobs" we need, but work to be done which won't get done unless we find someone to do it. Possibly worker-search or working-finding would be the correct language, if it was really about better production for society.

That we call it "job creation" betrays what it's really about. It's about feeling sorry for someone who is an eyesore and we need to find someplace to put them. Or it's about stray humans we're afraid of, someone dangerous, and we need a "job" to put them into in order to get them off the streets, or reduce the danger they pose to society.

There is no WPA. Biden isn't putting the unemployed to work breaking windows, so that another team of Bidenites can repair the broken windows!

It's just the opposite.

Makework takes many forms. Basically it's a "job" which costs more than it's worth, but the "job" is created anyway, because of the perception that the job-seekers have a need, or society has a need to remove them as an eyesore. There's probably a very large amount of this, but there's no way to calculate it exactly. There are too many variables to identify this or that particular "job" as being makework in comparison to the others. Probably in a few cases it is obvious, but not most.

When the unemployed get productive jobs, the government needs to spend less on food stamps, etc.;

You prove my point with this argument. You're saying the purpose of the job is to remove this job-seeker as some kind of problem. This "job" is created not in order to get needed work done, but to eliminate the job-seeker as a problem we wish did not exist -- meaning society would be better off if this job-seeker did not exist as a cost. But since s/he is there, we have to do something to remove him/her as a problem, and so we "create" a job which otherwise would not be needed.

You are proving that "job creation" means makework when you use an argument like this to show why we need to "create" jobs. You're saying the job-seeker is a public nuisance, in effect, and creating a "job" to put him into is the best solution, and there'd be no need for this job to exist other than as a place to put this job-seeker to remove him/her as a problem.

. . . and the new salaries, wages and corporate profits represent new sources of tax revenue.

But that's not really job creation. Rather, it's performance of work which needed to be done (which society needed to have done), so it's the filling of a job which was not created to help that worker but which already existed and needed to be done and thus did not need to be created. It only needed to be filled. And usually the government has nothing to do with getting that job filled, because its role in the economy is more to prevent businesses from getting the work done and from hiring the workers needed, passing laws which interfere with the hiring and performing of the work.

Unless you mean that the worker contributes no real value, but by getting paid s/he becomes a new source of tax revenue for society, and that's their contribution -- i.e., someone pays them, and that makes them an asset to society as a taxpayer. Even if they do no real work but just sit there and twiddle their thumbs.

But if you don't mean that, then their real contribution is only the needed work they do, not as a source of tax revenue, but only the needed work, and the purpose of paying them is not to turn them into a taxpayer, but to incentivize them to do that needed work. So the argument that we need workers so they can have wages from which to pay taxes is phony. That's not what we need them for, and that's not why legitimate jobs are created (and also destroyed when they're no longer profitable).

Scott Paul, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, gives Biden some credit for the manufacturing job gains.

Biden has created "a climate for factory investment that we haven’t seen for generations," including the investments in infrastructure, clean energy manufacturing and semiconductors, Paul told PolitiFact. These are "already paying dividends. You can see from the ubiquitous factory announcements almost every week."

Gary Burtless, an economist at the Brookings Institution, a research and policy center in Washington, D.C., agreed that the gain in about 700,000 manufacturing jobs since the pandemic-era low has been unusually rapid. He said this was enabled by some things that a president can control, notably the federal pandemic aid programs for businesses, unemployed workers and Americans who received stimulus checks. Collectively, such policies kept consumer demand for manufactured goods strong.

Major companies have recently announced significant investments in American manufacturing, including massive new semiconductor manufacturing facilities. Increasing U.S. production of semiconductors is particularly important because they are essential for a wide variety of products, including cars and trucks, smart phones and medical devices like hearing aids and pacemakers. In Ohio, Intel is investing $20 billion to build one of the largest semiconductor facilities in the world, expected to create 10,000 jobs, and Micron announced a $40 billion investment to significantly increase U.S. market share of memory chips. Firms are expanding their operations despite economic headwinds, and the CHIPS and Science Act will further support domestic semiconductor production and innovation.

“We had a huge shift away from services and into goods that spurred production and manufacturing and very rapid recovery in the U.S. economy,” Ms. Yellen told reporters during a trip to Detroit this month. The support for local economies and small businesses included in Mr. Biden’s rescue plan, she said, “has been tremendously helpful in restoring the health of the job market and given the shifting in spending patterns, I think that’s been to the benefit of manufacturing.”

Every President, including Trump, claims to have "stimulated" the economy, with their policies. And they all have their supporters, including economists and businesses, who praise them for their role.

Whatever they did, such as improving infrastructure etc., which was beneficial, was not job creation. It was getting needed work done, or removing government as an obstacle to companies getting needed work done. In some cases it was even getting rid of some excess workers who were paid more than they were worth.

So of course government sometimes plays a vital role in getting needed work done. But that's not job creation. It's not the JOBS per se that we need. It's the better production, which sometimes means more jobs, and sometimes not -- or maybe even FEWER jobs in some cases. So we should stop making a religion out of the "jobs! jobs! jobs!" (and stop voting for Biden and Trump and Sanders and other "jobs! jobs! jobs!" demagogues) and instead get needed work done while also getting rid of the waste and the makework or anything else which drives up the costs beyond what's necessary to get the needed production done.

 

[ZiprHead]

The need is to get down the deficits, or reduce debt as a percent of the total economy. Not raising the debt ceiling would force the needed spending cuts and tax increases to bring down the debt (as a % of the economy).

Another example of you having no idea of what the debt ceiling really is.

Again you think not paying your credit card bills means reducing your debt. It's fucking stupid.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Budget spending on programs is not debt owed to those recipients.
It's not DEFAULT to cut those programs. No matter how loudly they whine.

The need is to get down the deficits, or reduce debt as a percent of the total economy. Not raising the debt ceiling would force the needed spending cuts and tax increases to bring down the debt (as a % of the economy).

Another example of you having no idea of what the debt ceiling really is.

Again you think not paying your credit card bills means reducing your debt. It's fucking stupid.

No, reducing spending programs is not the same as not paying credit card bills.

Congress, or even the President alone (through Executive Order), can reduce spending on programs which have been passed. These are not "credit card bills." Many times spending programs have been cut -- it can happen even by surprise and it's not default or failure to pay bills due. The intended recipients maybe screamed bloody murder or even committed suicide -- whatever. Their outbursts and screams of horror notwithstanding, those payments are not the same as "credit card bills" due, and not paying them, or reducing them is not failure to pay one's bills.

Even if the President impounds funds and is later over-ruled by Congress somehow, it's not default or debt owed to those recipients. Even if there's a sequester of funds, and this is later over-ruled, and payment was delayed to those recipients -- even then it's not default on debt owed.

Everything in the budget (except interest on the national debt) can be scaled back, or even eliminated, and it's not the same as "not paying your credit card bills" or defaulting on something owed. Such spending is not debt owed to those would-be recipients.

It's a lie to keep insisting that these are debt owed like debt is owed to lenders, bondholders, etc., who individually signed papers to buy bonds in a contract between them individually and the nation borrowing from them as individuals or individual entities or parties to a contract. The pretense that this budget spending is debt owed to the recipients is pure political propaganda dishonesty, such as that of politicians who lie in order to win votes.

Don't impersonate Donald Trump and other liars by claiming falsely that budget spending is the same as debt owed to those who receive the payments. Cutting that spending is no different than a tax cut which is later cancelled by a new Congress. Those super-rich taxpayers who get their tax cut cancelled later are not being cheated out of something owed to them, like a debt Congress is defaulting on.

In both cases the earlier policy can be cancelled anytime right up to the time it's to be paid. A tax cut can be revoked anytime prior to when the tax payment is due, and spending on a program can be cut anytime prior to the funding paid to the recipients.

By contrast, payment due to a bondholder is real debt because a real totally voluntary contract was entered into and individual payment received from the lender based on individual choice of that lender based only on the pledge of repayment with interest at a later date agreed to by the borrower in the contract. That is REAL debt, not dishonesty-propaganda-politics lying.

 

[ZiprHead]

Budget spending on programs is not debt owed to those recipients.
It's not DEFAULT to cut those programs. No matter how loudly they whine.

The need is to get down the deficits, or reduce debt as a percent of the total economy. Not raising the debt ceiling would force the needed spending cuts and tax increases to bring down the debt (as a % of the economy).

Another example of you having no idea of what the debt ceiling really is.

Again you think not paying your credit card bills means reducing your debt. It's fucking stupid.

No, reducing spending programs is not the same as not paying credit card bills.

Congress, or even the President alone (through Executive Order), can reduce spending on programs which have been passed. These are not "credit card bills." Many times spending programs have been cut -- it can happen even by surprise and it's not default or failure to pay bills due. The intended recipients maybe screamed bloody murder or even committed suicide -- whatever. Their outbursts and screams of horror notwithstanding, those payments are not the same as "credit card bills" due, and not paying them, or reducing them is not failure to pay one's bills.

Even if the President impounds funds and is later over-ruled by Congress somehow, it's not default or debt owed to those recipients. Even if there's a sequester of funds, and this is later over-ruled, and payment was delayed to those recipients -- even then it's not default on debt owed.

Everything in the budget (except interest on the national debt) can be scaled back, or even eliminated, and it's not the same as "not paying your credit card bills" or defaulting on something owed. Such spending is not debt owed to those would-be recipients.

It's a lie to keep insisting that these are debt owed like debt is owed to lenders, bondholders, etc., who individually signed papers to buy bonds in a contract between them individually and the nation borrowing from them as individuals or individual entities or parties to a contract. The pretense that this budget spending is debt owed to the recipients is pure political propaganda dishonesty, such as that of politicians who lie in order to win votes.

Don't impersonate Donald Trump and other liars by claiming falsely that budget spending is the same as debt owed to those who receive the payments. Cutting that spending is no different than a tax cut which is later cancelled by a new Congress. Those super-rich taxpayers who get their tax cut cancelled later are not being cheated out of something owed to them, like a debt Congress is defaulting on.

In both cases the earlier policy can be cancelled anytime right up to the time it's to be paid. A tax cut can be revoked anytime prior to when the tax payment is due, and spending on a program can be cut anytime prior to the funding paid to the recipients.

By contrast, payment due to a bondholder is real debt because a real totally voluntary contract was entered into and individual payment received from the lender based on individual choice of that lender based only on the pledge of repayment with interest at a later date agreed to by the borrower in the contract. That is REAL debt, not dishonesty-propaganda-politics lying.

You're still missing the point that raising the debt ceiling is to pay bills already owed. It is not the fucking budget.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

fact still remains: Cutting budget programs is
NOT DEFAULT ON DEBT

You're still missing the point that raising the debt ceiling is to pay bills already owed. It is not the fucking budget.

But those "bills" are not any debt owed to the recipients. Those payments can be revoked any time before they're issued, before the payment is made to the recipients, yet resulting in NO DEFAULT on a debt owed to those would-be recipients. There is no contract signed by the recipients and the government, such as real debt is, which puts the government in debt to those recipients.

If the payment is cancelled for any reason, before the funds are paid, there's no debt or default to the recipients imposing future damage. Possibly another payment might be enacted to make up for it, but there is no legal debt obligation which threatens the later credit standing of the government in trying to sell future bonds, such as happens if there is default on payment to bondholders when that debt becomes due.

Whatever arguments there are about the purpose of the debt ceiling -- like economists arguing over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, why we have the debt ceiling and require Congress to vote on it, etc. -- that theorizing about "the point that raising the debt ceiling is" doesn't change the fact that if the payments are cancelled or reduced, the consequence of that is not that the government now is in DEFAULT of payments owed to those recipients and so loses its credit rating with future bond-buyers. The government's credit remains the same as long as the bondholders are paid on time -- even if government programs got cut so that recipients didn't get paid. All that matters is that the bondholders get paid on schedule in order to uphold the nation's credit with future bond-buyers.

If credit with future bond-buyers is undermined, it seriously damages the nation's future ability to borrow and maintain the budget as before, and thus results in extreme Draconian cuts on into the foreseeable future, maybe cutting programs in half, or eliminating some programs completely, as the total budget is sliced by a third or half. But no such disaster happens if there's a small cut across-the-board in all programs in order to raise sufficient revenue to pay the bondholders.

The fact remains that if the debt ceiling is NOT raised, it's still possible to pay the bondholders WITHOUT DEFAULT and continue running the government on the reduced budget with no threat to the government's future ability to raise needed debt revenue from bond-buyers and thus maintain the budget into the future (at small percent lower levels than before).

In such a scenario the shock would be that of reducing the future budget down maybe 5% (or less) from before, whereas the alternative scenario of shafting the bondholders would result in a shock of reducing the future budget down much more, like 20 or 30 or 40%, and many programs cut in half or eliminated altogether.

BUT, you can make your case by insisting that the instant gratification of raising the debt today, to get all that money to spend now, must take priority over the long-term good of the nation. I.e., you can argue that --

"In the long run we're all dead!"

so nevermind about the future and just keep raising the debt today, for our benefit now, this year. In that sense you do have a point, endorsing Donald Trump's increasing deficits in 2018-19.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Ignored in all of this is taxation. Biden is proposing essentially rolling back the massive tax cuts for the rich and corporations that gave us massive deficits. It is the numbers, stupid! We cannot mathematically cut our way to a balanced budget. Taxing to discourage income equality is a good idea. Corporations the have profits in the billions but pay not taxes does not work. Cutting IRS funding while rich tax cheats laugh at us poor suckers who pay taxes is stupid GOP bullshit.

"Only little people pay taxes!"
- Leona Helmsley

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Biden's Budget Speech reveals to us
Some tenets of the Higher-Debt Religion

​

FACT SHEET: The President's Budget for Fiscal Year 2024​

Budget Details Plan to Invest in America, Lower Costs and Cut Taxes for Working Families, and Protect and Strengthen Medicare and Social Security President Biden has long believed that we need to grow the economy from the bottom up and middle out, not the top down. Over the past two years, in...

FACT SHEET: The President’s Budget for Fiscal Year 2024​

Budget Details Plan to Invest in America, Lower Costs and Cut Taxes for Working Families, and Protect and Strengthen Medicare and Social Security

(continued from previous Wall of Text)

. . . Expanding Access to Homeownership and Affordable Rent. The President believes that everyone deserves a safe and affordable place to live. To address the critical shortage of affordable housing in communities throughout the country that has exacerbated inflation, the Budget includes $59 billion in mandatory funding and tax incentives aimed at increasing the affordable housing supply, including for extremely low-income households. The Budget also includes $10 billion in mandatory funding to incentivize State, local, and regional jurisdictions to make progress in removing barriers to affordable housing developments, such as restrictive zoning. By expanding the supply of housing, the Budget would help prevent the kind of rapid increases in rental and homeownership costs we have seen in recent years. The Budget also includes $10 billion in mandatory funding for a new First-Generation Down Payment Assistance program to help address racial and ethnic homeownership and wealth gaps—making homeownership more attainable for Americans who have been locked out of the generational wealth building that can come with owning a home. And the Budget expands access to affordable rent through the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program to well over 200,000 additional households. In addition to assisting all current voucher recipients and providing new vouchers for tens of thousands of additional families, the Budget includes mandatory funding to support two populations that are particularly vulnerable to homelessness—guaranteed assistance for all 20,000 youth who age out of foster care annually and an incremental expansion to cover the 450,000 extremely low-income (ELI) veteran families nationwide.
Improves College Affordability and Expands Free Community College. The Budget proposes to increase the discretionary maximum Pell Grant by $500—helping more than 6.8 million students pay for college, building on successful bipartisan efforts to increase the maximum Pell Grant award by $900 over the past two years, and laying out a path to double the award by 2029. The Budget also invests mandatory and discretionary funding to expand free community college, and provides mandatory funding for two years of subsidized tuition for students from families earning less than $125,000 enrolled in a participating four-year Historically Black College or University (HBCU), Tribally-Controlled College or University (TCCU), or Minority-Serving Institution (MSI).
Lowers Home Energy and Water Costs. The Budget provides $4.1 billion for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), building on the $13 billion provided in the Inflation Reduction Act to reduce energy bills for families, expand clean energy, transform rural power production, and create thousands of good-paying jobs for people across rural America. Since the Low Income Household Water Assistance Program (LIHWAP) expires at the end of 2023, the Budget proposes to expand LIHEAP funding and allow States the option to use a portion of their LIHEAP funds to provide water bill assistance to low-income households.
Increases Food Security. As called for in the National Strategy on Hunger, Nutrition and Health, the Budget provides over $15 billion to allow more States and schools to leverage participation in the Community Eligibility Program and provide healthy and free school meals to an additional 9 million children. The Budget also includes $6.3 billion to support the 6.5 million individuals expected to participate in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC).
Protecting and Strengthening Medicare and Social Security
The President has always believed that Medicare and Social Security are a promise—a rock-solid guarantee generations of Americans have counted on to be able to retire with dignity and security. The President will reject any efforts to cut the Medicare or Social Security benefits that seniors and people with disabilities have earned and paid into their entire working lives. The Budget honors that ironclad commitment—not only by rejecting benefit cuts, but by embracing reforms and investments that will protect and strengthen both programs. The President is committed to working with Congress to ensure Medicare and Social Security remain strong for their beneficiaries, now and in the future.
Protects and Strengthens Medicare. The Budget strengthens Medicare by extending the solvency of the Medicare Trust Fund by at least 25 years, without cutting any benefits or raising costs for beneficiaries. The Budget includes key reforms to the tax code to ensure high-income individuals pay their fair share into the Medicare HI trust fund. It also directs the revenue from the Net Investment Income Tax into the HI trust fund as was originally intended. Finally, the Budget directs the savings from the Budget’s proposed Medicare drug reforms into the HI trust fund.
Protects the Social Security Benefits that Americans Have Earned. The Administration is committed to protecting and strengthening Social Security and opposes any attempt to cut Social Security benefits for current or future recipients. The Administration looks forward to working with the Congress to responsibly strengthen Social Security by ensuring that high-income individuals pay their fair share. The Budget also invests in staff, information technology, and other improvements at the Social Security Administration, providing an increase of $1.4 billion, a 10 percent increase, over the 2023 enacted level. These funds would improve customer service at Social Security Administration field offices, State disability determination services, and teleservice centers for retirees, individuals with disabilities, and their families.
Growing the Economy from the Bottom up and Middle Out by Investing in America and Its People
The Budget proposes smart, targeted investments to grow the economy from the bottom up and middle out, not the top down, by investing in America and its people—investing in the foundations of our country’s economic strength; confronting the climate crisis while creating clean energy jobs; and advancing equity, . . .

If "Growing the Economy" really meant improving the production and performance of all the producers, including smart investing in needed infrastructure etc., there can't be much disagreement -- there are ways government can do improvements to the economic performance. But usually "growing the economy" means just to get more riff-raff off the streets and into factory jobs to keep them out of mischief.

And what does "clean energy" have to do with "jobs! jobs! jobs!"? Let's have the clean energy policies to reduce carbon emissions. Much better than the "jobs!" rhetoric would be higher gasoline taxes, or higher carbon taxes. All honest climate-change advocates realize that higher carbon taxes are much more important than so-called "clean energy jobs" which is just code language to bring the "jobs! jobs! jobs!" fanatics on board. Why must every President undermine his credibility and expose his demagoguery by mixing up the environmental issues with the "jobs! jobs! jobs!" phoniness? Honest climate-change
policy would be to say the truth, that we need to put a higher price on carbon emissions, whatever it takes.

When it comes to taxes, we need some higher taxes anyway, so why not increase the gas tax (and also some other energy taxes), and then along with this increase income taxes on upper-income categories only, or even reduce income taxes for lower-income levels, so that all the population pays higher taxes overall, and we ALL take on some sacrifice for the benefit of the future?

Instead of just giving in to the temptation to always increase the debt higher and higher, promising "deficit reduction" as something long-term which we know won't really happen?

Investing in the Foundations of Our Economic Strength
Invests in American Manufacturing. The Budget provides $375 million for the National Institutes of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Industrial Technology Services to support the progress of NIST’s existing manufacturing institute, fund a new institute to be launched in 2023, and promote domestic production of institute-developed technologies. The Budget also includes $277 million for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, a public-private partnership that offers advisory services to small and medium enterprises.
Makes Historic Investments in Innovation and Cutting-Edge Research. The Budget provides almost $21 billion . . .

Almost certainly we're talking about more and more corporate welfare here, which means for sure higher and higher debt with no assurance that these subsidies lead to improved efficiency and lower costs and future new-technology benefits to pay back this initial higher spending and higher debt. No guarantee whatever that these "jobs! jobs! jobs!" investments now will do anything other than increase our INSTANT GRATIFICATION now at the expense of future taxpayers.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Latest bank failure's. Trump and deregulation fetish.

....
While speaking to Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), Raddatz wondered about the downfall of the go-to bank for tech startups.

"Senator, after the financial crisis in 2008, regulations were put into place to make sure banks could weather large losses," Raddatz told Warner on Sunday. "Under President Trump, some of those were rolled back, and in 2018, you were one of only 17 Democrats who voted for the bill that rolled back some banking rules, including for institutions the size of Silicon Valley Bank."

"Do you regret that vote?" the host asked.
....

ABC host slams regulation cuts 'under President Trump' after Silicon Valley Bank collapse

ABC host Martha Raddatz noted that Trump-era regulation cuts may have contributed to the rapid collapse of Silicon Valley Bank last week.While speaking to Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), Raddatz wondered about the downfall of the go-to bank for tech startups."Senator, after the financial crisis in...

www.rawstory.com

 

[Swammerdami]

But those "bills" are not any debt owed to the recipients. Those payments can be revoked any time before they're issued, before the payment is made to the recipients, yet resulting in NO DEFAULT on a debt owed to those would-be recipients. There is no contract signed by the recipients and the government, such as real debt is, which puts the government in debt to those recipients.

I'm not going to research the word "debt" in a dictionary (though I do append an etymology), but I daresay that retirees, some of whom paid a sizeable fraction of a million dollars into SocSec over their careers, may regard the government's SocSec obligation as a Sacred Covenant.

With brazen sociopaths and idiots like Lauren Boebert threatening another round of Speaker votes if they don't get their way, the impending debt ceiling crisis -- which Infidel Lumpen endorses -- could get very ugly.

Some people imagine a large incinerator labeled "Wasted Spending" into which the Feds dump trucksful of Benjamins. But instead, we're talking about real money distributed as real paychecks to real American citizens.

From Middle English dette, dett, borrowed from Old French dete (French dette), from Medieval Latin dēbita, from Latin dēbitum (“what is owed, a debt, a duty”), neuter of dēbitus, perfect passive participle of dēbeō (“I owe”), contraction of *dehibeō (“I have from”), from de (“from”) + habeō (“I have”). Doublet of debit.

The unpronounced "b" in the modern English spelling is a Latinisation from the Latin etymon dēbitum.

 

[jonatha]

Somewhere in Lumpen's Great Wall of Text there is the assertion that as long as we have enough tax revenue to pay the bondholders their interest we'll be ok.

This ignores the need to repay the principal on maturing bonds and notes, which as near as I can gather annually amounts to about 10 times the net interest payment for the year...

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

​

FACT SHEET: The President’s Budget for Fiscal Year 2024​

Budget Details Plan to Invest in America, Lower Costs and Cut Taxes for Working Families, and Protect and Strengthen Medicare and Social Security

(continued from previous Wall of Text)

. . . Expanding Access to Homeownership and Affordable Rent. The President believes that everyone deserves a safe and affordable place to live. To address the critical shortage of affordable housing in communities throughout the country that has exacerbated inflation, the Budget includes $59 billion in mandatory funding and tax incentives aimed at increasing the affordable housing supply, including for extremely low-income households. The Budget also includes $10 billion in mandatory funding to incentivize State, local, and regional jurisdictions to make progress in removing barriers to affordable housing developments, such as restrictive zoning. By expanding the supply of housing, the Budget would help prevent the kind of rapid increases in rental and homeownership costs we have seen in recent years. The Budget also includes $10 billion in mandatory funding for a new First-Generation Down Payment Assistance program to help address racial and ethnic homeownership and wealth gaps—making homeownership more attainable for Americans who have been locked out of the generational wealth building that can come with owning a home. And the Budget expands access to affordable rent through the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program to well over 200,000 additional households. In addition to assisting all current voucher recipients and providing new vouchers for tens of thousands of additional families, the Budget includes mandatory funding to support two populations that are particularly vulnerable to homelessness—guaranteed assistance for all 20,000 youth who age out of foster care annually and an incremental expansion to cover the 450,000 extremely low-income (ELI) veteran families nationwide.
Improves College Affordability and Expands Free Community College. The Budget proposes to increase the discretionary maximum Pell Grant by $500—helping more than 6.8 million students pay for college, building on successful bipartisan efforts to increase the maximum Pell Grant award by $900 over the past two years, and laying out a path to double the award by 2029. The Budget also invests mandatory and discretionary funding to expand free community college, and . . .

Of the hundreds of billions above, in new spending, nothing can be cut? How can anyone say that? Why couldn't there be a 2 or 3% across-the-board cut, in ALL the above (or 90% of it), without causing chaos? What's the result of such a cut? How many would starve? The number who would starve by cutting all the above by 2% would probably be a small fraction of the number of children in the world starving every day as a result of climate-change caused by the U.S. And yet we're told:

Swammerdami: Government spending has been stripped to the bone. Anyone who suggests that cutting non-military spending is a proper way to deficit reduction is either stupid, ignorant, lying, or a combination of all three.

This is very ignorant, when you look at the long list of Biden spending increases above, totally more than a trillion, driving up the deficit this year and next year. This is not spending "stripped to the bone" but plenty of fat he could cut. The vast majority of Americans are surviving without needing all these subsidies for more housing and education -- Why not instead work on ways to CUT the cost of higher education which today can be done with the new technologies, allowing much of the college activity to be done by remote, such as the professor delivering his lecture to thousands of students all at once, etc.? And similarly there are new less costly methods of building homes today. Why is the only answer always to increase the deficit by billions and billions more rather than find less costly ways to get the needed work/production done?

It's nonsense to say the spending has been "stripped to the bone" and other such hyperbole.

The only voices we're hearing who are serious are those calling for spending cuts AND tax increases. No one is giving any reason why the debt has to keep increasing as a percent of the economy. The needs today are not any worse than 10 or 20 or 30 years ago when the debt level was much lower. The last time there was any need for debt comparable to what we're doing now was during WW2 when the survival of the nation was at stake. That crisis was much worse than now, for one year only, and yet our debt level now is staying in that range over many years now, or going higher. All the projections are for increasing debt level in the coming years. The premise for this is that there's no need to ever worry about higher debt, and it would be OK to double or triple the annual deficit, because of all the need we could meet by getting more instant cash for a spending spree.

. . . and provides mandatory funding for two years of subsidized tuition for students from families earning less than $125,000 enrolled in a participating four-year Historically Black College or University (HBCU), Tribally-Controlled College or University (TCCU), or Minority-Serving Institution (MSI).
Lowers Home Energy and Water Costs. The Budget provides $4.1 billion for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), building on the $13 billion provided in the Inflation Reduction Act to reduce energy bills for families, expand clean energy, transform rural power production, and create thousands of good-paying jobs for people across rural America. Since the . . .

Again, "jobs! jobs! jobs!" on and on, and yet no one can explain what the point is -- this is nothing but symbolism. There's much work to be done -- not enough workers now to do the existing jobs. Why not admit more immigrant workers who are needed, rather than creating more high-cost "jobs" which only drive the deficit up higher to pay for them?

. . . Since the Low Income Household Water Assistance Program (LIHWAP) expires at the end of 2023, the Budget proposes to expand LIHEAP funding and allow States the option to use a portion of their LIHEAP funds to provide water bill assistance to low-income households.
Increases Food Security. As called for in the National Strategy on Hunger, Nutrition and Health, the Budget provides over $15 billion to allow more States and schools to leverage participation in the Community Eligibility Program and provide healthy and free school meals to an additional 9 million children. The Budget also includes $6.3 billion to support the 6.5 million individuals expected to participate in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC).
Protecting and Strengthening Medicare and Social Security
The President has always believed that Medicare and Social Security are a promise—a rock-solid guarantee generations of Americans have counted on to be able to retire with dignity and security. The President will reject any efforts to cut the Medicare or Social Security benefits that seniors and people with disabilities have earned and paid into their entire working lives. The Budget honors that ironclad commitment—not only by rejecting benefit cuts, but by embracing reforms and investments that will protect and strengthen both programs. The President is committed to working with Congress to ensure Medicare and Social Security remain strong for their beneficiaries, now and in the future.
Protects and Strengthens Medicare. The Budget strengthens Medicare by extending the solvency of the Medicare Trust Fund by at least 25 years, without cutting any benefits or raising costs for beneficiaries. The Budget includes key reforms to the tax code to ensure high-income individuals pay their fair share into the Medicare HI trust fund. It also directs the revenue from the Net Investment Income Tax into the HI trust fund as was originally intended. Finally, the Budget directs the savings from the Budget’s proposed Medicare drug reforms into the HI trust fund.
Protects the Social Security Benefits that Americans Have Earned. The Administration is committed to protecting and strengthening Social Security and opposes any attempt to cut Social Security benefits for current or future recipients. The Administration looks forward to working with the Congress to responsibly strengthen Social Security by ensuring that high-income individuals pay their fair share. The Budget also invests in staff, information . . .

Only a small minority of SS recipients would suffer if there were a 1 or 2% cut in benefits, across-the-board. The idea that all SS recipients are living hand-to-mouth and would starve if their budget decreased 1% is ludicrous. And along with this there could easily be a 2 or 3 or 4% across-the-board cut in all programs, meat-ax style. So it is Wacko Economics to say all the spending has been "stripped to the bone." Even if the debt ceiling is not raised at all, the spending could be cut and that alone would be enough to pay the bondholders and prevent default. It's dishonest to say there'd be default if the debt ceiling is not raised higher.

. . . information technology, and other improvements at the Social Security Administration, providing an increase of $1.4 billion, a 10 percent increase, over the 2023 enacted level. These funds would improve customer service at Social Security Administration field offices, State disability determination services, and teleservice centers for retirees, individuals with disabilities, and their families.
Growing the Economy from the Bottom up and Middle Out by Investing in America and Its People
The Budget proposes smart, targeted investments to grow the economy from the bottom up and middle out, not the top down, by investing in America and its people—investing in the foundations of our country’s economic strength; confronting the climate crisis while creating clean energy jobs; and advancing equity, . . .

If "Growing the Economy" really meant improving the production and performance of all the producers, including smart investing in needed infrastructure etc., there can't be much disagreement -- there are ways government can do improvements to the economic performance. But usually "growing the economy" means just to get more riff-raff off the streets and into factory jobs to keep them out of mischief.

And what does "clean energy" have to do with "jobs! jobs! jobs!"? Let's have the clean energy policies to reduce carbon emissions. Much better than the "jobs!" rhetoric would be higher gasoline taxes, or higher carbon taxes. All honest climate-change advocates realize that higher carbon taxes are much more important than so-called "clean energy jobs" which is just code language to bring the "jobs! jobs! jobs!" fanatics on board. Why must every President undermine his credibility and expose his demagoguery by mixing up the environmental issues with the "jobs! jobs! jobs!" phoniness? Honest climate-change
policy would be to say the truth, that we need to put a higher price on carbon emissions, whatever it takes.

When it comes to taxes, we need some higher taxes anyway, so why not increase the gas tax (and also some other energy taxes), and then along with this increase income taxes on upper-income categories only, or even reduce income taxes for lower-income levels, so that all the population pays higher taxes overall, and we ALL take on some sacrifice for the benefit of the future?

-- instead of just giving in to the temptation to always increase the debt higher and higher, promising "deficit reduction" as something long-term which we know won't really happen?



(this Wall of Text to be continued)

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Somewhere in Lumpen's Great Wall of Text there is the assertion that as long as we have enough tax revenue to pay the bondholders their interest we'll be ok.

This ignores the need to repay the principal on maturing bonds and notes, which as near as I can gather annually amounts to about 10 times the net interest payment for the year...

Everything anyone says about paying the bondholders refers to paying all that is due, on schedule, both principle and interest.

The assumption of Biden and Demos is that this can all be paid if we run the current deficit up another 200 or 300 billion $$$ or thereabouts beyond last year's deficit. If that's true, then it's obviously possible to pay it if we do NOT run the deficit up higher, but keep it down or reduce it by a small percent.

When the debt level is this unusually high, the proper direction to go is down, not up. But this still means a very high budget deficit. What's needed is ongoing downward increments, gradually. If there's no current crisis, like a new War or Pandemic, there's no excuse for the deficit to go back up. That there's a mob of screaming transfer-payment and pork-spending fanatics is not a crisis.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

The problem is the outrageous tax cuts of the GOP. While shrieking "deficits bad!",the GOP wants to make the massive Trump tax cuts, due to expire in 2025, permement.

Again, It is the math, Stupid! It is mathematically impossible to cut our way to a balanced budget. Which is what the GOP is peddling, cuts to the safety net. Which incidentally Trump championed each year of his administration.