Healthcare reform

[Rex Kickass]

Seriously though I know everyone who read that knows full well what I was saying with or without the minor oversight where I decided to stop typing. Lieberman is obnoxious as s*** but this doesn't mean he's a conservative.

 

He's a weasel who ought to be booted from the caucus, IMHO. He most definitely doesn't deserve to have the gavel in a committee. That should be given to Democrats who run as Democrats.

[lostfan]

He's a weasel who ought to be booted from the caucus, IMHO. He most definitely doesn't deserve to have the gavel in a committee. That should be given to Democrats who run as Democrats.

I don't disagree.

[Balta1701]

He's a weasel who ought to be booted from the caucus, IMHO. He most definitely doesn't deserve to have the gavel in a committee. That should be given to Democrats who run as Democrats.

I wouldn't have a problem with him keeping a gavel...if they were willing to use taking away his gavel as a means to keep him in line on things like health care or cap and trade. So far, they've shown zero urge to do that. The only check on him is going to be the defeat he's going to take in 2012.

[NorthSideSox72]

He's a weasel who ought to be booted from the caucus, IMHO. He most definitely doesn't deserve to have the gavel in a committee. That should be given to Democrats who run as Democrats.

Problem is, this attitude means you leave zero room for independents to be part of the process.

 

[Cknolls]

So, is there free health care yet? I haven't been paying attention. If there is, what does it cover. Everything? I want some free stuff.

 

 

[StrangeSox]

Problem is, this attitude means you leave zero room for independents to be part of the process.

 

But why do you want to include them if they're obstructing what you want to do?

 

What good is having a strong party majority if a lot of the party members won't ever agree on policy?

[Balta1701]

Problem is, this attitude means you leave zero room for independents to be part of the process.

I'm not sure Joe Lieberman counts as an independent...he seems like he does whatever benefits his party the most. (Note, his party in the last election was CT for Lieberman).

[Cknolls]

I laugh at the thought of 3 house bills and one more Senate bill being merged into the Baucus Billl and their being no increase in the deficiit nor an increase in taxes.

[kapkomet]

To point this out and turn the table a bit, look at the bush administration. Some had no problem with him running up debt but others who are the far right fiscal conservatives had issues with that.

 

It's just ironic now that those same people who supported bush's spending now oppose Obama's.

Most conservatives weren't ever ok with Bush's spending. You make a stupid point here.

[NorthSideSox72]

Most conservatives weren't ever ok with Bush's spending. You make a stupid point here.

Well, "most" Republicans in Congress voted right along with the big spending.

 

[lostfan]

I'm amused though by people who say they liked President Bush until his last 2 years in office, as if that's when he started spending because of the Democrat majority. His deficit was due to a combination of multiple tax cuts and 2 wars, not new government programs from the Dems that suddenly appeared in 2 years (he would've vetoed them anyway). Most of these people also criticize Obama for not going forward with the missile defense, while knowing little on actual facts, even though this system was going to cost tens of billions and not really provide much benefit. Many (still) criticize him for wanting to take troops out of Iraq as if we had the ability to leave them there indefinitely.

[Balta1701]

I'm amused though by people who say they liked President Bush until his last 2 years in office, as if that's when he started spending because of the Democrat majority. His deficit was due to a combination of multiple tax cuts and 2 wars, not new government programs from the Dems that suddenly appeared in 2 years (he would've vetoed them anyway). Most of these people also criticize Obama for not going forward with the missile defense, while knowing little on actual facts, even though this system was going to cost tens of billions and not really provide much benefit. Many (still) criticize him for wanting to take troops out of Iraq as if we had the ability to leave them there indefinitely.

He did jack up the spending on the military in general, he did bail out the health insurance industry with the trillion dollar Medicare expansion in 2003, he did spend an enormous amount of money buiding up the "Homeland security" apparatus.

[Balta1701]

Most conservatives weren't ever ok with Bush's spending. You make a stupid point here.

It's a dirty hippy blog so you don't have to read it, but I think this is a spot on reply, discussing a phrase from Bruce Bartlett's new book where he says exactly what you did about Bush's "Spending". Quote from Bartlett's book in italics, reply in normal text.

During the George W. Bush years [supply side economics] became distorted into something that is, frankly, nuts — the ideas that there is no economic problem that cannot be cured with more and bigger tax cuts, that all tax cuts are equally beneficial, and that all tax cuts raise revenue....As a consequence, we now have a tax code riddled with tax credits and other tax schemes of dubious merit, expiring provisions that never expire, and an income tax that fully exempts almost on half of tax filers from paying even a penny to support the general operations of the federal government.

 

Indeed, by destroying the balanced budget constraint, starve-the-beast theory actually opened the flood gates of spending. As I explained in a recent column, a key reason why deficits restrained spending in the past is because they led to politically unpopular tax increases. But if, as Republicans now maintain, taxes must never be increased at any time for any reason then there is never any political cost to raising spending and cutting taxes at the same time, as the Bush 43 administration and a Republican Congress did year after year.

 

The supply-siders are to a large extent responsible for this mess, myself included. We opened Pandora's Box when we got the Republican Party to abandon the balanced budget as its signature economic policy and adopt tax cuts as its raison d'être. In particular, the idea that tax cuts will "starve the beast" and automatically shrink the size of government is extremely pernicious.

 

In most countries, there's sort of a natural cycle to politics. For a while, voters elect liberals who promise lots of goodies but also raise taxes. People like the goodies, but eventually get tired of the taxes, and throw the bums out. Conservatives then take office promising to cut taxes and restrain spending growth. People like the low taxes, but eventually they get itchy for more goodies so they throw the bums out. Rinse and repeat.

 

Whether deliberately or not, Reagan and the supply siders killed this cycle. They decided they could stay in office forever by cutting taxes and increasing spending, thus pleasing everyone. It even worked for a while. In the ensuing 28 years Republicans held the presidency most of the time and controlled Congress for much of the rest.

 

But eventually the piper has to be paid. We still haven't quite come to grips with that, but we can't avoid it too much longer. Either we (a) slash government spending in ways that the public quite plainly isn't willing to do, (B) raise taxes in ways that the public isn't yet willing to do, or © allow the rest of the world to do it for us. I used to be more optimistic about the possibility of avoiding ©, but lately I've begun to wonder.

[Rex Kickass]

Problem is, this attitude means you leave zero room for independents to be part of the process.

 

Absolutely wrong, just because you aren't a chair, doesn't mean you aren't part of the process. I didn't say kick him out of the committees. I said take his gavel away. If he wants to play "grand independent" whenever it gets him more attention - especially when in the process he ends up backtracking on his own commitments made to his own constituents, he should be given the leadership role he deserves, the back bench.

[Balta1701]

Absolutely wrong, just because you aren't a chair, doesn't mean you aren't part of the process. I didn't say kick him out of the committees. I said take his gavel away. If he wants to play "grand independent" whenever it gets him more attention - especially when in the process he ends up backtracking on his own commitments made to his own constituents, he should be given the leadership role he deserves, the back bench.

Olympia Snow, Ben Nelson, Kent Conrad, Bill Nelson don't have gavels but they've gotten plenty of influence/huge checks from the insurance industry in the health care debate.

[lostfan]

It's a dirty hippy blog so you don't have to read it, but I think this is a spot on reply, discussing a phrase from Bruce Bartlett's new book where he says exactly what you did about Bush's "Spending". Quote from Bartlett's book in italics, reply in normal text.

Actually yeah I don't think that could possibly be any more correct. That's about what I've been saying for the past 2 years in better language. Especially the last part.

 

Most of the deficit is hard-wired in (Social Security, Medicare, defense, general government operations, and the two wars account for probably over 90% of it) and everybody promises they'll slash the budget but then they find out they can't. So the answer is either raise taxes (which nobody wants to do, ever) or cut spending (which nobody wants to do, ever, even though they talk about it ad nauseam).

[kapkomet]

Well, "most" Republicans in Congress voted right along with the big spending.

Which is why they got their asses kicked last year.

[kapkomet]

It's a dirty hippy blog so you don't have to read it, but I think this is a spot on reply, discussing a phrase from Bruce Bartlett's new book where he says exactly what you did about Bush's "Spending". Quote from Bartlett's book in italics, reply in normal text.

Supply side economics works in the private sector a whole lot more BUT (huge but) you have to have corresponding spending cuts on the government side. I know you think that supply side doesn't work, but it provides a lot more revenue over a relatively short period of time (i.e. 5-7 years) then what we're seeing now on just pure printing press money. The issue becomes there's always cycles in the economy, and when a recession hits, the first thing Democrats want to say is that it's the tax cuts that's killing revenue. The bigger issue is you can't spend yourselves into oblivion like these nitwits (both parties) are doing.

[Balta1701]

Supply side economics works in the private sector a whole lot more BUT (huge but) you have to have corresponding spending cuts on the government side. I know you think that supply side doesn't work, but it provides a lot more revenue over a relatively short period of time (i.e. 5-7 years) then what we're seeing now on just pure printing press money. The issue becomes there's always cycles in the economy, and when a recession hits, the first thing Democrats want to say is that it's the tax cuts that's killing revenue. The bigger issue is you can't spend yourselves into oblivion like these nitwits (both parties) are doing.

You know what one of the only good things about the last 8 years is? You just gave us a testable hypothesis. You proposed that you'd get a lot more revenue over a 5-7 year period after major tax cuts. I can actually respond with the federal tax receipts graph. The key thing to note is that even in the last expansion, if you extended the curve from where it was in 2001 (by far the largest dip before this year) you'd have to bend it dramatically downwards to get to where we were at the peak of the expansion. Either the tax cuts weren't as effective as you hoped in dramatically increasing revenue over the 5-7 year period (even before the crash) or the economy under Bush never recovered from 2001's recession, which argues that the tax cuts were ineffective as stimulus.

 

[kapkomet]

You know what one of the only good things about the last 8 years is? You just gave us a testable hypothesis. You proposed that you'd get a lot more revenue over a 5-7 year period after major tax cuts. I can actually respond with the federal tax receipts graph. The key thing to note is that even in the last expansion, if you extended the curve from where it was in 2001 (by far the largest dip before this year) you'd have to bend it dramatically downwards to get to where we were at the peak of the expansion. Either the tax cuts weren't as effective as you hoped in dramatically increasing revenue over the 5-7 year period (even before the crash) or the economy under Bush never recovered from 2001's recession, which argues that the tax cuts were ineffective as stimulus.

 

Check your link.

 

And, the receipts would have crashed even harder if there weren't tax cuts in the system. The quickest "stimulus" that never gets the attention it should is the corporate tax rate.

 

Nevermind - the link popped up - I was getting a red X but now it's working.

[lostfan]

I tend to agree with kap on the slowing of bleeding, but perpetual tax cutting is s***ty budget policy.

[Balta1701]

Check your link.

 

And, the receipts would have crashed even harder if there weren't tax cuts in the system. The quickest "stimulus" that never gets the attention it should is the corporate tax rate.

Cutting the corporate tax rate remains one of the weakest stimulative measures out there.

[StrangeSox]

source?

[kapkomet]

Cutting the corporate tax rate remains one of the weakest stimulative measures out there.

For government revenues, sure. Because that means corporations get to keep more of their own money and invest it how they want to instead of handing it over to the government.

 

[Balta1701]

source?

We went over this a lot during the stimulus discussion and I've got too much work to do to really rehash it, here's a source citing work by a couple of people including the Congressional budget office and the congressional research service. Kap will say it's more complicated and those people are wrong, I will say Kap is flat out wrong, Kap will say that we have one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world, I'll respond "Yeah, if you assume that all of the deductions don't exist", I have to go worry about water-partitioning.

Numerous government and independent studies agree that corporate tax rate cuts provide relatively little “bang-for-the-buck” as stimulus. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), for example, has concluded that a corporate rate cut “is not a particularly cost-effective method of stimulating business spending.”[1] The Congressional Research Service (CRS) has found that in terms of stimulating aggregate demand, the “effect of corporate rate cuts is likely small.”[2] And Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Economy.com, has rated a corporate tax rate cut as one of the least effective of all tax and spending options in stimulating the economy, estimating that it would generate only 30 cents in economic demand for every dollar spent on the tax cut.[3]