Obviously, the left hates the report from the Fiscal Commission. Any talk of cutting spending makes them howl in psychic pain.
George Stephanopoulos declared that the commission “called the bluff” of the those calling on the government to cut spending.
Stephanopoulos condescendingly began, “A week after voters seemed to say that they wanted more aggressive action against the deficit, the chairmen of a presidential commission are calling their bluff.” GMA featured two segments on the topic, but never once actually mentioned the deficit number, $1.3 trillion.
Reporter Jake Tapper featured Barack Obama’s speech from South Korea in which the President attacked Republican campaign rhetoric on the debt: “And unfortunately, a lot of the talk didn’t match up with reality.” Left unmentioned was the Obama’s own record spending.
What a jerk.
Dan Mitchell has a different take.
I have many pet peeves, but one that causes me endless frustration is the Washington “spending cut” scam. This happens when politicians increase spending, but claim that they’re cutting spending because they previously had planned to make government even bigger.
The proposal unveiled yesterday by the Co-Chairman of President Obama’s Fiscal Commission is a good example. If you read through their report, it sounds like there are lots of spending cuts. But they never explain that these supposed cuts are really just reductions in previously-planned increases.
Here’s the bottom line. As shown in the graph, it is quite simple to balance the budget (and permanently extend all of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts) if politicians simply limit spending growth. You can balance the budget within a few years with an overall cap on spending at current-year levels. But if you prefer a more moderate approach, you can let spending increase 2 percent each year and balance the budget by the end of the decade.
Mitchell went on to explain that the commission wants to increase spending and raise taxes to pay for it. You’d think that’s something liberals would get on board with.
HELLO McFLY!
Why cut spending?
Simple
While most will tolerate being taxed, they will no longer do so when the level of taxation becomes onerous or the taxes received are misspent.
Peeps will go out of their way to avoid taxes. I becomes a matter of principle.
The mega rich are mobile and can simply move away from the taxes.
An underground economy will emerge. It’s there now but relatively small.
And guess what? The gov’t doesn’t get the $$ they counted on.
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Having read several articles about the proposal from several news websites, I have found no parameters for squeezing the banks and financial institutions. All articles talk about the various ways in which the common taxpayer would be squeezed.
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I found the entire draft proposal here
http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/CoChairDraft.pdf
Maybe the Fed overseeing the member banks makes them exempt from this Commission’s proposals. If anyone knows the answer to why financial institutions are not included in the proposal, please let me know. Thanks.
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The real runaway train is what CBO calls a “substantial increase in spending” that is “on an unsustainable path.”
Spending increases from 2001-2008.
Community Development increased 91%
Highways and Mass Transit increased 22%
Education Increased 57%
Veterans Benefits Increased 58%
Medicare Increased 51%
National Defense Increased 64%
Social Security increased 17%
At the annual growth of 4 percent per year the most this stuff should have increased was 32 percent. The recommended pace of growth is 2 percent per year which would have seen growth on the order of 16-18 percent in those 8 years of the Bush Presidency.
Just When Bill Clinton Declared that the era of Big Government was dead president Bush entered office and the government exploded in size and spending.
Now we have put back in charge Guys like Eric Cantor who………
pay attention here….WHO OVERSAW THE ABOVE EXPLOSIONS IN SPENDING for 6 of those 8 years. Now were asking him and his like to reign in the spending they endorsed and oversaw?
I am biting my tongue as Michelle Bachman was forced to step down in favor of GOOD OLE BOY spendaholics.
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Unfortunately it looks like the R’s in the Senate are not on board with the “Cut the spending” meme. McConnell and Inhoffe are both fighting the push by DeMint to eschew earmarks. Talk about two RINOs! They are not seeing the results of the last election and they will be part of the trash that is swept out in ’12.
We all know the in’s and out’s of earmarks and we know that by rejecting them, they are making a symbolic gesture to we the people that they can give up this one item as the FIRST step in the long fight to cut spending. If they are unable to do that there will be no cuts. The other side of the commission’s recommendations is the increase in taxes. One thing that none of us are willing to accept is the thought of our money going to the gov to be spent on nonsense programs and activities that should be cut up front. As any sane person knows, you cut your spending before you decide how much money you need to live on. These fools decide how much money they need to spend and then raise taxes to that amount.
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