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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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 Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2011 3:28 am Post subject: The Great American Shakedown of 2011 |
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In a few hours Paul Ryan, or is it Ryan Paul or maybe Rand Paul or Paul Rand?...at least he's not yet another Scott  ...will formally announce his great 2012 budget plan for screwing the non-rich.
What's your position on this deficit peacock preening?
There are no tax raises, so not a serious plan. (It looks like he wants to leave tax increase proposals for the Dems so he/they can score political points.)
He wants to abolish Medicare. This is generational warfare. He wants to set up a division between generations where the older will continue to get benefits but put the burden on the younger people so they resent the screw job. Will younger people be fooled? Yet to be seen.
Are there any tax loophole closings? Haven't seen any yet.
This is not a serious proposal for fixing the deficit. It is yet another political ploy aimed to win the 2012 election. |
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Madigan
Joined: 15 Oct 2010
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| Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2011 5:11 am Post subject: Re: The Great American Shakedown of 2011 |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
In a few hours Paul Ryan, or is it Ryan Paul or maybe Rand Paul or Paul Rand?...at least he's not yet another Scott ...will formally announce his great 2012 budget plan for screwing the non-rich.
What's your position on this deficit peacock preening?
There are no tax raises, so not a serious plan. (It looks like he wants to leave tax increase proposals for the Dems so he/they can score political points.)
He wants to abolish Medicare. This is generational warfare. He wants to set up a division between generations where the older will continue to get benefits but put the burden on the younger people so they resent the screw job. Will younger people be fooled? Yet to be seen.
Are there any tax loophole closings? Haven't seen any yet. |
Allegations without substantiation? How nice.
The plan for Medicaid would be distributed as block grants to the states and Medicare would be more of a voucher system. Retirees would enjoy $15,000 vouchers in a pool that many federal employees enjoy, or something similar. There will be a top rate of 25% for the income & corporate tax which is said to be deficit neutral. A good place to start would be by abandoning our ridiculous green obsessions ending all ethanol subsidies and making sure that corporations like GE, GM, GS, Monsanto, ADM ect. ect actually pay taxes. (Many of those tax loopholes come from our green obsessions, just so you know.)
What I don't like is that the plan is keeping Defense spending completely off of the table; I really don't like that. It may very well be in the end that to increase revenues, we will have to lower rates so I don't take issue with that. However, any budget that keeps DoD spending from being cut, currently at more than 20% of the budget, is not serious at all.
WSJ Article on the Budget Plan.
| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| This is not a serious proposal for fixing the deficit. It is yet another political ploy aimed to win the 2012 election. |
Yeah, no kidding? Politicians playing games to win elections, imagine that. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2011 6:24 am Post subject: |
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| The plan for Medicaid would be distributed as block grants to the states and Medicare would be more of a voucher system. |
And how, pray tell, would this voucher system save any money? Does it address the cost of health care?
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| Yeah, no kidding? Politicians playing games to win elections, imagine that. |
And this is an argument in support of Rep. Ryan's plan? |
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Madigan
Joined: 15 Oct 2010
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| Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2011 8:03 am Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| Quote: |
| The plan for Medicaid would be distributed as block grants to the states and Medicare would be more of a voucher system. |
And how, pray tell, would this voucher system save any money? Does it address the cost of health care? |
I don't know. It needs more study.
| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| Quote: |
| Yeah, no kidding? Politicians playing games to win elections, imagine that. |
And this is an argument in support of Rep. Ryan's plan? |
No, and perhaps I wasn't clear enough. I don't feel there is any reason to support a bill that completely ignores the costs of the Department of Defense. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2011 8:15 am Post subject: |
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| He wants to abolish Medicare. This is generational warfare. He wants to set up a division between generations where the older will continue to get benefits but put the burden on the younger people so they resent the screw job. Will younger people be fooled? Yet to be seen. |
The Baby Boomers launched this generational warfare; endless deficits during times of prosperity. Paul Ryan is trying to address the painful realities of this wasteful and selfish legacy.
Somebody has finally put everything on the table, including entitlements, defense.
I haven't read the budget yet so I decline to comment further. |
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Madigan
Joined: 15 Oct 2010
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| Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2011 8:20 am Post subject: |
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| Over all, the plan is aimed at returning federal spending levels to below those of 2008, before the economic stimulus and other programs enacted by the Obama administration when it took over. It does adopt at least one element of the president�s program, noting that the document reflects $178 billion in Pentagon savings identified by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and, like his proposal, would reinvest $100 billion in other military priorities while reserving $78 billion for deficit reduction. |
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/06/us/politics/06budget.html?_r=1&hp
Okay, I was wrong. They are proposing $78B in net cuts to defense spending. It doesn't seem like a lot, but it is something. I suppose the best attitude is wait and see. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2011 3:29 pm Post subject: |
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Let's consult the experts.
Clive Cook
| Clive Cook wrote: |
First, give Ryan some credit for setting out concrete proposals. That was brave. He can hardly be accused--unlike the Obama administration--of evading the hard questions. And he has a suitably ambitious goal for long-term debt reduction, as well: his plan fails to get debt back below 70 per cent of GDP as quickly the Bowles-Simpson proposal, but it does achieve this goal before the end of the decade. Under Obama's budget, the debt approaches 90 per cent of GDP by 2020 and is on track to keep rising.
The Ryan budget as a whole is a frontal assault on the administration's priorities. You might say: Mission accomplished. A frontal assault is what the GOP promised. But what, exactly, does this achieve? What hope of compromise does a plan like this allow? The US system of government divides power between the parties, an obvious fact, but one that the contending forces on Capitol Hill lately find hard to take in. How do you get from unyielding, no-surrender proposals like this to workable commonsense reforms that actually confront the problem? In short, how do you get from a posture to a policy? The ongoing shambles over the continuing resolution and the immediate budget impasse suggests one rather disturbing answer. You don't. |
Bowles and Simpson (http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/economy-a-budget/154033-paul-ryans-budget-is-a-positive-step-)
| Bowles and Simpson wrote: |
Chairman Ryan's budget incorporates many of the proposals included in the Commission report. But in the areas where he did not support the Commission's recommendations, we are happy to see he has stepped up to the challenge of the "Becerra rule" adopted by the Commission - namely, to put forward alternative proposals with equal or greater savings for every provision one turns down.
Going forward, anyone who issues an alternative plan to Chairman Ryan's should be held to the same standard when offering their own solutions. We simply cannot back away from these issues.
While we are encouraged that Chairman Ryan has come forward with a serious plan, we are concerned that it falls short of the balanced, comprehensive approach needed to achieve the broad bipartisan agreement necessary to enact a responsible plan. The plan largely exempts defense spending from reductions and would not apply any of the savings from eliminating or reducing tax expenditures as part of tax reform to deficit reduction. |
The Concord Coalition
| Robert Bixby wrote: |
The deficit reduction goal of Chairman Ryan�s proposal fits the magnitude of the fiscal challenge we face. He does not pretend that we can address this challenge with discretionary spending cuts alone. By including major savings from entitlement programs, primarily Medicare and Medicaid, he has grabbed the �third rail� of politics and clearly identified the main source of projected federal program growth. By acknowledging the fact that we spend money through the tax code, and recognizing how crucial it will be to close loopholes and broaden the revenue base, this budget plan takes an important step towards sensible tax policy.
By declining to use any of the savings from base-broadening tax policy to help reduce the deficit, Ryan�s proposal fails to take full advantage of an important reform strategy and misses a key opportunity to forge bipartisan consensus. |
Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget
| CRFB wrote: |
| We hope that Congressman Ryan's proposal will not generate attacks but rather lead to a larger discussion over how to move forward with a comprehensive solution. With lawmakers overly focused on a very small part of the budget, this is an important reminder of the tremendous fiscal challenges the country faces and that we should be looking to save not just billions, but trillions. Now that both the White House and House Republicans have made their opening bids, this continues to reinforce our belief that a comprehensive plan to fix the budget like the one the Fiscal Commission recommended has the best hope of moving forward. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2011 3:35 pm Post subject: |
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I would say Paul Ryan's proposal is still too politically partisan. The discretionary spending cuts are about right, steep and painful, but raising taxes so little at this juncture is irresponsible. The defense cuts are still too tepid. Putting Medicare and Medicaid on the chopping block earns this proposal the designation "serious." But reducing spending to 20% of GDP while increasing revenue to only 18% makes it also "polarized."
Overall, its a step forward from Obama's budget but a step back from the Bowles-Simpson proposal. |
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Hugo85
Joined: 27 Aug 2010
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| Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2011 4:17 pm Post subject: |
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| Ryan's plan is as crappy as Obama's budget. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Wed Apr 06, 2011 8:41 am Post subject: |
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Reihan Salam has a good post on this
| James Capretta wrote: |
Everyone knows that what the president and his allies really want to do is raise taxes. They might agree to some tinkering around the margins on entitlements for show. But in their heart of hearts they believe the solution is higher rates of taxation.
The problem is they don�t have the guts to say so in public. They know that�s the surest way to permanent minority status. And so they are hoping for a more indirect route to their goal, using guile to lure gullible Republicans (see here) into agreeing to their approach without ever having to sell it to a tax-averse electorate.
The Ryan plan blows this kind of plotting by Democrats to smithereens. There�s no tax increase in the Ryan plan, and there�s no debt crisis. What�s required is far-reaching entitlement reform and serious spending discipline. By staking out that position, Ryan and his comrades have improved their leverage immensely. There�s no need to agree to tax hikes to solve the budget problem. What�s needed is for Democrats to get serious about spending reform, as Ryan has.
Moreover, with a Republican plan on the table, the media will surely start to ask Democrats, �Hey, where�s your plan?� This will force them to either come clean with their tax-hike vision, or become the party that pushed the country toward a debt-induced economic crisis. Either way, with more clarity about where the parties actually stand, Republicans can win the public fight. |
Remember, Obama wants to preserve the tax cuts for 98% of Americans. This is a center-right tax position. Yes, Paul Ryan has trapped Obama, but its Obama's own fault,
| Yglesias wrote: |
| I think Obama taking all middle class taxes off the table makes something approximating Ryanism inevitable: http://ygl.as/hg0Kdb |
As for Reihan himself,
| Reihan Salam wrote: |
| one hopes that James is right to suggest that the media will start asking for a serious Democratic alternative |
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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Wed Apr 06, 2011 8:47 am Post subject: |
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If his plan had more defense cuts and tackled some of the GOP's pet programs, I'd be more open to it. Pundits are calling him brave, but give me a break. If Mr. Ryan were truly brave, he would have produced a budget that took on GOP interests too.
That being said, it is smart politics on his part, I'll give him that. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2011 4:18 pm Post subject: |
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The Congressional Progressive Caucus is working on a budgetary counter-proposal of its own. The big points, in short, are:
1) Raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations.
2) Ending the wars.
3) Actually taking steps to reduce the cost of healthcare through a government-run public option instead of just giving people a chunk of money and watching as private industry quickly parts them with it while giving them the absolute minimum in return they can get away with (negotiating with pharmaceutical companies is also going to lower costs substantially; the government has more power in such negotiations than any other party could hope to have, and that power should be brought to bear for the sake of the populace).
4) Taking steps to ensure Social Security remains funded instead of just cutting it.
It's just a memo; I don't know where we can see more detailed information, if we can at all. Something like this obviously has a zero percent chance of passing the House, but Ryan's nonsense has a zero percent chance of passing the Senate and would just (I hope) get vetoed if it did, so I don't see why Democrats shouldn't rally behind, if not this proposal exactly, something like it. From there it's a matter of working something out. |
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Rteacher
Joined: 23 May 2005
Location: Western MA, USA
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| Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2011 10:17 pm Post subject: |
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Those puny vouchers would vitiate medicare, and the severe cuts in the current compromise-to avert- government shutdown deal to badly needed infrastructure projects, environmental protection programs, community health centers, etc. figure to do more harm than good in terms of common welfare for the country as a whole. But since the most greedy of the top 2% wealthiest Americans don't relate to commoners - or natural environs - other than as objects to be exploited, they shamelessly seek to buy as much political and mass media influence to serve their own narrow interests - and have recently prevailed with the help of "Tea Party" nitwits/wits.
Republicans hope to ram Paul Ryan's bill through by using "raising the debt ceiling" as a leverage (hostage) issue, and Democrats not yet bought by -and-sold out to the same wealthy interests will hopefully do all they can to block it.
Ed Schultz had an informative piece last night (joined by Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rachael Maddow) on the "drastic details" of the current bill. I'll post the link, but it might not be accessible to those residing in Korea...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30031533/
It should be available soon on YouTube, however, like this recent one on Paul Ryan's deceptive charts and Republicans' outright (and far right) lies:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqxD8ZSv3Qg |
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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Wed Apr 13, 2011 11:25 am Post subject: |
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Balanced-budget plan: Do nothing
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| Thus, Slate proposes the Do-Nothing Plan for Deficit Reduction, a meek, cowardly effort to wrest the country back into the black. The overarching principle of the Do-Nothing Plan is this: Leave everything as is. Current law stands, and spending and revenue levels continue according to the Congressional Budget Office's baseline projections. Everyone walks away. Paul Ryan goes fishing. Sen. Harry Reid kicks back with a ginger ale. The rest of Congress gets back to bickering about mammograms. Miraculously, the budget just balances itself, in about a decade. |
The drawbacks:
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| It requires some very unpopular measures�such as serious middle-class tax hikes and sticking with Obamacare. But asking Congress to do nothing, at the very least, seems to have a pretty good chance of making it through Congress. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Wed Apr 13, 2011 5:02 pm Post subject: |
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Middle class taxes going up is fine. Anyone sitting there nodding along when someone like Jon Stewart suggests it's not unreasonable to expect the wealthy to pay in taxes what they paid under Clinton while simultaneously insisting that it's unreasonable to expect the middle class to do the same thing is being disingenuous.
The Bush Tax Cuts should be allowed to expire in their entirety. |
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