But don’t call it class warfare, or you’ll hurt the Republican Party’s feelings!
Republican Bruce Bartlett on why Romney has been praising Clinton while refusing to even utter George W. Bush’s name. Bartlett points out that Clinton’s policies — unlike Bush’s and the GOP’s — actually worked and are still popular with Americans. Unfortunately, Romney is only praising Clinton, not embracing his policies. Instead, it’s Bush’s policies that Romney would use to govern.
An Obama Spending Spree? Hardly
TPM’s Sahil Kapur looks at the numbers behind a recurrent theme of recent budget debates:
A dominant theme of the national political discourse has been the crushing spending spree the U.S. has ostensibly embarked on during the Obama presidency. That argument, ignited by Republicans and picked up by many elite opinion makers, has infused the national dialogue and shaped the public debate in nearly every major budget battle of the last thee years.
But the numbers tell a different story.
The fact that the national debt has risen from $10.6 trillion to $15.6 trillion under Obama’s watch makes for easy partisan attacks. But the vast bulk of the increase was caused by a combination of revenue losses due to the 2008-09 economic downturn as well as Bush-era tax cuts and automatic increases in safety-net spending that were already written into law.
Obama’s policies, including the much-criticized stimulus package, have caused the slowest increase in federal spending of any president in almost 60 nears, according to data compiled by the financial news service MarketWatch.
The House voted Thursday to override steep cuts to the Pentagon’s budget mandated by last summer’s debt deal and replace them with spending reductions to food stamps and other mandatory social programs.
While doomed in the Senate and opposed by the White House, the legislation, which would reduce the deficit by $243 billion, is a Republican marker for post-election budget talks with the White House.
While doomed in the Senate and opposed by the White House, the legislation, which would reduce the deficit by $243 billion, is a Republican marker for post-election budget talks with the White House.
House votes to replace Pentagon cuts mandated by debt deal
So after all that drama last summer which saw the Democratic Party making concession after concession after concession in a desperate attempt to reach a deal, the Republican Party reneges. That whole fiasco last year also cost America its perfect credit rating. Keep in mind, too, why the GOP is going back on its word: It wants to raise taxes on the middle class, cut them for the wealthy, and prevent spending cuts to the American defense budget, the world’s largest.
Today’s New York Times/CBS poll [PDF] is the first survey I’ve seen that asks about tax fairness in the context of economic growth:
Which do you think is the best way to promote economic growth in the U.S.? 1.Lower taxes on individuals and businesses, and pay for those tax cuts by spending on some government services and programs, or 2. Spend more on education and the nation’s infrastructure, and raise taxes on wealthy individuals and businesses to pay for that spending.
Lower taxes, cut spending: 37
Spend more, raise taxes: 56
The poll also finds that 67 percent say the government should do more to help improve the situation of middle class Americans; 52 percent say government shold do more to improve the housing market; 57 percent think the wealthy pay less than their fair share in taxes; and that 51 percent think capital gains should be taxed as ordinary income. People say they dislike government in the abstract, but when the talk turns to specifics, suddenly active government doesn’t look so bad.
The Morning Plum: Who is winning the clash of visions?
You mean Americans WANT government intervention, more government spending, and higher taxes on the wealthy? Why, how socialist!
Yesterday House Republicans reneged on the deal they made with the White House and Congressional Democrats last summer and, in order to prevent agreed-upon defense spending cuts, instituted draconian spending cuts that will disproportionately affect the poor, people of color, women, children, and the elderly. The White House is now on record as saying that it will allow a government shut-down rather than sign any of these appropriations bills into law.
Mapping the ACA: Where federal funds are going state-by-state
In total, over $12 billion has been handed out to state governments and private entities to implement the provisions of the ACA. Breaking it down by state, California—the first state to setup their own health exchange—has received the lion’s share of funding, taking in over $1.1 billion. Other population heavy states such as New York, Texas, Michigan, and Ohio have taken in large sums as well. These funds aren’t just being channeled to state governments; rather the lion’s share has been directed to assist private entities. In Michigan, for example, $184 million in federal funds have gone to the state government but $630 million has been directed to private entities, mostly business, to help with the costs of providing care.
There’s a reason the United States has a hard time funding green energy, healthcare, education, infrastructure, or transportation.
We have 5% of the world’s people and over 50% of the world’s military spending — and through that spending we enrich the richest 1%.
In Obama’s proposed 2013 budget, military spending will become 57% of discretionary spending. This drains our economy, endangers our country, strips our civil liberties, demolishes our natural environment, and kills many people, including innocent civilians.
Tell the war makers to move the money to more legal and moral activities.
The libertarian and the liberal concur in their desire to maximize personal liberty. However, the libertarian advocates freedom without order – without, that is, an institutional structure that will ensure freedom for all. Absent such a structure, liberty, like wealth, will “percolate up” to those in charge, “with liberty for some,” leaving the masses with nothing but their squalor and oppression.
The liberal, on the other hand, strives to establish and maintain the social, economic and political order without which there is no freedom. The liberal understands that the economic output and the civil liberties of a society are the products of the joint contributions of all members of society – of the plus-sum cooperative, rule governed and goal oriented efforts of all. Because no social order operates without some “friction,” there are inevitably victims of social and economic misfortune: the unemployed, the bankrupt, the abandoned. Add to these, the victims of natural misfortunes – accidents, disease, birth defects, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornados, etc.
Voluntary charity to these unfortunates, as advocated by the libertarians, is commendable. But it is insufficient.
Morality as a Plus-Sum Game - Why Libertarianism Fails as a Social Policy
[Romney] has vowed to commit at least 4 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product - $4 out of every $100 in the nation’s economy - to “core’’ defense spending, not including many war expenses…
Enacting such an increase at the same time that Romney wants to slash taxes and balance the budget could cost trillions of dollars and require huge cuts in domestic programs. As Romney’s website puts it matter-of-factly, “This will not be a cost-free process.’’
An examination of Romney’s plan, however, shows how difficult it will be for him to achieve his goal. Even some of Romney’s advisers, while saying the Pentagon increases are essential, said in interviews that political and budgetary issues would probably make it impossible for Romney to increase defense spending to 4 percent of GDP in a first year - and tough even in a fourth year - of a presidency.
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