“4. New spending on bombing Afghanistan until it turns into Connecticut”
Wow, I never knew growing up in Connecticut was so rough. I mean if a bombed out Afghanistan is like Connecticut thats sayin something about the ol Nutmeg State 🙂
Indeed, when it comes to spending, the difference is between tweedle dum (Republicans), and tweedle dumber (Democrats). Hence why many of us are glad to see the Tea Party wreak havoc in the GOP primaries and upset the establishment apple cart. Unfortunately, a similar revolution in the Democratic Party is nigh impossible.
Also, in somewhat limited defense of Sen. Cornyn, Williamson completely ignores Cornyn’s explanation of why Republicans under Obama are (or will be) different than Republicans under Bush. Cornyn rightly notes that in situations where we do not have divided government, spending grows worse than when we have a divided government. This was true under Dubya, and even more scarily true under Obama. That’s a perfectly valid point to make and it fits nicely with the chart above.
gahrie
My decision to stop giving money to Republican groups is largely due to the fact that they are nearly as bad as the Democrats when it comes to increased spending, pork and making government bigger.
Alasdair
(grin) As far as I know, there’s only 1 person in Congress who has a clean record on pork … and that includes Senate *and* House …
Care to guess which party he or she is in ?
dcl
I would guess your example depends on how you define pork.
If you define it without including defense spening you are missing a hell of a lot of pork.
I will now reiterate a previous question, why do we have a standing army? Certainly we don’t need one that costs as much as entire rest of the world spends, combined? I would seriously like to see that same chart with military spending broken out.
You’re right, Dane, let’s turn Ron Paul and stop being the world’s policeman. I’d love to see what kind of chaos ensues once China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea see us mothball our military!
To clarify, I do not dispute that military and intelligence budgets are loaded with things that can be construed as political goodies and pork, but that’s an entirely different issue than whining about the overall cost of having a preeminent military.
David K.
“I will now reiterate a previous question, why do we have a standing army? ”
Because countries that are not so friendly to us do? Because when shit hits the fan I want people ready at the drop of a hat to be able to respond? Because a modern army requires a ton of training and countless hours gathering intelligence? Not to mention planning and logistics?
Even if we get out of Iraq and Afghanistan I’d still rather we have an army just in case. Better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it.
But do we need to spend all the money we do on defense? Really? Couldn’t we defend ourselves spending half as much? I tend to think so. (And this is a bit of a gravy train question for me, seeing as my salary is paid for by this. But the question needs to be asked.)
David K.
@B. Minich – See now there you go being all reasonable and practical. There’s no place for that on the internet.
gahrie
But do we need to spend all the money we do on defense? Really? Couldn’t we defend ourselves spending half as much?
Probably. But if we did Europe would have to pick up some of their slack. We have been subsidizing their economies for 50 years by defending them.
We also spend a lot of resources protecting the nation’s sea lanes.
Well, Europe can have fun with that! Seriously, why should the US continue to pay to defend Europe. They can afford it!
gahrie
Well, Europe can have fun with that! Seriously, why should the US continue to pay to defend Europe. They can afford it!
The problem is, we had to spend a fortune in lives and resources twice last century to go clean up the mess Europe had gotten itself into. I firmly believe that it was only our presence in Europe that kept the reorganization of eastern europe from erupting into a much larger conflict.
Only Brendan would regard the kind of safe, standard politicking being proffered by the Republicans — the kind that is par for the course for both parties, and minority parties in any democracy, during election season — as more unserious about deficits and debt than the disastrous policies being enacted by this Democratic administration and Congress….
Casey
@Alasdair #4 — Trick question! It’s Lieberman, and he’s not in either party.
What do I win? And don’t say self respect. I want something of tangible monetary value.
Seriously, gahrie, you’d have us involved in every war in the world. I’m a grumpy isolationist at heart, who grudgingly accepts that some wars need to be entered into. But I want the US out of Afghanistan, Iraq (didn’t want us to go to Iraq in the first place), and I’d like us out yesterday, not throwing money into the Middle East.
Let me remind you, gahrie: Afghanistan has never been conquered. NEVER. Why were we arrogant enough to think it could be? The British Empire, during its heyday, couldn’t subdue it. The Soviets, in their heyday, couldn’t subdue it. Any reason to think we can do better? And if not, then WHY STAY THERE when we’ll just be leaving in disgrace anyway? Why not leave in disgrace and save some money.
(Man, I AM a grumpy isolationist! And I wasn’t even sure if any existed! I guess I do, so yes. At least one exists.)
Also, AML, a point here: neither party is serious. The Republicans are less so at the moment. They have no coherent plan that I can see. And they avoid the tough questions as if their lives depended on it. We have all this excess spending . . . but when asked about cuts, they don’t seem to say anything except “well, the Democrats are BAAAAD!”
I see that I have just posted comment 8200. I wonder what momentous thing I can say to commemorate this fact!
Well, me and my cat thank you for your patronage, for putting up with us, and we hope for many more productive commentings upon Brendan Loy’s venerable blog.
Also, as far as Lieberman goes . . . I think we should start sarcastically start calling him “The Sainted Joe”. Much like John Feinstein does with Tiger’s late father, who Feinstein thinks was a phony (and used this nickname during the Sainted Earl’s life). Seems doable!
gahrie
Also, AML, a point here: neither party is serious. The Republicans are less so at the moment. They have no coherent plan that I can see. And they avoid the tough questions as if their lives depended on it. We have all this excess spending . . . but when asked about cuts, they don’t seem to say anything except “well, the Democrats are BAAAAD!”
How about we just stop spending first, and then worry about cuts?
gahrie
In other words, the Democrats are determined not to waste a crisis, while the Republican base keep demanding that we fix the problem, while the Republican Party leadership dithers and/or sides with the Democrats.
Alasdair
Brendan #14 – and taking ThinkProgress.org as a credible source is a source of seriousness ???
From the article – one meaningful exchange stands out, and Gregory completely missed it … “MR. GREGORY: Will you repeal health care?
REP. SESSIONS: Let’s go right to it.”
Is that sufficiently specific ? Repeal Obamacare and that immediately cuts out $1.4T or so from the deficit, right ?
David K.
The difference AML? The Republicans lie about cutting spending, cut taxes and then spend more, mortgaging the future for present gain. The Democrats are at least straightforward, they want to pay for the programs they want to implement. I’ll take a misguided but honest person over a misguided dishonest one any day of the week.
Alasdair
The ad thing is that David K probably *does* have a straight face as he types “The Democrats are at least straightforward, they want to pay for the programs they want to implement.” …
Of course, those amongst us who are rational beings have noticed that the Democrats, while indeed being straightforward, actually want to pay for the programs they want to implement with *other* people’s money ! (and not with their own) …
gahrie
The Democrats are at least straightforward, they want to pay for the programs they want to implement.
*buzz* wrong.
You know that extension of unemployment benefits that the Republicans are accused of blocking? The real hold up is that Republicans are insisting that the Democrats pay for it somehow. If the Democrats would find a way to pay for it, the Republicans would support it, just like they supported the previous extensions.
The Democrats are at least straightforward, they want to pay for the programs they want to implement.
Really? Is that why, since Obama took over, we’re running almost a $2 trillion structural deficit? Man, I’d hate to see what that’d look like if they didn’t want to pay for the programs they’re implementing!
Since you seem to be a math person, let me break this down for you in geometric terms that you might be able to understand (since apparently basic economics escapes your grasp). If you look at a graph totaling the U.S. debt as a percentage of GDP, under Bush and the Republican Congress that line rises over time at roughly a 10 degree angle. Under Obama and the Dems, it’s been more like an 80 degree angle.
Tell me again which party is more serious about keeping spending in line with revenues?
David, I’ll have to disagree with you there. Have you heard any Democrats either:
1. suggest cuts or
2. suggest tax increases?
Because I have NOT. I don’t trust them either. They are just as dishonest as the Republicans here. The Democrats are NOT paying for their programs – they are just as pie in the sky as the GOP.
gahrie: you ask why we don’t just stop spending before we make cuts. Ummm, making cuts (or raising taxes) IS how we stop spending. You can’t just put a stop to the current levels of government spending without cutting something!
gahrie
You can’t just put a stop to the current levels of government spending without cutting something!
Why not? Just freeze all programs at current levels of funding for a couple of years and don’t create any new ones.
This would have the added bonus of making it possible to actually do their job and pass a budget..just pass last years.
This would also give Congress the time to spend a couple of years eliminating wasteful spending. (I’d begin with trimming Congressional staffs and expenses)
dcl
Okay, first, cutting spending in the middle of a recession / depression is arguably the wrong thing to do. And in a recession obviously GDP will drop, if spending simply goes un changed the % to GDP will instantly get worse. So, AML, that’s a rather specious argument.
That aside, I think the defense issue is valid and is a point to look at. I’m not saying the US shouldn’t have a complete and robust defense strategy. But lets face it, we are not going to actually control spending unless we look at what we spend the most money on.
The US has 11 active Aircraft Carriers, all classified as super carriers. The rest of the world has 11 total, and none are super carriers. The most any other nation has is 2 each for Italy and the UK. You can basically go down the line like this for every class of military hardware. We have more bigger better toys than anyone else. And in most cases everyone else combined.
Strategically a major attack on the United States needs a Navy (Unless you are honestly worried about an invasion by either Canada or Mexico (jokes aside)). US Naval superiority isn’t just massive, it’s basically absolute.
Our military is bigger and more expensive than the spending of the entire rest of the world combined. Not only that, it is ill equipped to actually handle the present threat. That of small terrorist organizations executing rather precise terrorist attacks.
We have a massive expensive military that is not capable of handling that which threatens us. This is a problem and this is stupid. We are still fighting the cold war, making sure we are ready to fight the USSR… Still thinking that the next war is going to be like WWII. This is stupid and this is wrong and this is a waist of money. If the next war is going to be like WWII it would take an obvious military buildup on behalf of the attacking party.
The question is why? The answer is pork. Defense contractors spend a lot on lobbying and make a lot from defense contracts. The problem is when you have a big ass military with lots of toys and a bunch of 20 year old (mostly) men sitting around getting paid and not doing much, you decide to have them do something. Then you spend more money on wars that don’t make any sense, are ill conceived, and poorly supported. This is the type of behavior that first builds empires and then destroys them.
But the US doesn’t have the stomach for the ethical issues of having a “empire” so we end up with a de facto empire that we can’t really control, and is bleeding us of lives and money and not making us safer, nor giving us any of the other benefits of having an empire, say cheep gas for everyone from Iraq… And the next step from build an empire because you have a standing army is collapse because you have a big empire and a massive military. Some times the collapse is epic, mostly you go out with a wimpier and a slow decline. But the result is always the same. CF the UK and Rome.
Again, the US defense budget is stupid. And we were able to respond to WWI and WWII without an absolutely massive and massively expensive standing army.
We need a different defense strategy. And part of that is not feeling like we need to be the military for the whole rest of the world. Unless they want to pay us for it.
dcl
Gahrie, congressional expenses are such a ridiculously small percentage of the budget that your suggestion is laughable. It’s also backwards, we should increase staff size and pay more to hold onto people that can do the job instead of the fawning resume padders just out of university. Then perhaps our representatives might know what the hell the vote is for, then we might save some rea money.
gahrie
Gahrie, congressional expenses are such a ridiculously small percentage of the budget that your suggestion is laughable. It’s also backwards, we should increase staff size
Wow..the traditional Democratic strategy of fiscal responsibility…hire more people and increase the size of government!
Reducing Congressional staff would save millions, provide powerful symbolism, show a real commitment to cutting spending and be a good start.
dcl
Never has the phrase “penny wise pound foolish” been more apt gharie, you’ve basically just proven you are not actually serious about cutting the budget. That, or you are incredibly naive and or stupid as to how Washington actually functions.
Your suggestion isn’t even too clever by half, it’s completely backwards stupid. It’s about as fiscally responsible as basing bonuses on how much someone bills instead of how much of those billings they actually collect. And less intelligent than eliminating the accounting department to save a company money. Seriously, nobody should let you be in charge of anything, it will be bankrupt in a week.
First, the amount of money you are talking about is less than 10 million in a multi Trillion dollar ball game. It’s not just a drop in the bucket, it’s a joke. The symbolism is useless because you cannot actually back it up with anything meaningful. Which I will explain in just a moment. And it shows a real commitment to being stupid. Seriously, there is no nice way to put this. Your idea is dumb. Seriously deeply unquestionably dumb.
First off, your representatives act in your name. Vote the bums out if you don’t think they are acing responsibly with their staff. Or lets make the additional staff you can hire be for one very specific and important job (I’ll get to this.) If the problem is endemic, fine lets change the way we elect or representatives. But lets not kid ourselves. Cutting staff will make the problem worse, and not by a little but by Billions with a B not millions with an m.
The problem we have in Washington with the budget is due, in no small part, to one very important misunderstanding. Nobody reads the fucking bills! Well, that’s not true. There is one group that is absolutely committed to reading every single page of every single bill with a fine tooth comb. These people are generally refereed to as “lobbyists” more specially, it’s the researchers at the lobbying firms. These are the only people that have the time to read them because they are paid specifically to do it. In some cases literally billions of dollars are on the line between a “may” and a “shall” a lot of them have law degrees and are paid quite a bit of money to do this and to make near poverty wages doesn’t stand a chance.
In other words, the problem right now is that the only people that know what is in every bill are the special interests (and I know everyone is a special interest, at some level, special interests aren’t bad per se, they are actually kind of important. I won’t be getting to this part, because it doesn’t matter in this discussion). Not the people that are voting on them. And the people voting on the bills get their information about what is in a bill and what it does not from their staff but from what they are told by the special interests. If there is no competing interest, which many times there isn’t, they get a rather lopsided view of what the bill is going to do.
So the point behind this is simple. Make sure the representatives know what the hell is in the bills they are voting on and you will save a metric fuck ton of money. Cut the staff so that they really have no idea what’s in this stuff and you will kiss good bye to any chance of getting spending under control. It’s like a sheep farmer deciding he’s going to save money by getting rid of his sheep dogs and sell his shotgun in an area infested by wolves. It’s just bone head stupid even if it has the symbolism of belt tightening to help save the farm, he will just go broke faster.
How do you fix this? You hire enough staff that you can actually functionally read all the stuff you are voting on and you pay them enough so that they aren’t all there simply to get their hill ticket punched so they can run off and make double the salary (or in most cases, more) at a lobbying firm in two years, which is seriously the goal of a massive number of congressional staffers, so they are trying to make a good impression on the lobbyists that come to see them–especially the ones that use to work for their boss. Congressional staffs get paid dick in a town that is very expensive to live in, very few of them are doing this out of high minded idealism. They get burned out they go work for a lobbying firm, get paid a hell of a lot more money and work a lot less. Depending on who you worked for and doing what and how good the lawyers at your firm are, one phone call and you can save a client 100 million dollars with a near in detectable change in a bill that nobody is reading anyway. Do you have any idea how much those kinds of phone calls cost?
Does this some how not make sense to you? More people actually minding the store and reading the bills equals less money waisted. I would say 10 million dollars is worth paying if we save 10 billion doing it.
Hell, spending 1 billion dollars every 2 years to publicly finance campaigns would seem worth it if by so doing we could save 500 billion or more a year.
gahrie
So the point behind this is simple. Make sure the representatives know what the hell is in the bills they are voting on and you will save a metric fuck ton of money. Cut the staff so that they really have no idea what’s in this stuff and you will kiss good bye to any chance of getting spending under control
I agree that we should force the Congress to know what the hell is in the bill. But I have a much simpler way to accomplish this: MAKE THEM ACTUALLY READ THE BILLS
Get rid of omnibus bills. Place a limit on the length of bills. Make Congress follow the laws they pass.
So if increasing Congressional staffs is the solution, lets just hire ten or twenty thousand more and really get some savings. Of course, that will mean the lobbyists will hire more staff, so Congress will need to hire even more to deal with them….
How much government is enough? How much is too much? Why is it that members of congress in the past didn’t need huge staffs?
Alasdair
gahrie #32 – “Make Congress follow the laws they pass.” – that was the gist of HR 1 in 1995 …
And our Congressional Representatives and Senators are supposed to read legislation before they debate it and before they vote on it … it would be a very sensible Bill to have enacted that requires Federal Legislators to read any bill that they are going to vote on before the actual vote … and, if that slows down the consideration of the legislators, then so be it – it is their job to craft good legislation, not just to pass the first half-democrat‘d attempt put before them …
dcl
Okay, unless you are a moron you must recognize that the job of running the US is sufficiently complex to require staff and that Congress persons cannot be expert in all matters that they must make informed decisions on requiring staff that is expert in specific areas.
So a staff of sufficient size and paid well enough to not have one foot out the door and expert in the various areas that Congress is responsible for should serve to help Congress make better more informed decisions. And by so doing save us money. And in relation to the size of the budget we are asking these people to vote on I don’t think it’s wrong to say we should put up the money to make that possible.
And “make them read the bills” is ridiculous. I’m serious. Even if they wanted to it’s impossible. There are too many demands on the congress persons time to make that remotely feasible. Besides better to let them hire experts in defense, or transportation, or whatever to read the bills in certain areas and tell them what this stuff actually means. You know the saying, don’t bring a knife to a gunfight.
gahrie
Problem: Government is too big and spends too much money
dcl’s and the left’s solution?: Make the government bigger and spend more money!
gahrie, I’m partially with dcl on this one. As a former congressional staffer making $25k a year, I can guarantee you that cutting staff budgets is the wrong way to go on this one. Between minimum wage staff being forced to work 60-hour weeks and the hordes of interns, I simply don’t understand the hostility towards the congressional staffer workforce. Not to mention, if you surveyed people who have dealt with their congressman’s office (for flags, or Capitol tours, or help with a federal agency), you’d find an extremely high satisfaction rate — probably the only place where government staff are held in high esteem.
If you want a solution that directly impacts congressional behavior and spending, the better idea would be to eliminate the exemption which allows for rules that apply to the rest of the government employees to not apply to legislative staff. Let legislative staff unionize, be paid a fair hourly rate, become impossible to fire, and get paid OT, and just watch how quickly Congress begins fixing the moronic rule set by which the rest of government operates.
On the flip side, what dcl said in #28 is so laughably nearsighted, naive, simplistic, and ignorant, it’s not worth responding to in any significant detail. So I’m back to being with gahrie and the rest of the people on this blog who aren’t being blithering idiots about the military.
“4. New spending on bombing Afghanistan until it turns into Connecticut”
Wow, I never knew growing up in Connecticut was so rough. I mean if a bombed out Afghanistan is like Connecticut thats sayin something about the ol Nutmeg State 🙂
Indeed, when it comes to spending, the difference is between tweedle dum (Republicans), and tweedle dumber (Democrats). Hence why many of us are glad to see the Tea Party wreak havoc in the GOP primaries and upset the establishment apple cart. Unfortunately, a similar revolution in the Democratic Party is nigh impossible.
Also, in somewhat limited defense of Sen. Cornyn, Williamson completely ignores Cornyn’s explanation of why Republicans under Obama are (or will be) different than Republicans under Bush. Cornyn rightly notes that in situations where we do not have divided government, spending grows worse than when we have a divided government. This was true under Dubya, and even more scarily true under Obama. That’s a perfectly valid point to make and it fits nicely with the chart above.
My decision to stop giving money to Republican groups is largely due to the fact that they are nearly as bad as the Democrats when it comes to increased spending, pork and making government bigger.
(grin) As far as I know, there’s only 1 person in Congress who has a clean record on pork … and that includes Senate *and* House …
Care to guess which party he or she is in ?
I would guess your example depends on how you define pork.
If you define it without including defense spening you are missing a hell of a lot of pork.
I will now reiterate a previous question, why do we have a standing army? Certainly we don’t need one that costs as much as entire rest of the world spends, combined? I would seriously like to see that same chart with military spending broken out.
You’re right, Dane, let’s turn Ron Paul and stop being the world’s policeman. I’d love to see what kind of chaos ensues once China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea see us mothball our military!
To clarify, I do not dispute that military and intelligence budgets are loaded with things that can be construed as political goodies and pork, but that’s an entirely different issue than whining about the overall cost of having a preeminent military.
“I will now reiterate a previous question, why do we have a standing army? ”
Because countries that are not so friendly to us do? Because when shit hits the fan I want people ready at the drop of a hat to be able to respond? Because a modern army requires a ton of training and countless hours gathering intelligence? Not to mention planning and logistics?
Even if we get out of Iraq and Afghanistan I’d still rather we have an army just in case. Better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it.
I agree: we should have a standing army.
But do we need to spend all the money we do on defense? Really? Couldn’t we defend ourselves spending half as much? I tend to think so. (And this is a bit of a gravy train question for me, seeing as my salary is paid for by this. But the question needs to be asked.)
@B. Minich – See now there you go being all reasonable and practical. There’s no place for that on the internet.
But do we need to spend all the money we do on defense? Really? Couldn’t we defend ourselves spending half as much?
Probably. But if we did Europe would have to pick up some of their slack. We have been subsidizing their economies for 50 years by defending them.
We also spend a lot of resources protecting the nation’s sea lanes.
Frankly, I’d rather eliminate the U.N.
Well, Europe can have fun with that! Seriously, why should the US continue to pay to defend Europe. They can afford it!
Well, Europe can have fun with that! Seriously, why should the US continue to pay to defend Europe. They can afford it!
The problem is, we had to spend a fortune in lives and resources twice last century to go clean up the mess Europe had gotten itself into. I firmly believe that it was only our presence in Europe that kept the reorganization of eastern europe from erupting into a much larger conflict.
Back on the original topic for a moment, here’s more proof of the Republicans’ utter unseriousness with regard to the budget.
Only Brendan would regard the kind of safe, standard politicking being proffered by the Republicans — the kind that is par for the course for both parties, and minority parties in any democracy, during election season — as more unserious about deficits and debt than the disastrous policies being enacted by this Democratic administration and Congress….
@Alasdair #4 — Trick question! It’s Lieberman, and he’s not in either party.
What do I win? And don’t say self respect. I want something of tangible monetary value.
Aaaaand that’s our problem because?
Seriously, gahrie, you’d have us involved in every war in the world. I’m a grumpy isolationist at heart, who grudgingly accepts that some wars need to be entered into. But I want the US out of Afghanistan, Iraq (didn’t want us to go to Iraq in the first place), and I’d like us out yesterday, not throwing money into the Middle East.
Let me remind you, gahrie: Afghanistan has never been conquered. NEVER. Why were we arrogant enough to think it could be? The British Empire, during its heyday, couldn’t subdue it. The Soviets, in their heyday, couldn’t subdue it. Any reason to think we can do better? And if not, then WHY STAY THERE when we’ll just be leaving in disgrace anyway? Why not leave in disgrace and save some money.
(Man, I AM a grumpy isolationist! And I wasn’t even sure if any existed! I guess I do, so yes. At least one exists.)
Also, AML, a point here: neither party is serious. The Republicans are less so at the moment. They have no coherent plan that I can see. And they avoid the tough questions as if their lives depended on it. We have all this excess spending . . . but when asked about cuts, they don’t seem to say anything except “well, the Democrats are BAAAAD!”
I see that I have just posted comment 8200. I wonder what momentous thing I can say to commemorate this fact!
Well, me and my cat thank you for your patronage, for putting up with us, and we hope for many more productive commentings upon Brendan Loy’s venerable blog.
Also, as far as Lieberman goes . . . I think we should start sarcastically start calling him “The Sainted Joe”. Much like John Feinstein does with Tiger’s late father, who Feinstein thinks was a phony (and used this nickname during the Sainted Earl’s life). Seems doable!
Also, AML, a point here: neither party is serious. The Republicans are less so at the moment. They have no coherent plan that I can see. And they avoid the tough questions as if their lives depended on it. We have all this excess spending . . . but when asked about cuts, they don’t seem to say anything except “well, the Democrats are BAAAAD!”
How about we just stop spending first, and then worry about cuts?
In other words, the Democrats are determined not to waste a crisis, while the Republican base keep demanding that we fix the problem, while the Republican Party leadership dithers and/or sides with the Democrats.
Brendan #14 – and taking ThinkProgress.org as a credible source is a source of seriousness ???
From the article – one meaningful exchange stands out, and Gregory completely missed it … “MR. GREGORY: Will you repeal health care?
REP. SESSIONS: Let’s go right to it.”
Is that sufficiently specific ? Repeal Obamacare and that immediately cuts out $1.4T or so from the deficit, right ?
The difference AML? The Republicans lie about cutting spending, cut taxes and then spend more, mortgaging the future for present gain. The Democrats are at least straightforward, they want to pay for the programs they want to implement. I’ll take a misguided but honest person over a misguided dishonest one any day of the week.
The ad thing is that David K probably *does* have a straight face as he types “The Democrats are at least straightforward, they want to pay for the programs they want to implement.” …
Of course, those amongst us who are rational beings have noticed that the Democrats, while indeed being straightforward, actually want to pay for the programs they want to implement with *other* people’s money ! (and not with their own) …
The Democrats are at least straightforward, they want to pay for the programs they want to implement.
*buzz* wrong.
You know that extension of unemployment benefits that the Republicans are accused of blocking? The real hold up is that Republicans are insisting that the Democrats pay for it somehow. If the Democrats would find a way to pay for it, the Republicans would support it, just like they supported the previous extensions.
The Democrats are at least straightforward, they want to pay for the programs they want to implement.
Really? Is that why, since Obama took over, we’re running almost a $2 trillion structural deficit? Man, I’d hate to see what that’d look like if they didn’t want to pay for the programs they’re implementing!
Since you seem to be a math person, let me break this down for you in geometric terms that you might be able to understand (since apparently basic economics escapes your grasp). If you look at a graph totaling the U.S. debt as a percentage of GDP, under Bush and the Republican Congress that line rises over time at roughly a 10 degree angle. Under Obama and the Dems, it’s been more like an 80 degree angle.
Tell me again which party is more serious about keeping spending in line with revenues?
David, I’ll have to disagree with you there. Have you heard any Democrats either:
1. suggest cuts or
2. suggest tax increases?
Because I have NOT. I don’t trust them either. They are just as dishonest as the Republicans here. The Democrats are NOT paying for their programs – they are just as pie in the sky as the GOP.
gahrie: you ask why we don’t just stop spending before we make cuts. Ummm, making cuts (or raising taxes) IS how we stop spending. You can’t just put a stop to the current levels of government spending without cutting something!
You can’t just put a stop to the current levels of government spending without cutting something!
Why not? Just freeze all programs at current levels of funding for a couple of years and don’t create any new ones.
This would have the added bonus of making it possible to actually do their job and pass a budget..just pass last years.
This would also give Congress the time to spend a couple of years eliminating wasteful spending. (I’d begin with trimming Congressional staffs and expenses)
Okay, first, cutting spending in the middle of a recession / depression is arguably the wrong thing to do. And in a recession obviously GDP will drop, if spending simply goes un changed the % to GDP will instantly get worse. So, AML, that’s a rather specious argument.
That aside, I think the defense issue is valid and is a point to look at. I’m not saying the US shouldn’t have a complete and robust defense strategy. But lets face it, we are not going to actually control spending unless we look at what we spend the most money on.
The US has 11 active Aircraft Carriers, all classified as super carriers. The rest of the world has 11 total, and none are super carriers. The most any other nation has is 2 each for Italy and the UK. You can basically go down the line like this for every class of military hardware. We have more bigger better toys than anyone else. And in most cases everyone else combined.
Strategically a major attack on the United States needs a Navy (Unless you are honestly worried about an invasion by either Canada or Mexico (jokes aside)). US Naval superiority isn’t just massive, it’s basically absolute.
Our military is bigger and more expensive than the spending of the entire rest of the world combined. Not only that, it is ill equipped to actually handle the present threat. That of small terrorist organizations executing rather precise terrorist attacks.
We have a massive expensive military that is not capable of handling that which threatens us. This is a problem and this is stupid. We are still fighting the cold war, making sure we are ready to fight the USSR… Still thinking that the next war is going to be like WWII. This is stupid and this is wrong and this is a waist of money. If the next war is going to be like WWII it would take an obvious military buildup on behalf of the attacking party.
The question is why? The answer is pork. Defense contractors spend a lot on lobbying and make a lot from defense contracts. The problem is when you have a big ass military with lots of toys and a bunch of 20 year old (mostly) men sitting around getting paid and not doing much, you decide to have them do something. Then you spend more money on wars that don’t make any sense, are ill conceived, and poorly supported. This is the type of behavior that first builds empires and then destroys them.
But the US doesn’t have the stomach for the ethical issues of having a “empire” so we end up with a de facto empire that we can’t really control, and is bleeding us of lives and money and not making us safer, nor giving us any of the other benefits of having an empire, say cheep gas for everyone from Iraq… And the next step from build an empire because you have a standing army is collapse because you have a big empire and a massive military. Some times the collapse is epic, mostly you go out with a wimpier and a slow decline. But the result is always the same. CF the UK and Rome.
Again, the US defense budget is stupid. And we were able to respond to WWI and WWII without an absolutely massive and massively expensive standing army.
We need a different defense strategy. And part of that is not feeling like we need to be the military for the whole rest of the world. Unless they want to pay us for it.
Gahrie, congressional expenses are such a ridiculously small percentage of the budget that your suggestion is laughable. It’s also backwards, we should increase staff size and pay more to hold onto people that can do the job instead of the fawning resume padders just out of university. Then perhaps our representatives might know what the hell the vote is for, then we might save some rea money.
Gahrie, congressional expenses are such a ridiculously small percentage of the budget that your suggestion is laughable. It’s also backwards, we should increase staff size
Wow..the traditional Democratic strategy of fiscal responsibility…hire more people and increase the size of government!
Reducing Congressional staff would save millions, provide powerful symbolism, show a real commitment to cutting spending and be a good start.
Never has the phrase “penny wise pound foolish” been more apt gharie, you’ve basically just proven you are not actually serious about cutting the budget. That, or you are incredibly naive and or stupid as to how Washington actually functions.
Your suggestion isn’t even too clever by half, it’s completely backwards stupid. It’s about as fiscally responsible as basing bonuses on how much someone bills instead of how much of those billings they actually collect. And less intelligent than eliminating the accounting department to save a company money. Seriously, nobody should let you be in charge of anything, it will be bankrupt in a week.
First, the amount of money you are talking about is less than 10 million in a multi Trillion dollar ball game. It’s not just a drop in the bucket, it’s a joke. The symbolism is useless because you cannot actually back it up with anything meaningful. Which I will explain in just a moment. And it shows a real commitment to being stupid. Seriously, there is no nice way to put this. Your idea is dumb. Seriously deeply unquestionably dumb.
First off, your representatives act in your name. Vote the bums out if you don’t think they are acing responsibly with their staff. Or lets make the additional staff you can hire be for one very specific and important job (I’ll get to this.) If the problem is endemic, fine lets change the way we elect or representatives. But lets not kid ourselves. Cutting staff will make the problem worse, and not by a little but by Billions with a B not millions with an m.
The problem we have in Washington with the budget is due, in no small part, to one very important misunderstanding. Nobody reads the fucking bills! Well, that’s not true. There is one group that is absolutely committed to reading every single page of every single bill with a fine tooth comb. These people are generally refereed to as “lobbyists” more specially, it’s the researchers at the lobbying firms. These are the only people that have the time to read them because they are paid specifically to do it. In some cases literally billions of dollars are on the line between a “may” and a “shall” a lot of them have law degrees and are paid quite a bit of money to do this and to make near poverty wages doesn’t stand a chance.
In other words, the problem right now is that the only people that know what is in every bill are the special interests (and I know everyone is a special interest, at some level, special interests aren’t bad per se, they are actually kind of important. I won’t be getting to this part, because it doesn’t matter in this discussion). Not the people that are voting on them. And the people voting on the bills get their information about what is in a bill and what it does not from their staff but from what they are told by the special interests. If there is no competing interest, which many times there isn’t, they get a rather lopsided view of what the bill is going to do.
So the point behind this is simple. Make sure the representatives know what the hell is in the bills they are voting on and you will save a metric fuck ton of money. Cut the staff so that they really have no idea what’s in this stuff and you will kiss good bye to any chance of getting spending under control. It’s like a sheep farmer deciding he’s going to save money by getting rid of his sheep dogs and sell his shotgun in an area infested by wolves. It’s just bone head stupid even if it has the symbolism of belt tightening to help save the farm, he will just go broke faster.
How do you fix this? You hire enough staff that you can actually functionally read all the stuff you are voting on and you pay them enough so that they aren’t all there simply to get their hill ticket punched so they can run off and make double the salary (or in most cases, more) at a lobbying firm in two years, which is seriously the goal of a massive number of congressional staffers, so they are trying to make a good impression on the lobbyists that come to see them–especially the ones that use to work for their boss. Congressional staffs get paid dick in a town that is very expensive to live in, very few of them are doing this out of high minded idealism. They get burned out they go work for a lobbying firm, get paid a hell of a lot more money and work a lot less. Depending on who you worked for and doing what and how good the lawyers at your firm are, one phone call and you can save a client 100 million dollars with a near in detectable change in a bill that nobody is reading anyway. Do you have any idea how much those kinds of phone calls cost?
Does this some how not make sense to you? More people actually minding the store and reading the bills equals less money waisted. I would say 10 million dollars is worth paying if we save 10 billion doing it.
Hell, spending 1 billion dollars every 2 years to publicly finance campaigns would seem worth it if by so doing we could save 500 billion or more a year.
So the point behind this is simple. Make sure the representatives know what the hell is in the bills they are voting on and you will save a metric fuck ton of money. Cut the staff so that they really have no idea what’s in this stuff and you will kiss good bye to any chance of getting spending under control
I agree that we should force the Congress to know what the hell is in the bill. But I have a much simpler way to accomplish this: MAKE THEM ACTUALLY READ THE BILLS
Get rid of omnibus bills. Place a limit on the length of bills. Make Congress follow the laws they pass.
So if increasing Congressional staffs is the solution, lets just hire ten or twenty thousand more and really get some savings. Of course, that will mean the lobbyists will hire more staff, so Congress will need to hire even more to deal with them….
How much government is enough? How much is too much? Why is it that members of congress in the past didn’t need huge staffs?
gahrie #32 – “Make Congress follow the laws they pass.” – that was the gist of HR 1 in 1995 …
And our Congressional Representatives and Senators are supposed to read legislation before they debate it and before they vote on it … it would be a very sensible Bill to have enacted that requires Federal Legislators to read any bill that they are going to vote on before the actual vote … and, if that slows down the consideration of the legislators, then so be it – it is their job to craft good legislation, not just to pass the first half-democrat‘d attempt put before them …
Okay, unless you are a moron you must recognize that the job of running the US is sufficiently complex to require staff and that Congress persons cannot be expert in all matters that they must make informed decisions on requiring staff that is expert in specific areas.
So a staff of sufficient size and paid well enough to not have one foot out the door and expert in the various areas that Congress is responsible for should serve to help Congress make better more informed decisions. And by so doing save us money. And in relation to the size of the budget we are asking these people to vote on I don’t think it’s wrong to say we should put up the money to make that possible.
And “make them read the bills” is ridiculous. I’m serious. Even if they wanted to it’s impossible. There are too many demands on the congress persons time to make that remotely feasible. Besides better to let them hire experts in defense, or transportation, or whatever to read the bills in certain areas and tell them what this stuff actually means. You know the saying, don’t bring a knife to a gunfight.
Problem: Government is too big and spends too much money
dcl’s and the left’s solution?: Make the government bigger and spend more money!
gahrie, I’m partially with dcl on this one. As a former congressional staffer making $25k a year, I can guarantee you that cutting staff budgets is the wrong way to go on this one. Between minimum wage staff being forced to work 60-hour weeks and the hordes of interns, I simply don’t understand the hostility towards the congressional staffer workforce. Not to mention, if you surveyed people who have dealt with their congressman’s office (for flags, or Capitol tours, or help with a federal agency), you’d find an extremely high satisfaction rate — probably the only place where government staff are held in high esteem.
If you want a solution that directly impacts congressional behavior and spending, the better idea would be to eliminate the exemption which allows for rules that apply to the rest of the government employees to not apply to legislative staff. Let legislative staff unionize, be paid a fair hourly rate, become impossible to fire, and get paid OT, and just watch how quickly Congress begins fixing the moronic rule set by which the rest of government operates.
On the flip side, what dcl said in #28 is so laughably nearsighted, naive, simplistic, and ignorant, it’s not worth responding to in any significant detail. So I’m back to being with gahrie and the rest of the people on this blog who aren’t being blithering idiots about the military.