Obama calls for compromise on debt
President Barack Obama said on Monday a temporary six-month extension of debt ceiling does not solve the problem and might not be enough to avoid credit downgrade.
Obama said he has told leaders of both parties they must come with a fair compromise in the news few days that can pass Congress.
The President wants to be able to pin the blame on big spending and higher borrowing, increasing the national debt, on Republicans. He doesn’t want it to still be on the table for the 2012 election cycle, which is the real reason he doesn’t want only a six month extension…. he knows that in six months, he’ll look even worse.
The truth, of course is that a six month extension that matches debt ceiling raises to REAL, RIGHT NOW CUTS, not future pie-in-the-sky maybe cuts, is ITSELF a compromise between the Republicans and the Democrats.
But compromising with Democrats is usually a one way street. You compromise. They don’t. Then they insist you compromise some more, taking your compromised position as the new bargaining starting point.
As Erick Ericson points out, we’ve had 17 debt commissions, and innumerable promises to study future cuts in the last decades. It’s ALWAYS a smokescreen to pretend something is being done while protecting the status quo, or taxing/spending/borrowing even more.
In Washington speak, a CUT is simply a reduction in spending INCREASES planned for the future. Get it? If you planned to increase your spending by 20% next year, and only increase it by 10%, you get to call THAT a CUT in the beltway…. when in fact it is an INCREASE, still.
Liar, liar, pants on fire, Mr. President.
July 26th, 2011 6:26 am
Ok, I am going to disagree with you on one thing because there is probably something you didnt consider. When it comes to government budgets there are times it is actually logical and even reasonable to refer to slashing a planned increase as a cut even though you are spending more.
For example, costs go up on many things all the time. Now obviously costs going up from obama care are because of this brand new entitlement and that alone. But other things do naturally trend up. Why is that? Well, why do food and gas cost more now than they did fifty years ago? Thats just how it works.
Prisons cost way more now too, higher population, a general lower moral standard, and more rights for inmates means more prisoners more guards more walls more everything. Its like this reverse to supply and demand, the more you supply the more is demanded by the public.
Regardless of the reasons why costs trend up quarter to quarter, so reducing increases is viewed as a cut because its not like you were salivating for that increase, its always trending up, so getting it to go down is a big deal worth noting.
Ill give you an example that I ran into at work. I wanted to change the way I order glasses at the prison to cut out all the unnecessary paperwork as its a rather routine expenditure. Well part of that process was reviewing past and future costs with the budget analyst. She was shocked to see costs had dropped by 1000 bucks a month over the year prior. I explained how some of the processes had changed and how we had eliminated the backlog in optometry and cosmetic restrictions we had done etc. They were really shocked to see something actually go DOWN, at best other things just go up less. Its really different how public service spending works in practice, not always bad mind you, just not what one would expect.
July 26th, 2011 9:55 am
Oh, I agree that reducing planned spending is usually good. What I object to is the language of CUTS. Have you ever seen two senators, one Democrat and one Republican, on national TV, with the Democrat accusing the Republican of “cutting spending on school lunches” or some such drivel, while the Republican says, “no, we increased spending”, and there is never an explanation by the “journalist”, so we’re left with he said/she said, and no real understanding of who is lying?
It’s because both the Republican and the journalist let the Democrat get away with calling a decrease in the increase a “CUT”. It’s just a lie to talk that way, unless the full phrase is used, “cutting SOME of the increase we had planned to make, but still increasing some anyway”. But no one ever does that.
July 26th, 2011 2:51 pm
Here’s a radical idea. It wouldn’t reduce the national debt but would be of symbolic importance. Every major government official from the President, Speaker of the House, cabinet members, etc. (minus the small fish interns, of course) should donate their annual salaries to social security, medicare (they can choose). I have never lived in an era when people mistrusted or completely loathed the government in such a way as now. This debt debacle could easily by the final push over the cliff.
July 26th, 2011 7:27 pm
To me it would make alot more sense if the journalist, or anyone to be honest, would put the cuts/increases into context. For example, school lunches were going to be more expensive due to increase in price of food, materials, and labor. The “cuts” in costs were that we chose to buy food from a cheaper vendor, repaired rather than replaced our equipment, and furloughed our staff. It stills costs more than last year because food prices are up even though the vendors take is less, repairing equipment still costs money though it was less than buying new, and labor costs actually increased because overtime had to fill behind the furloughed staff….
Thats a micro example but a plausible one. Real cuts are removing missions altogether. Like a true cut would be removing so called rehabilitation programs in prisons for lifers, whats the point anyways? Simply redrawing how they recieve them only moves the money around.
July 26th, 2011 7:29 pm
Also I dont inow why we offer massage therapy to prisoners either… eh sorry to take your blog off topic just had to add that.
July 27th, 2011 11:06 am
Wow. Massage therapy? That would be a splurge luxury for most of us.
July 27th, 2011 1:27 pm
Hey Anthony, since the point of the post is government waste, that’s exactly on topic.
July 27th, 2011 4:59 pm
Oh yeah thats true, I just didnt want to hijack your point on prison stuff. To clarify on the massage therapy, I am told that we offer classes and services to our protective custody customers, at my prison anyways. Those are the ones that we segregate for their protection, usually its because they are sex offenders or gang dropouts.
July 30th, 2011 11:38 am
I wish you had a like button for your posts, Phil. Excellent analysis. I wish more Republicans in the House and Senate would have the same understanding. They will be blamed no matter what, so why not take this moment as an opportunity to stand up for what is right and take it directly to Obama. That’s the one thing I liked about Donald Trump’s momentary appearance in politics. He knew exactly how to handle President Obama, and it worked.
August 5th, 2011 5:49 pm
Trump sure is a jerk and a half but perhaps that is what we need right now.