I don’t generally pay attention to Brooks. I do generally pay attention to Megan McArdle, and today McArdle is leaning heavily Brooksward:
If the GOP doesn't cut a deal sometime pretty soon, we're either going to default on our debt (hello, financial crisis, unemployment spike, substantial and immediate drop in GDP, followed by an angry mob of voters descending on their polling places with pitchforks)…
Defaulting on our debt would be unconstitutional, but never mind that now. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: how can it possibly be that our federal government, as massive and expensive as it is, would have to – be forced into – defaulting on debt?
…or we're going to cut a bunch of programs that beneficiaries are very attached to. (Hello, angry mob of seniors descending on their representatives with machetes.)
As one who believes we could cut the federal budget in half tomorrow without anyone actually noticing, I find that hard to believe.
Here’s the real question: how much money do they need? To continue making debt service payments without having to cut elsewhere? Or to continue making debt payments while cutting only into secondary, nonessential programs? How much is it?
Really, it shouldn’t be anything at all. Taking out more debt in order to pay our existing debts without changing our lifestyles at all should never, ever become even a hypothetical “necessity.” But, fine. Let’s stipulate: we need more. How much?
Without that information, this debate is he-said, she-said. One side says we’ll need massive cuts to important programs, the other side says no we won’t. Unless we know how much, we can’t ever tell who’s right.
UPDATE - over at Right Wing News: That's what I've been saying!
UPDATE II - First John Lennon, then Bill Clinton, now...Paul Ryan? Talking to Laura Ingraham about Brooks' column, Ryan said:
RYAN: What happens if you do what (Brooks is) saying, is then you can’t lower tax rates. So it does affect marginal tax rates. In order to lower marginal tax rates, you have to take away those loopholes so you can lower those tax rates. If you want to do what we call being revenue neutral …
Bill Clinton just said exactly the same thing!
[...] UPDATE - Now at The Trog: Megan McArdle leaning heavily toward David Brooks on debt ceiling talks [...]
ReplyDeleteSilly man, people will notice. People who do the God's work that the Federal government performs. You think the "beneficiaries" of Federal programs are the people who receive government services? The beneficiaries are the employees receiving the paychecks and benefits.
ReplyDeleteAnd they will not go gently into that good unemployment line.
You think the “beneficiaries” of Federal programs are the people who receive government services?
ReplyDeleteOf course they are. The beneficiaries are your Mama.
On another note, can anyone explain why hedge fund managers, who sometimes make hundreds of millions in one year, get to pay tax at the cap gains rate and I don't? Is it class warfare to ask a question like that?
You know what this current crowd of GOP liars want is to turn the United Sates into China, where only a few giant corporations run things, they own the factories, the apartments, the grocery stores, the gas stations, the newspaper and magazine publications, the radio stations, the television stations and you pay them and they get all the benefits, and if you do not like it go jump off cliff. Well some Chinese workers seeing that as individuals that they cannot progress have done just that by committing suicide.
ReplyDeleteThe current crowd of GOP liars want to steal Medicare from the elderly, they want to abolish a woman’s right to choose and have control over her own body, they want to abolish collective bargaining rights for our Unions, and on top of it all they want to blame the poor, the middle class and the public sector workers for a recession that the GOP created (Thanks to the Dullard “W”), while their beloved “Fat cats” continue to pay themselves exorbitant salaries, bonuses, fringe benefits.
The GOP is like the “Chicken Littles” always saying that the “Sky is Falling”, like the same ones that were the “Chicken Hawks” (“W” Wars), big talk no courage.
The United States, favors creativity wherever it can be found. We’re apostles of prosperity and defenders of the free exchange of ideas and when more people in more countries are free to rise, to invent, to communicate, to dissent, it’s not the doom of United States leadership, its the triumph of the American way.
Generations have worked hard and sacrificed much for the country to reach this point (individuals and our Unions that represented our poor, the middle class and public sector workers), and with further hard work and sacrifice (along with our relentless self-doubt) the United States will rise again, we do not tire and we are coming back, no matter what Fox news and their GOP “Chicken Littles” lackies keep saying about our nation. The win in New York was the beginning but the next will be Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin and later the other states of our nation, Never Bet Against the United States, watch out GOP, we are coming for you!
true... you know what they say...Money is like a sixth sense - and you cant make use of the other five without it
ReplyDelete