Tag: GOP

Making it Up

Across several posts, Dean Baker lays into the dread Liberal Media for just plain making it up when it comes to pushing their preferred, center-right “cut deficits now” agenda.

On the Washington Post:

“The national debt will exceed the size of the entire U.S. economy by 2021 — and balloon to nearly 200 percent of GDP within 25 years — without dramatic cuts to federal health and retirement programs or steep tax increases, congressional budget analysts said Wednesday.”

Actually, this is not what the projections showed. The CBO projections showed that if Congress simply followed current law, letting the Bush tax cuts expire, not fixing the alternative minimum tax, and most importantly, allowing the spending caps in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to remain in place, then the debt to GDP ratio will soon stabilize and head downwards.

On the New York Times:

“The national debt is on pace to equal the annual size of the economy within a decade, levels that could provoke a European-style crisis unless policymakers take action on the federal deficit, according to a report by the Congressional Budget Office.”

This is not true. The CBO report did not warn of “a European-style crisis.” The reason it did not is that a European style crisis does not make sense in the context of the United States. The United States can never be like Greece or Ireland for the simply reason that we print out own currency.

In the event that we actually ran up against serious constraints in credit markets the United States would have the option to have the Fed buy up its debt. Greece and Ireland do not have this option. This could create a risk of inflation, but there is not the risk of insolvency that euro zone governments face.

On NPR:

In the top of the hour news segment on Morning Edition, NPR told listeners that the Congressional Budget Office warned that the national debt will soon equal the annual size of the economy and this could lead to a European-style crisis [see: New York Times above].

This is critically important stuff. Deep cuts right now will strangle the economy and deeply hurt Obama’s chance at reelection to boot. This, coupled with the knowledge that as conditions improve, the ability (in the form of public desire) to make huge cuts to the social safety net will diminish precipitously is precisely why the GOP is for deep cuts now. They know that doing nothing and simply letting the Bush tax cuts expire will do more for improved deficits than almost any of the “plans” on the table. The CBO has said so again and again. These “plans” are not and never will be about the deficit. They are about pushing a preferred social agenda. Period. We just can’t get anyone in the media to break free from their “view from nowhere, compromise must always be the preferable, serious person postion” lens for long enough to get them to even report the simple facts of the case at hand.

tl;dr: We’re doomed. There will be a default. Maybe not this time, but soon. Once you’ve set up the terms of debate such that they always include wrangling over lifting the debt ceiling and treating it essentially as a hostage situation, then you’ve created a system that, sooner or later, someone will push too far for their own purely political purposes. And when that happens it will be the end of America as we’ve known it. And I suspect that will be happening pretty damned soon.

Making it Up

Rep. Anthony Weiner of New York will step down from office amid intense pressure from congressional Democrats following his admission of risque online chats and photo swaps with multiple women and lying about it.

ABC News reports, you decide. What’s remarkable here is the “intense pressure from congressional Democrats” bit. A member of the GOP caucus could strangle somebody to death on the floor of the House and you’d have little more than an annoyed shrug on the part of either leadership. But let a Democrat sext somebody not-his-wife: hell to pay (though, presumably the same faux pearl clutching outrage would have been mustered if he were still single).
Meanwhile, Tom Coburn orchestrated illegal payoffs to Ensign’s cuckolded friend and, well, I’m sure he was working in the best interests of his Personal Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Let’s just leave it there. Keep walking. Some things in life are meant to be mysterious.

If a bondholder misses a payment for a day or two or three or four — what is more important is you are putting the government in a materially better position to better pay its bills going forward.

Paul Ryan being serious and courageous and, yet again, showing just how absolutely determined the GOP is at all levels, extreme far right or merely far right, to have a default on the debt of the United States. Why, we’ll barely notice it’s even happened.
It’s the only way they see getting the White House in 2012. It’s been the plan all along. They assume Obama will get the “egg on his face” and they’re probably right. Once in control it’s goodbye filibuster (assuming the Democrats lose the Senate), goodbye social safety net, and hello freedom is just as free as what of it you can afford to buy. After that, when the money’s gone: kindly go die in the streets.
But hey, taxes will be pretty low. On the already rich, anyway.

Default Already Hitting Pocketbooks

The GOP’s hostage taking re: the debt ceiling is already causing ripple effects in the economy:

As of late May, the number of CDS contracts — essentially insurance policies on the possibility of a default — had risen by 82 percent. Equally as important, the cost of a CDS — the best indication of how much riskier U.S. debt has become — rose by more than 35 percent from April to May. Last week I spoke to a number of people who calculate such things for a living, and they said this change means that the interest rate the U.S. government has to pay has already increased by as much as 40 basis points compared with what it otherwise would be. This means higher federal borrowing costs and deficits, and overall higher interest rates on everything from car loans to mortgages to credit cards.

Remember all those “confidence” trolls the GOP trotted out in advance of retaining the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest individuals in the US? Wonder where those guys went.

But, by all means, let’s talk about Weiner and whatever other body parts are on display in the Halls of Serious People. That’s the stuff that really matters.

Default Already Hitting Pocketbooks

In a Decent World

jeffmiller:

There’s a lot I simply don’t understand here, but let’s talk for a second about the thing in bold.  Forget all of the problems with the chart and sustained unemployment and people dropping out of the job market and people accepting lower pay or benefits and everything else that your red and blue chart doesn’t address.  That “steepest climb” you’re talking about … that climb doesn’t show job growth.  Every one of those months shows continued job losses.   And the time when the stimulus end?—that’s the time where there is actual job growth.  The chart, in other words, can tell a story that’s exactly the opposite of what you’re saying in bold.  

Now, you can argue that the stimulus resulted in smaller job losses than there would have otherwise have been, or that the job growth at the tail end of the chart was sparked by the stimulus that preceded it—you can argue these things, but the chart doesn’t prove these things.  The chart is just data, with its flaws and limitations.

Seriously? Leaving aside the bit about your troubles with pesky “data”, your expectation is that one month: catastrophic job loss. Next month: spectacular, robust return to full employment of the go-go days of old. In the history of the world, I challenge you to show me a recession that ended abruptly. The one you might point out is the one you also wouldn’t want to mention, as it ended as a direct result of massive and sustained government spending (see: World War II, in which basically everyone in the country had a fake “government” job. How’d that work out for us?). They all end more or less like what we’re seeing now, a gradual improvement in “bad” numbers, then progressive and building improvement on “good” numbers. Businesses don’t simply rehire x-million workers overnight; in fact, they only hire when they absolutely have to, and are thus not typically leading indicators of a recovery. You’ll recall that this recession was declared “over” in September of 2010.

Likewise, you can see the same trending in the diminishing output gap. I know, I know, more dread data. The Democrat and his empirical reality crap again. But it’s a fact: the economy is improving, if slowly. It improved more quickly during the time of the stimulus. Were said stimulus still unspooling, we’d be seeing faster improvement now. The sooner we close said output gap, the sooner revenues improve and the sooner the deficit “crisis” is at an end.

The GOP, of course, knows this too. That’s why they’re riding this particular hobby horse so hard right now. It’s the opportunity to jam their view of society down our throats while the public is scared and feeling serious economic pain. Once things noticeably improve there will be even less stomach for “shared sacrifice” at the hands of eviscerating the social safety net coupled to deep tax cuts for the rich. So, from their perspective it’s now or never. That fact, as much as anything, is why they all voted for the Ryan plan. They see this moment as their last, best chance to end Medicare this decade.

In a Decent World

jeffmiller:

lemkin:

“…in a decent world, conservatives would be forced to acknowledge that these are the [employment] results they claim to want. The private sector’s not being held back by the grasping arm of big government. Government is shrinking. And the shrinking of the government sector isn’t leading to any kind of private sector explosion. It’s simply offsetting meager private sector growth. Indeed, I’d say it’s holding it back. Fewer state and local government layoffs would mean more customers for private businesses and even stronger growth on the private side.”

— **Matt Yglesias**, pining for a decent world. That sort of attention to detail would require the media to leave critical questions about Weiner’s penis on the cutting room floor. I don’t think *anyone* wants to live in an America that’s like that.

What’s sad about this is that Yglesias knows he’s being disingenuous.  He knows the the size of government isn’t measured by the number of people it employs.  He knows that federal spending has increased substantially during Obama’s presidency.  He knows that federal contractors are counted in the private sector employment numbers.  He knows that there are more, not fewer, regulations now than there were two years ago.  He knows that there are more, not fewer, laws on the books now than there were two years ago.  

Democrats had control of this country for two years, and things are terrible.  I understand it’s the job of the political hack to spin this as a Republican failure, but it isn’t one.  In a decent world, Yglesias would acknowledge this.

Indeed, our troubles began on Jan 19, 2009 and haven’t improved a whit since. Goddamned Democrat monsters:

2.96

Emphasis added:

…if even 1/50 of the austerity-induced decline in current output flows through to reduce the economy’s productive potential, that austerity today worsens the debt burden.

This is an unusual result: it applies only to a country with a substantial fiscal multiplier that can fund its debt at very low interest rates. But we are a country with a substantial fiscal multiplier that can fund it’s debt at very low interest rates…

Indeed we are. But no one seems interested in noticing. We can borrow against a 10-year Treasury at a 2.96% yield. The money behind that rate is clearly not concerned with either deficits or the capability of the United States to meet the debt incurred by their purchase yesterday or all the days before that. As Jared Bernstein notes, the current “budget math” still strongly favors a jobs target and not a deficit target.

This is very simple stuff. How many ways do you have to prove that cuts today worsen our long-term fiscal situation before somebody with a D after their name starts talking about this in a compelling, no-nonsense fashion? We can borrow, cheaply, and those dollars (when pumped into the economy) would hasten the closing of our current output gap. This would simultaneously a) obviate the need for further borrowing, b) close the revenue shortfalls of Great Recession, and c) coupled with a do-nothing legislative approach relative to the Bush tax cuts would almost entirely close the existing budget deficits within a few years.

But, by all means, let’s go on pretending that deep, punitive cuts to the social safety net and eliminating access to abortions are the only Serious Person positions possible given the current situation.

2.96

Who has egg on their face if there is a sovereign debt crisis, House Republicans or the president?

A “Senior GOP Lawmaker,” making explicit the GOP’s intention to shitcan the sovereign debt of the United States in the hopes of short-term political gain. Make no mistake, they plan to default. They think it’s a good idea. It’s the only way they can imagine winning the White House in 2012; they’re sure as hell not going to get there on the back of their brilliant “end Medicare, give proceeds to the rich” gambit. Default is the plan, was the plan, will always be the plan.
And, no, they haven’t considered whether it will be worth winning executive leadership of a country utterly crippled by a combination of existing debts and the inability to borrow on the global markets (such as they will even exist after default) for eternal wars and deep tax cuts for the wealthiest. They’re not big thinkers in the GOP. In fact, they are actively and openly against thinking about anything. So that’s just the sort of governance we’re going to get from President Bachman, elected in a landslide post default and post economic apocalypse.
Source: politico.com

Paul Cryan

Paul Ryan, at the GOP meetup with Obama: Mr. President, the demagoguery only stops if the Leaders stop it. [GOP attendees give standing ovation]
Paul Ryan, immediately BEFORE said meeting: it’s Obamacare itself that ends Medicare as we know it. Obamacare takes half a trillion dollars from Medicare — not to make it more solvent but to spend on this other government program, Obamacare. And then it creates this 15 panel board of unelected, unaccountable, bureaucrats starting next year to price control and ration Medicare for current seniors.
Paul Ryan on Morning Joe: The president and his party have decided to shamelessly distort and demagogue Medicare
Paul Ryan, 2009: [the ACA will] take coverage away from seniors, […] raise premiums for families, [… and] cost us nearly 5.5 million jobs. [… It’s] a government takeover of healthcare [that will] lead to rationing [and a] European social welfare state.
Lemkin: Paul Ryan, serial liar and ruthless demagogue. And considered the Serious Adult of the GOP. A real policy wonk, that one…