For John, BLUF: Without some action by Congress, real cuts to real paychecks will start getting passed around. We could end up beggaring the Middle Class. Nothing to see here; just move along.
I know that the US Congress is going to fix the Fiscal Cliff, but if perchance it didn't, the Pentagon is going with "rolling furloughs:
Illustrating the gravity of the cuts, the Pentagon plans to notify 800,000 civilian employees that they could be forced to take several weeks of unpaid leave in 2013 if a deal isn't struck, and other agencies are likely to follow suit.Exciting times to live in.
The thing is, unless you believe the financial markets will continue to allow us to run up our Federal Debt for ever, you are stuck with the fact that we are, eventually, going to have to tax more and also spend less. Frankly, taxes proposed by the White House are not enough to cover all the expenses.
That said, I think that it is late in the day to do anything but patch over the current problem and put a fig leaf on it, promising to fix it later, like we did the last time this came up. If you want an analogy, think of living over an earth quake fault line (I have) and you know there will likely be another big one (previous one where I lived was 1933/6.4 on the Richter Scale), but you don't know when.
Regards — Cliff
3 comments:
The current Fiscal Cliff drama is filled with nothing but bad juju. The taxes are in and of course, somewhere along the line, they will back off on all but "the wealthiest Americans." But hidden behind all the "revenue" whining is the massive spending ramp up. Nobody will hear about that until the borrowing cap is reached in a few weeks and then the media, Obama, and 52% of Americans will blame a handful of Republicans for arriving at that point....and refusing to go further.
If only we could get past all this partisan demagoguery and self serving media stunts like Obama taking victory laps on TV...before he even has a deal to crow about. We HAVE to STOP SPENDING....particularly on very costly "chicken in every pot" style social programs. Let young ladies of birthing age buy their own condoms and stop spending millions on heroic efforts to keep a terminal CHF patient artificially alive until the last possible second. In between, stop handing out welfare checks and unemployment benefits for years. Make these people provide something meaningful in return for the government largesse. Right now, Americans get nothing in return for welfare dollars spent...other than the absolute guarantee that they will spend even more welfare dollars with no benefit...other than to pay people NOT to work. Set up local and county work teams and employ those welfare folks on those teams. Lets see some benefit for the cost.
If we don't quickly stop the bleeding....Americans will soon be known as Greeks.
It's not that we have to stop spending, but that we have to stop wasting. When we stop wasting, the budget can be brought under control.
To start, the Medicare program should not cut doctor's fees by some percentage across the board, but rather elimate entirely payments for services that have little or no value.
Cliff, "barracks" is passe. It is now "residence facility." Presumably a more proper designation eliminates the riff raff and their "earthiness."
JoeS, it IS that we have to stop spending. When you allow the "dialogue" to devolve into what is waste and what is not, you have necessarily returned to the same rubric that brought the spending about to begin with. Your waste is someone's essential.
Even bare bones infrastructure spending is open to unbounded largesse. Witness Obama's favorite alchemy approach to the "alternative" "green" energy initiative. How many Solyndra's will it take? And yet, there is a certain national consensus that solar and wind are not only possible...but essential.
Of course, you name the greatest arena for "discussion," spending Medicare funds on "little or no value." A 20-something sees absolutely no value in spending one more farthing on some old 88 year old coot, other than to just make the old guy comfy. At what point does life have even diminished value....let alone NO value?
Yes Joe....we need to STOP spending...period. There are champions for every single expenditure made from the Treasury.....and each one is absolutely critical to the maintenance of "the free world."
But of even greater importance.......STOP BORROWING
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