• Welcome to OGBoards 10.0, keep in mind that we will be making LOTS of changes to smooth out the experience here and make it as close as possible functionally to the old software, but feel free to drop suggestions or requests in the Tech Support subforum!

Niall Ferguson's scathing indictment of Obama

bobknightfan said:
"Tax hikes across the board" won't get it. RJ (and I) have stated many times that we were in favor of substantial spending cuts....including entitlements (as has President Obama)....but tax hikes "across the board" is not the way to do it. Our tax code has done nothing but become flatter since 1980.....and that has gone much too far.

Also, in the area of spending cuts, I support some cuts in entitlements. There is no question that there is a lot of waste there which needs to be identified and eliminated. However, cuts in spending in education & infrastructure are short-sighted and will harm our country in the future. At the same time that we are making cuts in entitlements, we need to make huge cuts in defense spending. Maybe we wouldn't be constantly looking all over the world for unnecessary fights to pick if the DD had a more limited budget. Out defense budget now is something like equal to the next 9 largest defense budgets in the world combined. This is just crazy in a time that everyone agrees demands budget restraints.
Click to expand...

Defense is what? $700b? $800b annually? So if we eliminate that entirely (let's play Germany for a while) then we'd still be several hundred billion short of closing the deficit (and that's before Obama's large entitlement cut, aka Obamacare, kicks in). Of course, doing that cedes the entire Pacific (probably all the way into Orange County) to China. But of what possible strategic importance could that be to US interests.
 
What an inane response. No one is talking about ending all defense spending.
 
RJKarl said:
What an inane response. No one is talking about ending all defense spending.
Click to expand...

Is inane the word of the day? Think of it as a thought experiment - i.e., calls for defense cuts, taken to the extreme, still leave us HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS short of closing the gap. Seemed like an interesting (and possibly) relevant point.
 
It's not interesting. Any ludicrously extreme premise is not interesting.
 
beatrix said:
Is inane the word of the day? Think of it as a thought experiment - i.e., calls for defense cuts, taken to the extreme, still leave us HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS short of closing the gap. Seemed like an interesting (and possibly) relevant point.
Click to expand...

So you're obviously for tax increases
 
Why is it that whenever someone posts an idea for change in the federal budget, someone else always responds with "Well even if you cut ALL that spending/take ALL their income in taxes, it still wouldn't close the deficit", the obvious implication being that the suggested change should not be considered at all? I mean, if that is level of discourse we are at we are truly @#%$ed as a nation.
 
Deacon923 said:
Why is it that whenever someone posts an idea for change in the federal budget, someone else always responds with "Well even if you cut ALL that spending/take ALL their income in taxes, it still wouldn't close the deficit", the obvious implication being that the suggested change should not be considered at all? I mean, if that is level of discourse we are at we are truly @#%$ed as a nation.
Click to expand...

When you look at the federal budget and reducing the deficit, there are only 3 levers to pull. Taxes, Medicare/Medicaid, and the DoD. The rest is pretty much a rounding error.
 
RJKarl said:
It's not interesting. Any ludicrously extreme premise is not interesting.
Click to expand...

such as defending the murder of scientists in the street only because the murderers are jews and the victims are iranians.

not interesting. idiotic, but not interesting.
 
Spot the Wonder said:
When you look at the federal budget and reducing the deficit, there are only 3 levers to pull. Taxes, Medicare/Medicaid, and the DoD. The rest is pretty much a rounding error.
Click to expand...

I'll second this generally speaking. And to your prior question, I don't know that I'm "obviously" for tax increases - any chance I could be for a robustly growing economy funneling 20% of itself to gub'ment programs? To use (yet another) uninteresting thought experiment (apologies, RJ), what would a $20 trillion GDP fund at 20%? I'm terrible at math. But your deficit might be eliminated in that scenario.
 
$20T at 20% is more than our current budget...of course $20T is 33% higher than our GDP...
 
beatrix said:
I'll second this generally speaking. And to your prior question, I don't know that I'm "obviously" for tax increases - any chance I could be for a robustly growing economy funneling 20% of itself to gub'ment programs? To use (yet another) uninteresting thought experiment (apologies, RJ), what would a $20 trillion GDP fund at 20%? I'm terrible at math. But your deficit might be eliminated in that scenario.
Click to expand...

Social Security (sic), Medicare and interest on the debt double our DoD spending. If we decided to act like responsible people for ten years and balance the budget, we'd enjoy a "responsibility dividend" by not having to service our debt, which would greatly offset the baby boom bubble which will sink our entitlement programs without corrective action.
 
jhmd2000 said:
Social Security (sic), Medicare and interest on the debt double our DoD spending. If we decided to act like responsible people for ten years and balance the budget, we'd enjoy a "responsibility dividend" by not having to service our debt, which would greatly offset the baby boom bubble which will sink our entitlement programs without corrective action.
Click to expand...

Why on earth do we need to balance the budget? And Social Security is off budget. It has its own funding mechanism.
 
yes why the obsession with the balanced budget? Some have latched on the "uncertainty" factor and run way too far with it. It is not paramount to the healthy function of our economy.
 
You don't need a balanced budget. You just need a reasonable amount of deficit spending.
 
bobknightfan said:
What do you think that Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy were? He was increasing spending rapidly during all of that time.....and from 2001 thru 2006 his party controlled both houses of congress. If they had wanted to cut spending while they were actually borrowing money from future generations to pay for those tax cuts there was nothing to stop them.....but they didn't cut spending at all. They increased spending....every year. Even threw in a massive new medicare prescription drug program, for good measure (and to buy some votes).
Click to expand...

Scummy politicians. Committing massive resources on favored programs / policies without regard to whether we can afford it.
 
TR1982 said:
As for the difference between increasing spending and decreasing spending, and the effects that that would have on the economy, I've gone over that ad nauseum. It's not true at all that you can't address growth and debt at the same time[SUP]1[/SUP]. That's true if you are going to raise taxes, but cutting government spending only results in a short term decrease in growth[SUP]2[/SUP].
Click to expand...

1 Do we have an example of expansionary austerity working? Honest question, because I can't think of one

2 This seems too general to me. Government spending can create both short and long term growth. If NYS had cut funding to the Erie Canal after the first months of digging, the state would have missed out on a lot of 19th Century growth. The GI Bill created both long and short term growth. If government projects can expand the PPF, it stands to reason that cutting certain programs (Head Start?) would contract the PPF and long-term growth.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top