I need a liberal or dem's take on this
 

this is not a "gotcha" question, I really want to know how you feel about this.
In January, we raised taxes. There is no debate. It wasnt just a rate increase. for people with high incomes, its divs, cap gains etc. its a decent increase.
So, here is my question. Obama promised to go line by line, cut spending. There have been so many times broad statements - 800 billion cuts here, no details, etc. Now we have a 85B pending cut and its a HUGE deal. WHY?
Obama promised to cut. Where is his plan for 800B and why cant we implement 10% of that and be good?
WHy are tax increases still the ONLY SOLUTION Obama can come up with? How do you guys see this?
(please no lib bashing - Im looking for an honest response)

You piss of less voters raising taxes than taking away support!

He also promised to cut the debt in half by the end of his first term
They are talking of releasing imprisoned illegals because of the cuts
I can't believe how many people are going to suffer and die because of 85 billion dollars lol
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

Here's the answer. The Democrats, at the national level, have to keep spending. Well-funded (yet utterly ineffective) social programs guarantee that Democrats can gather a coalition of voters among African Americans, Hispanic Americans, academia, labor unions, and die-hard liberals. They need that coalition to defeat those who buy into elementary school arithmetic.

I have asked Spence and Paul S to please show me the math that shows that we can put any kind of meaningful dent in our fiscal problems, with tax hikes. And all I get is chirping crickets for an answer.

We need tens and tens of trillions of dollars before the baby Boomers are gone. Do the liberals admit that, at least? Or do they deny that?I truly wish we could get there, simply by tweaking tax rates on the billionaires. Spence, PaulS, RIROCKHOUND, PLEASE show me a tax increase that (1) raises that kind of revenue, and (2) only impacts rich people. Show me that plan, and as God is my witness, I'll support it at the top of my lungs.

so how has the president been preparing for this?

For much of the past year, however, agencies had been told by the White House to spend as if the cuts weren't going to happen because they still seemed avoidable and planning for them would "divert scarce resources from other important agency activities and priorities."

Then Congress, as part of the deal to avert the fiscal cliff in January, postponed the sequester for two months. So now agencies only have seven months to make the cuts by Sept. 30, the end of this fiscal year.

They all lie. Remember when bush said that the war in Iraq wouldn't cost us anything and that Iraq was going to pay us back with their oil ??
I don't see ona as logic either Jim.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

Great chart reelinrod. It is not a drastic cut. And if you also showed tax revenues, and how those revenues are dwarfed by the expenditures...you can only conclude that the only thing wrong with this cut, is that it's not nearly enough.

In reality it isn't a cut in actual expenditures; it is a 2% cut from the 7% baseline budget increase . . .

So, the parade of misery stated by the President must all depend upon a 2% increse in federal spending and can not be supported by current spending.

I ask how have all the actions he claims will cease been paid for up to now?

And let's not forget, these cuts were his idea. Not the idea of the GOP boogeyman, his idea. Back in 2011, Obama threatened to veto any continuing resolution that did not include these exact cuts. He is on record as saying that.

Yet now that we are here, he says it's the GOP's fault. It's unbelievable.

How is that for hope and change? How is that for accountability, honesty, and leadership? How is that for the guy who claims to be non-partisan (cue the canned laughter here)...

Funny that I haven't seen Spence or PaulS weigh in here...I guess they're seaching the Huffington Post for the agreed-upon response. Something about racism or George Bush, I'll wager...

Nope, been working to build a strong economy.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

Hey Spence, good thinking to get all your business for the year in now.
It looks like you will be homebound, after these Dranconian sequestered cuts and flying comes to standstill. :)
Oh that's right you'll also need to stock up on food for your home being Pelosie says Meals on Wheels will be descimated. :hihi: :D

Spence, in all seriousness...what does it say to you that Obama demanded these cuts, and is now blaming the GOP for the doom that is to come?

Is answering a simple question, too much to ask?

Rudy just stated a wonderful analogy (paraphrased). . .

Your employer who currently pays you $100,000 a year comes to you and says that next year your salary will be $110,000.

He comes back to you before the raise goes into effect and tells you that your new salary will be $107,000 . . .

So now you have to take your kids out of school, sell your car, cut your cell phone and cable TV, tell your daughter she can't go to the prom, etc, etc, etc . . .


Ogloomer's demagoguery is absolutely disgusting.

http://i1289.photobucket.com/albums/...ps7148d538.png

can you believe this?

(CNN) - Veteran journalist Bob Woodward said Wednesday he was threatened by a senior Obama administration official following his reporting on the White House's handling of the forced federal spending cuts set to take effect on Friday.

"They're not happy at all," he said on CNN's "The Situation Room," adding that an e-mail from a senior administration official - who he would not name - communicated a message which caused him great concern.

Of course I can believe it. This administration, and Obama in particular, are incredibly thin-skinned and have zero tolerance for dissent. Matt Damon (who cares what he thinks) said he was disappointed in Obama. So Obama calls a press conference to say that after seeing Damon's latest movie, Obama is also disappointed in Matt Damon's performance.

This guy cannot let any criticism go unanswered. Never. Ever. Imagine if George Bush responded personally every time a movie star criticized him?

Of course. Remember this?

"A reporter for CBS claimed that White House and Department of Justice officials screamed and cursed at her due to a story she was pursuing about a controversial DOJ program.

Sharyl Attkisson, the investigative reporter for CBS, made the allegations . . . that, when she broke a damning story about [Fast and Furious], she got extremely aggressive pushback from the Obama administration. She said that a DOJ spokeswoman named Tracy Schmaler had yelled at her on Monday about the story, but that it was nothing compared to the way a White House spokesman named Eric Schultz had acted.

Attkisson said he had "literally screamed at me and cussed at me" about the story, and that the White House also told her that she was the only reporter not being "reasonable" about the issue."

HuffPo, October 5, 2011

Two great graphics ReelinRod!
Shows how finances go completely out of control when the Libs are in.
I laugh about the 2.3% cuts when they just got a 2% tax raise and the
increased revenue coming in. LOL, yeah we are all Doomed with cuts like that.

Now I may not be that good at math, but since when does 2.7/3.8=40% ???

And that's just a prerequisite to the numerous other misleading elements of your pies.

-spence

But.. 3.8T is 140% of 2.7... not entirely misleading on that..

what is misleading is that out of the budget, the cuts are not coming from the 80% of the budget that is defense, entitlments etc.. which makes it a joke from both sides...

It doesn't. However, the correct math for calculating the increase is 1.1M (the increase) / 2.7M (the previous budget) = 40%

When the Dow goes from 13,900 to 14,000, the increase isn't calculated as 13,900/14,000 which would equal a 99% increase for the day.

Considering you adhere to the Obama method of calculating numbers, I can understand your confusion.

You work in finance? Seriously?

Spence, if you want to know the increase between a and b, the formula is

(b / a) -1.

In this case, 3.8 / 2.7 - 1 = 41%. So no, you are apparently not that good at math, at least when the math makes your hero look like an incompetent idiot.

"And that's just a prerequisite to the numerous other misleading elements of your pies."

Your 'prerequisite' is demonstrably, irrefutably, mathematically false. So given that your prerequisite was 100% wrong, it stands to reason that any other "misleading elements" you discovered, which are based on that prerequisite, would also be wrong.

Spence, do you concede that 3.8 is indeed 40% more than 2.7? That's fact, that's not some myth invented by #^&#^&#^&#^& Cheney or the Koch Brothers or Glenn Beck or some other conservative boogeyman invented by your side, in the attempt to distract people from things like simple arithmetic.

Give Spence a break for crying out loud. He's been working hard to build a strong economy. He's obviously been very busy, so . . .

so in liberal terms, he has been raising taxes?

LMAO. You forgot raising the minimum wage.

Currently front page of CNN:
"President Obama says "dumb, arbitrary" forced spending cuts that take effect today are "unnecessary and inexcusable." "

The President really shouldn't talk about his own policies like that.

Most of the American public is like Drew Barrymore in "50 First Dates" - they wake up every morning and completely forget about what happened yesterday.

Spence, you'r going to have to work a bit harder.

The Officals numbers are out today showing a 4% DECREASE in the average paycheck for Janurary.

Johnny, we are officially in the Twilight Zone. It is breathtaking.

You left out the best part! In the next sentence, CNN says "He blames Republicans".

You could say the pie on the right is 40% larger or has gotten 40% larger but they're not the same equation. Personally I think there's far less value in comparing the relative size of the budgets than in understanding the amount of change which is why I picked the one I did.

Even this though holds little meaning unless it's in context with the budgetary trends. It's no accident that the author picked a moment in time right before the bubble burst and yet just before TARP and Stimulus spending kicked in. Given that it's the pie on the left which is perhaps the anomaly.

We've beaten this dead horse before.

Besides, who ever said I was in finance?

-spence

"You could say the pie on the right is 40% larger or has gotten 40% larger "

Thanks.

"but they're not the same equation"

What does that mean?

"Given that it's the pie on the left which is perhaps the anomaly."

Until this fascist Bolshevik leaves the White House, I agree that the pie on the right is the new norm.

"who ever said I was in finance?"

I got that impression from someone, was I wrong?

Spence, if spending has increased 40% since 2007 (and whether you like it or not, it has), but revenues have increased nearly that much...do you see that as a problem, or are the conservatives crying wolf about a silly little thing like a $16 trillion debt and a $100 trillion shortfall for SS and Medicare?

I've read this 5 times now trying to understand how this spin can make any sense.

Then I remembered that in Obama-math, 2+2 doesn't equal 4. 2+2 equals whatever fits his agenda for that day.

The problem is it is like a household making $80K per year and using another $20K on the credit card as income. Now that those credit cards have a $400K balance on them we are talking about taking out only $19K per year on the card.

Howze THAT for an analogy.

Two of the three branches of the government are failing us right now - party independent.

With a number of recent rulings by the Supreme Court giving the feds impunity when trampling Constitutional rights... All three branches are failing us.

It's a scary analogy, especially in that you left out the worst part. Using your scale, that household (making $80k a year) has also put their grandparents in a nursing home, and given that nursing home an IOU for exactly $2,760,000 that is payable in 50 years. Paying the IOU will require more than 30 years of that annual income of $80k a year.

But Nancy Pelosi says it's a "false argument" to say that family has a "spending problem".

Jim - I was trying to keep it real simple. I could have mentioned we were only making minimum payments on the cards and that out interest rate was going up due to poor national FICO score.

It means that by one measurement it's 40% and by the other it's 30%.

If you were to smooth the curve you'd see the pie on the right is a continuation of the Bush trajectory while the pie on the left is an abnormality.

Yes.

I think most everyone agrees the debt and healthcare costs are an issue, it's just that there are differing options on how to address it.

Here's the rub, a president Romney would still have the same debt, same deficit and the same Republicans out to protect their spending interests.

-spence

That is more of an assumption than a rub. Romney, presumably, would have been more business friendly. He might have erased many of Obama's executive orders and their regulations, and that would have eased business burdens, and his policies might well have encouraged the spending of business money that is now being withheld due to uncertainty and fear of more of the coming regulations. Who knows what he could have done to Obamacare. But he might have brought a brighter more optimistic outlook, ala Reagan and Kennedy, to the American psyche and to the business climate, than the struggling gloom and discord that pervades us now.

But even that would just be a temporary bump until another election and the further encroachment of communitarian, progressive governance.

Here is the epitome of liberal fiscal policy from where else, the land of fruits and nuts:

L.A. Unified uses ‘construction bonds’ to buy $500 million in iPads

Feb. 14, 2013

By Chris Reed

My five-month-old crusade to get the California mainstream media to acknowledge the insanity of “construction bonds” which take 30 years to pay off being used routinely by school districts for short-lived electronics and basic maintenance hasn’t gotten far yet. The most significant article from a respected mainstream education reporter about this outrage came in December from John Fensterwald in EdSource. State newspapers’ education reporters? They can’t be bothered.

Yes, the California media do care about nutty capital appreciation bonds, which can’t be prepaid and delay initial repayments for 20 years out, leading to such ridiculousness as the Poway Unified school district borrowing $105 million that will take $981 million to repay — beginning two decades from now. But the problem of using 30-year borrowing for short-term needs is much worse than CABs. It’s far more common; it’s everywhere.

- See more at: L.A. Unified uses ‘construction bonds’ to buy $500 million in iPads | CalWatchDog

apparently the "liberal" answer to Jimmy's question goes something like this....

"they all lie so it doesn't matter and Bush said this about that(which I cannot find for some reason) and it's a joke from both sides because defense and other things are not included in the "cuts"(I'm pretty sure that defense is included.... I think Obama recently cited a carrier not able to travel to the Gulf due to sequester worries)...the pie is misleading....it would be exactly the same if Romney had been elected(seems we were told for the last 4 years that it would be exactly the same if McCain had been elected)...and argue minutia to the point of nonsense (because on substance you'd have to admit that we have a deeply disturbed president whose actions and rhetoric are deeply concerning at best, clearly destructive to the nation and historically contemptible in terms of American Presidential behaviour)"..........




“In utopia, rule by masterminds is both necessary and necessarily primitive, for it excludes so much that is known to man and about man. The mastermind is driven by his own boundless conceit and delusional aspirations, which he self-identifies as a noble calling. He alone is uniquely qualified to carry out this mission. He is, in his own mind, a savior of mankind, if only man will bend to his own will. Such can be the addiction of power. It can be an irrationally egoistic and absurdly frivolous passion that engulfs even sensible people. In this, mastermind suffers from a psychosis of sorts and endeavors to substitute his own ambitions for the individual ambitions of millions of people.”

“Where utopianism is advanced through gradualism rather than revolution, albeit steady and persistent as in democratic societies, it can deceive and disarm an unsuspecting population, which is largely content and passive. It is sold as reforming and improving the existing society's imperfections and weaknesses without imperiling its basic nature. Under these conditions, it is mostly ignored, dismissed, or tolerated by much of the citizenry and celebrated by some. Transformation is deemed innocuous, well-intentioned, and perhaps constructive but not a dangerous trespass on fundamental liberties.”

“There are also those who delusively if not enthusiastically surrender their liberty for the mastermind’s false promises of human and societal perfectibility. He hooks them with financial bribes in the form of ‘entitlements.’ And he makes incredible claims about indefectible health, safety, educational, and environmental policies, the success of which is to be measured not in the here and now but in the distant future.
For these reasons and more, some become fanatics for the cause. They take to the streets and, ironically, demand their own demise as they protest against their own self-determination and for ever more autocracy and authoritarianism. When they vote, they vote to enchain not only their fellow citizens but, unwittingly, themselves. Paradoxically, as the utopia metastasizes and the society ossifies, elections become less relevant. More and more decisions are made by the masterminds and their experts, who substitute their self-serving and dogmatic judgments — which are proclaimed righteous and compassionate — for the the individual’s self-interests and best interests.”


― Mark R. Levin, Ameritopia