The economist takes note of the Progressive Congressional Caucus People’s Budget here: http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/04/debt_proposals
Courage is hard to come by in hard times. I’d rather a little thinking in lieu of courage. I have always been brave. And…..Oh, Lord, stuck in Lodi again. NancyO
For all the angst about the Federal debt, it is not unprecedented. After WWII debt reached 122% of GDP, vs. 80%-100% now (depending on whether or not you count Special Treasuries).
At the height of WWII, Federal spending was 50% of GDP, but after the war it quickly returned to about 21%. It more than halved. Now we are at 43%, but the cause is not a world war, it is entitlements. I don’t know what the chance is that we are able to halve entitlements.
See Wiki article on Jackson. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Jackson The national debt has been paid off in full only once in US history. Andrew Jackson paid it all off and there was rejoicing in Washington. Thereafter followed the longest depression in US history. It lasted 8 years. Things improved when the govt again went into debt. See also: Panic of 1837
In January 1835, Jackson paid off the entire national debt, the only time in U.S. history that has been accomplished.[25][26] However, this accomplishment was short lived. A severe depression from 1837 to 1844 caused a tenfold increase in national debt within its first year.[27 It would seem there are worse things than national debt. NancyO ]
In it Bruce unequivocally shows us: “Now ‘Intragovernmental Holdings’ is what OMB calls ‘Debt held by Government accounts’ which in turn “means the debt the Treasury Department owes to accounts within the Federal Government. Most of it results from the surpluses of the Social Security and other trust funds, which are required by law to be invested in Federal securities.” So the commonly expressed opinion that Social Security Trust Funds are not counted in that total $14 trillion of debt cited in the MSM is dead wrong, they constitute $2.6 tn of that $4.6 tn of ‘Intragovernmental Holdings’ or 18% of the total $14.3 tn in Public Debt. In fact Social Security is by far the biggest creditor the U.S. has, with Treasury holdings double those of the Fed and two and a half times that of our largest foreign lender the Chinese.”
For someone who makes repeated claims that others lie or do not fully understand,as he does, the meaning of commonly understood federal budget concepts, this is an egregious mistake. Or, he is himself lying.
In it Bruce unequivocally shows us: “Now ‘Intragovernmental Holdings’ is what OMB calls ‘Debt held by Government accounts’ which in turn “means the debt the Treasury Department owes to accounts within the Federal Government. Most of it results from the surpluses of the Social Security and other trust funds, which are required by law to be invested in Federal securities.” So the commonly expressed opinion that Social Security Trust Funds are not counted in that total $14 trillion of debt cited in the MSM is dead wrong, they constitute $2.6 tn of that $4.6 tn of ‘Intragovernmental Holdings’ or 18% of the total $14.3 tn in Public Debt. In fact Social Security is by far the biggest creditor the U.S. has, with Treasury holdings double those of the Fed and two and a half times that of our largest foreign lender the Chinese.”
For someone who makes repeated claims that others lie or do not fully understand,as he does, the meaning of commonly understood federal budget concepts, this is an egregious mistake. Or, he is himself lying.
Sandi asks: “Why are we in debt ? The budget was balanced 11 years ago, before the John Birch Society candidate, Jr, was elected.”
A balanced budget doesn’t pay off prior debt, and neither did Clinton’s. It may stop borrowing and therefore stop the debt owed to the public from rising further, but the prior debt remains. Many forget that Bush’s first year the budget also was in surplus.
I answer you this way, CoRev, I haven’t a clue about what the hell you are trying to say,l other than you obviously have no clue about the national debt.
All we have to do is nothing, actually. Allow the Bush taxs cuts expire and the other Sunsets to proceed as legislated.
You always seem to be digging for something, never making a lick of sense, but digging none-the-less.
If I had to guess who you are, I would guess that you are up to eyebroys in State welfare, a sick old man on Social Security and Medicare, stuffing your pie-hole with free-bees while puking on the rest of us, the real Americans, about your right wing fanatsies, none of them involing actual service in war.
Sandi, I am trying hard to react calmly. You obviously missed NancyO’s earlier comment.
‘See Wiki article on Jackson. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Jackson The national debt has been paid off in full only once in US history. Andrew Jackson paid it all off and there was rejoicing in Washington. Thereafter followed the longest depression in US history. It lasted 8 years. Things improved when the govt again went into debt. See also: Panic of 1837
In January 1835, Jackson paid off the entire national debt, the only time in U.S. history that has been accomplished.‘[
So, your original question showed a high level of ignorance over the Federal Budget, and the remainder of your comment indicated a serious need for anger management.
CoRev and apparently everyone else, has gone away.
IMO, the FDR America is the right way to go. Strong regulation of Industry by committed people following an industrial policy that insures a “fwee market” for consumers.
Reconnect with the Industrial Policy of Regulated Penetration by Foreign Manufatcturers.
Wrongald Rayguns never served one day in combat. The lousy SOB sucked up all the benefits from the men, and woman, who did. Now we have the CoRevs’ telling us we should be honoring the aristocracy because they are better than us ?
My daughter wanted to watch a program on that little prick in England getting married. I told her no way. My grandparents came here to get away from them. Now we acquiesce to thir resurgence in my country ?
Get up, get out, and vote. Read the Founders publications.
Ther has been many days when the Republic has seemed to be in peril. I agee that Andrew Jackson is an interesting figure that has not recieved the noteriety that, perhaps, he should.
As I understand it, Andrew Jackson’s quarrel was with Alexander Hamilton and the establishment of the Central Bank and the recognition of the primacy of the fiat currency.
The facts will bear me out that the Bankers, as now were running scams on the dumb shit public, Andrew Jackson, being who he was, hated them.
So that is exactly what you are saying, that you hate Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernhake and the whole idea of the fiat currency while supporting the Republican dip shits that are scamming the Federal Reserve, (the Bush Family ? S&L Crisis and the Banking collapse) ?
“These people never it so good” as I recall, Barbara Bush’s comment on seeing the New Orleans refugie’s in the Astrodome. George Bush, Sr. is also a “consultant” to the “Hedge Fund” the Carlyle group.
CoRev How the devil can you confuse the status of a debt holder with the cause of that debt? If you take out a loan in order to buy a car did the bank contribute to your debt? Or, did you put yourself into debt? The bank assisted you in the purchase of the car, but it did not cause you to make the purchase with borrowed finds.
If your interpretation of Bruce’s comment, as you quote him, is being offered in a serious manner I bring you the sad news that you are truly confused regarding a basic aspect of financing. Lenders don’t cause borrowers to go into debt. Lenders provide capital to those who don’t have it readily available, but make an honest promise to repay that capital. The guy that spends the procedes of the debt is the cause of his own situation and shouldn’t be blaming the lender he had previously beseeched to provide the loan. You’ve got the relationship ass backwards. Sorry that I had taken any thing you had previously said seriously as you have now demonstrated your total lack of understanding of even the most simple concept in finance.
Furthermore, Jr, was an abolute failure in business, (what an intersting term, busy ness maybe), gaining his wealth as all the dog shit Nobles have always gained their wealth: taxing the dipshit CoRevs of the world. He sold the Texas baseball team’s stadium to the public, as debt, and took his cut, $16 MM.
What a crazy 11 years it has been, beginning with Clarence Thomas.
Come on, CoRev. Don’t hold your anger back, unleas it as you promised, earlier.. Give it too me, buddy. I was once a State wrestling champ, I can take it, I assure you.
I just don’t know what you are saying. I love you, man.
Buck Mc Keon teaching the freshman on the Armed Services Committee their new trade, slopping at the war trough.
The euphemism defense is wrong.
It is a trough, funded by a bought congress. Sold with fear and fiction.
In real dollars the military industrial complex is as lucretive as in 1968, whena lot of war was going on in Asia, and a lot of Red Army tanks were in Poland and East Germany.
I’m repeating this statement and link from amateur socialist because I’m sill trying to understand two things about them. First, how the devil did such an article get published in The Economist, which I have always thought of as an ideological extension of the IMF and/or the WBO. The article seems to praise the PCCP Budget proposal while slamming Paul Ryan and the media that fawn over him and his ilk. Have I stepped through the looking glass.
And the second reason, why have I not seen this reference to the PCCP Budget proposal on AB before this one small reference by AS? Good and progressive ideas about the economy is supposed to be what this site is all about rather than as a soap box for our several resident trolls who persistently argue in in a most deceptive manner in favor of the most regressive and reactionary economic ideas. If AB doesn’t shout the praises of ideas like the PCCP Budget proposal how can we expect to contribute to the spread of a healthier and more just economy?
Sandi Maybe CoRev’s bizarre interpretation of Bruce’s comments regarding the debt levels attributing a significant part of its cause to the SS Trust Fund, appearing on this thread yesterday, was so embarrassing to him that he is still trying to recover his lost sense of patriotism. In the world according to CoRev, and his cronies, one must fawn over the financial elite of our society and promote any asinine concept, however counter intuitive it may be, that is offered up by the “stink tank” industry. He and his ilk seem to equate fealty with patriotism forgetting that the former is a sense of duty to one’s betters and the latter is a sense of duty to one’s society.
Jackson earlier in his life felt he had gotten screwed by bankers in Tn. In addition Nicholas Biddle (head of the second bank of the US) made direct political contributions to his opponets. So when Biddle tryed to box Jackson in by Getting the recharter bill thru congress, Jackson vetoed it and made the veto stick. Of course Biddle predicted that the world would come to an end because of this. Now recall to complete history a bit that it was really Hamilton versus Madison/Jefferson, and after 20 years from 1791 its charter expired. Then the war of 1812 came and Madison realized that to do the borrowings required needed a central bank so the second bank was charterd in 1816, thus the 1836 shutdown. The Jefferson, Madison (pre war of 1812), Jackson party generally felt banks were very bad things that contributed nothing to the country, all money should be real (sound familiar?) In many things economic we have not solved the arguements between Hamilton and Madison/Jefferson even after 222 or so years. I guess that shows that these sorts of economic arguements are really theological or philosophical where people labor mightly and produce nothing, and never reach a long term consensus.
Like you I was surprised to see the clear eyed PCC proposal discussed honestly at the Economist. Even more surprised they pointed out it accomplishes something Ryan’s plan doesn’t: A return to balanced budgeting by 2021.
And to be fair to our hosts I don’t think it necessary to shout the praises of this or anything else. A fuller examination of the idea on its merits or lack of should prove useful at least.
Well, maybe not shout praise, but certainly open the discussion to what is a better idea and focus on the fact that there are alternatives to the fawning ignorance of both the national media and the Ryan proposal.
Cursed, When did they let you out? I’m a bit surprised at the direction of some of your recent comments. In spite of the sather viscious character of some of what you have to say, you’re often a lot more ideologically unaligned.
He’s probably equally as weary of the Kos-esque sector of the Blogosphere.. At least at AG, a little bit of light shown on the progessive fantasies doesn’t get wiped from the record (thanks for that Dan), but you can only listen so long, to people resorting to cheap, childish insults, when it’s pointed out to them, that their government-subsidized lives are facing cut-backs..
And it’s a pointless argument anyway.. pat yourselves on the back as SS undergoes very real cutting, very soon.. Will you be up to the “I told you so” ? **smirk**
just to be the wet blanket here. i think the plan is a good place to start, if only to challenge the conventional wis… er, madness.
but such a high marginal tax on “the rich” won’t fly politically, and it is not needed. a 3% increase in the effective tax on incomes over 100k would be a good enough start. and just to be fair minded, i’d take it as part of a rescinding of ALL the Bush tax cuts…. give credibility to our side, you know. Plus an increase in the payroll tax of, like half a tenth of a percent per year so the “poor” can pay for their own longer life expectancy.
and then, i’d start a conversation about making Medicare more like Social Security… that is pretty much an insurance program for workers paid for by workers. and explain to the workers that medical care in old age is an expectable part of life. and they need to pay for it. even if they have to ask for a raise.
point is a raise is better than a “tax the rich” philosophy.
but note, i am all for taxing the rich until they stop complaining about the deficit.
You didn’t tell me anything I haven’t heard… just watch as the discussion pans out.. and steps are taken.. I’ll check back to see how you’all dealing with it..
Mean time.. go run your credit card up.. empty checking to pay it down.. run it up some more… then write an IOU from your checking account, to your savings account.. take the savings , put it in checking.. use it to pay down the credit card, and then go spend more on the card…
Just tell your wife not to worry.. your savings have been, “invested”.. (then admit under your breath, that you’ll have to lower your standard of living to make good on that investment)
When she looks at you like you’re drunk,,, just ask her.. “don’t you have faith in a bond from the checking account.. we both have jobs?” … when she says,, “yeah, but, the checking account is in over-draft, and the credit card is maxed out”..
I’ll finish the story for you… As you’re still babbling about how she doesn’t understand intra-houshold lending.. she’ll go out and take on a 2nd job (raise taxes).. quit going to the salon and hide your golf clubs (cut spending).. so that your checking account can honor that bond (and keep you out of bankruptcy court)
Oh.. and as you realize that won’t be near enough to make the savings whole… she’ll make you understand that retirement will have to be five years further down the road.. **wink**
As the second job taxes her ability to be productive, she has to take a pay-cut on her primary job, lowering the hlousehold income… “No problem”, you say.. “this is all part of the plan” .. she interupts you with a letter from the bank.. and you proclaim, “pay no attention to that BIG LIAR”.. “We’ll just get the bank to raise the debt-ceiling on the cradit card.. take out a cash advance to start replenishing the savings”.. “Don’t you see ? we’ll just replace one debt with another .. no harm done.. AND we’ll eventually get our savings back” … I told you this would work !”
While trying to decide between laughing and crying.. she reminds you that a cash-advnce has its own, higher interest rate.. you comfort her by telling her that that will be off-set by the bond interest being paid from the checking account, to the savings account.
A couple of involuntary facial-tics later, in dead silence.. she heads for the liquor cabinet.
The US has done most of this bankstering for war to the tune of trillions, with a “bow wave” of future outlays for the new toys to try and find more wars to use them in. Your story might work if it included the waste of checks written for the war boys’ cabals.
And how that distorted the productive sector.
You should take your tale up with the monetarists, Milton Friedman would be glad to debate you.
“Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes … known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.… No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”
ILSM, your inability to understand the basics is amazing. For every dollar spent on discretionary military spending, three are spent on mandatory/entitlement spending.
Exorbitant military with failed social insurance. Bankrupt.
The total cost of the Joint Strike Fighter will be: $1.3T, according to a recent report. And that is betting on fixing the “reliability” as they fly it. Wishes and hopes.
Headline: Lockheed Martin F-35 Operating Costs May Reach $1 Trillion
By Tony Capaccio, Bloomberg News
It may cost as much as $1 trillion to operate the military’s fleet of Lockheed Martin Corp.F-35 aircraft for several decades, according to a preliminary Pentagon estimate sent to Congress.
The figure is 9.3 percent more than the $915 billion estimate by the Defense Department in its 2009 Selected Acquisition Report to Congress.
The long-term cost estimate, which includes inflation, was submitted to Congress on April 15 in a report obtained by Bloomberg News. It assumes 8,000 hours of flying time for each of the 2,443 aircraft over a 30-year period. The Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps have their own variations of the aircraft, with the last in the fleet to be produced in 2035.
The estimate was calculated by the Pentagon’s independent cost analysis group based on models using historical data from other fighters, David Van Buren, Air Force service acquisition executive, said in an interview today.
“We are taking the challenge” posed by the $1 trillion estimate and “saying we’ve got to drive this down fast,” said Van Buren, who oversees F-35 management. “Do we drive down it down based on reliability projections? Do we drive it down based on technologies that we developed for the F-35” that reflect lessons learned from the F-22, he said?
The danger of rising before everyone else on Easter!!
It’s kinda funny.. I mean, in all the time that this SS looting has been going on; I’ve never had discussions like this, except in progressive blogs. I had to chuckle at myself for trying so hard in these blogs, to “win” a debate.
My progressive brother and I have had pretty spririted discussion for nearly 40 years… we’d somtimes discuss some of the dirty/crooked practices of evil corporations anf banks… and at some point I’d say somehing like, “Things like the S&L debacle, and Enron combined, pale compared to what has been done by the government, to the money collected in the name of Social Security. We might debate about just how bad any of that was, but he’d never try to deny that the SS money has been “taken” and spent.
This discussion is relatively new phenom.. and as I asked Bruce.. What is it you’re trying to accomplish, by convincing people that SS isn’t the the magnitude of trouble, that it is ? The steps needed to deal with it, WILL happen.
Meanwhile MI state congressman proposes law prohibiting foster children from receiving money for any clothing other than 2nd hand. http://michiganmessenger.com/48487/foster-children-would-be-allowed-to-get-clothing-only-from-second-hand-stores
US $1.3T for planes that don’t fly, but let’s see what else we can extract from the least fortunate among us.
Besides income taxes the People’s Budget also tries to reform the womb lottery this country has made of our estate taxes. The late George Steinbrenner’s kids will divide approximately $1.3B more or less tax free because the old fart had the decency to die before they reinstitute the tax. They will receive this windfall primarily because of whose legs they came out between. Why?
I rent my body and mind for my income but owe the US Treasury its due for that. Why do Steinbrenner’s kids owe nothing because they had the luck to begin as his lucky seed?
On the spending side the People’s Budget also fairly examines the insane waste of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. So much treasure and so much blood, mostly shed by the least fortunate in our country. Why?
Nah.. but I thought for a second that it might make an interesting, XtraNormal cartoon..
But, like I said.. this problem is well understood by anyone who matters… there’s no dragging the committed left into reality.. that’s oxymoronic. What they need to believe clashes with reality.. No harm in letting them live in that world.. carry on ..
where Rwe goes wrong is in confusing Social Security with “the government.” They are not the same.
To start with Rwe’s dysfunctional family, we would have to imagine that Husband spends all the family money on sports cars. Wife would like to take a vacation, so she gets a job to make a little extra money to pay for it. Unfortunately she saves her money in a bank account that her husband can access. So when it’s time to withdraw her savings, she finds Husband has beat her to it and spent all the money on a new sports car.
He explains, “well, it’s all family money, so it doesn’t matter what you wanted to spend it on. I needed that sports car.”
Now, what seems to be wrong with my “explanation” is that Rwe will “agree” with me. “See,” he says,” the bad old government has stolen the Social Security money so Social Security is in big trouble and there is nothing anyone can do about it but cut Social Security which should never have been allowed to exist in the first place.”
But the rest of us, who can see what a creep “Husband” is, recognize that Rwe is actually taking Husband’s side: Forget that vacation, wife, you should never have expected to get that vacation in the first place.
Now, if Rwe is saying that wife’s mistake was putting the money in bank account that Husband could access, he might have a point. But what we know is that we are not living in an analogy, and in the real world there was never a way that working people could save enough of their own money to be able to retire without the plan offered by Social Security: a place to save your money safe from inflation and market losses and insured against personal bad luck. What Rwe really means is that he doesn’t want to have any government at all. Certainly not a government that the people can use to protect their own interests.
Tell me whatever you like… I’ll pretend agree, if helps you sleep at night. I’ll stop messing with your fantasies.. It’s as useless as trying to tell a 4 year old that there’s no Santa Claus. That child will eventually have to deal with reality… as will you.. Who am I to rush the process, and get you all agravated ? I won’t do it any longer.. But I will be back for the “I told ya so”..
looking back over Rwe’s comments, i realize that i make a mistake trying to reply to them. you quickly get trapped in a bizarre world of … well, of not being able to follow an argument or remember it, and just substituting your own fantasies, not only about how the world works, but what your “opponent” believes.
Rwe says the “the looting of SS has been going on..” But this is not true. SS lent money to the government. the government is currently paying the money back. But the people who Lie about Social SEcurity have been running this “looting” meme so long it has become a part of their basic brain machinery. And what they end up arguing is “you have to let us loot social security because we have been saying all along that the government is looting social security.”
Rwe maintains is “borrowing from yourself” meme, because that was an especially effective one in the har har society.
I would ask, but he woulnd’t see the point, if when he buys a bond from the government… lots of rich people do, you know… if he thinks the government is borrowing from itself, and can only pay back the bond by taxing itself so the bond has “no economic value”?
Social SEcurity… which could continue just fine even if the Bonds were stolen… is “just” a collection of citizens who bought their Savings Bonds as a group. This made sense to them because they wanted the Bonds as insurance … which is something that only a “group” can provide. But Rwe and his ilk think that the government can just renege on its bonds and therefore the people who bought them and believed in “the full faith and credit of the United States of America” were just fools.
So to wind this up… “our hour is about up Rwe”… when Rwe and his brother agree that “the SS money has been taken and spent,” remember that “taken” here means “borrowed”… so what the else did you expect. you borrow money in order to spend it. what counts is that you pay it back… out of what you earn. no one demands that you keep money you borrowed in a box so the rubes can look at it and “see” that it is there.
Rwe half the time sounds as if he understands this, but then he comes back to exclaimine… Ahhh! There’s no money in the box. It’s been stolen we’re all going to die. There is no way the United States of America can pay its debts… except by taking away granny’s retirement.
“where Rwe goes wrong is in confusing Social Security with “the government.” They are not the same. “
Ummm, but.. err.. Why is it called “intra-governmental debt ?
Rats.. I promised to stop imposing reality on you.. sorry.
Were I still inclined to help you understand what the real world is dealing with; I’d say that the entity seperation between SS and the general-fund (because, yes, for accounting purposes they are seperate), is much like how a retirement savings is seperate from a checking account… but I’m no longer so inclined.
Move along everyone.. nothing to see here .. SS and its trust fund are AOK !
**sigh** ILSM, once challenged you now add more categories of spending. OK! If we consider that one of the primary functions of any government is to defend its borders, nearly every discretionary dollar can be shown to support that role. In that case nearly all of the US budget is a target for cutting in your strange world.
Otherwise, your complaint is to change the overall priorities of any government.
Everything is on the table for most fiscal conservatives, just as in your strange world.
I believe I saw the term bizarre earlier, and scrambled brain, etc. This set of comments re: SS is truly bizarre. If it is not part of the Federal Debt, then it is not an issue. Federal payroll taxes need not be collected. If SS is not a part of the Federal Government, then we need not have a Federal Government Agency administer it. I’m for all of the changes in Federal law needed to make it so. Oh, I forgot that’s not needed in some fevered brains.
The whole set of recent SS articles seem especially contrived to prove that it should in the forefront of budget discussions, when in fact it is barely considered.
I only see the political testing. It’s not going well for the anti taxers. I won’t bother linking to the video wherein Ryan is getting booed at meetings with his constituents etc. Not to mention the many opinion polls showing broad support for higher taxes on the wealthy…
“Many forget that Bush’s first year the budget also was in surplus.”
Maybe because he was operating under tax and spending policies established for Fiscal Year 2001 by legislation passed in 2000 BEFORE HE WAS ELECTED!
“Many forget that Bush’s first day in office saw the sun rise in the east and set in the west. Obviously then his policies were not long term disasters.”
A fine interview by Scott Horton at Harper’s of Middlebury College professor Allison Stanger reveals the accelerating corruption at the heart of US government privatization. http://harpers.org/archive/2011/04/hbc-90008063
She points out the bipartisan way in which these practices flourish and also the tragedy of BOs policy reducing the transparency of contracts. I recommend the link even as I acknowledge our ilsm’s attempt to bring a lot of these abuses to light. Still interesting for those of us trying to follow the money as a popular movie once put it.
My jaw dropped at the revelation that 40 cents of every discretionary budget dollar goes to a contractor. That’s some marketplace magic!
I’m not sure about pedestrian posturing but a Viola is a musical instrument. Unless you’re referring to the talented multimedia installation artist Bill Viola. Either way it’s confusing – his work is far from pedestrian I assure you.
RweTHEREyet “in all the time that this SS looting has been going on” have you proposed to put the excess SS receipts someplace where they wouldn’t be looted by somebody? Instead of buying government special securities, would you have had the government to go someplace else to borrow $2.7 trillion so we could put the SS receipts someplace safer? Where would that have been?
Anywhere is safer than spent. Even stuffed in a matress, losing ground to inflation, there’d still the principal to draw on.
If were up to me ? I’d have bought foreign land, with some of it (mind-boggling profit was had in that market).. and offset some of the Fed stuff, buy just sticking it in fixed cash accounts, like CDs.
But don’t you see ? it was not about investing.. it was about making FICA revenue available for general spending.
“As part of our audit of the FY 2008 DOD Agency-wide financial statements, DOD management acknowledged that 13 previously-identified material weaknesses continued to exist. Therefore, we grouped the deficencies discussed in the reports by the 13 material weaknesses as follows:
1. Financial Management Systems 2. Fund Balances with Treasury 3. Accounts Receivable 4. Inventory 5. Operating Materials and Supplies 6. General Property, Plant and Equipment 7. Government-Furnished Material and Contractor-Acquired Material 8. Accounts Payable 9. Environmental Liabilities 10. Statement of Net Costs 11. Intragovernmental Eliminations 12. Other Accounting Entries 13. Reconciliation of Net Cost of Operations in Budget
In addition to the 13 material weaknesses, we reported on 3 other issue areas as follow:
1. Inadequate Audit Trails 2. Internal Controls 3. Compliance With Laws and Regulations”
I can’t believe anyone or group knows actual U.S. ‘defense’ expenditures but can believe that they are high enough to progressively distort global production of means of production and in so doing contribute to long-run economic weakness.
well, if he had waited to die until the tax was back, they’d have only had a little over half a billion dollars. can’t expect kids these days to live on that.
I have been inside US DoD acquisition for many years, after s dozen year career in using them in the “field”.
Everything is the business is inflated from the aspects of the “enemy”, to increase the fear and urgency factor. Then the strategy to defeat the boogeyman is the most intense and expensive in the minds of men and women who want to work in the future satisfying thier fictional strategies with expensive stuff.
Then they make up “technical solutions” to satisfy the fictions. From my experience and pronouncements from folks much higher than I the DoD and industry do not do a good job of engineering the solutions. I have seen this and know the games played. See F-35 delays and late tests for the outcomes.
Finally, there is no test program to discover the engineering ain’t no good.
This cycle employs engineers to the tune of 95B US a year, and that does raise the price of anyone in the US doing R&D.
In addition ot the R&D producing the stuff goes at 140B a year which the only large ships built in the US are for the US Navy, that is distorting the shipyard economy, raising input prices so that the super tankers and cruise ships are built over there.
That Boeing an build airplanes as well as AIrbus is both are subsidized indirectly in the case of Boeing and directly in the case of Airbus and EADS.
Good thing there are no fleets out there to take on the US welfare for war state. It would not perform anyu better againts real adversaries than in counter insurgency.
Thanks and of course I understand what “it was about” but I find it interesting that you think that Social Security should have been putting its excess receipts into real estate and maybe bank CDs and accounts (uninsured at those levels), or just putting it under a large mattress, and that the government should have borrowed more money from the public. You didn’t mention gold, but that’s okay, I get it, tangible assets and bank accounts are safer than loans to the government. Some people think that way. Others don’t think that way.
I am doing some research into DoD acqusition organizations, most of what they do is contracted to big war machine developing contracts.
A typical program office is a few military guys, a few GS government employees then about two for each military and GS what we call A&AS contractors, and about 1 federally funded research and devlopment technical equivalent.
Worse most of the contractors know less than the government folks and none of them can run an acqusition properly. That is why every year GAO sees things going higher and long at more cost and less performance.
That is 3 contractors to one government guy, and these guys are all loaded 2 to 2.5 times direct labor.
I think in DoD the only way it is less than 70% to the contracted out part is the soldiers in combat arms.
But then they contract out combat support services because the all volunteer soldiers’ pay scale is so high.
You obviously didn’t read or at least comprehend any of Cactus’s posts/alter ego Kimel’s chapters looking at the numbers with and without lags.
You on the other hand pull your ‘methodology’ out of the nearest convenient posterior. Luckily Krauthammer spends his time sitting down, I suspect Samuelson spends nervous hours looking over his shoulder.
The government side is abusing the resources, waste built on glowing requirements (fraud is the basis forr waste) which the government guys no longer understand as they only manage contracts.
I have been one of those “contractors”, have seen the gross inflation, abusing manpower evaluations and hiring ‘good fellas’, paying bills for “activity reports” and no usable services.
It takes a special organization to run them.
And last time I wrote to senior management they said see the IG.
Regarding the question of a more just economy, I have yet to hear the meritocracy pull yourself up by the bootstraps types explain why people who rent money for their income should pay less in taxes than those who rent their hands and minds.
I have a good friend my age who is a semi retired marketing exec who received a significant windfall when his small software company was bought by a much larger one. His stock options immediately vested in shares of the acquiring firm. That massive (by my standards) pile is only taxed at the long term capital gains rate, not as income.
When I dared to ask him why he deserved a lower tax rate over drinks one night he sputtered some gibberish that he had assumed more risk in taking a position at a smallish (about 500 employee I think) start up. I then asked him if he would have done things the same even if those options would have been taxed at the same rate as ordinary income (as mine were since they were granted by a firm that was already publicly traded, nice loophole there) and he acknowledged he would.
How is the idea of meritocracy supposed to survive these obvious abuses?
I recently followed a link somewhere to an article about how government deficits do not necessarily lead to debt. There was a scatter plot and everything. Anybody have any idea where it was?
Yes, that’s right. I DO insist on posting silly animal videos on AB every opportunity I get. This, though, is remarkable. 🙂 NancyO
http://andrea-zak.com/2011/04/17/vod-squealing-penguin/
Thanks………………….
The economist takes note of the Progressive Congressional Caucus People’s Budget here: http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/04/debt_proposals
Courage!
Thanks back, ilsm. And, now for something completely wonky.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-shining–national-debt-edition/2011/04/20/AFnfSICE_story.html
Courage is hard to come by in hard times. I’d rather a little thinking in lieu of courage. I have always been brave. And…..Oh, Lord, stuck in Lodi again. NancyO
For all the angst about the Federal debt, it is not unprecedented. After WWII debt reached 122% of GDP, vs. 80%-100% now (depending on whether or not you count Special Treasuries).
So I’m curious. How did we get out of that? Well here is a graph of Federal spending as a % of GDP (source: Forbes): http://blogs-images.forbes.com/beltway/files/2011/02/300px-Us_gov_spending_history_1902_2010.png
At the height of WWII, Federal spending was 50% of GDP, but after the war it quickly returned to about 21%. It more than halved. Now we are at 43%, but the cause is not a world war, it is entitlements. I don’t know what the chance is that we are able to halve entitlements.
sammy
Social Security has not contributed one penny to the debt. on the other hand you are still paying for defense as if we had a world war.
See Wiki article on Jackson. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Jackson
The national debt has been paid off in full only once in US history. Andrew Jackson paid it all off and there was rejoicing in Washington. Thereafter followed the longest depression in US history. It lasted 8 years. Things improved when the govt again went into debt.
See also: Panic of 1837
In January 1835, Jackson paid off the entire national debt, the only time in U.S. history that has been accomplished.[25][26] However, this accomplishment was short lived. A severe depression from 1837 to 1844 caused a tenfold increase in national debt within its first year.[27
It would seem there are worse things than national debt. NancyO
]
Dale said: “Social Security has not contributed one penny to the debt.” It appears ye has forgotten Bruce’s prior article: http://www.angrybearblog.com/2011/04/social-security-debt-limit.html
In it Bruce unequivocally shows us: “Now ‘Intragovernmental Holdings’ is what OMB calls ‘Debt held by Government accounts’ which in turn “means the debt the Treasury Department owes to accounts within the Federal Government. Most of it results from the surpluses of the Social Security and other trust funds, which are required by law to be invested in Federal securities.” So the commonly expressed opinion that Social Security Trust Funds are not counted in that total $14 trillion of debt cited in the MSM is dead wrong, they constitute $2.6 tn of that $4.6 tn of ‘Intragovernmental Holdings’ or 18% of the total $14.3 tn in Public Debt. In fact Social Security is by far the biggest creditor the U.S. has, with Treasury holdings double those of the Fed and two and a half times that of our largest foreign lender the Chinese.”
For someone who makes repeated claims that others lie or do not fully understand,as he does, the meaning of commonly understood federal budget concepts, this is an egregious mistake. Or, he is himself lying.
Dale said: “Social Security has not contributed one penny to the debt.” It appears he has forgotten Bruce’s prior article: http://www.angrybearblog.com/2011/04/social-security-debt-limit.html
In it Bruce unequivocally shows us: “Now ‘Intragovernmental Holdings’ is what OMB calls ‘Debt held by Government accounts’ which in turn “means the debt the Treasury Department owes to accounts within the Federal Government. Most of it results from the surpluses of the Social Security and other trust funds, which are required by law to be invested in Federal securities.” So the commonly expressed opinion that Social Security Trust Funds are not counted in that total $14 trillion of debt cited in the MSM is dead wrong, they constitute $2.6 tn of that $4.6 tn of ‘Intragovernmental Holdings’ or 18% of the total $14.3 tn in Public Debt. In fact Social Security is by far the biggest creditor the U.S. has, with Treasury holdings double those of the Fed and two and a half times that of our largest foreign lender the Chinese.”
For someone who makes repeated claims that others lie or do not fully understand,as he does, the meaning of commonly understood federal budget concepts, this is an egregious mistake. Or, he is himself lying.
sammy,
No look to recession and tax cuts.
High taxes paid off WW II and the early military industrail sacking.
No one has mnatch Truman and Ike.
coberly
It is a vast trough, the TV generals are feeding the industry from………..
Every [weapon] signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed. – Dwight D. Eisenhower
Sandi asks: “Why are we in debt ? The budget was balanced 11 years ago, before the John Birch Society candidate, Jr, was elected.”
A balanced budget doesn’t pay off prior debt, and neither did Clinton’s. It may stop borrowing and therefore stop the debt owed to the public from rising further, but the prior debt remains. Many forget that Bush’s first year the budget also was in surplus.
I answer you this way, CoRev, I haven’t a clue about what the hell you are trying to say,l other than you obviously have no clue about the national debt.
All we have to do is nothing, actually. Allow the Bush taxs cuts expire and the other Sunsets to proceed as legislated.
You always seem to be digging for something, never making a lick of sense, but digging none-the-less.
If I had to guess who you are, I would guess that you are up to eyebroys in State welfare, a sick old man on Social Security and Medicare, stuffing your pie-hole with free-bees while puking on the rest of us, the real Americans, about your right wing fanatsies, none of them involing actual service in war.
CoRev
Or your brain is scrambled. Your creditors do not contribute to your debt.
You don’t seem to be able to tell the difference between a borrower and a lender.
Sandi, I am trying hard to react calmly. You obviously missed NancyO’s earlier comment.
‘See Wiki article on Jackson. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Jackson
The national debt has been paid off in full only once in US history. Andrew Jackson paid it all off and there was rejoicing in Washington. Thereafter followed the longest depression in US history. It lasted 8 years. Things improved when the govt again went into debt.
See also: Panic of 1837
In January 1835, Jackson paid off the entire national debt, the only time in U.S. history that has been accomplished.‘[
So, your original question showed a high level of ignorance over the Federal Budget, and the remainder of your comment indicated a serious need for anger management.
CoRev, how old are you ?
Are you recieving Social Security payments ?
Are you recieving Medicare coverage ?
Have you ever served in the, blessed, United States Military ?
I have no interest in your pandering.
So, now Bruce has the scrambled brain? I just repeated his comment. The desperation is sad.
Don’t bother to respond.
Oh,Oh.
CoRev and apparently everyone else, has gone away.
IMO, the FDR America is the right way to go. Strong regulation of Industry by committed people following an industrial policy that insures a “fwee market” for consumers.
Reconnect with the Industrial Policy of Regulated Penetration by Foreign Manufatcturers.
Wrongald Rayguns never served one day in combat. The lousy SOB sucked up all the benefits from the men, and woman, who did. Now we have the CoRevs’ telling us we should be honoring the aristocracy because they are better than us ?
My daughter wanted to watch a program on that little prick in England getting married. I told her no way. My grandparents came here to get away from them. Now we acquiesce to thir resurgence in my country ?
Get up, get out, and vote. Read the Founders publications.
CoRev,
Ther has been many days when the Republic has seemed to be in peril. I agee that Andrew Jackson is an interesting figure that has not recieved the noteriety that, perhaps, he should.
As I understand it, Andrew Jackson’s quarrel was with Alexander Hamilton and the establishment of the Central Bank and the recognition of the primacy of the fiat currency.
The facts will bear me out that the Bankers, as now were running scams on the dumb shit public, Andrew Jackson, being who he was, hated them.
So that is exactly what you are saying, that you hate Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernhake and the whole idea of the fiat currency while supporting the Republican dip shits that are scamming the Federal Reserve, (the Bush Family ? S&L Crisis and the Banking collapse) ?
What point are you trying to make ?
“These people never it so good” as I recall, Barbara Bush’s comment on seeing the New Orleans refugie’s in the Astrodome. George Bush, Sr. is also a “consultant” to the “Hedge Fund” the Carlyle group.
CoRev, buddy, get up. Say something about ?
America
CoRev
How the devil can you confuse the status of a debt holder with the cause of that debt? If you take out a loan in order to buy a car did the bank contribute to your debt? Or, did you put yourself into debt? The bank assisted you in the purchase of the car, but it did not cause you to make the purchase with borrowed finds.
If your interpretation of Bruce’s comment, as you quote him, is being offered in a serious manner I bring you the sad news that you are truly confused regarding a basic aspect of financing. Lenders don’t cause borrowers to go into debt. Lenders provide capital to those who don’t have it readily available, but make an honest promise to repay that capital. The guy that spends the procedes of the debt is the cause of his own situation and shouldn’t be blaming the lender he had previously beseeched to provide the loan. You’ve got the relationship ass backwards. Sorry that I had taken any thing you had previously said seriously as you have now demonstrated your total lack of understanding of even the most simple concept in finance.
Furthermore, Jr, was an abolute failure in business, (what an intersting term, busy ness maybe), gaining his wealth as all the dog shit Nobles have always gained their wealth: taxing the dipshit CoRevs of the world. He sold the Texas baseball team’s stadium to the public, as debt, and took his cut, $16 MM.
What a crazy 11 years it has been, beginning with Clarence Thomas.
CoRev, buddy, where art though ?
Come on, CoRev. Don’t hold your anger back, unleas it as you promised, earlier.. Give it too me, buddy. I was once a State wrestling champ, I can take it, I assure you.
I just don’t know what you are saying. I love you, man.
wrestlers are all fags
Buck Mc Keon teaching the freshman on the Armed Services Committee their new trade, slopping at the war trough.
The euphemism defense is wrong.
It is a trough, funded by a bought congress. Sold with fear and fiction.
In real dollars the military industrial complex is as lucretive as in 1968, whena lot of war was going on in Asia, and a lot of Red Army tanks were in Poland and East Germany.
That trough is stolen from the people.
http://battleland.blogs.time.com/2011/04/21/how-buck-mckeon-is-showing-gop-freshmen-the-ways-of-washington/
Plenty of the plundered money go around, if you send it to the military industrial complex.
From AS: The economist takes note of the Progressive Congressional Caucus People’s Budget here: http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/04/debt_proposals
I’m repeating this statement and link from amateur socialist because I’m sill trying to understand two things about them. First, how the devil did such an article get published in The Economist, which I have always thought of as an ideological extension of the IMF and/or the WBO. The article seems to praise the PCCP Budget proposal while slamming Paul Ryan and the media that fawn over him and his ilk. Have I stepped through the looking glass.
And the second reason, why have I not seen this reference to the PCCP Budget proposal on AB before this one small reference by AS? Good and progressive ideas about the economy is supposed to be what this site is all about rather than as a soap box for our several resident trolls who persistently argue in in a most deceptive manner in favor of the most regressive and reactionary economic ideas. If AB doesn’t shout the praises of ideas like the PCCP Budget proposal how can we expect to contribute to the spread of a healthier and more just economy?
Sandi
Maybe CoRev’s bizarre interpretation of Bruce’s comments regarding the debt levels attributing a significant part of its cause to the SS Trust Fund, appearing on this thread yesterday, was so embarrassing to him that he is still trying to recover his lost sense of patriotism. In the world according to CoRev, and his cronies, one must fawn over the financial elite of our society and promote any asinine concept, however counter intuitive it may be, that is offered up by the “stink tank” industry. He and his ilk seem to equate fealty with patriotism forgetting that the former is a sense of duty to one’s betters and the latter is a sense of duty to one’s society.
Oh, for cryin’ out loud, Sandi. Let him rest. It’s Easter weekend and maybe it’ll sooth his mind. NancyO
Jackson earlier in his life felt he had gotten screwed by bankers in Tn. In addition Nicholas Biddle (head of the second bank of the US) made direct political contributions to his opponets. So when Biddle tryed to box Jackson in by Getting the recharter bill thru congress, Jackson vetoed it and made the veto stick. Of course Biddle predicted that the world would come to an end because of this. Now recall to complete history a bit that it was really Hamilton versus Madison/Jefferson, and after 20 years from 1791 its charter expired. Then the war of 1812 came and Madison realized that to do the borrowings required needed a central bank so the second bank was charterd in 1816, thus the 1836 shutdown.
The Jefferson, Madison (pre war of 1812), Jackson party generally felt banks were very bad things that contributed nothing to the country, all money should be real (sound familiar?) In many things economic we have not solved the arguements between Hamilton and Madison/Jefferson even after 222 or so years. I guess that shows that these sorts of economic arguements are really theological or philosophical where people labor mightly and produce nothing, and never reach a long term consensus.
Like you I was surprised to see the clear eyed PCC proposal discussed honestly at the Economist. Even more surprised they pointed out it accomplishes something Ryan’s plan doesn’t: A return to balanced budgeting by 2021.
And to be fair to our hosts I don’t think it necessary to shout the praises of this or anything else. A fuller examination of the idea on its merits or lack of should prove useful at least.
Well, maybe not shout praise, but certainly open the discussion to what is a better idea and focus on the fact that there are alternatives to the fawning ignorance of both the national media and the Ryan proposal.
Cursed,
When did they let you out? I’m a bit surprised at the direction of some of your recent comments. In spite of the sather viscious character of some of what you have to say, you’re often a lot more ideologically unaligned.
Quite so. Courage!
He’s probably equally as weary of the Kos-esque sector of the Blogosphere.. At least at AG, a little bit of light shown on the progessive fantasies doesn’t get wiped from the record (thanks for that Dan), but you can only listen so long, to people resorting to cheap, childish insults, when it’s pointed out to them, that their government-subsidized lives are facing cut-backs..
And it’s a pointless argument anyway.. pat yourselves on the back as SS undergoes very real cutting, very soon.. Will you be up to the “I told you so” ? **smirk**
just to be the wet blanket here. i think the plan is a good place to start, if only to challenge the conventional wis… er, madness.
but such a high marginal tax on “the rich” won’t fly politically, and it is not needed. a 3% increase in the effective tax on incomes over 100k would be a good enough start. and just to be fair minded, i’d take it as part of a rescinding of ALL the Bush tax cuts…. give credibility to our side, you know. Plus an increase in the payroll tax of, like half a tenth of a percent per year so the “poor” can pay for their own longer life expectancy.
and then, i’d start a conversation about making Medicare more like Social Security… that is pretty much an insurance program for workers paid for by workers. and explain to the workers that medical care in old age is an expectable part of life. and they need to pay for it. even if they have to ask for a raise.
point is a raise is better than a “tax the rich” philosophy.
but note, i am all for taxing the rich until they stop complaining about the deficit.
Rwe
i wish you hadn’t wasted so much of my time trying to explain SS to you. It is clear you have an ideological commitment to not understanding it.
You didn’t tell me anything I haven’t heard… just watch as the discussion pans out.. and steps are taken.. I’ll check back to see how you’all dealing with it..
We complain about the deficit, for the country’s sake.. I’m all set, no matter what happens..
Mean time.. go run your credit card up.. empty checking to pay it down.. run it up some more… then write an IOU from your checking account, to your savings account.. take the savings , put it in checking.. use it to pay down the credit card, and then go spend more on the card…
Just tell your wife not to worry.. your savings have been, “invested”.. (then admit under your breath, that you’ll have to lower your standard of living to make good on that investment)
When she looks at you like you’re drunk,,, just ask her.. “don’t you have faith in a bond from the checking account.. we both have jobs?” … when she says,, “yeah, but, the checking account is in over-draft, and the credit card is maxed out”..
Lemee know how that works out..
I’ll finish the story for you… As you’re still babbling about how she doesn’t understand intra-houshold lending.. she’ll go out and take on a 2nd job (raise taxes).. quit going to the salon and hide your golf clubs (cut spending).. so that your checking account can honor that bond (and keep you out of bankruptcy court)
Oh.. and as you realize that won’t be near enough to make the savings whole… she’ll make you understand that retirement will have to be five years further down the road.. **wink**
Might as well wrap it up…
As the second job taxes her ability to be productive, she has to take a pay-cut on her primary job, lowering the hlousehold income… “No problem”, you say.. “this is all part of the plan” .. she interupts you with a letter from the bank.. and you proclaim, “pay no attention to that BIG LIAR”.. “We’ll just get the bank to raise the debt-ceiling on the cradit card.. take out a cash advance to start replenishing the savings”.. “Don’t you see ? we’ll just replace one debt with another .. no harm done.. AND we’ll eventually get our savings back” … I told you this would work !”
While trying to decide between laughing and crying.. she reminds you that a cash-advnce has its own, higher interest rate.. you comfort her by telling her that that will be off-set by the bond interest being paid from the checking account, to the savings account.
A couple of involuntary facial-tics later, in dead silence.. she heads for the liquor cabinet.
The End
Jack.
Sandi is a boor. Uses foul language in the presense of ladies.
RweTHEREyet,
The US has done most of this bankstering for war to the tune of trillions, with a “bow wave” of future outlays for the new toys to try and find more wars to use them in. Your story might work if it included the waste of checks written for the war boys’ cabals.
And how that distorted the productive sector.
You should take your tale up with the monetarists, Milton Friedman would be glad to debate you.
Or Dick Cheney, when he was “ten feet tall”.
“Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes … known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.… No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”
— James Madison, Political Observations, 1795
ILSM, your inability to understand the basics is amazing. For every dollar spent on discretionary military spending, three are spent on mandatory/entitlement spending.
Exorbitant military with failed social insurance. Bankrupt.
The total cost of the Joint Strike Fighter will be: $1.3T, according to a recent report. And that is betting on fixing the “reliability” as they fly it. Wishes and hopes.
Headline: Lockheed Martin F-35 Operating Costs May Reach $1 Trillion
By Tony Capaccio, Bloomberg News
It may cost as much as $1 trillion to operate the military’s fleet of Lockheed Martin Corp.F-35 aircraft for several decades, according to a preliminary Pentagon estimate sent to Congress.
The figure is 9.3 percent more than the $915 billion estimate by the Defense Department in its 2009 Selected Acquisition Report to Congress.
The long-term cost estimate, which includes inflation, was submitted to Congress on April 15 in a report obtained by Bloomberg News. It assumes 8,000 hours of flying time for each of the 2,443 aircraft over a 30-year period. The Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps have their own variations of the aircraft, with the last in the fleet to be produced in 2035.
The estimate was calculated by the Pentagon’s independent cost analysis group based on models using historical data from other fighters, David Van Buren, Air Force service acquisition executive, said in an interview today.
“We are taking the challenge” posed by the $1 trillion estimate and “saying we’ve got to drive this down fast,” said Van Buren, who oversees F-35 management. “Do we drive down it down based on reliability projections? Do we drive it down based on technologies that we developed for the F-35” that reflect lessons learned from the F-22, he said?
The danger of rising before everyone else on Easter!!
It’s kinda funny.. I mean, in all the time that this SS looting has been going on; I’ve never had discussions like this, except in progressive blogs. I had to chuckle at myself for trying so hard in these blogs, to “win” a debate.
My progressive brother and I have had pretty spririted discussion for nearly 40 years… we’d somtimes discuss some of the dirty/crooked practices of evil corporations anf banks… and at some point I’d say somehing like, “Things like the S&L debacle, and Enron combined, pale compared to what has been done by the government, to the money collected in the name of Social Security. We might debate about just how bad any of that was, but he’d never try to deny that the SS money has been “taken” and spent.
This discussion is relatively new phenom.. and as I asked Bruce.. What is it you’re trying to accomplish, by convincing people that SS isn’t the the magnitude of trouble, that it is ? The steps needed to deal with it, WILL happen.
Meanwhile MI state congressman proposes law prohibiting foster children from receiving money for any clothing other than 2nd hand. http://michiganmessenger.com/48487/foster-children-would-be-allowed-to-get-clothing-only-from-second-hand-stores
US $1.3T for planes that don’t fly, but let’s see what else we can extract from the least fortunate among us.
Jesus wept.
Besides income taxes the People’s Budget also tries to reform the womb lottery this country has made of our estate taxes. The late George Steinbrenner’s kids will divide approximately $1.3B more or less tax free because the old fart had the decency to die before they reinstitute the tax. They will receive this windfall primarily because of whose legs they came out between. Why?
I rent my body and mind for my income but owe the US Treasury its due for that. Why do Steinbrenner’s kids owe nothing because they had the luck to begin as his lucky seed?
On the spending side the People’s Budget also fairly examines the insane waste of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. So much treasure and so much blood, mostly shed by the least fortunate in our country. Why?
Quite the story. Have you pitched it to Hollywood? Maybe they’d buy it.
Nah.. but I thought for a second that it might make an interesting, XtraNormal cartoon..
But, like I said.. this problem is well understood by anyone who matters… there’s no dragging the committed left into reality.. that’s oxymoronic. What they need to believe clashes with reality.. No harm in letting them live in that world.. carry on ..
CoRev,
Send a link. I see somewhat less than 2 spent for succor of coupla 100M for each dollar of corporate welfare.
Rwe
NO one can tell you anything.
CoRev,
You are merely talking about just the war state welfare side, “militarism’s” discretionary spending.
There is a whole other side.
I see somewhat less than 2 spent for succor of coupla 100M for each dollar of corporate welfare.
And a lot of the medical side of entitlements goes to excess delivery costs and untoward profits in the unregulated no market medical insurance cabal.
but in case anyone cares
where Rwe goes wrong is in confusing Social Security with “the government.” They are not the same.
To start with Rwe’s dysfunctional family, we would have to imagine that Husband spends all the family money on sports cars. Wife would like to take a vacation, so she gets a job to make a little extra money to pay for it. Unfortunately she saves her money in a bank account that her husband can access. So when it’s time to withdraw her savings, she finds Husband has beat her to it and spent all the money on a new sports car.
He explains, “well, it’s all family money, so it doesn’t matter what you wanted to spend it on. I needed that sports car.”
Now, what seems to be wrong with my “explanation” is that Rwe will “agree” with me. “See,” he says,” the bad old government has stolen the Social Security money so Social Security is in big trouble and there is nothing anyone can do about it but cut Social Security which should never have been allowed to exist in the first place.”
But the rest of us, who can see what a creep “Husband” is, recognize that Rwe is actually taking Husband’s side: Forget that vacation, wife, you should never have expected to get that vacation in the first place.
Now, if Rwe is saying that wife’s mistake was putting the money in bank account that Husband could access, he might have a point. But what we know is that we are not living in an analogy, and in the real world there was never a way that working people could save enough of their own money to be able to retire without the plan offered by Social Security: a place to save your money safe from inflation and market losses and insured against personal bad luck. What Rwe really means is that he doesn’t want to have any government at all. Certainly not a government that the people can use to protect their own interests.
Tell me whatever you like… I’ll pretend agree, if helps you sleep at night. I’ll stop messing with your fantasies.. It’s as useless as trying to tell a 4 year old that there’s no Santa Claus. That child will eventually have to deal with reality… as will you.. Who am I to rush the process, and get you all agravated ? I won’t do it any longer.. But I will be back for the “I told ya so”..
Carry on..
looking back over Rwe’s comments, i realize that i make a mistake trying to reply to them. you quickly get trapped in a bizarre world of … well, of not being able to follow an argument or remember it, and just substituting your own fantasies, not only about how the world works, but what your “opponent” believes.
Rwe says the “the looting of SS has been going on..” But this is not true. SS lent money to the government. the government is currently paying the money back. But the people who Lie about Social SEcurity have been running this “looting” meme so long it has become a part of their basic brain machinery. And what they end up arguing is “you have to let us loot social security because we have been saying all along that the government is looting social security.”
Rwe maintains is “borrowing from yourself” meme, because that was an especially effective one in the har har society.
I would ask, but he woulnd’t see the point, if when he buys a bond from the government… lots of rich people do, you know… if he thinks the government is borrowing from itself, and can only pay back the bond by taxing itself so the bond has “no economic value”?
Social SEcurity… which could continue just fine even if the Bonds were stolen… is “just” a collection of citizens who bought their Savings Bonds as a group. This made sense to them because they wanted the Bonds as insurance … which is something that only a “group” can provide.
But Rwe and his ilk think that the government can just renege on its bonds and therefore the people who bought them and believed in “the full faith and credit of the United States of America” were just fools.
So to wind this up… “our hour is about up Rwe”… when Rwe and his brother agree that “the SS money has been taken and spent,” remember that “taken” here means “borrowed”… so what the else did you expect. you borrow money in order to spend it. what counts is that you pay it back… out of what you earn. no one demands that you keep money you borrowed in a box so the rubes can look at it and “see” that it is there.
Rwe half the time sounds as if he understands this, but then he comes back to exclaimine… Ahhh! There’s no money in the box. It’s been stolen we’re all going to die. There is no way the United States of America can pay its debts… except by taking away granny’s retirement.
“where Rwe goes wrong is in confusing Social Security with “the government.” They are not the same. “
Ummm, but.. err.. Why is it called “intra-governmental debt ?
Rats.. I promised to stop imposing reality on you.. sorry.
Were I still inclined to help you understand what the real world is dealing with; I’d say that the entity seperation between SS and the general-fund (because, yes, for accounting purposes they are seperate), is much like how a retirement savings is seperate from a checking account… but I’m no longer so inclined.
Move along everyone.. nothing to see here .. SS and its trust fund are AOK !
Didn’t you read where I agree with you now ?
I’m supposed to care whether you pretend agree or just make shit up? Either way the contribution is the same.
“I’m supposed to care whether you pretend agree or just make shit up? Either way the contribution is the same.”
Fortunately, the unstop-able advance of time, and the realties it reveals, will be the decider on who’s making shit up..
Ah yes the oft cited future vindication which is conveniently untestable at this juncture. Wherein I’ll rue the day etc.
Voila.
“Ah yes the oft cited future vindication which is conveniently untestable at this juncture. Wherein I’ll rue the day etc.
Voila. “
The testability is going on as we speak.. but that’s happening outside the fantasy. There need be no rue-ing… no point in crying over spilt-milk..
**sigh** ILSM, once challenged you now add more categories of spending. OK! If we consider that one of the primary functions of any government is to defend its borders, nearly every discretionary dollar can be shown to support that role. In that case nearly all of the US budget is a target for cutting in your strange world.
Otherwise, your complaint is to change the overall priorities of any government.
Everything is on the table for most fiscal conservatives, just as in your strange world.
I believe I saw the term bizarre earlier, and scrambled brain, etc. This set of comments re: SS is truly bizarre. If it is not part of the Federal Debt, then it is not an issue. Federal payroll taxes need not be collected. If SS is not a part of the Federal Government, then we need not have a Federal Government Agency administer it. I’m for all of the changes in Federal law needed to make it so. Oh, I forgot that’s not needed in some fevered brains.
The whole set of recent SS articles seem especially contrived to prove that it should in the forefront of budget discussions, when in fact it is barely considered.
I only see the political testing. It’s not going well for the anti taxers. I won’t bother linking to the video wherein Ryan is getting booed at meetings with his constituents etc. Not to mention the many opinion polls showing broad support for higher taxes on the wealthy…
The testing of patience though…. Voila!
“I only see the political testing.’
TA DA ! (more pedestrian than “Viola”, yes ?)
You only see what’s seen from fantasy land.
Politics, shmolitics … come out and look at economic reality. .. or don’t.. it’ll be visiting you soon anyway..
“Many forget that Bush’s first year the budget also was in surplus.”
Maybe because he was operating under tax and spending policies established for Fiscal Year 2001 by legislation passed in 2000 BEFORE HE WAS ELECTED!
“Many forget that Bush’s first day in office saw the sun rise in the east and set in the west. Obviously then his policies were not long term disasters.”
Same logical content. Sheesh.
Bruce, just using the Mike Kimel metric.
A fine interview by Scott Horton at Harper’s of Middlebury College professor Allison Stanger reveals the accelerating corruption at the heart of US government privatization. http://harpers.org/archive/2011/04/hbc-90008063
She points out the bipartisan way in which these practices flourish and also the tragedy of BOs policy reducing the transparency of contracts. I recommend the link even as I acknowledge our ilsm’s attempt to bring a lot of these abuses to light. Still interesting for those of us trying to follow the money as a popular movie once put it.
My jaw dropped at the revelation that 40 cents of every discretionary budget dollar goes to a contractor. That’s some marketplace magic!
I’m not sure about pedestrian posturing but a Viola is a musical instrument. Unless you’re referring to the talented multimedia installation artist Bill Viola. Either way it’s confusing – his work is far from pedestrian I assure you.
Touche’ : )
RweTHEREyet “in all the time that this SS looting has been going on” have you proposed to put the excess SS receipts someplace where they wouldn’t be looted by somebody? Instead of buying government special securities, would you have had the government to go someplace else to borrow $2.7 trillion so we could put the SS receipts someplace safer? Where would that have been?
Anywhere is safer than spent. Even stuffed in a matress, losing ground to inflation, there’d still the principal to draw on.
If were up to me ? I’d have bought foreign land, with some of it (mind-boggling profit was had in that market).. and offset some of the Fed stuff, buy just sticking it in fixed cash accounts, like CDs.
But don’t you see ? it was not about investing.. it was about making FICA revenue available for general spending.
Sure. Let’s let the US retirement population inflate a global property bubble. Just in case the banks fall asleep or something.
http://www.dodig.mil/audit/reports/fy10/10-002.pdf
http://www.defenselink.mil/comptroller/par/fy2004.html
“As part of our audit of the FY 2008 DOD Agency-wide financial statements, DOD management acknowledged that 13 previously-identified material weaknesses continued to exist. Therefore, we grouped the deficencies discussed in the reports by the 13 material weaknesses as follows:
1. Financial Management Systems
2. Fund Balances with Treasury
3. Accounts Receivable
4. Inventory
5. Operating Materials and Supplies
6. General Property, Plant and Equipment
7. Government-Furnished Material and
Contractor-Acquired Material
8. Accounts Payable
9. Environmental Liabilities
10. Statement of Net Costs
11. Intragovernmental Eliminations
12. Other Accounting Entries
13. Reconciliation of Net Cost of Operations
in Budget
In addition to the 13 material weaknesses, we reported on 3 other issue areas as follow:
1. Inadequate Audit Trails
2. Internal Controls
3. Compliance With Laws and Regulations”
I can’t believe anyone or group knows actual U.S. ‘defense’ expenditures but can believe that they are high enough to progressively distort global production of means of production and in so doing contribute to long-run economic weakness.
ilsm,
just in case of confusion, I agree with you.
amateur
well, if he had waited to die until the tax was back, they’d have only had a little over half a billion dollars. can’t expect kids these days to live on that.
Juan,
I have been inside US DoD acquisition for many years, after s dozen year career in using them in the “field”.
Everything is the business is inflated from the aspects of the “enemy”, to increase the fear and urgency factor. Then the strategy to defeat the boogeyman is the most intense and expensive in the minds of men and women who want to work in the future satisfying thier fictional strategies with expensive stuff.
Then they make up “technical solutions” to satisfy the fictions. From my experience and pronouncements from folks much higher than I the DoD and industry do not do a good job of engineering the solutions. I have seen this and know the games played. See F-35 delays and late tests for the outcomes.
Finally, there is no test program to discover the engineering ain’t no good.
This cycle employs engineers to the tune of 95B US a year, and that does raise the price of anyone in the US doing R&D.
In addition ot the R&D producing the stuff goes at 140B a year which the only large ships built in the US are for the US Navy, that is distorting the shipyard economy, raising input prices so that the super tankers and cruise ships are built over there.
That Boeing an build airplanes as well as AIrbus is both are subsidized indirectly in the case of Boeing and directly in the case of Airbus and EADS.
Good thing there are no fleets out there to take on the US welfare for war state. It would not perform anyu better againts real adversaries than in counter insurgency.
The money is wasted and stolen from real needs.
Thanks and of course I understand what “it was about” but I find it interesting that you think that Social Security should have been putting its excess receipts into real estate and maybe bank CDs and accounts (uninsured at those levels), or just putting it under a large mattress, and that the government should have borrowed more money from the public. You didn’t mention gold, but that’s okay, I get it, tangible assets and bank accounts are safer than loans to the government. Some people think that way. Others don’t think that way.
CoRev,
I win; you **sigh**, so glad. Happy dance may be fuled by Grandkiddies’ Easter candy.
Just wondering. Defending borders, are you a libertarian for empire?
I have met a few whose bread is buttered by the military industrial complex and are “no government is good government” guys except where they live.
Are you there?
AS,
I think it is far far more than 40%.
I am doing some research into DoD acqusition organizations, most of what they do is contracted to big war machine developing contracts.
A typical program office is a few military guys, a few GS government employees then about two for each military and GS what we call A&AS contractors, and about 1 federally funded research and devlopment technical equivalent.
Worse most of the contractors know less than the government folks and none of them can run an acqusition properly. That is why every year GAO sees things going higher and long at more cost and less performance.
That is 3 contractors to one government guy, and these guys are all loaded 2 to 2.5 times direct labor.
I think in DoD the only way it is less than 70% to the contracted out part is the soldiers in combat arms.
But then they contract out combat support services because the all volunteer soldiers’ pay scale is so high.
You obviously didn’t read or at least comprehend any of Cactus’s posts/alter ego Kimel’s chapters looking at the numbers with and without lags.
You on the other hand pull your ‘methodology’ out of the nearest convenient posterior. Luckily Krauthammer spends his time sitting down, I suspect Samuelson spends nervous hours looking over his shoulder.
The interview didn’t provide detail on the 40% figure. It may depend on the definition of discretionary an often slippery one.
But the near total lack of oversight + diminished transparency of the process probably makes it easy to underestimate it.
I will repeat:
just in case of confusion, I agree with you.
but wanted to add the IG info [which also agrees with you].
i had a [late] friend who spent his life working for general dynamics – he would have agreed with you.
another worked with lockheed for 10-15 yrs – he would have agreed,,,,,and these guys were not at all ‘leftist’ or even liberal.
amateur socialist,
Thank you for the link.
The government side is abusing the resources, waste built on glowing requirements (fraud is the basis forr waste) which the government guys no longer understand as they only manage contracts.
I have been one of those “contractors”, have seen the gross inflation, abusing manpower evaluations and hiring ‘good fellas’, paying bills for “activity reports” and no usable services.
It takes a special organization to run them.
And last time I wrote to senior management they said see the IG.
I will check the professors work.
Regarding the question of a more just economy, I have yet to hear the meritocracy pull yourself up by the bootstraps types explain why people who rent money for their income should pay less in taxes than those who rent their hands and minds.
I have a good friend my age who is a semi retired marketing exec who received a significant windfall when his small software company was bought by a much larger one. His stock options immediately vested in shares of the acquiring firm. That massive (by my standards) pile is only taxed at the long term capital gains rate, not as income.
When I dared to ask him why he deserved a lower tax rate over drinks one night he sputtered some gibberish that he had assumed more risk in taking a position at a smallish (about 500 employee I think) start up. I then asked him if he would have done things the same even if those options would have been taxed at the same rate as ordinary income (as mine were since they were granted by a firm that was already publicly traded, nice loophole there) and he acknowledged he would.
How is the idea of meritocracy supposed to survive these obvious abuses?
Hi,
I recently followed a link somewhere to an article about how government deficits do not necessarily lead to debt. There was a scatter plot and everything. Anybody have any idea where it was?