Bruce Bartlett and Yves Smith on Overhyping the Fiscal Cliff
This video featuring Bruce Bartlett and Yves Smith on Overhyping the Fiscal Cliff is worth watching.
Independent political and economic analysts Bruce Bartlett and Yves Smith join Bill in a discussion that’s become as rare as it is necessary — why are Washington insiders talking about the deficit crisis and not the jobs crisis? Bartlett, former advisor to Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, got into hot water with fellow conservatives when he aired concerns about the direction of their ideology and wrote critically of the second George Bush. His most recent book is The Benefit and The Burden: Tax Reform — Why We Need It, and What It Will Take. Yves Smith, who spent more than 25 years in the financial services industry, is the founder and editor of the popular blog Naked Capitalism, and runs a successful management consulting firm. Published on Dec 14, 2012
Thanks for putting this video up. Excellent discussion!
A love fest between Bartlett and Smith.
Both pointed out that austerity in the EU was having counter productive consequence. Austerity means less growth, less growth means less tax revenue, less revenue means bigger deficits.
Okay, I can buy that line of thinking, but why do both Smith and Bartlett go on to advocate higher taxes in the US?? Austerity is austerity is austerity. Why are austerity measures in the US good, and bad in the EU?
Both Yves and Bruce think it would be swell if we went off the cliff. Fix everything next year, no problem at all.
This thinking is popular among liberals. I disagree. If we go over the cliff it sets up a showdown on the debt-limit. That will happen in March.
Democrats have an edge in the debate over the cliff. They will lose that edge if the debate becomes centered on the debt limit.
As Yves correctly points out, nothing horrendous happens on 1/1/13. But very horrible things will happen on 3/15 when the government faces a shut down.
If we go over the cliff (I think we will), Republicans will get their pound of flesh. The result will be cuts in both Social Security and Medicare. The cuts to SS will be applied to the Military and Federal Workers Pensions.
That’s the outcome that liberals are fighting for? Go figure.
interesting article from the HuffPo:
Fiscal Fail: Government Agencies Plan Few Significant Changes For January, Despite Cliff Hype:
The so-called fiscal cliff is a combination of automatic tax hikes and spending cuts scheduled to go into effect Jan. 1. But the agencies responsible for implementing those changes, including the IRS and the Pentagon, are well aware that congressional and White House negotiators will most likely come to some sort of deal within weeks or months — and so they are planning to carry on as usual, according to a broad review of private and public government plans.
In other words, there will be no cliff. There won’t even be a slope. Congress and the president can have their public and private dramas, but the government officials responsible for carrying out their eventual orders have seen this movie before, and they know how it ends.
B.K.: “The result will be cuts in both Social Security and Medicare. The cuts to SS will be applied to the Military and Federal Workers Pensions.”
Explain that statement. I have heard no such result from anyone else. How does the government spend FICA revenue or Trust Fund assets on the military or anyone else’s pension that is not an earned SS benefit?