Debt, Deficits, and Defense
Debt, Deficits, and Defense…The Sustainable Defense Task Force set in motion by Rep. Barney Frank has comprehensive suggestions. It is more specific than other suggestions I have read.
David Ignatius of the Washington Post sees deficits concern as a possible unifying process among right/left thinking. I don’t see it.
Bruce Bartlett comments on deficits and defense spending here and here.
Concerns about budget deficits and rising debt levels are leading to fractures in the heretofore unified conservative support for ever-higher defense spending. At least a few Republicans are now openly suggesting significant cuts in the defense budget, raising concerns among conservatives primarily concerned about national security. I believe that ultimately national security conservatives will be forced to choose between cuts in the defense budget and tax increases to reduce deficits.
Rdan,
The problem is congress. It can be very difficult to cut programs of make efficientcy adjustments. The C-17 buy is an example. The AF doesn’t want any more but congress keeps buying them.
The huge depot bases were and are very hard to reduce or consolidate becuase of the huge loss of jobs for the depot that closes (we are talking like 7-15 thousands job going away per depot). These jobs losses may be mitigated by letting people transfer to the consolidation target but that does nothing for the Congressmen and Senators from the state that losses the depot. They pay the political price.
Lots of congressmen got voted out during the earlier DoD BRAC hearings becuase of lost jobs. Voters don’t care if it makes sense for the country, they do know that the base in their district that had 5,000 solid jobs (typical AF base) just went away. IN some places that base WAS the job base for the entire area (Loring AFB in Maine is an extreame example).
Then there is the contractor consolidations. From a business case it makes zero sense to keep both east coast shipbuilders going on low-rate production of subs. But try to consolidate the production too just one shipbuilder and the congressional cries will bring the house down.
Heck one of the primary arguments to save the F-22 was the thousands of job losses. And it had something in almost every congressional district.
Even die-hard anti-military types get all pro-defense when its THEIR base that is getting the ax.
All of this is a bi-partisan problem, not just the Rs. There is a lot of pork in the DoD budget and you will find it VERY difficult to make cuts that hurt congress-critters. See how far you would get closing Nellis AFB, NV. I know from my time in the Pentagon the North Dakota delegations #1 concern is keeping Minot AFB open and fully staffed. They will give their two Senate votes to anyone who keeps the base open…
And making cuts of good solid jobs during a depression, something everyone at AB says we should be making MORE of, won’t help the economy any.
Islam will change
Buff,
You got it right.
Most of the warfare budget is a jobs program, no more useful than a bunch of CCC kids leaning on shovels.
When they cut broadly in the late 80’s under Gramm Rudman, and after Vietnam and inthe early 60’s…… The USSR was armed to the teeth, as I am sure you recall.
The reasons to hold the line are jobs, profits and politics.
The MIC uses its concentration of money and jobs to keep pillaging the US. As Ike warned in Jan 61.
That said I know a bit about the depot caucus being a former ilsm in acquiring weapon system support.
The industry is generally more expensive and usually less productive than arsenal support which was viewed as business development for defense companies as Bush I/Clinton peace dividends came about.
It is about good returns in a protected unproductive segment misusing 7% of national demand.
ilsm will not change
You guys are sure right about the politics, but the part that concerns me is why does everyone get hot and bothered about social security having an unfunded liability of a few trillion dollars over an infinite timeframe while the military racks up those kind of numbers every 5 years or so? And if the military related jobs are so important to the congress critters why aren’t their constituents quality of life, the jobs that the elderly will hang onto if they mess with social security or the jobs that will be lost by seniors spending less?
Terry,
Not to get off topic, but SS does not have an unfunded liability. And looking out over a 100+ year timeframe is meaningless.
Islam will change
Yes, it is locally partisan regardless of party. Are you a deficit hawk?
War profiteers and militarism.
The profits in the warfare welfare state are consistent and pretty good.
Some of them go to TV ads, and some go to PAC’s.
And some go to conservative causes and propaganda about why militarism is the same as patriotism.
Militarism plays to the Orwellian meme of keeping the population in a fear based frenzie over foreign threats and false patriotic responses to keep them from recognizing they are being plundered.
The good of the few is served by war, at the expense of the many!
ilsm will not change
Rdan,
Yes, I have always been a deficit hawk. I complained about Bush’s spending spree and the just out-and-out stupidity of the second round of tax cuts as we went to war (first round was before 9/11). I have stated many times I thought Bush spent like a drunken sailor, now we get Obama who’s spending makes Bush look like a miser (or Obama like a drunken sailor on crack – you pick).
I don’t believe in big government since big government by its very nature will infringe on individual liberty. But I expect the government to work well on what it does do and be efficient with the people’s money given to it via taxes.
Remember the DoD is consider discretionary spending. So its one of the places were your congress-critter can bring home the bacon. That’s why its so hard to cut programs. The B-2 bomber had parts built in EVERY congressional district. Luckily we managed to stop the building at 21 (and killing one of my career paths at the same time BTW) during the ‘peace dividend’ with the collapse of communism.
I assume everyone remembers the out and out viscousness surronding the BRAC process. I have friends who were at Loring when it got BRACed. Literally the locals broke down and cried in restaurants and stores. Real estate values dropped to zero. It killed the place. But BRAC was probably the ONLY way you were going to actually get the peace dividend. Try closing an excess base today, just by its lonesome. It won’t happen (sans a Homestead AFB situation). We managed the BRAC becuase we got sold the ‘peace dividend’ and it was a situation were everyone got hurt. But it still didn’t save some congress-critters seats…
ilsm’s idea to cut the DoD budget by 50%, in a recession no less, has zero chance of happening just from a congressional bacon standpoint, let alone from the huge negative effects world wide it would cause. (we are not at the “end of history.”, 9/11 should have proved that)
Islam will change
Islm,
Defense spending has gone down as a pct. of GDP big time over the last thirty years. The highest Defense spending year as a pct. of GDP during Bush was less than Clinton’s highest, and less than any year since 1940.
So what is the beef?
Entitlement spending dwarfs any military of defense spending. This all goes back to the idea that the war on terror is war of choice for imperialistic reasons. I’ll believe that the day Rosie O’Donnel can fly!
Terry,
“military racks up those kind of numbers every 5 years or so”
That is not true! Social Security and Military/Defense spending are close to the same, but Military spending has a trend of decreasing as a pct. of GDP while Social Security has a trend of increaseing of the last thirty years.
Social Security is not unfunded…it has already been payed for by you..but the money needs to come from the general fund to pay back the money that Social Secuirty has loaned to it. The problem is, many don’t want to cut anything out of the budget, instead they want to cut benefits to Social Security, and where I’m from, that is theft and would often get you a beat down.
The current federal budget has Military/Defense spending at 23% of the budget, while Social Security is 20% of the budget. One has to ask themsleves, how much of the money spent on the Military Industrial Complex has more efficiency for the economy, or how much of that money is driving growth.
I would say a lot of the money goes back in the hands of Americans and spent in America. If we are going to make any cuts to Military spending right now, it should be in the vast expanse of military presence across the world except for where we have actual battle fronts.
Jimi,
The US spends more money today in dollars adjusted for inflation than in 1970, when it was in an industrial age war, and holding the line against the Red Army in central Europe.
Tell us a few things.
Explain why the US has a military.
What is this thing, in the US constitution, about raising an army for only 2 years? Why the prejudice in the constitution against standing armies?
What about percent of GDP makes any sense in determining why money is spent?
Why is Germany okay with just 1% of GDP for warfaring while the US needs to spend 6%? Do you suppose the Germans are less safe than US citizens?
And what about SS, Medicare, Medicaid and SSI which benefit far more than 100 million people being larger than a jobs program for 3 or 4 million, and dividend income for a few hundred thousand can you draw a comparison?
With 5% of the world population, and using 25% of the world’s energy, what makes it necessary for the US to spend 50% of the outlays for war?
Don’t you think it is a shame that it costs $2 million per kill in Afghanistan and a lot of them are accidental? Just a bit snary.
I have been buying weapons for the DoD for years, Rosie may not fly but I have seen pigs that are useless made to fly with enough money pillaged from the US economy anything or body can fly. That don’t make it worth doing unless you are on that gravy train making money doing trashy stuff.
Your point of view is ‘forget the masses and keep the war machine green’. No more than that from your comment
Buff,
You and I have a long background in the US military. Mine between active duty and civil services runs 38 plus years a lot in what is termed acquisition.
,
We should explain ourselves better.
“let alone from the huge negative effects world wide it would cause. (we are not at the “end of history.”, 9/11 should have proved that)”
What negative effects, be thorough?
As to 9/11: and the last 104 months of occupations and repeating Vietnam: all that proves is militarism is not the answer.
9/11 happened despite the huge budgets.
ilsm will not change.
Jimi,
Why don’t they pay for DoD out of special taxes like they pay for SS?
Why borrow from SS?
SS is fully funded from receipts out of your pay check: OASDI.
The SSTF has over $2T in boonds which made cash to build a war machine and was not used to build a productive base to pay back SS.
DoD is run on borrowed money and the money is not used well!
That DoD spending hurts US productivity is well known and that harm is one reason that they are afraid there will be no cash to redeem trust fund bonds for things like civil service retirement, military retirement and SS.
If the military were so useful there would be a pay as you for it.
Fact is no one wants to pay for DoD, so they borrow from SSTF.
Why don’t any one want to raise income taxes for DOD?
ilsm will not change.
***Not to get off topic, but SS does not have an unfunded liability. And looking out over a 100+ year timeframe is meaningless. *** Buff
Basically correct about the unfunded liability or lack thereof. The 100+ year timeframe is not entirely meaningless because the program has a dedicated revenue source and is pay as you go. It needs different metrics than programs that require annual funding authorization. Which is not the same thing as saying that the 100+ year forecast has to be taken very seriously.
If, for example, the accountants told us that there is no combination of assumptions that make current levels of benefits, retirement ages, and future payments that make the program viable in 2110, that’d be
cause for concern. So far as I know, they haven’t told us that.
***What is this thing, in the US constitution, about raising an army for only 2 years? Why the prejudice in the constitution against standing armies?***
If you’ll recall, England in the late eighteenth century did not believe in raising standing armies. That may be a bit misleading. For example the colonial militias really were an army of sorts and were needed because it took many months for news of conflicts in North America to reach England and for a response to sail back across the Atlantic. e.g. The US colonies rose in rebellion in April 1775. The British response (75,000 men) didn’t reach North America for nearly a year.
I don’t think the US can exist today without some sort of military to keep track of the nukes and a few other things. But we certainly do not need more than a million men and women under arms. Especially since our leaders don’t seem to have the slightest idea how to use them productively.
jimi
you need to try to think a little harder about this:
SS funding increases as a percent of GDP. because people are living longer. they pay for it themselves. all SS does is provide a mechanism whereby people can save while they are working so they have enough to live when they stop working. this takes money from no one. of course it increases as a percent of GDP: people are living longer.
i have no principled objection to military spending. i think it is currently wasteful, and difficult to cut because we are, as Buff points out, on a kind of Military Keynesian.. or militatry welfare system of managing the national economy. but i think we need to be glad, not sad, that living… paying for groceries and rent… cost more than buying new submarines. imagine the United States was a household. Do you get upset when hubby’s gun hobby costs lest than the groceries? so should you get upset when you spend more on groceries than you do on guns?
it needs to be added that every dime of SS “goes directly into the economy.”
and “having to take money out of the general fund to REPAY money BORROWED FROM social security” is not a problem with social security.
Codger
while I don’t recall, I believe the “prejudice” against standing armies had mostly to do with the fear that they would be used to enforce tyranny, and of course be a cause of high taxes.
we don’t really seem to have a tyranny… it turned out to be far too easy to fool the people with a democracy to need a police state. there are some in the old South who would disagree with me. but while they complain loudly about “government tyranny” they mean they want to be left alone to tyrannize their own people.
we got into the empire business almost against our will, but now that we have the tiger by the tail it’s hard to let it go. not to mention keeping all those jobs going. i keep thinking we could manage this disease better if not cure it entirely, but it is looking like the opportunistic infections… the financial system… is going to kill us.
starting out by convincing us that retirement is a danger to our health.
In general, yes. But the base closing commission did work in the long run. We can always have another. And I’m unclear on how many US bases it still makes sense to close. For example, I can’t imagine that moving the USAF logistics support done at Tinker AFB to WPAFB would save any money for the taxpayers even though it would certainly be beneficial to the Ohio economy and unbenficial to Oklahoma City. There are some individual bases that I have doubts about — the flight operations at NAS Mirimar for example. It’s only a question of time before someone sets a fighter down in the middle of schoolyard at recess time. They really need to move that stuff East of the mountains.
But I wonder about US overseas bases where the host country isn’t paying a substantial part of the costs. It seems to me that the US is pouring money one way or another into local economies for no especially good reason that I can see. It’s worse in places like Afghanistan. I have my doubts that a gallon of fuel for a US vehicle there really costs 100USD. But 30USD is certainly credible and I’d guess that virtually none of the difference between the 4 or 5USD paid for it at the origin ends up in US hands.
A few points where I differ from the report.
I think the proposed cuts are a good start, but only a start.
I think cutting R&D is shortsighted. R&D money mostly stays in the US and sometimes it leads to beneficial side affects. Development of nuch of our touted computer technology was largely paid for by the Air Force and Navy (some by the oil companies) decades ago, And R&D is cheap compared to deploying hardware.
I’m somewhat leary of the improved accountability thing. It’s certainly not that the military doesn’t have data. Unless things have changed dramatically, they have more data than anyone could possibly keep track of. It’s that they don’t know what to do with the data. As far as I can see that’s a common problem across large enterprises, not a problem unique to the military. It’s not that I think improved accountability is bad. It’s that I’m not sure it can be doen.
And the cost overrun thing. Everyone in the business knows that the sticker price presented to congress when a project — military or not — is proposed is lowballed. Everyone with any sense knows that unless everything goes exactly right, the price will rise. Maybe things shouldn’t be done that way. But it’s going to take more than posturing about duplicitous defense contractors (Every one I ever dealt with was at least mildly duplicitious BTW) to solve the problem.
Buff, some facts related to the Bush tax cuts ans spending.
When Bush took over the US Govt was in fact in surplus, more revenue than it was spending. Bush initiated a tax cut to lower that amount, in an attempt to balance the budget. While that tax was working it’s way through Congress we had a recession and a little thing called 9/11. Both caused increased spending.
The common approach to getting us out of a recession is to lower taxes so we had a second round of tax cuts implemented. He then implemented a plan that controlled spending and let the economy grow to the point he was on a path to balancing the budget in 2009. You never saw the balanced budget path referenced in the MSM, but they are the facts. Had he been successful, the housing bubble burst two year later, we would be looking at him as the next Reagan. A graphic showing the early 2007 path can be found here: http://www.optimist123.com/optimist/2007/05/deficit_watch_m.html
By the end of 2007 the economy had stopped growing, and we were starting downward to the recession and the whole thing went to the dogs. Had he been able to have the same full two term period of growth that St Bill had, then his numbers would have looked even better. All that while fighting a war.
So even though it appears that Bush was not a fiscal conservative, for the events occurring under his watch, he did pretty well. Just not as lucky as St Bill.
Interesting back & forth. At the rate we are going, we shall become a black hole. The selfeshness that flows throughout the American way of life today, may be beyond repair, even though most will denigh it. Somewhere in the past, there seemed to be a reference that the military was used to protect the interests of the business community over in forign lands. The U.S.A. got entangled in two World Wars, than, for what ever reason, probably due to having the A-Bomb, became the Cop on the beat. Viet-Namn I believe became the countries “Waterloo”, that left a bitter taste in the mouths of the “old guard” & their Military brethern. Reagon started the rebuild, but didn’t do it right. Fighting with W.W.2 outmoded Navel ships, continuing with the Army’s land vehicals, singled the MIC that the fix was in. It hasn’t stopped since. Putting the costs on the taxpayers back, has created the mind set that rules today. We know what is wasteful, what we can do without, we just don’t have the mind set to overcome this disease, other than grip about it. The present spectical taking place in our so called Government dealings on the financial situation, is really pathetic, as if were living in two seperate but simultaneous Worlds. I would say that the one in Washington, is no different than the so called Enemy Terrorists the Military is fighting in other lands. Until every person capable to do so, stands up, in no uncertain terms, that enough is enough, then the march down the road to destruction of the way of life as we know it, will come sooner than we think. What do the Millions of young people have to look forward to in the way of a life, after what the present leadership has bestowed upon them?
Whenever I try understanding rationalizations for our massive war making capacity I can’t help remembering a quote from Dean Acheson regarding the need to make arguments to Congress and the American people that were “…clearer than truth.”
Much is explained in that carefully chosen phrase I think.
“I believe that ultimately national security conservatives will be forced to choose between cuts in the defense budget and tax increases to reduce deficits.” Like that’ll ever happen — conservatives firmly believe that eating golden goose pate won’t reduce golden egg production in the slightest !
Codger,
Two points:
Military R&D takes resources away from other R&D. Some of the basic research at universities needs to be retained but detailed design is not needed for weapons developed just to keep an inefficient, wasteful industrial base to misuse US resources.
Second, the DoD cannot tell what anything costs. They have never passed the financial audits required of all federal agencies.
There is tons of data but none of it links performance with what was paid.
Mostly because of the poor quality of design and manufacture in the protected defense firms, the DoD specifications are waived, not met or not tested and therefore the unit prices cannot be linked to an object resulting from the execution of contracted performance.
No one knows what an F-22 really costs nor what it really does against the baseline (tech term for) requirement, nor whether the requirement makes any sense in the real world.
Coberly,
we don’t really seem to have a tyranny… it turned out to be far too easy to fool the people with a democracy to need a police state. there are some in the old South who would disagree with me. but while they complain loudly about “government tyranny” they mean they want to be left alone to tyrannize their own people.
I don’t think that its still acceptable to use the U.S. South for examples of racisim.
It seems like in the South they’ve leaned pretty well how to live together. You might find the most racially tolerant people in the world in our Southern States. On the other hand our Northern States still have issues. Survey African Americans graduating from business schools such as Harvard and MIT and ask them if they want to work in Boston. Most will say hell no and give racisim as a major reason. next go to the West coast starting with Seattle — if you don’t think they have racial issues check out the cop punching the black girl. The girl probably deserved to get arrested given her behavior but I don’t see a cop giving a full straight right overhand punch to a white girl.
I seem to remember reading some articles about communities whose bases were closed by BRAC. Most of them were improved by the closing, as people opened up new business ventures in more profitable areas. Some of them were harmed, but I thought that on balance, and in the long but not fatally long run, it’s better to not have a base close to you.
I looked around, but can’t find anything with any data, though.
CoRev
no doubt. but the fact remains, the tax cuts did not lead to the necessary growth to balance the budget.
it you lent me a thousand dollars i needed for my business, you would not be very impressed if i came back a year later and said i could not pay because i had some “bad luck.”
we need to pay some bills.
and it would clean up our thinking if we could stop blaming bill or obama or even bush.
as for the common approach to getting us out of recession: the fact may be that times have changed and the common approach no longer works.
nor, i think, has been the common approach to give money in a recession to them as already has it. the tax cut, if any, needs to be accompanied by some plan to put money into the hands of them as will spend it.
whitewhale
i don’t believe i mentioned racism. as an ol southern boy i can tell you a bit about managing a tyranny. a little race fear helps of course. but the main thing you want is a class of owners who control the livlihoods of the “workers” and don’t mind beating up troublemakers.
of course the north is not immune to racism. but because the north did not practice slavery on an institutional scale, the form of racism is a bit different, and the forms of exploiting the population are a bit different. where the south uses fairly naked fear and fear mongering, the north relies on the arts of snake oil selling.
i think its funny we go around the world teaching poor backward people how to run a democracy, and those poor backward people are too backward for the most part to understand the trick.
Norman
I think you got it basically right. The problem, though, is that the people are comfortable enough not to see a need to protest effectively.
and of course those who do protest can easily be dismissed as lunatic fringe.
ill,
It really depends on the type of base and its location. BAses in urban areas tended to get re-absorbed rather quickly, with in most cases some positives. Small bases in the styx generally just cuased pain to the locals when they closed and usually a long-term population drop. Relatively big bases in the styx literally crushed the region when they left and most have never recovered (Loring AFB) and have only the fraction of the population they did back when the base was in full swing.
Most were not improved by the closing of the base. All you heard was the good-news ones – like the base in Austin TX that closed (forgot the name- Peterson?). The press ignored the places that got killed when a good chunk of the Northern Tier SAC bases got closed. Then again how much news does the national press cover of Idaho, eastern Washington, Montana, N&S Dakota, Wyoming all together?
A typical 5000 personel AFB would directly support 15,000-20,000 people (the families and contractors on base). Then you have all the vendors, from the big companies delivering jet-fuel down to the small tailor/dry cleaning shops that specialized in military uniforms. Cosing a base took down restaurants, apartment complexes, and housing rentals.
If the locals were aggressive and able they could re-purpose the place. Others just took the hit and limped on. Others died. My base (Carswell AFB in Fort Worth) closed but was immediately re-opened as a joint Navy-AF reserve base. The bombers left and every little Navy reserve unit in a huge area was closed and moved to Carswell. For Carswell it was a net draw. For all the little localities that lost their little 200-400 man units, it could be disaster.
Look Carswell AFB was in the top 10 employers in the entire Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex while I was there (late 80s and I really think top 5). In most places the local base was the #1 employer by a large margin and sometimes the #2 employer basically supported the base. Big cities can handle the hit. Little ones can’t.
The idea that having a base next to you was a net negative is crap. You know any cities that would turn down a company bringing in 5-10K worth of employees? Or something the size of one of the depots or 2-3 brigades or a few bigs ships? Think of GM closing everything in Detroit? Do you thing Detroit would be better off? Well that would be the same affect if the bases around San Antonio closed. What you remembered was some feel-good stories – do you know of any localities who would say NO if asked to take a fighter wing moved back from Germany to the US? Neither do I.
I have a sister-in-law that was very glad when her base in Austin closed. She said it ensured Austin was no longer a target of the Russians. I laughed so hard I fell down. When I finally recovered, I slowly, using small words to this PhD owner, that Austin, TX, as capital of one of the top 3 most important states of the Union would be on the list of priority first strike targets with or without a military base within 200 miles.(Along with Sacramento & Albany) She was floored and I learned that people with PhDs can be increadibly ignorant of anything out of their narrow specialty. Not the last time I got that lesson re-enforced.
Anedote for the day…
Islam will chnage
Bill,
I can’t imagine how a base closing is good for any civilian. Government tax money is getting spread around to local buisnesses. The closing of Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota would cripple Rapid City.
Jimi & Bill,
Minot AFB is the #1 employer in the STATE of North Dakota. Closing this bases would really, really hurt the local area around the base and be felt at the state level.
Base closings hurt just like any other large employer closing their doors…and you wonder why the politicans fought tooth and nail to keep their bases??
Islam will change
Dale said: “no doubt. but the fact remains, the tax cuts did not lead to the necessary growth to balance the budget. ” Didn’t have enough time to reach that goal.
Dale also said: “as for the common approach to getting us out of recession: the fact may be that times have changed and the common approach no longer works.
nor, i think, has been the common approach to give money in a recession to them as already has it. the tax cut, if any, needs to be accompanied by some plan to put money into the hands of them as will spend it.”
Time have not changed. The parts of the Obama stinu,us that worked was the tax cuts and rebates. We had an almost immediate change in deirection in the GDP.
The Bush and Obama tax cuts went to those who would spend them. Both had rebates.
The more interesting point is that at the end of St Bill’s administration the US Govt had surpluses. Who here thinks that it is a really, really good thing? The fed Govt taking more and more and for an extended time out of a booming economy leads to little good.
So Bush’s first cuts were to bring the budget back into balance.
“Didn’t have enough time to reach that goal. “….before the Wall Street bubbles burst!!
Austin’s Air Force Base was Bergstrom, I was there! It was east of town, nice long runway. Maybe the airport moved over there?
Mostly F-4’s, in the day.
ilsm will not change.
Ilsm, not the Wall St bubble, but the housing bubble. Had that not happened we would not have even noticed the Wall St. situation.
well, heck, buff
i coulda told you that about PhD’s my own self.
but let me extend your observation about what happens when a base gets closed: most folks have no idea what to do. a few entreprenurial types will try something, that may or may not work. in general the world works, where it does, because time has had time to act on whatever grew before.
the moral to my story is that neither command economies nor the harsh discipline of markets will in general provide a decent life for people. most folks need to be led. they are better lead with a paternal, but free entrepreneurial, with government oversight, hand, than by either the “invisible” hand, or the “heavy hand” of a fully planned economy.
sub moral… if you are going to close a base to save money, you gotta think of some way to feed the people when it’s gone.
jimi
it’s good that you can see the good of government and taxes. sometimes.
CoRev
you keep missing my point. I am trying to avoid the blame game. If you want to say the Bush was the second coming of Reagan, that’s fine with me.
All I am saying is that the tax cuts did not pay for themselves. No doubt it was just bad luck, or not enough time. But now we need to pay the bills that went unpaid when the tax cuts did not pay for themselves.
That means raise the taxes that were cut back to what they were. After the bills have been paid, we can try that lowering them trick again.
yes, and “Bush lowered taxes to balance the budget” is a bit of a stretch.
There was still quite a large deficit when he lowered taxes. it might have been “prudent” to pay some of that down before cutting taxes.
jimi
hard to know what you are talking about. if you mean social security is bigger than defense, that’s like saying your grocery budget is bigger than your gun budget. this is something that most sane people would not feel bad about.
as for the war of choice / imperial reasons. you need to get a bit of reality awareness. the US of A is an empire. and we are at war in the mideast to maintain that empire. and the terrorists bombed us because… well they want that empire for themselves. now, you might argue that empire is good for us, and we gots to fight for it. and i would have a hard time disagreeing… though i would anyway, at least about means… but to say that you don’t believe the war on terror is a war of choice for imperialistic reasons is to say you still believe in santa claus and the tooth fairy.
***Military R&D takes resources away from other R&D. Some of the basic research at universities needs to be retained but detailed design is not needed for weapons developed just to keep an inefficient, wasteful industrial base to misuse US resources. ***
I don’t think military R&D competes with private R&D for resources — at least not at current levels. Maybe during WW II. Mostly it competes for funding with military operations and procurement. I’d happily mothball a few usekess aircraft carriers in order to support more research into stuff that we might actually need to know someday. Like how to reliably detect explosives or better ways to move men and material through difficult country. Or, for that matter, how to figure out what weapons systems cost and how well they work.
MBS, CDS etc were the Wall St “pile on” to the housing bubbles, cause all by unrestricted monetarism.
They were all playing buck-buck and forgot about Fat Albert…………
Hay hay hay!!!
Coming along to crush them with physics and momentum.
Yes, they do, in high tech and in several metro areas, the protected war monger firms set wages for techies.
Think of a zone where there is bnot a presence and think avbout tech wage scales.
I am consulting in the business and it is crazy the guys making 6 figures and cannot design or deliver testable prototypes.
My rates are several times what I dare try in real world.
Dale said: “All I am saying is that the tax cuts did not pay for themselves.” I never said they were supposed to pay for themselves. The second round was to stimulate the economy out of the recession. They did that.
Codger,
The Madison federalists saw standing armies and their threats as occupiers, therefore the 2 year rule.
Too bad the recents congresses destroyed it and the current occupying armies are pillaging the US treasury and productive sectors.
Dale, we have agreed in the past that the best way to pay down the debt is to stop borrowing. That happens with a balanced budget. In that way we elimainate or at best reduce the unanticipated consequences of calling in treasuries. Those treasuries are mainly held by pensioners and pension funds.
Got it, welfare is good for the rich, but SS is to pay for all that.
Entitlements for 200M peopel bad, welfare for billionaires good!!
Got it.
I now know where you are coming from.
ilsm will not change
CoRev
I don’t know what you said, I know “they” said the tax cuts would pay for themselves by growing the economy.
When you already have a debt, stopping borrowing will not by itself pay down the debt. Unless revenues come in faster than interest grows.
and there is a difference between growing the economy and “stimulating” it. whiskey is a stimulant, so is cocaine. not good for growing things.
jeez CoRev
you sucked me in to arguing your point.
it doesn’t matter whether Bush’s “stimulus” worked. The deficit remains. Bigger than ever. We need to pay it down, even if only a little. even if only to pacify the “bond market.” and the only way to do that is to raise taxes back to what they were before the tax cut “they” said would “grow the economy” but didn’t.
if you borrowed money from me, and then came back and said you needed more time you had bad luck, but boy there was a time in there when you were on a roll and money ahead… do you think i would be impressed? i would say… i need you to pay back the money you borrowed. get a job.
The gov’t taking “More and more out of a booming economy” does the good of paying back the deficit caused by the “stimulus” that ended the last recession.
Dale, you are so wrong it’s not worth a pt-by-pt discussion. You said: “ The deficit remains. Bigger than ever. We need to pay it down…” We need to pay it down, but more importantly, first, we need to stop adding to it. I will illustrate how wrong/simplistic you are by using your own favorite subject.
Some of those very high interest treasuries are those owed to the SSTF as well as some owed to other pension funds. Let’s start by retiring those high interest SSTF treasuries first.
If you are the TF (or any other pension fund) mgmt team you are going to be concerned about which laws apply, which are safe investments, how best to balance your TF between safety and returns, etc. If the US Govt is on a long term path to retiring all treasuries, do you reinvest in them just to repeat the reinvestment issues?
The lawmakers that creatred the SSTF can and will again change what they need to due to politics. What’s the next safest investment? Another country’s treauries? You see as you well know the SSTF is not any different than any other treasury to be paid back if those congress critters decide it is so. Simple solutions are still rife with unanticipated consequences.
You’ve created a strawman argument re: the tax cuts pay back. No relation to the issues at hand.
So for all your rants re: the military piggishness, you are feeding well at the trough. Any hyopocrisy in that?
Liberals are just amazing in their abilities to rationalize anything.
“So for all your rants re: the military piggishness, you are feeding well at the trough. Any hyopocrisy in that? “
Sounds kind of like conservatives ranting about the “deficits” or the “debt”. Its these deficits and debt that put the money in the economy you can hoard and withhold from undesirables.
coberly,
I think you don’t understand what a base closing entails. Loring AFB was a case study in the ‘worst case’ situation. They closed the base and moved the USAF personnel to other places. That suddenly took 4-5,000 jobs out of the area (the military) and 15,000+ total. It literally wiped out the economy. Civilians were crushed and most left also. A base closing in a rural out-of-the-way place depopulates an area – for ever. No one ever plans to build a plant in far upstate Maine. Or North dakota etc.
And your idea that people are sheep and need to be told what to do by their betters is just plain evil and inimical with how the US was founded and the countries core beliefs. It leads to the gulags and killing fields…
Islam will change
One the other hand it does not take a Phd to be narrowly focused.
Yes…the notion of sometimes makes it possible to chat.
But how do we balance the need to move to a better economic area (from the Rustbelt?) in a freer marketplace if we re-balance spending? How is that dealt with in the theoretical realm of of deficit hawkery?
CoRev
i think you are a little confused. Social Security doesn’t need the trust fund. it could put it’s “excess” money under a giant matress and still “pay as you go” which is the essential way SS is funded.
If SS needs to keep a reserve, it can invest in Gvernment Bonds, as it does, with a guaranteed return that is, as if by magic, just about the same as “wage indexing” accomplishes for the “pay as you go” contribution of workers, turning their tax into benefits. Or it could take a risk and invest the surplus “on the market” and that would be fine as long as the workers understood that if their bets let them down, they’d have to raise their tax to pay for benefits, pay as you go. Nothing really hard about this except the hysterical habit of people thinking they are ‘owed’ a return on their money better than any other option, however risky.
Beyond that, i have to say I don’t really understand what you said here at all.
i think when you say “we have to stop adding to it” you are really trying to say you don’t like the Obama “stimulus.” fine, i might agree with you about that. or not. a lot depends on the details.
but the point i was making is that if we have a deficit, and that deficit was created by tax cuts, and it was, and there is no immediate prospect of those tax cuts paying for themselves, as promised, then it is time to rescind the tax cuts until we have caught up with the deficit. and i would apply this to the obama stimulus just that same as i would apply it to the Bush stimulus. or the Reagan stimulus.
well, buff
your first paragraph is not arguing with anything i said.
as to the second, yes people are sheep. and the last thing God said on earth was “Feed my sheep.”
it’s not a question of telling them what to do, certainly not by “us betters.” it’s a question of those of us who have been given stewardship of ten talents, or one, using those talents to care for the less fortunate.
this is a religious question and not really a government question, but if people were truly sane, they would manage their government with the idea firmly in mind that it is up to those as have to find a way to help those as have not.
if you start a business and give a job to a man who does not currently have the resources to start a business, you are doing exactly what i am talking about. is that “telling him what to do”? or setting yourself up as his “better’? i don’t think so.
if you own a farm and hire workers for the harvest, do you find the work that the least capable worker can do? or do you just give everyone the same job and fire those that don’t measure up.
the anwer is the former. and that’s the way it has been done for twenty thousand years until we invented Scroogeism and Reaganism.
Rdan
that too.
Dale said: “Beyond that, i have to say I don’t really understand what you said here at all.” And I am not surprised that you can not relate to the ramifications of your views.
Rdan,
The BRAC needed to be done. Probably needs to be done again for that matter.
My argument is with the idea that having the base close in the local area is a net benefit to the locals. Its not. And the more isolated the area the worse the hit to the locals.
This is seperate from companies moving to other areas. That is a direct message to the locals and the state/local government that their policies are wrong and need to change. If you don’t change you end up with Detroit, or Cleveland, or Akron or a Pittsburg. All these cities were the core of the US industrial might in the 1950s. These were cities the hot-up and coming smart people wanted to move to. Now? You can’t give away houses in Detroit.
In the base example, the locals have little they can do to keep the base. In the business case they CAUSED their area to become a less desirable economic area and businesses moved. They were unable or unwilling to change the economic climate to the better. Thus new car plants opened in Georgia or Mississippi and not Ohio or Michigan. Becuase of the business climate caused by the rust-belt states no one brought the new plants there. Not one. Its been 30+ years since I saw the hand-writing on the wall and left. And to this day not one large plant has opened (many, many have closed). The rust-belt states need to change to compete. But they haven’t…
Islam will change, but the UAW sure won’t
Dale said: “and that deficit was created by tax cuts, and it was,…” No, it was created by a combination of cuts and spending. Think it through, Dale, instead of just repeating the liberal mantra.
Buff, understand you completely especially re: the rust belt.
What these fold do not understand is if they satart cutting defense again we will need another round of base closings. It’s so often Huff & Puff with no real thought to the consequences and impacts on real people.
I understand the impact especially, on rural areas, and that people are involved. I say that often enough. But why is that invoked in this case in particular and no where else in arguments Corev?
Dan, I need a little more specificity to respond.
CoRev
i am not much of a mantra repeater, and i believe i have thought it through. what are you trying to say? of course the damn tax cuts created the deficit as long as the spending kept up. since you don’t have any idea what spending you would cut, you are just making a meaningless noise.
Thanks CoRev
i have tried to keep this “respectful” but you have resorted to ad hominem and nonsense. bye now.
well, buff
after accusing me of calling for gulags and killing fields, it would have been courteous to acknowledge my reply.
Dale, undoubtedly, but I provided my plan to balance the budget this week end. And, yes, you are just repeating the Dem mantra.
Uh…not that I can see…1.5 trillion in cash and equivalents in private sector money sitting around waiting is not my idea of working. I don’t think the cuts did what you are suggesting.
Dan said: “I don’t think the cuts did what you are suggesting.” Assuming that was aimed at me, IIRC if we look at the monthly GDP numbers we will see a blip just after the tax rebates were issued.
The cash reserves being held by industry is mostly due to the policy uncertainty from this administration. Cap & Trade, healthcare, the demonization of one sector after another and the banking policies keeping many banks from lending money have businessmen twitching with uncertainty.