Shutdown

[tjts1]

The 14th amendment prohibits defaulting on US debt! So the prez and congress really have no choice in the matter. Payment is mandatory and cannot be rescinded by the messiah or congress. And social security payments are mandated by federal law. So both will be paid no matter what.
Debt interest and principal payments are roughly 10% of revenues to the govt, so default is not a possibility anyways. The argument is about allowing democrats to increase future spending.

[nando]

The 14th amendment prohibits defaulting on US debt! So the prez and congress really have no choice in the matter. Payment is mandatory and cannot be rescinded by the messiah or congress. And social security payments are mandated by federal law. So both will be paid no matter what.
Debt interest and principal payments are roughly 10% of revenues to the govt, so default is not a possibility anyways. The argument is about allowing democrats to increase future spending.

Yeah, ok. I guess the treasury can just break any number of laws to bypass congress and borrow more than they are legally allowed. BTW, there are three laws they would have to choose to break if congress doesnt do their job.

All you've done is highlight how silly the debt ceiling is, when the constitution is the highest law of the land.

Also, it has nothing to do with future spending, but everything to do with paying for spending congress already agreed too (which, btw, includes your koch brother funded buddies).

[mrsleeve]

^

they dont have to barrow anything to make the debt obligations they have more than enough tax revenue to cover that coming in every day

[nando]

Says faux news?

[BraveUlysses]

What do you think they would do? In the last 13 years, the idiots in Congress have more than doubled the national debt.

I'm not in love with the amount of debt but it's not going away. Also, in that time period, how much has the GDP increased? The amount of debt we incur in a fiscal year should be compared to the GDP and federal income of that year.

Yes the debt is immense in sheer number of dollars, but it should be put in perspective.

^

they dont have to barrow anything to make the debt obligations they have more than enough tax revenue to cover that coming in every day

Oh yeah, what impact do you think there will be if we don't have money to pay for our military or social security? You need to move beyond these simplistic views of everything.

[gwb72tii]

Wow tits, you should get out more and read the constitution for yourself, something I'd wager you've never done, nor will do in your lifetime.
It's plain and simple, and if you and nando studied history instead of sleeping thru class, you'd actually have some understanding of why the US dollar is the world's reserve currency.
Less than 10% of federal revenues are used to service the debt. Do you two understand math? The debt has to be serviced first, everything else comes after. So the messiah flapping his lips about default is one of two things;
1. Intentional lying (no surprise)
2. Fucking ignorant

[mrsleeve]

so the interest payments on our debt exceed the 2.x TRILLION in tax revenue the feds take in directly from our pockets every year. with 1.4T or so in income taxes alone.....


No says the feds them selves

I will use the vetted debt clock

http://www.usdebtclock.org/

Brave: Since when is living with in your means a simplistic view. Next The military and debt is serviced with a about a 3/4T left over from just the income taxes, alone SSI has is own tax, then you have corporate taxes. It would take some cutting shit, but the bulk of the govt could be funded.

[gwb72tii]

I'm not in love with the amount of debt but it's not going away. Also, in that time period, how much has the GDP increased? The amount of debt we incur in a fiscal year should be compared to the GDP and federal income of that year.

Yes the debt is immense in sheer number of dollars, but it should be put in perspective.



Oh yeah, what impact do you think there will be if we don't have money to pay for our military or social security? You need to move beyond these simplistic views of everything.

Wow

Our debt is now in excess of GDP
And social security pays more out than social security taxes bring in, in other words it's bankrupt

[rwh11385]

Wow

Our debt is now in excess of GDP

Only if you include the debt that government owes to itself. Intelligent people look to public debt vs GDP:



But then again, RWNJs don't give a crap about context or perspective as Brave mentioned.

Brave: Since when is living with in your means a simplistic view. Next The military and debt is serviced with a about a 3/4T left over from just the income taxes, alone SSI has is own tax, then you have corporate taxes. It would take some cutting shit, but the bulk of the govt could be funded.

It's not a simple matter of "living within your means", it's how the heck the country is going to pay for MANDATORY spending, that is, shit that just can't get cut simply. This has been mentioned here a ton of times, yet people still seem to assume that simply hacking discretionary spending is going to fix the problem which is a long-running issue of promising benefits and having a huge wave of baby boomers like George retiring soon without the foundation of younger workers to replace them as necessary to pay for their obligations.

http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showpost.php?p=3490114&postcount=70

http://blog.heritage.org/2012/09/02/...away-deficits/
Chart of the Week: Medicare Spending Is Main Cause of Runaway Deficits

I guess if you fixed run away medical costs or magically increase the number of working-age adults, then it could get better... but some people seem to be opposed to any effort to improve healthcare expenses or to ease the barriers to having immigrants boost our working population.

[gwb72tii]

Yup, and only people with ethics, integrity and morals include obligations the government has promised to pay its own citizens, after taxing those same citizens all their working lives.

But you're a good progressive

[MF DOOM]

It's not a simple matter of "living within your means", it's how the heck the country is going to pay for MANDATORY spending, that is, shit that just can't get cut simply. This has been mentioned here a ton of times, yet people still seem to assume that simply hacking discretionary spending is going to fix the problem which is a long-running issue of promising benefits and having a huge wave of baby boomers like George retiring soon without the foundation of younger workers to replace them as necessary to pay for their obligations.

They could drill on federal land. Thats estimated to bring in $150 billion, IIRC, over some short amount of years. That isnt shit compared to the current debt but it would help and put people to work at the same time.

[rwh11385]

Yup, and only people with ethics, integrity and morals include obligations the government has promised to pay its own citizens, after taxing those same citizens all their working lives.

But you're a good progressive

I wasn't aware that CATO was full of progressives. Maybe you are just a kook?

http://www.cato.org/blog/does-16-trillion-debt-matter-remedial-lesson-public-finance-economics-gop

For some inexplicable reason, I’ve decided that one of my responsibilities is to educate a backwards and primitive people who seem impervious to common sense, simple logic, and strong principles.

As you’ve probably guessed already, I’m talking about Republicans.

I’ve already identified them at the Stupid Party, but they seem especially ill-informed and clueless on the topic of government borrowing.

I’ve specifically warned that they are economically (and politically) misguided when they focus on deficits and debt as America’s main fiscal problem.

Notwithstanding all my educational efforts, Republicans couldn’t resist jumping up and down and making loud noises earlier this week when the national debt hit the $16 trillion mark earlier this week (a google search for “$16 trillion debt” returned more than 24 million hits).

So let’s walk through (again) why this is misguided.

First, let’s clear up some numbers that cause confusion. Republicans are complaining about something called the “gross federal debt.” This number is largely meaningless (see table 7.1 of the OMB Historical Tables if you want to look at the details).

It is the combination of a somewhat meaningful number of more than $11 trillion known as “debt held by the public,” which is a measure of how much the federal government has borrowed over time from the private sector, and a totally irrelevant number of about $4.5 trillion known as “debt held by federal government accounts.”

The latter number is simply a total of the IOUs that the government issues to itself, most notably the ones at the Social Security Trust Fund. But the “assets” in the Trust Fund at the Social Security Administration are offset by the “liabilities” at the Treasury Department. This is an empty bookkeeping gimmick, just as if you took a dollar out of your right pocket, put it in your left pocket, and left an IOU in exchange.

That being said, it is important to recognize that politicians have imposed poorly designed entitlement programs, and future spending on these programs will skyrocket far beyond current revenues. That growing gap, which is explained in this short video, is sometimes known as “unfunded liabilities.”

This number depends on a whole range of assumptions and can be measured in current dollars, constant dollars, and present value. I prefer the middle approach, which adjusts for inflation, and it’s worth noting that “unfunded liabilities” for Social Security and Medicare are more than $100 trillion.

That’s a number we should worry about, not the make-believe $4.5 trillion of IOUs that comprise part of the “gross national debt.”

I guess you think Charles Koch is a progressive too, right?

[rwh11385]

And social security pays more out than social security taxes bring in, in other words it's bankrupt

In other words, you might have forgotten something in that equation... and it is one of your favorite things in the world, bond returns. Irony?



Even Heritage knows that SS is projected to be insolvent in 2033: http://www.heritage.org/research/rep...s-benefit-cuts

The combined Social Security and Disability programs are projected to remain solvent—that is, they are expected to have enough revenue from payroll taxes, interest on the trust fund balance, and repayment of borrowed trust fund dollars to pay out scheduled benefits—through 2033.

In the past, when Social Security ran cash-flow surpluses, the federal government spent those surpluses on other federal spending, and in return, the Treasury credited Social Security’s trust fund with special-issue government securities.

So George, like, what are you not ignorant about?

[rwh11385]

So, what about closing the FDA and investigating the large salmonella outbreak?

Surely there are other things they could have closed to keep this dept open?

It's indicative of the mindset of the Administration.

Such as...?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/2013/10/03/we-are-shutting-down-only-thirteen-percent-of-the-government-at-most/

After payment of defense, entitlements, and net interest, we have a grand total of $.6 trillion ($624 billion to be more exact) of discretionary spending that could be subject to a government shutdown.

I believe much of the mindset is you only need the NHTSA when there's an accident that the government ought to investigate, the USGS when there's an earthquake, NASA when an asteroid like Apophis is impending upon us, or the FDA when there's an outbreak. I guess they are only essential when there's a problem, and labeling them non-essential assumes that there wouldn't be an emergency this week and we don't need to be ready. It'd be great if all of those things that deal with issues as they arose would still be open, but that's how the cookie crumbles when the government is prevented from operating to its fullest because of tantrum by a fading party.


But I guess all of this bull underlines that the federal government does actually do some stuff that people value or need, against the assumption that none of it is essential.

I honestly have no idea why they are so beholden to the religious right.

Because that's the group they have a good share of. And if anyone strays from the "party" aka the extreme minority's views, then they are fried at the stake. And that's why the GOP currently puts out the survivor of its primaries only to get beat in the general because the country demographics have changed and this crap doesn't bode well with anyone but Tea Partiers.

[slammin.e28]