Specifically - Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Everything else is fluff.
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on debts. It's actually not just my solution, it's the solution of many people who are concerned with debts.
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After all, they always claimed they were upset mostly about the deficit. I’m sure they are even more upset now.
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Social Security alone will double the national debt over the next fifty years. Medicare will have even a bigger impact. We have unfunded liabilities of five times GDP right now.
Even if we were to balance the budget next year it wouldn't make a spit of difference.
Let's all grab our ankles and hope Chris' favorite economist, JKG the Lesser, is correct. The bond auctions are going to be epic!
I sure don't.
I love you guys!
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The real battle to come in this country is not left vs right or black vs white or women vs men... it's young vs old. The millennials tend to favor socialism because they imagine that it's the best way they can prevent the elderly from wasting their future.
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Cutting spending that funds programs people use will not be popular (and will have vocal opponents). Eliminating bureaucratic jobs to cut spending will increase unemployment somewhat significantly and will not be popular. Implementing some form of Means Testing that will reduce the Social Security benefits to future retirees with some degree of wealth will not be popular. And, of course, increasing taxes is never popular.
But these are all things that are going to have to be at least considered to put us on a path to a balanced debt. If you are a politician hoping to get re-elected and/or to help your party retain or gain seats, you don't want to be the person to make those unpopular decisions. You "let the next guy" worry about it.
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But, Trump is president, so fake they must.
Obama's first few budgets were the result of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. After that faded, the last four years of Obama's presidency saw deficits that Trump's budgets will far, far outpace. God forbid there be a recession under Trump.
Clinton ran a surplus, and Carter's deficits were a fraction of what Reagan would spit out.
I agree that the Dems are not very concerned about it, but they certainly aren't "particularly bad" at it compared to Republicans.
State an awful position or tactic used by the Dems, most often with no proof. Then say the Republicans have to do the same thing in order to “play by the Dems rules” even though most of them don’t want to.
This is his position on nearly everything hypocritical tactic.
You two aren't seriously going to sit here and say that the Dems pay more lip service to being fiscally responsible than the GOP does?
My post was solely directed at your nonsense.
Yes, many forces, including the role of president, shape the federal budgets. But eventually and fundamentally it's the power of congress that control spending and overspending (deficts/debts). But congress is representatives of our voters. So, it's primarily our responsibility for having so much debts, not any president.
Read the Constitution, Article I, section 7, clause 1:
"All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with amendments as on other Bills.”
and its Article I, section 9, clause 7 (Appropriations Clause):
"No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.”
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The result: R lost some popularity and Gingrich's gone, but we balanced the Government budget.
From 2007 to 2011 fiscal year, D controlled congress and spending.
Since 2012 to now, R control congress, had one shutdown fight with Obama admin on overspending.
Regardless of whose proposal and whose budget plan, it's the congress that has the power in final say on the spending from those proposals and plans,
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What is the current excuse?
We are pissing away truckloads of money. Trump is awful. Ryan is a hypocrite.
But, I will add that I think Trump would have signed a bill with less spending. I think the GOP blinked and showed their true colors. They don't really want to cut any spending.
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Why are Robert Rubin and other directors still employed?
Updated Nov. 25, 2008 12:01 a.m. ET
Another Sunday night, another ad hoc bank rescue rooted in no discernible principle. U.S. taxpayers, who invested $25 billion in Citigroup last month, will now pour in another $20 billion in exchange for preferred shares paying an 8% dividend.
Taxpayers will also help insure $306 billion of Citi's mortgage-backed securities. Citi will cover the first $29 billion in losses on these toxic assets, and then taxpayers will cover 90% of the rest, in exchange for another $7 billion in preferred. Dilution for Citigroup investors? Yesterday's 58% pop in the bank's share price suggests the bailout is a good deal for equity holders. For taxpayers, it is another large exposure for uncertain benefits.
More than a year into the financial crisis and decades into the perception that Citi is too big to fail, we once again have three tired guys making it up as they go. We wish Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, New York Federal Reserve President Tim Geithner and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke cared as much about their obligations to U.S. taxpayers as they do about the expectations of Asian investors. Few would argue that a bank with Citi's size and scope wasn't too big to fail, but is it too much to ask Washington to develop a policy that isn't crafted in a scramble of private phone calls?
To be fair, there are virtues here, when placed in the context of this year of bailouts. Unlike the initial AIG "rescue," this deal appears to be helping the intended beneficiary. In contrast to Bear Stearns, there is a more plausible case for systemic risk. What is missing is a statement that at least some American bankers still have the freedom to fail, an essential ingredient if we hope to restore functioning capital markets. Not a single one of Citigroup's senior managers and directors will be let go as a condition of taxpayer assistance that now totals close to $350 billion.
"Citi never sleeps," says the bank's advertising slogan. But its directors apparently do. While CEO Vikram Pandit can argue that many of Citi's problems were created before he arrived in 2007, most board members have no such excuse. Former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin has served on the Citi board for a decade. For much of that time he was chairman of the executive committee, collecting tens of millions to massage the Beltway crowd, though apparently not for asking tough questions about risk management.
The writers at the Deal Journal blog remind us of one particularly egregious massaging, when Mr. Rubin tried to use political muscle to prop up Enron, a valued Citi client. Mr. Rubin asked a Treasury official to lean on credit-rating agencies to maintain a more positive rating than Enron deserved. What signal will President-elect Barack Obama send if his Administration, populated with Mr. Rubin's protoges, allows this uberfixer to continue flying hither and yon on the corporate jet while taxpayers foot the bill?
Chairman Sir Win Bischoff has held senior positions at Citi since 2000. Six other directors have served for more than 10 years -- including former CIA Director John Deutch, Time Warner Chairman Richard Parsons, foundation executive Franklin Thomas, former AT&T CEO C. Michael Armstrong, Alcoa Chairman Alain Belda, and former Chevron Chairman Kenneth Derr.
When taxpayers are being asked to provide the equivalent of $1,000 each in guarantees on Citi's dubious investments, how can these men possibly say they deserve to remain on the board? All the more so given that Citi's board has lately been airing dirty laundry about Mr. Bischoff's role and leaking petty grievances. The directors all but started a run on the bank themselves, even as the bank assured the world it was sturdy enough to withstand any losses.
Oh, and to get the FDIC on board, Citi has agreed to implement the agency's proposal to modify delinquent mortgages to avoid foreclosures. The White House believes the program will cost almost three times FDIC estimates. And even though more than half of modified mortgages go delinquent again, Citi will modify mortgages to create lower payments now, in the hope that escalating payments later will avoid more delinquencies down the road.
While other banks can claim to be victims of the current panic, Citi is at least a three-time loser. The same directors were at the helm in 2005 when the Fed suspended Citi's ability to make acquisitions because of the bank's failure to adhere to regulatory and ethical standards. Citi also needed resuscitation after the sovereign debt disaster of the 1980s, and it required an orchestrated private rescue in the 1990s.
Such a record of persistent failure suggests a larger -- you might even call it "systemic" -- management problem: If taxpayers have to risk so much to save Citigroup, then regulators should at least exert the discipline to break up this behemoth so it is never again too big to succeed, much less to fail.
Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB122757194671054783
You are clueless with a capital C. You pretend to be a conservative while embracing free deficit spending Trump who wants to spend another trillion we don’t have on porkulous for his business buddies while doing zero on entitlements.