What Would Deporting 11 Million People Cost? cont...

June 16th, 2012

Beyond the costs of a mass detention and expulsion of undocumented immigrants, what would the long term impact be? Numbers high enough to guarantee another recession or even a depression. Via the Center For American Progress:

"...legalization of undocumented immigrants and more flexible immigration channels would significantly expand the economy—by a cumulative $1.5 trillion in gross domestic product over 10 years—through increased consumer spending, higher tax receipts, and other related factors. A deportation approach, by contrast, would have the cumulative effect of draining $2.5 trillion over 10 years from the U.S. economy. That is a $4 trillion swing in GDP depending on which policy approach we adopt." EMPHASIS OURS

The right wing's dream solution to the issue would collapse us.

What Would Deporting 11 Million People Cost?

June 16th, 2012

The numbers associated with the operation alone would be staggering.

The GOP, The Generals And "Waste"

April 10th, 2012

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) recently was forced to apologize for portraying the Pentagon leadership as liars on matters of the budget. 

The problem he had with their numbers was that they were lower than his preferred spending levels over the next decade.

The fracas drew attention to the hollowness of the GOP mantra that we should always "listen to the generals." So often have we heard this phrase that Ryan's blunder was an extremely important exposure of the Republican party's inherent hypocrisy on the issue of waste.

Keying off of Gordon Adams' take on the affair last week, Stan Collender fires with both barrels (pardon the expression):

"In the now closer-to-four-than-three decades I've been involved with the federal budget in some way, it has never ceased to amaze me that congressional Republicans are able to detect waste, fraud, abuse and overspending from a mile away when it involves a domestic program but are completely deaf, dumb and blind to the same thing when it involves the Pentagon. Why is it, for example, that an extra sandwich in a school lunch program is waste while an extra missile that will never be used and wasn't requested by DOD is vital to national security?"

There is no rational, much less decent, explanation. It's simply how these bastards operate.

Why No GOP Budget Proposal Can Be Taken Seriously

March 21st, 2012

Ezra Klein lays it out flat and explains why they are all so mercenary:

"The Republican Party has settled on four overlapping fiscal commitments that leave them with few other choices.

The Republican plans we've seen share a few basic premises. First, taxes are too high, and must be cut. Second, defense spending is too low, and should be raised. Third, major changes to entitlement programs should be passed now, but they shouldn't affect the current generation of retirees. That would all be fine, except for the fourth premise, which is that short-term deficits are a serious threat to the country and they need to be swiftly cut.

The first three budget premises means that taxes and defense will contribute more to the deficit, and Medicare and Social Security aren't available for quick savings. That leaves programs for the poor as the only major programs available to bear cuts. But now cuts to those programs have to pay for the deficit reduction, the increased defense spending, and the tax cuts. That means the cuts to those programs have to be really, really, really deep. The authors have no other choice."

That's it, in a nutshell.

"Taxes are too high" in spite of being at a 60 year low.

"Defense spending is too low" in spite of being at its highest level since World War II and consuming nearly 54 cents of every weapons dollar spent globally per year.

Gutting Medicare and Social Security won't provide rapid savings so the poorest Americans will just have to pay for pretty much everything.

Lastly, the deficit has to be slashed immediately by implementing all of the above... which will guarantee higher deficits.

That we are in a position where we have to address these proposals with any seriousness whatsoever boggles.

George Will Vs. The GOP On Defense

Feb 10th, 2012

A few days ago, conservative columnist George Will penned a withering critique of current Republican messaging on defense. He begins with nothing less than a rebuke of the entire Iraq misadventure:

"Hours — not months, not weeks, hours — after the last U.S. troops left Iraq, vicious political factionalism and sectarian violence intensified. Many Republicans say Barack Obama's withdrawal — accompanied by his administration's foolish praise of Iraq's "stability" — has jeopardized what has been achieved there. But if it cannot survive a sunrise without fraying, how much of an achievement was it?

Few things so embitter a nation as squandered valor; hence Americans, with much valor spent there, want Iraq to master its fissures. But with America in the second decade of its longest war, the probable Republican nominee is promising to extend it indefinitely." EMPHASIS OURS

In fact, all of the GOP contenders (with the exception of Ron Paul) are now in a mad dash to outdo one another in promising more wars, longer wars and bigger wars. The situation is out of hand and these positions are dramatically at odds with the will of the people.

Quote Of The Day

June 2nd, 2011

"Balancing a nominal budget will solve nothing, and attempting to achieve such a spurious balance will produce much mischief."
-- William Vickrey

Total Lack Of Surprise

May 4th, 2011

Hats off to Johnathan Cohn for his piece at The New Republic. The opener is pure money:

"It’s becoming pretty clear how Republicans plan to defend their budget. They’re going to lie about it."

The breakdown:

"The cuts in the Affordable Care Act hit the providers and producers of health care more than the consumers, at least directly, and include changes to the delivery of medical care that will, with any luck, make it possible for people to get better, more efficient health care even as it costs less. The Republican budget actually includes most of these same cuts for the first ten years, but then puts almost the entire onus for cost-cutting on individual beneficiaries via the vouchers.

Do Rubio and his colleagues care that they are completely distorting reality? Do they even realize it? Your guess is as good as mine. And quite possibly theirs."

Read the whole thing HERE

Quote Of The Day - Here and Now Edition

April18th, 2011

"It doesn't address in any serious or courageous way the issue of the near and medium-term deficit. I think the biggest problem is revenues. It is simply unrealistic to say that raising revenue isn't part of the solution. 

It's a measure of how far off the deep end Republicans have gone with this religious catechism about taxes." -- David Stockman, former director of Ronald Reagan's office of Management and Budget critiquing the Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) Path To Poverty 

Paul's Pout

April 13th, 2011

While perusing some of the reactions on the right to today's Presidential budget address, I came across this little gem from Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI).

From TPM:

"House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) attacked the partisan bent of the speech, then characterized it as "a political broadside from our campaigner in chief."

This is an abject lesson in how to make an ass of one's self. How can we take seriously a critique of the President's proposals as over-politicized when the critique itself resorts to petty political name calling?

The President's Budget Address

April 13th, 2011

We will be adding our two cents in the coming days. The full text of the President's prepared remarks is below the video.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

"What we've been debating here in Washington for the last few weeks will affect your lives in ways that are potentially profound. This debate over budgets and deficits is about more than just numbers on a page, more than just cutting and spending. Its about the kind of future we want. It's about the kind of country we believe in. And that's what I want to talk about today.

Shutdown?

March 30th, 2011

A lot of fellow progressives have been telling me they hope for a shutdown. The liklihood increases just about hourly at this point heading towards next week's budget deadline. To be fair, I too have opined of late that we should let it happen. This is not amongst my more prudent recommendations. It is an emotional response to very real frustrations. Although I do remember the Gingrich-led clusterfuck of the mid-nineties generally benefitting the Democratic party, we sure didn't get much in the way of financial reform afterward that would have helped stave off the current crisis. It really only helped secure Clinton's power.

Ezra Klein notes:

"Evidence from the states suggests budget chaos can help the executive even as it harms legislators from both parties, reports Ezra Klein: Political scientists Asger Lau Andersen, David Dreyer Lassen and Lasse Holbøll Westh Nielsen tallied up 167 instances since 1988 alone. But then they went a step further and tried to isolate the fiscal mismanagement they had on the next election. They succeeded. Voters respond to budgetary chaos, and they do so angrily and predictably. The big takeaway is that blame is not shared equally: “Governors are subjected to an electoral penalty only under unified government, while legislatures are always held accountable.”...]W]hen Congress fails to pass a budget on time, voters turn on Congress, not just the minority or majority party. The researchers calculate that a budgetary breakdown under divided government reduces the chances that incumbent legislators from either party will get reelected, though it helps the governor’s party in the gubernatorial elections. That’d suggest that a shutdown would be bad for everyone serving in Congress, but good for Obama."

Some Interesting Conservative Thought On Libya

March 22nd, 2011

Since the start of hostilities, there have been some genuinely intriguing observations over at the National Review. Kevin D. Willaimson writes in response to some derision regarding the use of our military dollars:

"With all due respect to Mr. Felzenberg and Mr. Gray, I’m not sure that our Libya campaign shows the folly of cuts in defense spending. One might argue as easily that our $1 trillion or more in defense spending shows the folly of the Libya campaign. We’re lobbing missiles that go for about $750,000 a copy into a country for the entirety of which I would not trade the change behind my sofa cushions, inasmuch as Libya strikes me the very definition of a negative asset, one that we are in the process of taking custodianship over."

"Yes, I wrote $1 trillion. Even though the last DOD budget was only — only! — about $550 billion, supplementary war funding brings the number up to about $663 billion. But lots of military spending takes place outside of DOD: at NASA, at DOE, DHS, Veterans’ Affairs, etc. And NASCAR, for Pete’s sake. Throw in all that, and the interest payments on debt incurred for previous military spending, and you get a number between $1 trillion and $1.4 trillion, depending on how you count it up. I’ll be conservative and call it a cool trillion. That’s a lot of money for a national-security system that has repeatedly, predictably, reliably failed to address our actual security threats."

Although I disagree, at points strenuously, with Williamson's recommendations for change, it is refreshing to see the truth about our defense budgets so plainly stated at NRO.