[jeffkrol]

Interesting sight.....
TaxVox: the Tax Policy Center blog :: Main Page
Steny Hoyer and the Deficit: “We’re Lying to Ourselves and Our Children”

Economic recovery remains Hoyer's top priority. But when it comes to the need for deficit reduction, he didn’t pull his punches: “We’re lying to ourselves and our children if we say we can maintain our current levels of entitlement spending, defense spending, and taxation without bankrupting our country.”

Hoyer is no pie-in-the-sky idealist. For instance, he recognizes flaws in an Obama-favored PAYGO system that exempts Congress from having to finance tax cuts for the middle class and a handful of rich estates, as well as temporarily protecting physicians from reductions in Medicare payments. But, he says, in the real world Congress would simply waive the law for these proposals anyway. Hoyer would fix this problem by turning from unfunded temporary fixes to permanent changes that reflect true long-term costs.

While Hoyer is a moderate, he remains a Democratic partisan. And he rips Republican lawmakers for opposing both tax increases and efforts to trim future growth in Medicare spending. He also hammers the GOP for the sin of superficiality: “The eagerness of so many to blast spending in the abstract without offering solutions that come close to measuring up to the size of the problem.”

But make no mistake, Hoyer’s main audience was Democrats. He signaled to them (and to Obama) that he is willing to take on his own party’s sacred cows, including Medicare, Social Security, and those “middle-income” tax cuts that have been so important to the President.

Hoyer is not just another Blue Dog back bencher. He matters. And as Washington continues to struggle with the deficit, so will this speech.

Think I found "my guy"............
Budget enforcement resolution (Rep. Steny Hoyer) - The Hill's Congress Blog

But if anyone pins the problem on this Congress’s “out-of-control spending,” you’ll know that they’re more interested in scoring political points. The short-term sources of the deficit include two debt-financed wars; President Bush’s massive tax cuts; an historic recession; and the emergency response to that recession, which was supported by economists across the political spectrum. As for the Recovery Act, it is responsible for 2 million jobs—but it has added only a small fraction to our long-term deficit.
The solutions to our debt danger are clear; the only thing that can stop us from solving the problem is fear of hard choices, or demagoguery that exploits that fear. I recommend this antidote: don’t pay attention to words—pay attention to actions. Who’s putting forward specific, politically-viable ideas to get us out of debt? And when it’s time for the hard, responsible votes, who’s willing to take them?

More
http://www.csmonitor.com/Money/Economist-Mom/2010/0624/A-lesson-in-reasonable-fiscal-policy
http://hoyer.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2375&Itemid=58

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Last edited by jeffkrol; 06-29-2010 at 06:44 AM.

[Nesster]

Looks like someone who makes some sense... will have to go read more... thanks for posting

[jeffkrol]

No problems.. seems nobody else cares though...
Anyways to add to the pot.. interesting take on the current state of affairs..
Would Justice Kagan be good for business? - Business - Forbes.com - msnbc.com

That both Republicans and Democrats are now federal power expansionists is inarguable. To the howling cries of Democrats, the Bush Administration greatly enhanced federal administrative and legislative powers during its two terms in office. Unsurprisingly, Democrats - the original "Big Government" party — continue to view nearly every area of American life as appropriate for regulation and spending.
The evidence for federal power expansion by Republican administrations is extensive and includes a 2006 non-partisan Congressional Research Service Report taking the Bush administration to task for implementing a “comprehensive strategy to strengthen and expand executive power" by issuing “signing statements” exempting it from compliance with the very measures it signed into law. That same year, the conservative Cato Institute wrung its hands over the Bush administration’s expansion of federal powers in the areas of political speech, detention of suspected terrorists, and federal spending on matters historically regulated by the states. Current critics of the Obama administration express outrage at its purportedly unconstitutional regulation of health care, financial markets, the environment and business itself.

[magkelly]

I should think that's pretty obvious. In retrospect as much as it pains me to say it Al-Qaeda got what they wanted on 9-11 and I don't just mean the destruction they caused then and the people they killed. They wanted to bankrupt and demoralize the West and they're doing it, for the most part with little effort on their part.

Bottom line you can't stay at war forever and not go bankrupt. It's just not possible. Our grandchildren will be very lucky if they have even a semi-financially stable USA to live in at all. By then the government will probably have nearly bankrupted this country right out of existence.

They say we're not in a recession, but that's total BS as anyone out there unemployed and still struggling vainly to keep a roof over their heads can tell you. You walk around almost any middle class neighborhood in America and you will see bank owned homes for sale all over the place. People are filing for bankruptcy, losing everything, and for what?

It's a war we cannot win.

We can sometimes weaken them, for a while, but we can't get rid of terrorists, and eventually for every one we kill, 10 more will pop up in his or her place. It's a lost cause.

We should be spending that money in the USA on self-defense from within, and on our own people not overseas.

I'm actually getting kind of sick of the USA playing "big brother" to the whole world. If we're not being bled dry supporting a war that the vast majority of us don't want, then we are being asked to "save the world" every time something bad happens elsewhere. In the meantime we're going broke as a country and our own people are suffering all over.

I'm getting very cynical about the whole thing. I'm tired of the war and the billions being spent on the war and other things overseas. We just can't afford it anymore and it's wrong to go on with doing it when we can't. I wish we could help like that, like we used to, but we just can't anymore and it's killing our economy trying.

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Last edited by magkelly; 06-29-2010 at 04:00 PM.

[dadipentak]

Amen, magkelly--I agree 100%

[GingeM]

If we're not being bled dry supporting a war that the vast majority of us don't want,

Ever thought, just for perspective's sake, that you might still be fighting that war because the enemy doesn't respect your ROE?

[wildman]

Ever thought, just for perspective's sake, that you might still be fighting that war because the enemy doesn't respect your ROE?

We are our own worst enemy.

[jeffkrol]

We are our own worst enemy.

It is pretty obvious isn't it.......