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UNCLE!!!

lomiller said:
Some of the most effective and well loved programs the US government has ever delivers qualify as “massive social spending”, that being Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
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WTF ? Who loves social security or medicare ? They are both coercive, vastly overpriced and mismanaged. Medicaid is a redistribution/give-away for the poor, charity, and that's great - except for the massive lack of fiscal responsible funding & management and lack of constitutional authority.

Even among Republican voter these programs enjoy support upwards of 80%.
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Taking from Peter and giving to Paul insures Paul's support - right ? That doesn't make it constitutional, lawful nor moral. SHOW YOUR SOURCES!

Your stats are hogwash - Gallup polls show about 50% are somewhat to very dissatisfied w / Social Security. A similar percent of non-retirees don't believe it will pay them, a higher percentage believes payments will be reduced.

http://news.gallup.com/poll/1693/social-security.aspx


The real problem with US deficits is that these mandatory spending programs along with defense related spending that Republicans wildly support and Democrats grudgingly support combined to make up 90% of the budget. Most of the remaining, while not part of the mandatory budget is still essential. The “massive” social spending Republicans think Democrats want is an almost insignificant part of the overall budget. So, wrt to spending both parties largely support almost exactly the same spending levels.
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The massive flaw in your argument is that "mandatory" and "social spending" are not distinct classes. SS & Medicare with means testing is a socialistic redistribution scheme. Medicaid is charity and another social schema. Those ARE the very violations of the republic's limited powers of government that reasonable ppl object to.

I don't particularly care about your partisan blame-game BS, nor your apologist position wrt both parties supporting profligate spending.

The result is Republicans tend to incorrectly believe that massive tax cuts can be offset with insignificant program cuts
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If you'd bothered to read the committee reports you'd understand that growth due to capital spending increases, and NOT offsetting tax cuts were the justification for tax revisions. There are REASONABLE, tho' not compelling, econ theory & evidence to back this up. Feel free to mis-characterize and straw-man to your partisan ends - you can't make a solid case w/ such biases in evidence.

You seem a reasonably bright guy - too bad you are still stuck in the quagmire of partisan biases, and straw-man mis-characterizations. This prevents you from addressing real issues.


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In outline ...

ALL economic growth models predict some optimal amount of capital spending vs consumption. It's naively obvious.

MOST economists suggest US capital spending has been well below the optima, and far below competing 1st world nations (and many developing nations).

The recent US tax plan which must reasonably be characterized as 'Republican' (51-48 in senate and zero Dem votes in the House) was designed primarily to address capital spending, by reducing the unique and punitive US foreign profit repatriation tax. It also included the counter-productive reduction in personal rates (but not cap.gains rates) as a means to keep the sausage flowing.

The cost of the tax reduction amounts to ~$1.5Trl/10yr or a bit less. Some optimistic growth models suggest it adds $1.5Trl/10yr of tax revenue ($0 added deficit)., then continued growth thereafter. More pessimist models suggest an added revenue deficit of up to ~$0.6T, tho' still >$1.5Trl added to GDP. To put this probable $0.6Trl/10yr deficit in context, the total 8yr Bush deficit was $3.3Trl, and the 8yr Obama deficit was $7.3T; so an extra $0.6Trl/10yr (~$0.48Trl/8yr) is not ignorable, but not high-stakes either.

Another point of comparison - Obamacare involved the regulation/take-over of $3.3tT/yr of the economy. If this take-over only creates an increased 1.8% inefficiency (very optimistic) then it costs more than the pessimistic estimate of the tax plan deficit.

The CBO annual deficit estimates show an alarming rate of projected increases. I think a REASONABLE expectation is that if the current+next admin (2017-25) 8yr total deficit is <~$5.5Trl this would represent a budgetary success. I have no expectation that the insane partisan-reavers here won't savage their opponent and praise their allies despite any considerations of reasonableness.
 
stevea said:
WTF ? Who loves social security or medicare ?
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Love? Who knows? But lots of people understand the importance of Medicare and Medicaid.

"Still, most Republicans (57%) say the government “should continue programs like Medicare and Medicaid for seniors and the very poor.”" (source)

"In addition, more people say they favor increases rather than decreases in funding for many other areas, including Medicaid (40% increase, 12% decrease)..." (source)
 
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Horatius said:
I think that, thanks to the Internet, they're all playing from the same playbook, even when the plays make no sense.

For example, if you squint and tilt your head just right, you can kind of see why someone might believe that "Barrack Hussein Obama" might be a secret Muslim, and thus secretly want to create Sharia Law in the US.

But here in Canada, we have some conservative whackjobs who insist that our current Liberal government - led by Justin Trudeau, one of the whitest people in the country - are also secretly trying to create Sharia Law here in Canada. It's just a ridiculous notion, that doesn't even make sense in the squint and tilt your head version. And yet, they believe it so fervently that they'll interrupt public speaking events to rant about it.

Utterly ridiculous. But, "Hey, it worked against Obama...."
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The funniest thing is that actual laws based on Sharia would likely be very popular with those most afraid of sharia law.
 
stevea said:
The massive flaw in your argument is that "mandatory" and "social spending" are not distinct classes. SS & Medicare with means testing is a socialistic redistribution scheme. Medicaid is charity and another social schema. Those ARE the very violations of the republic's limited powers of government that reasonable ppl object to.
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Who are these "reasonable" people?
 
SezMe said:
Who are these "reasonable" people?
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Libertarians,who make huge deal about their rationality.
Problem is the process of using reason is only as good as the data you are working with, and some Libertarians, in their attempts to "prove" that lassiaz Faire Capitialism is the logical solution to every Problem, use some very questionable data.
I am Pro Capitalism,but not of the Lassize Faire variety.
 
stevea said:
WTF ? Who loves social security or medicare ?
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Voters. This is why Republicans dance around the issue promising to "save money" without making any actual cuts. The end result is no money is ever saved.


stevea said:
Gallup polls show about 50% are somewhat to very dissatisfied
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Dissatisfaction with some aspects doesn't suggest the program isn't popular.

In many cases this "dissatisfaction" is simply a reflection of the magic beans Republicans have been selling for a couple decades that there can be cost cuts without cuts to benefits. They are dis-satisfied because they were promised more for less and didn't get it.

stevea said:
The massive flaw in your argument is that "mandatory" and "social spending" are not distinct classes.
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Since the programs I mentioned are both social and mandatory it's pretty clear you are grasping at straws.


stevea said:
If you'd bothered to read the committee reports you'd understand that growth due to capital spending increases, and NOT offsetting tax cuts were the justification for tax revisions.
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Monetary policy dominates capital spending availability and growth. In fact if the fiscal policy in question did spur more capital spending/growth the Fed would be forced to kill that additional growth as inflationary.


stevea said:
There are REASONABLE, tho' not compelling, econ theory & evidence to back this up.
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The reasonable theories around less government spending focus on economic efficiency not growth due to capital spending increases. In these cases however you would need to be evaluated for each individual program.
 
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What went on at CPAC is all you need to know about why I hesistate to call myself a conservative, despite having many views..particular on fiscal matters...that would generally be regarded as conservative.
 
dudalb said:
What went on at CPAC is all you need to know about why I hesistate to call myself a conservative, despite having many views..particular on fiscal matters...that would generally be regarded as conservative.
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Wait, as a principled conservative, surely you're totally one board with holocaust denial, right?

I do feel sorry for conservatives, literally speaking. The movement has gone in weird directions. I like what a New Republic editor said on NPR this morning. He's not ideologically adrift, but politically so.

There is a lot of traditional conservatism worth defending, but not so many politicians willing to do so. They see where the wind blows.
 
phiwum said:
Wait, as a principled conservative, surely you're totally one board with holocaust denial, right?

I do feel sorry for conservatives, literally speaking. The movement has gone in weird directions. I like what a New Republic editor said on NPR this morning. He's not ideologically adrift, but politically so.

There is a lot of traditional conservatism worth defending, but not so many politicians willing to do so. They see where the wind blows.
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Why traditional conservatives would fit in well with the democrats? Ok they might be somewhat uncomfortable with the gays and such but in terms of fiscal policy they should be right there. Democrats are fiscally conservative, republicans are hard right wing and have been for my entire life. I mean really was Hillary to the left of Nixon fiscally?
 
dudalb said:
What went on at CPAC is all you need to know about why I hesistate to call myself a conservative, despite having many views..particular on fiscal matters...that would generally be regarded as conservative.
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Yep. When I was younger, the conservatives prided themselves on being the party that understood reality, and could do math. Now, they're jeering at the people trying to introduce actual science and statistics into the immigration debate, among others.


ponderingturtle said:
Why traditional conservatives would fit in well with the democrats? Ok they might be somewhat uncomfortable with the gays and such but in terms of fiscal policy they should be right there. Democrats are fiscally conservative, republicans are hard right wing and have been for my entire life. I mean really was Hillary to the left of Nixon fiscally?
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And that's what happened here in Canada as well. Back when the Liberals took back the government from Brian Mulroney's PC party, they went and bragged about how well they were managing the economy - and I bitched that it was because they had basically copied the PCs entire economic plan.

Then in the 90s the PCs, later the Conservative Party, started buying into all the trickle-down tax cutting policies of the GOP down south, and abandoned the plans that actually worked to the Liberals.

Lucky for me I was already okay with the Gays&Abortion stuff. These days, the Liberals are the closest we have to the old "Red Tories".
 
dudalb said:
The Conservative movement in the US has succumbed to the Dark Side, sadly.
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Which movement, it is the natural progression of the republican party for the past 40 years. It is arguable that it really started 50 years ago with Nixons southern strategy bring in southern evangelical christians to align with business interests.

So what time are you really reminising about? You have to go back to Eisenhower to really get before this all started. Maybe Bush I, was not quite in this mold as he did fail at the whole lip reading thing. But asside from him when have republicans been remotely fiscally responsible since Reagan was elected?
 
ponderingturtle said:
Maybe Bush I, was not quite in this mold as he did fail at the whole lip reading thing. But asside from him when have republicans been remotely fiscally responsible since Reagan was elected?
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Bush I's breaking of the lip reading promise was more fiscally responsible than had he not broken it. As I read this, I don't think you disagree with that, correct?
 
Upchurch said:
Bush I's breaking of the lip reading promise was more fiscally responsible than had he not broken it. As I read this, I don't think you disagree with that, correct?
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Exactly, it is why I am somewhat reluctant to write him off as a radical right wing individual and might consider him a fiscal conservative.
 
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