The one who gives me the least amount of taxes and follows the Constitution. Right now, that is the Conservatives, RJ.

Ray Jay wrote:

bbauska wrote:Which party is trying to meet your needs?

Neither. How about you?

Indeed. The US political system is a giant false dichotomy.

bbauska wrote:The one who gives me the least amount of taxes and follows the Constitution. Right now, that is the Conservatives, RJ.

It seems that the House Republicans have changed their tune and will now go along with the 2 month extension, so this is all sort of mute.

I don't think that the 2 month and 12 month extensions were appreciably different as it relates to taxes. Did you see them as different? The parties had agreed to deal with it all in Jan/Feb which gave us another opportunity to deal with our fiscal problems. I think that the Republicans have more leverage with a 2 month deal.

In any case, cutting taxes is easy. It is cutting spending that appears to be challenging. If you cut taxes without cutting spending, you are merely either eroding the value of existing assets, or you are taxing our children. Neither of those are particularly conservative. I suspect you know all this and I am preaching to the choir.

Nor did I see the two extensions (2 month vs. 12 month) as appreciably different as it relates to spending. None of this deals with our real fiscal problems. We are just kicking the can down the road as we have to because of the end timing of previous legislation. I do fault the President for not leading in a way that enables us to deal with this stuff in a meaningful way.

But as long as we are not dealing with our fiscal problems, there's no reason to give Democrats a victory by showing Republicans to be dysfunctional. When 39 Republican Senators vote for something with the understanding that House Republicans will support it, and then they don't, no one benefits except Democrats. If this were a critical issue, then by all means, legislators have to stand on principle. But this was a side show. What is the principle when all we are doing is arguing over the length of time that we will extend unemployment benefits and further deplete our social security trust fund?

If the House Republicans want to show some guts, they can try to shut down Washington by not authorizing a bloated budget. Absent something meaningful like that, this all seemed silly to me.

Ray Jay wrote:

bbauska wrote:The one who gives me the least amount of taxes and follows the Constitution. Right now, that is the Conservatives, RJ.

It seems that the House Republicans have changed their tune and will now go along with the 2 month extension, so this is all sort of mute.

I apologize for being pedantic, but it's 'moot.'

I don't think that the 2 month and 12 month extensions were appreciably different as it relates to taxes. Did you see them as different? The parties had agreed to deal with it all in Jan/Feb which gave us another opportunity to deal with our fiscal problems. I think that the Republicans have more leverage with a 2 month deal.

Here's what has driven me crazy during all of this: the self-righteous nonsense spewing out of the mouths of the President and Schumer, in particular. No mention of the damage this is doing to the very idea of SS as a "paid for" program. There has been no mention of expected results--just the $40 a week hit the average worker will take. Okay, what about the budget, Mr. President? "The Republicans need to stop playing politics and pass the Senate bill."

The Senate bill is POLITICS! It's a sham, a fake, a band-aid.

In any case, cutting taxes is easy. It is cutting spending that appears to be challenging. If you cut taxes without cutting spending, you are merely either eroding the value of existing assets, or you are taxing our children. Neither of those are particularly conservative. I suspect you know all this and I am preaching to the choir.

This is why Obama is going to have a difficult time next fall. Please, anyone tell me how the President has led on budget cuts? On presenting a cogent vision for reducing the deficit?

Nor did I see the two extensions (2 month vs. 12 month) as appreciably different as it relates to spending. None of this deals with our real fiscal problems. We are just kicking the can down the road as we have to because of the end timing of previous legislation. I do fault the President for not leading in a way that enables us to deal with this stuff in a meaningful way.

Exactly.

He won't though. It's called "leading from behind."

Oh, I apologize again. It was $40 twice a month, not weekly.

I apologize for being pedantic, but it's 'moot.'

Your pedanticism (I know, that's not yet a word) is genuinely appreciated.

Ray Jay wrote:In any case, cutting taxes is easy. It is cutting spending that appears to be challenging. If you cut taxes without cutting spending,

Well, if I understood what I read the House bill did include spending cuts to off set the tax cut. The Senate Democrats didn't agree with the off sets and that is why they wouldn't give the House bill a vote but rather came up with the 2 months bill that stripped all the spending cuts out. So again, the Republicans did it right and the Democrats didn't.

Ray Jay wrote:If the House Republicans want to show some guts, they can try to shut down Washington by not authorizing a bloated budget. Absent something meaningful like that, this all seemed silly to me.

The problem with this Monte is the Senate Democrats refuse to vote on an actual budget. House Republicans have voted on 2 different budget proposals since January. The voted one down (Obama's proposal) and passed one (Ryan's Proposal). The only thing the Senate Democrats have done is vote down Obama's proposal. They will not vote on any other budget beyond short term continuning resolutions.

So I guess the House Republicans did exactly what you want them to do. Make a stand against a bloated budget in the only way possible. Stop the C.R.'s and force an actual budget by taking stand on extending a tax cut that should be part of a full budget.

Your pedanticism (I know, that's not yet a word) is genuinely appreciated.

Not wanting to be pedantic, but that should be 'pedantry'

Well, if I understood what I read the House bill did include spending cuts to off set the tax cut.

This is very interesting. Amidst the 2 month vs. 12 month debate, we've lost sight of the actual numbers involved. Here's an article on the CBO scoring of the House bill.

http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/d ... to-deficit

So, we spend $34 billion on unemployment insurance over the next 12 months and $39 billion to fix medicare payments to doctors for two years. The spending reductions are all over the next 10 years; as usual the expenses are front loaded, but the savings are back ended. The savings are:

Social Security change: $3 billion
Means-testing UI and food stamps: $127 million (so millionaires don't get them!)
Freeze federal worker pay: $2 billion
Change to federal worker retirement benefits: $37 billion
Other healthcare provisions: $31 billion

Do you see this as serious spending reduction? It's basically break even on federal spending when they score it (which isn't impressive). But beyond the scoring, it is more spending over the next 2 years with assumed savings for the 8 years after that which may or may not materialize. We have an annual $6 trillion budget; savings of $73 billion over 10 years is not even a rounding error as it is about .1% (one tenth of 1%, and that assumes that the savings ever really happen). Am I missing something? You throw in the tax cuts in the legislation and you can see that this does nothing about our deficits.

Monte,

I agree with you that House off sets were trivial and and drop in the bucket. However, the Senate bill doesn't include any off sets at all. So we have a House bill that extended a tax cut for middle clase families for 12 months and at least made an attempt at off sets.

The Senate said No to that and passed a bill that extended the tax cut for only 2 months with no attempted off-sets at all.

Yet, when the House Republicans said no to that, they were the bad guys? How does that make any sense?

I think it is because the House Republicans did not tell the Senate Republicans in advance that they would vote no. Basically Boehner and Cantor are on different pages; they need to communicate better, or Boehner has to go since he doesn't represent the majority of the Republicans. I hate to write that because I like the guy and am certainly more of a moderate than a tea party guy.

The Republicans need to make a stand when the issue is not trivial so they demonstrate to the country what they stand for and how they will transform the country. If all they are saying is that we will be Italy or Spain instead of Greece, it is not going to resonate.

Here's what I don't understand. Why can't the House do that. Why don't they just cut off ethanol, and Saturday postal delivery, and a thousand other things that are wasteful spending? Doesn't the House have the power of the purse? Why does the Senate failure to pass a budget prevent the House from doing its job?

Ray Jay wrote:Here's what I don't understand. Why can't the House do that. Why don't they just cut off ethanol, and Saturday postal delivery, and a thousand other things that are wasteful spending? Doesn't the House have the power of the purse? Why does the Senate failure to pass a budget prevent the House from doing its job?

Ask Newt Gingrich.

Here's my point: if the GOP is perceived as being immovable on principle, they might win politically. However, it is far more likely they will be perceived as responsible for old folks not getting Social Security, etc. Why? Because the press is going to trumpet whatever Obama says. Democrats are going to demagogue a shutdown, which is what will happen if the Republicans go to the wall to make cuts.

Ray Jay wrote:Here's what I don't understand. Why can't the House do that. Why don't they just cut off ethanol, and Saturday postal delivery, and a thousand other things that are wasteful spending? Doesn't the House have the power of the purse? Why does the Senate failure to pass a budget prevent the House from doing its job?

Because the Senate still has to pass the bill. The House having the power of the purse only means that all spending bills must start in the House. It must still pass the Senate and the Senate has the ability to amend said bill. So the House could pass a bill that would cut ethanol, end Saturday Postal delivery and a thousand other things. However, if the Senate doesn't pass the bill or significantly changes it via amendment, it ain't going nowhere.

That is essentially what happened multiple times this year. The House introduced and passed the Ryan Budget which the Senate prompted tabled. The House passed a 12 month extension of payroll tax cut with some spending offset which the Senate amended to 2 months and no off-set.

Hell, I would argue the House has been trying to do exactly what you want them to do but keep getting stymied by the do nothing Democratic controlled Senate

Archduke Russell John wrote:Hell, I would argue the House has been trying to do exactly what you want them to do but keep getting stymied by the do nothing Democratic controlled Senate

And, you would win the argument. To make it worse, the President and the press have been somewhat successful in making it appear the House is the obstacle! Reid and Obama want to keep spending and enlarging government. All that is stopping them is the House.

On the other hand, the Republicans in the House often can't even get to a vote in the Senate. The President goes out of his way to demagogue them as often as he can.

I'm not whining, just observing. I don't believe the Democrats can fool the American people, but we'll see.