Talk Elections

Jay Cost thinks so (http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/morning-jay-liberal-myths-versus-democratic-realities_646275.html). What do you think?  By the way, he missed the pension plan scandal (probably the biggest tax loophole out there for high income earners), contributions of appreciated art to charity (you get the deduction on the appreciation, but don't have to pay the capital gains tax),  life insurance and single premium deferred annuities (which have tax deferral and tax forgiveness aspects on the income earned on the cash surrender value, plus an estate tax dodge to boot), and that is before we get to all the subsidies you are now paying me to be an absentee landlord farmer now - all administered by a phalanx of bureaucrats. And I am just getting started. Cheers.

They're really the same thing. Tell me this: which party opposes the Bush tax cuts? Which one opposes free trade? Which one want to shrink defense spending? Which ones oppose drones and Guantanamo? Which one opposes the Patriot Act? Which one opposes staying in Afghanistan? Which one will actually balance the budget? Which one actually supports gay marriage (not this states decide stuff)? Which one opposes the War on Drugs? The answer to all these questions is neither; them both being controlled by the same interests is simply a continuation of that.

Hasn't it always been this way, through deliberate design?  With the possible exception of the Jacksonian era, there hasn't been a period in American history when the elites haven't controlled the political life of this country.  It's worth remembering who were present at the continental congresses, and who helped shape the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution of the United States -the elites of each of the 13 original colonies.  

the democrats

Then why did it pass the Democratic Senate in 2010 81-19? One would think that if the Democrats opposed it, they could have voted against it...

Where Democrats fail on this front, it's because they're not liberal enough. Unfortunately, Republicans have succeeded in moving the political spectrum so far to the right, even their own previous policies are now called socialism. What hope is there then, for sanity?

a temporary extension with unemployment insurance and 'working class tax cuts' is not the same thing as supporting the bush tax cuts. don't confuse caution with support of something. also change the avatar, please. we have enough confused people on this site as it is.

Unemployment insurance was part of it, which was put in as part of a compromise deal which also included extending all EGTRRA and JGTRRA cuts, including cuts to tax rates on the non-working classes. And change the avatar to what? The Constitution Party seems like a bunch of theocrats, Greens seem too hippie-ish, there's no real "Other" I'm that attracted to, I'm not joining the party of Bush, I've been politely asked to leave the Democrats, Natural Law Party is weird, and it's lonely as an independent.

Democrats. And they'd do the other stuff too, if they weren't spineless cowards.

no

you're not a 'right libertarian.' and trust me i don't fit into any political party in the us regardless of what i'm registered as.

I thought the Natural Law Party was no more since the guru who sponsored decided not to dabble in politics any more.  I know when that happened, the Greens took over the South Carolina party to gain their ballot access.  (South Carolina's ballot access laws make it moderately difficult but not impossible for a new party to get on the ballot, but once on the ballot, it is absurdly easy for them to stay on it, so several minor parties that in other states would have just faded away have instead been taken over so as to gain ballot access in that fashion since its easier.)

Hey man, sometimes not being a part of a political clique is for the best.

I've taken that route, and I can say I'm a lot happier for it.

Well, I am a registered Republican, but I think it's safe to say I don't have near the same views as an average.

Of course they do, but the ones who own the Democratic Party ostensibly possess consciences.

I believe a handful of state branches of them are still up and running while the rest have closed down.

I'm not, but it's closer to me than anything else. At least I agree on social and foreign policy, which is more than I can say for the other parties.


We're still in Afghanistan, we still have trillion-dollar-deficits, and

Depends how you classify unions...

We're still in Afghanistan, we still have trillion-dollar-deficits, and [/quote]
We're on track to leave Afghanistan, which Bush didn't do, and may I remind you that the last president to balance the budget was Clinton?

We're on track to leave Afghanistan, which Bush didn't do, and may I remind you that the last president to balance the budget was Clinton?
[/quote]

On track to, eventually, in a few more years, we're getting there, is not an acceptable answer for people who want our troops home now. And Clinton balanced the budget, and our current President expanded it; my point was that neither of them have consistently balanced the budget (one guy you get a balanced budget, next one from the same party you get trillion dollar deficits).

I would even argue that during the Jacksonian era this was true.  Landed Southern Aristocrats and Monied Northern Businessmen whose interests were harmed by the protective tariff were always an influential part of the Democratic Party, before the Civil Rights Era.  Arguably, these two elite demographics actually got the vote out amongst the non-rich and non-powerful thanks to their monetary influence.  Machines like Tammany Hall existed for a reason after all.

The rich and powerful own everything, by definition.

It's mildly amusing how Cost article topics alternate between the Democrats having lost support of the voters for being too liberal and the Dems having lost support for being too in thrall of corporate America. I'm not sure what his prescription for the party's ailment is.

He also makes a major error in assuming that progressives are perfectly ok with the Dems being corporate shills.

Also it's amusing how Cost equates urban machines with being for the 'rich and powerful' when in fact the machines, corrupt as they were, existed to allow those who would otherwise be shut out of the system a foot into the system. Someone once pointed out that just because the US doesn't have rampant bribery of low level bureaucrats like police officers and customs officials, it doesn't mean the US isn't corrupt. It only means that the rich exclusively benefit from corruption. Low-level corruption at least allows the poor to benefit from corruption as well.

Ah, equal opportunity corruption. I hadn't thought of that one before.  :P

Everybody somewhat informed no matter what their ideology should be unhappy with their parties, be it Pub or Dem. Ideology in fact all too often gets in the way of clear pragmatic thinking.  Sometimes the left has the "right" solution, and sometimes the "right," is closer to the mark, and sometimes they are both wrong.  JMO.

first Nym90 non-administrative post in years?

Nah, I have induced Nym to respond "non-administratively" to my little rants 3 or 4 times in the past two or three months. God, I'm good. :P

The whole 'Robin Hood' tale is proof that deep down, people understand the logic that moral standards for the poor should be looser than for the rich. The farm laborer who sells his vote for a crisp twenty dollar bill. Well, and a Mugwump 'reformer' sees this and scolds the farm laborer, 'You should not sell your vote!' The laborer takes off his hat with his calloused hands and replied, 'Madam, give me the political influence you derive from your money and your connections, and I will give you this twenty dollars.'

Seriously? That would prove very nicely just how sheltered and far-right you are. -_-

That was the whole point of the "machine".

Absolutely. Does anyone doubt that?

If only Libby were here...

Actually, I control them both.  It's a trickster god complex.  I'll get over it when everybody goes broke.

But, in answer to the thread question: yes, of course.  Baskets of dollar bills deep enough to get candidates elected to office these days aren't filled to the brim by people like me.   

With Citizens United and public sector unions possibly on the way out, just how massive will the GOP's fundraising advantage be?

Almost insurmountable.  But I will be glad to see myself proven wrong. 

And that's of course the main reason Republicans are after unions. Given the Bush Presidency, we know for a fact they don't care about budget deficits or whatever they claim. This is about crippling the opposition and their ability to compete in elections.

Dems have plenty of ruling class support.

Not as much as the GOP though.

So because the Bush administration created billion dollar deficits that means every Republican in Washington wants to Govern that way? That seems like a big generalization considering most Republicans I've seen hated the way Bush ran the country. I don't know if you realize this but there were Republicans before Bush took office who've been preaching about deficits and fiscal restrain years before Bush stared running up deficits. You can't generalize how every person in a party would handle the econemy based on on the Bush administration.

Look at every major Republican candidate except Paul. Their plans would balloon the deficit.

Tell me: How many Republicans want to cut the biggest budget killer, the military? Lower taxes and more bombs, that's a great way to balance the budget.

Didn't every Republican who supported the original Simpson's Bowles plan theoretically endorse military cuts? And I've heard plenty of Republicans endorse that plan over the past 2 years or so(Before they started doing it just in spite of Obama).

A considerable number, but not by as much as the current default law requires. Btw, medical subsidies is the biggest budget killer going away, as presumably everyone agrees, no? Another thing ballooning the deficit is our sluggish economy, cutting revenues and upping transfer payments obviously. And we have a problem there. Without a creditable way out of the box deficit wise, if the economy improves a bit with banks starting to lend more, that will increase the money supply (fractionalized banking), and all those Treasuries the government bought to replace the money supply removed when the banks stopped lending much, will need to be resold, and guess what?  That is going to push up interest rates as the Treasury bond supply balloons, and quality concerns haunt these government debt instruments, which in turn will wound or kill  the recovery in its crib (and itself push up the deficit even more as the cost of debt carry ratchets up).

We're trapped guys without a clear plan to clean up the fiscal books. This is not an ideological exercise, but rather a mathematical one. There is no escape.

Back to Franzl's point, don't you think $2 billion a week (the amount we're roughly spending in Afghanistand and Iraq) extra in the coffers would help stop the bleeding?

Sure (assuming that is the number), but it is not going to go down to zero, so it will be less than 100 billion a year (not all that much really), and that savings has already been "spent" as it were anyway (incorporated into the "budget" which still is a fail).

Torie, isn't the real threat of long-term debt overhang a prolonged stagnation in growth?  There was a paper recently published by Carmen Reinhardt and Kenneth Rogoff that conducted a study of 26 countries, and the findings relevant to interest rates were interesting.  These economists had established in another paper in 2010 something that is obviously relevant for us, namely that, for countries where debt-to-GDP ratios surpassed 90%, there was a more consistent negative effect of the debt on long-term growth, and since we've reached 100% and rising, we've crossed a bad threshold.  But in their most recent study of 26 countries with long-term debt overhang, 11 countries had virtually unchanged or lower interest rates than in low debt years.  See pp. 16ff of their report and especially figure 4 on page 19.

http://www.economics.harvard.edu/files/faculty/51_Debt_Overhangs.pdf

Since 15 of the 26 countries sampled did experience higher interest rates with long-term debt overhangs, it's certainly a concern.  But the most recent examples of Japan and the U.S., and the great variety of interest rate reaction to different levels of debt overhang seem enough reason not to jump to conclusions about a linear effect of big debt-overhang on interest rates.  The real problem of long-term debt seems to be the threat of long-term economic stagnation, which obviously would be bad both for our economy and for continuation of government services.

Slower growth is one cost of high debt carry, but in the case of the US, draining out the currency the US issued is destined to increase real interest rates as too many T Bills/Bonds chase too few buyers and/or there is a perception of greater default and/or currency depreciation risk which will exacerbate the cost of the debt carry, further truncating growth or leading to another economic dip.  So I guess what I am saying is that the cost to economic growth of failing to install confidence in US budgetary policies going forward will probably be higher than what would normally be the case for a given level of debt, and with a somewhat higher risk of a potential sharp currency collapse risk ala Greece, rather than just prolonged stagnation.

The  military investments seem to me to be the biggest budget killers. Considering we spend more money on our military than all the first world nations combined and we have more military bases than every country in the world put together. The problem with overspending on the military is history shows us that an overaggressive foreign policy makes us LESS safe and drags us into other wars(That become even bigger financial burdens) as a result of "blowback" as opposed to a foreign policy focused on securing our own boarders rather than interfering in foreign conflicts.

Like I said the answer going forward revolves around initiating a Short term stimulus to get unemployment down, create new jobs and get our economy moving AFTER we establish a long term debt reduction plan that includes big cuts to our military budget, reigning in entitlement spending(including reforming Medicaid/Medicare and increasing the age of social security) and increasing revenue.

Yes, the confidence issue about our budget process is certainly important.  I'm going to have to study more about the interest rate issue though.  I know some economists have been making the same argument about Japan once it's debt finally needs to be directly tackled.  In fact I should just study econ more in general.  I've read some books about it, but obviously not enough.