More for the rich; less for the poor: the new American Way
Paul Ryan’s budget document is a propaganda piece for the right-wing.
Read it; pay attention to the biased language, to the warmed over Bush proposals, and to the usual promisese of trickle down.
Look at E. J. Dionne’s “War on Moderation”.
And read Joseph Steiglitz, “Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%” in Vanity Fair…Vanity Fair
UPDATE: In Friday’s Times, David Brooks applauds Paul Ryan’s courage. But when he gets down to brass tacks, Brooks seems to understand it is foolhardy.
“Because he had the courage to take the initiative, Paul Ryan’s budget plan will be the starting point for future discussions, at least as long as Republicans control at least one house of Congress. But it should be acknowledged that the Ryan plan has several grave weaknesses.
“As presently configured, it is unacceptable to moderate voters and stands no chance of passage. Substantively, it does not address the structural problems plaguing the American economy: wage stagnation, inequality, declining growth rates. It doesn’t have an answer to rising health care costs. Nor does it leave room for future policy creativity; there’s no money to allow future generations to rise to unforeseen challenges. So, while acknowledging that Ryan has done the nation a great service by providing a starting point, we should expect his budget to evolve as the debate goes forward.” Here
On the shutdown: We keeping hearing that riders removing funding from Planned Parenthood and the EPA are part of the hold up on a deal, but the OMB Watch (sorry can’t get the link to work. The chart was four pages long and contains a good deal more than the media has highlighted.
The news media have written and spoken much about the essential services that will be continue to be paid for if a shutdown comes (military, air controllers, police, etc. etc. etc.) and those that will not be paid for and will have to shut down (national parks, various others, etc.).
I have not heard into which of these categories Congress itself falls. Is it “essential” or “non-essential”? If we were to stop cutting checks to our senators and representatives, might that encourage them to start behaving like grown-ups and reach a solution to this problem? Perhaps cutting back on their medical services would be an added economic stimulus to help move them.
Could they be locked in the Capitol with meager rations and no alcohol?
“In Friday’s Times, David Brooks applauds Paul Ryan’s courage. But when he gets down to brass tacks, Brooks seems to understand it is foolhardy.”
I guess if you only read Brooks when you’re getting criticised its easy to see that. Brooks and Ryan have been going back and forth on this issue for a LONG time. To suggest that Brooks is not a Ryan fan is factually inaccurate (that is not to say he doesn’t and hasn’t criticised his plan). But I’m curious; if you’re cherry-picking quotes, why not add this:
The Democrats are on defense because they are unwilling to ask voters to confront the implications of their choices. Democrats seem to believe that most Americans want to preserve the 20th-century welfare state programs. But they are unwilling to ask voters to pay for them, and they are unwilling to describe the tax increases that would be required to cover their exploding future costs.
Raising taxes on the rich will not do it. There aren’t enough rich people to generate the tens of trillions of dollars required to pay for Medicare, let alone all the other programs. Democrats, thus, face a fundamental choice. They can either reverse President Obama’s no-new-middle-class-taxes pledge, or they can learn to live with Paul Ryan’s version of government.
Until they find a way to pay for the programs they support, they will not be serious players in this game. They will have no credible plans and will be in an angry but permanent retreat.
While Jeff is right that raising taxes on the rich won’t “solve the problem,” they should pay a fair share!
Solving Medicare and Social Security is possible if compromise is allowed.
Holding the budget up over social or cultural issue with little fiscal impact is a disgrace (see Dasvid Gergen on CNN last night.)
Ryan’s approach is far too unbalanced – why did he vote against the Simpson Bowles commission report?
1. While Jeff is right that raising taxes on the rich won’t “solve the problem,” they should pay a fair share!
There’s an argument to be made that “the rich” DO pay their fair share. Most “rich” people pay a lot in taxes, the questions are A) how MUCH do they pay, and B) who’s “rich”. This is some helpful commentary: http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2006/11/do-rich-pay-their-fair-share-in-taxes.html
2. Solving Medicare and Social Security is possible if compromise is allowed.
I couldn’t agree more, Bob. So where’s the Democrats’ “compromise”? They have demagogued every single proposal from Bowles-Simpson to now Ryan. So where are THEY compromising? Raising the retirement age to reflect reality? Nope.
3. Holding the budget up over social or cultural issue with little fiscal impact is a disgrace (see Dasvid Gergen on CNN last night.)
You are, of course, assuming that the Democrats aren’t doing the same thing. Why when one side doesn’t want to cave are they committing a “disgrace”, but when your side does it, they’re standing for principle? Kind of like when Republicans win elections, its always descirbed as “an angry backlash”, but when Dems do, its “hope and change”.
4. Ryan’s approach is far too unbalanced – why did he vote against the Simpson Bowles commission report? I agree, but its a starting point and the Dems have yet to present anything comparable. And he voted against Bowles-Simpson because of concerns over their health cost savings proposals, as did Alice Rivilin, who was Clinton’s OMB Director.
Jeff Landry,
You have to convince us that the Tea Party which is driving this debacle is not a prostitute of billionair Koch and others who have extreme right wing views. Secondly, are you for taxing those with $500,000 or more at close to 70% or not? Demonstrate to us that if the corporation who are paying little or no taxes will affect our budget. Thirdly, we bailed out a lot of bankers and now we cannot bail out the needy. Most of all where are you getting your facts. So far your statements have been mainly assertions with minimal facts. Understood that we have to modify entitlements we may not afford. But your exoneration of the 1% is startling.
GE and EXXON pay no corp. income taxes and the TP dopes still do their bidding. They also want to de-fund IRS auditors.. nice?? Drill Baby Drill will be their campaign song. The Gov. shut down will be a picnic compared to the NO on raising the debt limit in two weeks. Greece defaults and the market drops 200 points. When US defaults I expect 1000 point drop being possible and that’s why I cashed in stocks last Monday. I advise others to do the same. To paraphrase Greenspan … ‘we can expect to have exuberant pessimism’.As I posted on Dionne’s piece , The high end retailers like Abercrombie and Nordstrom have had a big stock surge. Thank you $500k people.. Low end retailers like Target and Walmart have had significant drops..losers have no money!! As a famous bank robber [Willie Sutton] said ‘I go where the money is ‘
Bushies and TPs will once again hit the middle class 401ks in the a-s..The Answer is … non-violent class war.. the cons have spread fear about ‘class war’ for thirty years so let’s show them a taste of non -violent class war . What’s to lose?
If I may:
“You have to convince us that the Tea Party which is driving this debacle is not a prostitute of billionair Koch and others who have extreme right wing views.”
I have no such responsibility to do so for a number of reasons. First, I am not a Tea Partier (nor do I think it accurate to cast Ryan as a Tea Partier), and I do not think that the Tea Partiers are necessarily driving the debate. Secondly, even assuming it is true, the source of the money has no effect on the validity of the argument. Lots of people give money to lots of different ideas, does that make those ideas ipso facto wrong? Barack Obama took MILLIONS of dollars from Goldman Sachs. Does that make Obama a greedy Wall St. pig?
“Secondly, are you for taxing those with $500,000 or more at close to 70% or not? Demonstrate to us that if the corporation who are paying little or no taxes will affect our budget.”
A) No, I am not for such a high tax rate, nor do I find any reasonable economist, liberal or conservative, arguing for such draconian tax rates. I think such a high tax rate would be both punitive and useless because the actual amount of revenue produced would not be very significant (or not significant enough to close the deficit gap) and likely to harm economic activity.
B) I don’t think your second thought is complete, but the US actually has the highest corporate tax rate in the industrialized world (or one of the highest), and Pres. Obama has called for cutting the corporate tax rate. I agree with him.
“Thirdly, we bailed out a lot of bankers and now we cannot bail out the needy.”
I was not in favor of TARP or wall st. bailouts (although I understand its necessity). Most of all, I am in favor of dispersing economic AND political power, i.e. I am a conservative. I believe true competition and choice are the best vehicles, not “Too Big To Fail”. But, at the same time, I dare you to show me how Pres. Obama has instituted policies that prevent “Too Big to Fail” in the first place. Last I checked, the head of GF is now chair of his economic council; so the notion that “Big Business” is all Republicans is a complete myth.
“Most of all where are you getting your facts. So far your statements have been mainly assertions with minimal facts. Understood that we have to modify entitlements we may not afford. ”
I have attempted to provide short links backing up my statements; most of them I now realize are in the earlier blog post on Ryan’s plan. Many of the other comments I’ve made (such as Alice Rivlin) are common knowledge to people following this closely. I want to try to be as economical with space for others as I can.
“But your exoneration of the 1% is startling.”
Exoneration of what? What crime against nature are they guilty of that I’m letting them off for? And I’ve also argued (again I thin in the other post on this subject) that I am not opposed to SOME tax increases. But if you think you are going to solve the nation’s fiscal problem by ONLY taxing the 1%, then you might as well believe that the Easter Bunny is going to come down and take away all our problems. We need a combination of BOTH revenue increases AND spending cuts. What mix is what the fight is about.
Again, I think the arguments would be a lot more helpful if we didn’t take an attitude about those with whom disagree as being shills for the “1%” or “not caring abuot the poor” or whatever. It is unbecoming of civilzed discourse, let alone Catholic dicourse.
Bill,
I think Jeff Landry is hitting you with the ‘you are a bad Catholic’ argument. Don’t you know that Preferential option for the rich is not to be used even if it hits you in the face. Turn the other cheek and show your birth certificate when asked.. Have you no respect for your betters? Let’s not ask, where in Catholic Ryan’s plan he has ‘caring about the poor’ …..
And ‘Shill’ is not one of the nasty words I used in my Bronx youth. We would never call anyone a shill.. (:
“Democrats don’t just have a proposal that offers a more plausible vision of cost control than Ryan does. They have an honest-to-goodness law. The Affordable Care Act sets more achievable targets, and offers a host of more plausible ways to reach them, than anything in Ryan’s budget. “If this is a competition betweenRyan and the Affordable Care Act on realistic approaches to curbing the growth of spending,” says Robert Reischauer, who ran the Congressional Budget Office from 1989 to 1995 and now directs the Urban Institute, “the Affordable Care Act gets five points and Ryan gets zero.” Ezra Klein at the WashPost http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/the_democrats_have_a_plan_for_controlling_health_care_costs_paul_ryan_doesnt/2011/04/08/AFeF9f1C_blog.html?wprss=ezra-klein
“I think Jeff Landry is hitting you with the ‘you are a bad Catholic’ argument. Don’t you know that Preferential option for the rich is not to be used even if it hits you in the face. Turn the other cheek and show your birth certificate when asked.. Have you no respect for your betters? Let’s not ask, where in Catholic Ryan’s plan he has ‘caring about the poor’ …..”
That is total nonsense. I have never impugned any person’s faith in any way in my arguments. I have stated, however, that when we assume the bad faith (or stupidity or sincerity) of another, esp those with whom we disagree, it is unhelpful and unbecoming of Catholic DISCOURSE.
If you’re not interested, Mr. Gleason, in a constructive dialogue, I would thank you to leave my comment alone, and simply ignore them.
More cherry-picking, eh, Ms. Steinfels?
WHy not this quote from Klein:
There’s increasingly an understanding that the mixture of cuts and taxes in Paul Ryan’s budget aren’t quite fair, and the underlying assumptions it uses don’t quite work. But it’s left people hungry for a budget that does work, and annoyed that Democrats haven’t provided one. “If Democrats don’t like his budget ideas, they should propose their own,” writes Fareed Zakaria. “The Democrats and Obama now have to offer a response,” warned Andrew Sullivan. “As of this evening, the Democratic policy plan consists of yelling ‘You suck!’” complained Megan McArdle.
I’ve made similar comments. And I think those comments are mostly right. Democrats need to step up on taxes, on defense and non-defense discretionary, on Social Security, and on energy. But there’s one huge, glaring exception: controlling health-care costs. There, the reality is that Democrats have a plan and Ryan doesn’t. But the perception, at this point, is just the opposite.
Jeff,
I never said Obama was a saint. Nor are the democrats always right.
“But if you think you are going to solve the nation’s fiscal problem by ONLY taxing the 1%, then you might as well believe that the Easter Bunny is going to come down and take away all our problems. We need a combination of BOTH revenue increases AND spending cuts. What mix is what the fight is about.”
Can we take this to mean that you agree that the 1% should be taxed more than they are now? Further, do you feel it is significant that the editor of Vanity Fair called for a tsunami of outrage over the 1% dominating the countries politics (including democrats) and the reality that they brought us into two wars to protect their interests.?
A response to the “no health costs controls” critique:
Brooks argues that the proposal does nothing to rein in rising costs: but indeed, reining in rising costs is at the center of the proposal. Medicare, by almost completely subsidizing elderly health spending, has massively driven up demand for health services, and thereby the price of health care. Migrating Medicare over to a defined-contribution system will fundamentally alter this calculus.
This is clearly a central debate between the Left and the Right about PTP. Progressives believe that health costs will continue to rise at historically high rates, even in a system where seniors have powerful incentives to economize, and that rationing is the only workable solution. Conservatives believe the opposite. Indeed, Brooks acknowledges this debate later on in his piece:
sorry, forgot link: http://www.nationalreview.com/agenda
“Can we take this to mean that you agree that the 1% should be taxed more than they are now? Further, do you feel it is significant that the editor of Vanity Fair called for a tsunami of outrage over the 1% dominating the countries politics (including democrats) and the reality that they brought us into two wars to protect their interests.?”
Yes, I have acknowledged that I believe that tax rates for high income indiviudals will increase. I think I stand with conservatives like Sen Tom Coburn who have also acknowledged this. But, my argument is that some liberals seem to think the answer to the problem is just to take all the money from the rich-conservative-enemy-du-jour and voila! No problems. That is nonsense.
I have not read (and do not read) Vanity Fair, so I have no direct knowledge of the comments. If your recitation of them is accurate, I find them totally nonsensical seeing as how the 1% of this cuontry have trended (decidedly) for the Democrats in the last few election cycles. Ergo, see Goldman Sachs and Barack Obama. (Where did Obama go to raise money this week – you guessed it, Wall St.).
Finally, I’ve come to realize that you and Mr. Gleason seem more intent on concocting theories to find “an enemy” to storm with your pitchforks -ergo, the Tea Party, conservatives, Wall St., etc. The enemy, unfortunately, is not a person or group of people, but ficsal reality, i.e. babyboomers coming of age and retiring. So while you might feel better about yourself storming the walls of whatever nefarious character you’ve concocted, it won’t do a damn thing to solve the problem. for that, we need to get together and find not enemies, but common ground.
It’s sad to see a possible shutdown due to an issue with the agency where I work, EPA. So many in Congress decided during the last election that they suddenly no longer accepted the science behind our changing our planet’s climate. America will not be able to lead in science and technology if our representatives in Congress think they can suspend laws of nature because they don’t like the changes we’ll have to make if they face up to what’s happening to our planet.
And you Jeff agree only with conservatives. I place Obama as part of the 1%, mostly because he is controlled by them also. So your presumptions are as nonsensical as you proclaim. Obama might be a better alternative. But he still caters to the 1%.
Jeff . I ‘concoct’ this reality; countries with the highest standards of living, are the countries that do not have huge groups of poor.[like USA] These high living standard countries w/o poor also tax their wealthy more than us and their 1% do not dominate politics and the economy like the USA. Say hello to Norway, Sweden, Belgium.;[these damn 'socialists' also educate their young; speak at least two languages too]] and they buy their oil; not having a mercenary army composed of the disadvantaged to fight for it under the false flag of ‘freedom’. What is Ryan’s plan for the poor???.. Nada Nada, nada.. Jeff, want cuts? leave Afghanistan and Iraq and leave a note telling the Pakistanis they have a border problem. This saves a trillion in the first year , better than closing EPA and NPR huh?
New York State’s Catholic Democratic governor just won passage of a terrible budget in which he made huge cuts to social service programs. And, although we don’t have money for safety net programs, Cuomo is advocating aggressively to end our Millionaire’s Tax. I guess that’s why we needed to zero out foreclosure prevention funding and cut homeless assistance programs: so we can give the millionaires a tax break to help them through these difficult times.
On a more upbeat note, NCR linked to a very inspirational prayer by a Catholic priest at the Building Trades Conference. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dopd0c-rR_c
I share Mr. Kelly’s chagrin that a fringe element of Congress was willing shut down our government over an ideological dislike of the some of the EPA’s work. I was watching CNN this morning and I think it reported that commonsense prevailed and all of the policy riders (and there were quite a lot of them) were taken out in the final agreement.
“And you Jeff agree only with conservatives.”
A curious and, might I add, patently false statement, since I agreed with YOU that tax increases should be a part of the final solution. So how, exactly, am I only agreeing with conservatives eh?
Wow. only at the beginning of months and months of ugly partisan debating, finger pointing, self justifications etc.
Wait til the high monied TV ads start rolling into living rooms.
The debt ceilin gwil be first, if we get by this momentary pasue.
Again, I agrfee with David Gergen that thereshould be no applause or happiness for late last night: that it came to that shows how poorly governance is working on all sides.
Washington needs todo far better in working together or well just keep sliding backwards into a second rate plutocracy.
William Galston has a piece in the New Republic ( http://www.tnr.com/article/the-vital-center/86455/paul-ryan-budget-deficit-hawk ) titled “The Deficit Hawk’s Case Against Paul Ryan”.
Galston’s a centrist Democrat and a self-described deficit hawk who co-authored a plan to control long-term federal debt. Here’s the paragraph from that column where he summarizes his proposal:
“There is an alternative approach that makes much more sense—economically, socially, and politically. Bipartisan discussions have converged on the objective of holding public debt to around 60 percent of GDP in 2020 through a balanced menu of spending cuts and revenue increases. While there are compelling economic reasons for not allowing the debt to rise as far as our current course would take it, only ideology requires it to disappear altogether. Nor is it necessary to hold federal spending to its historical level: All other things equal, the aging of the population and the rise in medical costs (even if slowed, as it should be, from the current rate) would suggest a somewhat higher level. The Galston-McGuineas proposal would hold spending to about 22 percent of GDP, higher than the postwar average but much lower than what the status quo would produce. Other bipartisan plans have ended up in roughly the same place.”
(Note: I’m not endorsing Galston’s proposal—I don’t know enough about it—but I thought he had an interesting perspective on the issue, and on Ryan’s proposal.)
Here’s Doug Henwood on David Brooks. I’ve always been baffled as to why anyone takes Brooks seriously about anything.
http://lbo-news.com/2011/04/09/david-brooks-can%e2%80%99t-add/
we have noted the new (supposedly non liberal nor conservative) Catholic moral Theology group -a recent posting notes the new Capital Sins proposed by the Cardinal at the Apostolic Signatura includes amassing wealth, increasing povert and widening the gap between rich and poor!
The poster says this THE moral issue of our society today.
“For some reason, though, the New York Times seems to think that giving op-ed space to this mediocre fiction writer is an apotropaic charm against being accused of liberalism. And for some other reasons, liberals find Brooks to be a tolerable conservative, presumably because he doesn’t move his lips when he reads. But, really, never believe anything this guy says without checking his sources.”
its not enough that we have just a difference of opinion, huh? You have to destroy the guy, really go after him, so he must be a “mediocre fiction writer”. And they say Republicans are the mean and nasty ones in politics today.