Bill Kristol tells GOP to come back to the table.

Nomad wrote:

Could it be possible that this "fiscal cliff" would actually be a good thing in the long run for our economy? Sure, it hurts now, but it helps to correct our fiscal path for the future.

I understand the sense in which you mean that, but the problem with the cliff was the the *method* of getting those cuts was deliberately designed to be thoughtless. It would just have cut every government program by the same amount, period. Good and bad, essential or wasteful, life-saving or damaging, the cuts went in. Here's an analogy - you have a cancer in your foot, and it needs to be cut off, but your doctor says "Hey, we'll just cut off five pounds of flesh from your arms, legs and abdomens, as well as part of your foot - after all, it's the same overall weight." You'd have to hope that the bit he cut off of your foot was actually the cancerous one, and that he didn't cut off a finger you need for your concert piano performance.

Make sense? I'm not trying to be silly here. It was intended to be stupid and painful, but it *would* have helped the deficit regardless. Problem is, almost any other approach would have been at least incrementally better, if not linearly or even exponentially (getting the same effect from 10 times fewer but more usefully targeted fiscal reforms.)

Yonder wrote:

I checked out militarytimes.com and the only relevant article I found was this one that stated that the US intelligence budget was going down to $72 billion next year. It also got some major facts wrong, stating that this was a reduction from the $80 billion high in 2012, meaning that this would be a 10% reduction. However a number of other places indicate that the high of $80.1 billion was back in 2010, and 2012 had a budget of $75.4 billion, so it's actually only a reduction of 4.5%.

You're right, they don't make looking this stuff up easy, do they? The only hard facts I could find other than huge CBO-type spreadsheets refer to the $487 billion, or roughly 10% of its expected budget over that time, that the DOD is mandated to eliminate over the next ten years as part of 2011's Budget Control Act. Meanwhile, while there is a tiny decrease in spending for 2013, it looks like 2014 will be on the rise again. For what, I don't know. It looks like the DOD will make the same mistake as Congress and the White House have been doing: spend as normal now, then maybe save later, if absolutely necessary.

http://useconomy.about.com/od/usfede...

Edit: Here's what I was looking for. The President's 2013 budget request reportedly calls for the Army to cut the sizes of both the active-duty force and the reserve forces between now and 2017. That may or may not be offset by spending increases in other areas, of course. AND that article doesn't indicate how Congress has reacted to the request...much news has covered Congress authorizing more for Defense than the President requested.

http://www.ausa.org/news/2012/Pages/...

Robear wrote:
Nomad wrote:

Could it be possible that this "fiscal cliff" would actually be a good thing in the long run for our economy? Sure, it hurts now, but it helps to correct our fiscal path for the future.

I understand the sense in which you mean that, but the problem with the cliff was the the *method* of getting those cuts was deliberately designed to be thoughtless. It would just have cut every government program by the same amount, period. Good and bad, essential or wasteful, life-saving or damaging, the cuts went in. Here's an analogy - you have a cancer in your foot, and it needs to be cut off, but your doctor says "Hey, we'll just cut off five pounds of flesh from your arms, legs and abdomens, as well as part of your foot - after all, it's the same overall weight." You'd have to hope that the bit he cut off of your foot was actually the cancerous one, and that he didn't cut off a finger you need for your concert piano performance.

Make sense? I'm not trying to be silly here. It was intended to be stupid and painful, but it *would* have helped the deficit regardless. Problem is, almost any other approach would have been at least incrementally better, if not linearly or even exponentially (getting the same effect from 10 times fewer but more usefully targeted fiscal reforms.)

Yet again, Robear phrases something in such a clear and easy to understand way that I instantly feel smarter having read that analogy. I'm right there with most of the people here that we need to shoulder some responsibility for our government. Pay the taxes to provide the societal benefits that help us out in a wide variety of ways. I'm also somewhat dubious of Republicans who say they want to reduce everything (spending, taxes, etc...) as they seem to follow a different plan when they're in control.

Robear wrote:
Nomad wrote:

Could it be possible that this "fiscal cliff" would actually be a good thing in the long run for our economy? Sure, it hurts now, but it helps to correct our fiscal path for the future.

I understand the sense in which you mean that, but the problem with the cliff was the the *method* of getting those cuts was deliberately designed to be thoughtless. It would just have cut every government program by the same amount, period. Good and bad, essential or wasteful, life-saving or damaging, the cuts went in. Here's an analogy - you have a cancer in your foot, and it needs to be cut off, but your doctor says "Hey, we'll just cut off five pounds of flesh from your arms, legs and abdomens, as well as part of your foot - after all, it's the same overall weight." You'd have to hope that the bit he cut off of your foot was actually the cancerous one, and that he didn't cut off a finger you need for your concert piano performance.

Make sense? I'm not trying to be silly here. It was intended to be stupid and painful, but it *would* have helped the deficit regardless. Problem is, almost any other approach would have been at least incrementally better, if not linearly or even exponentially (getting the same effect from 10 times fewer but more usefully targeted fiscal reforms.)

Interesting points, but your random surgery illustration breaks down rather quickly. The cuts you are referring to are funding cuts. That means each department that is affected(not all are) gets to decide where to cut back. Each department in our often bloated and inefficient government is forced to trim down and become more efficient.

A more accurate illustration would be a morbidly obese person who has just been told that his calorie intake for the next year has just been reduced 9-10%. Even with these reductions, our enormous national debt will still increase, so in the illustration the obese person will still grow larger even with the calorie reductions.
IMAGE(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/2e/Fiscal_Tightening_Infographic.png)

Nomad wrote:

Interesting points, but your random surgery illustration breaks down rather quickly. The cuts you are referring to are funding cuts. That means each department that is affected(not all are) gets to decide where to cut back. Each department in our often bloated and inefficient government is forced to trim down and become more efficient.

That only holds up if you believe that all government services are bloated and inefficient at the same rate, and all government offices/services are equally vital or important. Robear's comment is right - we're making equal cuts to inequal categories.

Bloo Driver wrote:
Nomad wrote:

Interesting points, but your random surgery illustration breaks down rather quickly. The cuts you are referring to are funding cuts. That means each department that is affected(not all are) gets to decide where to cut back. Each department in our often bloated and inefficient government is forced to trim down and become more efficient.

That only holds up if you believe that all government services are bloated and inefficient at the same rate, and all government offices/services are equally vital or important. Robear's comment is right - we're making equal cuts to inequal categories.

The key is that the cutbacks are made through reduced funding. That means each department determines where and how it cuts back. Did you have a specific illustration of a department that would have been receiving a cutback would not have been able to streamline that small percentage out of their budget?

Again, its not about random hacking of body parts. The more accurate illustration is withholding a relatively small percentage of calories from a morbidly obese patient.

Right, but (again), the fallacy here is that all departments and all services are on the same level of inefficiency and are of the same worth. That's flatly untrue. While it's a fun thing to constantly and offhandedly cite just how bloated and inefficient the government is, it's not that simple.

Bloo Driver wrote:

Right, but (again), the fallacy here is that all departments and all services are on the same level of inefficiency and are of the same worth. That's flatly untrue. While it's a fun thing to constantly and offhandedly cite just how bloated and inefficient the government is, it's not that simple.

In other words, if someone is going to make an analogy to the human body, they can't pretend like excess fat gets evenly distributed across the body. Telling someone to lose weight from everywhere when their legs are trim but it's their gut that is the problem is not only wrong, it's counter-productive because you'll be taking off muscle, not fat.

Actually the obese person dieting is the perfect example of what Robear is saying. The human body automatically recognizes that some sections of the body: the brain, the heart, the other organs, still need the same amount of caloric intact. The fat will solely be trimmed, quite literally, from the fat. Cutting out 20k calories of intake will correspond to roughly 20k calories worth of fat. (we will assume that this person metabolism all of his intake).

Under the sequestration approach the body has some sort of hormone problem, his diet goes down by 20k calories, but he only produces 10k calories less of fat. The rest of the nutrition shortfall comes from decreasing the calories given to vital organs and processes. In this example that man is not only fatter, he now has irreversible brain damage, muscle death, and organ failure.

Yonder wrote:

Actually the obese person dieting is the perfect example of what Robear is saying. The human body automatically recognizes that some sections of the body: the brain, the heart, the other organs, still need the same amount of caloric intact. The fat will solely be trimmed, quite literally, from the fat. Cutting out 20k calories of intake will correspond to roughly 20k calories worth of fat. (we will assume that this person metabolism all of his intake).

Under the sequestration approach the body has some sort of hormone problem, his diet goes down by 20k calories, but he only produces 10k calories less of fat. The rest of the nutrition shortfall comes from decreasing the calories given to vital organs and processes. In this example that man is not only fatter, he now has irreversible brain damage, muscle death, and organ failure.

All of which leads to the organism dying, which is the stated goal of the Republican party, so.. win?

Yonder wrote:

Actually the obese person dieting is the perfect example of what Robear is saying. The human body automatically recognizes that some sections of the body: the brain, the heart, the other organs, still need the same amount of caloric intact. The fat will solely be trimmed, quite literally, from the fat. Cutting out 20k calories of intake will correspond to roughly 20k calories worth of fat. (we will assume that this person metabolism all of his intake).

Under the sequestration approach the body has some sort of hormone problem, his diet goes down by 20k calories, but he only produces 10k calories less of fat. The rest of the nutrition shortfall comes from decreasing the calories given to vital organs and processes. In this example that man is not only fatter, he now has irreversible brain damage, muscle death, and organ failure.

Except no one would suffer that type of damage from the small percentage of calorie reduction represented by the "fiscal cliff". Did you have a specific illustration of a department that would have been receiving a cutback would not have been able to streamline that small percentage out of their budget?

Nomad: stepping away from the "bloated and inefficient government" theme for a second, would you consider the across the board budget cuts a viable approach for a private enterprise? How much faith would you put into an executive who would suggest to fix the financing woes of his company by, say, terminating 10% of workforce in every department across the board?

Nomad wrote:
Yonder wrote:

Actually the obese person dieting is the perfect example of what Robear is saying. The human body automatically recognizes that some sections of the body: the brain, the heart, the other organs, still need the same amount of caloric intact. The fat will solely be trimmed, quite literally, from the fat. Cutting out 20k calories of intake will correspond to roughly 20k calories worth of fat. (we will assume that this person metabolism all of his intake).

Under the sequestration approach the body has some sort of hormone problem, his diet goes down by 20k calories, but he only produces 10k calories less of fat. The rest of the nutrition shortfall comes from decreasing the calories given to vital organs and processes. In this example that man is not only fatter, he now has irreversible brain damage, muscle death, and organ failure.

Except no one would suffer that type of damage from the small percentage of calorie reduction represented by the "fiscal cliff". Did you have a specific illustration of a department that would have been receiving a cutback would not have been able to streamline that small percentage out of their budget?

Well, the point of financing a department isn't to keep the department running. The point is to use the department to make the country a better place for the people who live here. I think you're pursuing your analogy to the point where you're losing track of the original argument--the department may survive, but what if the people who depend on the services of that department do not?

Do you have an argument for why these departments can simply 'streamline' as opposed to cutting services and impacting real people? It's easy to argue that government spending can be lowered just by 'cutting the fat' but that's an argument that depends on facts, like whether it's true that there's enough inefficiency to streamline in the first place.

Nomad wrote:

The cuts you are referring to are funding cuts. That means each department that is affected(not all are) gets to decide where to cut back. Each department in our often bloated and inefficient government is forced to trim down and become more efficient.

IMAGE(http://media.economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/full-width/images/2012/07/blogs/buttonwood039s-notebook/20120728_woc683.png)

You mean the same bloated and inefficient government that has shed some 650,000+ government jobs since Obama took office?

I'm guessing he means the actual Federal government which has added jobs under Obama?

NormanTheIntern wrote:

I'm guessing he means the actual Federal government which has added jobs under Obama?

Yes, the federal government which has added less than 10% of the jobs under Obama that it did under Reagan (the only other net reduction president on that chart).

Granted, that was over two Reagan terms, and only one Obama term so far. It's possible Obama could add federal jobs by a factor of ten over what he did in his first term.

I'm surprised there is any argument that even cuts across the board somehow is a good strategy. It is insane to suggest that all departments would be affected the same and they will just magically find a way. You won't find two private company departments, two McDonald franchises, or identical twins doing paper routes that magically have the exact same percentage of inefficiency. In fact, you may even find that something is operating near maximum efficiency! It is a bad way to make cuts.

It is funny to say that. Obama, McCain, and GW Bush made campaign claims of a federal audit to be done. The point would have been an independent committee and investigation into the many agencies and departments to determine where cuts and increases would be needed.

NormanTheIntern wrote:

I'm guessing he means the actual Federal government which has added jobs under Obama?

Actually I view both parties as equally responsible for the mess we are in now. Any calls for fiscal responsibility are usually just political posturing for voters or influence in party structure.

IMAGE(http://www.visualeconomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/pork-barrel-spending.jpg)

OG_slinger wrote:
Nomad wrote:

The cuts you are referring to are funding cuts. That means each department that is affected(not all are) gets to decide where to cut back. Each department in our often bloated and inefficient government is forced to trim down and become more efficient.

IMAGE(http://media.economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/full-width/images/2012/07/blogs/buttonwood039s-notebook/20120728_woc683.png)

You mean the same bloated and inefficient government that has shed some 650,000+ government jobs since Obama took office?

IMAGE(http://www.visualeconomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/VE-PRESIDENTIAL-SPENDING-R2.png)

Nomad wrote:

Did you have a specific illustration of a department that would have been receiving a cutback would not have been able to streamline that small percentage out of their budget?

Well, for example, would you like to see the State Department security operations cut by 10%? They have already been deprived by specific Republican policies (deliberate defunding of State) to the point where Benghazi occurred. Is more mandatory cutting better? There's a reason the State guys collapsed, but the CIA team was able to hold off the attackers, and it's not that State was incompetent. It was in large part funding and the policies that resulted.

What about Medicare/Medicaid fraud detection? These would be cut under sequestration, and yet they are currently smaller than the task at hand, AND they bring in money to the budget. And here's a list of programs that would be affected in health care. WIC would cut 750,000 women from the program. Children's health care - reduction in pediatric training slots for new doctors. Immunization - every dollar spent saves over $16 in the future; 50,000 fewer immunizations would result. Are these areas you'd pick to reduce by 10%? And this covers just one tiny aspect of one Department in the government.

This was in fact designed into the sequestration method; it was intended to be so stupid in application that no one would want to see it take effect. If that were not the case, it would have been useless. If it was ineffectual, why did Congress just go down to the wire to deal with it? Were they all deluded somehow? Or is it possible that it would have caused real problems?

Not to mention the effects on the nation's credit ratings, and the world's stock markets. Make no mistake, we dodged a bullet (although we'll face a hail of them in March.)

Nomad, that chart lists only entitlements, which grow with population, and defense. It's the "other" that contains discretionary spending, which is what people refer to when they discuss "government spending". That spending has decreased by $1.5T in the last decade, and in 2012 hit the lowest level as a ratio of GDP since 1962.

However, do you accept that Obama has decreased the number of government employees by more than any other president in the list? How do you account for that?

Nomad wrote:

Except no one would suffer that type of damage from the small percentage of calorie reduction represented by the "fiscal cliff". Did you have a specific illustration of a department that would have been receiving a cutback would not have been able to streamline that small percentage out of their budget?

The point isn't whether our government will forget it's childrens' faces or just where it put its keys, the point is that your analogy is flawed because a human being won't cut back caloric intake to vital systems while it has plenty of nutrition to work with. Sure once the brain gets put on the chopping block it will cut as efficiently as possible to keep you remembering how to inhale and swallow as long as you can, but just because it will kill the least important brain cells first doesn't mean that it's ok to start killing brain cells before you shrink fat cells.

Nomad wrote:
NormanTheIntern wrote:

I'm guessing he means the actual Federal government which has added jobs under Obama?

Actually I view both parties as equally responsible for the mess we are in now. Any calls for fiscal responsibility are usually just political posturing for voters or influence in party structure.

IMAGE(http://i1094.photobucket.com/albums/i453/czpv/PBSFAILZOOM_zps9ca4ec0b.jpg)

So over twenty years of pork only adds up to 290 billion dollars of spending?

Robear wrote:
Nomad wrote:

Did you have a specific illustration of a department that would have been receiving a cutback would not have been able to streamline that small percentage out of their budget?

Well, for example, would you like to see the State Department security operations cut by 10%? They have already been deprived by specific Republican policies (deliberate defunding of State) to the point where Benghazi occurred. Is more mandatory cutting better? There's a reason the State guys collapsed, but the CIA team was able to hold off the attackers, and it's not that State was incompetent. It was in large part funding and the policies that resulted.

What about Medicare/Medicaid fraud detection? These would be cut under sequestration, and yet they are currently smaller than the task at hand, AND they bring in money to the budget. And here's a list of programs that would be affected in health care. WIC would cut 750,000 women from the program. Children's health care - reduction in pediatric training slots for new doctors. Immunization - every dollar spent saves over $16 in the future; 50,000 fewer immunizations would result. Are these areas you'd pick to reduce by 10%? And this covers just one tiny aspect of one Department in the government.

This was in fact designed into the sequestration method; it was intended to be so stupid in application that no one would want to see it take effect. If that were not the case, it would have been useless. If it was ineffectual, why did Congress just go down to the wire to deal with it? Were they all deluded somehow? Or is it possible that it would have caused real problems?

Not to mention the effects on the nation's credit ratings, and the world's stock markets. Make no mistake, we dodged a bullet (although we'll face a hail of them in March.)

Is the state dept security operations one of the programs scheduled to be reduced? I couldn't find any evidence to support that.
How can you imply that "specific Republican policies" caused the debacle in Benghazi, when a bipartisan congressional investigation puts the blame squarely on the poor leadership and management of the Dept. of State Security program. It is not helpful to make this about Democrats or Republicans.

NBC wrote:

The report noted that as the security situation deteriorated in eastern Libya in 2012, "the Department of State did not provide enough security to address the increased threats and did not adequately support field requests for additional security."

The congressional report follows a separate investigation by the State Department Accountability Review Board (ARB), which blamed State Department officials for "systemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies" that led to "grossly inadequate" protection for the Benghazi facility. In response at the time, Deputy Secretary of State William Burns said the problems highlighted by the ARB were unacceptable, "problems for which — as Secretary (Hillary) Clinton has said — we take responsibility."

The link to the chart you posted is a good find. I'm sure there are a few other areas I would hate to see reduced, but it seems much more beneficial to replenish financing to these few areas after the needed sweeping cuts and tax increases take place.

Kristol posted this email from someone, which I found pretty damned amusing.

I don't make a million dollars a year. I am small businessman with 200+ employees in a service business. We have made healthcare available to our employees since we started.

I have raised and given a lot of money to Republicans for 25 years. I have run for office and was a county chairman, member of RNC Finance Committee, and at times a Republican Eagle, Team 100 member, and so on.

I am a reasonable compassionate conservative
.
A fiscal deal with $1 of cuts for $43 of taxes is worse than no deal at all. It ensures another decade of destructive Democratic rule. Perhaps by 2024 something constructive will arise from the ash heap of the Republican party. Character matters and the Republican leadership in the Senate have no character.

I fear for the future of my country and our democracy. The millions of us who voted Republican thought we were getting something better than a sniveling set of politicians who do not deserve to be considered part of the party of Lincoln.

The only support I will give in the future is to Republican primary challengers.

As a matter of policy and political calculation, I still think my counsel is sound. But to the degree members of the House are hearing something like this from constituents, and from serious constituents—couldn't they decide that counsel like mine is too calculating, and fails to capture a kind of elemental revulsion against this deal? In which case, the bill could go down.

But then what?

I literally could not stop chuckling to myself over the bolded part. This is what comes from the deification of your politics.

Nomad wrote:

IMAGE(http://i1094.photobucket.com/albums/i453/czpv/SpendingFAIL_zps1688a773.jpg)

The United States federal budget for fiscal year 2009 began as a spending request submitted by President George W. Bush to the 110th Congress. The final resolution was approved by the House on June 5, 2008.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Un...

CheezePavilion wrote:
Nomad wrote:

IMAGE(http://i1094.photobucket.com/albums/i453/czpv/SpendingFAIL_zps1688a773.jpg)

The United States federal budget for fiscal year 2009 began as a spending request submitted by President George W. Bush to the 110th Congress. The final resolution was approved by the House on June 5, 2008.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Un...

The whole point of that chart is to show that the spending problem is not solely a Democratic or Republican issue. Just look at the next line on the chart after the one you are referring to Cheeze.

You mean the one where GDP went up more than the expenditures?

Jayhawker wrote:

You mean the one where GDP went up more than the expenditures?

Seriously?

Yes, the one where expenditures so far outweigh the tax revenue that we continue to bury ourselves in trillions of dollars in debt. That's the one.