Conservatives Are For Growth - Stop The Spending

[joan1984]

Examiner Editorial:
Reform entitlements now, or face bleak austerity later
June 05, 2012

“Who would have thought, after years and years, even decades, in which the Republican right attacked ‘Old Europe’ that they would embrace the economic policies of the Euro zone — austerity and unemployment now at all costs,” former President Bill Clinton joked at a fundraiser for President Obama’s re-election campaign Monday night.

It would have been a good line — if only it were true. Yes, unemployment in Europe is high. Yes, that high unemployment is largely due to “austerity” policies brought about by Europe’s crushing debt burden. But Clinton is dead wrong when he compares European austerity to Republican policies.

As Clinton and Obama know full well, Republicans are unlikely to sign off on a debt reduction plan that raises taxes. But that is exactly what most European countries have done. Greece (unemployment rate 21.7 percent) hiked its value-added tax by 77 percent. Spain (unemployment 24.3 percent) raised its investment tax by 44 percent, and Portugal (unemployment 15.2 percent) raised income taxes on the rich and the value added tax on everybody.

In all, according to a recent European Commission report, up to 40 percent of European deficit reduction has come from tax hikes, not spending cuts. If there is one lesson to be learned from “Old Europe” it is that raising taxes in the middle of a weak economy, as Obama proposes to do, is a recipe for economic disaster.

According to the Congressional Budget Office’s latest Long-Term Budget Outlook, our very own European-style debt nightmare is not too far away. If our government continues its current fiscal policies, mandatory federal spending on health care entitlement programs (Medicare, and Medicaid) will almost double from 5.4 percent of gross domestic product today to 10.4 percent in 2037; interest payments on the debt would rise from 1.4 percent of GDP today to 9.5 percent of our entire economy; and publicly held federal debt would reach 93 percent of GDP by 2022 and 200 percent by 2037.

Not that we’d ever get that far — the CBO notes that all of their projections beyond 2035 are suspect, because at roughly that point, “[g]rowing debt also would increase the probability of a sudden fiscal crisis, during which investors would lose confidence in the government’s ability to manage its budget and the government would thereby lose its ability to borrow at affordable rates.”

“Unfortunately, there is no way to predict with any confidence whether and when such a fiscal crisis might occur in the United States,” the CBO continued. “All else being equal, however, the larger the debt, the greater the risk of a fiscal crisis.”

In other words, Americans have a choice: They can make the difficult decision to reform entitlement programs now, or they can wait till foreign investors pull the plug, and the U.S. is forced to raise taxes and begin the “austerity” that Europe is now experiencing.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/2012/06/examiner-editorial-reform-entitlements-now-or-face-bleak-austerity-later/695276

[Gina Marie]

[Lois]

Dark Ages Redux: American Politics and the End of the Enlightenment
by John Atcheson   

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/06/18-2

[Lois]

Cutting spending has never resulted in growth.  I challenge Joan to show just one example of spending cuts leading to growth.

Meanwhile I will show the opposite:

1. The great depression of the 1930's ended when FDR stimulated the economy with the "New Deal" and it was also boosted by massive deficit spending necessitated by WWII.

2. Ronald Reagan solved the post Vietnam War recession we suffered under President Carter with massive deficit spending (the first "Trillion dollar deficit") on arms in the arms race with the Soviet Union.

[joan1984]

Lois,

I am saying Conservatives are not for Austerity, but we are for Growth. Reduction of many of the hairbrained things our Government spends money on, is always a Job One item, no matter the economy. The "spending" has to be curbed; that said, Growth is not a automatic result, I agree.

Free market capitalism is the method to promote growth in the economy. Chopping business tax rates, to ZERO is my preference, but at least from the current highest in the world 35% to 25%, better if people cannot swallow ZERO, then 15% or such, and not some temporary change, or one filled with specific conditions, and bureaucracy, but a dependable show of a low low business tax rate (corporate rate), coupled with elimination of the double taxation in place today on overseas business profits, so as to invite those monies for investment here. Again, without conditions and without expiration of whatever, and filling out of forms, begging, etc. Just do it. If you wish to call that Government Spending, so be it, and is the wise move, in lieu of stagnation as we have it today.

Hopefully Obamacare will be killed and it's head buried at midnight, filled with silver bullets and so forth. That does not make Health Insurance any different, or Health Care any better or worse, but gives some certainty to the markets and small businesses, so combined with low business taxes, and freedom to invest money now hoarded overseas, the growth will be exponential, employment will of course be a byproduct, and the taxes imposed on those new employees, as well as the savings from not supporting them via other Government programs will give a sharp boost to the economy.

You want consumers to spend, allow them to keep more of their earned money, reduce personal taxes, initially by extending the current Obama Tax Rate Reduction, making it permanent, as a start toward reduction of taxes for all. Passing an extension that kicks that can down the road beyond election year posturing would be a great shot in the arm for small business, who currently are looking at taxmagedden in January 2013, no matter who our President happens to be at that time.

Incentives to growth through low tax rates, and certainty for the next several years into the future so businesses can plan, and investors can decide how to spend their money is the ticket to growth. The government will gain more tax revenue from the addition of the newly employed, and stability of the economy.

It's a start.

[Gina Marie]

The "spending" has to be curbed; that said, Growth is not a automatic result, I agree.

Spending WAS cut... when both Regan & Bush II left the office!  True story!

[Katiebee]

The fiscal policies advocated by Romney and the current Republicans in congress are the same ones that were advocated by the Republicans from 1924 through 1932.

Because of the MASSIVE spending of the Roosevelt administration, the U.S. economy was beginning to turn around by 1935.

Your grasp of history is not up to the facts, Joan. Nor is your grasp of economics.

[Gina Marie]

[Gina Marie]

[Lois]

Cutting education is always bad.  You end up with people that are not employable in today's economy.  Jobs relocate where people can get a decent education.

As for jobs that don't require an educated population, they've all gone overseas.

[joan1984]

Education is not the only place we squander huge amounts of money.

Education for the public should be, and technically is, a State issue.

Lets eliminate all the non-teaching federal employees and their job functions, who are currently paid by the Department Of Education, and reclaim the money now allocated to the Department of Education for the Treasury (not spend it someplace else).

Just as President Obama and Pelosi/Reid did with removing Medicare from the Basis Budget process, remove all the funding from the Department Of Education as well, and allocate such funding to other organizations as is necessary to board up the offices, and liquidate the furniture and equipment which exists there today.

Let them all go, these non-teaching persons, and have them reapply for other Federal Jobs, State jobs, and Private Sector jobs, so those who may qualify for other necessary positions may continue with their employment. They can get into line, right behind the Veterans for consideration for any Federal position.

States can raise the funding to support their own public education programs/people, and raise such funding as each state, and the voters of that State, find appropriate. Stop the Federal Spending on non-core Federal functions.

------

Oh, almost forgot, make sure we secure all those Street Sweeper Combat Shotguns the Department Of Education purchased about 2 years ago, as we disband the DOE Police.

Cutting education is always bad.  You end up with people that are not employable in today's economy.  Jobs relocate where people can get a decent education.

As for jobs that don't require an educated population, they've all gone overseas.

[Gina Marie]

"You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test."

"Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?"

"As Governor of Texas, I have set high standards for our public schools, and I have met those standards."
note: When Bush was Governor of Texas, it ranked 48th out of 50 in American Education.

~George W. Bush

[TPPM]

"You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test."

"Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?"

"As Governor of Texas, I have set high standards for our public schools, and I have met those standards."
note: When Bush was Governor of Texas, it ranked 48th out of 50 in American Education.

~George W. Bush

"Is our children...."?  In a speech about education.

[joan1984]

Get rid of Mr. Kennedy's bill, No Child Left Behind as well. And Nutty points out the latest study, disparity showing US and which other nations are surpassing on one or another scale... Solution:  Let the poor go hungry, and throw a few Trillion at the Dept Of Education of course...

Choose one...

Stop the nonsense, CUT GOVERNMENT SPENDING on virtually everything, NOW...

How about this, budget and spend NO MORE for the coming year, than was spent this year, not one dime more... everyone happy?  Oh, I know, racist cuts to spend the same.