Sequester 2013

[Janus]

We do not have a parliamentary system. Look to other countryies where they have more than two major parties yet try to work under the system we created. Two parties work fine. It's the electorate who screw it up by not making good decisions and not knowing what to tell their representatives.

I agree two parties work fine  FOR EACH OTHER.....

I borrowed this info. But I believe it so fuck it, I'll use it.

In recent years the choice between the two parties has become increasingly difficult to discern, leaving the American public with an array of bad choices for office. The parties in power have found it to be the most politically advantageous to move toward each other.

In a system where no third party opponent can compete with the two major political parties, it is advantageous for the major parties to differentiate themselves from each other as little as possible. By doing this, the parties alienate as few voters as possible while still holding onto their base voters on wedge issues such as gun control or abortion.

This situation leaves the American people with a choice between a Democrat who is looking out for the interests of multinational corporations and is in favor of gun control, and a Republican who is looking out for the interests of multinational corporations who is against gun control. At the end of the day, we will be electing someone who is looking out for multinational corporations and not everyday Americans.

So why has no third party emerged to offer an alternative? There are numerous issues including ballot access, name recognition and media coverage, but the main issue is access to money. The two main parties that advocate for entrenched interests have the financial backing of those interests. With the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling,the power of corporations to use money to influence elections grew even further.  A change in campaign finance would not fix this problem overnight, but it might level the playing field to the point where a candidate’s viewpoints could stand on their own merits. If ideas became more important than money, perhaps our candidates might have to start speaking up on issues that really matter.

Janus

[joan1984]

To whom would you have "the media" answer? Their damage is done, with the shameless promotion of certain notions or policies, and the ignoring of others. Would we could locate an effective manner to call "the media" to account.

[Athos131]

It would never happen, but the fastest way to fix a lot of problems would be put a dollar for dollar tax on every campaign contribution.  

[joan1984]

It would never happen, but the fastest way to fix a lot of problems would be put a dollar for dollar tax on every campaign contribution.  

Once again, we find agreement. Let each who receives any donation from any source for any political campaign, provide one half of that donation directly to the U.S. Treasury for debt reduction. Broadcast media will adapt their charges to the available campaign money.

[Lois]

I found this piece from NPR to be a balanced and hyperbole-free summary of the situation and its consequences...

[From article]:

Then there are Republican leaders in Congress, like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who say the White House could easily avoid such pain by just cutting wasteful projects.

I think it is interesting that Congress is saying that they want the President to make the cuts.  It is actually the job of Congress to pass a budget for Obama to sign.  The tricky part here is that they have to craft one that Obama will sign.

President Obama does not have the authority to make budget cuts on his own.

[Athos131]

Never let what's actually in the Constitution get in the way of blaming the wrong person.

Either that or people failed that part of school, or are too dumb look it up.

Furthermore, shame on the people who know this and perpetrate it to attack the President.

[Lois]

I agree GB.  The wording of the second amendment certainly proves this.

However, the duties assigned to Congress are clear.  They are the legislative branch.  It is Congress's duty to propose laws and budgets.  The President merely approves or vetos them.

[Athos131]

U.S. Constitution - Article 1 Section 8

http://www.usconstitution.net/xconst_A1Sec8.html

Article 1 - The Legislative Branch
Section 8 - Powers of Congress

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;

To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;

To establish Post Offices and Post Roads;

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;

To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations;

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

To provide and maintain a Navy;

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings; And

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

[Athos131]

I don't think it can be made any plainer it is not the President's job to create the budget.  It's his job to ratify it, but even if he doesn't Congress can override him.

[Katiebee]

.

[joan1984]

.

  As you go through this week, and ones to follow, hearing the hand wringing by media opportunists and other opportunists, keep in mind that our Executive Department has had since Q1 of 2011 to plan what they will do to us, to meet the Budget Control Act of 2011, agreed to by our President, voted in the House and Senate in one of the few bipartisan actions of the past few years, and signed into law by President Obama.

  In January, when the Act was to take place, additional time until March 1, 2013, was mutually agreed upon by Democrats, Republicans, and President Obama to allow more time for effective planning on details of implementation, to serve all of us better.

  March 27, 2013 is the next date your Representatives and our President have to focus upon, the agreed upon day by which any new increase in budget authority is to be made. We are today in excess of the budget authority agreed to in 2011, and have been since the beginning of this Calendar year. Stay tuned.

[Katiebee]

Can't do much with the Party of No.
It takes two to make a compromise.

[watcher1]

It would never happen, but the fastest way to fix a lot of problems would be put a dollar for dollar tax on every campaign contribution.  


Once again, we find agreement. Let each who receives any donation from any source for any political campaign, provide one half of that donation directly to the U.S. Treasury for debt reduction. Broadcast media will adapt their charges to the available campaign money.

But then you have stories like the recently ex-Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr who used his campaign money to buy expensive gifts, Michael Jackson memorablia, etc.  Your option would work only in a world where politicians are trustworthy. Is there such a world?

[Janus]

Can't do much with the Party of No.
It takes two to make a compromise.

But I thought you liked the two party system?

The party of NO? I think that the party of TAX & SPEND is just as bad.

How ever you want to look at it they are both doing the bidding of Big Business.

Back to the OP......


On March 1, a group of automatic spending cuts known as the sequester will go into effect unless Congress and President Obama can come together in an agreement to replace the sequester. No one in the establishment media or alternative media seriously expects such an agreement to occur. Given that the cuts will almost certainly occur, let us take a look at some of the myths concerning the sequester, as well as the real truth behind them.

Myth #1: The sequester will cut spending.

Truth: This myth is false. The sequester does not cut baseline government spending, but rather slows the rate of growth of government spending. What is widely claimed to be a spending cut is actually a $110 billion increase in spending over 10 years rather than a $1.105 trillion increase in spending. But because most people do not know calculus, and therefore do not know the difference between altering a function and altering the derivative of a function, myths like this one persist in our society.

Myth #2: The sequester will kill jobs.

Truth: Perhaps so in the short term, but there will be no net loss of jobs over the long term. To see why, let us consider the parable of the broken window, for which the broken window fallacy is named. As Frédéric Bastiat explained in his 1850 essay Ce qu'on voit, et ce qu'on ne voit pas (That which is seen, and that which is not seen), opportunity costs have an important effect that is frequently ignored, especially by Keynesian economists. In the case of cutting government spending, the broken window fallacy explains why jobs will not be destroyed over the long term. A decrease in government outlays sets in motion a decrease in the diversion of real savings from wealth-generating activities to non-wealth-generating activities, which will lead to economic enrichment and recovery. Such cuts are bad news for jobs that only exist because of government spending, but after a short correction period of perhaps one or two quarters, new private sector jobs will emerge to replace them. To claim that there will be a long-term net job loss after cutting government spending is to commit the broken window fallacy.

Myth #3: The sequester will cause layoffs of teachers, firefighters, police officers, and first responders.

Truth: This myth is false. These occupations are paid for by state and local governments, as well as the private sector. The federal government is the one having its rate of growth reduced, and it is not responsible for hiring them, firing them, or paying their salaries.

Myth #4: The sequester will cut the salaries of federal employees.

Truth: This myth is only a half-truth. The Congressional Research Service says that a sequester may not “reduce or have the effect of reducing the rate of pay an employee is entitled to” under their federal pay scale. However, the sequester is likely to cause furloughs, which amount to unpaid time off.

Myth #5: The sequester will cut Social Security and benefits for veterans.

Truth: This myth is false. These programs are exempted from sequestration by Section 255 of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985.

Myth #6: The sequester will cause delays in tax refunds.

Truth: This myth is probably true. The Internal Revenue Service faces an 8.2 percent budget cut from sequestration, which will mean that fewer tax specialists can be kept on duty (see Myth #4.) This will likely lead to delays in tax refunds.

Matthew Reece, Charlotte Libertarian Philosophy Examiner

[joan1984]

Can't do much with the Party of No.
It takes two to make a compromise.

You must mean two, like President Obama with Leader Reid, and Minority Leader McConnell with Speaker Boenher who negotiated and agreed with Sequestration two years ago, with Defense taking 50% impact in lieu of Taxation, increasing budget authority so no increase would be required until after the 2012 November election, followed by bipartisan votes in the House and Senate, resulting in the Budget Act of 2011, signed into law by the President?

There was a provision for a select group of Democrats and Republicans to meet and propose alternate spending reductions, which ended after more than one year with no agreement, and no report at all as I recall. And so, hopefully, the 'compromise' agreed to by our leaders then, will go into effect now. Seems bipartisan to me, if only a start.

[joan1984]

White House [OMB] Report Claims
Sequestration Will Affect Federal Department That No Longer Exists
reason.com ^ | February 25, 2013 | Mike Riggs
Posted on Mon Feb 25 14:16:23 2013 by jiggyboy

If you want a thorough agency-by-agency rundown of the budget cuts sequestration would deliver, the Office of Management and Budget has you covered. In compliance with The Sequestration Transparency Act of 2012, the OMB sent a detailed report to Congress in September 2012. But there's a small problem with the report: One of the cuts it warns against would affect an agency that no longer exists--and didn't exist when the OMB sent its report to congress.

The first line item on page 121 of the OMB's September 2012 report says that under sequestration the National Drug Intelligence Center would lose $2 million of its $20 million budget. While that's slightly more than 8.2 percent (rounding error or scare tactic?), the bigger problem is that the National Drug Intelligence Center shuttered its doors on June 15, 2012--three months before the OMB issued its report to Congress.

Might there be other errors in the OMB's report?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2991046/posts

[Partner]

Anymore, I'm pretty much ready for sequestration.  It'd do more good that these asshats have done.  I grant that my perch is from afar, but it seems there are too many established politicians too afraid to admit that they've screwed the budgetary pooch over the last decade or so, along with too many others who refuse to be the bearer of necessarily unpleasant news.  Everybody's trying to find somebody else to scapegoat, and I really find very few people up there who have honestly tried to address the problems.

/vent

I hate politics.

[MissBarbara]

[Katiebee]

Ah, p

Can't do much with the Party of No.
It takes two to make a compromise.

But I thought you liked the two party system?

The party of NO? I think that the party of TAX & SPEND is just as bad.

How ever you want to look at it they are both doing the bidding of Big Business.

Back to the OP......


On March 1, a group of automatic spending cuts known as the sequester will go into effect unless Congress and President Obama can come together in an agreement to replace the sequester. No one in the establishment media or alternative media seriously expects such an agreement to occur. Given that the cuts will almost certainly occur, let us take a look at some of the myths concerning the sequester, as well as the real truth behind them.

Myth #1: The sequester will cut spending.

Truth: This myth is false. The sequester does not cut baseline government spending, but rather slows the rate of growth of government spending. What is widely claimed to be a spending cut is actually a $110 billion increase in spending over 10 years rather than a $1.105 trillion increase in spending. But because most people do not know calculus, and therefore do not know the difference between altering a function and altering the derivative of a function, myths like this one persist in our society.

Myth #2: The sequester will kill jobs.

Truth: Perhaps so in the short term, but there will be no net loss of jobs over the long term. To see why, let us consider the parable of the broken window, for which the broken window fallacy is named. As Frédéric Bastiat explained in his 1850 essay Ce qu'on voit, et ce qu'on ne voit pas (That which is seen, and that which is not seen), opportunity costs have an important effect that is frequently ignored, especially by Keynesian economists. In the case of cutting government spending, the broken window fallacy explains why jobs will not be destroyed over the long term. A decrease in government outlays sets in motion a decrease in the diversion of real savings from wealth-generating activities to non-wealth-generating activities, which will lead to economic enrichment and recovery. Such cuts are bad news for jobs that only exist because of government spending, but after a short correction period of perhaps one or two quarters, new private sector jobs will emerge to replace them. To claim that there will be a long-term net job loss after cutting government spending is to commit the broken window fallacy.

Myth #3: The sequester will cause layoffs of teachers, firefighters, police officers, and first responders.

Truth: This myth is false. These occupations are paid for by state and local governments, as well as the private sector. The federal government is the one having its rate of growth reduced, and it is not responsible for hiring them, firing them, or paying their salaries.

Myth #4: The sequester will cut the salaries of federal employees.

Truth: This myth is only a half-truth. The Congressional Research Service says that a sequester may not “reduce or have the effect of reducing the rate of pay an employee is entitled to” under their federal pay scale. However, the sequester is likely to cause furloughs, which amount to unpaid time off.

Myth #5: The sequester will cut Social Security and benefits for veterans.

Truth: This myth is false. These programs are exempted from sequestration by Section 255 of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985.

Myth #6: The sequester will cause delays in tax refunds.

Truth: This myth is probably true. The Internal Revenue Service faces an 8.2 percent budget cut from sequestration, which will mean that fewer tax specialists can be kept on duty (see Myth #4.) This will likely lead to delays in tax refunds.

Matthew Reece, Charlotte Libertarian Philosophy Examiner

ah,... But tax and spend is more responsible than cut taxes and increase spending. Not the sound bite but more insidious.

[Katiebee]

Myth number 3 is at least partly true. The states receive a lot of educational funding, which will be reduced.