Now let's see which of our elected offocials will get behind a real deficit cutting plan. I'm betting damn few will. Do these plans make sense to you?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101110/ap_on_bi_ge/us_cutting_deficits

I'm ok with many parts of it, but I failed to see the repeal of obamacare listed. That would be huge savings to both the government and the American people. Dems need to learn restraint.

And the other party?

Still washing their balls, are you?

Both f'n parties need a lesson in restraint. Pointing your finger at one party just exposes you for the ballwasher you are.

Wow, I like it. Sounds like some good ideas. Problem is this seems to me to have been window dressing and a process to make it look as if something was to be done for the midterms. Those are over and we will see if anyone actually has the stones for this. Love the reduced tax rates and ending loopholes. I can only hope but best not hold my breath.

I love the commission leads comments about "harpooning every whale" and also needing to enter the witness protection program now that this is public...

To me, this is the first serious/responsible attempt at a national level and has my enthusiastic support... To the guys (and they of course exist in both parties) who claim there are "non starters" in the list, I say FU## OFF. The idea that you can get your way in this stuff is insane.

I like how Hankster (omitting any negative reactions from GOP) and BaitDunker think only the Democrats will be against this. Try pushing any of the included tax INCREASES thru their groups.

How much would we save if we pulled out of Iraq and Afghanistan?

Looks pretty scary, but then, so is our current situation. Honestly, if we are to make any real headway, it's going to take cuts along the lines of those being proposed. I'm a bit surprised to see tax increases even being discussed, however, as most of the new legislators got voted in on a promise that taxes would not be increased. IMO, they may be necessary.

The one thing I would REALLY like to see included is a repeal of the Bush tax cuts for the rich and corporations. Those groups make out FAR too well under this plan. Keep in mind that Social Security is of no real concern to the rich. The next several generations of their families will be set for retirement, with or without it.

+ a kagillion

Kaga......what? Come on SW you can do better than that. Those that chirp away with one or the other party lines will think something I guess.

Frankly I give a damn how the money is spent. That is what we are supposed to fight about with politics in this country. What we are not supposed to be doing is spending our children's children's future because as citizens and a nation we lack the courage and principals to be responsible for our actions as individuals or a society as a whole.

Down and dirty? WE are a self centered, duplistic bunch of greedy assholes.

Kagillion,..... as in a lot.

Short term cost savings on pulling out of both misadventures may not be what many would hope for but staying in both or either venues long term is not only wrong-headed but a complete waste of valuable resources.

We can axe the Dept. of Homeland Security while we're at it. Also bring troops home from South Korea, Germany, and the 750 or so other foreign bases we have world wide.

When you're broke, it's time for a radical change in thought processes. One of ours must come in the realization that not only can we not afford to police the world anymore,........ but it's more trouble than what it's worth.

I agree with SW.

Our "economic interests abroad" (doublespeak for azzhole corporations like Chiquita, the oil companies and the sweatshop companies) don't need taxpayer dollars to prop up the dictators that let them operate brutal and inhuman practices with impunity.

The only company ever busted by the USAPATRIOT act was Chiquita (formerly United Fruit) for hiring known Columbian terrorist squads to machinegun down villages full of workers that refused to work in their banana plantations.

I find $410B as the 10-year cost of the drug plan or 3.41B/month (nothing fancy in this math, no discount rate/inflation). The Afghanistan & Iraq numbers (which I didn't search super hard to find support for, these from Feb '10) are 6.7B/month and 5.5B/month respectively.

So I don't see your numbers, KK. Both are really FRICKIN' expensive, but wars > Part D by my math.

The BIG JOKE here is that again, going by CBO scores, the "Obamacare"
numbers are effectively flat at 0, in the updated scoring from May.. That's right, FLAT. Zero.

The Tea Party should be out screaming about the PRESCRIPTION DRUG BENEFIT ($41B/yr) not HCR ($0/yr). I'll leave it to you all to decide if you think the Tea Party is really about deficit reduction.

"too many variables to be taken seriously?" Give me a freakin' break, Hank. The CBO is the non-partisan, de-facto standard. How in the world can we have a constructive conversation when numbers you don't like you just blow off with this statement? What do you recommend we use as a standard for discussion, numbers we pull out of a lotto machine?

It's not surprising that Biden and Reid voted for passage of medicare D, at least not to me. Why do you make this point?

What I said, and what I apparently have to repeat, is that *if* the GOP/Tea Party was really about reducing the deficit, they'd work on repealing Part D, not Obamacare. Because WITHOUT QUESTION it is vastly more expensive than HCR. When, oh when, will the REAL fiscal conservatives in the GOP emerge and smack down the jackassery that is running the party?

Stop the wars/troops home... No argument there!

This one
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/114xx/doc11490/LewisLtr_HR3590.pdf

Kit summary of that is +$115B from the original numbers, effectively erasing the proclaimed $135B savings, for revenue NEUTRAL to first approximation. This compared to $400B+ (over 10 years) for the prescription drug benefit (revised DOWNWARD from $500B+, from initial estimates, see how I don't bitch and moan about crappy estimates when they go in your favor?)

Again "garbage in- garbage out" blah blah blah from you... Of course it's based on projections and not real numbers -- it is in fact *a projection* and the numbers are not real because it is about *the future*. I'm not making this stuff up.

The best data I can find, suggests that HCR, for all the spit and vinegar around it, costs VASTLY LESS than the prescription drug benefit. And I ask again, why all the fuss about repealing HCR, when prescription drugs are costing us many multiples more? I cannot find any answer, except that deficit hawkery is just a cover story for "we hate Obama".

IR hate to say but he is right. Congress sets the parameters and CBO checks the math. Example the 300 billion medicare shortfall was left out of BO healthcare cost. Both sides been moving this one a vote at a time rather than deal with the shortfall.

By using a 10 year cost projection based on 10 years but no benefits paid the first 4 the math worked out for congress with BO care also. ( especially if you avoided the already 300 b short fall ) CBO was required to use the congressional figures. Do the projection with the cost starting at the time benefits are paid then you get a real short fall.

I would not be to upset as the idea of requiring a individual buy a product using the commerce clause of the constitution will not make it through the supreme court. As someone who favored single payer that leaves the public option mixed with private. This beast the D's put out is a goner but the thing is out the door so they will fix it, sorta, maybe,...............never mind.

My prediction. No progress. The Ds will not go along with cuts to SS. The Rs will not go along with tax increases of any type or significamnt cuts to the military. Hell they still love the Bush cuts which were one of the causes of the current deficit, and both parties have bases in their strongholds.

Both parties will bash the other, while looking for a political advantage, and then they will agree on a few issues that have no real effect - things like outlawing earmarks. The result, no progress, deficit continues to grow, crisis looms.

I will vote for any one who has the guts to embrace most of the panels recommendations.

DV your spot on but it is the verbiage used by both parties. How is it a cut in SS if you raise the retirement age for those who are not even born yet? Another I love is we cut XXX $$$ for the poor / whoever. Reality is the cut was only a reduction in the rate of expansion as not many federal programs have been froze let alone reduced in funding.

The words mean one thing to people but are manipulated by both parties to mean something that is usually not true. The only way to cut government spending is to freeze the level of funding at say 2006 levels for say 4 years. Then allow only increases for inflation for the following 8. The pruning process would be harsh to be sure but it will happen, be it this way or a economic collapse driven by hyper inflation. As Germany found out in the late 20's and Argentina later, you can not print money endlessly.............you will collapse your economy.

Were you against debt when you took out your mortgage?

Or when Reagan ran up a sh!tload of it?

"Deficits don't matter" only applies when a Republican says it while there's a Republican in office...it's a mortal sin if it happens during a Democratic presidency, even if he inherited the mess from...drum roll please...a Republican.

Fish on...

Todd

This nation was founded on debt. If Franklin hadn't secured a loan from France, we'd never would have been able to finance the Revolution.

Most economic fallacies derive from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can gain only at the expense of another.
Milton Friedman

Only government can take perfectly good paper, cover it with perfectly good ink and make the combination worthless.
Milton Friedman

We have a system that increasingly taxes work and subsidizes nonwork.
Milton Friedman

Well first of all, tell me, is there some society you know of that doesn't run on greed? You think Russia doesn't run on greed? You think China doesn't run on greed? What is greed?
Milton Friedman

Oh Oh, reading the paper and listening to the news ( CNN ) and picked up the bit that the Federal Reserve just authorized the printing of 600 billion into the banking system. Hell deficits are one thing but this wholesale printing of money is going to 1. devalue the currency 2. increase inflation pressure 3, not help our balance of payments or trade imbalance.

OK ....................... am I missing something? This appears to be a ........... not sure but it is going to help banks and I do not see it helping the country as a whole.

You know KK you have to be the most complete package of a asshole that god created short of a north end of a south bound mule. It is possible I think that the mules anal cavity possesses greater intellect and thought than you.

Nope not possible but and absolute.

Bernanke is a Freidman scholar and Freidman advocated printing money in a depression scenario. We are in a damned if you do damned if you don't scenario. We could take the advice from the Chinese , they would let 100 million people starve to death to benefit the rest.

Pay no mind to the clown. When going to the zoo it's best not to feed the chimps.

It's gotta be tough to be a Keynesian in this day and age. QE1 and QE2 were both designed to inflate the stock market and bailout the megabanks, admitted by Bernankrupt himself, not help the middle class. I assume it will be followed up by QE3 that will have a similar non-effect on the broader economy.

KK, economic backround?

You worked at a bank 100 years ago,........now you mow lawns. Congratulations?

Your economic backround consists of you wrapping your wine stained lips around Krugman's wrinkled member while ever so gently caressing the fun bags like a good little economic alter boy. What you don't realize is that the sweet nothings he whispers into your ear are utter BS. You're being taken advantage of. Just like the slut cheerleader in high school who banged the whole football team becuse she was convinced her daddy didn't love her.

Don't be mad because your washed up world view is being exposed as a fraud upon humanity. Just crawl back into your cave with a bottle of wine, go back to sucking your thumb,.......... and STFU

"and they're even stronger now with the current spender-in-chief."

Why stronger now?

"Hell deficits are one thing but this wholesale printing of money is going to 1. devalue the currency 2. increase inflation pressure 3, not help our balance of payments or trade imbalance."

3 is not true.

Say yesterday we owed China $100.
And yesterday $100 = 100 yen.
Today we printed more money.
We still owe China yesterday's $100.
But today $100 is worth 80 yen.
China receives less than they would have yesterday.

There is another word for that,.......it's called fraud.

The only thing that does is spark an international currency war,...............coming to theatre near you!

Is it really called fraud, or are you calling it fraud because that works in your argument?

If you or I were to do it we would be prosecuted for fraud.

When the Fed does it, it's called "Quantitative Easing".

Regardless it doesn't matter, it's all semantics.

Just tell that to the Chinese, Brasilians, Russians, Japanese, exc.

And so are subsidies, tariffs, tax deductions, etc.

The war has been on for a long time.

How about decommissioning the TSA and subbing out the security to the Israelis?
Not sure it would save money, but at least you could fly without having your junk inspected.