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Budget Pain Set to Worsen

by: Colorado Pols

Tue Jun 22, 2010 at 10:29:40 AM MDT


The latest chapter in a long, sad story, told by the Durango Herald's Joe Hanel:

The good news: State government should be able to make it 10 more days, to the end of its budget year, with money in the bank.

The not-so-good news: In August, Gov. Bill Ritter will have to declare a fiscal emergency to propose an additional $75 million in cuts.

And the bad news: The end of the federal stimulus bill will require a predicted $687 million to be cut from the 2011-12 budget - nearly 10 percent...

A slightly worse forecast by Ritter's budget office means Ritter will unveil another $75 million in cuts in August - a relatively modest amount compared with the $1 billion shortfall last year.

Ritter said more tough choices lie ahead, but he will propose "balanced" cuts that are fair to the whole state.

"While the worst is behind us, families, small businesses and many of our industries have a challenging climb ahead of them," Ritter said.

The slightly improving economy would have been enough to keep the state in good shape in 2011, if Colorado had received the same federal stimulus payments as it did this year.

But stimulus funds are running out well ahead of the ongoing need; and the situation is potentially compounded by the failure of Congress last week to pass widely-expected extensions on higher health reimbursements to states, which bridged a considerable portion of Colorado's budget gap in the last two fiscal years. The funds for Medicaid reimbursement helped preserve existing funds all over the budget. We warned last year that the stimulus funds for state budget stabilization in general were some of the most important to its success, and were being undercut in final negotiations--this is where some of that discrepancy was being made up.

By next year, unless Congress acts, both failures will be painfully apparent. FOX31's Eli Stokols:

"Nothing is off the table," Ritter said Monday. "But so much of this will depend on this decision that congress is going to make on whether to extend the FMAP relief by another six months."

And there, at the mention of "FMAP" dollars  federal matching funds for Medicaid -- is where the plodding freight train that is Colorado's staggering state budget gets frighteningly close to a devastating financial cliff. It's also where the needs of nearly 30 states, all facing devastating financial shortfalls, meet the political pressures of a difficult election season.

Those states have written their 2010-11 budgets on the assumption that Congress would approve an extension of an enhanced federal match for Medicaid as part of an "extenders" bill to augment the $787 billion in stimulus funding passed in February 2009.

But as November nears, that bill's passage is looking less and less likely, as a number of congressional Democrats are getting cold feet about approving additional deficit spending items.

Video report after the jump.
Colorado Pols :: Budget Pain Set to Worsen
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Budget Pain Set to Worsen | 94 comments
Exactly why did we increase the budget by $400 million this year then?
A comparatively modest $325 million increase would have fixed the problem completely.

"...energy shouldn't be in the market." - Aristotle
Fuzzy math, BJ
How do you take Fox's story reporting a $1.3 billion cut and translate it into a $400 million increase?
  Inquiring minds want to know.
[ Parent ]
What cut? The cowardly lion has increased the state budget to $18.5 billion
This up $3-5 billion from Owen's last year in office.

So on top of hiking the shit out of state spending, screwing the union worker, hiking taxes & fees, screwing businesses (except those that fart in the wind or blow sunshine), and generally leading this state into a condition of disrepair the lion managed to get no substantive policies moved forward. He has developed and presided over a mess he made: this so called fiscal crisis of his.

Read the following for a few policy nuggets.


Osborne's Anti-Keynesian Budget
Another government abandons the idea that it can spend its way back to prosperity.

George Osborne presented the U.K. government's emergency budget yesterday, with spending cuts and consumption-tax hikes intended to shrink public borrowing to 1.1% of GDP by 2016, down from 10.1% of GDP this year. Nearly 80% of that retrenchment comes as spending cuts rather than tax increases. The Chancellor of the Exchequer's cuts are, on balance, good news for the British economy. Even more welcome, though, is that Mr. Osborne's budget is the latest to depart from the short-lived Keynesian consensus that government can spend its way back to prosperity.

Lord Keynes once famously said that in the long run, we're all dead. It seems the post-panic revival of wanton deficit spending didn't have to wait that long to return this idea to its grave.

"Some have suggested that there is a choice between dealing with our debts and going for growth," said Mr. Osborne. "That is a false choice."

False, and fast going out of fashion. Over the past year, politicians around the world claimed they couldn't cut spending without killing the economy, even as fiscal deficits soared to record highs in the developed world. Call it the spendthrift's paradox.

Now the tide may be turning. U.S. President Barack Obama could find himself in a lonely spot at this weekend's G-20 summit, when he's expected to urge his counterparts not to tighten fiscal policy too quickly lest they thwart their economic recoveries. With Japan's recent move to slash its astronomical corporate tax rate, and Canada set to gun for aggressive public-sector deficit reduction this weekend, we can now add Britain's leaders to the growing list of politicians likely to ignore Mr. Obama's warnings. And rightly so. Aside from ballooning national debts, taxpayers in the U.K. and U.S. have little show for the billions in so-called "stimulus" spending the past two years.


http://online.wsj.com/article/...
[ Parent ]
Please cite a source for that, Libby
until you do, I stick to that left-wing Fox News account about the 1.3 billion cut that BJ translated into a $400 increase.
  In fact, I think you're confusing general fund spending with the overall budget that includes cash funds (like college tuition) and trust funds (like highways) and federal funds (earmarked.)  The GF is only about half the total.  That includes some federal/state/local mixes like medicaid.  
[ Parent ]
usgovtspending

[ Parent ]
ps Voyageur, ya gotta be fact driven
and outcome aware. you're on a crash course to a really fucking deep recession by following your fiscally liberal friends. take a breather bro
[ Parent ]
You too
What's the source for your graph?

Today, you're either going to get better or you're going to get worse, but you're never going to be the same.  Which one will it be?  --Joseph V. Paterno
[ Parent ]
It's on the graph you bonehead
just for shits and grins I had my elementary kids review it and asked him what the website was...she reported it as "www.usgovernmentspending.com"

Not bad I'm thinking, she added in the www. for you Ralphie.

What are you some kinda government middle manager living off the tit of the taxpayer as you push paper trying to take credit for real state workers that return value to the taxpayer?

[ Parent ]
Actually, those appear to be aggregates as I suspected
Here's why that's wrong.  If Colorado cuts general fund support for higher education for $200 million, it shows as a cut in the general fund.  But if colleges raise tuition $200 million to offset that cut, then it shows as a $200 increase in cash funds.  Since your graph lumps everything together, there is no change.  But in fact, there has been a 200 million cut in state government spending, offset by $200 million in tuition increases.
  Try the state Office State Planning and Budgeting or the Long Bill Narrative from the lege to get an accurate year to year baseline.  
[ Parent ]
Nice try
They're still spending it. They use traditional account terms to try to make you think otherwise.
[ Parent ]
Also, Libby, Colorado fiscal years run from July 1 to June 30.
What you identify as 2009 is thus probably 2008-09.  I susupect those estimates need to be reduced by the 1.3 billion in cuts Fox reported.  Thanks for citing a source, which at least allows us to get a handle.  I suspect BJ, as usual, just blew his claimed "400 million spending increase" out of his ass, as usual.  
[ Parent ]
What?!
Even the state of CO says they spent 19.6 in the 2007/08 fiscal year.

http://www.colorado.gov/cs/Sat...

[ Parent ]
Madco, just to be confusing, some of that cash is counted twice.
Once when it goes from the general fund to the medicaid fund and again when it goes from that fund to health care providers.
  It's like I write a check from my checking account to my savings account, then later transfer $100 from savings to make my car payment.  It would be counted twice, spent once.  
Adjustment for that double counting may affect the totals.    
[ Parent ]
The major reason for the increase is...
inflation mixed with population increase but i still think that we need to work within our budget.

"It is well known that the most radical revolutionary will become a conservative on the day after the revolution." - Hannah Arendt
[ Parent ]
I read it on ColoradoPols.


"...energy shouldn't be in the market." - Aristotle
[ Parent ]
He got it from the same place
that he got the idea that Death Panels were coming for granny.  It's dark and he uses it quite often.
[ Parent ]
broken record liberals
SPEND LESS MONEY. We don't have it.

Why is this so hard?

False premise conservatives
All those rich folks don't have any money either - and don't make our companies be responsible...

The solution is "hard" because the situation isn't the way you see it.

Simple fact: money supply is almost always like entropy - ever-increasing.  What changes is where it collects and how it moves.  Right now, during a recession, it's not moving, and with our current tax structure adding on to that, the money is pooling at the top.  If we want to find money, or to help ourselves out of the recession, we have to move it from wherever it's pooling into somewhere it will circulate.  That means restoring higher taxes on the rich, and (IMHO very important) severely limiting the capital gains tax.

"We're below sharks and contract killers." -- Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), speaking on Congress's 9% approval rating

[ Parent ]
Oh go back a re-read the Denver Post hit piece inciting class warfare, er...
executive compensation from Sunday.

Re-reading this article quickly without accounting for what's really at work behind the scenes should feed your weakened liberal brain the masterbatory material required to balance you out. Make sure you print the graphics the Post did for this piece too, an email them to your friends to get their juices running too.

[ Parent ]
Look, L - I'm not into heavy insults
But that post was so delusional I need a translator to even approach it.

WTF were you trying to say?

"We're below sharks and contract killers." -- Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), speaking on Congress's 9% approval rating

[ Parent ]
You are obviously a fucking idiot in economic knowledge.
First, that's EXACTLY what is happening.

Second, the caveat is, "despite best efforts."

Third, I presume you look to Colorado Springs as heaven.  

"Politics determines who has the power, not who has the truth." Paul Krugman, 9/2010

[ Parent ]
You're a socialist, but that is ok
Only economic growth will create wealth, rather than recycle and redistribute what others are struggling to earn

[ Parent ]
Obviously, you don't know what a socialist is.
Unless we count the definitions used by your overlords Limbaugh and Beck.  

Also obviously, you, too, have no fucking clue how our governments have effectively seeded many growth sectors that are now mostly private, but were too chicken shit to get into.

Rural electrification and phone service, the TVA, the space program, the internet.  Those examples don't include how socialist dams provide water for irrigation which allows farmers to grow crops.

By the way, how is it the democratic socialist countries have suffered far less than us in this downturn?  And they all have health insurance to boot!


"Politics determines who has the power, not who has the truth." Paul Krugman, 9/2010

[ Parent ]
We need 2 tax increases on the ballot
What we really need is 3 items:

1. Allow a progressive income tax (constitutional restriction).

2. Increased income tax rate on the rich (ie me).

3. A gigantic bond to address every significant capital need - schools, roads, etc.

We need more income to cover those that are out of work.

We create jobs and rebuild our state on the cheap with the bond.

Where all the cool kids will be on Saturday - Code War!

That would create a near endless supply of cash for you to flood the public sector with
until all at risk capital flees Colorado ... then you'd have a fat and broken budget like we do today ... but it would only be a few more billion then we have today.
[ Parent ]
Not at all
It would just move us up from last place. You do need to spend a couple of dollars to avoid becoming Somalia.

Where all the cool kids will be on Saturday - Code War!
[ Parent ]
#3 = run up the debt
How will that help our economy? We'll just be hamstrung with interest payments for years.

"...energy shouldn't be in the market." - Aristotle
[ Parent ]
This is for stuff that's needed
We have schools & bridges that should be condemned. I'm not saying go gold plated or create make-work. But lets take advantage of the present low construction costs to build all the stuff we've put off for way too long.

Where all the cool kids will be on Saturday - Code War!
[ Parent ]
Well they did do that at CSU already.
But it seems to me if you don't have the money then you just shouldn't build anything you don't have to.

"...energy shouldn't be in the market." - Aristotle
[ Parent ]
Are you saying the state should never float bonds?
If so, that goes against even what conservative economists suggest. And any state level bond in Colorado must go to a vote of the people - that's required.

So if you follow standard economic theory where the state should float bonds for capital improvements, then how can you oppose the concept of a capital bond?

Where all the cool kids will be on Saturday - Code War!

[ Parent ]
Only if it's absolutely necessary.
Because by issuing a bond, you're going to lose money in interest unless you're very very certain that the investment is going to yield higher dividends for the state. So I suppose I might be in favor of limited bonds for certain investments, but not if you are already as overextended as the federal government is right now.

"...energy shouldn't be in the market." - Aristotle
[ Parent ]
We pay about 2% on new long-term debt.
Once again, the 2008 Nobel Prize winner in Economics absolutely refutes your brainless repetition of a blind ideological platitude, and the difference between him and you is that he's a genius who knows what he's talking about and backs it up with precise data and analysis, whereas you're an idiot who hasn't a clue what he's talking about and never backs anything up with anything. Who would you believe? Oh, yeah, I forgot; you're an idiot.

We're all in this story together: Let's make sure that we write it well.
http://www.steveharveyforcolor...
[ Parent ]
As Krugman says today, "Pay now, save later."
We are on the cusp of falling into a "lost decade" like Japan did if we don't get things ramped up.  Private enterprise does NOT ramp up jobs in a doldrum economy, only the government can do that by taxing and borrowing.

To never go into debt means one shouldn't invest in one's own higher ed, doesn't it?  Wow, the debt!  Might as well not go to college.

Go ahead, cut off your nose, but please leave our noses alone.  

"Politics determines who has the power, not who has the truth." Paul Krugman, 9/2010

[ Parent ]
Lol, well I guess that's where we differ
"only the government can [ramp up jobs] by taxing and borrowing" is not a statement I agree with. Increased taxes and debt stifle economic growth. Certainly investments are necessary, but when you're playing with other peoples money they are made badly. Investments are better left to the private sector, where if you make a bad decision you go bankrupt.

"...energy shouldn't be in the market." - Aristotle
[ Parent ]
Unfortunately for you,
that's a cartoonish pseudo-economic argument made by people who don't know what they're talking about, and do not understand the nature of property rights, of public goods, and of market failures. But a complete lack of relevant knowledge will never stop you from asserting your ignorance against those who actually know a bit about economics, now will it?

We're all in this story together: Let's make sure that we write it well.
http://www.steveharveyforcolor...
[ Parent ]
Your historical examples?
Ever?

Anywhere?

At any time?

If not the government, who or what??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Taxes do not stifle growth.  That is a recent argument without factual basis.  Voo doo economics as one presidential aspirant called such things.  Taxes spent locally, meaning the USA, are no different that private enterprise monies being spent locally.  I'm sure the good folks making bombers or teaching kids or arrest crooks would be surprised to know that they are a drain on the economy.  

"Politics determines who has the power, not who has the truth." Paul Krugman, 9/2010

[ Parent ]
Small business, duh
If they're not taxed to death. Pretty sure the teacher's unions know they're a drain on everybody else; they just don't care.

"...energy shouldn't be in the market." - Aristotle
[ Parent ]
Well, as long as you're pretty sure of it,
reasonable people can be pretty sure that the opposite is correct, as it obviously is in this case.

We're all in this story together: Let's make sure that we write it well.
http://www.steveharveyforcolor...
[ Parent ]
Ironically, no one, absolutely no one,
disputes the fact that massive government spending ended the Great Depression. Some dispute the (well documented) fact that New Deal programs were, in fact, stimulating growth until FDR unfortunately heeded the pleas of the BJs of his day, and tried to rein in spending in 1937, sending the economy back into a downward spiral. But no one disputes the fact that massive public spending on military hardware is what finally ended the Great Depression.

Nor does anyone dispute the fact that Hoover's BJ-esque policies were a complete failure, and in fact disastrously deepened the downward economic spiral.

Non-economists debate whether Keynesian Economics is dead or not, not realizing that the field of macroeconomics (the study of the interaction of income, investment, spending, and taxes) is Keynesian Economics; there is no competing paradigm. Not only that, Keynes himself, for instance, walked out of the Versailles Treaty conference, in which he was an advisor, declaring that the insistence on reparations was guaranteed to create a resumption of the war (which we now call "WWII"), so highly atuned was he to macroeconomic dynamics and its consequences.

The one historical example which the BJ-diots of the world keep claiming as their empirical legitimation for what in fact is both empirically and theoretically completely discredited is Reaganonomics, failing to realize that, in fact, Reagan vastly expended government spending, exploded the national debt (up from 35.8% of GDP when he took office, to 53.1% when he left), and set in place a dynamic of massive polarization of wealth and poverty in the United States, diminishing social mobility and equalization of opportunity as never before in American history. (Conversely, the national debt contracted under Democratic presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, and Clinton, while expanding under Republican presidents Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II, completely obliterating the myth about which party is more fiscally responsible).

The BJ-diots ignore the historical record, which has articulated with and verified our theoretical understandings (which the BJ-diots also ignore), in order to make completely foundationless claims that defy all knowledge, all reason, and serve only to increase suffering and stifle progress.

We're all in this story together: Let's make sure that we write it well.
http://www.steveharveyforcolor...

[ Parent ]
Reagan
You leave out the part where Reagan proved "deficits don't matter"
[ Parent ]
Here's the choice:
Do we accept the pseudo-economic analysis of a demonstrated idiot, or the actual economic analysis of the 2008 Nobel Prize Winner in economics?

Gee, that's a tough one....

We're all in this story together: Let's make sure that we write it well.
http://www.steveharveyforcolor...

[ Parent ]
To be able to do that you need:
1. Political leadership with enough spine to propose said items, and the charisma to get it passed by the voters: ie another Bill Owens.

The Democrats have been gun-shy of trying any sort of revenue raising inside the boundaries of TABOR.  The result is the mess you see before us now.  Dems who were afraid of being labeled as "Tax and Spend" may have given Republicans the issue of the state budget.

Whether or not the Republican candidates can do anything with it is another story of course.

[ Parent ]
One thing that I think could help sell it
Is if it passes, they eliminate all the PITA taxes - use tax, business property tax, extra license fees, etc.

I also think they should try. Sitting around and saying a tax initiative can't be passed is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Where all the cool kids will be on Saturday - Code War!

[ Parent ]
Income Taxes at 1950s Levels
And 136 positions eliminated at our district's schools, more than half are teachers.

Everything is fine unless:

You have kids in K-12
You have kids in higher ed
You drive on our roads
Your parent or yourself end up on medicare

Dan Maes - "We just need to cut more and more from our schools/higher ed"

f'n moron

Colorado, one of the lowest taxed states in one of the lowest taxed nations in the developed world.

At some point you have to pay for things though.
Try going to a bank and saying "hey I need some money for my kid's education and for my health bills, so you owe me". They will patiently explain that you must work in order to earn money, buy insurance, etc. If you then say "well I need it, so you have to give it to me", they will laugh at you and say... "IT'S NOT YOUR MONEY"! To do otherwise would be very unfair to the people who have trusted the bank with their money. It's amazing how many adults still don't understand that money doesn't grow on trees.

"...energy shouldn't be in the market." - Aristotle
[ Parent ]
It's even more amazing that people
don't understand that property rights are not bestowed by nature, but rather by particular legal regimes, and that a system that combines heritable wealth with labor as a commodity, though robust at producing aggregate wealth, involves a variety of market failures and inequities that can and should be mitigated, both to increase the degree of equality of opportunity, and to maximize the efficiency and robustness of the market itself. Or that those property rights are contained within a social institutional framework through which wealth is created and distributed, and that there is nothing inherently or automatically fair and just about a system which privileges generationally accumulated wealth over providing equality of opportunity independently of the chances of birth. Or that it is both impossible and inefficient, not to mention brutal and dysfunctional, to try to reduce everything to private property and to deny children a quality education due to the financial limitations of their parents. Or that you're an idiot. Oh, wait, you're the only person who doesn't understand that last one....

We're all in this story together: Let's make sure that we write it well.
http://www.steveharveyforcolor...
[ Parent ]
@ SH, TFO
Can you get that to fit on a bumper sticker? A normal sized one?
[ Parent ]
Probably.
Being able to read it would be another matter.... :)

We're all in this story together: Let's make sure that we write it well.
http://www.steveharveyforcolor...
[ Parent ]
But, in the interests of demonstrating versatility:

Our laws should be the wings on which we soar, rather than the cage which prevents us from doing so

That's kinda off-the-cuff; I'll keep working on it!

We're all in this story together: Let's make sure that we write it well.
http://www.steveharveyforcolor...

[ Parent ]
(my first version might have been better):

Our laws should be the wings on which we soar, rather than the cage in which we languish


We're all in this story together: Let's make sure that we write it well.
http://www.steveharveyforcolor...
[ Parent ]
And more bumper-sticker-esque:

Our laws should be our wings rather than our cage


We're all in this story together: Let's make sure that we write it well.
http://www.steveharveyforcolor...
[ Parent ]
Again, you are so wrong.
"I want to borrow money to ramp up my bidness."  (I've done that.)

"OK, we'll give you XXXX amount of money NOW so that you will make more money LATER which will improve your income AND repay us."

Gee, that was hard to understand.  Banks NEVER say, "It's not your money."  

What you are proposed, BJ, is a 1937 redux.  Roosevelt and Congress pulled back on the government spending because of Republican pressures.  Guess what?  The economy started tanking again.  Spending increased again the following year and GDP went up again. Then came the Lend Lease program of making and selling armaments and then WWII, both of which put the stake into the Depression's heart.

But hey, the latter couldn't have made wealth or boosted the economy, could they?  

Even some of the Chicago "School" economists have said, "We are all Keynsians now."

But not Blow Job. He know better.  

"Politics determines who has the power, not who has the truth." Paul Krugman, 9/2010

[ Parent ]
Nope
Ever heard of somebody in credit card trouble because they borrowed too much? That's where we are. Bankrupt. Roosevelt did nothing but prolong the depression with the New Deal. As you point out, only the war saved us. Whenever somebody says "we are all XXX now" you know they're wrong, and that they have a serious ego problem. Seems to me this Keynesian stimulus program has been an utter failure.

"...energy shouldn't be in the market." - Aristotle
[ Parent ]
Of course it seems to you it's been an utter failure,
because our current economic condition is better than any prediction had hoped for a year and a half ago. And since the opposite of what is indicated by reason and evidence is the position you gravitate toward, what else could we expect you to conclude?

We're all in this story together: Let's make sure that we write it well.
http://www.steveharveyforcolor...
[ Parent ]
And, again,
the 2008 Nobel Prize Winner in Economics disagrees with you, which is just one more small piece of evidence in support of his intelligence, and one more unecessarily redundant reminder of your complete lack of intelligence.

"only the war saved us." Do you know how "the war saved us"? By stimulating the economy with massive public spending: Can you spell IDIOT? B-J-W-I-L-S-O-N-8-3.

We're all in this story together: Let's make sure that we write it well.
http://www.steveharveyforcolor...

[ Parent ]
I wish I could scream right now through the keyboard
You really cannot connect dots, can you?

And you have not studied the recovery from The First Republican Great Depression, have you?

By 1941 job growth had been taking place (except for that Republican led lower stimulus amount in 1937), things were a lot better.  I think unemployment had been halved at that time, without looking it up.

Along comes WWII AND HUGE MASSIVE FUCKING GOVERNMENT DOLLARS SPENT ON ARMAMENTS AND MILITARY PAYROLL and you say that this is what ended The Depression but also you say the government spending money doesn't prime the pump.

Either one or the other is true, but not both. Oh, I guess except in your chattering parrot right wing ideologue rabbit hole.

You are really and truly a fucking idiot.  As in you don't know shit and you cannot connect simple, historical dots.



"Politics determines who has the power, not who has the truth." Paul Krugman, 9/2010

[ Parent ]
What happened to all that trickle down money?
With all the Republican tax cuts for the rich over the last two decades and the subsequent expansion of our economy because of the wealthy investing, you would think that we would be awash in trickle down cash.  I guess the it was a just a conservative Ponzi scheme to fleece the middle class.  Bernie Madoff was a real Republican

The bottom line here is that we still to get the economy moving otherwise the colleges are toast.  Perhaps it is a conspiracy to make it so college is only accessible to the scion of the wealthy so we will establish a permanent class system in our country.  If you are poor you stay on the bottom because even if you are smart you can't afford college.  We are crippling the future of America with this hatred for paying taxes to maintain a civilized society.

I've wondered when the bailout and stimulus [ARRA] spending will kick in
I was sure Obama scheduled it to take effect now in the run up to the 2010 elections. It's just another democratic policy and operations failure I guess.
[ Parent ]
Isn't that what kept the colleges on life support this year
I guess you didn't see where the stimulus money was used as a one time revenue this year.

And I guess as long as we're throwing bricks at each other where is the US Chamber of Commerce and their awesome private business CEO solutions?  Did they out sourced all our jobs and then take the bail out money and dole out bonuses to each other or are they just inbred incompetents who are waiting for their golden parachute?

[ Parent ]
Still no hint from the unregulated capitialism proponents
on what private business is doing to help pull our society out of these economic doldrums.  Where are the new products and sustainable technologies that private industry should be developing to propel us into a post fossil fuel future?  Why does the Obama administration have to pay for their lack of innovation?  Where have the businesses and super well paid CEO's been been during this recession?  Oh I know.  They have been cutting corners for profit in the Gulf and creating problems that they can't fix.  A pretty lack luster performance by the revered engine that drives our society.
[ Parent ]
They have been destroyed by the Obama administration's
tax and spend policies. They can't plan to expand and hire because they don't know what new regulations and taxes they will face in the future. Don't worry though, as soon as Congress flips they will be back to hiring and expanding.

"...energy shouldn't be in the market." - Aristotle
[ Parent ]
More pseudo-economic nonsense.
The recession that Obama inherited has been far less severe than all predictions had foreseen when the crisis erupted during (and as a result of) the Bush administration. 80% of American economists (on average, more conservative than world economists as a whole) interviewed by the Economist magazine during the 2008 presidential campaign supported Democratic over Republican economic policies, and the Economist magazine itself endorsed Obama. The 2008 Nobel Prize winner in economics favored far more massive stimulus spending, and has argued that deficit hawks have been wrong to oppose massive public spending during such a severe economic downturn.

But you're not one to ever let actual facts and knowledge get in the way of your completely arbitrary and brainless assertions, now are you?

We're all in this story together: Let's make sure that we write it well.
http://www.steveharveyforcolor...

[ Parent ]
More BS from bj
I'm sure you would blame Microsoft fading in value compared to Apple on Obama too.

Tax rates are at 50 year lows and as we have seen in the Gulf, regulations have been generally ignored by the business overlords with few consequences.

You can't admit that American businesses have become as bloated and inefficient as any government institution because then your cherished narrative that all government is bad and all business is good is a hoax.

Maybe it would help if you reviewed what happened when the Republicans controlled Congress and went on an amazing run of tax cuts for the wealthy and gutting regulations.  The result was unrivaled greed and enormous risk taking that led to a near collapse of our economy.  Your hallucinations that businesses are waiting for Republicans to rescue them from the mean regulations of the Obama administration is the kind of barf material that only a radical right wing extremist would believe.

[ Parent ]
Wrong again
You know what assumptions do, don't you? I've never said that all business is good. I am against big government and big business, especially when they get in bed with each other. I think the companies that took bailout money should have gone bankrupt. Small and local business and government are the answer.

As far as Republican control of Congress, I seem to remember unemployment never rising above 5%. Tell me this, Mr. Smarty Pants, in what year did Republicans lose control of Congress? So eat your own barf material.

"...energy shouldn't be in the market." - Aristotle

[ Parent ]
Obama cut taxes for 95% +.
What are you talking about?
[ Parent ]
Better tax 'n spend than don't tax and spend.
Like the Boosh misadministration, ya know?

Unlike the Clinton administration, taxed, cut spending.

Vote Democratic.  

"Politics determines who has the power, not who has the truth." Paul Krugman, 9/2010

[ Parent ]
New Federalism and Tabor
Guess the state will have to suffer.

GOP will want to privatize higher ed, and k-12 next.

It's back to the Middle Ages.  

judge elected officials by their actions, not by their rhetoric

Exactly what is the problem with private education?
Is it that it's not controlled by the government, so they can't be the thought police?

"...energy shouldn't be in the market." - Aristotle
[ Parent ]
It's that much of private education has blind spots
Private schools, given the choice, don't like poor people, don't like struggling students (in any situation where there's any kind of external accountability, anyway), and often times don't like students whose religious views don't match the school's.  In short, they are inherently discriminatory.  (I'll use Libertad's words: they use class warfare...)

"We're below sharks and contract killers." -- Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), speaking on Congress's 9% approval rating
[ Parent ]
My sentiments exactly
Not everyone gets to go to school is the main point.

judge elected officials by their actions, not by their rhetoric
[ Parent ]
Well you do have a point about poor students,
although a strict capitalist would say you should pay for the education you receive. Certainly that's not the way to go though because then smart kids with talent are just stuck in the cycle of poverty. But as far as religious schools, there would be much more diversity of religious expression if you could choose which school to go to. As it is the default position of public schools must be atheism, or at least agnosticism.

"...energy shouldn't be in the market." - Aristotle
[ Parent ]
That damn constitution is a bitch, isn't it JB?

[ Parent ]
Uh, no.
Private schools however would allow more religious expression. But I suppose you're against that anyway. Just like in the former Soviet Union.  

"...energy shouldn't be in the market." - Aristotle
[ Parent ]
@BJ: What a completely clueless idiot you are.
There are two key clauses regarding religion in the First Amendment of the US Constitution: The Establishment Clause, and The Free Exercise Clause. Students' right to express their religion on school grounds, during school hours, is constitutionally protected as long as it doesn't bear the "imprimatur" of the school, and as long as the school isn't sponsoring it. Public schools are, for instance, constitutionally prohibited from prohibiting student organized prayer groups on school grounds, as long as they don't interupt classes or block the entrances or exits to the building.

All you're capable of is spewing empty, absurd ideological nonsense, completely devoid of both reason, and any knowledge of law, economics, or any other relevant body of information.

We're all in this story together: Let's make sure that we write it well.
http://www.steveharveyforcolor...

[ Parent ]
The solution isn't to pass the buck and go with privatization
Privatizations major test run was in Somalia and it seems to be just working out great for them right?  Well if you discount the fact that famine and piracy are on the rise as well as murder rates and the fact they can't even small armed units departing from Ethiopia from entering their country. Other than that it sound perfect there.

The solution is to cut the budget even if it's deep that's what needs to be done.

"It is well known that the most radical revolutionary will become a conservative on the day after the revolution." - Hannah Arendt

[ Parent ]
That's why I'm not a libertarian. :)


"...energy shouldn't be in the market." - Aristotle
[ Parent ]
That gives them one thing to be proud of. n/t


We're all in this story together: Let's make sure that we write it well.
http://www.steveharveyforcolor...
[ Parent ]
What cuts?
As far as I can tell the only cuts were those made to desired increases. Has the State ever spent less than previous year?    

Stop erasing my signature line. If my non-profane words are offensive, maybe you should redress my grievances rather than censor me.  
That's a really interesting question
I'd phrase it as a percentage of state GDP because inflation and population growth will lead to increased dollars for the same level of spending.

But as a percentage - has it ever declined?

Where all the cool kids will be on Saturday - Code War!

[ Parent ]
Hey guys, England just made 25% cuts across the board.
When the emerge with a stronger economy than ours, I hope we see the light and finally cut government spending.

"...energy shouldn't be in the market." - Aristotle
citation?

Or is this one of those "it was just to much fun" to say it kinda things?

You mean the same England with nationalized healthcare? And  a military budget that would be hard pressed to keep the California National Guard functioning?  The England which adopted Mr-Free-markets-rule-except for education-and-healthcare-and-his-personal-pension(paid by the UK)-Hayek?

Just checking.

[ Parent ]
Front page of the New York Times
But I'm glad you don't read it - just happened to pick one up today. In case you missed it, there was a recent change in government as David Cameron took over.

"...energy shouldn't be in the market." - Aristotle
[ Parent ]
Thank you. Was that so hard?
For someone claiming to be a mathematician, you are kind of careless with math and other facts.

Yes- Britain's leadership is proposing cutting spending. Also, raising taxes. ANd tax resrtucture.

"...package of spending cuts and tax increases..."

"...changes in income tax will remove nearly 900,000 of Britain's poorest people from the income tax system altogether, and corporate taxes will also be reduced over a five-year period, to 24 percent from 28 percent."

It's not "across the board."

"...The cuts and tax increases, including average budget reductions of 25 percent..."

"...health and international aid spending would be protected from the 25 percent cuts ..."

The Brits haven't done it yet - It's still got to pass Parliament. And not everyone is in favor.

"But the sharp reductions defy conventional economic wisdom, which holds that governments should increase spending to stimulate growth when the private sector is weak."

Actually, I love that the Brit Conservative party is going to try and get this done.  It remains to be seen whether they can preserve their recent electoral gains this way.  I would have loved to see Bush/Cheney introduce this kind of fiscal austerity  in 2001 or 2002.  How is that the same R Congress which forced Clinton to balance the budget then forced/allowed/conspired with the Bush admin to run up giant deficits, adopt crazy accounting gimmicks, and allow Wall St to run it all into the ground?

I'd also love to see a return of the Reagan tax code- aftet the Reagan tax cuts and Reagan tax increases.

You keep reading the NYT. And the Economist.  And do the math.

[ Parent ]
ps
[ Parent ]
Careless with the facts?
It is indeed across the board: "average budget reductions of 25 percent for almost all government departments".

Conventional wisdom for the NY Times is leftist dogma. I thought conventional wisdom was to cut taxes in order to encourage economic growth, but I guess either one should have the same effect. It's just a matter of who's controlling the money, government vs. the private sector.

I would have loved to have seen it from Bush too, but given 9/11 people wanted to go to war. Dems always blame Bush for the war but I think the vote in Congress was nearly unanimous. Regardless, I didn't like Bush's spending either.

Honestly I think that Obama will probably win a second term because he will get a Republican/conservative congress which will force him to balance the budget. Unless he's completely stubborn in which case he's a Jimmy Carter and we'll get another Reagan after him.


"...energy shouldn't be in the market." - Aristotle

[ Parent ]
glwat.

[ Parent ]
"across the board"
You wrote "England just made 25% cuts across the board."

a) They haven't made them yet- this is a proposed budget that has not yet been approved.

b) the article clearly describes "average budget reductions of 25%".  Implying that some cuts will be bigger than 25% some will be smaller.  

c) The article also clearly states that some areas are unaffected by the budget cuts, including one huge component of the budget.

a) "made" is overstated, ie you are wrong.
+
b) indicates you may not understand simple arithmetic  
+
c) "across the board" is overstated, ie you are wrong.

You are careless with the facts.

[ Parent ]
Whatever, you're splitting hairs.


"...energy shouldn't be in the market." - Aristotle
[ Parent ]
Because
accuracy is just a pesky little technicality, not of much interest to blind ideologues, right? Let's not distract you with all that facty logicy stuff, eh? After all, you've got meaningless arbitrary assertions that need to be made!

We're all in this story together: Let's make sure that we write it well.
http://www.steveharveyforcolor...
[ Parent ]
That's just how mathematicians roll.
2+2 = 3.9
Well, practically.
[ Parent ]
It's just roundoff error. :)


"...energy shouldn't be in the market." - Aristotle
[ Parent ]
In Beej's case
2+2= "Obama's a socialist because up here inside my ass there's a bunch of random words I can fart out to the tune of the Three's Company theme song."

We're all in this story together: Let's make sure that we write it well.
http://www.steveharveyforcolor...
[ Parent ]
fart out to the tune

Seriously.
I'm not kidding.

If someone could do anything like that, I would pay money to see it.  Again.*

* The Flying Karamazov Brothers, Lé Petomane

[ Parent ]
America's got talent.
(I saw the Flying Karamozov Brothers too. I used to buy season tickets to the cabaret series at the heavily subsidized University of Connecticut theater -they cost about five bucks each, and they were top notch acts. For a few more bucks, you could sit at a table on the floor and enjoy some wine and cheese with the show. Awesome!).

We're all in this story together: Let's make sure that we write it well.
http://www.steveharveyforcolor...
[ Parent ]
Budget Pain Set to Worsen | 94 comments
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