Showing posts with label Defunding. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Defunding. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

The Democratic Disasters to Come

The defunding wars are over. The accusations are fading. We are back to reality. Of course, America’s long-term prospects, at least in comparison with other countries’ futures — whether in terms of demography, military power, food-production, constitutional stability, energy sources, or higher education — are bright.
But short term, we are walking over landmines that threaten to blow up the normal way of doing business, and pose far more harm for Democrats than for Republicans.
Zero Interest
The real story about the debt is that by the end of Obama’s eight years, he will have matched the borrowing of all previous presidents combined.  Yet incredibly, the present huge sum of $17 trillion in debt is serviced at the same cost that we paid over 15 years ago. Such free use of money without raging inflation is almost historically unprecedented — and it won’t last.
Indeed, we are paying today about the same amount in aggregate annual interest payments, in non-inflation-adjusted dollars no less, as in 1997 — even though the 2012 figure of $17 trillion in debt is about three times larger than it was a decade-and-a-half ago. That anomaly is possible only because today’s interest rate of about 2.2% is only a third of what it was back then.
If interest ever returned to 1997 levels, at say 6.6%, we’d be paying over a trillion dollars a year in debt service. In crude terms, the winners of this Ponzi scheme are the very wealthy connected to Wall Street, which is flooded with foreign and domestic capital. It need not do much of anything more than outperform a pathetic 1% return on savings accounts.
The poor benefit from the vast increase in federal spending and exemption from federal income taxes. In contrast, the middle class still pays high interest on its student loans, credit card, and, to a lesser extent, car debt, receives almost no interest on its meager savings accounts, and is not so ready, after 2008, to dabble in real estate and the stock market.
In some sense, holders of U.S. Treasury debt and passbook savers are giving up hundreds of billions of dollars in interest returns (cf. the difference, say, between 1% and a more normal 5%) to subsidize the redistributive policies of the federal government.
The lack of interest, or de facto negative interest, keeps the near-retired working and hampers job prospects of the young; discourages thrift, savings and investment; and plays an underappreciated role in the slow economic recovery. The Democrats must deal with the contradiction of needing zero interest rates to service their recent extra $6 trillion in debt, and higher interest to encourage savings, investment, and job growth.

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Ted Cruz Opposes Eric Cantor and Pete Sessions’ “Hug It Out” Plan to Fund Obamacare

1tedcruzMultiple people confirm to me that just a few hours ago Pete Sessions blew up about Ted Cruz and made sure everyone in the room knew he held Cruz in absolute contempt.
It might be because Ted Cruz just called BS on Eric Cantor and Pete Sessions trying to screw conservatives.
Cantor and Sessions are pursuing a plan to make it very easy for the House to vote for defunding Obamacare while ensuring Obamacare is still able to get funded. Cruz, in a press release earlier today, called on the House of Representatives to not get cute and actually defund Obamacare.
“Last night, news reports surfaced that the House of Representatives might vote to ‘defund Obamacare’ in a way that easily allows Senate Democrats to keep funding Obamacare. If House Republicans go along with this strategy, they will be complicit in the disaster that is Obamacare.
“The American people are not surprised that politicians in Washington–of both parties–are afraid to take a stand. But another symbolic vote against Obamacare is meaningless. Obamacare is the biggest job killer in America, and people are hurting.
“House Republicans should pass a continuing resolution that funds government in its entirely–except Obamacare–and that explicitly prohibits spending any federal money, mandatory or discretionary, on Obamacare. They should not use any procedural chicanery to enable Harry Reid to circumvent that vote.
“If you oppose Obamacare, don’t fund Obamacare. Our elected leaders should listen to the American people.”
You too should tell Pete Sessions and Eric Cantor to stop playing games with the lives of Americans. They need to defund Obamacare, not just pretend to.

Republicans weigh defunding 'Obamacare' in U.S. spending measure

(Reuters) - A Republican leadership plan to avoid a direct threat to shut down the government is being derided by some conservatives as a "hocus-pocus" measure that falls well short of their demands for an "Obamacare" showdown.
Republican aides said the plan, which will be floated by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor to party members on Tuesday, would allow for an extension of government funding for several weeks past the September 30 fiscal year-end.
If accepted, the House could vote on the plan later this week.
Conservative Republicans want to use the deadline for a stop-gap government spending measure as leverage to stall President Barack Obama's signature health care law by withholding funds from its core components, notably the October 1 launch of new, online health care exchanges.
But that approach significantly raises the risk of a government shutdown, due to certain opposition in the Democratic controlled Senate and a likely veto from Obama.

The plan would involve procedures that split the measure into two parts after passage by the majority-Republican House, allowing the Senate to send Obama a clean government funding extension, but only after it takes a vote on de-funding Obamacare.

Friday, August 30, 2013

Most Americans oppose cutting off funding for Obamacare, poll shows

obamaaffordablecareact.jpgSyracuse, N.Y. -- While many Americans still have a negative view of Obamacare, most oppose the idea of cutting off funding to stop the law from being implemented, according to a poll.

The poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation found 57 percent of Americans disapprove of the idea of defunding the law.

Obamacare, formally known as the Affordable Care Act, requires most Americans to get health insurance next year or face a financial penalty. Some lawmakers in Washington, D.C. who oppose the law say that if members of Congress cannot repeal it, they should cut off funding to stop the law from being put in place.

The most common reason poll respondents cited for opposing defunding is that "using the budget process to stop a law is not the way our government should work."

But public opinion of the law continued to tilt negative. The poll shows 37 percent of Americans say they have a favorable view of the law and 42 percent have an unfavorable view, shares that have held relatively steady since February.

Roughly half the public continues to say they don't have enough information about the federal law to understand how it will impact them and their family.

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