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| Economy |
| Krauthammer's Half-Trillion Plan |
| 2011-07-22 |
| The Half-Trillion raises the debt ceiling by that amount in return for an equal amount of spending cuts. At the current obscene rate of deficit spending — about $100 billion a month — it yields about five months’ respite before the debt ceiling is reached again. The Half-Trillion is best: It is clean, straightforward, yields real cuts, averts the current crisis and provides until year-end to negotiate a bigger deal. At the same time, it punctures President Obama’s thus far politically successful strategy of proposing nothing in public, nothing in writing, nothing with numbers, while leaking through a pliant press supposed offers of surpassing scope and reasonableness. As part of this pose, Obama had threatened to veto any short-term debt-ceiling hike. Which has become Obama’s most vulnerable point. Is the catastrophe of default preferable to a deal that gives us, say, five months to negotiate something more significant — because it doesn’t get Obama through Election Day? Which is why Obama is already in retreat. On Wednesday, press secretary Jay Carney showed the first crack by saying the president would accept an extension of a few days if needed to complete an already agreed long-term deal. Meaning that he would exercise his veto if that larger deal required several months rather than several days? Call his bluff. Let the House pass the Half-Trillion. Dare him to put America into default because he deems a short-term deal insufficiently grand. After all, it dovetails perfectly with parts of the G6, for which the president has expressed support and which explicitly allocates roughly the same amount of time — six months — to work out the grander $3 trillion to $4 trillion deal. The Half-Trillion with or without the G6 Part One: ceiling raised, crisis deferred, cuts enacted and time granted to work out any Grand Compromise. You can’t get more reasonable than that. Do it. And dare the president to veto it. |
| Posted by:Bobby |
| #14 "Not that there's anything wrong with that." |
| Posted by: Pollyandrew 2011-07-22 16:11 |
| #13 I like the idea of having multiple entries ya don't say? ;-) |
| Posted by: Frank G 2011-07-22 14:30 |
| #12 I like the idea of having multiple entries in one's bank account that one sees, not on a paper/electronic paystub that people rarely look at closely: one deposit from one's employer, then three deductions for federal, state, and union dues/taxes. Federal taxes on state welfare: how the blue states would HOWL! |
| Posted by: Ptah 2011-07-22 14:20 |
| #11 I like the idea of having multiple entries in one's bank account that one sees, not on a paper/electronic paystub that people rarely look at closely: one deposit from one's employer, then three deductions for federal, state, and union dues/taxes. Federal taxes on state welfare: how the blue states would HOWL! |
| Posted by: Ptah 2011-07-22 14:20 |
| #10 I like your list Lumpy. Welcome indeed! On the 'flat tax' make it *no* *exceptions* and *no automatic pre-paycheck withdrawl* If someone is on welfare they must pay their tax out of that welfare check - ditto for Social Security, Unemployment, etc... Also they must *see* that money going out every month. A bank may setup a automatic payment from their checking - but they must account for that in their checkbook and **see** the $Payroll - $Taxes = $WhatIHaveLeft computation. Heck I have no idea how much was taken out of my last paycheck (automatic deposit) - it just isn't seen and I hardly ever go look up my 'electronic' paystub. Do the same for Union Dues while your at it. |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2011-07-22 12:06 |
| #9 And to equitably bring in revenue, a flat tax with no exceptions or loopholes. It requires equal sacrifice proportionately from all--no free rides nor does it stifle businesses. Stop the work visas that allow them to bring in skilled workers from India, etc. but escape paying Social Security, unemployment ins. and healthcare costs for them until the unemployment rate is truly stable and low. Businesses cannot locate overseas and avoid taxes without stiff penalties. |
| Posted by: Lumpy Elmoluck5091 2011-07-22 11:46 |
| #8 Lumpy Elmoluck5091 Hello and great response. |
| Posted by: Dale 2011-07-22 11:39 |
| #7 Any reasonable measures of accountability, such as the IBM program developed specifically to track fraud and waste in healthcare, has been rejected by Obummer. A few other suggestions from an email circulating: Congressional Reform Act of 2011 1. No Tenure / No Pension. A Congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office. 2. Congress (past, present &future) participates in Social Security. All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people. It may not be used for any other purpose. 3. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do. 4. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%. 5. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people. 6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people. 7. All contracts with past and present Congressmen are void effective 1/1/12. The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen. Congressmen made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term(s), then go home and back to work. May I add, suspend Congressional and White House salaries until this dire debt business is taken care of. I also like the one from a RB'r about limiting voting to taxpaying citizens to ensure fair representation as intended by the Founders. |
| Posted by: Lumpy Elmoluck5091 2011-07-22 11:32 |
| #6 Our kids and their kids and their kids will be enslaved all of their lives. Exactly as designed JohnQC. As Designed by the Ruling Elite. |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2011-07-22 10:57 |
| #5 Our government p!sses away more money than is imaginable. Fraud, corruption, earmarks, aid to countries who hate us and want to kill us, duplication of effort across multiple agencies, agencies that do little or are inefficient (Energy and Education come to mind), the funding of silly, useless programs and silly, useless research, and on and on and on to the tune of trillions. Our kids and their kids and their kids will be enslaved all of their lives. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2011-07-22 10:21 |
| #4 We are running out of time. The first part of August they will go on vacation. Some may already have left due to the heat and humidity. If they have power outages in DC then they are gone for certain.I see a patch job to cover us to elections in 2012. The Republicans will cave and the Democrats will do what they always do- spend. Then just after elections these troubles will be back with a vengeance. Most countries are doing what we are doing just printing more money. Gold and other precious metals can only go up in value. The problem then is more money is taken out of circulation. |
| Posted by: Dale 2011-07-22 08:35 |
| #3 There's no doubt that you could put Rantburg onto the federal budget, and within a week we'd come up with a trillion dollars a year in spending cuts. Including in Defense, which would not be sacrosanct. Ditto the citizens at Ace of Spades, though they'd go through $100 million in blow, hookers and booze to find that $1 trillion. The good citizens at Gateway, Hot Air, etc could all do this. Even the citizens at Talking Points Memo Cafe could find cuts, though their cuts might look different than ours. Point is: this wouldn't be hard. We could have the citizens of the top twenty or forty blogs comb the budget, and if we agreed to make ONLY the cuts that the majority of blog reviewers agreed to, we'd still cut the budget by (I say) a half-trillion a year. We can do it, but our Congress and our President can't. That's the root core problem here. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2011-07-22 08:02 |
| #2 Oh yeah... and keeping the troops in Iraq, Afghanistan costs about US$1 billion per day. Bring them home and put that on the debt as well. Sorry previous comment contained incorrect fraction. I meant to write, put the Somali donation on the debt and you will be 1/15,000 (roughly) of your way to buying your country back from the Chinese and the Fed. Jeez when you realise you were talking billions and the debt was trillions it really brings it home how massive that servitude is. GOOD LUCK AMERICA maybe better just to default and see what happens |
| Posted by: anon1 2011-07-22 07:53 |
| #1 Just under US$500 million has gone to Somalia this year alone, with the UN demanding a further US$300 million in the next 2 months with US$1.6 billion overall. Well just put that as a downpayment on your federal debt and you're 1/15th of the way to buying your country back from the Fed and the Chinese. And Somalia would actually be better off. UN would suffer, though. Remember: the borrower is SLAVE to the lender. |
| Posted by: anon1 2011-07-22 07:50 |