No U.S. Government Shutdown This Week 385
A Reader writes "If you were hoping for a government shutdown today, you are going to be disappointed. In a last-hour cliffhanger, Democrats and Republicans managed to agree with each other enough to keep the government funded for the rest of the current fiscal year. Since the budget bill that finally passed was a compromise, no one is happy with it. So it goes. That's how things work in a representative government."
not sure who they represent (Score:5, Insightful)
anymore.
I seriously doubt any of us have much in common with any of them.
anymore
Awww ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Why's this on Slashdot? How's it "news for nerds"? (Score:1, Insightful)
Why is this on Slashdot? How is it even "news for nerds"?
This is just general political news. There's really nothing technical about it. It has nothing to do with science. It has nothing to do with computing. It has nothing to do with science fiction. It has nothing to do with anything related to Slashdot.
If I wanted to read crap like this, I could go to CNN's web site.
My deficit reduction plan (Score:3, Insightful)
Model of Bipartisan cooperation? (Score:2, Insightful)
[Obama] praised the [budget] deal as a model of bipartisan cooperation.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/04/09/congress.budget/index.html?iref=NS1 [cnn.com]
If this whole budget fiasco, in which hundreds of thousands of Americans were put in jeopardy over something that should have been taken care of weeks if not months ago instead literally at the very last minute is a model of how our government wants issues taken care of, then we have a big problem. This is basically confirming that Washington prefers politics to people. Our country can not afford to have our elected representatives playing chicken with anything, let alone something as important as the budget. Stop trying to make the other guy look bad, stop pandering to your donors and special interests, and just get the god damn job done. You're supposed to be helping this country, not holding it hostage.
Parties are for colleges (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:tax cuts (Score:3, Insightful)
(Rhetorical)
Nah, keep the tax cuts. Just pulverize the military. Do the whole Cardassians Left Bajor thing and we can use the pantheon of DS9 to guide us through the mess. (/Rhetorical)
No? See, that's the deadliest political trap of all, the one the Republicans built their party on - "We'll have fun giving people tax cuts and we'll make the Democrats clean up the mess!" Then the Masses don't understand why things are so tough, and they elect in more Republicans who "ease the burdens of sacrifice" with more tax cuts.
Re:Woo progress, not! (Score:2, Insightful)
You could eliminate the military and raise income taxes to 100% and still not balance the budget.
The 800lb gorilla of spending in the room is entitlements: social security, medicare and medicaid. If these programs aren't fixed and soon it will be too late.
Re:Dang. (Score:5, Insightful)
Start with "Defense" spending....
"According to figures Wheeler compiled for The Pentagon Labyrinth, the military’s base budget of $549 billion in 2011 is just the starting point for calculating military dollars. Adding in war spending ($159 billion), homeland defense ($44 billion), Veterans Affairs ($122 billion), interest on defense-related debt ($48 billion) and other items pushes the total to more than $1 trillion a year. In constant dollars, adjusted for inflation, the regular military budget, not including the add-ons, has doubled from a low of about $360 billion in 1998 to more than $739 billion in 2011. It’s so much money that, as the Bipartisan Policy report points out, by 2009 US spending on military research and development alone, about $80 billion, surpassed China’s entire military budget by more than $10 billion. The budget for the US Special Forces alone is greater than the total military spending of nearly 100 countries; overall, the United States spends about as much on defense as the rest of the world combined."
Re:not sure who they represent (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh and by the way, just so we're clear that I'm not trying to simply take a dig at the GOP, I'm absolutely certain that if anyone wanted to dig through the bill they could certainly find many more examples of this sort of two-faced pork barrel politics from politicians on both sides of the fence.
Until you realize that they're both on the same side of the fence, with you on the other side, there's little hope of changing this.
The parties' grandstanding against each other accounts for about 1% of the budget, that's how much they differ. The greens and the right wing liberalists? Bring it up to 3%. They're all so similar it's a parody.
'Tis of Thee will never see any major changes in my lifetime, because the voters really are fooled, because they really are that ignorant. And proud of it too.
What this country needs isn't another career politician bought and paid for by corporations. It needs sedition and revolution. Which won't happen when people are comfortable on their fat asses, watching WWE and Housewives of Fargo, while bickering about irrelevant changes and voting for the whitest teeth.
Government (Score:2, Insightful)
The US government is based on one idea nowadays:
Government of the people by the government, for the government.
They do what they do to stay in power.
While it is true that ultimately the people DO have the ability to replace the government, in practice this would be hard to achieve- everything is set up to maintain the status quo.
And most of the Money in the US likes the status quo: they get still more money.
The largest cooperative groups in the US are the "scary people"- the religious conservatives and corporate entities that continue to make more money. The religious groups have been catered to by a large number of politicians in order to gain/retain the political clout and the corporations have funded the same politicians to continue to receive tax breaks and federal policies that allow them to make still more money.
The PEOPLE in the US are a fractured group, many of whom are so busy simply believing what the Talking Heads say (even when contradicting themselves) that they can not get past pre-conceived ideas that are not based on facts. The PEOPLE in the US are therefore unable to exert much real influence on real issues- every time we get close a topic that is truly silly will be brought up to de-focus attention from important subjects.
Our government is rarely able to accomplish anything meaningful FOR the people of the US and this will continue as long as so many citizens believe that things like gay marriage, presidential infidelity or building a physical fence along our borders are truly important agenda items.
Wake up, America.
Re:not sure who they represent (Score:2, Insightful)
I found this line particularly representative:
There you have it folks: in a budget that is designed to cut government spending, a person who is supposedly in favour of a smaller government inserts a rider that funds his pet projects with public money. This is at the same time as he's simultaneously removing funding from women's health projects, yet lacks the necessary reproductive organs that should really be a pre-requisite for anyone who should have an opinion about it.
First of all, DC is under the control of congress. If congress wants to fund something in DC, that's just like a state deciding what goes on within its borders.
Also, the program you mentioned is also called the voucher program. It takes money from underperforming school districts and gives it low income students within those districts so they can attend private schools just like the rich kids, giving them equal opportunity. You seriously have a problem with that?
As for cutting "women's health"... when you say women's health, you mean abortion. I do not want my tax dollars going to fund abortions. And even if my tax dollars do not go DIRECTLY toward abortions, if they pay the light bill, they are helping to pay for abortions. See, paying the light bill is money that Planned Parenthood doesn't have to spend, meaning the money can go toward abortions.
Also, I don't want my tax dollars going toward paying for a political campaign. Planned parenthood has spent millions supporting politicians directly, through lobbying efforts, and even "fund raising events" that are targeted toward particular politicians. In other words, they take your tax dollars and give it back to supporting the candidates that give them tax dollars. Yes, politicians are using tax dollars to fund their own campaigns.
Now if planned parenthood were solely a women's health provider, I wouldn't have that much of a problem with it. Sure, it violates the 10th Amendment and should be something reserved to the states, but I could get over it. But Planned Parenthood is NOT about women's health. If they were, they would have dropped abortions long ago to ensure funding and therefor ensure their ability to provide cheap/free women's health services. The fact that they insist on providing abortions proves that that is their primary mission.
Think of it this way, would you like it if YOUR tax dollars were funding the NRA? Would you like the NRA using those tax dollars to fund Republican politicians? What if the NRA gave guns to poor people; would it make the funding OK if they said the tax dollars were only used to fund firearm safety courses? Also, keep in mind that it would actually make MORE sense to fund the NRA over Planned Parenthood as the right to bear arms is a right guaranteed by the Constitution. Abortion is not.
Re:WoW $38 billion in cuts (Score:5, Insightful)
With over a $1.5 trillion deficit, congrats, you've just reduced the deficit by .025%. The coming forced austerity is going to be a lot worse than if Congress got it's head out of its ass and worked to cut the deficit.
Fixing our budget problems is easy.
1) Take a sheet of paper and divide it into two columns. Title the sheet "Budget"
2) Under the left column list all absolutely necessary for government as spelled out by the Constitution (see 10th Amendment)
3) STOP
#3 is the most important part.
Re:Government shutdown is not to save money! (Score:4, Insightful)
That's sort of the point. From what was being said, it was primarily the GOP trying to abuse the budgeting process that was causing the trouble. Nearly all of the actual budget related negotiations had been completed, it was just ideological amendments which were holding it up. Things like preventing access to Planned Parenthood, cutting funds to regulate banks, cutting funds to enact the healthcare reform and reducing funds to NOAA and the EPA which were sticking points.
The actual amount of money there was paltry and the only reason why those things were being targeted was because they're politically unpopular with conservatives.
For all the obsession about balanced budgets you rarely, if ever, hear the GOP pushing plans which would actually do it. It's all about tax cuts for billionaires, increased government spending on programs they like, and cuts to programs that help low and middle class citizens survive.
So it goes (Score:5, Insightful)
As a Kurt Vonnegut fan, my first question was "Who died?"
Then I saw what programs were getting cut drastically, and the answer is abundantly clear: poor people and old people.
Re:not sure who they represent (Score:3, Insightful)
Planned Parenthood spends less than 10% of its budget on abortions. The bulk of their mission is providing cancer screenings for women, providing STD testing, as well as contraception, regular and emergency. The Republican proposal would have prevented PP from seeking Medicaid reimbursement for these non-abortion services under the rhetoric that some of that money would go towards overhead for abortions.
Well, then cutting that 10% shouldn't be that big of a deal. Since supposedly no federal money goes to that 10%, there is absolutely no reason that the aborting providing part of Planned Parenthood couldn't be spun off and relaunched as it's own independent division. I would have no problem funding Planned Parenthood at that point.
So tell me, why won't Planned Parenthood do this? They could guarantee their funding and their new abortion spinoff would still provide all the abortions that they always have. So, answer the question; Why won't Planned Parenthood stop performing abortions?
Here's a better question for you. You say that you don't want your money going to abortions. Let's assume that that's due any sort of deference, as if anyone could earmark their tax bill to fund only those government projects they support. But would you support cutting all Medicaid payments to any hospital or doctor's office or clinics that does even one abortion? If you wouldn't, why not? If you would, don't you see why in a democracy you are, to borrow Locke's phrase, forced to be free?
Depends on WHY the abortion is performed. I follow the rape/endanger to the mother's life rule. If the pregnancy is due to a rape or a mother could die if she carries the baby to term, then I'm OK with aborting that pregnancy, even if my tax dollars has to pay for it. Well, I'm not exactly OK with it, but I'm not going to force someone to pay the consequences of actions that were beyond their control. I'm for personal responsibility. That means you shouldn't have to pay for the actions of others, rape in this case.
However, if a facility, or even a company provides abortions for reasons like, "I just got a promotion to Burger King shift manager and can't have a kid right now", then Hell NO! I want NONE of my tax dollars going to that organization at all. If a woman decides to kill her child (you call it terminating a pregnancy), then she needs to pay for it on her own (if her PRIVATE insurance covers it, fine). I do not want my tax dollars going to fund abortions in any way, shape or form.
And don't give me that bullshit saying that I'm against women's health. I'm for full funding of not just women's health, but prenatal care as well, provided that the people who CARE for the child are not KILLING another down the hall.
Bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
You wouldn't need taxes anywhere near 100% to fully fund all those programs and have plenty left over to pay down the debt. Currently the US pays around 25% of GDP to taxes (of all kinds). So, raise that to 50% and you double the total tax taken, at all levels. Well, last year federal tax income was about $2.16 trillion, and expenditures were about $3.46 trillion. Double $2.16 trillion and you get $4.32 trillion. That means you can fund everything and have $860 billion left over to pay down the debt.
In actuality, it could even be more because we are talking about doubling total tax liability, which includes non-federal taxes. So less federal funding would need to be given to states since they'd be taking in more.
This is not impossible, by the way, Sweden pays about 50% in GDP in taxes.
For that matter, you wouldn't even need to go that far. In 2010 SS and Medicare taxes amounted to about $860 billion. The two programs cost about $1.5 trillion. So, double the SS and Medicare tax and you have $1.7 trillion in income, enough to fund it and extra, you don't even need to mess with income tax or anything else.
Not saying that this is what should be done, that the programs should be reexamined and modified, but this bullshit of "Oh we can't fund them no matter how much we tax!" is just that: bullshit. It is completely false. It is true they are quite underfunded, but they could be fixed by raising taxes. Right now the combined tax rate is 7.65% to you and to your employer so 15.3% total. Increase that to 15.3% each, 30.6% and both programs are fully funded with money to spare at current levels.
Re:Such leadership! (Score:4, Insightful)
The issue is that we'd have to slash the defense budget by about $300bn in order to get anywhere near there. And we'd have to raise taxes on the rich as well. There's a lot of fixation on the spending, but the problem hasn't been relegated to just spending, there's also been dumb tax cuts to leeches which have further skewed the figures.
The GOP is responsible for at least $200bn of debt that they won't cut and won't allow to be taken from the rich to pay for. And that doesn't include the money that's been lost due to tax cuts either.
You forget part #4 (Score:5, Insightful)
You forget part #4: "Defending against roving bands of marauders"
And part #5: "Disposal of bodies of dead seniors"
Re:not sure who they represent (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, should PP simply spin off abortion services as a seperate legal entity, it would be very expensive - they couldn't share clinics, so it'd need more buildings, more staff. It wouldn't even solve the problem: It wouldn't be long before someone in government (State or federal) just gets a law passed saying that no government money may go to any organisation that provides any form of money to an organisation that provides abortion. Planned Parenthood subsidises abortion a bit, again out of princibels - the view that those women who can't afford abortion are those most desperatly in need. After all, if they can't afford a single medical payment, how can they afford the expense of raising a child?
Even PP doesn't actually support abortions for their own sake, though. That is why they put so much into distributing contraception. Abortion is something they regard as the option of last resort, but nonetheless an option that must remain available. Contraception and education are plan A - used properly. Plan B is plan B. Abortion? Plan C.
Taking this somewhere more abstract though, you have hit upon a problem in the structure of government. You don't want your money going to fund abortion, yes. But somewhere around half the population of the US doesn't want their money going to fund the continuing operations in Afganistan. There are people in the US who would not want any of their money to go on funding schooling, for they have ideological objections to the government getting involved in the education of children. There are many who would not want their money spent on subsidising corn, many who would not want their money spent on enforcing laws prohibiting pot. I doubt you could find a single piece of government spending that the entire tax base supports. So just because you object to how your money is spent doesn't mean you should have any control over it - if you did, it would be impossible for government to exist at all. They aren't your tax dollars, they are the collective tax dollars of the country - the only right you have to them is the right to vote for representatives who agree with you on how they should be spent.
Re:Dang. (Score:4, Insightful)
The only problem with your analysis is that it doesn't match the facts. Did inflation adjusted tax revenue go up or down during the Reagan and Bush years?
Since the answer is up, then how can you blame tax cuts for a larger deficit? Any chance the larger deficit was caused by Congress increasing spending ever more?
Your story leaves a LOT out....
Congress has been spending WAY too much for years. It gets worse when the Republicans control both houses. It gets even worse when Democrats control both houses.
When Republicans spend too much, their party members (not all, but a decent majority) make them lose primaries and general elections. When Democrats spend too much, they've just paid of their core constituency as expected.
Hence the cycle of Republicans always becoming the party of lower spending once they lose elections.
Re:Dang. (Score:4, Insightful)
The US isn't in the world to "bring peace" or to "help someone". Look around the globe and realize just where the US invade and why. Hint: It's not for human rights. It's for mining rights. And to protect the USD's position as the world's leading currency. If the world switched lead currencies tomorrow, the US would go bankrupt near instantly.
That's the whole deal and that's also the reason why that army is necessary. You have to keep countries in reign that even as much as consider creating a oil exchange based on another currency (little secret: That's the reason behind the Iraq war, Hussein dared to think of a Euro based oil trade hub. Also the reason why the UK were so eager to join the US in that fight while the rest of the EU was quite reluctant, but I ramble). This way, the US can easily "tax" every country in the world. How? By doing what they're doing currently, running the printing press like mad. Everyone's owing them money, but they control the amount of that money in circulation. If I get to print as much money as I want to, it doesn't really matter whether I owe you a thousand or a million bucks, does it?
Quite the opposite. Since everyone traded in that currency, everyone also has quite a bit of interest in keeping it stable since their debtors, too, owe them USDs. It's the money you trade in. Now would you want that money to lose value if you're supposed to get some from someone?
And now let's imagine for a moment that some countries decide, which would be in their best interest btw, to forgo the USD and trade in something else. Euros are a nice idea, mostly because the economies backing it are so diverse and prone to infighting that a sudden change in policy is near impossible. How'd you want to keep them in line and trading in USD if you can't put some gentle pressure on them?
Well then that IS representative (Score:4, Insightful)
And revolutions tend to not promote the "best" people, but the most ruthless ones.
And yet no-one is willing to touch the big stuff (Score:4, Insightful)
For all this talk of "budget savings" no politician has the guts to tackle REAL savings by cutting the stuff that will actually make a difference in the long run.
How about stopping payments to farmers to grow crops on land that is otherwise un-viable to grow those crops on?
How about spending less money on buying fancy new scanners for airports that do nothing to make airplanes safer from bad guys?
How about giving less money to the coal industry?
How about removing tax cuts and subsidies for the big end of town and making them pay their fair share?
How about spending less money on IP enforcement on behalf of the big content companies?
Oh wait, this is America where big corporations and special interests rule the day and where saying bad things about corn can get you sued for everything you own and then some.