These are the guys that the MSM labels as "kooks" and yet, they make the most sense to me. Normally, this sort of dichotomy would be bothersome to me. No longer.
Both the Reid and Boehner plans have been scored an "F" for FRAUD by the bean counters at CBO (Congressional Budget Office). I'm not sure what school of Business, Finance, Economics or Accounting the staffs of Messrs. Reid and Boehner went to, but I'm certain they were transported there on the short bus.
from zerohedge.com
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/cbo-finds-reid-plan-half-trillion-short-27-trillion-promised-actual-cuts-are-375-billion-over-t
From Paul and Kucinich:
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The Pesky Neighbor and the Debt Ceiling
http://paul.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1896:the-pesky-neighbor-and-the-debt-ceiling&catid=62:texas-straight-talk&Itemid=69
Imagine you had a pesky neighbor who somehow took out a mortgage on his house in your name and by some legal trickery you were obligated to pay for it. Imagine watching this neighbor throw drunken parties, buy expensive cars, add more rooms to the house, and hire dozens of people to wait on him hand and foot. Imagine that he also managed to take out several credit cards in your name. One by one, he would max them out and then use your good name and credit to obtain another credit card, then another and then another. Each time, this neighbor would claim that he needed the new credit card to pay interest on the other maxed out credit cards. If he defaulted on those cards, your credit score would be hurt and when you wanted to buy something for yourself, it would be more difficult to get a loan and the interest you paid would be higher. Imagine that you mulled this over, and time after time, said nothing as he filled out more credit applications so he would not have to default on the other debt taken out in your name. Meanwhile, another shiny new Mercedes appears in his driveway. At what point do you think you might get tired of this game? And, even though you are left with no really good options, do you think you might eventually tell him to go ahead and default, just stop spending your money!
This analogy demonstrates the position we are in with our government and the debt ceiling. The government has run up a huge debt in the name of the American people, who are sick and tired of being on the hook for it. There are no really good options left. Defaulting on a portion of the debt may not be without costs, but it is better than handing the government yet another credit card.
The government is using the usual scare tactics to strong-arm the people into going along with more spending. Remember the rhetoric surrounding the big bailout of October 2008? We were told, not that this would be calamitous for the banks, but for the people, who would continue to experience massive job losses and foreclosures. We were told that the economy would sink into a deep recession if this money was not handed out to too-big-to-fail corporate cronies. So, after much hand-wringing, leaders from both parties, against unprecedented public outcry, agreed to shower money on the banks and increase the debt. The banks learned nothing, except that Washington will come to their rescue, no matter what. The people, however, continued to lose their jobs and houses anyway, and here we are, still in a deep recession.
When you read the above example, your first reaction might have been to dismiss the neighbor's debt as illegitimate and in no way your responsibility or your problem. You would be right. No fair-minded legal system would hold you responsible for such a debt, and would instead cart your thieving neighbor off to jail. Yet Congress can impose liabilities on you, your children, and grandchildren without your consent, and even without your knowledge. This is another example of government holding itself above the law. Much like the TSA claims the right to molest us, yet arrested a woman who turned the tables last week, stealing somehow becomes legitimate when the government does it.
We supposedly live in a nation of laws. For once, government needs to heed the law regarding the debt ceiling.
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"Statement on the Cut, Cap and Balance Act
Statement on the Cut, Cap and Balance Act:
Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak against HR 2560, the Cut, Cap, and Balance Act. This bill only serves to sanction the status quo by putting forth a $1 trillion budget deficit and authorizing a $2.4 trillion increase in the debt limit.
When I say this bill sanctions the status quo, I mean it quite literally.
First, it purports to eventually balance the budget without cutting military spending, Social Security, or Medicare. This is impossible. These three budget items already cost nearly $1 trillion apiece annually. This means we can cut every other area of federal spending to zero and still have a $3 trillion budget. Since annual federal tax revenues almost certainly will not exceed $2.5 trillion for several years, this Act cannot balance the budget under any plausible scenario."
Second, it further entrenches the ludicrous beltway concept of discretionary vs. nondiscretionary spending. America faces a fiscal crisis, and we must seize the opportunity once and for all to slay Washington's sacred cows-- including defense contractors and entitlements. All spending must be deemed discretionary and reexamined by Congress each year. To allow otherwise is pure cowardice.
Third, the Act applies the nonsensical narrative about a "Global War on Terror" to justify exceptions to its spending caps. Since this war is undeclared, has no definite enemies, no clear objectives, and no metric to determine victory, it is by definition endless. Congress will never balance the budget until we reject the concept of endless wars.
Finally, and most egregiously, this Act ignores the real issue: total spending by government. As Milton Friedman famously argued, what we really need is a constitutional amendment to limit taxes and spending, not simply to balance the budget. What we need is a dramatically smaller federal government; if we achieve this a balanced budget will take care of itself.
We do need to cut spending, and by a significant amount. Going back to 2008 levels of spending is not enough. We need to cut back at least to where spending was a decade ago. A recent news article stated that we pay 35 percent more for our military today than we did 10 years ago, for the exact same capabilities. The same could be said for the rest of the government. Why has our budget doubled in 10 years? This country doesn't have double the population, or double the land area, or double anything that would require the federal government to grow by such an obscene amount.
We need to cap spending, and then continue decreasing that cap so that the federal government grows smaller and smaller. Allowing government to spend up to a certain percentage of GDP is insufficient. It doesn't matter that the recent historical average of government outlays is 18 percent of GDP, because in recent history the government has way overstepped its constitutional mandates. All we need to know about spending caps is that they need to decrease year after year.
We need to balance the budget, but a balanced budget amendment by itself will not do the trick. A $4 trillion balanced budget is most certainly worse than a $2 trillion unbalanced budget. Again, we should focus on the total size of the budget more than outlays vs. revenues.
What we have been asked to do here is support a budget that only cuts relative to the President's proposed budget. It still maintains a $1 trillion budget deficit for FY 2012, and spends even more money over the next 10 years than the Paul Ryan budget which already passed the House.
By capping spending at a certain constant percentage of GDP, it allows for federal spending to continue to grow. Tying spending to GDP creates an incentive to manipulate the GDP figure, especially since the bill delegates the calculation of this figure to the Office of Management and Budget, an agency which is responsible to the President and not to Congress. In the worst case, it would even reward further inflation of the money supply, as increases in nominal GDP through pure inflation would allow for larger federal budgets.
Finally, this bill authorizes a $2.4 trillion rise in the debt limit. I have never voted for a debt ceiling increase and I never will. Increasing the debt ceiling is an endorsement of business as usual in Washington. It delays the inevitable, the day that one day will come when we cannot continue to run up enormous deficits and will be forced to pay our bills.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, while I sympathize with the aims of this bill's sponsors, I must vote against HR 2560. It is my hope, however, that the looming debt ceiling deadline and the discussion surrounding the budget will further motivate us to consider legislation in the near future that will make meaningful cuts and long-lasting reforms.
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Debt Political Theater Diverts Attention While Americans’ Wealth is Stolen -- Kucinich | Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich: "Washington, Jul 14 -
Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today spoke on the House floor about the massive transfer of wealth from the American people to the hands of the few by virtue of wars, energy policies and monetary policies. He called upon Americans to witness Wall Street’s theft of Main Street, which has left millions of everyday Americans out of work and seniors facing cuts to Social Security to pay for tax cuts for the rich.
See video here. The full text of Congressman Kucinich’s remarks follow.
The rancorous debate over the debt belies a fundamental truth of our economy -- that it is run for the few at the expense of the many, that our entire government has been turned into a machine which takes the wealth of a mass of Americans and accelerates it into the hands of the few. Let me give you some examples.
Take war. War takes the money from the American people and puts it into the hands of arms manufacturers, war profiteers, and private armies. The war in Iraq, based on lies: $3 trillion will be the cost of that war. The war in Afghanistan; based on a misreading of history; half a trillion of dollars in expenses already. The war against Libya will be $1 billion by September"
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“The fact that we are here today to debate raising America ’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the US Government can not pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies. Increasing America ’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that ‘the buck stops here.' Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.” -- Senator Barack H. Obama, 2006.
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