SubscribeProud we cut over 100 billion out of recov bill.Many Ds don't like it, but needed to be done.The silly stuff Rs keep talking about is OUT.Yeah, 600,000 jobs worth of "Silly Stuff" like aide to states that will have to now lay people off.
But now it seems the stimulus won’t pass unless it’s first cut by $100 billion. That number is, of course, totally arbitrary–arrived at, once again without the input of any of Brooks’ so-called moderate economists. The opening bid, then, was crafted by Larry Summers, et al. The counter bid was designed by cranks from the Heritage Foundation. In between is a version of the Summers bid after a bunch of amateurs hacked at it blindly with a machete. These would appear to be the three options. To a group of 535 sane people, the choice would be obvious, but, as John Cole notes, one of the parties (200 or so members of Congress) are not sane, so the obvious choice is out of the running.
Yeah, right. Republicans would threaten to unanimously filibuster (and Democrats wouldn't force them to actually do so) unless all funding for science classes in public schools was removed, and the proposed tax was actually a tax rebate.
solution: put major tax on all corp executives earning over one million in bonuses.
I'm confused, do we actually need the republicans in order to pass this bill, or are we just capitulating to their bullshit?Sixty percent of the Senate is required to overcome a filibuster. The Democrats have 57% of the Senate, or 59% if you count the two independents who caucus with them.
Bush's economic policy can be summed up as massive deficit spending combined with cutting marginal tax rates. This has been a disaster. The stimulus can be summed up as massive deficit spending combined with cutting marginal tax rates. But it will save the economy!I'd say the big difference is where the money is being spent. A lot of the deficit spending from Bush went/goes into the military and to infrastructure projects in Iraq (and Afghanistan, to a lesser extent). In short, that money is gone from us in the short/medium term. The stimulus bill, on the other hand, spends the money in America and on American infrastructure so we get not only the benefits of the money being spent but also the benefit of the thing they money is being spent on.
From what we can gather from the news, the 60 vote threshold is necessary because the bill violates "the Budget Act." ...
Between the various Budget Acts and subsequent budget resolutions, the Congress has established various rules that restrict their spending ability, most of which can be triggered by points of order against bills that violate these rules. This set of rules is distinct from the standing rules that govern floor and committee procedures. Instead, they're statutory provisions that bind future Congresses to certain budgetary procedures. The various acts and resolutions establish points of order that, if raised against bills or amendments that break the rules, can have the effect of preventing them from consideration (and therefore passage). The points of order possible are numerous and cover several distinct aspects of the budget and spending process, but are not self-enforcing. They have to be affirmatively raised by a Member during consideration of the bills or amendments in question in order to be effective. ...
So I think that's it. Section 201(b)(1) of S. Con. Res. 21, passed by the 110th Congress, appears to be at least one reason why it will take 60 votes to pass the stimulus bill in the Senate, and likewise any conference report arising from it. I'm not yet entirely clear whether any other points of order apply, and if so, whether there would be any particular reason for raising one versus the other, or even whether you can raise them all. But this one seems the most clearly applicable, though I could still be wrong about that. Nobody's really saying just yet exactly which one it is.
But this, I guess, is why when you read about it in the traditional media, they just say, "the Senate will require 60 votes to pass it," and it's left at that. Still, it'd be nice if they held themselves to the "Prove it!" standard once in a while.
This should also, by the way, partly explain for some of you why Senate Democrats aren't "forcing the Republicans to actually filibuster" the bill if they want to require 60 votes to pass it. It would require 60 votes anyway, filibuster or not.
Don't you think Senators could have avoided a lot of headaches for themselves and their constituents if they'd said something about that? Maybe they did, I don't know. I didn't ask any of them.
I don't know much about Harry Reid's boxing career, did he have a glass jaw?Who knows? To know that, he would have to have been hit. I think it's significantly more likely that he went to the canvas well before that point.
It amazes me that the Republicans are more effective with 41 senators than Harry Reid and the Democrats are with 57-59 (depending on how you count). The Republican minority has accomplished more in two weeks than Reid et al did in several years. Several years in which they weren't even a minority.Well, you have to look at Obama in this as well, I mean he's the one who wanted this nice bipartisan tone, and he's perfectly willing to validate republican frames about porkbarrel spending and waste, unfortunately.
The alternative is to let it happen. That's bad if the stimulus can stop it. But it's better than the stimulus if the stimulus isn't going to work since bad things happen either way and at least you're not out 900billion if you don't spend it.It's not an either-or situation. Some stimulus will be helpful, and the more you do the better it is, although if you don't do enough it probably would go to waste. Your right though that it's actually only $400 billion (or whatever) of actual stimulus spending, although the case can be made that tax cuts that go to lower-middle class people will work as stimulus because they have to actually spend the money.
Oh, for people (like me) who think Bush's economic policy has been a disaster for the United States but still support this stimulus, riddle me this:Bush's economic polices didn't cause the crisis, it was his regulatory policies, specifically letting wallstreet create a bunch of hidden liabilities, and housing policy that encouraged a nation-wide housing bubble and the fact those two things combined to create banks that were all insolvent. If all of that fake money didn't exist, banks wouldn't be able to load up their balance sheets with and suddenly become insolvent. That's why we're having the trouble we are not, not Bush's government debt. Although if he hadn't done that, we might have some money to use as stimulus now rather then issuing more debt.
Bush's economic policy can be summed up as massive deficit spending combined with cutting marginal tax rates. This has been a disaster. The stimulus can be summed up as massive deficit spending combined with cutting marginal tax rates. But it will save the economy!
Wait. Is this an economic stimulus package, or a "give money to stuff we think deserves money because it's 'good' package?" Whether money from this bill is designated to a particular thing should be determined solely by whether that expenditure will serve the purpose of government stimulus of the economy (see, e.g., Keynes). If an expenditure will not go in a significant way toward accomplishment of the Keynsian goal of bolstering the economy through massive government spending, then that expenditure should be eliminated from the bill, no matter how "noble" it may seem.What are you talking about? Giving money to "noble" causes does stimulate the economy, provided that that money is then spent to hire people to do things. This is just a reiteration of the "how is that simulative!?" non-argument. There's really nothing in the bill that is non-simulative, all spending is simulative unless the money is just going to be hoarded and not spent.
If the AFL-CIO is right, the U.S. is headed for long-run trouble: incomes will decline, the economy will generate less wealth, business will lose important markets, and living standards will fall. But a close look at what has been happening to employment and earnings patterns -- and what is likely to happen -- suggests that the fear of deindustrialization is considerably exaggerated. (Fortune Magazine, 1985)The number of people employed in manufacturing has plummeted from ~25% forty years ago, to under 10% today.
New orders for manufactured goods in December, down five consecutive months, decreased $14.8 billion or 3.9 percent to $362.4 billion, the U.S. Census Bureau reported today. This was the longest streak of consecutive monthly decreases since the series was first published on a NAICS basis in 1992 and followed a 6.5 percent November decrease. Excluding transportation, new orders decreased 4.4 percent. Shipments, also down five consecutive months, decreased $11.3 billion or 2.9 percent to $377.6 billion. This was the longest streak of consecutive monthly decreases since March-July 1998 and followed a 6.5 percent November decrease.So December 2008 had lower manufacturing output then December 2000. Thanks bush!
I’m really shocked by the extent to which the architects of the Senate cuts to the recovery package aren’t being made to offer any kind of justification for their actions. And in the absence of pressure, they certainly aren’t doing it of their own accord. I wanted to see, for example, what Ben Nelson (D-NE) had to say for himself, and what he had to say was this, with his partner in crime Susan Collins (R-ME) chiming in:“This bipartisan agreement delivers the help millions of Americans need in this time of economic turmoil,” said Senator Nelson. “It fuels two powerful engines: major tax cuts for the middle class, and targeted investments in American infrastructure and job growth. It also pares back $110 billion of spending that didn’t belong in the bill. We’ve trimmed the fat, fried the bacon, and milked the sacred cows. What remains will fund education, an energy Smart Grid, tax credits for homebuyers and other critical infrastructure.”Would you ever in a million years have guessed from this rhetoric that the primary change Collins and Nelson made was to implement big reductions in aid to states and, especially, in funding for education? I think not.
“This deal represents a victory for the American people,” said Senator Collins. “We came together to tackle the most immediate problem facing the nation. This package cuts $110 billion in unnecessary expenditures. These are not minor adjustments, but major changes. It contains robust spending on infrastructure to create jobs, $87 billion in assistance for states, and assistance to schools, especially for special education and Pell grants. This bill is not perfect, but it represents a bipartisan, effective and targeted approach to the crisis facing our country.”
Within the GDP data, however, is a series—goods output—that measures U.S. production of goods. The ... series, which accounts for about 40 percent of GDP, measures the same type of activity as manufacturing production does. Yet this series, like overall GDP, has behaved quite differently than the factory output numbers in recent years...If someone who knows could clear up whether we *make* more stuff (not including the product of the service sector) than we did thirty years ago, it would help.
. . .
The other measure we examine, goods output, cumulates spending on goods in the United States by households, businesses, and governments ... plus exports of goods less imports of goods. At first glance, this concept appears quite similar to manufacturing production: U.S. spending on goods other than imports seems much the same as spending on goods produced in the United States, which in turn should be equivalent to the output of American factories.
In truth, however, there is a striking difference between the two measures (see box). ... a major distinction between the two indicators is the inclusion in goods output of the domestic service content of retail spending, whether the consumer good is made in a U.S. factory or abroad. ...
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posted by Joe Beese at 6:30 PM on February 7 [4 favorites has favorites]