And hold the House. No Blue Wave for you!
The First 100 days
- Thread starter theiioftx
- Start date
And hold the House. No Blue Wave for you!
You're right, but I don't think I've ever seen an election in which the economy was less emphasized. Republicans need to be making a huge deal out of it.
True. Despite his obvious personal issues, Trump is "killing it" when it comes to policy. For a master at marketing himself, Trump is failing miserably at showing the voters his undeniable successes.
I know. maybe a prominently located sign saying "It's the economy, stupid."
He is failing, but so are the GOP candidates. They should have a coordinated, national strategy that puts the economy front and center and highlights the importance of the tax and regulatory reforms and how they'd be at risk if Democrats take control of Congress. Obviously the media isn't going to help them do that, so the campaigns need to push it on their own. And Trump can obviously help them do it, but he needs to stay on topic.
For example, Beto isn't just an ignorant douche who rides a skateboard like a 13 year old punk. He's an irresponsible clown who would put the thriving economy at risk by supporting tax increases and reinstating overly burdensome regulations. He should be spun that way repeatedly.
Beto broke election laws by putting his signs out early AND his early signs did not have the name of his treasurer Beto has no regard for the law.
Political signs should not be put out until 90 days before the election. That date was about 10 days ago and now signs from all candidates including Abbott are showing up.
I can't believe the Tribune didn't mention the election laws.
Political signs should not be put out until 90 days before the election. That date was about 10 days ago and now signs from all candidates including Abbott are showing up.
I can't believe the Tribune didn't mention the election laws.
LongestHorn
2,500+ Posts
August 8th was the first day illegal Beto yard signs appeared.
90 days before the election.
90 days before the election.
I arrived in Plano to visit my parents on July 30. There were already several Beto signs up. Like I said previously, this 90 day rule is unconstitutional, but they were definitely violating it. I saw it with my own eyes and not just one rogue sign. I probably saw 20.
Seattle Husker
10,000+ Posts
Is it possible that those signs were holdovers from the Primary in March or May?
Not likely for two reasons. First, they didn't look anywhere near that old. Second, Beto only had token opposition in the primary. I doubt he would have had that many campaign signs in a Republican stronghold.
Also, even if they were holdovers, that's still against the law. Signs have to be removed within ten days after the election. That was on March 6.
Frito is a scofflaw.
What do you expect from Frito, the obviously unreformed ex-con?
towersniper
100+ Posts
"I am trying to figure out how many people there could be who haven't benefited. The Consumer Confidence number suggests they like what Trump and GOP have done."
I have concerns. My confidence is not as high as other consumers, evidently. Tax cuts spur the economy, but there is usually a piper to pay, coming up the road. In this case, we are seeing stimulation to the economy, with a commensurate increase in debt and deficit. The Republicans and the Democrats have mirror image addictive personalities. Deficit spending is reasonable, (reasonable if within reason, as Professor Tautology once said) when it serves a purpose, such as softening a recession. Unfortunately, Democrats rightfully urge deficit spending during hard times, but resist cutting during boom times, when some of the necessity no longer exists. Likewise Republicans enact tax cuts, and refuse to increase taxes during boom times, when the stimulation is not needed, creating a problem when interest rates increase, and tax revenues decrease further during the next recession. The increased revenues created by a tax cut would need to be approximately 5 to 8 times the size of the tax cuts to make up the lost revenue. There may be a magic balance point of spending and tax rates, but no one is terribly interest in determining where that point is. It is like the carpenter whose only tool is a hammer.......... We are sustaining and augmenting a boom by charging on a credit card..... whatever metaphors you prefer, there is a problem. We are set to borrow almost a trillion dollars this year, almost double last year (actually 85%, but "almost double" is so much more effective in polemics) A high debt load limits our future flexibility, and is a bad idea during a boom. Deficit spending increases make better sense during a recession. Cutting taxes and increasing spending during a recovery creates exuberance, but I fear there is a hangover coming.
The president inherited an economy that had come a long way back from the recession. The economy has continued growing at about the same rate it did before he took office, pushing incomes, employment and output to yet higher levels. To the extent that presidents deserve credit for economic performance, he gets credit; but, it has been a result of the mechanism of tax cuts, and at a cost that must be paid. Perhaps we will grow our way out of the problem. We shall see.
Consumers may be confident right now, but such confidence does not always have a sound basis. Consumers are feeling giddy right now, but they are often late to the party. See December 2000 record consumer confidences. See also great recession that began that month, and lasted until 2009.
That is all from the Voice of Doom. I'm late to happy hour with Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles.
I have concerns. My confidence is not as high as other consumers, evidently. Tax cuts spur the economy, but there is usually a piper to pay, coming up the road. In this case, we are seeing stimulation to the economy, with a commensurate increase in debt and deficit. The Republicans and the Democrats have mirror image addictive personalities. Deficit spending is reasonable, (reasonable if within reason, as Professor Tautology once said) when it serves a purpose, such as softening a recession. Unfortunately, Democrats rightfully urge deficit spending during hard times, but resist cutting during boom times, when some of the necessity no longer exists. Likewise Republicans enact tax cuts, and refuse to increase taxes during boom times, when the stimulation is not needed, creating a problem when interest rates increase, and tax revenues decrease further during the next recession. The increased revenues created by a tax cut would need to be approximately 5 to 8 times the size of the tax cuts to make up the lost revenue. There may be a magic balance point of spending and tax rates, but no one is terribly interest in determining where that point is. It is like the carpenter whose only tool is a hammer.......... We are sustaining and augmenting a boom by charging on a credit card..... whatever metaphors you prefer, there is a problem. We are set to borrow almost a trillion dollars this year, almost double last year (actually 85%, but "almost double" is so much more effective in polemics) A high debt load limits our future flexibility, and is a bad idea during a boom. Deficit spending increases make better sense during a recession. Cutting taxes and increasing spending during a recovery creates exuberance, but I fear there is a hangover coming.
The president inherited an economy that had come a long way back from the recession. The economy has continued growing at about the same rate it did before he took office, pushing incomes, employment and output to yet higher levels. To the extent that presidents deserve credit for economic performance, he gets credit; but, it has been a result of the mechanism of tax cuts, and at a cost that must be paid. Perhaps we will grow our way out of the problem. We shall see.
Consumers may be confident right now, but such confidence does not always have a sound basis. Consumers are feeling giddy right now, but they are often late to the party. See December 2000 record consumer confidences. See also great recession that began that month, and lasted until 2009.
That is all from the Voice of Doom. I'm late to happy hour with Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles.
Crash in 2022 as people become overly extended. Party just began. 3-4 more years before the come down.
towersniper
100+ Posts
Great News! Four years of partying at my place! WooHoo!
Seattle Husker
10,000+ Posts
That sums up my concern too. We are wasting an opportunity to not only balance the budget but pay down our collective credit card.
I don't have any misperceptions that a Democrat in office wouldn't also be spending like a drunken sailor, albeit on other causes.
We all have about 20,000,000,000,000 reasons to be concerned about runaway federal spending.
towersniper
100+ Posts
... and it’s equally winsome cousin, taxpayer pleasing tax cuts. A pox on both their horses- the ones they rode (into office) on!
There's a lot of good stuff here, especially from a political standpoint. However, what you miss is that the parties' addiction are to the same thing - spending a lot of money. They may like to spend on different things, but the common denominator is lots of spending. The tax cut talk is way overblown.
For whatever reason, nobody likes to look at the real numbers, but I'll do it. The deficit has gone from a recent low of $438B in 2015 (which is still way too high) to the $832B projected for 2018 (which is outrageously high, especially when we're in a thriving economy and when so little of that deficit spending is on one-time capital investments like infrastructure). Since 2015, we've gone from $3.69T (2015) in annual spending to $4.17T (projected for 2018). Revenue has gone $3.25T (2015) to about $3.4T (projected for 2018). So we've added about $150B of annual revenue (even with the tax cuts), but we've added about $480B of new spending. Of course, we're still in 2018, so we don't know yet what the numbers will ultimately be. Some are projecting a bigger deficit. However, what's clear is that this is first and foremost a spending problem. Can some of it be pinned on the tax cut? Arguably, but the spending dwarfs it dramatically.
Like I said though, most of what you say is very true. A few things are pretty clear. First, true Keynesian fiscal policy (cutting taxes and boosting spending during recessions and doing the reverse when the economy is strong to make up for it) is a political impossibility, and nobody actually advocates it. The GOP doesn't raise taxes regardless, and we virtually never cut spending, and when we do, we follow it up with massive increases a few years later. Both are political problems more than anything.
Second, nobody really gives a damn about the deficit. When guys like John Kasich (R), Tim Penny (D), Phil Gramm (R), Fritz Hollings (D), Warren Rudman (R), Pete Domenici (R), and Charlie Stenholm (D) retired, we pretty much lost the only people who really had any credibility on the deficit. Consider the debate on sequester. Republicans wanted to boost spending on defense. Democrats wanted more social spending. Did they "compromise" by neither getting their new spending or by increasing modestly on both? No. They both just said, "to hell with the deficit" and both sides got their way. That's the root of our fiscal problem. The compromise is always to just blow the deficit up with obscene spending levels rather than just being modest with both.
Third, the politicians don't care about the deficit, because the public doesn't. Who's willing to have their taxes hiked? Who's willing to see the big ticket spending items cut? Nobody. Honestly, I'd accept a tax increase if there was a proportionate, real cut in spending (in other words, actually spending less money, not cuts in projected increases), but I know damn good and well that nobody would ever put that on the table or tolerate it. People freak out if we slow the growth in spending. If we actually cut it, people would hit the friggin' roof.
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I'd hit the friggin' roof from jumping for joy. Cut the **** out of SS. Cut the **** out of Medicare. Cut the **** out of military spending. Cut the **** out of everything. Take today's baseline and tell every department, everywhere, you get 3% less money next year. And another 3% less in 2020. And another 3% less in 2021. Wash, rinse, repeat, until we run a surplus, and apply the surplus to our debt.
Yes, I know I am in the extreme minority here.
Link
The current interest on the debt is $310 billion. That's from the federal budget for fiscal year 2018 (October 1, 2017, through September 30, 2018).
The interest on the debt consumes 7.4 percent of the FY 2018 U.S. federal budget. That makes it the fourth largest budget item. The only four expenses that are bigger are Social Security benefits ($987 billion), military spending ($874.4 billion), Medicare ($582 billion), and Medicaid ($400 billion).
I would agree to this, even though I'm very pro-military. The Pentagon has enormous waste just like other agencies do. Obviously we hear about the F-35 boondoggle a lot and rightly so, but what about other stuff? For example, why are there commissaries in places like Fort Hood? There are HEBs minutes away from the base. We could probably save a fortune by simply giving the troops a slight pay hike to account for the higher food costs at the local stores. I understand why they're at overseas bases because finding food locally can be tricky if you don't know the area and can't speak the local language, but having a huge network of them in the US makes very little sense.
I will say this though. Your source had to get pretty broad to make military spending reach $874B. It's too high, but that's an overstatement.
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