4-Democrats call for new spending in US debt deal

Reuters ^ | 06/22/11 | Richard Cowan and Andy Sullivan

[MissesBush]

Democratic leaders called on Wednesday for additional spending to boost the sluggish U.S. economy, setting up a fresh hurdle for bipartisan efforts in Washington to head off a government debt default this summer.

Democrats' demand for new stimulus spending is at odds with the work of negotiators, led by Vice President Joe Biden, who are trying to find trillions of dollars in savings as part of a deal that would allow Congress to sign off on new government borrowing before the U.S. runs out of money to pay its bills.

Those talks, which resumed on Wednesday, have largely focused on spending cuts over the next 10 years. Senate Democrats want the deal to include more money for highway construction, a payroll tax cut and clean-energy subsidies to bring down the 9.1 percent unemployment rate.

"Get the recovery right before you get in this deficit-cutting mode," Assistant Senate Democratic Leader Dick Durbin told reporters. "Get people back to work. Let's start moving in that direction."

Republicans, who favor deep spending cuts, said that idea was not likely to go far in the Biden-led talks.

"They're not talking about spending money in there. That's not what they're trying to do," said Ryan Patmintra, spokesman for Senator Jon Kyl, one of two Republicans participating in the talks. Many Republicans view President Barack Obama's 2009 stimulus package as an $830 billion failure.

[MissesBush]

These Dems are truly deranged. Want to fix the economy? A second deficit-swelling stimulus which will fail as miserably as the first won't do a thing. Cut corporate tax rates to 10%, take cap gains taxes down to 0% and watch the economy, and tax revenues, take off. But this tried and true strategy eludes the tax cutting phobic Obama and extremist Democrats. The Keynesian folly just continues to bedazzle these simpletons.

And Bernanke, no one said cutting deficits alone would create jobs--though it would go along way to creating a more favorable business environment where businesses would feel less uncertain about taxes needing to be raised to pay for all this debt. We need to cut deficits BECAUSE WE CANNOT CONTINUE TO SUSTAIN THIS KIND OF DEBT, ESPECIALLY WITH SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE RUNNING TRILLIONS IN UNFUNDED FUTURE LIABILITIES. Bernanke < Bush's worst mistake.