Posted on 12/11/2012 9:50:36 AM PST by SeekAndFind
The "compromise" in the fiscal cliff deal from Democrats is supposed to come in the form of spending cuts. But a new Marist-McClatchy poll shows that voters — including Republicans — oppose any and every specific spending cut proposed to them.
It goes hand in hand with the disparity between voters' wish for blanket "spending cuts" and their opposition to any cuts to an entitlement that benefits them. A look at what Republicans oppose:
By 47-37, letting the Obama payroll tax cut expire.
By 68-26, cutting spending for Medicare.
By 61-33, cutting spending for Medicaid.
By 66-28, eliminating the tax deduction for home mortgage interest.
By 72-25, eliminating the charitable tax deduction.
By 56-44, raising the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67.
Republicans don't favor much in any potential deal — they also, of course, are opposed to allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire on any income bracket. Pollster Lee M. Miringoff warns that they might be unhappy with whatever happens.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
if the ‘fiscal cliff’ was setup with even cuts across the board, the people would be clamoring for it...
Words mean things.
Clearly the public does not understand the concept of Baseline Budgeting.
One year of added age eligibility to each age quintile beginning at 40, solves funding for both Medicare and SS. For example: persons who are 40 at Jan 1 20xx can retire and get Medicare/SS at age 66 (no early op in). Persons who are 35 at Jan 1 20xx can retire and get Medicare/SS at age 67. Age 30, 68, age 25, 69 and age 20, 70. This way the ponzi scheme makes it to 2060 (more births than deaths gets us further out). And it's "fair," whatever that means.
Lowers the unfunded liabilities too, but it seems that doesn't matter to a majority of people for some reason.
Please feel free to check the math (actuarial tables, 15.3% rate, census, etc.)
5.56mm
Just looking at the first sentence of this thing I knew what the “choices” would be. It’s like a Mayor whose middle management city employees are hauling in $100,000 each, and who is spending millions on a proposed new city building with his name on it, saying any cut in the city budget would have to begin with the police and fire departments. And the streetlights. Don’t forget the streetlights.
And people STILL buy this crap.
As recently as fiscal year 2001, President Clinton’s last budget, federal spending amounted to just $1.9 trillion. If spending since 2000 had simply increased at the rate of inflation plus population growth, spending this year would have been less than $2.69 trillion.
Our budget deficit this year, despite those Bush tax cuts and a recession-driven decline in revenue, would have been just $241 billion, compared with an actual deficit of more than $1.1 trillion.
In fact, even starting from today’s spending levels, if future spending grew at inflation plus population, it would be only $4.8 trillion in 2022. The budget deficit in that year would be $199 billion, with deficits decreasing each year.
Compare this to Obama’s proposed fiscal-cliff deal, which would increase spending to $5.5 trillion in 2022, the same as the current baseline. That’s right: The president’s proposal does not reduce spending at all. There are no net cuts, not even in the Washington sense of reductions from the baseline. The few programmatic cuts he recommends, most of which lack specifics, are offset by other spending increases. All that spending means that, if the president gets every bit of the $1.6 trillion in new taxes he has asked for, we would still add $6 trillion to the national debt over the next ten years, and run a $661 billion deficit in 2022. Moreover, since there are so few specifics in the president’s proposal, these estimates likely underestimate the amount of spending, debt, and deficits it would incur.
The liberals are tipping their hand when they call tax cuts "expenditures." They reveal whose money they think it is.
In other words, your income presumably belongs to the government except for the portion they decide that you may keep.
In a similar manner, an increase in tax rates is considered to be "revenue enhancement", regardless of whether the rate increase actually results in the collection of more tax money.
Yes, it's crazy, but it is no crazier than the common public belief that the government can run deficits endlessly without consequence by increasing taxes on someone else.
Noting that the states should be providing the government services that the corrupt federal government is now wrongly providing, the widespread opposition to federal spending cuts indicates to me how widespread ignorance of the Constitution is, particularly the Founding States' division of federal and state government powers which is the main purpose of the Constitution.
As I've mentioned in other threads, based on the Founder's division of federal and state government powers evidenced by the Constitution's Section 8 of Article I, Article V and the 10th Amendment, Justice John Marshall had officially clarified that Congress is prohibited from laying taxes for anything that it cannot justify under Section 8. This is essentialy postal services (Article I, Section 8, Clause 7) where domestic-related federal government services are concerned.
So the Constitution was actually knocked off its foundation in a big way as a consequence of widespread ignorance of the Constitution when voters unthinkingly allowed FDR to tear it to pieces. And Obama, along with the help of Obama guard dog Fx News, is just finishing the job.
I'm to the point where I think that voters can sleep in the bed that they have made for themselves.
Our target budget should be Clinton's last budget, adjusted upward for inflation and population growth, with EVERYTHING beyond that level requiring a line item vote for approval, one line item at a time. The democrats are advocating child abuse when they have giveaways for the special interest groups that deliver their votes and then borrow money so our children are paying for the far left to buy votes. Even that target is actually extravagant and should be cut even further.
Neither Obama nor Republicans are offering any serious structural reforms to entitlements, especially Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Those three programs alone constitute 44 percent of federal spending this year, and by 2022, they will amount to more than 54 percent of the federal budget.
Worse, the real explosion of entitlement costs takes place just outside the ten-year budget window currently being debated. While entitlement changes will appear to have only a moderate impact on this budget deal, failure to reform these programs will guarantee an unsustainable growth in federal spending over the long term.
If we simply followed a budget that uses inflation- and population-adjusted spending path from 2001 continued to 2022, spending in 2022 would be only $3.61 trillion (NOT NOW), compared with the $5.51 trillion the current baseline predicts. This spending path would have seen budget deficits top out at a little less than $400 billion in 2009 and then return to surplus by 2014.
In fact, even starting from today’s spending levels, if future spending grew at inflation plus population, it would be only $4.8 trillion in 2022. The budget deficit in that year would be $199 billion, with deficits decreasing each year.
WE COULD DO IT BUT NEITHER SIDE HAS THE COLLECTIVE DESIRE OR WILL TO PROPOSE IT ( Connie Mack and Rand Paul have, but nobody is listening to them. Mack recently was DEFEATED in his bid for the Senate ).
Maybe going into the automatic cuts and sequestration is the only answer.
I propose the following solution:
- All entitlements are eliminated.
- All departments except for defense are eliminated.
- All the people that participated in this poll are placed in concentration camps, along with all Democrats and either re-educated or terminated.
This is what I don’t understand about the Republican strategy. We act as though spending cuts are MORE important than tax cuts. That just falls into the Democrat trap, where Republicans want to throw Grandma off the cliff in order to protect their precious tax cuts for the rich.
Face it, the American people and probably people in any country anywhere will always vote for low taxes and generous benefits. Republicans and Democrats both. Every year the California ballot includes plenty of both, and they generally pass. The exact same people pull the lever specifically for low taxes and generous benefits. Yes, it’s stupid and irrational, but most people are stupid and irrational. Nothing new there.
In the big picture, the Republicans are the party of low taxes; the Democrats the party of generous benefits. The party that appears to be more serious about delivering on their side of the equation and seems relatively un-threatening to the other side generally wins. Reagan and Bush II lowered taxes, but barely cut anything and grew spending. Obama and Clinton spent heavily, but raised taxes just a bit around the fringes. They lose when they can’t be trusted to deliver on it (Bush I raising taxes, for example).
The ace in the hole for the GOP is that ultimately Dem’s need tax dollars to deliver on their spending promises. Yes, they can borrow or print for a while, but eventually the “bond market” will require that it be paid for. As long as we hold the line on taxes, eventually spending will have come in line.
Therefore, for the GOP to demand that any tax increase in return for “spending cuts” is the most idiotic thing they can possibly do. We sacrifice our brand identity in order to get something that our base doesn’t even want. It’s positively stupid.
We should never for any tax increase ever. Then, let the Democrats spend until the bond market steps in and forces them to make cuts, and hang the cuts around their necks. But never appear to be for “spending cuts”. Just low taxes.
This graphically illustrates the pernicious effect of entitlements and government growth. Look at this list and remember that there was a time when this entitlement did not exist! Except for the advocates that pushed for these programs and deductions, people did not notice the lack.
Now consider why people cling to these programs, is it not at least in part because they have a feeling of encroaching government that takes things away? If we had a growing economy with an active job creation, would these 2 year old Obama Payroll cuts be so significant? Yet when it is the government itself whose policies appear to depress the job market (and may do so for the next 4 years), how can people feel able to give up even a little?
Americans also REJECTED Obamacare by around 65-35 poll after poll!!
This only accounts for $100 billion in cuts. What about the remaining $1+ trillion in deficit spending?
This whole sequestration nonsense is nothing more than a big joke the Dems pulled on the Republicans. The agreement 16 months ago is that the Republicans would sign on to increasing the debt ceiling by $2.5 trillion in order to get us through to the end of March 2013. In return, the Democrats would cut spending by $100 billion. Now here we are 16 months later. The Dems are already about to run out of that $2.5 trillion in cash three months early, and at the same time, Democrats haven't cut spending one single dime.
So here we are today with the Democrats demanding another $2.5 trillion raise in the debt ceiling in exchange for the exact same spending cuts they promised last time. And in addition, they want an immediate $50 billion increase in spending and a $80 billion tax hike. Republicans are idiots.
I’m glad someone brought up the concept of Baseline Budgeting. How about this change: set the baseline to -5% each year, for the next 10 years?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.