"Stuck on Usual Quarrel: Raising New Revenue" NY Times

"... even if the current talks soon resolve the immediate impasse, which did not look likely on Saturday, any renewal of negotiations for a long-term fiscal plan will run into the same underlying problem that has doomed efforts for the past three years. Republicans refuse to raise additional tax revenue, and until they do, Mr. Obama will not support even his own tentative proposals for reducing spending on fast-growing social benefit programs, chiefly Medicare. During a White House meeting with Senate Republicans on Friday, he reiterated that the two go hand in hand, according to people who were there."  NY Times

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The real contest in Washington and in fact across the country is between those who believe that the federal government is an engine of great good that should be given more and more functions and money and those who believe that the federal government is a necessary evil that restricts and blights private interests and lives and which should be greatly reduced in power and function.

Specific issues like the ACA or the tax on medical machines are mere excuses.  This battle has been fought and re-fought for all the years of the Republic.  It has its roots in the traditions of English government that lie at the heart of American political philosophy and discourse.  This struggle is essentially a renewal of the contest between the "King's Party," (Tories) and the Country Party (Whigs) that dominated English politics in the 17th and 18th Centuries.

In today's Washington we are now reduced to a prolonged contest of wills between these groups with the really professional "pols" running back and forth from one group to another like rats seeking escape.

The national media are largely adherents of the King's Party while still conscious of their corporate and special interest in seeking favor from groups like AIPAC.  In pursuit of these interests the media are busily engaged in portraying the dissident Republican populists as a doomed clique of illiterate rural buffoons.  What they seem to have succesfully ignored is the relative invulnerability of these "buffoons" in their home districts and the ability of the "buffoons" to tie the federal government in knots for a long, long time in this and future struggles.

Some say that POTUS is winning this fight.  How?  He has accepted the sequestration levels of spending as normal and the levels desired by the "buffoons" in next year's spending as a basis for discussion. 

What is my solution?  I have none.  pl

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/13/us/politics/hopes-of-a-grand-bargain-are-still-stuck-on-revenue.html?_r=0

Comments

[Laura Wilson]

I don't have any solutions either...but, from sitting in the Jiffy Lube today, I know that regular folks are very interested in the public health aspects of Obamacare (basic immunizations and regular check-ups. One woman was very up-to-date on how more insured people will help her employer---she works at a local hospital!

Who knows, maybe a healthier population will be better able to vote sensibly.

I do know that if more people knew US history and paid attention to the rest of the world, the "fight" would be a lot more helpful and a lot more instructive. The saddest thing is the "Know Nothing-ism" of the Tea Party.

I value the discussions on this site because the commonsense, life experience, and "book larding" ratios are quite respectable!

[VietnamVet]

Colonel,

You are correct. As Mark Shields pointed out last night on NewsHour this is a battle between those who support government and those who don’t. Since the federal government deposits my pension in the bank on November 1st, I am on the government’s side. The other side is a third of the U.S. population. Their number is expanding. Since the corporate take over of the federal government, it doesn’t give a damn about about any of us and we know it. Yet, there has been no groundswell to take back government and make it work for us; “Medicare for all”.

The other third are true believers. They absolutely know that government is evil and bankrupting the Treasury is good. Their world is flat. They elected radical Republicans who have left the corporate reservation and are torching everything. If the Federal government spins out of control so does Wall Street. The Elite’s portfolios will crash.

The powers to be will force a compromise next week which will include entitlement cuts. If not, we will be steaming ahead at full speed into America’s third revolution.

[r whitman]

This is not really a philosophical argument. No one proposes that the USG shut down whole agencies, just give them less money. The conservatives have this myth of local control but if you ask them if they want to close down the FBI and make all crime local, they run the other way. Other current federal functions get similar answers.

This whole argument is about bookkeeping. How many electrons go in which column on the federal spreadsheet.

[William R. Cumming]

Respectfully I would cast the issue as to who benefits from general revenues? The public interest or private interests!

[turcopolier]

WRC

Incomprehensible. pl

[CTuttle]

Even the CFR warned the Chicago School fools/tools...!

The Austerity Delusion - Why a Bad Idea Won Over the West

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/139105/mark-blyth/the-austerity-delusion

[Babak Makkinejad]

34 years ago, this fellow explained this all to me: "Americans want more government but they do not want to pay for it."

[Walrus]

col. Lang, I'm not surprised that when you pose the question that way, you see no solution because there isn't one.

If on the other hand, you were to frame the problem as one of balancing the inherent inefficiencies of Government against the potential benefits of country wide solutions and the contrast that with the speed and flexibility of private sector action balanced against the temptation towards private profit, something might come of it.

[jr786]

Watching this from afar, I can't tell if it's process defined by failure, or failure masquerading as process. In either case, maybe it's about time that we the people had ourselves a Constitutional convention, where we could talk about how we want to live and then vote on it once and for all.

[turcopolier]

walrus

you are talking about some other country. pl

[turcopolier]

jr786

What will happen if there is a constitutional convention and some states do not ratify the new document? pl

[turcopolier]

VV

"those who support government" What you and Shields mean is those who support the FEDERAL government. pl

[jr786]

Well, I don't know what would happen but if it were up to me I'd let them go their own way. It seems that there are irreconcilable difference between people/states. Personally, I have no problem with amicable divorce.

[Fred]

God help us if we did. Which billionaires would wind up buying the Republic? I sure don't want the backers of OFA to 'represent' my interests any more than the tea party, AARP, the Koch brothers or 101 other groups.

[Margaret Steinfels]

It is always amazing to be reminded of the cognitive dissonance Americans have about what the feds should and should not do for them. Once again a Times story about flood insurance and the Congressional decision to cut the federal subsidy for those who live on the shoreline; the fund is deep in debt and flooding is likely to become more frequent. Yet home and business owners are up in arms about the increases, which will be phased in.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/13/us/cost-of-flood-insurance-rises-along-with-worries.html?ref=us&_r=0

Why should we highlanders be subventing through our taxes the citizens of Florida, Louisiana, Texas, Georgia, N and S Carolina (who keep electing TP representatives), lucky enough and/or rich enough to live on the ocean and in flood prone areas. (I'd include Jersey and New York except they elect representatives who believe in federal taxes.)

[Charles I]

There is no such thing given the debt, pork and nuclear weaponry to divvy up. I once had clients who wanted a trial over a vacuum cleaner:. What do you think the invulnerable 30% will agree about sharing the national debt.

[turcopolier]

Margaret Steinfels

"Why should we highlanders be subventing through our taxes the citizens of Florida, Louisiana, Texas, Georgia, N and S Carolina (who keep electing TP representatives), lucky enough and/or rich enough to live on the ocean and in flood prone areas. (I'd include Jersey and New York except they elect representatives who believe in federal taxes.)"

What do you propose? pl

[Will]

the laws that apply to household budgets don't apply to a sovereign with an independent currency (unlike Spain or Greece that are tied to the Euro) and their own printing press.

In a time of liquidity trap, low demand and high unemployment- increasing the money supply does not cause inflation.

many things in this world are non-intuitive, say like quantum mechanics or special relativity, and have to be understood thru the math.

this article helped me understand the nature of money
http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_dismal_science/1998/08/babysitting_the_economy.html

[elkern]

Well put - thank you!

[Richard Armstrong]

As there is no divorce court to mediate between nations and disgruntled regions that might wish to secede there would be little or no divvying up of community property. It's more like one spouse walking out with the clothes on their back and the money in their pocket.

Were the largely unsatisfied states to leave and attempt to impliment a Randian utopia we will see maquiladora move north and east to line the northern border of what will probably be a third world country.

In 50 years of observation I have never seen a single state say they would prefer to build their own interstate highways or fully fund their own militias or inspect food and drugs themselves or demand to take over any such federal endeavors that are now part of our social contract.

I think life in such a libertarian state would be poor, nasty, brutish and short.

[Norbert M. Salamon]

The problem of USA at present since 2008 is that the government debt went up by about 7 trillion dollars, while the GDP [even including some funny treatments] has only increased about 300 billion dollars.

This is unsustainable, whether the US has independent currency or not.

While the inflation rate for the average [90%] of citizens is relatively low --2%per annum per USA Gov. 6% per Shadowstats.com the inflation rate of stocks is well over theses puny numbers; creating great social inequality [with its own future problems]. At the same time the unemployment rate is high [if excluding part time employment], with wages falling, median income of families falling etc.

The coming default is a forgone event, only the timing is in question.

There is one and only one solution, the income and the outgo of government has to be equal, a situation unforeseeable due to demographics of the nation and the pension/medical cost [be they government or other funding].

[Babak Makkinejad]

30 years ago I listened in astonishment to a lecture on how US Army Corps of Engineers went about executing water control projects that had been enacted by this or that other hare-brained that made no technical sense.

In essence, the Engineers were building water-flow control structures that - in the long run, say 2 or 3 decades - could but only delay the inevitable destruction of what they intended to protect.

And all of that was at enormous public expense.

The speaker went on to mention the unintended consequences of many such projects; e.g. protecting one man's shore line meant the erosion of another's.

He further observed that the Engineers were not dumb, they grasped all of that but they were only executors of what politicians - and through them the population - desired.

The Engineers were powerless to refuse or question their orders.

[Peter C]

jr 786, lets assume that the separation of States that want to break from the Union happens. What happens to all those Federal Military Bases that surround San Antonio and sit above El Paso? Will the Republic of Texas be able to support these endeavors in the style that pumps billions into the Texas economy that are contributed by taxpayers (and money borrowed) form far and wide in the Union. Will Texas with it's massive oil field equipment manufacturing capability in the Oil extraction business allow export to Union states??

It will not be a painless divorce, who gets the children.

[turcopolier]

All

Complex countries DO break up in spite of the obvious difficulties brought on by that. Remember the USSR, Austria-Hungary and Yugoslavia. pl

[Margaret Steinfels]

Since I'm in favor of the federal government and paying taxes to it, I do not propose anything. I think those unhappy seaside residents of the aforementioned states come to grips with the connection between their votes, our taxes, and the policy they'd prefer: cheap insurance subsidized by the government. They can't have it both ways.

If I was a libertarian (libertarians invited to respond), I'd say, "go without insurance, and save the premium money to rebuild. When rebuilding, do it with an eye to the next storm and the likely damage based on a 500 year standard."