Republican John Kasich Leads Charge for Balanced Budget Vote

Posted by CircuitGuy 7 years, 7 months ago to Government
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Below are excerpts. Emphasis is mine. People were rightly complaining about borrowing $450 billion a year the past few years. Now that the party of gov't spending/intrusiveness/borrowing controls Congress and the Executive Branch, we're talking about doubling that to $1 trillion a year! That's approaching the level of borrowing during the recession of 08-09, when Democrats controlled the gov't and claimed the borrowing was motivated by Keynesian theory to increase aggregate demand, "priming the pump" and softening the spike in unemployment due to recession. Do people who reject Keynesian theory as a reason to borrow $1 trillion a year during a recession find another reason to borrow $1 trillion/yr during an expansion period?

I heard Republicans say a structural deficit of $450 Million would eventually lead to a crisis. I heard them say the fiscal deficit is the twin of the trade deficit. They were absolutely right. It's a fact, not an opinion. I wish they had meant it. It's show-business for ugly people though.

There's always an theory to explain why now is a good time to go deeper into debt.

I support Gov Kasich's call for a balanced budget amendment. Lloyd Leonard laughs at Kasich's candor in saying an amendment "provides an excuse to members when they face pressure to spend." But Gov Kasich is right on the money. It would force politicians to say, "sure we could do that, but we'd have to update the withholding tables, so paychecks would go down starting next month." Maybe people are less keen to pay for someone else to go fight evil-doers or whatever when the the price tag is immediate.

-----Excerpts----
"The issue is not a partisan issue," Kasich told The Associated Press in an interview. "It's about economic growth and our children's and our grandchildren's future."

"You can't go on racking up this debt. It's really, really hard to deal with," Kasich said. "A balanced budget amendment forces Congress to make difficult decisions and it provides an excuse to members when they face pressure to spend. There's got to be a willingness from both parties — particularly on the Republican side, now that they control everything."

That notion is far from universally accepted, even as Republican President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans are debating a federal budget that endorses deficits adding almost $10 trillion to the national debt over the coming decade.
SOURCE URL: https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2017/03/25/us/ap-us-kasich-balanced-budget.html


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  • Posted by $ blarman 7 years, 7 months ago
    I fully support a Balanced Budget Amendment. It would necessarily mean the end of welfare programs and reign in the reckless spending by both parties. That said, I doubt it will get much traction beyond the Freedom Caucus. Rand Paul (and Ron Paul, I believe) have both brought up Balanced Budget Bills and been shot down by both the Republican establishment and the Democrats.

    The real problem, however, will come when interest rates rise and it becomes impossible to fund our old debt obligations with new debt. That's when the whole thing collapses. It's a house of cards waiting for someone to jiggle the table.
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    • Posted by ewv 7 years, 7 months ago
      Who needs to jiggle the table? Atomic vibrations are enough -- or without that then only more time. They are afraid of jiggling the table now when they can put off the consequences another a year or another day.

      But a balance budget amendment would not necessarily result in the end of the welfare state. They would tax to replace borrowing.
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      • Posted by $ blarman 7 years, 7 months ago
        "But a balance budget amendment would not necessarily result in the end of the welfare state. They would tax to replace borrowing."

        Potentially, but tax hikes have ended many a political career. I'd still rather force them to tax the people directly than subject them to the slavery of deficit spending year after year.
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        • Posted by ewv 7 years, 7 months ago
          Fear of withdrawing an entitlement has also ended political careers. They are all afraid of that, which is what has converted 7 years of promises to repeal Obamacare into "repeal and replace" -- rinocare: repeal in name only -- with an expansion of entitlements.

          Taxes and borrowing are a false alternative that must be addressed head on, not by shift and shaft.
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          • Posted by $ blarman 7 years, 7 months ago
            "Fear of withdrawing an entitlement has also ended political careers."

            Sure. The so-called "third wheel" of politics. The hard facts are that the People were sold a false bill of goods and someone has to come to terms with it. It's a difficult thing to be willing to face the fact that the rainbows and unicorns are more fiction than fact.

            "Taxes and borrowing are a false alternative that must be addressed head on, not by shift and shaft."

            Agreed. Taxes should always be direct and apply to everyone. No third party taxes which shift around or defer the costs onto others such as FICA or even corporate taxes. Borrowing is even worse because it economically enslaves everyone.
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            • Posted by ewv 7 years, 7 months ago
              The false bill of goods is altruistic collectivism. With that driving the politics both taxes and borrowing keep going up. They will not decrease the total take. The borrowing helps them hide the consequences, some of it buried in inflation as a hidden tax, which is why they will not approve a balanced budget, let alone an amendment requiring it.
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  • Posted by Zero 7 years, 7 months ago
    This is the best news I've seen in years. Truely.
    I don't care if it is doomed - it raising the issue and gets people talking about the most important issue.

    The National Debt is the only existential threat to America.
    Every thing else can be worked through and reformed given time.

    But the debt isn't even a ticking time-bomb - it is a short lit fuse.
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  • Posted by $ WilliamShipley 7 years, 7 months ago
    Given the amount of trouble that Kasich has caused Trump and the Republicans I don't trust his motives -- although I used to like him.

    You can't stop a freight train at once. What we need to do is to grow the economy. I think the best way to do that is to remove regulations that are dragging it down -- removing regulations is free, actually better than free because it saves some money.

    As for Trumps infrastructure plan, I don't feel its the same as Obama's -- he just wanted to find a way to spend a lot of money to get cash out there. I think Trump really wants to fix things -- building things is his orientation.
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    • Posted by 7 years, 7 months ago
      That's fine if they're for expanding gov't spending, but they should run on that. It's a crying shame to see trillions of dollars bonds issued to allocate capital to government that would otherwise have been invested in the private sector. It's the kind of thing that leads to inefficiencies that shave a little off growth each year, the opportunity cost compounding each year.
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      • Posted by $ WilliamShipley 7 years, 7 months ago
        One can certainly have debates over whether roads and bridges should be a governmental responsibility -- and many on this site would say not.

        But at the moment, they are -- and they are not being properly maintained. I do not see us winning the "privatize the roads" battle in the current political climate, so at least fixing them isn't a bad idea.
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  • Posted by freedomforall 7 years, 7 months ago
    The NYT, complete hypocrites, only criticizes when they give cover to their precious Dem-Liberals. It's a deficit inherited from that worthless traitorous asshole Obama.
    Should the GOP cut government to balance the budget? Of course they should, but neither party ever will.The writers of the NY Times don't even have the courage to put a byline on this dishonest hit piece. Cowardly statist scum, one and all.
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  • Posted by $ jbrenner 7 years, 7 months ago
    "No one stays here by faking reality in any manner whatsoever." - Atlas Shrugged, p. 794. Government budgets are exercises in faking reality.
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  • Posted by $ CBJ 7 years, 7 months ago
    If the government is going to continue running a deficit, it should quit borrowing money and just print it outright. Either method is inflationary, but two advantages in favor of money printing are that it would not increase the national debt (and its interest payments), and it would not require the participation (or even the existence) of a central bank.
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