posted October 17, 2013 11:33 PM            

I am in Houston. It’s raining clichés and nonsense on the TV news channels. Since I am old and have no plans to run for office ever, I think I will tell you the truth as I humbly see it about the budget/debt default crisis that just was very temporarily averted tonight…

1. It was not a waste of time for the GOP in the House to fight very hard to get the President to change Obamacare in a comprehensive way. The law is already a gigantic miscarriage of the legislative process. For the GOP to fight to straighten out a badly miscreated law was good, not bad.

2. No one, and I mean, NO ONE, can say with any certainty that the government shutdown cost $28 billion or any other sum. It might well not have cost anything. The fact that S&P says the shutdown cost $28 billion is like saying they know there are men on Mars. It is just meaningless. It cannot be calculated.

3. The debate was not valueless in another way. It showed how angry many middle class voters are about what I would call “the entitlement society.” They feel they do all of the work, pay the taxes, and others get the benefits. The debate showed that there are real seams in the fabric of the society and they are being pulled dangerously close to the breaking point. Attention must be paid.

4. There is endless talk on the talk shows about how this affects the voters and upcoming elections but the debate was about more than that: this has become a high entitlement, low tax nation. That cannot last. Either taxes must go up a lot or entitlements must go down. That will be true no matter who is President in 2017.

5. The racial polarization in this country is becoming extreme. The black voting block is solidly liberal Democrat. The Republican conservatives are all white except for one or two stragglers. The anger on both sides is profound and getting worse. This is dangerous.

A racially split country with pent up rage is a scary place to be.

6. As far as I can tell, until the GOP gets a candidate who is a likable, charismatic man or woman with a platform that comes close to addressing reality, and is so loved by white voters that he or she can overcome the power of the black voting block and the one-sided media, there will be no more GOP Presidents. It can happen, but we need someone who is not a freak, is extremely likable, and does not come across as a capitalist pig or a nutty old uncle. There must be someone out there. I love Senator Rubio and he’s my guy, but let’s make really sure he’s not crazy.***He's sure not my guy!***

Meanwhile, I have just come from being in and among the salt of the earth, Greenwood and Greenville, South Carolina. Polite, happy people. I spoke at a hospital fundraiser and as I was coming around a corner at the hospital (in Greenwood) a black man said, “You have blessings shining off you today.”

posted October 18, 2013 10:57 AM            

If they had had the agreement of their constituents instead of trying to SCARE everyone into rebellion, no shutdown would have been even considered.

If people want to lessen racial tension they should not go around talking about the country as if black people are all getting a free ride on the backs of the rest of us. Black people work, too. And many of them have as much or more "white" blood as "black". Just because your skin colour gene is different doesn't mean the rest of you is.

Ben Stein is full of himself and not a lot else

posted October 18, 2013 12:06 PM            

Americans..the majority do not want O'Bomber's Abomination. Poll after poll after poll going back 3 years or more confirm that fact.

So, as you can clearly see, Republicans do have the agreement of their constitutents. It's O'Bomber and demoscats who do not.

One other thing. This poll...from a leftist source CBS News..was taken before the royal screwup of the exchanges. Just wait until people can get on the exchange sites and get hit with the O'Bomber Abomination sticker shock.

CBS News poll finds more Americans than ever want Obamacare repealed
Amanda Cochran

(CBS News) A new CBS News poll finds more Americans than ever want the Affordable Care Act repealed.

According to the poll, 36 percent of Americans want Congress to expand or keep the health care law while 39 percent want Congress to repeal it - the highest percentage seen in CBS News polls. The poll also found a majority of Americans - 54 percent - disapprove of the health care law, 36 percent of Americans approve of it and 10 percent said they don't know about it.

The health care law is a chronic issue for the White House, CBS News political director John Dickerson said on "CBS This Morning." "There's an operational part to this, which is that the White House has got to get people to sign up for these health exchanges, particularly younger, healthier Americans, and so they are tactically running a campaign much like the presidential campaign, reaching out, using the techniques of that campaign to get younger people to sign up for these health exchanges."

The poll also found just 13 percent of Americans say the health care law will personally "help me" while 38 percent said they believe the law will personally "hurt me."

posted October 18, 2013 12:13 PM            

A gift. ROLFL

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posted October 18, 2013 01:02 PM            

Leftists i know don't consider CBS leftist but who cares what monsters think, eh? They are citizens too, boo!

It sure is scary that people might look for themselves...and find something other than the lies of any wing of the press.

posted October 18, 2013 01:54 PM            

2. Saying with certainty that no one can know how much the shutdown costs, is more bogus than making such forecasts. You can absolutely tally the losses on several fronts, tourism to national parks probably being the easiest. Not only so, but it will be measured after the fact in the drop in GDP. This is a nonsense argument, and I would expect better from Ben.

3. It did not. This is a perception held by "the Right," but it's not reality for much of the country. Poll after poll showed that Americans weren't happy with the shutdown antics, and that they blamed Republicans to a far greater extent than Democrats. Attention need not be paid to this individual's opinions about reality.

4. Our nation hasn't become a high entitlement nation. That was a false narrative during the last Presidential campaign, and it's still false. Don't misconstrue the biggest economic meltdown [since the Great Depression] and it's aftermath as a non-event. It happened, and a lot more people are using the safety net as a result. That doesn't mean that they've all become lazy, or that they would hate to work, and would hate to improve their station in life. Improve the economy, and you'll find less people taking advantage of "entitlements."

5. Imagination.

posted October 18, 2013 02:05 PM            

By Brad Plumer, Published: October 16 at 2:35 pm

Here's an eye-catching claim: A new report from Macroeconomic Advisers argues that Congress's budget battles, debt-ceiling stand-offs, and spending cuts have cost the U.S. economy nearly 3 percent of GDP since 2010.

That's roughly $700 billion in lost economic activity and more than two million lost jobs— all thanks to Congress. And that's before we even factor in the losses caused by the recent federal government shutdown.

But is this true? Are lawmakers really doing that much damage to the U.S. economy? A claim like this needs unpacking, as there's ample reason for skepticism. So let's break this report down piece by piece. There are two big arguments here:

1) Spending cuts have taken a bite out of economic growth. First, the report estimates that spending cuts enacted by Congress since 2010 have shaved 0.7 percentage points off annual U.S. economic growth over the past three years:

In the chart above, the dashed red line is an estimate of what U.S. growth would have been if discretionary spending had stayed constant as a share of GDP since 2010.

But spending didn't stay constant. Various stimulus programs began winding down. And then, in August of 2011, Congress enacted the Budget Control Act, which set hard caps on discretionary spending and set things in motion for the sequestration budget cuts of 2012. All told, discretionary spending shrunk from 9.4 percent of GDP in 2010 to 7.3 percent today.

The report argues that this sort of fiscal drag is harmful when the U.S. economy is still far below full employment. As a result, the spending slowdown cut annual GDP growth by 0.7 percentage points and cost "the equivalent of 1.2 million lost jobs."

(Remember, that's a drop in yearly GDP growth, so the losses compound over time.)

2) Increased "policy uncertainty" due to congressional showdowns has also hurt growth. But the report isn't done yet. They also estimate that all the turmoil and uncertainty due to Congress's fights over the debt ceiling and the "fiscal cliff" has put a smaller dent in growth. Here's their second chart:

The report uses the Economic Policy Uncertainty Index constructed by Stanford and University of Chicago economists and argue that it correlates with slower growth:

Although uncertainty might directly discourage households from spending and businesses from hiring and investing, we’ve found little evidence of such a direct link.

Fiscal policy uncertainty is, however, inversely correlated with stock prices and positively correlated with private 'credit spreads.' Hence, by undermining wealth and raising private borrowing costs, fiscal policy uncertainty can indirectly undermine household spending as well as business hiring and investment.

When you add these two effects up — and account for compounding growth, as Paul Krugman does — then the report essentially implies that Congress's budget battles have cost the United States roughly 3 percent of GDP, or around $700 billion of wasted economic potential and more than 2 million lost jobs since 2011.

Potential criticisms of these numbers

There are a few questions worth raising about the Macroeconomic Advisers report. For one, the report assumes that the Federal Reserve hasn't been able to offset most of the economic pain from Congress's "fiscal drag."

But is that really true? The central bank has taken a number of steps this year to boost the economy — including another round of quantitative easing. If the Fed's moves had a bigger effect than people think, then it will turn out that Congress's spending cuts may have done less damage than Macroeconomic Advisers is estimating.

Similarly, some experts have criticized the idea that "policy uncertainty" is really hurting growth. For one, the uncertainty index stabilized dramatically in August 2013, but the U.S. economy didn't surge as a result.

What's more, as Mike Konczal has pointed out, those touting the index may be reversing the causality here — there's reason to think that poor growth causes policy uncertainty, rather than the other way around. (The Macroeconomics Advisers report does, however, try to account for this effect by modifying the index: "We also removed a cyclical component from the index," they write, "because recessions foster debates about possible fiscal responses, the uncertainty over which is the result of a weak economy, not the cause of it.”)

In any case, it's entirely plausible that Congress has throttled the U.S. recovery, either by cutting back on spending prematurely or increasing the amount of uncertainty in the economy — or both! But a solid estimate of the impacts here is often hard to come by, and a lot depends on the assumptions used in these economic models.

Note: The numbers above don't include the cost of the shutdown, which S&P recently estimated sapped another $24 billion from the economy this quarter (although other economists have suggested that some of that activity may get made up once the government reopens). http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/10/16/study-congresss-budget-battles-have-cost-us-700-billion/?tid=pm_business_pop

posted October 18, 2013 02:22 PM            

Of course trying to defund or repeal O'Bomber's Abomination is the right thing to do for Republican's constitutents...and America.

Worst piece of legislation in the last 100 years and the idiots who voted for it didn't even read it.

You know it stinks to high heaven when members of congress have to be bribed to vote for it.

Not to mention the serial lying on the part of the Marxist Messiah that O'BomberCare would lower family health care costs $1500 per family; that if you liked your current health insurance you could keep it; if you liked your doctor you could continue your doctor/patient relationship; that O'Bomber's Abomination would only cost 900 Billion dollars...it's more than $3 TRILLION; that everyone would have health insurance...30 million will still be uninsured at the end of 10 years. Serial lying is what Marxists do to fool the useful idiots into supporting them.

Republican were and are right to try ridding America of this monstrosity...which is killing jobs, getting employees laid off and getting their hours cut to 29 hours per week, skyrocketing their health insurance premiums....and which was sold on the premise of outright, in your face lies by O'Bomber and the Socialist demoscats in Congress.

posted October 18, 2013 02:42 PM            

quote:

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Of course trying to defund or repeal O'Bomber's Abomination is the right thing to do for Republican's constitutents...and America.

---

That's why the polls show Republicans lost ground by initiating the shutdown...even amongst their own party?

quote:

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that O'Bomber's Abomination would only cost 900 Billion dollars...it's more than $3 TRILLION

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And yet still leaves government on the hook for less money than if AMA didn't exist. http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/09/25/fact-check-repealing-obamacare- adds-to-deficit/
Any article found searching, "Obamacare deficit," will say the same.

quote:

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30 million will still be uninsured at the end of 10 years.

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Not at the end of 10 years. 2016 is the year I saw, and the numbers are likely to shrink afterwards. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/06/07/o bamacare-leaves-millions-uninsured-heres-who-they-are/

Note also, the Supreme Court ruling that states could opt out of Medicaid expansion is the reason why that many could be uninsured. Once again we have Republican spite taking away health insurance from poor people. http://healthaffairs.org/blog/201 3/06/06/the-uninsured-after-implementation-of-the-affordable-care-act-a-demographic-and-geographic-analysis/

Who's the liar now?

quote:

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Just to be clear, demoscats own O'Bomber's Abomination. Not a single Republican voted for the horseshiit bill...in the House or in the Senate. This is a partisan piece of crap and demoscat hands are holding the crap.

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posted October 18, 2013 09:44 PM            

You're such a sloppy researcher acoustic. How can anyone take what you say seriously?

CBO: Obamacare Will Leave 30 Million Uninsured
August 8, 2012 - 5:15 PM
By Patrick Burke

posted October 19, 2013 09:15 AM            

Acoustic makes for LL comedy

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posted October 19, 2013 01:58 PM            

Wow, Jwhop. You found me wrong on ONE whole point. Just think, if you could do that consistently over time, you might just find some credibility around here!