Center for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) has an app for you to try it out, here.
No dynamic scoring, but gives you an idea of what’s feasible and what is not without enhancing revenue. There aren’t enough food stamps (SNAP) to take away from the poor to make a big enough difference.
And, in any case, there’s no budget proposal to effectuate the proposed measures.
I just asked Forrest Gump what he thinks about Republican Kevin McCarthy. Forrest says “Ineffectual is as ineffectual does”.
well life is like a box of chocolates
Australian humor has to be better than grabbing for the low fruit. That bag has already been taken by me.
The MAGA hatters basically are at the same level of arithmetic skills as our favorite trolls such as JohnH. Yea – McCarthy and his crew have yet to graduate from preK.
Mike Lindell has been running a lot of ads hoping to sell his stupid My Pillow 2.0. I guess he needs to do so as he is out $5 million!
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/mypillow-ceo-mike-lindell-ordered-to-pay-5-million-to-expert-who-debunked-his-election-claims/ar-AA1a6WNN?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=e6018ae552004340a6fa6acecbbc824b&ei=11
MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell will have to pay up after offering a reward for anyone who could debunk a stolen election claim, and expert Robert Zeidman did just that, an arbitration panel ruled on Thursday. The arbitration panel ruled that self-professed Donald Trump voter Robert Zeidman did indeed debunk Lindell’s specific claim that he had data from 2020 showing Chinese interference which proved voter fraud. Lindell offered the prize of $5 million in a “Prove Mike Wrong” challenge, daring anyone to demonstrate that the data he provided was not from the 2020 election. Zeidman took up the challenge and submitted his findings, writing: “I have proven that the data Lindell provides … unequivocally does not contain packet data of any kind and do not contain any information related to the November 2020 election.”
Kimmel has been putting video clips of Lindell up lately, Kimmel doesn’t edit them at all and they are an absolute laugh riot (and I know Kimmel has one of his staff writers do a killer Lindell impression, and it’s not him, it’s the actual Lindell sounding like one of those “TBN” freakazoids). Guy literally doesn’t sound like he made it to the end of 11th grade.
Lindell was also on Kimmel, (3 months back) when Kimmel told him the only way he would let Lindell on the show, is if he appeared inside one of those large claw vending machines, you used to see outside K-Mart and near the lounge areas of truckstops.
https://images.app.goo.gl/vzDJQssiNZLei6i66
On topic (which is to say, “apropos”), McCarthy’s debt ceiling bill seeks to overturn a good bit of the climate-change-related spending passed by Democrats and Republicans in the previous legislative session:
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/20/house-gop-debt-limit-plan-inflation-reduction-act-00092891
It was a safe bet that McCarthy didn’t expect his bill to pass; he’s looking for confrontation in an effort to solidify his hold on his speakership. Any effort to undo progress on climate-change abatement is doomed in the Senate, despite Manchin’s praise for it. The debt ceiling is going down to the wire.
“McCarthy’s debt ceiling bill seeks to overturn a good bit of the climate-change-related spending”
One has to wonder how much the Koch Brothers have given McCarthy’s crew.
Ran this. Taxed the rich for income, cap gains and payrolls, rolled back the GOP Tax Scam of 2017, restored the 2020-2021 programs that cut poverty in half, and made Medicare more efficient and negotiated for drug prices while not changing service one bit. Also paid for roads by raising gas tax 15 cents from when it was last raised….30 years ago.
Cut over $5 trillion from the cum deficit in 10 years, and got debt back under 100% of GDP by 2033. Not as harsh as what CFRB wanted, but a much better economy and society.
It’s doable. You just have to ignore the oligarchs and do what’s right.
Now that is a progressive agenda. Which means it has no chance in this particular Congress. But the 2024 elections are not that far away,
@ Jake
Get Menzie’s handshake to be committed as your Director of White House NEC, and Susan Rice as Secretary of State and you already got my vote wrapped up for U.S. President in 2024.
What level should “rich” kick-in for Long Term Capital Gains? What adjusted gross level?
More on the debt ceiling and default risk –
JPM has joined GS is suggesting that default could occur as early as May:
https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/debt-ceiling-jitters-lift-us-credit-default-swaps-highest-level-since-2011-2023-04-20/
Here’s why the risk of a default in May is “non-negligible”, as the JPM report said. April is typically a budget surplus month due to tax filings, while May is a deficit month, as are June and July and… The size of the April surplus is a critical factor in determining the date at which default might occur. Turns out, the April surplus is likely to be smaller than in many recent Aprils. Tax-day payments are a key factor in the size of the April surplus. From Bloomberg:
“The amount of money that the US government has on hand to pay its bills jumped just $108.47 billion on Tuesday.”
“Bank of America Corp. strategists wrote last week that … an increase in the Treasury cash pile of more than $200 billion following tax day would be strong, while a figure of less than $150 billion would be weak, based on historical precedent.”
So the tax-day take was weak to the tune of $41.53 billion.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bnnbloomberg.ca/us-treasury-s-cash-pile-jumps-108-billion-on-tax-day-1.1909810.amp.html
There are two other dates which matter if a May default is avoided. Quarterly tax payments are due on June 15, and another round of extraordinary measures to fend off default become available on June 30. If June 15 payments are small, we could be in the soup. If large, we’re probably OK till August.
By the way, McCarthy’s bill would set up another debt-ceiling showdown in Q1 next year – primary election season. That’s a terrible idea for the country.
Here’s a look at bill market rates which shows the 3-month bill is out of favor, while 6-month bills are OK, but 4-week bills are being gobbled up. That pattern fits very nicely with concern that the period to mid-June is the highest risk. One way to read that is that Treasury may default in that period, but sanity will prevail pretty quickly. Meanwhile, hide out in the shortest maturities, which avoid most default risk.
I hope Biden will let the GOP cause some serious damage to their own voters. Only by allowing these morons to find out that their votes have serious consequences (to their own well being), can we get the landslide election we need in 2024. We need to flip at least 25% of the gerrymandered GOP seats. That will only happen if a lot of the idiots go home and throw their MAGA hats in the closet.
Another example of Democrat legislators who don’t act like Democrats. And that’s how we got to where we are now.
https://apnews.com/article/julie-su-biden-labor-secretary-confirmation-hearing-d57623a661fe099a4c9cf0934bd02821
“Moderate” Democrats (are they “moderate” or something else altogether?) now think “helping the working class” is a vulgar phrase. Watch the Julie Su confirmation process. Those Democrats who work against Su will be showing their true colors on whose side they’re on, and who they care about. And it most likely relates to businesses that have donated to their campaigns.
“Moderate” Democrats
Don’t these people claim there are part the “problem solver” caucus? OK ‘problem solvers’ – please tell us any problems you have actually solved.
“So You Want to Slow Down Debt Accumulation …(while exempting Social Security and Tax Increases)”
https://apps.bea.gov/iTable/?reqid=19&step=2&isuri=1&categories=survey#eyJhcHBpZCI6MTksInN0ZXBzIjpbMSwyLDNdLCJkYXRhIjpbWyJjYXRlZ29yaWVzIiwiU3VydmV5Il0sWyJOSVBBX1RhYmxlX0xpc3QiLCI1Il1dfQ==
March 30, 2023
Defense spending was 55.9% of federal government consumption and investment in October through December 2022 *
$947.4 / $1,693.8 = 55.9%
Defense spending was 20.7% of all government consumption and investment in October through December 2022
$947.4 / $4,575.4 = 20.7%
Defense spending was 3.6% of Gross Domestic Product in October through December 2022
$947.4 / $26,138.0 = 3.6%
* Billions of dollars
up to 2020 cumulative pentagon spending since 1947 was roughly the us’ national debt.
covid stimmies make the military industry complex look minimalist!
Asking for a friend.
Since 2019, how much of the $7 or $8 trillion additional national debt was from social security payments increases and decreasing tax collections?
Anonymous: I dunno, but you should be asking how much of the structural budget deficit is due to the 2017 tax cut and the 2020 recovery packages, as well as the 2021 CARES act. Those seem like reasonable and interesting questions.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=12Hul
January 30, 2018
Federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program as a share of Gross Domestic Product, 2007-2021
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=12HyX
January 30, 2018
Federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program as a share of
Disposable Personal Income, 2000-2021
GOP 2024 election strategy – make sure people going to college cannot vote:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/terrified-of-gen-z-ex-trump-attorney-encourages-gop-to-make-voting-harder-for-college-students/ar-AA1a7v47?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=03d14ad5822e42ab90dee0cfcbd25efc&ei=10
Republican attorney, Cleta Mitchell, urged fellow GOP members to join together in an effort to “limit voting on college campuses, same-day voter registration and automatic mailing of ballots to registered voters,” The Washington Post reports. Mitchell encouraged a room of conservatives to unify under enforcing these restrictive voting measures in a presentation titled “A Level Playing Field for 2024,” during a recent Republican National Committee donor meeting in Nashville. Executive Director of America Family Voices, Lauren Widsor, tweeted, “EXCLUSIVE AUDIO: Trump coup attorney Cleta Mitchell wants to ‘combat’ voting on college campuses, citing North Carolina and Wisconsin, and says that when Republicans win the state Senate in Virginia, they can eliminate 45 days of early voting and same day voter registration.”
After all – the only way Republicans can win would be limited voting to the stupid people who watch Faux News.
John Stewart vs Deputy SEDEF after DOD FAILED fifth audit in a row.
“ Deputy SECDEF shows ridiculous indignation at Jon Stewart for asking about corruption.”
https://americanmilitarynews.com/2023/04/video-deputy-secdef-shows-ridiculous-indignation-at-jon-stewart-for-asking-about-corruption/
“ The House Oversight Committee announced Monday it was launching an investigation into the Department of Defense after it failed an audit for the fifth time and was unable to account for 61% of its $3.5 trillion in assets.”
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/03/07/house-oversight-committee-launches-probe-into-pentagon-after-fifth-failed-audit/
I wonder how much went into Ukraine, the black hole that Democrats defeated attempts to appoint an inspector general.
DOD would be a great place to start reigning in bloat, waste and fraud.
Awww – Jonny boy did not get the topic again and felt left out of the conversation.
The link that our host provided had all sorts of ideas including those under
REDUCE DEFENSE FUNDING LEVELS
As usual little Jonny boy could not be bothered to participate in a real conversation or doing any real work. Lots of sub-bullet points with estimates on the impact on spending. But did little Jonny boy check any of this out? Of course not. But had this Putin poodle done so – he probably would have cut VA benefits as little Jonny boy does not care about the average soldier who served our nation.
And I’m sure he would be mad he could not vote for cutting aid to Ukraine as little Jonny boy gets all excited when Russian soldiers abuse Ukrainian ladies.
I think you’ll find that a lot of the audit problems are due to DoD’s decision to migrate away from organic inventory accounting systems to commercial ERPs that were never designed for DoD’s unique requirements. Square peg, round hole. And yes, there was a lot of corruption around those ERP migration decisions.
slugs
been out of it since’19.
from about ‘06 the effort in acquisition commands was military equipment valuation (mev).
a lot more to valuing equipment than erp/bom
more important was shift to weak contract oversight by dla admin contract reps.
that shift was late ‘80’s.
hard to tell what we got from signed dd250
while untested product spec presented huge hurt to mev
The CRFB says nothing about fraud and waste in th the “Defense” budget—eliminating -spending that would not reduce defense. Also, if DOD knew what assets it had, it wouldn’t have to request for redundant assets.
pgl was never a big fan of DOD audits…
Audits are fine. Stupid emotional rants – not so much. But OK – that is all you know how to do.
Audits are fine? They’re not just fine, they’re a core tenet of good governance. Consistent failure of pass audits is a sure indicator of malfeasance and corruption…but ho-hum, pgl doesn’t particularly care about that…
Every American should be outraged that their tax dollars (or debt issued on their behalf) is being squandered.
Hey Jonny boy – did Arthur Andersen audit your little Fortune 200 company? Yea – I bet your firm went down because of shareholder lawsuits. Or did they forget to tell you and the rest of the janitors?
pgl still can’t acknowledge that passing audits is a core tenet of good governance.
And pgl wonders why I think he’s a corrupt corporate shill!
As of yet, no irrefutable budget solutions from the blog’s ace armchair economist (climatologist, hydrologist, firearms expert, physicist, financial analyst, agronomist, historian, philosopher, court jester, square dance caller and all around know-it-all) CoRev.
Granted, he’s the fool’s fool, but that hasn’t prevented him from posting as much foolishness as possible in a single post. If anyone can solve this fiscal dilemma, who else could do it?
Granted, he’s the fool’s fool!!!
Where is Mr. T when we need him?
Noneconomist, just refute my claims, instead of reinforcing my amazement of the immaturity of the angry liberal mind.
It’s a simple challenge.
Refute a fool? Of course, you jest. Or try.
just refute my claims??? You probably should cease and desist with this worthless line as we all know your “claims” are nothing more than worthless trolling. Find some other blog to pollute with your trash.
Both of you have an opportunity to refute the foolish trash.
I can hardly wait.
Almost 24 hours and still waiting for that refutation.
And you wonder why posters here believe you’re a fool.
Noneconomist, another liberal head in which I am living.
The liberal mind is a mushy, messy amazement.
the policy of dod is to waive tests and buy untested stuff
bc it is dogma that it is cheaper to pay for problems and fix later with massive rework, paying twice for design.
prime example f-35 engine is too weak!
buy hundreds for Lockheed steady cash flow…
eliminating mic welfare is impolitic
“Here’s One Reason the U.S. Military Can’t Fix Its Own Equipment…Manufacturers can prevent the Department of Defense from repairing certain equipment, which puts members of the military at risk.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/20/opinion/military-right-to-repair.html
Also, word has it that the Leopard tanks from different countries are designed for different munitions…a supply and logistical nightmare!
in acquisition programs two features: effective and suitable.
effective is goes fast hits target.
suitable is don’t break on way to target and i can afford to train on it and have some stuff to go to war.
when they can’t get effective they spend the money that would have got suitable.
and then whif the test and say is it best since the wright flier
further, to what i just wrote.
i worked a number of dod acquisition programs. 1985 thru 2019.
aside from running out of development and procurement money to buy ability for soldiers to repair weapons……
service manning documents decline and new weapons could not get maintenance manpower slots.
when we went for incorporating commercial items we could not buy documentation to develop repiair processes, nor in many cases get rights to share what engineering data we had with other entities outside the government.
the trend since the early 1990’s is for more contractors supporting weapons the idea to rent support rather than develop and buy resources for soldiers to do the work.
us has fewer soldiers and the percent pulling triggers must go up!
so when abrams gets to ukraine if they thought about repairing them, the contractor will get combat pay and company paid multi-million $$ life insurance policies….. if they go!
We need to pass a simple bill called “The United States pay its bills act of 2023”. It should simply state that “The treasury must issue sufficient debt to cover the government expenses approved by congress”. End of circus.
No one ever mentions that SSI (Supplemental Security Income – food and housing assistance) is means tested, All these older adults and individuals with disabilities are subject to approx. $2,000 monthly asset limit. Folks – people on SNAP are paying rent, buying food, transportation, clothing and living below the poverty level.
Rather than give SNAP recipients some govt. subsidized farm products ($$$ to wealthy farmers) – the Republicans want to blow up the credit of the U.S. govt and crash the economy.
Again – I say you can not trust Republicans to govern with responsibility or logic.
Also – the solution is easy – extract a couple more pennies from billionaires – who can not even find a way to invest their money properly and are sitting on piles of cash (i.e. Elon Mush, Jeff Bezo, Murdocks, Walton family, Harlan Crow etc etc.) https://www.vox.com/money/23634085/biden-2024-budget-billionaire-tax-capital-gains
Clear evidence of US intelligence services meddling in domestic politics: “New testimony by Michael Morell, a former Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and one of the 51 signatories of the “Public Statement on the Hunter Biden Emails,” revealed that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, then senior advisor to the Biden campaign, was the impetus of the public statement signed in October 2020 that falsely implied the New York Post’s reporting about Hunter Biden was the product of Russian disinformation.” https://judiciary.house.gov/media/press-releases/new-testimony-reveals-secretary-blinken-and-biden-campaign-behind-infamous
Morrell endorsed Hillary in 2016. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/05/opinion/campaign-stops/i-ran-the-cia-now-im-endorsing-hillary-clinton.html
If there’s one thing that frightens and disgusts me more than Trump, it’s CIA meddling in domestic politics.
A letter from Jim Jordan? Damn Jonny boy – you have hit rock bottom. No one trusts Jordan especially those kids who were on the Ohio State wrestling team.
So tell us – when are you and your BFF Princeton Steve going to be guests on Fox and Friends?
“We want to emphasize that we do not know if the emails, provided to the New York Post by President Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, are genuine or not and that we do not have evidence of Russian involvement — just that our experience makes us deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case”
Oh gee – one would have to be the dumbest troll God ever created to not realize that RUDY was provided doctored trash. And yet little Jonny boy wants us to trust this trash? Yep – Jonny boy is THAT STUPID.
Guess where I saw Jonny’s little story this morning? The NY Post – the worst tabloid in NYC. Newsmax, Faux News, and all of Jonny’s favorite sources for disinformation. And we thought Putin was the big liar. Oh wait – Jonny boy works for Putin too.
https://twitter.com/IanSams46/status/1649497664273240081
‘This isn’t surprising about
@Jim_Jordan
. He has a long, well-documented history of highly misleading leaks to manipulate media to advance his partisan political goals
Well-chronicled by
@karoun
&
@rachaelmbade
I guess the question is why some in the media keep falling for it’
Ian Sams knows that Jim Jordan lied here. Others know that Jordan lied. In fact I bet little Jonny boy deep down knows what a POS Jim Jordan is. But of course little Jonny boy is all too happy to pass on these pathetic lies. Lying is what little Jonny boy does best.
Oh wait – the truth comes out. Did I say Jordan is a lying? He is. Have I not told everyone that JohnH lies a lot? Yep – little Jonny boy has been caught spreading right wing lies again!
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/house-gop-s-latest-hunter-biden-laptop-theory-is-less-than-meets-the-eye/ar-AA1aaDpp?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=0ae2df8a974d4912849578268d6434b8&ei=43
The Jordan-Turner letter connects this to social media companies blocking or limiting the sharing of the story, saying of the Oct. 19 statement, “Social media companies simultaneously restricted access to the [New York] Post story.” But the letter appears to have omitted key context, including whether Blinken actually pushed for such a statement. On Friday afternoon, House Democrats released an excerpt from Morell’s interview in which Morell actually addressed that. Asked whether Blinken had directed, suggested or insinuated that he should write such a statement, Morell said, “My memory is that he did not.” “Mr. Morell testified that Mr. Blinken did not hint that the Biden campaign ‘could use some help on this’ or suggest that Mr. Morell should ‘cook up something’ that the campaign should use,” the House Judiciary Democrats said. The Republicans’ claim of suppression also doesn’t really comport with the timeline, insofar as this is about social media suppression.
Republicans don’t have a plan, they just say words. Those words are not connected to reality or anything remotely realistic – but that is OK, because the morons that vote for them are not able to realize that. Those morons just know what they want to hear so when they hear it – that’s the truth. It is time for Biden to let GOP do real damage to the real economy (and people’s social security checks). When that happens, the morons will have to wake up and deal with reality.
CRFB identifies a 90% debt/GDP ratio as a reasonable target over the next decade. Wonder how they came up with that? It is the very same number arrived at in the debunked Reinhart and Rogoff paper. The 60% goal for 2050 doesn’t even have that. Click the link to get an explanation of the choice of 90% and 50% and the answer is that there is no justification for the choice. So why the Reinhart/Rogoff number? That mistake of a paper became the basis for policy discussion, and remained so after it was debunked. It’s convenient for austerians.
Thanks Menzie – I used the app. Easily solved! Cut Defense Spending and raise taxes – especially the “other taxes” category. The Russian War of Criminal Aggression on Ukraine has shown the flaw in our military thinking. Large Navy ships are as a friend of mine that served on submarines would say “large targets” – Same for aircraft that are now being used as stand off missile carriers. Invest in drones and better surveillance. Also – can we please institute some means-testing for billionaires – they have shown that they are not investing in anything useful. (for example – Musk purchase of social media platform as a vanity project for $40 billion.) Invest that money in the community – better education, better roads, affordable housing, climate change resiliency instead.
Also – can we supplement our civilian labor force with people going into the military – that way red states would not have to force 14-year-olds to work in meat slaughter/processing plants https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/the-conservative-campaign-to-rewrite-child-labor-laws/ar-AA1adAJz (Another easy way to solve the labor shortage problem is to let in more international migrants.)