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On September 02 2012 01:54 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2012 01:42 kwizach wrote:On September 02 2012 00:27 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 02 2012 00:19 kwizach wrote:On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 01 2012 21:39 kwizach wrote:On September 01 2012 15:22 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 01 2012 15:16 kwizach wrote:On September 01 2012 14:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 01 2012 13:39 kwizach wrote:
[quote]
"Many" is not an answer. Unless you can show me that it is in fact new policies that account for that figure, you have no point. Discretionary spending includes spending that has absolutely nothing to do with new policies - in fact, you can enact zero new policy and still have as much discretionary spending. Remember to find new policies that are not already taken into account in the report, such as the recovery measures.
The reason the individual large policies are the ones that emerge is that they are identified as new policies having had and that will have a big impact on the budget (and not for only one fiscal year). You're welcome to present me with other new policies having had and that will have equal or bigger impacts, even thematically grouped. You don't need new policies. You can take existing policies and increase their budget. In 2001 the CBO estimated that discretionary spending would increase from $646B 2001 to $845B in 2010. When 2010 actually rolled around, however, discretionary spending was actually $1371. That difference represents policy decisions made (largely) during Bush's presidency. "Discretionary spending" is a type of spending. It is not a policy. The article wants to look at the impact of Bush-era policies and Obama-era policies. It separates them. If it wanted to look at size of mandatory spending vs size of discriminatory spending, it would have been a different article. Using "discretionary spending" does not allow for the kind of analysis that the article is interested in. How does discretionary spending increase if not for policy decisions? Gremlins? Aside from the fact that your question does not answer my point, discretionary spending can increase because of changes in the environment that necessitate budget increases to achieve the same policy goals that were decided earlier. Now, to re-interate my point, "discretionary spending" is not a policy. The article studies policies. Using "discretionary spending" as a category does not allow for the kind of analysis that the article is interested in. What changes in the environment are going to amount to $400B+? That's a bit more than inflation. I know you like to constantly dodge arguments, but the point is that discretionary spending increase does not simply equate to new policy decisions. Therefore you have to provide policies. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
Increasing discretionary spending IS a policy. You do not have to do it. You can leave it as it is as a policy decision. That's what makes it discretionary. Discretionary spending is a kind of spending. It makes no sense in the context of the article to study its increase as a policy decision in itself. Again, by that logic, you can argue that "spending" is a policy decision, and put all government spending on the graph under a single label. Is that relevant in the context of the analysis? No. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
But since you insist on individual things here are a few...
Department of Homeland Security Not necessarily an entirely new policy, since previous existing agencies were included in the new DHS. Not quite a policy in the context of the article either. Moreover, still a smaller impact. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
No Child Left Behind
Highway Bill 2005
Farm Bill 2008
Energy Policy act of 2005 All smaller impacts than the Bush tax cuts and the wars. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
Medicare Part D We already covered this twice in this discussion. For the third time, the explanation of the non-inclusion of Medicare Part D is explained on p. 10 of the article. Are you going to mention it again in ten posts? They *explained* why they didn't include it BUT THEY STILL SHOULD HAVE. It wasn't a good excuse! It wasn't an excuse. They said they did not include the costs because they could not estimate them with the same confidence as the rest. What are they supposed to do, guess the numbers, cross fingers and hope they're right? Brilliant. Just use the CBO numbers. It is not hard.
They explained the problem with the CBO numbers. It's not hard to read.
On September 02 2012 01:54 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
The programs I listed were in total comparable to the Bush tax cuts. There was NO context of the article to not include this stuff. They did not specify that they were only looking at individual programs. Hey, as long as we're counting stuff together, why not simply consider all policies together, including the wars and the Bush tax cuts? That will allow for a great analysis of which policies had the biggest impact, right? Why not leave big items separate and aggregate small items? It would give the complete picture.
The only reason to separate the big items from the rest of the spending is to study the policies with the biggest impact. If you want an actual complete picture, you shouldn't aggregate small items, you should study each and every single policy separately. You seem to desperately want to be reading an article that does something different than what this one wants to do.
On September 02 2012 01:54 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
This is really, really stupid on your end. You can't ignore $400B+ because it doesn't fall into arbitrary (and BAD) constraints that you have dreamed up after the fact. Yeah, "arbitrary constraints" like "being a new policy" - what the article was about. I love how your complaint about the article is that they don't do what you want them to do instead of what they wanted to do. It's like someone yelling at the weatherman because he's not giving you the latest news on sports. The article was about the causes of the deficit. They use that word. You cannot have an honest article about causes where only some causes are listed as the total cause. "Being an new policy" is not what the article was about. It was about the causes of the deficit. The causes. That's why they included "Economic downturn" - obviously economic downturn is not a "new policy"!!!
The article was about the Bush-era and Obama-era policies bearing the most responsibility for the deficit. It's stated in the very first paragraph. You quoted it, why not read it?
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On September 02 2012 01:54 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2012 01:42 kwizach wrote:On September 02 2012 00:27 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 02 2012 00:19 kwizach wrote:On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 01 2012 21:39 kwizach wrote:On September 01 2012 15:22 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 01 2012 15:16 kwizach wrote:On September 01 2012 14:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 01 2012 13:39 kwizach wrote:
[quote]
"Many" is not an answer. Unless you can show me that it is in fact new policies that account for that figure, you have no point. Discretionary spending includes spending that has absolutely nothing to do with new policies - in fact, you can enact zero new policy and still have as much discretionary spending. Remember to find new policies that are not already taken into account in the report, such as the recovery measures.
The reason the individual large policies are the ones that emerge is that they are identified as new policies having had and that will have a big impact on the budget (and not for only one fiscal year). You're welcome to present me with other new policies having had and that will have equal or bigger impacts, even thematically grouped. You don't need new policies. You can take existing policies and increase their budget. In 2001 the CBO estimated that discretionary spending would increase from $646B 2001 to $845B in 2010. When 2010 actually rolled around, however, discretionary spending was actually $1371. That difference represents policy decisions made (largely) during Bush's presidency. "Discretionary spending" is a type of spending. It is not a policy. The article wants to look at the impact of Bush-era policies and Obama-era policies. It separates them. If it wanted to look at size of mandatory spending vs size of discriminatory spending, it would have been a different article. Using "discretionary spending" does not allow for the kind of analysis that the article is interested in. How does discretionary spending increase if not for policy decisions? Gremlins? Aside from the fact that your question does not answer my point, discretionary spending can increase because of changes in the environment that necessitate budget increases to achieve the same policy goals that were decided earlier. Now, to re-interate my point, "discretionary spending" is not a policy. The article studies policies. Using "discretionary spending" as a category does not allow for the kind of analysis that the article is interested in. What changes in the environment are going to amount to $400B+? That's a bit more than inflation. I know you like to constantly dodge arguments, but the point is that discretionary spending increase does not simply equate to new policy decisions. Therefore you have to provide policies. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
Increasing discretionary spending IS a policy. You do not have to do it. You can leave it as it is as a policy decision. That's what makes it discretionary. Discretionary spending is a kind of spending. It makes no sense in the context of the article to study its increase as a policy decision in itself. Again, by that logic, you can argue that "spending" is a policy decision, and put all government spending on the graph under a single label. Is that relevant in the context of the analysis? No. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
But since you insist on individual things here are a few...
Department of Homeland Security Not necessarily an entirely new policy, since previous existing agencies were included in the new DHS. Not quite a policy in the context of the article either. Moreover, still a smaller impact. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
No Child Left Behind
Highway Bill 2005
Farm Bill 2008
Energy Policy act of 2005 All smaller impacts than the Bush tax cuts and the wars. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
Medicare Part D We already covered this twice in this discussion. For the third time, the explanation of the non-inclusion of Medicare Part D is explained on p. 10 of the article. Are you going to mention it again in ten posts? They *explained* why they didn't include it BUT THEY STILL SHOULD HAVE. It wasn't a good excuse! It wasn't an excuse. They said they did not include the costs because they could not estimate them with the same confidence as the rest. What are they supposed to do, guess the numbers, cross fingers and hope they're right? Brilliant. Just use the CBO numbers. It is not hard. Show nested quote +On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
The programs I listed were in total comparable to the Bush tax cuts. There was NO context of the article to not include this stuff. They did not specify that they were only looking at individual programs. Hey, as long as we're counting stuff together, why not simply consider all policies together, including the wars and the Bush tax cuts? That will allow for a great analysis of which policies had the biggest impact, right? Why not leave big items separate and aggregate small items? It would give the complete picture. Show nested quote +On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
This is really, really stupid on your end. You can't ignore $400B+ because it doesn't fall into arbitrary (and BAD) constraints that you have dreamed up after the fact. Yeah, "arbitrary constraints" like "being a new policy" - what the article was about. I love how your complaint about the article is that they don't do what you want them to do instead of what they wanted to do. It's like someone yelling at the weatherman because he's not giving you the latest news on sports. The article was about the causes of the deficit. They use that word. You cannot have an honest article about causes where only some causes are listed as the total cause. "Being an new policy" is not what the article was about. It was about the causes of the deficit. The causes. That's why they included "Economic downturn" - obviously economic downturn is not a "new policy"!!!
Are you just purposely being dense?
Here's the title of the article:
CRITICS STILL WRONG ON
WHAT’S DRIVING DEFICITS IN COMING YEARS
Economic Downturn, Financial Rescues, and Bush-Era Policies Drive the Numbers
This is an article about what's driving the deficit. To know what's driving the deficit you look at what is the most significant factors on the deficit. That includes the Bush tax cuts. You're essentially saying "if you add up everything in the deficit into one category, than that category is driving the deficit", i.e. the deficit is driving the deficit. Clearly this makes a lot of sense.
Then it says:
Most recently, a Heritage Foundation
paper downplayed the role of Bush-era policies (for more on that paper, see p. 4).
[...]
Heritage Foundation’s Analysis is Misleading
A recent Heritage Foundation report claims that tax cuts and other policies initiated during the
Bush administration are not a significant factor behind the deficits we face in the coming decade.10
Heritage places blame for the deficits squarely on rapid growth in Social Security, Medicare,
Medicaid, and interest costs, and dismisses the significance of weak revenues in general and the 2001
and 2003 tax cuts in particular.
So this is an article also about debunking Heritage's downplaying of the Bush tax cuts, so obviously it would focus on the Bush tax cuts in it's analysis.
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On September 01 2012 21:39 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On September 01 2012 15:22 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 01 2012 15:16 kwizach wrote:On September 01 2012 14:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 01 2012 13:39 kwizach wrote:On September 01 2012 13:28 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 01 2012 13:23 kwizach wrote:On September 01 2012 13:19 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 01 2012 13:16 kwizach wrote:On September 01 2012 13:14 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
[quote]
No where does it say that they are restricting their analysis to just big individual policies. What do you think holds more "responsibility for the deficits", new policies that cost a lot or new policies that don't cost a lot? Bush tax cuts added $187B to the deficit in 2010. New discretionary spending (less wars) added $428B. Which number is bigger? We're still talking about new policies. Which new policies are included in that figure? Many. No where does the article state that they restricted their analysis to only large, individual policies. You can not after the fact add in that constraint. Moreover, it is a bogus constraint. The cumulative impact of many small policies is just as important as the impact of a few large ones. Death by 1000 cuts is still death. If the Bush tax cuts had been enacted one part at a time in separate laws they would still have the same budget impact. Just because the many policies held within the Bush tax cuts are conveniently held inside a few laws, does not make them more worthy to note than many policies held within many small laws. "Many" is not an answer. Unless you can show me that it is in fact new policies that account for that figure, you have no point. Discretionary spending includes spending that has absolutely nothing to do with new policies - in fact, you can enact zero new policy and still have as much discretionary spending. Remember to find new policies that are not already taken into account in the report, such as the recovery measures. The reason the individual large policies are the ones that emerge is that they are identified as new policies having had and that will have a big impact on the budget (and not for only one fiscal year). You're welcome to present me with other new policies having had and that will have equal or bigger impacts, even thematically grouped. You don't need new policies. You can take existing policies and increase their budget. In 2001 the CBO estimated that discretionary spending would increase from $646B 2001 to $845B in 2010. When 2010 actually rolled around, however, discretionary spending was actually $1371. That difference represents policy decisions made (largely) during Bush's presidency. "Discretionary spending" is a type of spending. It is not a policy. The article wants to look at the impact of Bush-era policies and Obama-era policies. It separates them. If it wanted to look at size of mandatory spending vs size of discriminatory spending, it would have been a different article. Using "discretionary spending" does not allow for the kind of analysis that the article is interested in. How does discretionary spending increase if not for policy decisions? Gremlins? Aside from the fact that your question does not answer my point, discretionary spending can increase because of changes in the environment that necessitate budget increases to achieve the same policy goals that were decided earlier. Now, to re-interate my point, "discretionary spending" is not a policy. The article studies policies. Using "discretionary spending" as a category does not allow for the kind of analysis that the article is interested in.
Maybe, but discretionary spending does include some health care costs and income security. which automatically changes to changing demography and changing economic situations, without any explicit changes in policy.
Discretionary outlays—the part of federal spending that lawmakers generally control through annual appropriation acts—totaled about $1.35 trillion in 2011, or close to 40 percent of federal outlays. Slightly more than half of that spending was for defense. The remainder went for a wide variety of government programs and activities, with the largest amounts spent for education, training, employment, and social services; transportation; income security (mostly housing and nutrition assistance); veterans' benefits (primarily for health care); health-related research and public health; international affairs; and the administration of justice. https://www.cbo.gov/publication/42728
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On September 02 2012 03:08 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2012 01:54 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 02 2012 01:42 kwizach wrote:On September 02 2012 00:27 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 02 2012 00:19 kwizach wrote:On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 01 2012 21:39 kwizach wrote:On September 01 2012 15:22 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 01 2012 15:16 kwizach wrote:On September 01 2012 14:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
[quote]
You don't need new policies. You can take existing policies and increase their budget.
In 2001 the CBO estimated that discretionary spending would increase from $646B 2001 to $845B in 2010. When 2010 actually rolled around, however, discretionary spending was actually $1371. That difference represents policy decisions made (largely) during Bush's presidency. "Discretionary spending" is a type of spending. It is not a policy. The article wants to look at the impact of Bush-era policies and Obama-era policies. It separates them. If it wanted to look at size of mandatory spending vs size of discriminatory spending, it would have been a different article. Using "discretionary spending" does not allow for the kind of analysis that the article is interested in. How does discretionary spending increase if not for policy decisions? Gremlins? Aside from the fact that your question does not answer my point, discretionary spending can increase because of changes in the environment that necessitate budget increases to achieve the same policy goals that were decided earlier. Now, to re-interate my point, "discretionary spending" is not a policy. The article studies policies. Using "discretionary spending" as a category does not allow for the kind of analysis that the article is interested in. What changes in the environment are going to amount to $400B+? That's a bit more than inflation. I know you like to constantly dodge arguments, but the point is that discretionary spending increase does not simply equate to new policy decisions. Therefore you have to provide policies. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
Increasing discretionary spending IS a policy. You do not have to do it. You can leave it as it is as a policy decision. That's what makes it discretionary. Discretionary spending is a kind of spending. It makes no sense in the context of the article to study its increase as a policy decision in itself. Again, by that logic, you can argue that "spending" is a policy decision, and put all government spending on the graph under a single label. Is that relevant in the context of the analysis? No. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
But since you insist on individual things here are a few...
Department of Homeland Security Not necessarily an entirely new policy, since previous existing agencies were included in the new DHS. Not quite a policy in the context of the article either. Moreover, still a smaller impact. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
No Child Left Behind
Highway Bill 2005
Farm Bill 2008
Energy Policy act of 2005 All smaller impacts than the Bush tax cuts and the wars. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
Medicare Part D We already covered this twice in this discussion. For the third time, the explanation of the non-inclusion of Medicare Part D is explained on p. 10 of the article. Are you going to mention it again in ten posts? They *explained* why they didn't include it BUT THEY STILL SHOULD HAVE. It wasn't a good excuse! It wasn't an excuse. They said they did not include the costs because they could not estimate them with the same confidence as the rest. What are they supposed to do, guess the numbers, cross fingers and hope they're right? Brilliant. Just use the CBO numbers. It is not hard. They explained the problem with the CBO numbers. It's not hard to read. Show nested quote +On September 02 2012 01:54 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
The programs I listed were in total comparable to the Bush tax cuts. There was NO context of the article to not include this stuff. They did not specify that they were only looking at individual programs. Hey, as long as we're counting stuff together, why not simply consider all policies together, including the wars and the Bush tax cuts? That will allow for a great analysis of which policies had the biggest impact, right? Why not leave big items separate and aggregate small items? It would give the complete picture. The only reason to separate the big items from the rest of the spending is to study the policies with the biggest impact. If you want an actual complete picture, you shouldn't aggregate small items, you should study each and every single policy separately. You seem to desperately want to be reading an article that does something different than what this one wants to do. Show nested quote +On September 02 2012 01:54 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
This is really, really stupid on your end. You can't ignore $400B+ because it doesn't fall into arbitrary (and BAD) constraints that you have dreamed up after the fact. Yeah, "arbitrary constraints" like "being a new policy" - what the article was about. I love how your complaint about the article is that they don't do what you want them to do instead of what they wanted to do. It's like someone yelling at the weatherman because he's not giving you the latest news on sports. The article was about the causes of the deficit. They use that word. You cannot have an honest article about causes where only some causes are listed as the total cause. "Being an new policy" is not what the article was about. It was about the causes of the deficit. The causes. That's why they included "Economic downturn" - obviously economic downturn is not a "new policy"!!! The article was about the Bush-era and Obama-era policies bearing the most responsibility for the deficit. It's stated in the very first paragraph. You quoted it, why not read it?
![[image loading]](http://www.cbpp.org/images/cms//12-16-09bud-rev6-28-10-f1.jpg)
This graph is stating that the factors within it caused the deficit. No where in the article do they couch that statement by stating that they are only looking at large individual programs. That makes it factually inaccurate. There is no other interpretation.
Within the article they state that using a baseline for discretionary spending that grows with inflation is a valid baseline. Yet they ignore the increases in discretionary spending under Bush that exceeded just such a baseline.
I'm done debating this with you. If you want to live in a world where data can be manipulated for arbitrary reasons then have fun with that.
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On September 02 2012 03:30 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2012 03:08 kwizach wrote:On September 02 2012 01:54 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 02 2012 01:42 kwizach wrote:On September 02 2012 00:27 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 02 2012 00:19 kwizach wrote:On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 01 2012 21:39 kwizach wrote:On September 01 2012 15:22 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 01 2012 15:16 kwizach wrote:
[quote]
"Discretionary spending" is a type of spending. It is not a policy. The article wants to look at the impact of Bush-era policies and Obama-era policies. It separates them. If it wanted to look at size of mandatory spending vs size of discriminatory spending, it would have been a different article. Using "discretionary spending" does not allow for the kind of analysis that the article is interested in. How does discretionary spending increase if not for policy decisions? Gremlins? Aside from the fact that your question does not answer my point, discretionary spending can increase because of changes in the environment that necessitate budget increases to achieve the same policy goals that were decided earlier. Now, to re-interate my point, "discretionary spending" is not a policy. The article studies policies. Using "discretionary spending" as a category does not allow for the kind of analysis that the article is interested in. What changes in the environment are going to amount to $400B+? That's a bit more than inflation. I know you like to constantly dodge arguments, but the point is that discretionary spending increase does not simply equate to new policy decisions. Therefore you have to provide policies. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
Increasing discretionary spending IS a policy. You do not have to do it. You can leave it as it is as a policy decision. That's what makes it discretionary. Discretionary spending is a kind of spending. It makes no sense in the context of the article to study its increase as a policy decision in itself. Again, by that logic, you can argue that "spending" is a policy decision, and put all government spending on the graph under a single label. Is that relevant in the context of the analysis? No. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
But since you insist on individual things here are a few...
Department of Homeland Security Not necessarily an entirely new policy, since previous existing agencies were included in the new DHS. Not quite a policy in the context of the article either. Moreover, still a smaller impact. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
No Child Left Behind
Highway Bill 2005
Farm Bill 2008
Energy Policy act of 2005 All smaller impacts than the Bush tax cuts and the wars. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
Medicare Part D We already covered this twice in this discussion. For the third time, the explanation of the non-inclusion of Medicare Part D is explained on p. 10 of the article. Are you going to mention it again in ten posts? They *explained* why they didn't include it BUT THEY STILL SHOULD HAVE. It wasn't a good excuse! It wasn't an excuse. They said they did not include the costs because they could not estimate them with the same confidence as the rest. What are they supposed to do, guess the numbers, cross fingers and hope they're right? Brilliant. Just use the CBO numbers. It is not hard. They explained the problem with the CBO numbers. It's not hard to read. On September 02 2012 01:54 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
The programs I listed were in total comparable to the Bush tax cuts. There was NO context of the article to not include this stuff. They did not specify that they were only looking at individual programs. Hey, as long as we're counting stuff together, why not simply consider all policies together, including the wars and the Bush tax cuts? That will allow for a great analysis of which policies had the biggest impact, right? Why not leave big items separate and aggregate small items? It would give the complete picture. The only reason to separate the big items from the rest of the spending is to study the policies with the biggest impact. If you want an actual complete picture, you shouldn't aggregate small items, you should study each and every single policy separately. You seem to desperately want to be reading an article that does something different than what this one wants to do. On September 02 2012 01:54 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
This is really, really stupid on your end. You can't ignore $400B+ because it doesn't fall into arbitrary (and BAD) constraints that you have dreamed up after the fact. Yeah, "arbitrary constraints" like "being a new policy" - what the article was about. I love how your complaint about the article is that they don't do what you want them to do instead of what they wanted to do. It's like someone yelling at the weatherman because he's not giving you the latest news on sports. The article was about the causes of the deficit. They use that word. You cannot have an honest article about causes where only some causes are listed as the total cause. "Being an new policy" is not what the article was about. It was about the causes of the deficit. The causes. That's why they included "Economic downturn" - obviously economic downturn is not a "new policy"!!! The article was about the Bush-era and Obama-era policies bearing the most responsibility for the deficit. It's stated in the very first paragraph. You quoted it, why not read it? This graph is stating that the factors within it caused the deficit. No where in the article do they couch that statement by stating that they are only looking at large individual programs. That makes it factually inaccurate. There is no other interpretation. Within the article they state that using a baseline for discretionary spending that grows with inflation is a valid baseline. Yet they ignore the increases in discretionary spending under Bush that exceeded just such a baseline. I'm done debating this with you. If you want to live in a world where data can be manipulated for arbitrary reasons then have fun with that.
"Figure 1: Economic Downturn, Financial Rescues, And Legacy of Bush Policies Drive Record Deficits."
I don't see the word "cause", and given that these are in fact the largest single factors, it is factually accurate to claim that they "drive" the deficit.
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On September 02 2012 03:12 paralleluniverse wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2012 01:54 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 02 2012 01:42 kwizach wrote:On September 02 2012 00:27 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 02 2012 00:19 kwizach wrote:On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 01 2012 21:39 kwizach wrote:On September 01 2012 15:22 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 01 2012 15:16 kwizach wrote:On September 01 2012 14:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
[quote]
You don't need new policies. You can take existing policies and increase their budget.
In 2001 the CBO estimated that discretionary spending would increase from $646B 2001 to $845B in 2010. When 2010 actually rolled around, however, discretionary spending was actually $1371. That difference represents policy decisions made (largely) during Bush's presidency. "Discretionary spending" is a type of spending. It is not a policy. The article wants to look at the impact of Bush-era policies and Obama-era policies. It separates them. If it wanted to look at size of mandatory spending vs size of discriminatory spending, it would have been a different article. Using "discretionary spending" does not allow for the kind of analysis that the article is interested in. How does discretionary spending increase if not for policy decisions? Gremlins? Aside from the fact that your question does not answer my point, discretionary spending can increase because of changes in the environment that necessitate budget increases to achieve the same policy goals that were decided earlier. Now, to re-interate my point, "discretionary spending" is not a policy. The article studies policies. Using "discretionary spending" as a category does not allow for the kind of analysis that the article is interested in. What changes in the environment are going to amount to $400B+? That's a bit more than inflation. I know you like to constantly dodge arguments, but the point is that discretionary spending increase does not simply equate to new policy decisions. Therefore you have to provide policies. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
Increasing discretionary spending IS a policy. You do not have to do it. You can leave it as it is as a policy decision. That's what makes it discretionary. Discretionary spending is a kind of spending. It makes no sense in the context of the article to study its increase as a policy decision in itself. Again, by that logic, you can argue that "spending" is a policy decision, and put all government spending on the graph under a single label. Is that relevant in the context of the analysis? No. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
But since you insist on individual things here are a few...
Department of Homeland Security Not necessarily an entirely new policy, since previous existing agencies were included in the new DHS. Not quite a policy in the context of the article either. Moreover, still a smaller impact. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
No Child Left Behind
Highway Bill 2005
Farm Bill 2008
Energy Policy act of 2005 All smaller impacts than the Bush tax cuts and the wars. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
Medicare Part D We already covered this twice in this discussion. For the third time, the explanation of the non-inclusion of Medicare Part D is explained on p. 10 of the article. Are you going to mention it again in ten posts? They *explained* why they didn't include it BUT THEY STILL SHOULD HAVE. It wasn't a good excuse! It wasn't an excuse. They said they did not include the costs because they could not estimate them with the same confidence as the rest. What are they supposed to do, guess the numbers, cross fingers and hope they're right? Brilliant. Just use the CBO numbers. It is not hard. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
The programs I listed were in total comparable to the Bush tax cuts. There was NO context of the article to not include this stuff. They did not specify that they were only looking at individual programs. Hey, as long as we're counting stuff together, why not simply consider all policies together, including the wars and the Bush tax cuts? That will allow for a great analysis of which policies had the biggest impact, right? Why not leave big items separate and aggregate small items? It would give the complete picture. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
This is really, really stupid on your end. You can't ignore $400B+ because it doesn't fall into arbitrary (and BAD) constraints that you have dreamed up after the fact. Yeah, "arbitrary constraints" like "being a new policy" - what the article was about. I love how your complaint about the article is that they don't do what you want them to do instead of what they wanted to do. It's like someone yelling at the weatherman because he's not giving you the latest news on sports. The article was about the causes of the deficit. They use that word. You cannot have an honest article about causes where only some causes are listed as the total cause. "Being an new policy" is not what the article was about. It was about the causes of the deficit. The causes. That's why they included "Economic downturn" - obviously economic downturn is not a "new policy"!!! Are you just purposely being dense? Here's the title of the article: Show nested quote +CRITICS STILL WRONG ON
WHAT’S DRIVING DEFICITS IN COMING YEARS
Economic Downturn, Financial Rescues, and Bush-Era Policies Drive the Numbers This is an article about what's driving the deficit. To know what's driving the deficit you look at what is the most significant factors on the deficit. That includes the Bush tax cuts. You're essentially saying "if you add up everything in the deficit into one category, than that category is driving the deficit", i.e. the deficit is driving the deficit. Clearly this makes a lot of sense. Then it says: Show nested quote +Most recently, a Heritage Foundation
paper downplayed the role of Bush-era policies (for more on that paper, see p. 4).
[...]
Heritage Foundation’s Analysis is Misleading
A recent Heritage Foundation report claims that tax cuts and other policies initiated during the
Bush administration are not a significant factor behind the deficits we face in the coming decade.10
Heritage places blame for the deficits squarely on rapid growth in Social Security, Medicare,
Medicaid, and interest costs, and dismisses the significance of weak revenues in general and the 2001
and 2003 tax cuts in particular.
So this is an article also about debunking Heritage's downplaying of the Bush tax cuts, so obviously it would focus on the Bush tax cuts in it's analysis.
Of course it includes the Bush tax cuts! I want to include them! I ALSO want to include the spending increases that occurred under Bush.
|
On September 02 2012 03:34 paralleluniverse wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2012 03:30 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 02 2012 03:08 kwizach wrote:On September 02 2012 01:54 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 02 2012 01:42 kwizach wrote:On September 02 2012 00:27 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 02 2012 00:19 kwizach wrote:On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 01 2012 21:39 kwizach wrote:On September 01 2012 15:22 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
[quote]
How does discretionary spending increase if not for policy decisions? Gremlins? Aside from the fact that your question does not answer my point, discretionary spending can increase because of changes in the environment that necessitate budget increases to achieve the same policy goals that were decided earlier. Now, to re-interate my point, "discretionary spending" is not a policy. The article studies policies. Using "discretionary spending" as a category does not allow for the kind of analysis that the article is interested in. What changes in the environment are going to amount to $400B+? That's a bit more than inflation. I know you like to constantly dodge arguments, but the point is that discretionary spending increase does not simply equate to new policy decisions. Therefore you have to provide policies. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
Increasing discretionary spending IS a policy. You do not have to do it. You can leave it as it is as a policy decision. That's what makes it discretionary. Discretionary spending is a kind of spending. It makes no sense in the context of the article to study its increase as a policy decision in itself. Again, by that logic, you can argue that "spending" is a policy decision, and put all government spending on the graph under a single label. Is that relevant in the context of the analysis? No. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
But since you insist on individual things here are a few...
Department of Homeland Security Not necessarily an entirely new policy, since previous existing agencies were included in the new DHS. Not quite a policy in the context of the article either. Moreover, still a smaller impact. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
No Child Left Behind
Highway Bill 2005
Farm Bill 2008
Energy Policy act of 2005 All smaller impacts than the Bush tax cuts and the wars. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
Medicare Part D We already covered this twice in this discussion. For the third time, the explanation of the non-inclusion of Medicare Part D is explained on p. 10 of the article. Are you going to mention it again in ten posts? They *explained* why they didn't include it BUT THEY STILL SHOULD HAVE. It wasn't a good excuse! It wasn't an excuse. They said they did not include the costs because they could not estimate them with the same confidence as the rest. What are they supposed to do, guess the numbers, cross fingers and hope they're right? Brilliant. Just use the CBO numbers. It is not hard. They explained the problem with the CBO numbers. It's not hard to read. On September 02 2012 01:54 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
The programs I listed were in total comparable to the Bush tax cuts. There was NO context of the article to not include this stuff. They did not specify that they were only looking at individual programs. Hey, as long as we're counting stuff together, why not simply consider all policies together, including the wars and the Bush tax cuts? That will allow for a great analysis of which policies had the biggest impact, right? Why not leave big items separate and aggregate small items? It would give the complete picture. The only reason to separate the big items from the rest of the spending is to study the policies with the biggest impact. If you want an actual complete picture, you shouldn't aggregate small items, you should study each and every single policy separately. You seem to desperately want to be reading an article that does something different than what this one wants to do. On September 02 2012 01:54 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
This is really, really stupid on your end. You can't ignore $400B+ because it doesn't fall into arbitrary (and BAD) constraints that you have dreamed up after the fact. Yeah, "arbitrary constraints" like "being a new policy" - what the article was about. I love how your complaint about the article is that they don't do what you want them to do instead of what they wanted to do. It's like someone yelling at the weatherman because he's not giving you the latest news on sports. The article was about the causes of the deficit. They use that word. You cannot have an honest article about causes where only some causes are listed as the total cause. "Being an new policy" is not what the article was about. It was about the causes of the deficit. The causes. That's why they included "Economic downturn" - obviously economic downturn is not a "new policy"!!! The article was about the Bush-era and Obama-era policies bearing the most responsibility for the deficit. It's stated in the very first paragraph. You quoted it, why not read it? This graph is stating that the factors within it caused the deficit. No where in the article do they couch that statement by stating that they are only looking at large individual programs. That makes it factually inaccurate. There is no other interpretation. Within the article they state that using a baseline for discretionary spending that grows with inflation is a valid baseline. Yet they ignore the increases in discretionary spending under Bush that exceeded just such a baseline. I'm done debating this with you. If you want to live in a world where data can be manipulated for arbitrary reasons then have fun with that. "Figure 1: Economic Downturn, Financial Rescues, And Legacy of Bush Policies Drive Record Deficits." I don't see the word "cause", and given that these are in fact the largest single factors, it is factually accurate to claim that they "drive" the deficit.
Drive implies cause. They also use the word cause in the article:
"But we should not mistake the causes of our predicament."
|
On September 02 2012 03:36 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2012 03:12 paralleluniverse wrote:On September 02 2012 01:54 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 02 2012 01:42 kwizach wrote:On September 02 2012 00:27 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 02 2012 00:19 kwizach wrote:On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 01 2012 21:39 kwizach wrote:On September 01 2012 15:22 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 01 2012 15:16 kwizach wrote:
[quote]
"Discretionary spending" is a type of spending. It is not a policy. The article wants to look at the impact of Bush-era policies and Obama-era policies. It separates them. If it wanted to look at size of mandatory spending vs size of discriminatory spending, it would have been a different article. Using "discretionary spending" does not allow for the kind of analysis that the article is interested in. How does discretionary spending increase if not for policy decisions? Gremlins? Aside from the fact that your question does not answer my point, discretionary spending can increase because of changes in the environment that necessitate budget increases to achieve the same policy goals that were decided earlier. Now, to re-interate my point, "discretionary spending" is not a policy. The article studies policies. Using "discretionary spending" as a category does not allow for the kind of analysis that the article is interested in. What changes in the environment are going to amount to $400B+? That's a bit more than inflation. I know you like to constantly dodge arguments, but the point is that discretionary spending increase does not simply equate to new policy decisions. Therefore you have to provide policies. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
Increasing discretionary spending IS a policy. You do not have to do it. You can leave it as it is as a policy decision. That's what makes it discretionary. Discretionary spending is a kind of spending. It makes no sense in the context of the article to study its increase as a policy decision in itself. Again, by that logic, you can argue that "spending" is a policy decision, and put all government spending on the graph under a single label. Is that relevant in the context of the analysis? No. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
But since you insist on individual things here are a few...
Department of Homeland Security Not necessarily an entirely new policy, since previous existing agencies were included in the new DHS. Not quite a policy in the context of the article either. Moreover, still a smaller impact. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
No Child Left Behind
Highway Bill 2005
Farm Bill 2008
Energy Policy act of 2005 All smaller impacts than the Bush tax cuts and the wars. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
Medicare Part D We already covered this twice in this discussion. For the third time, the explanation of the non-inclusion of Medicare Part D is explained on p. 10 of the article. Are you going to mention it again in ten posts? They *explained* why they didn't include it BUT THEY STILL SHOULD HAVE. It wasn't a good excuse! It wasn't an excuse. They said they did not include the costs because they could not estimate them with the same confidence as the rest. What are they supposed to do, guess the numbers, cross fingers and hope they're right? Brilliant. Just use the CBO numbers. It is not hard. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
The programs I listed were in total comparable to the Bush tax cuts. There was NO context of the article to not include this stuff. They did not specify that they were only looking at individual programs. Hey, as long as we're counting stuff together, why not simply consider all policies together, including the wars and the Bush tax cuts? That will allow for a great analysis of which policies had the biggest impact, right? Why not leave big items separate and aggregate small items? It would give the complete picture. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
This is really, really stupid on your end. You can't ignore $400B+ because it doesn't fall into arbitrary (and BAD) constraints that you have dreamed up after the fact. Yeah, "arbitrary constraints" like "being a new policy" - what the article was about. I love how your complaint about the article is that they don't do what you want them to do instead of what they wanted to do. It's like someone yelling at the weatherman because he's not giving you the latest news on sports. The article was about the causes of the deficit. They use that word. You cannot have an honest article about causes where only some causes are listed as the total cause. "Being an new policy" is not what the article was about. It was about the causes of the deficit. The causes. That's why they included "Economic downturn" - obviously economic downturn is not a "new policy"!!! Are you just purposely being dense? Here's the title of the article: CRITICS STILL WRONG ON
WHAT’S DRIVING DEFICITS IN COMING YEARS
Economic Downturn, Financial Rescues, and Bush-Era Policies Drive the Numbers This is an article about what's driving the deficit. To know what's driving the deficit you look at what is the most significant factors on the deficit. That includes the Bush tax cuts. You're essentially saying "if you add up everything in the deficit into one category, than that category is driving the deficit", i.e. the deficit is driving the deficit. Clearly this makes a lot of sense. Then it says: Most recently, a Heritage Foundation
paper downplayed the role of Bush-era policies (for more on that paper, see p. 4).
[...]
Heritage Foundation’s Analysis is Misleading
A recent Heritage Foundation report claims that tax cuts and other policies initiated during the
Bush administration are not a significant factor behind the deficits we face in the coming decade.10
Heritage places blame for the deficits squarely on rapid growth in Social Security, Medicare,
Medicaid, and interest costs, and dismisses the significance of weak revenues in general and the 2001
and 2003 tax cuts in particular.
So this is an article also about debunking Heritage's downplaying of the Bush tax cuts, so obviously it would focus on the Bush tax cuts in it's analysis. Of course it includes the Bush tax cuts! I want to include them! I ALSO want to include the spending increases that occurred under Bush.
And I know that's what you want, but that's not what's "driving" the deficit. Those are relatively small individual policies, they are not the largest and most significant drivers of the deficit.
And given that this point has been repeated probably over 10 times I'm not going to talk anymore about this issue, every point in this discussion has already been discussed. Moving on.
|
On September 02 2012 03:39 paralleluniverse wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2012 03:36 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 02 2012 03:12 paralleluniverse wrote:On September 02 2012 01:54 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 02 2012 01:42 kwizach wrote:On September 02 2012 00:27 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 02 2012 00:19 kwizach wrote:On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 01 2012 21:39 kwizach wrote:On September 01 2012 15:22 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
[quote]
How does discretionary spending increase if not for policy decisions? Gremlins? Aside from the fact that your question does not answer my point, discretionary spending can increase because of changes in the environment that necessitate budget increases to achieve the same policy goals that were decided earlier. Now, to re-interate my point, "discretionary spending" is not a policy. The article studies policies. Using "discretionary spending" as a category does not allow for the kind of analysis that the article is interested in. What changes in the environment are going to amount to $400B+? That's a bit more than inflation. I know you like to constantly dodge arguments, but the point is that discretionary spending increase does not simply equate to new policy decisions. Therefore you have to provide policies. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
Increasing discretionary spending IS a policy. You do not have to do it. You can leave it as it is as a policy decision. That's what makes it discretionary. Discretionary spending is a kind of spending. It makes no sense in the context of the article to study its increase as a policy decision in itself. Again, by that logic, you can argue that "spending" is a policy decision, and put all government spending on the graph under a single label. Is that relevant in the context of the analysis? No. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
But since you insist on individual things here are a few...
Department of Homeland Security Not necessarily an entirely new policy, since previous existing agencies were included in the new DHS. Not quite a policy in the context of the article either. Moreover, still a smaller impact. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
No Child Left Behind
Highway Bill 2005
Farm Bill 2008
Energy Policy act of 2005 All smaller impacts than the Bush tax cuts and the wars. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
Medicare Part D We already covered this twice in this discussion. For the third time, the explanation of the non-inclusion of Medicare Part D is explained on p. 10 of the article. Are you going to mention it again in ten posts? They *explained* why they didn't include it BUT THEY STILL SHOULD HAVE. It wasn't a good excuse! It wasn't an excuse. They said they did not include the costs because they could not estimate them with the same confidence as the rest. What are they supposed to do, guess the numbers, cross fingers and hope they're right? Brilliant. Just use the CBO numbers. It is not hard. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
The programs I listed were in total comparable to the Bush tax cuts. There was NO context of the article to not include this stuff. They did not specify that they were only looking at individual programs. Hey, as long as we're counting stuff together, why not simply consider all policies together, including the wars and the Bush tax cuts? That will allow for a great analysis of which policies had the biggest impact, right? Why not leave big items separate and aggregate small items? It would give the complete picture. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
This is really, really stupid on your end. You can't ignore $400B+ because it doesn't fall into arbitrary (and BAD) constraints that you have dreamed up after the fact. Yeah, "arbitrary constraints" like "being a new policy" - what the article was about. I love how your complaint about the article is that they don't do what you want them to do instead of what they wanted to do. It's like someone yelling at the weatherman because he's not giving you the latest news on sports. The article was about the causes of the deficit. They use that word. You cannot have an honest article about causes where only some causes are listed as the total cause. "Being an new policy" is not what the article was about. It was about the causes of the deficit. The causes. That's why they included "Economic downturn" - obviously economic downturn is not a "new policy"!!! Are you just purposely being dense? Here's the title of the article: CRITICS STILL WRONG ON
WHAT’S DRIVING DEFICITS IN COMING YEARS
Economic Downturn, Financial Rescues, and Bush-Era Policies Drive the Numbers This is an article about what's driving the deficit. To know what's driving the deficit you look at what is the most significant factors on the deficit. That includes the Bush tax cuts. You're essentially saying "if you add up everything in the deficit into one category, than that category is driving the deficit", i.e. the deficit is driving the deficit. Clearly this makes a lot of sense. Then it says: Most recently, a Heritage Foundation
paper downplayed the role of Bush-era policies (for more on that paper, see p. 4).
[...]
Heritage Foundation’s Analysis is Misleading
A recent Heritage Foundation report claims that tax cuts and other policies initiated during the
Bush administration are not a significant factor behind the deficits we face in the coming decade.10
Heritage places blame for the deficits squarely on rapid growth in Social Security, Medicare,
Medicaid, and interest costs, and dismisses the significance of weak revenues in general and the 2001
and 2003 tax cuts in particular.
So this is an article also about debunking Heritage's downplaying of the Bush tax cuts, so obviously it would focus on the Bush tax cuts in it's analysis. Of course it includes the Bush tax cuts! I want to include them! I ALSO want to include the spending increases that occurred under Bush. And I know that's what you want, but that's not what's "driving" the deficit. Those are relatively small individual policies, they are not the largest and most significant drivers of the deficit. And given that this point has been repeated probably over 10 times I'm not going to talk anymore about this issue, every point in this discussion has already been discussed. Moving on.
Riiiiiiiiiiight, a $400B increase in the deficit should not be counted but a $190B increase should.
I'm so glad Obama is smarter than you guys.
|
On September 02 2012 03:44 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2012 03:39 paralleluniverse wrote:On September 02 2012 03:36 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 02 2012 03:12 paralleluniverse wrote:On September 02 2012 01:54 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 02 2012 01:42 kwizach wrote:On September 02 2012 00:27 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 02 2012 00:19 kwizach wrote:On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 01 2012 21:39 kwizach wrote:
[quote]
Aside from the fact that your question does not answer my point, discretionary spending can increase because of changes in the environment that necessitate budget increases to achieve the same policy goals that were decided earlier.
Now, to re-interate my point, "discretionary spending" is not a policy. The article studies policies. Using "discretionary spending" as a category does not allow for the kind of analysis that the article is interested in. What changes in the environment are going to amount to $400B+? That's a bit more than inflation. I know you like to constantly dodge arguments, but the point is that discretionary spending increase does not simply equate to new policy decisions. Therefore you have to provide policies. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
Increasing discretionary spending IS a policy. You do not have to do it. You can leave it as it is as a policy decision. That's what makes it discretionary. Discretionary spending is a kind of spending. It makes no sense in the context of the article to study its increase as a policy decision in itself. Again, by that logic, you can argue that "spending" is a policy decision, and put all government spending on the graph under a single label. Is that relevant in the context of the analysis? No. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
But since you insist on individual things here are a few...
Department of Homeland Security Not necessarily an entirely new policy, since previous existing agencies were included in the new DHS. Not quite a policy in the context of the article either. Moreover, still a smaller impact. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
No Child Left Behind
Highway Bill 2005
Farm Bill 2008
Energy Policy act of 2005 All smaller impacts than the Bush tax cuts and the wars. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
Medicare Part D We already covered this twice in this discussion. For the third time, the explanation of the non-inclusion of Medicare Part D is explained on p. 10 of the article. Are you going to mention it again in ten posts? They *explained* why they didn't include it BUT THEY STILL SHOULD HAVE. It wasn't a good excuse! It wasn't an excuse. They said they did not include the costs because they could not estimate them with the same confidence as the rest. What are they supposed to do, guess the numbers, cross fingers and hope they're right? Brilliant. Just use the CBO numbers. It is not hard. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
The programs I listed were in total comparable to the Bush tax cuts. There was NO context of the article to not include this stuff. They did not specify that they were only looking at individual programs. Hey, as long as we're counting stuff together, why not simply consider all policies together, including the wars and the Bush tax cuts? That will allow for a great analysis of which policies had the biggest impact, right? Why not leave big items separate and aggregate small items? It would give the complete picture. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
This is really, really stupid on your end. You can't ignore $400B+ because it doesn't fall into arbitrary (and BAD) constraints that you have dreamed up after the fact. Yeah, "arbitrary constraints" like "being a new policy" - what the article was about. I love how your complaint about the article is that they don't do what you want them to do instead of what they wanted to do. It's like someone yelling at the weatherman because he's not giving you the latest news on sports. The article was about the causes of the deficit. They use that word. You cannot have an honest article about causes where only some causes are listed as the total cause. "Being an new policy" is not what the article was about. It was about the causes of the deficit. The causes. That's why they included "Economic downturn" - obviously economic downturn is not a "new policy"!!! Are you just purposely being dense? Here's the title of the article: CRITICS STILL WRONG ON
WHAT’S DRIVING DEFICITS IN COMING YEARS
Economic Downturn, Financial Rescues, and Bush-Era Policies Drive the Numbers This is an article about what's driving the deficit. To know what's driving the deficit you look at what is the most significant factors on the deficit. That includes the Bush tax cuts. You're essentially saying "if you add up everything in the deficit into one category, than that category is driving the deficit", i.e. the deficit is driving the deficit. Clearly this makes a lot of sense. Then it says: Most recently, a Heritage Foundation
paper downplayed the role of Bush-era policies (for more on that paper, see p. 4).
[...]
Heritage Foundation’s Analysis is Misleading
A recent Heritage Foundation report claims that tax cuts and other policies initiated during the
Bush administration are not a significant factor behind the deficits we face in the coming decade.10
Heritage places blame for the deficits squarely on rapid growth in Social Security, Medicare,
Medicaid, and interest costs, and dismisses the significance of weak revenues in general and the 2001
and 2003 tax cuts in particular.
So this is an article also about debunking Heritage's downplaying of the Bush tax cuts, so obviously it would focus on the Bush tax cuts in it's analysis. Of course it includes the Bush tax cuts! I want to include them! I ALSO want to include the spending increases that occurred under Bush. And I know that's what you want, but that's not what's "driving" the deficit. Those are relatively small individual policies, they are not the largest and most significant drivers of the deficit. And given that this point has been repeated probably over 10 times I'm not going to talk anymore about this issue, every point in this discussion has already been discussed. Moving on. Riiiiiiiiiiight, a $400B increase in the deficit should not be counted but a $190B increase should. I'm so glad Obama is smarter than you guys.
That is not a single factor.
And now I'm really done.
|
On September 02 2012 03:30 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2012 03:08 kwizach wrote:On September 02 2012 01:54 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 02 2012 01:42 kwizach wrote:On September 02 2012 00:27 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 02 2012 00:19 kwizach wrote:On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 01 2012 21:39 kwizach wrote:On September 01 2012 15:22 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 01 2012 15:16 kwizach wrote:
[quote]
"Discretionary spending" is a type of spending. It is not a policy. The article wants to look at the impact of Bush-era policies and Obama-era policies. It separates them. If it wanted to look at size of mandatory spending vs size of discriminatory spending, it would have been a different article. Using "discretionary spending" does not allow for the kind of analysis that the article is interested in. How does discretionary spending increase if not for policy decisions? Gremlins? Aside from the fact that your question does not answer my point, discretionary spending can increase because of changes in the environment that necessitate budget increases to achieve the same policy goals that were decided earlier. Now, to re-interate my point, "discretionary spending" is not a policy. The article studies policies. Using "discretionary spending" as a category does not allow for the kind of analysis that the article is interested in. What changes in the environment are going to amount to $400B+? That's a bit more than inflation. I know you like to constantly dodge arguments, but the point is that discretionary spending increase does not simply equate to new policy decisions. Therefore you have to provide policies. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
Increasing discretionary spending IS a policy. You do not have to do it. You can leave it as it is as a policy decision. That's what makes it discretionary. Discretionary spending is a kind of spending. It makes no sense in the context of the article to study its increase as a policy decision in itself. Again, by that logic, you can argue that "spending" is a policy decision, and put all government spending on the graph under a single label. Is that relevant in the context of the analysis? No. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
But since you insist on individual things here are a few...
Department of Homeland Security Not necessarily an entirely new policy, since previous existing agencies were included in the new DHS. Not quite a policy in the context of the article either. Moreover, still a smaller impact. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
No Child Left Behind
Highway Bill 2005
Farm Bill 2008
Energy Policy act of 2005 All smaller impacts than the Bush tax cuts and the wars. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
Medicare Part D We already covered this twice in this discussion. For the third time, the explanation of the non-inclusion of Medicare Part D is explained on p. 10 of the article. Are you going to mention it again in ten posts? They *explained* why they didn't include it BUT THEY STILL SHOULD HAVE. It wasn't a good excuse! It wasn't an excuse. They said they did not include the costs because they could not estimate them with the same confidence as the rest. What are they supposed to do, guess the numbers, cross fingers and hope they're right? Brilliant. Just use the CBO numbers. It is not hard. They explained the problem with the CBO numbers. It's not hard to read. On September 02 2012 01:54 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
The programs I listed were in total comparable to the Bush tax cuts. There was NO context of the article to not include this stuff. They did not specify that they were only looking at individual programs. Hey, as long as we're counting stuff together, why not simply consider all policies together, including the wars and the Bush tax cuts? That will allow for a great analysis of which policies had the biggest impact, right? Why not leave big items separate and aggregate small items? It would give the complete picture. The only reason to separate the big items from the rest of the spending is to study the policies with the biggest impact. If you want an actual complete picture, you shouldn't aggregate small items, you should study each and every single policy separately. You seem to desperately want to be reading an article that does something different than what this one wants to do. On September 02 2012 01:54 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
This is really, really stupid on your end. You can't ignore $400B+ because it doesn't fall into arbitrary (and BAD) constraints that you have dreamed up after the fact. Yeah, "arbitrary constraints" like "being a new policy" - what the article was about. I love how your complaint about the article is that they don't do what you want them to do instead of what they wanted to do. It's like someone yelling at the weatherman because he's not giving you the latest news on sports. The article was about the causes of the deficit. They use that word. You cannot have an honest article about causes where only some causes are listed as the total cause. "Being an new policy" is not what the article was about. It was about the causes of the deficit. The causes. That's why they included "Economic downturn" - obviously economic downturn is not a "new policy"!!! The article was about the Bush-era and Obama-era policies bearing the most responsibility for the deficit. It's stated in the very first paragraph. You quoted it, why not read it? This graph is stating that the factors within it caused the deficit. No where in the article do they couch that statement by stating that they are only looking at large individual programs. That makes it factually inaccurate. There is no other interpretation.
No, it says the factors within it contributed to the deficit - there is absolutely nothing factually inaccurate about this. The article does say they are looking at Bush-era policies and Obama-era policies. The Bush tax cuts and the wars are the single policies with the highest impact. How else does this need to be explained to you? Or, more to the point, how many times?
On September 02 2012 03:30 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
Within the article they state that using a baseline for discretionary spending that grows with inflation is a valid baseline. Yet they ignore the increases in discretionary spending under Bush that exceeded just such a baseline.
Discriminatory spending is not a policy. Could you maybe print down those five words and put them on the wall above your computer so that I don't have to repeat them again?
On September 02 2012 03:30 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
I'm done debating this with you. If you want to live in a world where data can be manipulated for arbitrary reasons then have fun with that.
I want to live in a world where people are able to read an article and a graph (and understand what a policy is). Apparently that was too much to ask.
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lol this debate about the graph is still going and with the same arguments over and over again... fascinating.
On a different note - did anyone else find the Clint Eastwood bit insanely weird?
This guy is a living legend and I don't care about his political stances, but giving himself for something strange like that was not a highpoint in my opinion...
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On September 02 2012 04:11 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2012 03:30 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 02 2012 03:08 kwizach wrote:On September 02 2012 01:54 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 02 2012 01:42 kwizach wrote:On September 02 2012 00:27 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 02 2012 00:19 kwizach wrote:On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 01 2012 21:39 kwizach wrote:On September 01 2012 15:22 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
[quote]
How does discretionary spending increase if not for policy decisions? Gremlins? Aside from the fact that your question does not answer my point, discretionary spending can increase because of changes in the environment that necessitate budget increases to achieve the same policy goals that were decided earlier. Now, to re-interate my point, "discretionary spending" is not a policy. The article studies policies. Using "discretionary spending" as a category does not allow for the kind of analysis that the article is interested in. What changes in the environment are going to amount to $400B+? That's a bit more than inflation. I know you like to constantly dodge arguments, but the point is that discretionary spending increase does not simply equate to new policy decisions. Therefore you have to provide policies. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
Increasing discretionary spending IS a policy. You do not have to do it. You can leave it as it is as a policy decision. That's what makes it discretionary. Discretionary spending is a kind of spending. It makes no sense in the context of the article to study its increase as a policy decision in itself. Again, by that logic, you can argue that "spending" is a policy decision, and put all government spending on the graph under a single label. Is that relevant in the context of the analysis? No. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
But since you insist on individual things here are a few...
Department of Homeland Security Not necessarily an entirely new policy, since previous existing agencies were included in the new DHS. Not quite a policy in the context of the article either. Moreover, still a smaller impact. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
No Child Left Behind
Highway Bill 2005
Farm Bill 2008
Energy Policy act of 2005 All smaller impacts than the Bush tax cuts and the wars. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
Medicare Part D We already covered this twice in this discussion. For the third time, the explanation of the non-inclusion of Medicare Part D is explained on p. 10 of the article. Are you going to mention it again in ten posts? They *explained* why they didn't include it BUT THEY STILL SHOULD HAVE. It wasn't a good excuse! It wasn't an excuse. They said they did not include the costs because they could not estimate them with the same confidence as the rest. What are they supposed to do, guess the numbers, cross fingers and hope they're right? Brilliant. Just use the CBO numbers. It is not hard. They explained the problem with the CBO numbers. It's not hard to read. On September 02 2012 01:54 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
The programs I listed were in total comparable to the Bush tax cuts. There was NO context of the article to not include this stuff. They did not specify that they were only looking at individual programs. Hey, as long as we're counting stuff together, why not simply consider all policies together, including the wars and the Bush tax cuts? That will allow for a great analysis of which policies had the biggest impact, right? Why not leave big items separate and aggregate small items? It would give the complete picture. The only reason to separate the big items from the rest of the spending is to study the policies with the biggest impact. If you want an actual complete picture, you shouldn't aggregate small items, you should study each and every single policy separately. You seem to desperately want to be reading an article that does something different than what this one wants to do. On September 02 2012 01:54 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
This is really, really stupid on your end. You can't ignore $400B+ because it doesn't fall into arbitrary (and BAD) constraints that you have dreamed up after the fact. Yeah, "arbitrary constraints" like "being a new policy" - what the article was about. I love how your complaint about the article is that they don't do what you want them to do instead of what they wanted to do. It's like someone yelling at the weatherman because he's not giving you the latest news on sports. The article was about the causes of the deficit. They use that word. You cannot have an honest article about causes where only some causes are listed as the total cause. "Being an new policy" is not what the article was about. It was about the causes of the deficit. The causes. That's why they included "Economic downturn" - obviously economic downturn is not a "new policy"!!! The article was about the Bush-era and Obama-era policies bearing the most responsibility for the deficit. It's stated in the very first paragraph. You quoted it, why not read it? This graph is stating that the factors within it caused the deficit. No where in the article do they couch that statement by stating that they are only looking at large individual programs. That makes it factually inaccurate. There is no other interpretation. No, it says the factors within it contributed to the deficit - there is absolutely nothing factually inaccurate about this. The article does say they are looking at Bush-era policies and Obama-era policies. The Bush tax cuts and the wars are the single policies with the highest impact. How else does this need to be explained to you? Or, more to the point, how many times? Show nested quote +On September 02 2012 03:30 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
Within the article they state that using a baseline for discretionary spending that grows with inflation is a valid baseline. Yet they ignore the increases in discretionary spending under Bush that exceeded just such a baseline. Discriminatory spending is not a policy. Could you maybe print down those five words and put them on the wall above your computer so that I don't have to repeat them again? Show nested quote +On September 02 2012 03:30 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
I'm done debating this with you. If you want to live in a world where data can be manipulated for arbitrary reasons then have fun with that. I want to live in a world where people are able to read an article and a graph (and understand what a policy is). Apparently that was too much to ask.
Lol a tax cut package that contains many changes the the tax code, some of which are supported by Obama and some which are not, should no more be singled out as an individual thing than the amalgamation of spending decisions which contain both supported and disputed elements.
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On September 02 2012 04:36 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2012 04:11 kwizach wrote:On September 02 2012 03:30 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 02 2012 03:08 kwizach wrote:On September 02 2012 01:54 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 02 2012 01:42 kwizach wrote:On September 02 2012 00:27 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 02 2012 00:19 kwizach wrote:On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 01 2012 21:39 kwizach wrote:
[quote]
Aside from the fact that your question does not answer my point, discretionary spending can increase because of changes in the environment that necessitate budget increases to achieve the same policy goals that were decided earlier.
Now, to re-interate my point, "discretionary spending" is not a policy. The article studies policies. Using "discretionary spending" as a category does not allow for the kind of analysis that the article is interested in. What changes in the environment are going to amount to $400B+? That's a bit more than inflation. I know you like to constantly dodge arguments, but the point is that discretionary spending increase does not simply equate to new policy decisions. Therefore you have to provide policies. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
Increasing discretionary spending IS a policy. You do not have to do it. You can leave it as it is as a policy decision. That's what makes it discretionary. Discretionary spending is a kind of spending. It makes no sense in the context of the article to study its increase as a policy decision in itself. Again, by that logic, you can argue that "spending" is a policy decision, and put all government spending on the graph under a single label. Is that relevant in the context of the analysis? No. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
But since you insist on individual things here are a few...
Department of Homeland Security Not necessarily an entirely new policy, since previous existing agencies were included in the new DHS. Not quite a policy in the context of the article either. Moreover, still a smaller impact. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
No Child Left Behind
Highway Bill 2005
Farm Bill 2008
Energy Policy act of 2005 All smaller impacts than the Bush tax cuts and the wars. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
Medicare Part D We already covered this twice in this discussion. For the third time, the explanation of the non-inclusion of Medicare Part D is explained on p. 10 of the article. Are you going to mention it again in ten posts? They *explained* why they didn't include it BUT THEY STILL SHOULD HAVE. It wasn't a good excuse! It wasn't an excuse. They said they did not include the costs because they could not estimate them with the same confidence as the rest. What are they supposed to do, guess the numbers, cross fingers and hope they're right? Brilliant. Just use the CBO numbers. It is not hard. They explained the problem with the CBO numbers. It's not hard to read. On September 02 2012 01:54 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
The programs I listed were in total comparable to the Bush tax cuts. There was NO context of the article to not include this stuff. They did not specify that they were only looking at individual programs. Hey, as long as we're counting stuff together, why not simply consider all policies together, including the wars and the Bush tax cuts? That will allow for a great analysis of which policies had the biggest impact, right? Why not leave big items separate and aggregate small items? It would give the complete picture. The only reason to separate the big items from the rest of the spending is to study the policies with the biggest impact. If you want an actual complete picture, you shouldn't aggregate small items, you should study each and every single policy separately. You seem to desperately want to be reading an article that does something different than what this one wants to do. On September 02 2012 01:54 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
This is really, really stupid on your end. You can't ignore $400B+ because it doesn't fall into arbitrary (and BAD) constraints that you have dreamed up after the fact. Yeah, "arbitrary constraints" like "being a new policy" - what the article was about. I love how your complaint about the article is that they don't do what you want them to do instead of what they wanted to do. It's like someone yelling at the weatherman because he's not giving you the latest news on sports. The article was about the causes of the deficit. They use that word. You cannot have an honest article about causes where only some causes are listed as the total cause. "Being an new policy" is not what the article was about. It was about the causes of the deficit. The causes. That's why they included "Economic downturn" - obviously economic downturn is not a "new policy"!!! The article was about the Bush-era and Obama-era policies bearing the most responsibility for the deficit. It's stated in the very first paragraph. You quoted it, why not read it? This graph is stating that the factors within it caused the deficit. No where in the article do they couch that statement by stating that they are only looking at large individual programs. That makes it factually inaccurate. There is no other interpretation. No, it says the factors within it contributed to the deficit - there is absolutely nothing factually inaccurate about this. The article does say they are looking at Bush-era policies and Obama-era policies. The Bush tax cuts and the wars are the single policies with the highest impact. How else does this need to be explained to you? Or, more to the point, how many times? On September 02 2012 03:30 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
Within the article they state that using a baseline for discretionary spending that grows with inflation is a valid baseline. Yet they ignore the increases in discretionary spending under Bush that exceeded just such a baseline. Discriminatory spending is not a policy. Could you maybe print down those five words and put them on the wall above your computer so that I don't have to repeat them again? On September 02 2012 03:30 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
I'm done debating this with you. If you want to live in a world where data can be manipulated for arbitrary reasons then have fun with that. I want to live in a world where people are able to read an article and a graph (and understand what a policy is). Apparently that was too much to ask. Lol a tax cut package that contains many changes the the tax code, some of which are supported by Obama and some which are not, should no more be singled out as an individual thing than the amalgamation of spending decisions which contain both supported and disputed elements.
It can, it is and it should. That's why they're called the Bush tax cuts and not "the amalgamation of policy decisions that have absolutely nothing to do with each other whatsoever except for entailing spending or loss of revenue".
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On September 02 2012 05:09 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2012 04:36 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 02 2012 04:11 kwizach wrote:On September 02 2012 03:30 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 02 2012 03:08 kwizach wrote:On September 02 2012 01:54 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 02 2012 01:42 kwizach wrote:On September 02 2012 00:27 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 02 2012 00:19 kwizach wrote:On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
[quote]
What changes in the environment are going to amount to $400B+? That's a bit more than inflation. I know you like to constantly dodge arguments, but the point is that discretionary spending increase does not simply equate to new policy decisions. Therefore you have to provide policies. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
Increasing discretionary spending IS a policy. You do not have to do it. You can leave it as it is as a policy decision. That's what makes it discretionary. Discretionary spending is a kind of spending. It makes no sense in the context of the article to study its increase as a policy decision in itself. Again, by that logic, you can argue that "spending" is a policy decision, and put all government spending on the graph under a single label. Is that relevant in the context of the analysis? No. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
But since you insist on individual things here are a few...
Department of Homeland Security Not necessarily an entirely new policy, since previous existing agencies were included in the new DHS. Not quite a policy in the context of the article either. Moreover, still a smaller impact. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
No Child Left Behind
Highway Bill 2005
Farm Bill 2008
Energy Policy act of 2005 All smaller impacts than the Bush tax cuts and the wars. On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
Medicare Part D We already covered this twice in this discussion. For the third time, the explanation of the non-inclusion of Medicare Part D is explained on p. 10 of the article. Are you going to mention it again in ten posts? They *explained* why they didn't include it BUT THEY STILL SHOULD HAVE. It wasn't a good excuse! It wasn't an excuse. They said they did not include the costs because they could not estimate them with the same confidence as the rest. What are they supposed to do, guess the numbers, cross fingers and hope they're right? Brilliant. Just use the CBO numbers. It is not hard. They explained the problem with the CBO numbers. It's not hard to read. On September 02 2012 01:54 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
The programs I listed were in total comparable to the Bush tax cuts. There was NO context of the article to not include this stuff. They did not specify that they were only looking at individual programs. Hey, as long as we're counting stuff together, why not simply consider all policies together, including the wars and the Bush tax cuts? That will allow for a great analysis of which policies had the biggest impact, right? Why not leave big items separate and aggregate small items? It would give the complete picture. The only reason to separate the big items from the rest of the spending is to study the policies with the biggest impact. If you want an actual complete picture, you shouldn't aggregate small items, you should study each and every single policy separately. You seem to desperately want to be reading an article that does something different than what this one wants to do. On September 02 2012 01:54 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 02 2012 00:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
This is really, really stupid on your end. You can't ignore $400B+ because it doesn't fall into arbitrary (and BAD) constraints that you have dreamed up after the fact. Yeah, "arbitrary constraints" like "being a new policy" - what the article was about. I love how your complaint about the article is that they don't do what you want them to do instead of what they wanted to do. It's like someone yelling at the weatherman because he's not giving you the latest news on sports. The article was about the causes of the deficit. They use that word. You cannot have an honest article about causes where only some causes are listed as the total cause. "Being an new policy" is not what the article was about. It was about the causes of the deficit. The causes. That's why they included "Economic downturn" - obviously economic downturn is not a "new policy"!!! The article was about the Bush-era and Obama-era policies bearing the most responsibility for the deficit. It's stated in the very first paragraph. You quoted it, why not read it? This graph is stating that the factors within it caused the deficit. No where in the article do they couch that statement by stating that they are only looking at large individual programs. That makes it factually inaccurate. There is no other interpretation. No, it says the factors within it contributed to the deficit - there is absolutely nothing factually inaccurate about this. The article does say they are looking at Bush-era policies and Obama-era policies. The Bush tax cuts and the wars are the single policies with the highest impact. How else does this need to be explained to you? Or, more to the point, how many times? On September 02 2012 03:30 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
Within the article they state that using a baseline for discretionary spending that grows with inflation is a valid baseline. Yet they ignore the increases in discretionary spending under Bush that exceeded just such a baseline. Discriminatory spending is not a policy. Could you maybe print down those five words and put them on the wall above your computer so that I don't have to repeat them again? On September 02 2012 03:30 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
I'm done debating this with you. If you want to live in a world where data can be manipulated for arbitrary reasons then have fun with that. I want to live in a world where people are able to read an article and a graph (and understand what a policy is). Apparently that was too much to ask. Lol a tax cut package that contains many changes the the tax code, some of which are supported by Obama and some which are not, should no more be singled out as an individual thing than the amalgamation of spending decisions which contain both supported and disputed elements. It can, it is and it should. That's why they're called the Bush tax cuts and not "the amalgamation of policy decisions that have absolutely nothing to do with each other whatsoever except for entailing spending or loss of revenue".
It doesn't matter if they are have anything to do with each other. What matters is if they increase the deficit. That's the only thing that should be in question.
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2nd Worst City in CA8938 Posts
On September 02 2012 04:24 Doublemint wrote:
lol this debate about the graph is still going and with the same arguments over and over again... fascinating.
On a different note - did anyone else find the Clint Eastwood bit insanely weird?
This guy is a living legend and I don't care about his political stances, but giving himself for something strange like that was not a highpoint in my opinion...
I don't know, I genuinely enjoyed it. He got me laughing quite a bit.
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On September 02 2012 01:01 ziggurat wrote:Show nested quote +On September 01 2012 20:07 BallinWitStalin wrote:
I was watching last night, and one thing astounded me. The Daily Show put together an "autobiography" narrated by Leonard Nemoy (which was pretty funny and well done, but beside the point). Anyhow, during the clip-show they ran clips with Romney quotes on issues of Gun Control, Abortion, Romneycare, etc., where he literally says the complete opposite of what he's said in the debates.
This is a pretty fair criticism, although its one you could make about almost any politician. But in a way his malleability makes Romney more appealing to me. He's not an extremist; he's not an ideologue. I don't really care what Romney actually believes about gun control or abortion. The issue I care about is the economy. (I'm not even an American but it's good for everyone if the US economy is strong) Romney is extremely smart, and he's extremely hard-working, and he's a problem-solver. He's not going to implement policies because he believes in them on an ideological level -- he's going to implement them because he thinks that they'll get the job done. I think the US could use some policies that actually work right about now!
Here's the problem with that. I actually agree that Romney is not an extremist - but he also doesn't have anything approaching the backbone he'd need to stare his own party down if they won control of Congress and the nutbar laws started coming down the way. It's probably all good for someone in Canada to say "as long as he fixes the economy that's fine" but you aren't the one who'd have to deal with Republican-shaped social policy, so you'll forgive me if I take that statement with a grain of salt.
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Canada11512 Posts
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Romney promises not to cut from any part of what is the largest part of the budget, defense spending. Really? As a conservative I feel like this rabid defense of defense spending is out of hand. The national security issues we have won't be solved by more defense spending. There are definitely ways to reduce spending without reducing effectiveness. Joke vote pandering. Just as bad as the "we won't touch social security" bullshit.
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EPT
