Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting!
NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source.
On October 08 2024 08:22 BlackJack wrote: Kamala's not just doing "Call Her Daddy" Podcast. She's also going to be on Howard Stern, The View, and Late Nite with Stephen Colbert. Of course there are lots of serious journalists that would love an opportunity to interview Kamala. It would be nice if she gave as much attention to answering questions from the press as she does to giving softball interviews with podcasters that are happy to cheerlead for her.
60 Minutes isn't a serious interview? Trump backed out of it, too.
60 Minutes is very friendly territory and not a serious interview. Case in point, it was discovered that 60 Minutes edited the interview to delete a wordy non-answer and make her appear more competent:
Obviously this kind of dishonest editing would never be extended to someone like Sarah Palin who is also known for giving nonsensical answers.
This is the same program that ran a hit piece on George Bush using documents it failed to authenticate which ended up costing Dan Rather his career.
They also tried to run a ridiculous hit piece on DeSantis accusing him of partnering with a large grocer/pharmacy to assist with the vaccine rollout because they donated to him. The mayor of the city where this happened and the director of Florida's Division of Emergency Management both came out and said the story was malarkey and DeSantis's office never even recommended this pharmacy. Both of them are Democrats by the way.
It's really a shame because 60 Minutes used to be one of the most esteemed programs in television history and it was quite literally the #1 show in the country for many years. Now it's just another example of why people have lost trust in the mainstream media to tell the truth. Selectively editing an interview to make a candidate look more favorably is not journalism, it's propaganda.
Which goes back to what I said originally, there is a reason she is doing interviews with Call Her Daddy, Howard Stern, Stephen Colbert and the ladies on the View and why she doesn't take questions from the press. She's VP because she was chosen to balance the ticket, not for her ability to govern or answer questions.
I can't speak to any hit pieces or editing/splicing of questions/answers, but I'll post the entire ~21-minute clip that 60 Minutes posted on their YouTube channel. I don't know where I can access more of the interview footage.
I think these interview questions were tough but fair. I think Harris's answers were generally evasive and weaker compared to some of her other interviews and discussions. I think the interviewer did a pretty good job of pushing back on Harris when she dodged questions. I give Harris credit for going through with the interview, but it was definitely a rough one for her. I also agree with you that she's generally not amazing at interviews; I think she appears strongest when on stage with someone significantly weaker and dumber (like Trump), so that a contrast can be drawn on a relative scale. I'm not at all surprised that Trump dodged an interview with this level of questioning.
Apparently, exactly 8 years ago (10/9/16) was the second Trump vs. Clinton debate, where the chyron at the bottom of the screen read "Question To Trump: Do You Understand That You Bragged About Sexually Assaulting Women?" https://imgur.com/a/1kQn3kt
On October 08 2024 06:21 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: [quote]
It was pretty well-established, even among the Republicans, that Trump's "they're eating the dogs" meltdown during the debate was an embarrassment. There's nothing wrong with milking that for all it's worth, and - again - that's not stopping the rallies and interviews and other points being made. It doesn't hurt to occasionally remind the voters of the mistakes your opponent makes.
And yes, bickering with BJ* and oBlade does happen a lot, but it's not like there are conservatives on this forum proposing great, substantive ideas for policy. (I would imagine it's because the leader of the Republican party doesn't have many of those either.) There are still discussions about other important issues, and "important" is subjective; I'm sure a lot of people roll their eyes when we end up having yet another "GH vs. Capitalism" conversation that goes on for several pages, even if some people consider it a legitimately useful topic.
*BJ spent multiple posts denying that Trump meant "murder", even though he said "murder", only to eventually concede that Trump probably only meant "second-degree murder" and that the metaphor stops it from technically being first-degree murder, so it does indeed appear to have been a fruitless discussion about semantics with him:
[quote]
Neat. I'm satisfied.
Actually this back and forth is a good reason why people who don't agree with dem policy positions don't really post about them. Sure, it's time consuming and can be less fun, but as we see here, some people are simply incapable of giving their opponents even the slightly benefit of the doubt or believing that they hold their positions in good faith. If a right-leaning poster argues for, say, a way to reduce debt that doesn't address every progressives wishlist item then really that person is just a shill who wants billionaires to run everything and believe that everyone who is poor deserves to be poor and powerless. And something like the debt, when taken as a topic by itself, is about the most boring thing you can talk about. Now imagine trying to talk about healthcare, the middle east, or anything else. You seem to think that discussing policy would be less rancorous, but given the way the left views policy disagreements (as moral failures) it can be even worse.
We can literally test this right now Please explain what you believe would be the best way to reduce our national debt, and why you think it would be effective.
From what I read the first thing that needs to happen is to simply stabilize debt as a percentage of GDP. We can theoretically never have a balanced budget (and even have an always increasing debt) but still be ok so long as the portion of the economy that it takes up remains constant. There can be modest tax hikes, but for deficits of the size we are running now (and what types of spending are going to be main debt drivers in the future) it simply is not possible to tax your way out, and it has diminishing returns. The big elephants in the room is Social Security and Medicare (this is where things get controversial). But first the government needs to rein in spending during the normal part of the cycle where is should be giving itself a cushion for hard times. Unfortunately, neither major party nominee has a *serious* plan to fix this. Federal spending exploded during COVID... not just in one time expenditures, but almost every department had its regular, baseline budget significantly increased. COVID is over, but the government spends a higher percentage of GDP now then it did before. In 2018 it was ~19%. During COVID it was 30%, even now it's 22% (after the 2009 crisis it was 24%). And both parties have plans to spend even more. So that's the main problem, the exact dollar amount isn't as concerning as the trendline, interest payments, and the crowding out effect.
Edit: Those are net outlays btw, numbers are slightly different gross. looks a little better actually, or more accurately it's barely changed since the end of the financial crisis ~34%). However *debt* as a % of GDP is going up like crazy. Maybe I should have led with that lol
Thanks for taking the time to write out your thoughts. I'm not very well versed on our national debt / federal spending, so I'd like to ask for some clarity.
"From what I read the first thing that needs to happen is to simply stabilize debt as a percentage of GDP." That makes sense to me. Is there a target percent in mind that we ought to stabilize at? I found a site that's mapped out that data from 1948 onward: https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/national-debt/ It's one of the gray graphs - the one with the title "Federal Debt Trends Over Time, FY 1948 – 2023; Debt to Gross Domestic Product (GDP)".
"The big elephants in the room is Social Security and Medicare (this is where things get controversial)." Those definitely appear to be two of the biggest elephants, yeah. I found a source that says that the top six biggest costs are Social Security (21%), Medicare (14%), net interest (14%), health (13%), national defense (13%), and income security (10%). It's a gray table found here: https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/
In order to reduce the debt-to-GDP ratio, we could cut spending and/or we could find ways to increase our annual GDP, right? Do you think that increasing our GDP through economic growth alone isn't viable or consistent enough to stabilize the debt-to-GDP ratio? So therefore, we have to cut spending from somewhere? How do we decide what gets cut and what doesn't get cut? I feel like there are probably arguments for/against cutting from everywhere lol; how do we decide?
To the first question, I don't know, people argue about such things. Some people seem to think the US can get to 150-200% debt-to-GDP before things go south. No one really knows for sure though. As for what amount of GDP can government spend before the ill effects add up, I don't know. Memory says people estimate about 30%, but I could be making that number up and confusing it with something else.
The second paragraph shows why so many of the budget fights we have now are fake. Non-defense discretionary spending is all of 14% of total federal spending, and yet that's what Congress spends most of its time arguing about. Republicans are very proud that they were able to get a not-insignificant-but-still-small cut in the growth of spending while still spending more than pre-pandemic. All very silly.
It took a while, but we are finally at the point where left-of-center economists are getting worried about the debt load. Again not an economic historian but the days of explosive growth seem long gone, pick your favorite reason why. But if the economy can't grow faster than the debt does then obviously you can't catch up that way. But that's where choices have to be made. The "cut everywhere" idea is one of Rand Paul's I think, but not a single Democrat or even most Republicans would go for it, though for different reasons. Dems are constantly talking about what government "should" be doing for everyone and it's hard to talk that way while advocating for for cuts. As the party of the state and bureaucracy, they will never go for it. I'm convinced neither party will go for it until a crisis forces compromise. Me? I'd cut most department budgets, but even so, probably more important is to reform how government functions. American bureaucracy is a mishmash of different agencies and rules. A lot of it was created to fulfill political needs. some Senator needs some money or federal help for something he wants (logrolling), or in response to a crisis (e.g. New Deal agencies, of which many mercifully are no longer with us, but its legacy remains in many places). Our administrative apparatus is unwieldly, and while some blame federalism for that, I disagree. More like, much of the Democrat created state suffers from what Ezra Klein calls "everything bagel liberalism" where the state has no capacity to deal with any particular problem because it tries to deal with every problem.
I’ve come to think of this as the problem of everything-bagel liberalism. Everything bagels are, of course, the best bagels. But that is because they add just enough to the bagel and no more. Add too much — as memorably imagined in the Oscar-winning “Everything Everywhere All at Once” — and it becomes a black hole from which nothing, least of all government’s ability to solve hard problems, can escape. And one problem liberals are facing at every level where they govern is that they often add too much. They do so with good intentions and then lament their poor results. (Conservatives, I should say, are not immune from piling on procedure and stricture, but they often do so in a purposeful attempt to make government work poorly, and so failure and inefficiency become a kind of success.)
For the record that last part is wrong, what conservatives will do, which is what every does, is try to get government out of the way when they think government is doing something it shouldn't. No one actually wants the DMV to be slow and annoying to deal with.
That's kind of a tangent though, even moderate reforms to our major entitlement programs would do wonders for our government's money situation. But any suggestion that calls for cuts or changes to systems implemented when people didn't live so many decades beyond retirement is considered cruel by Democrats. Even now Kamala says he plan to deal with debt is to tax the rich, but if you look at projected outlays you see that you can't sustain these programs without European level taxes on the middle class (or even with them IIRC), which NO ONE in America wants. Americans want government smaller in many ways but they also like all the goodies (who wouldn't?). This is why Republicans lose if voters think they will touch entitlements and Democrats lose if voters think their taxes are going up. I think nothing will happen until these crisis moments arise. But as for me, I would reform our biggest spending programs, massively reform how government operates and grants money (this is needed for more reasons that just cash problems). As a political concession I'd allow a tax increase, even though that really would be a small part of fixing the problem.
I'm not sure if I would use the word "fake" when talking about budget cuts to the military, but perhaps "ineffective" or "not impactful enough", if we're talking about ways to meaningfully cut a serious amount of federal spending. (Military spending shouldn't be ignored, but it obviously won't single-handedly solve the debt crisis.) I don't know if Congress spends a disproportionately large amount of time essentially nickel-and-dime-ing the military budget, but I think that all the big pieces of the pie should be examined. That might mean looking for ways to cut spending or address inefficiencies. It may also mean reallocating some resources from one slice to another. If there are ways to update these systems of welfare, healthcare, and military where we can provide equal (or better!) benefits without spending more in the long term, they should be considered.
I worry about the effects of blindly slashing the budget of... any department, really... without first doing the research on what might happen. Rand Paul's "cut everywhere" idea sounds fair at first glance, but I wonder if every department would truly be affected equally if they suddenly lost, say, 10% of their budget, and just had to deal with the consequences. When you say that you'd cut most department budgets, how do you figure out which ones to cut and which ones to leave alone? I assume we would hire multiple independent evaluators to assess bloat and wasteful spending in each department, and then make whatever cuts we felt were justified? I wonder if that's way easier said than done, especially when it comes to the (subjective) estimation of what costs are - and are not - a waste of money.
I think the conversations about the federal government's role and what should be left up to the states are really difficult to have. From my perspective, sometimes (not always) the federal government's oversight can help vulnerable Americans and save struggling states, and that's something I think is worth keeping around, even if it costs extra money. There are certain freedoms and benefits to living in one state over another, and it's not necessarily feasible for the disenfranchised to move to the state that works best for them.
But my perspective has the same spending issue that every other perspective seems to have - that everyone (except, I suppose, for Rand Paul) is happy to make exceptions for whatever they deem to be worthy of extra money. For example, you said that conservatives try to get government out of the way when they think government is doing something it shouldn't. I think that extra qualifier is crucial, because conservatives are happy to promote government intervention when it promotes conservative ideals, just as how liberals are happy to promote government intervention when it promotes liberal ideals.
One of Kamala Harris's proposals is indeed to tax the rich, but that's not the only suggestion she's made for boosting our economy, addressing inflation, and finding ways to increase our GDP. And that last part - increasing our GDP - is the other side of this "debt-to-GDP ratio" coin. Some ways to stimulate the economy include: funding programs that create jobs, investing in infrastructure and technology, and educating and refining a skilled workforce. Liberals have historically championed these and presided over stronger economies, as a result. This extra money often helps pay for the more expensive costs of liberal ideals. If we really wanted to chip away at a huge part of the national debt (and I don't know if this should be our number one objective, but assuming it is...), then it seems like we should be leaning more towards the liberal side for boosting our economy, and leaning more towards the conservative side for cutting our costs. I wonder if both are truly possible though, as too little spending can lead to too little stimulation. I also think everyone (including myself) would probably be pissed off at how certain departments and programs and even human rights may be affected.
Here's where we get to the intersection of math and values.
Two of my favorite things
As a conservative my inclination is towards increasing military spending (although like I said before, how they spend money needs serious reform, and Congress is slowly coming around). What I find most interesting about your post is what you didn't follow up on. We both see just from the numbers that the single greatest expenses facing the federal government includes the Military, but also Social Security/Medicare as well as debt service. And as the years go on, those last things are going to take up much, much more of the budget than the military or the administration in any particular department.
I didn't specifically dive into any of those, because I don't know how their money is allocated and where the waste / room for improvement is, but I gave a blanket agreement that all of them should be examined. I also agree with you that the biggest costs and the fastest-increasing costs would definitely need to be assessed if we have a goal of reducing our national debt.
My desire to drastically rework the bureaucracy and bring it into line is not primarily driven by the budget, it's a concern for what the federal government should be doing in the first place. These agencies have not acquitted themselves well recently, and they need a reminder of where their authority actually comes from and what they are permitted to do. Slash every department's budget by 50%, I don't care. It will only delay the crisis that is coming.
This is actually really interesting to me, because it's an opportunity for you to persuade people who might not agree with your premise (that the federal government isn't supposed to be doing X) by appealing to other arguments (our national debt is increasing at an unsustainable rate, we need to examine where and how we allocate money so that we can identify inefficiencies and opportunities for improvement, etc.). There might be some common ground and common goals, although I wouldn't personally be on board with slashing every department's budget by 50%.
The problem of federal/state interaction is summed up nicely in the underreported story of how Dems used their last big COVID slush fund to bail out a bunch of financially precarious union pension plans. They used COVID as a excuse to do do part of what they really wanted to do anyways. Often times when those two sphere overlap they are up to no good.
I'm unfamiliar with this. Would you mind pointing me in the direction of a source that elaborates on it?
One of Kamala Harris's proposals is indeed to tax the rich, but that's not the only suggestion she's made for boosting our economy, addressing inflation, and finding ways to increase our GDP. And that last part - increasing our GDP - is the other side of this "debt-to-GDP ratio" coin. Some ways to stimulate the economy include: funding programs that create jobs, investing in infrastructure and technology, and educating and refining a skilled workforce. Liberals have historically championed these and presided over stronger economies, as a result. This extra money often helps pay for the more expensive costs of liberal ideals. If we really wanted to chip away at a huge part of the national debt (and I don't know if this should be our number one objective, but assuming it is...), then it seems like we should be leaning more towards the liberal side for boosting our economy, and leaning more towards the conservative side for cutting our costs. I wonder if both are truly possible though, as too little spending can lead to too little stimulation. I also think everyone (including myself) would probably be pissed off at how certain departments and programs and even human rights may be affected.
Did you look at the opinion piece I linked?
It was behind a paywall, but I read the excerpt that you pasted.
The problem is the liberal governments spend gobs of money and have an incredibly low return as they fight with themselves. I'm not adverse to funding "infrastructure" (narrowly defined) but we don't know how to do that any more. And of course those programs you listed cost money. Again as someone on the right, my instinct is to get government out of the way, except when necessary, and let the people bring the growth. The multiplier effect of government spending decreases every time it's used. You know how dems love to say that GOP tax cuts never bring in as much revenue as they promise? Well government spending never brings the growth Dems promise.
I'm not sure how easily quantifiable some of these programs' benefits are, in terms of economic growth, and sometimes the return on investment is something intangible or more conceptual or holistic, like a better quality of life. Would those situations be less convincing for you, in terms of whether or not we ought to fund them, compared to something as mathematically solid as "for every $1.00 spent on Program X, we'll make a total of $1.10 over the next five years"?
Besides, we're only talking about the current "level of government" we have now. What happens when the rest of the wish list is added in? Universal healthcare, child care, expanded income security, "green" projects, massive infrastructure projects (all have to be enviro-friendly of course), etc. Dems are currently promising not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $400k. I'd love to know how all of the above is going to be paid for. If they want a European welfare state+, they should tell us what we actually have to pay for it. As an honest person you have to ask why CA, NY, IL, and these other blue states don't do all the things Dems want to do. Why is "California" a watchword for big blue government gone wrong? If all these things "pay for themselves" (an assertion I'm sure is coming) then why haven't they been done? Cali has almost 2/3 the population of Britain or France, why can't it do anything? None of these states have European tax levels, and even dems would lose if they tried it. But I bet even with that type of taxing and spending these states would still fail at it. I have no desire to give the government more money, espeically when they have proven themselves poor stewards of what they have now.
I think different items in that list would be addressed differently. For example, I've heard arguments that universal healthcare would end up saving us money compared to our current system, which would not only improve our quality of life, but help address one of the big contributors to the national debt.
The upfront cost of subsidizing childcare can also be made back by the fact that parents can continue working at their jobs and making more money and spending it on goods and services, further stimulating the economy. (I have colleagues who literally quit their teaching jobs when they had babies, because the cost of childcare is just about as much as their salaries.)
Green/environmental projects are arguably more proactive than reactive; the idea here is that properly preparing for the realities of climate change by spending some money now, will end up saving way more money in the long run, because it'll be far more expensive for us to repeatedly fix things that could have been made unbreakable or much harder to break.
I don't know enough about California to comment on it.
I now realize I should have asked you this question a few posts ago: What do you think the federal government should be responsible for taking care of, and which national programs/departments do you believe should be dismantled and relegated to the states?
Re: whether or not you should be concerned. For a long time there was attitude on the center-left to ingore it or push it aside for now, but the past while (basically since the economy started coming back from COVID) it's been getting more attention. Of great concern is the fact that we are spending now when times are good (I'll accept that premise for sake of argument) and not leaving much room for the next crisis.
I can understand your perspective that saving money - instead of spending it - "when times are good" makes sense, because that is when it's most convenient and feasible to save. Saving money during a crisis is surely not as feasible!
I can also understand the perspective that spending money "when times are good" is precisely when we can make real progress and meaningful change in some areas, since spending during a crisis is often times done to merely stay afloat and undo the negatives, not produce more positives. If someone is content with returning to the status quo, then this isn't really a concern for them; if someone believes that we should strive to do better and be better, then taking advantage of the good times may provide an opportunity to create the great times.
I also think there's a potential loop or wave to consider, in your premise: How did the good times happen in the first place? Surely some (most? all?) of it was a result of spending? Or was there some other non-financial mechanism that created the good times? If the good times are caused by spending money in certain areas, and then we pull back on spending money because the times are good, then the times will worsen, and then we'll need to spend money to bring the times up from bad to good again, until we decide to stop spending and allow the times to worsen again, and so on. (I'm thinking of a sine function that keeps oscillating up and down and up and down... we don't want to drop down to the same minimum every time, and only reach the same maximum every time... we want both the peaks and valleys to gradually move upwards, so that the next cycle is - overall - a little bit higher and better than the previous cycle.)
I wish there was more common ground, but I'm afraid I don't see one in the immediate future, Dems are now so thoroughly the party of government it's hard to imagine it. but I think the failures of the high speed internet roll out, or the charging station stories that have been int he news could be slow catalysts to at least narrow down what government does to one thing at a time. For no other reason than it's simply embarrassing. My 50% was just making a point, wrt the debt the cost of the bureaucracy is not directly financial, it has more to do with a department or agency's scope and power.
The union bailout is just such a good example of how we are incapable of learning anything. These pension promises were made when times were good and no one thought they would end. now the taxpayer has to pick up the tab.
$1.9 trillion stimulus bill that cleared the Senate on Saturday is an $86 billion aid package that has nothing to do with the pandemic. Rather, the $86 billion is a taxpayer bailout for about 185 union pension plans that are so close to collapse that without the rescue, more than a million retired truck drivers, retail clerks, builders and others could be forced to forgo retirement income. The bailout targets multiemployer pension plans, which bring groups of companies together with a union to provide guaranteed benefits. All told, about 1,400 of the plans cover about 10.7 million active and retired workers, often in fields like construction or entertainment where the workers move from job to job. As the work force ages, an alarming number of the plans are running out of money. The trend predated the pandemic and is a result of fading unions, serial bankruptcies and the misplaced hope that investment income would foot most of the bill so that employers and workers wouldn’t have to. Both the House and Senate stimulus measures would give the weakest plans enough money to pay hundreds of thousands of retirees — a number that will grow in the future — their full pensions for the next 30 years. The provision does not require the plans to pay back the bailout, freeze accruals or to end the practices that led to their current distress, which means their troubles could recur. Nor does it explain what will happen when the taxpayer money runs out 30 years from now.
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Using taxpayer dollars to bail out pension plans is almost unheard-of. Previous proposals to rescue the dying multiemployer plans called for the Treasury to make them 30-year loans, not send them no-strings-attached cash. Other efforts have called for the plans to cut some people’s benefits to conserve their dwindling money — such as widow’s pensions, early retirement subsidies and pensions promised by companies that subsequently left their pools. The federal government does provide a backstop for certain failing pension plans through the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, which acts like an insurer and makes companies pay premiums, but does not get taxpayer dollars. Currently, the pension agency has separate insurance programs for single-employer and multiemployer pensions. The single-employer program is in good shape, but the multiemployer program is fragile. As of 2017, the country’s 1,400 or so multiemployer pension plans had a total shortfall of $673 billion. One huge Teamster plan, in particular, is expected to go broke in 2025, and when the pension agency starts paying pensions to its nearly 200,000 retirees, its multiemployer insurance program will go broke, too, according to the agency itself. That would leave the roughly 80,000 other union retirees whose pensions the agency now pays without their payouts. The new legislation changes that. It calls for the Treasury to set up an $86 billion fund at the pension agency, using general revenues. The agency would be required to keep the money separate from the funds it uses for normal operations. It would use the new money to make grants to qualifying pension plans, allowing them to pay their retirees. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that 185 plans were likely to receive assistance, but as many as 336 might under certain circumstances. The grants are intended to pay the retirees their full pensions, a much better deal than the pension agency’s regular multiemployer pension insurance, which is limited by statute to $12,870 per year. Many retirees in the soon-to-be rescued plans have earned pensions greater than that. The taxpayer money will also be used to restore any pensions that were cut in a 2014 initiative that tried to revive troubled plans by trimming certain people’s pensions. The stimulus bills — there is a House version and a Senate version that have minor differences — call for the affected retirees to get whatever money was withheld over the past six years. The legislation requires the troubled plans to keep their grant money in investment-grade bonds, and bars them from commingling it with their other resources. But beyond that, the bill would not change the funds’ investment strategies, which are widely seen as a cause of their trouble. For decades, multiemployer pensions were said to be safe because the participating companies all backstopped each other. If one company went under, the others had to cover the orphaned retirees. Because they were considered so safe, multiemployer pensions never got much oversight. While companies that run their pension plans solo must follow strict federal funding rules, multiemployer plans do not have to. Instead, the companies and unions hammer out their own funding rules in collective bargaining. Both sides want to keep the contributions low — the employers to reduce labor costs, and the unions to free up more money for current wages. As a result, many of the plans have gone for years promising benefits without setting aside enough money to pay for them. In hopes of making up for the low contributions, the plans often invest unduly aggressively for their workers’ advancing age. In bear markets they lose a lot of money, and they can’t ask the employers to chip in more because the employers are often struggling themselves. The new legislation does nothing to change that dynamic. “These plans are uniquely unable to raise their contributions,” said Mr. Naughton, whose clients included multiemployer plans when he was a practicing actuary. “When things go well, the participants get the benefits. If things go badly, they turn to the government to make it work.”“Imagine that you have a college-aged kid who runs up $1,500 in credit card debt,” said James P. Naughton, an actuary now teaching at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business. “If you give him $1,500 and you don’t do anything else, the odds that the problem is going to get fixed are pretty low.” At the same time, Republicans assailed it as a union handout masquerading as pandemic relief. They have tried to turn the provision, which would benefit only union workers and retirees, into a political liability for Democrats. “Just to show you how bad this bill is, there’s more money in this to bail out union pension funds than all the money combined for vaccine distribution and testing,” Senator Bill Hagerty, a Tennessee Republican, said last week.
This doesn't even touch the problems with public sector pensions, a problem that, Surprise!, California has in its future as well.
Thank you for the source, and thank you for pasting the article so that I can read it outside of the paywall It appears you're referring to the American Rescue Plan Act, and that $86 billion of the $1.9 trillion was used to cover the pensions of millions of active and retired workers. Based on the parts of the article that you've bolded, here's my interpretation of what is - and isn't - your issue with this: I don't think you have an issue with workers generally receiving payment or pensions or retirement accounts, as long as the employers who are promising them can provide them by budgeting accordingly. I do think you have an issue with companies overpromising, underdelivering, and needing the government to bail them out with blank checks. Is that a reasonably accurate interpretation of how you feel about this? (I promise I'm not trying to strawman you.)
Assuming the above interpretation is reasonably accurate, I pretty much agree with you. At the very least, there should be a huge amount of oversight and documentation about what the heck happened and how it got so bad. There should be some accountability and changes to make sure it doesn't happen again. For example, some pension systems that are becoming underfunded will transparently update their new retirement policies with fewer benefits every decade or so, to let prospective employees know exactly what they'd be signing up for (while current/older employees are grandfathered into the original system they signed up for). It's not pretty, but at least the newest employees wouldn't be expecting a ton of additional coverage when they only signed up for a smaller amount.
See, I knew you would claim all those things you want would pay for themselves To which, again, the question is that if they do, how come it hasn't happened yet? You are right that I don't think it's the governments role to do anything at all with daycare except basic health and safety. But in some ways the argument is on my side. Why haven't these states done it? is the payoff too far into the future? Is it not politically viable? There's just no way to do any of this stuff without massive tax hikes but dems just demagogue billionaires instead. Then again, they've been doing that since at least William Jennings Bryan, through FDR, and up until the present day.
I don't think all of those proposals you listed would pay for themselves; I did note that the green/environmental ideas were probably more focused on spending a little now compared to a lot later, by proactively and preemptively preparing and mitigating the worse/worst scenarios that would eventually happen. But as to the proposals that I did say would likely break even, I think there are a variety of answers to your question of "how come it hasn't happened yet": Some Congresspeople might not believe the numbers. Some Congresspeople might think the short-term losses aren't worth the long-term gains. Some Congresspeople might be sincerely happy with the current system. Some Congresspeople might not care. Some Congresspeople might worry that their constituents would be angry. Some Congresspeople might be more loyal to lobbies and companies that benefit from those improvements not happening. Some Congresspeople might be uneasy about making such a large policy change, in case it fails (the devil you know vs. the devil you don't).
I'm also generally uneasy about a question like "If X is such a good thing to do, then why aren't we already doing it". Putting aside the fact that Congress is very bad at working together and legislating anything these days, it's also important to note that just about every good thing that we currently do was, at some point, something that we used to not do. Then we figured it out. Sometimes it takes a while for us to realize that we're not doing something well, or that we're currently doing something stupid. You and I would agree that ending slavery was good, but I could imagine a pre- Civil War slaveowner posing the question "If ending slavery was such a good idea, then why hasn't it already happened?" The answer, of course, is because enough people didn't know or didn't care or didn't value the lives of slaves or enjoyed benefitting from slavery or had a million other reasons, and then society gradually progressed, and then the country was at the point where it became "better late than never" to end slavery. There are countless other examples; we eventually figured out that women should be allowed to vote, despite them not being eligible in the 1800s, so we updated the law. We might eventually figure out that Medicare For All (or some other proposed healthcare system) is ideal for our country, despite it currently not being used. Change can be scary, but arguing that change shouldn't happen because it hasn't happened yet might not be the best approach. Instead, I think we should be open-minded and weigh the pros and cons of the current situation against the pros and cons of the alternatives.
The one line answer to your question is that the federal government should A) be responsible only for those things that must be done and B) cannot be done by the states. National defense? Yes. Large scale disaster relief? In cooperation with the states. Infrastructure? Sometimes. Child care? No. I am however more in favor states trying different things, which is one reason I keep bringing up these big, rich, blue states. If all this stuff really is good, and really does good for people, then regardless of what someone like me thinks the governments role should be, these programs will expand. Instead, we somehow believe that if 40 million can't do it that 350 million can. Maybe they just need a printing press...
Thank you for answering my question with specific examples. The word "cannot" in your part B is interesting to me; is there a distinction between "cannot be done by the states" and "cannot be done well by the states"? I feel like we could theorize asking a state to take on an absurd burden that only affects that one state anyway, and argue that they could kind of do it, just not nearly as efficiently as the federal government. I'm wondering what kind of wiggle room there is for your part B, in terms of letting the federal government also take care of the things that they can demonstrably do better than individual states. You did say, for example, that large scale disaster relief ought to be a combined effort between the states and the federal government. I agree with that, but I also worry that it's hard to figure out how big of a hurricane needs to hit Florida before the federal government ought to help out, from your perspective, and how do we hold Florida responsible and accountable for not budgeting enough money for their own disaster relief when it comes to smaller tropical storms.
I also agree with you that states piloting progressive policies should show receipts of beneficial effects, if we're to implement them at a national level. That's probably the best way to get other Democrats on board. That may not be enough to make Republicans interested, as it'll cost extra money, it'll be expanding the role of the federal government, etc.
On October 08 2024 06:21 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: [quote]
It was pretty well-established, even among the Republicans, that Trump's "they're eating the dogs" meltdown during the debate was an embarrassment. There's nothing wrong with milking that for all it's worth, and - again - that's not stopping the rallies and interviews and other points being made. It doesn't hurt to occasionally remind the voters of the mistakes your opponent makes.
And yes, bickering with BJ* and oBlade does happen a lot, but it's not like there are conservatives on this forum proposing great, substantive ideas for policy. (I would imagine it's because the leader of the Republican party doesn't have many of those either.) There are still discussions about other important issues, and "important" is subjective; I'm sure a lot of people roll their eyes when we end up having yet another "GH vs. Capitalism" conversation that goes on for several pages, even if some people consider it a legitimately useful topic.
*BJ spent multiple posts denying that Trump meant "murder", even though he said "murder", only to eventually concede that Trump probably only meant "second-degree murder" and that the metaphor stops it from technically being first-degree murder, so it does indeed appear to have been a fruitless discussion about semantics with him:
[quote]
Neat. I'm satisfied.
Actually this back and forth is a good reason why people who don't agree with dem policy positions don't really post about them. Sure, it's time consuming and can be less fun, but as we see here, some people are simply incapable of giving their opponents even the slightly benefit of the doubt or believing that they hold their positions in good faith. If a right-leaning poster argues for, say, a way to reduce debt that doesn't address every progressives wishlist item then really that person is just a shill who wants billionaires to run everything and believe that everyone who is poor deserves to be poor and powerless. And something like the debt, when taken as a topic by itself, is about the most boring thing you can talk about. Now imagine trying to talk about healthcare, the middle east, or anything else. You seem to think that discussing policy would be less rancorous, but given the way the left views policy disagreements (as moral failures) it can be even worse.
We can literally test this right now Please explain what you believe would be the best way to reduce our national debt, and why you think it would be effective.
From what I read the first thing that needs to happen is to simply stabilize debt as a percentage of GDP. We can theoretically never have a balanced budget (and even have an always increasing debt) but still be ok so long as the portion of the economy that it takes up remains constant. There can be modest tax hikes, but for deficits of the size we are running now (and what types of spending are going to be main debt drivers in the future) it simply is not possible to tax your way out, and it has diminishing returns. The big elephants in the room is Social Security and Medicare (this is where things get controversial). But first the government needs to rein in spending during the normal part of the cycle where is should be giving itself a cushion for hard times. Unfortunately, neither major party nominee has a *serious* plan to fix this. Federal spending exploded during COVID... not just in one time expenditures, but almost every department had its regular, baseline budget significantly increased. COVID is over, but the government spends a higher percentage of GDP now then it did before. In 2018 it was ~19%. During COVID it was 30%, even now it's 22% (after the 2009 crisis it was 24%). And both parties have plans to spend even more. So that's the main problem, the exact dollar amount isn't as concerning as the trendline, interest payments, and the crowding out effect.
Edit: Those are net outlays btw, numbers are slightly different gross. looks a little better actually, or more accurately it's barely changed since the end of the financial crisis ~34%). However *debt* as a % of GDP is going up like crazy. Maybe I should have led with that lol
Thanks for taking the time to write out your thoughts. I'm not very well versed on our national debt / federal spending, so I'd like to ask for some clarity.
"From what I read the first thing that needs to happen is to simply stabilize debt as a percentage of GDP." That makes sense to me. Is there a target percent in mind that we ought to stabilize at? I found a site that's mapped out that data from 1948 onward: https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/national-debt/ It's one of the gray graphs - the one with the title "Federal Debt Trends Over Time, FY 1948 – 2023; Debt to Gross Domestic Product (GDP)".
"The big elephants in the room is Social Security and Medicare (this is where things get controversial)." Those definitely appear to be two of the biggest elephants, yeah. I found a source that says that the top six biggest costs are Social Security (21%), Medicare (14%), net interest (14%), health (13%), national defense (13%), and income security (10%). It's a gray table found here: https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/
In order to reduce the debt-to-GDP ratio, we could cut spending and/or we could find ways to increase our annual GDP, right? Do you think that increasing our GDP through economic growth alone isn't viable or consistent enough to stabilize the debt-to-GDP ratio? So therefore, we have to cut spending from somewhere? How do we decide what gets cut and what doesn't get cut? I feel like there are probably arguments for/against cutting from everywhere lol; how do we decide?
To the first question, I don't know, people argue about such things. Some people seem to think the US can get to 150-200% debt-to-GDP before things go south. No one really knows for sure though. As for what amount of GDP can government spend before the ill effects add up, I don't know. Memory says people estimate about 30%, but I could be making that number up and confusing it with something else.
The second paragraph shows why so many of the budget fights we have now are fake. Non-defense discretionary spending is all of 14% of total federal spending, and yet that's what Congress spends most of its time arguing about. Republicans are very proud that they were able to get a not-insignificant-but-still-small cut in the growth of spending while still spending more than pre-pandemic. All very silly.
It took a while, but we are finally at the point where left-of-center economists are getting worried about the debt load. Again not an economic historian but the days of explosive growth seem long gone, pick your favorite reason why. But if the economy can't grow faster than the debt does then obviously you can't catch up that way. But that's where choices have to be made. The "cut everywhere" idea is one of Rand Paul's I think, but not a single Democrat or even most Republicans would go for it, though for different reasons. Dems are constantly talking about what government "should" be doing for everyone and it's hard to talk that way while advocating for for cuts. As the party of the state and bureaucracy, they will never go for it. I'm convinced neither party will go for it until a crisis forces compromise. Me? I'd cut most department budgets, but even so, probably more important is to reform how government functions. American bureaucracy is a mishmash of different agencies and rules. A lot of it was created to fulfill political needs. some Senator needs some money or federal help for something he wants (logrolling), or in response to a crisis (e.g. New Deal agencies, of which many mercifully are no longer with us, but its legacy remains in many places). Our administrative apparatus is unwieldly, and while some blame federalism for that, I disagree. More like, much of the Democrat created state suffers from what Ezra Klein calls "everything bagel liberalism" where the state has no capacity to deal with any particular problem because it tries to deal with every problem.
I’ve come to think of this as the problem of everything-bagel liberalism. Everything bagels are, of course, the best bagels. But that is because they add just enough to the bagel and no more. Add too much — as memorably imagined in the Oscar-winning “Everything Everywhere All at Once” — and it becomes a black hole from which nothing, least of all government’s ability to solve hard problems, can escape. And one problem liberals are facing at every level where they govern is that they often add too much. They do so with good intentions and then lament their poor results. (Conservatives, I should say, are not immune from piling on procedure and stricture, but they often do so in a purposeful attempt to make government work poorly, and so failure and inefficiency become a kind of success.)
For the record that last part is wrong, what conservatives will do, which is what every does, is try to get government out of the way when they think government is doing something it shouldn't. No one actually wants the DMV to be slow and annoying to deal with.
That's kind of a tangent though, even moderate reforms to our major entitlement programs would do wonders for our government's money situation. But any suggestion that calls for cuts or changes to systems implemented when people didn't live so many decades beyond retirement is considered cruel by Democrats. Even now Kamala says he plan to deal with debt is to tax the rich, but if you look at projected outlays you see that you can't sustain these programs without European level taxes on the middle class (or even with them IIRC), which NO ONE in America wants. Americans want government smaller in many ways but they also like all the goodies (who wouldn't?). This is why Republicans lose if voters think they will touch entitlements and Democrats lose if voters think their taxes are going up. I think nothing will happen until these crisis moments arise. But as for me, I would reform our biggest spending programs, massively reform how government operates and grants money (this is needed for more reasons that just cash problems). As a political concession I'd allow a tax increase, even though that really would be a small part of fixing the problem.
I'm not sure if I would use the word "fake" when talking about budget cuts to the military, but perhaps "ineffective" or "not impactful enough", if we're talking about ways to meaningfully cut a serious amount of federal spending. (Military spending shouldn't be ignored, but it obviously won't single-handedly solve the debt crisis.) I don't know if Congress spends a disproportionately large amount of time essentially nickel-and-dime-ing the military budget, but I think that all the big pieces of the pie should be examined. That might mean looking for ways to cut spending or address inefficiencies. It may also mean reallocating some resources from one slice to another. If there are ways to update these systems of welfare, healthcare, and military where we can provide equal (or better!) benefits without spending more in the long term, they should be considered.
I worry about the effects of blindly slashing the budget of... any department, really... without first doing the research on what might happen. Rand Paul's "cut everywhere" idea sounds fair at first glance, but I wonder if every department would truly be affected equally if they suddenly lost, say, 10% of their budget, and just had to deal with the consequences. When you say that you'd cut most department budgets, how do you figure out which ones to cut and which ones to leave alone? I assume we would hire multiple independent evaluators to assess bloat and wasteful spending in each department, and then make whatever cuts we felt were justified? I wonder if that's way easier said than done, especially when it comes to the (subjective) estimation of what costs are - and are not - a waste of money.
I think the conversations about the federal government's role and what should be left up to the states are really difficult to have. From my perspective, sometimes (not always) the federal government's oversight can help vulnerable Americans and save struggling states, and that's something I think is worth keeping around, even if it costs extra money. There are certain freedoms and benefits to living in one state over another, and it's not necessarily feasible for the disenfranchised to move to the state that works best for them.
But my perspective has the same spending issue that every other perspective seems to have - that everyone (except, I suppose, for Rand Paul) is happy to make exceptions for whatever they deem to be worthy of extra money. For example, you said that conservatives try to get government out of the way when they think government is doing something it shouldn't. I think that extra qualifier is crucial, because conservatives are happy to promote government intervention when it promotes conservative ideals, just as how liberals are happy to promote government intervention when it promotes liberal ideals.
One of Kamala Harris's proposals is indeed to tax the rich, but that's not the only suggestion she's made for boosting our economy, addressing inflation, and finding ways to increase our GDP. And that last part - increasing our GDP - is the other side of this "debt-to-GDP ratio" coin. Some ways to stimulate the economy include: funding programs that create jobs, investing in infrastructure and technology, and educating and refining a skilled workforce. Liberals have historically championed these and presided over stronger economies, as a result. This extra money often helps pay for the more expensive costs of liberal ideals. If we really wanted to chip away at a huge part of the national debt (and I don't know if this should be our number one objective, but assuming it is...), then it seems like we should be leaning more towards the liberal side for boosting our economy, and leaning more towards the conservative side for cutting our costs. I wonder if both are truly possible though, as too little spending can lead to too little stimulation. I also think everyone (including myself) would probably be pissed off at how certain departments and programs and even human rights may be affected.
Here's where we get to the intersection of math and values.
Two of my favorite things
As a conservative my inclination is towards increasing military spending (although like I said before, how they spend money needs serious reform, and Congress is slowly coming around). What I find most interesting about your post is what you didn't follow up on. We both see just from the numbers that the single greatest expenses facing the federal government includes the Military, but also Social Security/Medicare as well as debt service. And as the years go on, those last things are going to take up much, much more of the budget than the military or the administration in any particular department.
I didn't specifically dive into any of those, because I don't know how their money is allocated and where the waste / room for improvement is, but I gave a blanket agreement that all of them should be examined. I also agree with you that the biggest costs and the fastest-increasing costs would definitely need to be assessed if we have a goal of reducing our national debt.
My desire to drastically rework the bureaucracy and bring it into line is not primarily driven by the budget, it's a concern for what the federal government should be doing in the first place. These agencies have not acquitted themselves well recently, and they need a reminder of where their authority actually comes from and what they are permitted to do. Slash every department's budget by 50%, I don't care. It will only delay the crisis that is coming.
This is actually really interesting to me, because it's an opportunity for you to persuade people who might not agree with your premise (that the federal government isn't supposed to be doing X) by appealing to other arguments (our national debt is increasing at an unsustainable rate, we need to examine where and how we allocate money so that we can identify inefficiencies and opportunities for improvement, etc.). There might be some common ground and common goals, although I wouldn't personally be on board with slashing every department's budget by 50%.
The problem of federal/state interaction is summed up nicely in the underreported story of how Dems used their last big COVID slush fund to bail out a bunch of financially precarious union pension plans. They used COVID as a excuse to do do part of what they really wanted to do anyways. Often times when those two sphere overlap they are up to no good.
I'm unfamiliar with this. Would you mind pointing me in the direction of a source that elaborates on it?
One of Kamala Harris's proposals is indeed to tax the rich, but that's not the only suggestion she's made for boosting our economy, addressing inflation, and finding ways to increase our GDP. And that last part - increasing our GDP - is the other side of this "debt-to-GDP ratio" coin. Some ways to stimulate the economy include: funding programs that create jobs, investing in infrastructure and technology, and educating and refining a skilled workforce. Liberals have historically championed these and presided over stronger economies, as a result. This extra money often helps pay for the more expensive costs of liberal ideals. If we really wanted to chip away at a huge part of the national debt (and I don't know if this should be our number one objective, but assuming it is...), then it seems like we should be leaning more towards the liberal side for boosting our economy, and leaning more towards the conservative side for cutting our costs. I wonder if both are truly possible though, as too little spending can lead to too little stimulation. I also think everyone (including myself) would probably be pissed off at how certain departments and programs and even human rights may be affected.
Did you look at the opinion piece I linked?
It was behind a paywall, but I read the excerpt that you pasted.
The problem is the liberal governments spend gobs of money and have an incredibly low return as they fight with themselves. I'm not adverse to funding "infrastructure" (narrowly defined) but we don't know how to do that any more. And of course those programs you listed cost money. Again as someone on the right, my instinct is to get government out of the way, except when necessary, and let the people bring the growth. The multiplier effect of government spending decreases every time it's used. You know how dems love to say that GOP tax cuts never bring in as much revenue as they promise? Well government spending never brings the growth Dems promise.
I'm not sure how easily quantifiable some of these programs' benefits are, in terms of economic growth, and sometimes the return on investment is something intangible or more conceptual or holistic, like a better quality of life. Would those situations be less convincing for you, in terms of whether or not we ought to fund them, compared to something as mathematically solid as "for every $1.00 spent on Program X, we'll make a total of $1.10 over the next five years"?
Besides, we're only talking about the current "level of government" we have now. What happens when the rest of the wish list is added in? Universal healthcare, child care, expanded income security, "green" projects, massive infrastructure projects (all have to be enviro-friendly of course), etc. Dems are currently promising not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $400k. I'd love to know how all of the above is going to be paid for. If they want a European welfare state+, they should tell us what we actually have to pay for it. As an honest person you have to ask why CA, NY, IL, and these other blue states don't do all the things Dems want to do. Why is "California" a watchword for big blue government gone wrong? If all these things "pay for themselves" (an assertion I'm sure is coming) then why haven't they been done? Cali has almost 2/3 the population of Britain or France, why can't it do anything? None of these states have European tax levels, and even dems would lose if they tried it. But I bet even with that type of taxing and spending these states would still fail at it. I have no desire to give the government more money, espeically when they have proven themselves poor stewards of what they have now.
I think different items in that list would be addressed differently. For example, I've heard arguments that universal healthcare would end up saving us money compared to our current system, which would not only improve our quality of life, but help address one of the big contributors to the national debt.
The upfront cost of subsidizing childcare can also be made back by the fact that parents can continue working at their jobs and making more money and spending it on goods and services, further stimulating the economy. (I have colleagues who literally quit their teaching jobs when they had babies, because the cost of childcare is just about as much as their salaries.)
Green/environmental projects are arguably more proactive than reactive; the idea here is that properly preparing for the realities of climate change by spending some money now, will end up saving way more money in the long run, because it'll be far more expensive for us to repeatedly fix things that could have been made unbreakable or much harder to break.
I don't know enough about California to comment on it.
I now realize I should have asked you this question a few posts ago: What do you think the federal government should be responsible for taking care of, and which national programs/departments do you believe should be dismantled and relegated to the states?
Re: whether or not you should be concerned. For a long time there was attitude on the center-left to ingore it or push it aside for now, but the past while (basically since the economy started coming back from COVID) it's been getting more attention. Of great concern is the fact that we are spending now when times are good (I'll accept that premise for sake of argument) and not leaving much room for the next crisis.
I can understand your perspective that saving money - instead of spending it - "when times are good" makes sense, because that is when it's most convenient and feasible to save. Saving money during a crisis is surely not as feasible!
I can also understand the perspective that spending money "when times are good" is precisely when we can make real progress and meaningful change in some areas, since spending during a crisis is often times done to merely stay afloat and undo the negatives, not produce more positives. If someone is content with returning to the status quo, then this isn't really a concern for them; if someone believes that we should strive to do better and be better, then taking advantage of the good times may provide an opportunity to create the great times.
I also think there's a potential loop or wave to consider, in your premise: How did the good times happen in the first place? Surely some (most? all?) of it was a result of spending? Or was there some other non-financial mechanism that created the good times? If the good times are caused by spending money in certain areas, and then we pull back on spending money because the times are good, then the times will worsen, and then we'll need to spend money to bring the times up from bad to good again, until we decide to stop spending and allow the times to worsen again, and so on. (I'm thinking of a sine function that keeps oscillating up and down and up and down... we don't want to drop down to the same minimum every time, and only reach the same maximum every time... we want both the peaks and valleys to gradually move upwards, so that the next cycle is - overall - a little bit higher and better than the previous cycle.)
I wish there was more common ground, but I'm afraid I don't see one in the immediate future, Dems are now so thoroughly the party of government it's hard to imagine it. but I think the failures of the high speed internet roll out, or the charging station stories that have been int he news could be slow catalysts to at least narrow down what government does to one thing at a time. For no other reason than it's simply embarrassing. My 50% was just making a point, wrt the debt the cost of the bureaucracy is not directly financial, it has more to do with a department or agency's scope and power.
The union bailout is just such a good example of how we are incapable of learning anything. These pension promises were made when times were good and no one thought they would end. now the taxpayer has to pick up the tab.
$1.9 trillion stimulus bill that cleared the Senate on Saturday is an $86 billion aid package that has nothing to do with the pandemic. Rather, the $86 billion is a taxpayer bailout for about 185 union pension plans that are so close to collapse that without the rescue, more than a million retired truck drivers, retail clerks, builders and others could be forced to forgo retirement income. The bailout targets multiemployer pension plans, which bring groups of companies together with a union to provide guaranteed benefits. All told, about 1,400 of the plans cover about 10.7 million active and retired workers, often in fields like construction or entertainment where the workers move from job to job. As the work force ages, an alarming number of the plans are running out of money. The trend predated the pandemic and is a result of fading unions, serial bankruptcies and the misplaced hope that investment income would foot most of the bill so that employers and workers wouldn’t have to. Both the House and Senate stimulus measures would give the weakest plans enough money to pay hundreds of thousands of retirees — a number that will grow in the future — their full pensions for the next 30 years. The provision does not require the plans to pay back the bailout, freeze accruals or to end the practices that led to their current distress, which means their troubles could recur. Nor does it explain what will happen when the taxpayer money runs out 30 years from now.
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Using taxpayer dollars to bail out pension plans is almost unheard-of. Previous proposals to rescue the dying multiemployer plans called for the Treasury to make them 30-year loans, not send them no-strings-attached cash. Other efforts have called for the plans to cut some people’s benefits to conserve their dwindling money — such as widow’s pensions, early retirement subsidies and pensions promised by companies that subsequently left their pools. The federal government does provide a backstop for certain failing pension plans through the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, which acts like an insurer and makes companies pay premiums, but does not get taxpayer dollars. Currently, the pension agency has separate insurance programs for single-employer and multiemployer pensions. The single-employer program is in good shape, but the multiemployer program is fragile. As of 2017, the country’s 1,400 or so multiemployer pension plans had a total shortfall of $673 billion. One huge Teamster plan, in particular, is expected to go broke in 2025, and when the pension agency starts paying pensions to its nearly 200,000 retirees, its multiemployer insurance program will go broke, too, according to the agency itself. That would leave the roughly 80,000 other union retirees whose pensions the agency now pays without their payouts. The new legislation changes that. It calls for the Treasury to set up an $86 billion fund at the pension agency, using general revenues. The agency would be required to keep the money separate from the funds it uses for normal operations. It would use the new money to make grants to qualifying pension plans, allowing them to pay their retirees. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that 185 plans were likely to receive assistance, but as many as 336 might under certain circumstances. The grants are intended to pay the retirees their full pensions, a much better deal than the pension agency’s regular multiemployer pension insurance, which is limited by statute to $12,870 per year. Many retirees in the soon-to-be rescued plans have earned pensions greater than that. The taxpayer money will also be used to restore any pensions that were cut in a 2014 initiative that tried to revive troubled plans by trimming certain people’s pensions. The stimulus bills — there is a House version and a Senate version that have minor differences — call for the affected retirees to get whatever money was withheld over the past six years. The legislation requires the troubled plans to keep their grant money in investment-grade bonds, and bars them from commingling it with their other resources. But beyond that, the bill would not change the funds’ investment strategies, which are widely seen as a cause of their trouble. For decades, multiemployer pensions were said to be safe because the participating companies all backstopped each other. If one company went under, the others had to cover the orphaned retirees. Because they were considered so safe, multiemployer pensions never got much oversight. While companies that run their pension plans solo must follow strict federal funding rules, multiemployer plans do not have to. Instead, the companies and unions hammer out their own funding rules in collective bargaining. Both sides want to keep the contributions low — the employers to reduce labor costs, and the unions to free up more money for current wages. As a result, many of the plans have gone for years promising benefits without setting aside enough money to pay for them. In hopes of making up for the low contributions, the plans often invest unduly aggressively for their workers’ advancing age. In bear markets they lose a lot of money, and they can’t ask the employers to chip in more because the employers are often struggling themselves. The new legislation does nothing to change that dynamic. “These plans are uniquely unable to raise their contributions,” said Mr. Naughton, whose clients included multiemployer plans when he was a practicing actuary. “When things go well, the participants get the benefits. If things go badly, they turn to the government to make it work.”“Imagine that you have a college-aged kid who runs up $1,500 in credit card debt,” said James P. Naughton, an actuary now teaching at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business. “If you give him $1,500 and you don’t do anything else, the odds that the problem is going to get fixed are pretty low.” At the same time, Republicans assailed it as a union handout masquerading as pandemic relief. They have tried to turn the provision, which would benefit only union workers and retirees, into a political liability for Democrats. “Just to show you how bad this bill is, there’s more money in this to bail out union pension funds than all the money combined for vaccine distribution and testing,” Senator Bill Hagerty, a Tennessee Republican, said last week.
This doesn't even touch the problems with public sector pensions, a problem that, Surprise!, California has in its future as well.
Thank you for the source, and thank you for pasting the article so that I can read it outside of the paywall It appears you're referring to the American Rescue Plan Act, and that $86 billion of the $1.9 trillion was used to cover the pensions of millions of active and retired workers. Based on the parts of the article that you've bolded, here's my interpretation of what is - and isn't - your issue with this: I don't think you have an issue with workers generally receiving payment or pensions or retirement accounts, as long as the employers who are promising them can provide them by budgeting accordingly. I do think you have an issue with companies overpromising, underdelivering, and needing the government to bail them out with blank checks. Is that a reasonably accurate interpretation of how you feel about this? (I promise I'm not trying to strawman you.)
Assuming the above interpretation is reasonably accurate, I pretty much agree with you. At the very least, there should be a huge amount of oversight and documentation about what the heck happened and how it got so bad. There should be some accountability and changes to make sure it doesn't happen again. For example, some pension systems that are becoming underfunded will transparently update their new retirement policies with fewer benefits every decade or so, to let prospective employees know exactly what they'd be signing up for (while current/older employees are grandfathered into the original system they signed up for). It's not pretty, but at least the newest employees wouldn't be expecting a ton of additional coverage when they only signed up for a smaller amount.
See, I knew you would claim all those things you want would pay for themselves To which, again, the question is that if they do, how come it hasn't happened yet? You are right that I don't think it's the governments role to do anything at all with daycare except basic health and safety. But in some ways the argument is on my side. Why haven't these states done it? is the payoff too far into the future? Is it not politically viable? There's just no way to do any of this stuff without massive tax hikes but dems just demagogue billionaires instead. Then again, they've been doing that since at least William Jennings Bryan, through FDR, and up until the present day.
I don't think all of those proposals you listed would pay for themselves; I did note that the green/environmental ideas were probably more focused on spending a little now compared to a lot later, by proactively and preemptively preparing and mitigating the worse/worst scenarios that would eventually happen. But as to the proposals that I did say would likely break even, I think there are a variety of answers to your question of "how come it hasn't happened yet": Some Congresspeople might not believe the numbers. Some Congresspeople might think the short-term losses aren't worth the long-term gains. Some Congresspeople might be sincerely happy with the current system. Some Congresspeople might not care. Some Congresspeople might worry that their constituents would be angry. Some Congresspeople might be more loyal to lobbies and companies that benefit from those improvements not happening. Some Congresspeople might be uneasy about making such a large policy change, in case it fails (the devil you know vs. the devil you don't).
I'm also generally uneasy about a question like "If X is such a good thing to do, then why aren't we already doing it". Putting aside the fact that Congress is very bad at working together and legislating anything these days, it's also important to note that just about every good thing that we currently do was, at some point, something that we used to not do. Then we figured it out. Sometimes it takes a while for us to realize that we're not doing something well, or that we're currently doing something stupid. You and I would agree that ending slavery was good, but I could imagine a pre- Civil War slaveowner posing the question "If ending slavery was such a good idea, then why hasn't it already happened?" The answer, of course, is because enough people didn't know or didn't care or didn't value the lives of slaves or enjoyed benefitting from slavery or had a million other reasons, and then society gradually progressed, and then the country was at the point where it became "better late than never" to end slavery. There are countless other examples; we eventually figured out that women should be allowed to vote, despite them not being eligible in the 1800s, so we updated the law. We might eventually figure out that Medicare For All (or some other proposed healthcare system) is ideal for our country, despite it currently not being used. Change can be scary, but arguing that change shouldn't happen because it hasn't happened yet might not be the best approach. Instead, I think we should be open-minded and weigh the pros and cons of the current situation against the pros and cons of the alternatives.
The one line answer to your question is that the federal government should A) be responsible only for those things that must be done and B) cannot be done by the states. National defense? Yes. Large scale disaster relief? In cooperation with the states. Infrastructure? Sometimes. Child care? No. I am however more in favor states trying different things, which is one reason I keep bringing up these big, rich, blue states. If all this stuff really is good, and really does good for people, then regardless of what someone like me thinks the governments role should be, these programs will expand. Instead, we somehow believe that if 40 million can't do it that 350 million can. Maybe they just need a printing press...
Thank you for answering my question with specific examples. The word "cannot" in your part B is interesting to me; is there a distinction between "cannot be done by the states" and "cannot be done well by the states"? I feel like we could theorize asking a state to take on an absurd burden that only affects that one state anyway, and argue that they could kind of do it, just not nearly as efficiently as the federal government. I'm wondering what kind of wiggle room there is for your part B, in terms of letting the federal government also take care of the things that they can demonstrably do better than individual states. You did say, for example, that large scale disaster relief ought to be a combined effort between the states and the federal government. I agree with that, but I also worry that it's hard to figure out how big of a hurricane needs to hit Florida before the federal government ought to help out, from your perspective, and how do we hold Florida responsible and accountable for not budgeting enough money for their own disaster relief when it comes to smaller tropical storms.
I also agree with you that states piloting progressive policies should show receipts of beneficial effects, if we're to implement them at a national level. That's probably the best way to get other Democrats on board. That may not be enough to make Republicans interested, as it'll cost extra money, it'll be expanding the role of the federal government, etc.
The idea behind "saving when times are good" is not quite the same for the government as what it would mean for your household. While the federal government can always borrow more money, it has to worry about things like inflation and crowding out. If 35% of GDP is already government spending, what happens when a crisis comes? How much of an economic distortion is it when government spends, say, 50% of GDP? The system always requires trust and seriousness, if people who would buy the debt lose confidence in it then the whole thing collapses.
I'm old fashioned, I like to think that most economic good times (and bad times) are the direct results of what *people* do. It's so often repeated that it's almost boring, but presidents get too much credit and too much blame for the economy, although it's also true that government policy has an impact. There is no free lunch, there is no perpetual motion machine, government is a facilitator of good (and bad) times, not a creator. The steady-state growth is a much-desired-never-achieved goal of economic planners.
**
I more or less agree with your characterization of the pension situation I *think*, and I think what we just saw with the longshoreman strike is of a kind to these issues. In the US, there are all sorts of interest groups that their fingers in the pie and count on government to allow them to keep taking bigger and bigger pieces. The economic costs of delaying port modernization or having to re-direct monies to pension systems are a part of the problem with the way the federal government functions now and why I have no desire to spend any more money until the systemic issues are addressed.
**
For the past examples of "why hasn't it happened yet" the example of slavery is a good one. We know the answer. Everyone thought it would die sooner than it did, but then technology made it more sustainable. As the nation grew, there was a fight over whether or not the new states should be free or slave. The South was particularly upset because even by the 1850s, the North was much more productive and rich. Fights over tariffs set the ground for problems and eventually the question of slavery itself caused a war.
Pivoting to all these lovely ideas people on the left have, my question of "why haven't they done it" was one I know at least part of the answer to. It's because they can't afford. California flirted with the idea of universal healthcare, then scrapped it. I think Vermont tried, and then scrapped it because they couldn't pay for it. Green projects have plans that outmatch our current technological abilities or are hideously expensive. I want to know why people can argue for doing this at the federal level but not the state level... if voters in NY or CA aren't going to willingly pay for all this stuff, how is the nation going to? (I'm also being very generous here and assuming that these plans were good in theory. This is very generous, because "Medicare-for-all" was a very bad idea with few details really fleshed out).
As a slight aside here, I find something very interesting. When I was growing up I always remember lefties talking about Europe and Canada and how if they can do something, then so can we! I find it fascinating no one looks to them as an example any more, espeically after the Bernie fad came and went. Europe (and Canada) are falling further and further behind us, and yet they have so many of these things the left wants here. The aging population + universal healthcare is causing problems for the more state-run European medical programs. Not to defend the American healthcare system, which needs work. But nobody in America talks about the NHS or France's incredibly...generous labor laws any more. There might be something we can learn from Europe, but maybe more as a cautionary tale.
So I guess I would rephrase my question: If California, New York, Illinois, or even New Jersey can't do some of this stuff (or won't) why do you think it would be realistic for the entire nation?
**
The word "cannot" in your part B is interesting to me; is there a distinction between "cannot be done by the states" and "cannot be done well by the states"?
Not really, though we could indeed think of examples. Federal tax collection for instance. Better to leave that to the federal government (a very mundane and simple example, ignoring that it would probably be unconstitutional for the feds to make the states collect it anyways).
Disaster relief, I think, I do not know, generally works by the state telling the feds what it needs. I'm not sure they act at all without the input of the state, it's just that the feds can marshal more resources. But there are those who really despise the federal system of our government who would argue that the states are terrible in general. I think first of all that's wrong, but I would also say the only way the union has survived this long is the distributed nature of governmental power. But some things the states are better for, they are closer to the people and the exact needs of the residents there. If everything were federal, some issues that a state needs to take care of would have to be managed by the federal government, which may not have the wherewithal to deal with it, and also crucially, may have a political incentive to do something different. So trade policy? Congress does that. But how about homelessness? That should be a state issue, for those citizens to make the best decision they can for their version of the problem. And the federal government (headed by a president of one party or another) may have a perverse incentive to reward friendly states and punish adversarial ones.
This has gotten a little bit away from "the debt" but everything the government does costs money, and money also gives you leverage. So you can see how our rapidly for all these issues we might have get money going everywhere.
I also agree with you that states piloting progressive policies should show receipts of beneficial effects, if we're to implement them at a national level. That's probably the best way to get other Democrats on board. That may not be enough to make Republicans interested, as it'll cost extra money, it'll be expanding the role of the federal government, etc.
I'm glad we agree on this, I really do think that if most of these ideas are good ones, they should display themselves as such on a small scale first. (Small being relative. Again, I'm not sure there's much of an argument that 40 million people is too few for universal healthcare). I would say that's a conservative way of looking at it. And like I said, if these things actually "worked" in these blue states, it would be hard to keep them out of red states or the entire country eventually. As I said before when I mentioned that voters like things that cost money but don't like having to pay the money, self-interest can be a powerful motivator.
Not sure I precisely answered everything in a perfectly relevant manner but I hope I got most of it
Hey, the principle of 'save in good times' (and spend in bad) should at least be common ground. That's good old fashioned social democratic economic policy right there.
Maybe the republican party could learn a thing or two from the Spanish PM
Throughout history, migration has been one of the great drivers of the development of nations while hatred and xenophobia have been – and continue to be – the greatest destroyer of nations,” he said. “The key is in managing it well.”
Spain will be making it easier to migrate there, rather than harder. Almost as if there were some benefits to migration after all...
Eh, I think Democrats could learn a lot more from than quote than Republicans. Particularly the last sentence.
One guy wanted secure borders and lots of legal immigration. Another guy wanted to let in millions of asylum seekers. Second guy won the election. We now have a migrant crisis after millions of people entered the country. It's really not difficult to see how we ended up here.
Does the US actually have a migrant crisis? or is it just the Republicans pretending there is one because migration is the only policy they have left that they can actually run on? and considering they killed their own border bill they shouldn't even be able to run on that.
On October 10 2024 16:37 BlackJack wrote: Eh, I think Democrats could learn a lot more from than quote than Republicans. Particularly the last sentence.
One guy wanted secure borders and lots of legal immigration. Another guy wanted to let in millions of asylum seekers. Second guy won the election. We now have a migrant crisis after millions of people entered the country. It's really not difficult to see how we ended up here.
I agree on the first part, not the second. The Democrats are the ones that are supposedly aligned with the PSOE. The Republicans range from PP to Vox, and Feijoo and Abascal both took the stage in parliament to voice their strenuous opposition to the planned approach. I personally really liked Iñigo Errejon's rebuttal of their opposition. He put his finger on the sore spot by pointing out that the real problem is racism: neither PP nor Vox have any problem with the Ukrainian refugees. He also pointed out that the people who most benefit from illegal migrants are the same ones who vote for the PP: they aren't opposed to migration. They just want the migrants to have no rights and be essentially slaves to the land/factory owners.
On October 10 2024 17:06 Gorsameth wrote: Does the US actually have a migrant crisis?
Even if your only source of news of the world was this thread I still feel like sufficient information should have permeated through to realize the absurdity of such a statement
On October 10 2024 17:06 Gorsameth wrote: Does the US actually have a migrant crisis?
Even if your only source of news of the world was this thread I still feel like sufficient information should have permeated through to realize the absurdity of such a statement
Not really. This thread makes it clear that republicans claim there is a migration crisis. There has been very little proof of that, and a lot of claims of dog-eating and the like.
And republicans always claim there is a migration crisis.
Sigh... What kind of evidence are you looking for that a migrant crisis... exists? Here's some headlines
Washington Post
"Migrant crisis spreads to a remote mountain town as winter descends" "Chicago’s migrant crisis in spotlight as Democrats prepare for convention" "Migrant crisis drives NYC to 'breaking point'"
New York Times
"What to Know About the Migrant Crisis in New York City" "How the Border Crisis Shattered Biden’s Immigration Hopes" "In Escalation, Adams Says Migrant Crisis ‘Will Destroy New York City’"
CNN
"Finger-pointing and frustration over migrant crisis leads to a total breakdown between White House and NYC mayor" "Migrant crisis looms over governors’ gathering at the White House"
Left-leaning outlets are reporting on a migrant crisis, often told first hand by Democrat mayors in Democrat cities and your conclusion is "Republicans are inventing a migrant crisis because they have nothing else to run on."
Hell, even Joe Biden himself calls it a crisis when he released a statement in support of legislation to address the border crisis.
Even the emperor himself has realized he is naked but you're still willing to compliment his luxurious robes. There's really no ask too big.
Crisis is kind of a relative - yet loaded - term, isn't it? In Europe the '2015 migrant crisis' is kind of accepted vernacular but my life was arguably made better by it and aside from a few hotspots I'd argue most Europeans were largely unaffected. I mean maybe that's a bit like an introverted grocery store manager during covid or a rich guy looking to accrue more property after 2008 but a crisis to me only really applies to something that is overwhelmingly experienced as negative and I do have the impression the US is largely divided on whether the current migration constitutes an actual problem or not (again, outside of certain hotspots where I'm sure there's more of a consensus). Then again I guess that's also the case for climate change and that is most certainly a crisis.
edit: that post wasn't there when I wrote this one and I guess it's at least on 2015 EU levels in terms of how commonly used the phrase is.
On October 10 2024 19:18 Liquid`Drone wrote: Crisis is kind of a relative - yet loaded - term, isn't it? In Europe the '2015 migrant crisis' is kind of accepted vernacular but my life was arguably made better by it and aside from a few hotspots I'd argue most Europeans were largely unaffected. I mean maybe that's a bit like an introverted grocery store manager during covid or a rich guy looking to accrue more property after 2008 but a crisis to me only really applies to something that is overwhelmingly experienced as negative and I do have the impression the US is largely divided on whether the current migration constitutes an actual problem or not (again, outside of certain hotspots where I'm sure there's more of a consensus). Then again I guess that's also the case for climate change and that is most certainly a crisis.
edit: that post wasn't there when I wrote this one and I guess it's at least on 2015 EU levels in terms of how commonly used the phrase is.
Most Americans are unaffected by the Hurricane going through Florida right now, does that make it less of a crisis? I'm not sure I agree with that reasoning.
When Joe Biden himself is calling it a crisis, it's ridiculous to argue that there's not actually a crisis outside of Republican imaginations.
His statement also says his team has been working around the clock, on weekends and holidays to address the border crisis. Working around the clock is not something you do if everything is hunky dory.
To top it all off he says if given the authority he will shut down the border the same day he signs the bill into law. So even if you buy the ridiculous narrative that everything is fine with the southern border then you have to explain why Biden promises to shut down the border immediately. As our Spanish friends have indicated, it's supposed to be the Republicans that want to close the border. Sounds like an extreme measure to use on a non-crisis, don't you think?
I'd argue that the hurricane is a floridan crisis not an american one. So like, sure, 'parts of the US is experiencing a migrant crisis' - I think that's reasonable, while I'm not really sure 'the US is experiencing a migrant crisis' is. Again I honestly don't know how affected North Dakota is, and maybe enough of the US is severely negatively affected for it to be a reasonable phrase to use, but I haven't really seen that yet.
the large inflow of foreign migrants into the US since 1965 may have contributed to an additional 8% growth in innovation and 5% growth in wages.
It can be both a crisis (when mismanaged at the local level) and a huge boon (when integrated into society).
Further edit:
This model also explicitly shows that while immigration unambiguously increases innovation, its effect on local wages varies over time: in the very short run, its is possible for a labor supply shock to depress wages, while the positive impact of higher innovation and labor productivity on wages gradually builds over time and becomes dominant.
You could sum up the impacts of immigration as 'short-term pain for long-term gain'.
On October 10 2024 19:07 BlackJack wrote: Sigh... What kind of evidence are you looking for that a migrant crisis... exists? Here's some headlines
Washington Post
"Migrant crisis spreads to a remote mountain town as winter descends" "Chicago’s migrant crisis in spotlight as Democrats prepare for convention" "Migrant crisis drives NYC to 'breaking point'"
New York Times
"What to Know About the Migrant Crisis in New York City" "How the Border Crisis Shattered Biden’s Immigration Hopes" "In Escalation, Adams Says Migrant Crisis ‘Will Destroy New York City’"
CNN
"Finger-pointing and frustration over migrant crisis leads to a total breakdown between White House and NYC mayor" "Migrant crisis looms over governors’ gathering at the White House"
Left-leaning outlets are reporting on a migrant crisis, often told first hand by Democrat mayors in Democrat cities and your conclusion is "Republicans are inventing a migrant crisis because they have nothing else to run on."
Hell, even Joe Biden himself calls it a crisis when he released a statement in support of legislation to address the border crisis.
Even the emperor himself has realized he is naked but you're still willing to compliment his luxurious robes. There's really no ask too big.
I don't believe headlines are a good indication of much, they are almost by definition sensational advertisements for the stories they "represent", often not accurately at all.
I would agree with you that it is not a Republican thing, more a both thing. I think now a days they have both leaned into fighting with each other over basically everything because it is the best way to drive engagement and interest. Sadly it also the worst way to solve anything.
This video my kid was watching the other day from a decade ago really hit the nail on the head for me.
On October 08 2024 06:21 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: [quote]
It was pretty well-established, even among the Republicans, that Trump's "they're eating the dogs" meltdown during the debate was an embarrassment. There's nothing wrong with milking that for all it's worth, and - again - that's not stopping the rallies and interviews and other points being made. It doesn't hurt to occasionally remind the voters of the mistakes your opponent makes.
And yes, bickering with BJ* and oBlade does happen a lot, but it's not like there are conservatives on this forum proposing great, substantive ideas for policy. (I would imagine it's because the leader of the Republican party doesn't have many of those either.) There are still discussions about other important issues, and "important" is subjective; I'm sure a lot of people roll their eyes when we end up having yet another "GH vs. Capitalism" conversation that goes on for several pages, even if some people consider it a legitimately useful topic.
*BJ spent multiple posts denying that Trump meant "murder", even though he said "murder", only to eventually concede that Trump probably only meant "second-degree murder" and that the metaphor stops it from technically being first-degree murder, so it does indeed appear to have been a fruitless discussion about semantics with him:
[quote]
Neat. I'm satisfied.
Actually this back and forth is a good reason why people who don't agree with dem policy positions don't really post about them. Sure, it's time consuming and can be less fun, but as we see here, some people are simply incapable of giving their opponents even the slightly benefit of the doubt or believing that they hold their positions in good faith. If a right-leaning poster argues for, say, a way to reduce debt that doesn't address every progressives wishlist item then really that person is just a shill who wants billionaires to run everything and believe that everyone who is poor deserves to be poor and powerless. And something like the debt, when taken as a topic by itself, is about the most boring thing you can talk about. Now imagine trying to talk about healthcare, the middle east, or anything else. You seem to think that discussing policy would be less rancorous, but given the way the left views policy disagreements (as moral failures) it can be even worse.
We can literally test this right now Please explain what you believe would be the best way to reduce our national debt, and why you think it would be effective.
From what I read the first thing that needs to happen is to simply stabilize debt as a percentage of GDP. We can theoretically never have a balanced budget (and even have an always increasing debt) but still be ok so long as the portion of the economy that it takes up remains constant. There can be modest tax hikes, but for deficits of the size we are running now (and what types of spending are going to be main debt drivers in the future) it simply is not possible to tax your way out, and it has diminishing returns. The big elephants in the room is Social Security and Medicare (this is where things get controversial). But first the government needs to rein in spending during the normal part of the cycle where is should be giving itself a cushion for hard times. Unfortunately, neither major party nominee has a *serious* plan to fix this. Federal spending exploded during COVID... not just in one time expenditures, but almost every department had its regular, baseline budget significantly increased. COVID is over, but the government spends a higher percentage of GDP now then it did before. In 2018 it was ~19%. During COVID it was 30%, even now it's 22% (after the 2009 crisis it was 24%). And both parties have plans to spend even more. So that's the main problem, the exact dollar amount isn't as concerning as the trendline, interest payments, and the crowding out effect.
Edit: Those are net outlays btw, numbers are slightly different gross. looks a little better actually, or more accurately it's barely changed since the end of the financial crisis ~34%). However *debt* as a % of GDP is going up like crazy. Maybe I should have led with that lol
Thanks for taking the time to write out your thoughts. I'm not very well versed on our national debt / federal spending, so I'd like to ask for some clarity.
"From what I read the first thing that needs to happen is to simply stabilize debt as a percentage of GDP." That makes sense to me. Is there a target percent in mind that we ought to stabilize at? I found a site that's mapped out that data from 1948 onward: https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/national-debt/ It's one of the gray graphs - the one with the title "Federal Debt Trends Over Time, FY 1948 – 2023; Debt to Gross Domestic Product (GDP)".
"The big elephants in the room is Social Security and Medicare (this is where things get controversial)." Those definitely appear to be two of the biggest elephants, yeah. I found a source that says that the top six biggest costs are Social Security (21%), Medicare (14%), net interest (14%), health (13%), national defense (13%), and income security (10%). It's a gray table found here: https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/
In order to reduce the debt-to-GDP ratio, we could cut spending and/or we could find ways to increase our annual GDP, right? Do you think that increasing our GDP through economic growth alone isn't viable or consistent enough to stabilize the debt-to-GDP ratio? So therefore, we have to cut spending from somewhere? How do we decide what gets cut and what doesn't get cut? I feel like there are probably arguments for/against cutting from everywhere lol; how do we decide?
To the first question, I don't know, people argue about such things. Some people seem to think the US can get to 150-200% debt-to-GDP before things go south. No one really knows for sure though. As for what amount of GDP can government spend before the ill effects add up, I don't know. Memory says people estimate about 30%, but I could be making that number up and confusing it with something else.
The second paragraph shows why so many of the budget fights we have now are fake. Non-defense discretionary spending is all of 14% of total federal spending, and yet that's what Congress spends most of its time arguing about. Republicans are very proud that they were able to get a not-insignificant-but-still-small cut in the growth of spending while still spending more than pre-pandemic. All very silly.
It took a while, but we are finally at the point where left-of-center economists are getting worried about the debt load. Again not an economic historian but the days of explosive growth seem long gone, pick your favorite reason why. But if the economy can't grow faster than the debt does then obviously you can't catch up that way. But that's where choices have to be made. The "cut everywhere" idea is one of Rand Paul's I think, but not a single Democrat or even most Republicans would go for it, though for different reasons. Dems are constantly talking about what government "should" be doing for everyone and it's hard to talk that way while advocating for for cuts. As the party of the state and bureaucracy, they will never go for it. I'm convinced neither party will go for it until a crisis forces compromise. Me? I'd cut most department budgets, but even so, probably more important is to reform how government functions. American bureaucracy is a mishmash of different agencies and rules. A lot of it was created to fulfill political needs. some Senator needs some money or federal help for something he wants (logrolling), or in response to a crisis (e.g. New Deal agencies, of which many mercifully are no longer with us, but its legacy remains in many places). Our administrative apparatus is unwieldly, and while some blame federalism for that, I disagree. More like, much of the Democrat created state suffers from what Ezra Klein calls "everything bagel liberalism" where the state has no capacity to deal with any particular problem because it tries to deal with every problem.
I’ve come to think of this as the problem of everything-bagel liberalism. Everything bagels are, of course, the best bagels. But that is because they add just enough to the bagel and no more. Add too much — as memorably imagined in the Oscar-winning “Everything Everywhere All at Once” — and it becomes a black hole from which nothing, least of all government’s ability to solve hard problems, can escape. And one problem liberals are facing at every level where they govern is that they often add too much. They do so with good intentions and then lament their poor results. (Conservatives, I should say, are not immune from piling on procedure and stricture, but they often do so in a purposeful attempt to make government work poorly, and so failure and inefficiency become a kind of success.)
For the record that last part is wrong, what conservatives will do, which is what every does, is try to get government out of the way when they think government is doing something it shouldn't. No one actually wants the DMV to be slow and annoying to deal with.
That's kind of a tangent though, even moderate reforms to our major entitlement programs would do wonders for our government's money situation. But any suggestion that calls for cuts or changes to systems implemented when people didn't live so many decades beyond retirement is considered cruel by Democrats. Even now Kamala says he plan to deal with debt is to tax the rich, but if you look at projected outlays you see that you can't sustain these programs without European level taxes on the middle class (or even with them IIRC), which NO ONE in America wants. Americans want government smaller in many ways but they also like all the goodies (who wouldn't?). This is why Republicans lose if voters think they will touch entitlements and Democrats lose if voters think their taxes are going up. I think nothing will happen until these crisis moments arise. But as for me, I would reform our biggest spending programs, massively reform how government operates and grants money (this is needed for more reasons that just cash problems). As a political concession I'd allow a tax increase, even though that really would be a small part of fixing the problem.
I'm not sure if I would use the word "fake" when talking about budget cuts to the military, but perhaps "ineffective" or "not impactful enough", if we're talking about ways to meaningfully cut a serious amount of federal spending. (Military spending shouldn't be ignored, but it obviously won't single-handedly solve the debt crisis.) I don't know if Congress spends a disproportionately large amount of time essentially nickel-and-dime-ing the military budget, but I think that all the big pieces of the pie should be examined. That might mean looking for ways to cut spending or address inefficiencies. It may also mean reallocating some resources from one slice to another. If there are ways to update these systems of welfare, healthcare, and military where we can provide equal (or better!) benefits without spending more in the long term, they should be considered.
I worry about the effects of blindly slashing the budget of... any department, really... without first doing the research on what might happen. Rand Paul's "cut everywhere" idea sounds fair at first glance, but I wonder if every department would truly be affected equally if they suddenly lost, say, 10% of their budget, and just had to deal with the consequences. When you say that you'd cut most department budgets, how do you figure out which ones to cut and which ones to leave alone? I assume we would hire multiple independent evaluators to assess bloat and wasteful spending in each department, and then make whatever cuts we felt were justified? I wonder if that's way easier said than done, especially when it comes to the (subjective) estimation of what costs are - and are not - a waste of money.
I think the conversations about the federal government's role and what should be left up to the states are really difficult to have. From my perspective, sometimes (not always) the federal government's oversight can help vulnerable Americans and save struggling states, and that's something I think is worth keeping around, even if it costs extra money. There are certain freedoms and benefits to living in one state over another, and it's not necessarily feasible for the disenfranchised to move to the state that works best for them.
But my perspective has the same spending issue that every other perspective seems to have - that everyone (except, I suppose, for Rand Paul) is happy to make exceptions for whatever they deem to be worthy of extra money. For example, you said that conservatives try to get government out of the way when they think government is doing something it shouldn't. I think that extra qualifier is crucial, because conservatives are happy to promote government intervention when it promotes conservative ideals, just as how liberals are happy to promote government intervention when it promotes liberal ideals.
One of Kamala Harris's proposals is indeed to tax the rich, but that's not the only suggestion she's made for boosting our economy, addressing inflation, and finding ways to increase our GDP. And that last part - increasing our GDP - is the other side of this "debt-to-GDP ratio" coin. Some ways to stimulate the economy include: funding programs that create jobs, investing in infrastructure and technology, and educating and refining a skilled workforce. Liberals have historically championed these and presided over stronger economies, as a result. This extra money often helps pay for the more expensive costs of liberal ideals. If we really wanted to chip away at a huge part of the national debt (and I don't know if this should be our number one objective, but assuming it is...), then it seems like we should be leaning more towards the liberal side for boosting our economy, and leaning more towards the conservative side for cutting our costs. I wonder if both are truly possible though, as too little spending can lead to too little stimulation. I also think everyone (including myself) would probably be pissed off at how certain departments and programs and even human rights may be affected.
Here's where we get to the intersection of math and values.
Two of my favorite things
As a conservative my inclination is towards increasing military spending (although like I said before, how they spend money needs serious reform, and Congress is slowly coming around). What I find most interesting about your post is what you didn't follow up on. We both see just from the numbers that the single greatest expenses facing the federal government includes the Military, but also Social Security/Medicare as well as debt service. And as the years go on, those last things are going to take up much, much more of the budget than the military or the administration in any particular department.
I didn't specifically dive into any of those, because I don't know how their money is allocated and where the waste / room for improvement is, but I gave a blanket agreement that all of them should be examined. I also agree with you that the biggest costs and the fastest-increasing costs would definitely need to be assessed if we have a goal of reducing our national debt.
My desire to drastically rework the bureaucracy and bring it into line is not primarily driven by the budget, it's a concern for what the federal government should be doing in the first place. These agencies have not acquitted themselves well recently, and they need a reminder of where their authority actually comes from and what they are permitted to do. Slash every department's budget by 50%, I don't care. It will only delay the crisis that is coming.
This is actually really interesting to me, because it's an opportunity for you to persuade people who might not agree with your premise (that the federal government isn't supposed to be doing X) by appealing to other arguments (our national debt is increasing at an unsustainable rate, we need to examine where and how we allocate money so that we can identify inefficiencies and opportunities for improvement, etc.). There might be some common ground and common goals, although I wouldn't personally be on board with slashing every department's budget by 50%.
The problem of federal/state interaction is summed up nicely in the underreported story of how Dems used their last big COVID slush fund to bail out a bunch of financially precarious union pension plans. They used COVID as a excuse to do do part of what they really wanted to do anyways. Often times when those two sphere overlap they are up to no good.
I'm unfamiliar with this. Would you mind pointing me in the direction of a source that elaborates on it?
One of Kamala Harris's proposals is indeed to tax the rich, but that's not the only suggestion she's made for boosting our economy, addressing inflation, and finding ways to increase our GDP. And that last part - increasing our GDP - is the other side of this "debt-to-GDP ratio" coin. Some ways to stimulate the economy include: funding programs that create jobs, investing in infrastructure and technology, and educating and refining a skilled workforce. Liberals have historically championed these and presided over stronger economies, as a result. This extra money often helps pay for the more expensive costs of liberal ideals. If we really wanted to chip away at a huge part of the national debt (and I don't know if this should be our number one objective, but assuming it is...), then it seems like we should be leaning more towards the liberal side for boosting our economy, and leaning more towards the conservative side for cutting our costs. I wonder if both are truly possible though, as too little spending can lead to too little stimulation. I also think everyone (including myself) would probably be pissed off at how certain departments and programs and even human rights may be affected.
Did you look at the opinion piece I linked?
It was behind a paywall, but I read the excerpt that you pasted.
The problem is the liberal governments spend gobs of money and have an incredibly low return as they fight with themselves. I'm not adverse to funding "infrastructure" (narrowly defined) but we don't know how to do that any more. And of course those programs you listed cost money. Again as someone on the right, my instinct is to get government out of the way, except when necessary, and let the people bring the growth. The multiplier effect of government spending decreases every time it's used. You know how dems love to say that GOP tax cuts never bring in as much revenue as they promise? Well government spending never brings the growth Dems promise.
I'm not sure how easily quantifiable some of these programs' benefits are, in terms of economic growth, and sometimes the return on investment is something intangible or more conceptual or holistic, like a better quality of life. Would those situations be less convincing for you, in terms of whether or not we ought to fund them, compared to something as mathematically solid as "for every $1.00 spent on Program X, we'll make a total of $1.10 over the next five years"?
Besides, we're only talking about the current "level of government" we have now. What happens when the rest of the wish list is added in? Universal healthcare, child care, expanded income security, "green" projects, massive infrastructure projects (all have to be enviro-friendly of course), etc. Dems are currently promising not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $400k. I'd love to know how all of the above is going to be paid for. If they want a European welfare state+, they should tell us what we actually have to pay for it. As an honest person you have to ask why CA, NY, IL, and these other blue states don't do all the things Dems want to do. Why is "California" a watchword for big blue government gone wrong? If all these things "pay for themselves" (an assertion I'm sure is coming) then why haven't they been done? Cali has almost 2/3 the population of Britain or France, why can't it do anything? None of these states have European tax levels, and even dems would lose if they tried it. But I bet even with that type of taxing and spending these states would still fail at it. I have no desire to give the government more money, espeically when they have proven themselves poor stewards of what they have now.
I think different items in that list would be addressed differently. For example, I've heard arguments that universal healthcare would end up saving us money compared to our current system, which would not only improve our quality of life, but help address one of the big contributors to the national debt.
The upfront cost of subsidizing childcare can also be made back by the fact that parents can continue working at their jobs and making more money and spending it on goods and services, further stimulating the economy. (I have colleagues who literally quit their teaching jobs when they had babies, because the cost of childcare is just about as much as their salaries.)
Green/environmental projects are arguably more proactive than reactive; the idea here is that properly preparing for the realities of climate change by spending some money now, will end up saving way more money in the long run, because it'll be far more expensive for us to repeatedly fix things that could have been made unbreakable or much harder to break.
I don't know enough about California to comment on it.
I now realize I should have asked you this question a few posts ago: What do you think the federal government should be responsible for taking care of, and which national programs/departments do you believe should be dismantled and relegated to the states?
Re: whether or not you should be concerned. For a long time there was attitude on the center-left to ingore it or push it aside for now, but the past while (basically since the economy started coming back from COVID) it's been getting more attention. Of great concern is the fact that we are spending now when times are good (I'll accept that premise for sake of argument) and not leaving much room for the next crisis.
I can understand your perspective that saving money - instead of spending it - "when times are good" makes sense, because that is when it's most convenient and feasible to save. Saving money during a crisis is surely not as feasible!
I can also understand the perspective that spending money "when times are good" is precisely when we can make real progress and meaningful change in some areas, since spending during a crisis is often times done to merely stay afloat and undo the negatives, not produce more positives. If someone is content with returning to the status quo, then this isn't really a concern for them; if someone believes that we should strive to do better and be better, then taking advantage of the good times may provide an opportunity to create the great times.
I also think there's a potential loop or wave to consider, in your premise: How did the good times happen in the first place? Surely some (most? all?) of it was a result of spending? Or was there some other non-financial mechanism that created the good times? If the good times are caused by spending money in certain areas, and then we pull back on spending money because the times are good, then the times will worsen, and then we'll need to spend money to bring the times up from bad to good again, until we decide to stop spending and allow the times to worsen again, and so on. (I'm thinking of a sine function that keeps oscillating up and down and up and down... we don't want to drop down to the same minimum every time, and only reach the same maximum every time... we want both the peaks and valleys to gradually move upwards, so that the next cycle is - overall - a little bit higher and better than the previous cycle.)
I wish there was more common ground, but I'm afraid I don't see one in the immediate future, Dems are now so thoroughly the party of government it's hard to imagine it. but I think the failures of the high speed internet roll out, or the charging station stories that have been int he news could be slow catalysts to at least narrow down what government does to one thing at a time. For no other reason than it's simply embarrassing. My 50% was just making a point, wrt the debt the cost of the bureaucracy is not directly financial, it has more to do with a department or agency's scope and power.
The union bailout is just such a good example of how we are incapable of learning anything. These pension promises were made when times were good and no one thought they would end. now the taxpayer has to pick up the tab.
$1.9 trillion stimulus bill that cleared the Senate on Saturday is an $86 billion aid package that has nothing to do with the pandemic. Rather, the $86 billion is a taxpayer bailout for about 185 union pension plans that are so close to collapse that without the rescue, more than a million retired truck drivers, retail clerks, builders and others could be forced to forgo retirement income. The bailout targets multiemployer pension plans, which bring groups of companies together with a union to provide guaranteed benefits. All told, about 1,400 of the plans cover about 10.7 million active and retired workers, often in fields like construction or entertainment where the workers move from job to job. As the work force ages, an alarming number of the plans are running out of money. The trend predated the pandemic and is a result of fading unions, serial bankruptcies and the misplaced hope that investment income would foot most of the bill so that employers and workers wouldn’t have to. Both the House and Senate stimulus measures would give the weakest plans enough money to pay hundreds of thousands of retirees — a number that will grow in the future — their full pensions for the next 30 years. The provision does not require the plans to pay back the bailout, freeze accruals or to end the practices that led to their current distress, which means their troubles could recur. Nor does it explain what will happen when the taxpayer money runs out 30 years from now.
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Using taxpayer dollars to bail out pension plans is almost unheard-of. Previous proposals to rescue the dying multiemployer plans called for the Treasury to make them 30-year loans, not send them no-strings-attached cash. Other efforts have called for the plans to cut some people’s benefits to conserve their dwindling money — such as widow’s pensions, early retirement subsidies and pensions promised by companies that subsequently left their pools. The federal government does provide a backstop for certain failing pension plans through the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, which acts like an insurer and makes companies pay premiums, but does not get taxpayer dollars. Currently, the pension agency has separate insurance programs for single-employer and multiemployer pensions. The single-employer program is in good shape, but the multiemployer program is fragile. As of 2017, the country’s 1,400 or so multiemployer pension plans had a total shortfall of $673 billion. One huge Teamster plan, in particular, is expected to go broke in 2025, and when the pension agency starts paying pensions to its nearly 200,000 retirees, its multiemployer insurance program will go broke, too, according to the agency itself. That would leave the roughly 80,000 other union retirees whose pensions the agency now pays without their payouts. The new legislation changes that. It calls for the Treasury to set up an $86 billion fund at the pension agency, using general revenues. The agency would be required to keep the money separate from the funds it uses for normal operations. It would use the new money to make grants to qualifying pension plans, allowing them to pay their retirees. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that 185 plans were likely to receive assistance, but as many as 336 might under certain circumstances. The grants are intended to pay the retirees their full pensions, a much better deal than the pension agency’s regular multiemployer pension insurance, which is limited by statute to $12,870 per year. Many retirees in the soon-to-be rescued plans have earned pensions greater than that. The taxpayer money will also be used to restore any pensions that were cut in a 2014 initiative that tried to revive troubled plans by trimming certain people’s pensions. The stimulus bills — there is a House version and a Senate version that have minor differences — call for the affected retirees to get whatever money was withheld over the past six years. The legislation requires the troubled plans to keep their grant money in investment-grade bonds, and bars them from commingling it with their other resources. But beyond that, the bill would not change the funds’ investment strategies, which are widely seen as a cause of their trouble. For decades, multiemployer pensions were said to be safe because the participating companies all backstopped each other. If one company went under, the others had to cover the orphaned retirees. Because they were considered so safe, multiemployer pensions never got much oversight. While companies that run their pension plans solo must follow strict federal funding rules, multiemployer plans do not have to. Instead, the companies and unions hammer out their own funding rules in collective bargaining. Both sides want to keep the contributions low — the employers to reduce labor costs, and the unions to free up more money for current wages. As a result, many of the plans have gone for years promising benefits without setting aside enough money to pay for them. In hopes of making up for the low contributions, the plans often invest unduly aggressively for their workers’ advancing age. In bear markets they lose a lot of money, and they can’t ask the employers to chip in more because the employers are often struggling themselves. The new legislation does nothing to change that dynamic. “These plans are uniquely unable to raise their contributions,” said Mr. Naughton, whose clients included multiemployer plans when he was a practicing actuary. “When things go well, the participants get the benefits. If things go badly, they turn to the government to make it work.”“Imagine that you have a college-aged kid who runs up $1,500 in credit card debt,” said James P. Naughton, an actuary now teaching at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business. “If you give him $1,500 and you don’t do anything else, the odds that the problem is going to get fixed are pretty low.” At the same time, Republicans assailed it as a union handout masquerading as pandemic relief. They have tried to turn the provision, which would benefit only union workers and retirees, into a political liability for Democrats. “Just to show you how bad this bill is, there’s more money in this to bail out union pension funds than all the money combined for vaccine distribution and testing,” Senator Bill Hagerty, a Tennessee Republican, said last week.
This doesn't even touch the problems with public sector pensions, a problem that, Surprise!, California has in its future as well.
Thank you for the source, and thank you for pasting the article so that I can read it outside of the paywall It appears you're referring to the American Rescue Plan Act, and that $86 billion of the $1.9 trillion was used to cover the pensions of millions of active and retired workers. Based on the parts of the article that you've bolded, here's my interpretation of what is - and isn't - your issue with this: I don't think you have an issue with workers generally receiving payment or pensions or retirement accounts, as long as the employers who are promising them can provide them by budgeting accordingly. I do think you have an issue with companies overpromising, underdelivering, and needing the government to bail them out with blank checks. Is that a reasonably accurate interpretation of how you feel about this? (I promise I'm not trying to strawman you.)
Assuming the above interpretation is reasonably accurate, I pretty much agree with you. At the very least, there should be a huge amount of oversight and documentation about what the heck happened and how it got so bad. There should be some accountability and changes to make sure it doesn't happen again. For example, some pension systems that are becoming underfunded will transparently update their new retirement policies with fewer benefits every decade or so, to let prospective employees know exactly what they'd be signing up for (while current/older employees are grandfathered into the original system they signed up for). It's not pretty, but at least the newest employees wouldn't be expecting a ton of additional coverage when they only signed up for a smaller amount.
See, I knew you would claim all those things you want would pay for themselves To which, again, the question is that if they do, how come it hasn't happened yet? You are right that I don't think it's the governments role to do anything at all with daycare except basic health and safety. But in some ways the argument is on my side. Why haven't these states done it? is the payoff too far into the future? Is it not politically viable? There's just no way to do any of this stuff without massive tax hikes but dems just demagogue billionaires instead. Then again, they've been doing that since at least William Jennings Bryan, through FDR, and up until the present day.
I don't think all of those proposals you listed would pay for themselves; I did note that the green/environmental ideas were probably more focused on spending a little now compared to a lot later, by proactively and preemptively preparing and mitigating the worse/worst scenarios that would eventually happen. But as to the proposals that I did say would likely break even, I think there are a variety of answers to your question of "how come it hasn't happened yet": Some Congresspeople might not believe the numbers. Some Congresspeople might think the short-term losses aren't worth the long-term gains. Some Congresspeople might be sincerely happy with the current system. Some Congresspeople might not care. Some Congresspeople might worry that their constituents would be angry. Some Congresspeople might be more loyal to lobbies and companies that benefit from those improvements not happening. Some Congresspeople might be uneasy about making such a large policy change, in case it fails (the devil you know vs. the devil you don't).
I'm also generally uneasy about a question like "If X is such a good thing to do, then why aren't we already doing it". Putting aside the fact that Congress is very bad at working together and legislating anything these days, it's also important to note that just about every good thing that we currently do was, at some point, something that we used to not do. Then we figured it out. Sometimes it takes a while for us to realize that we're not doing something well, or that we're currently doing something stupid. You and I would agree that ending slavery was good, but I could imagine a pre- Civil War slaveowner posing the question "If ending slavery was such a good idea, then why hasn't it already happened?" The answer, of course, is because enough people didn't know or didn't care or didn't value the lives of slaves or enjoyed benefitting from slavery or had a million other reasons, and then society gradually progressed, and then the country was at the point where it became "better late than never" to end slavery. There are countless other examples; we eventually figured out that women should be allowed to vote, despite them not being eligible in the 1800s, so we updated the law. We might eventually figure out that Medicare For All (or some other proposed healthcare system) is ideal for our country, despite it currently not being used. Change can be scary, but arguing that change shouldn't happen because it hasn't happened yet might not be the best approach. Instead, I think we should be open-minded and weigh the pros and cons of the current situation against the pros and cons of the alternatives.
The one line answer to your question is that the federal government should A) be responsible only for those things that must be done and B) cannot be done by the states. National defense? Yes. Large scale disaster relief? In cooperation with the states. Infrastructure? Sometimes. Child care? No. I am however more in favor states trying different things, which is one reason I keep bringing up these big, rich, blue states. If all this stuff really is good, and really does good for people, then regardless of what someone like me thinks the governments role should be, these programs will expand. Instead, we somehow believe that if 40 million can't do it that 350 million can. Maybe they just need a printing press...
Thank you for answering my question with specific examples. The word "cannot" in your part B is interesting to me; is there a distinction between "cannot be done by the states" and "cannot be done well by the states"? I feel like we could theorize asking a state to take on an absurd burden that only affects that one state anyway, and argue that they could kind of do it, just not nearly as efficiently as the federal government. I'm wondering what kind of wiggle room there is for your part B, in terms of letting the federal government also take care of the things that they can demonstrably do better than individual states. You did say, for example, that large scale disaster relief ought to be a combined effort between the states and the federal government. I agree with that, but I also worry that it's hard to figure out how big of a hurricane needs to hit Florida before the federal government ought to help out, from your perspective, and how do we hold Florida responsible and accountable for not budgeting enough money for their own disaster relief when it comes to smaller tropical storms.
I also agree with you that states piloting progressive policies should show receipts of beneficial effects, if we're to implement them at a national level. That's probably the best way to get other Democrats on board. That may not be enough to make Republicans interested, as it'll cost extra money, it'll be expanding the role of the federal government, etc.
The idea behind "saving when times are good" is not quite the same for the government as what it would mean for your household. While the federal government can always borrow more money, it has to worry about things like inflation and crowding out. If 35% of GDP is already government spending, what happens when a crisis comes? How much of an economic distortion is it when government spends, say, 50% of GDP? The system always requires trust and seriousness, if people who would buy the debt lose confidence in it then the whole thing collapses.
I'm old fashioned, I like to think that most economic good times (and bad times) are the direct results of what *people* do. It's so often repeated that it's almost boring, but presidents get too much credit and too much blame for the economy, although it's also true that government policy has an impact. There is no free lunch, there is no perpetual motion machine, government is a facilitator of good (and bad) times, not a creator. The steady-state growth is a much-desired-never-achieved goal of economic planners.
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I more or less agree with your characterization of the pension situation I *think*, and I think what we just saw with the longshoreman strike is of a kind to these issues. In the US, there are all sorts of interest groups that their fingers in the pie and count on government to allow them to keep taking bigger and bigger pieces. The economic costs of delaying port modernization or having to re-direct monies to pension systems are a part of the problem with the way the federal government functions now and why I have no desire to spend any more money until the systemic issues are addressed.
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When discussing economic good times, I'd also like to give as much credit as possible to people's hard work. I don't mean to imply that the government is the only entity that deserves credit for good (or bad) times. I'm also fine with your distinction that the government is more likely a facilitator of good/bad times than an explicit creator of them. For example, sometimes the government needs to improve their systems to allow for all people - especially those without bootstraps or those experiencing other roadblocks - to even have the opportunity to put in hard work, contribute to society, and make a good life for themselves. Economic policies and social policies are inextricably linked. I also feel like the potential impact that the president (and Congress) can have on our economy and other national systems is enormous, though in practice most changes end up being moderate compromises.
I hadn't really followed the longshoreman strike because it was so brief, but your mention of it inspired me to read the Wiki entry on it ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_port_strike ). Do you see it as a role reversal when the conservatives are the ones pushing for the federal government to put their thumb on the scales ("Republican lawmakers and business groups urged Biden to apply the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act to end the strike. President George W. Bush used that authority in 2002 to halt an 11-day lockout of union members at West Coast ports.[18]")?
I can't and won't speak for every union out there, and I can't necessarily defend every decision they've made, but the ability to collectively bargain for what they perceive to be fair wages and other benefits - especially when the longshoreman help to create billions of dollars of wealth every week for the U.S. economy (see: "Impact/Estimates" at the bottom of the Wiki entry) - sounds like an example of Americans working hard and wanting to be rewarded with a decent quality of life. My union has also been crucial for giving a voice to public school educators who love to teach, but also need to earn a living, so I generally have a soft spot for unions that promote workers' rights.
For the past examples of "why hasn't it happened yet" the example of slavery is a good one. We know the answer. Everyone thought it would die sooner than it did, but then technology made it more sustainable. As the nation grew, there was a fight over whether or not the new states should be free or slave. The South was particularly upset because even by the 1850s, the North was much more productive and rich. Fights over tariffs set the ground for problems and eventually the question of slavery itself caused a war.
Pivoting to all these lovely ideas people on the left have, my question of "why haven't they done it" was one I know at least part of the answer to. It's because they can't afford. California flirted with the idea of universal healthcare, then scrapped it. I think Vermont tried, and then scrapped it because they couldn't pay for it. Green projects have plans that outmatch our current technological abilities or are hideously expensive. I want to know why people can argue for doing this at the federal level but not the state level... if voters in NY or CA aren't going to willingly pay for all this stuff, how is the nation going to? (I'm also being very generous here and assuming that these plans were good in theory. This is very generous, because "Medicare-for-all" was a very bad idea with few details really fleshed out).
As a slight aside here, I find something very interesting. When I was growing up I always remember lefties talking about Europe and Canada and how if they can do something, then so can we! I find it fascinating no one looks to them as an example any more, espeically after the Bernie fad came and went. Europe (and Canada) are falling further and further behind us, and yet they have so many of these things the left wants here. The aging population + universal healthcare is causing problems for the more state-run European medical programs. Not to defend the American healthcare system, which needs work. But nobody in America talks about the NHS or France's incredibly...generous labor laws any more. There might be something we can learn from Europe, but maybe more as a cautionary tale.
So I guess I would rephrase my question: If California, New York, Illinois, or even New Jersey can't do some of this stuff (or won't) why do you think it would be realistic for the entire nation?
The word "cannot" in your part B is interesting to me; is there a distinction between "cannot be done by the states" and "cannot be done well by the states"?
Not really, though we could indeed think of examples. Federal tax collection for instance. Better to leave that to the federal government (a very mundane and simple example, ignoring that it would probably be unconstitutional for the feds to make the states collect it anyways).
Disaster relief, I think, I do not know, generally works by the state telling the feds what it needs. I'm not sure they act at all without the input of the state, it's just that the feds can marshal more resources. But there are those who really despise the federal system of our government who would argue that the states are terrible in general. I think first of all that's wrong, but I would also say the only way the union has survived this long is the distributed nature of governmental power. But some things the states are better for, they are closer to the people and the exact needs of the residents there. If everything were federal, some issues that a state needs to take care of would have to be managed by the federal government, which may not have the wherewithal to deal with it, and also crucially, may have a political incentive to do something different. So trade policy? Congress does that. But how about homelessness? That should be a state issue, for those citizens to make the best decision they can for their version of the problem. And the federal government (headed by a president of one party or another) may have a perverse incentive to reward friendly states and punish adversarial ones.
This has gotten a little bit away from "the debt" but everything the government does costs money, and money also gives you leverage. So you can see how our rapidly for all these issues we might have get money going everywhere.
I also agree with you that states piloting progressive policies should show receipts of beneficial effects, if we're to implement them at a national level. That's probably the best way to get other Democrats on board. That may not be enough to make Republicans interested, as it'll cost extra money, it'll be expanding the role of the federal government, etc.
I'm glad we agree on this, I really do think that if most of these ideas are good ones, they should display themselves as such on a small scale first. (Small being relative. Again, I'm not sure there's much of an argument that 40 million people is too few for universal healthcare). I would say that's a conservative way of looking at it. And like I said, if these things actually "worked" in these blue states, it would be hard to keep them out of red states or the entire country eventually. As I said before when I mentioned that voters like things that cost money but don't like having to pay the money, self-interest can be a powerful motivator.
Not sure I precisely answered everything in a perfectly relevant manner but I hope I got most of it
Yeah you definitely did! I see our conversation has mostly steered towards healthcare, and I think that makes a lot of sense since it contributes so heavily to our federal budget and national debt. That's definitely a space where I have a lot to learn.
Federal level: You mentioned that Europe and Canada have fallen out of favor when it comes to healthcare, but I do think that we can learn from those countries (and any other country that is doing something better than we do it). This source ranks United States as 11th out of 11 select first-world countries, and ranks the United States as 69th worldwide: https://www.internationalinsurance.com/health/systems/ . We definitely can't just copy/paste a different country's healthcare system onto the United States, as there are a variety of geopolitical differences to consider. That doesn't mean there's nothing useful to be learned or emulated though, and maybe there are ways to modify ideas to account for those geopolitical differences. I hope our belief in American exceptionalism doesn't prevent us from researching how other countries deal with issues too, and I hope the fact that no country does something perfectly means that we should ignore what they do well.
State level: The source above also mentions the top 5 states for health insurance (all blue states) and the bottom 5 states for health insurance (all red states). The source for the state-by-state comparison comes from the following data, which is "based on 58 measures of health care access, quality, use of services, costs, health disparities, reproductive care and women’s health, and health outcomes" ( https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/scorecard/2023/jun/2023-scorecard-state-health-system-performance ). Almost all of the top-half are liberal states; almost all of the bottom half are conservative states. That's merely a correlation between political affiliation and healthcare, but again I worry that some leaders might not even want to look for ways to adopt and adapt ideas from other states because flaws still exist. If a blue state fails to effectively implement Medicare For All, for example, and decides to switch to a different healthcare system that is still miles ahead of a red state, then I hope the leaders of the red state don't only conclude that M4A didn't work and that their still-worse-than-other-states healthcare system is sufficient.
I agree with you that states can sometimes represent their residents better than the federal government can. I also think it's natural for people to disagree on which specific policies ought to be decided by the state, and there might not be an easy way to address that conflict. I think a dialogue like this one is a step in the right direction to at least understanding other perspectives.
On October 10 2024 17:06 Gorsameth wrote: Does the US actually have a migrant crisis? or is it just the Republicans pretending there is one because migration is the only policy they have left that they can actually run on? and considering they killed their own border bill they shouldn't even be able to run on that.
The crisis is that R states are shipping migrants to D states that don't currently have the infrastructure/support system in place to take them all in and make sure they are treated halfway decent. So you get the housing crisis for migrants, let alone the need to actually survive in the US. So then you get all of the stuff that comes with that. And the Rs, who manufactured this situation, is trying to capitalize on it.
The only crisis is a crisis of immediate resources to help everyone that needs it.
EPT
Please explain what you believe would be the best way to reduce our national debt, and why you think it would be effective.
To which, again, the question is that if they do, how come it hasn't happened yet? You are right that I don't think it's the governments role to do anything at all with daycare except basic health and safety. But in some ways the argument is on my side. Why haven't these states done it? is the payoff too far into the future? Is it not politically viable? There's just no way to do any of this stuff without massive tax hikes but dems just demagogue billionaires instead. Then again, they've been doing that since at least William Jennings Bryan, through FDR, and up until the present day. 
