"I'm GGG and I approve this message."

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Ace responds and thinks its more like Tapper 0, conservative (and military) blogosphere 1

If you read Obama's comments, Tapper's follow-up, and Ace's response, and you think that Obama comes out looking bad, then I can understand why you think that the Democratic Congress raised spending in 1993.

eta: I like how Ace ends by -- out of the blue -- calling Yglesias fat. Not that he's sore about being shown up or anything.

eata: More corroboration of Obama here.

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Isn't this cycle all about "change"?

Yes, but I think Michelle is proud of our research.

S_A_M

[Spanky]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Why don't you just tell us, since we all know you're just chomping at the bit to link to something.

During the entire time Newt was Speaker they tried to cut spending, and tried to stem the growth of medicare but Clinton fought them tooth and nail.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Adder
If you honestly think McCain will cut spending, you are in need of a similar trip to your physician. War is expensive, afterall.

War is not nearly as expensive as all the entitlements. Medicare, Medicaid, Social Secuirty all dward the spending on Defense, even during a war.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Try this for size:

• Bill Clinton, unlike most other recent presidents, demonstrated that he would immerse himself in the details of the budget. Despite the fact that it was not an issue that he emphasized while running for the presidency in 1992, Clinton demonstrated willingness early in his presidency to reduce the deficit. It was widely held that if Clinton was to get a handle on the deficit as he promised, he must do so in the first year of his presidency, when his political capital was at its peak (Hager and Cloud, 1993a).
  
  In a joint session of Congress on February 17, 1993, President Clinton unveiled his budget proposal that included deep spending cuts, but which relied overwhelmingly on tax increases to bring the deficit downward. At the same time, Clinton proposed to quickly boost short-term job creation by pumping billions of dollars into new spending programs. Clinton's deficit-cutting plan was the largest in history, proposing to save nearly $500 billion over four years. Of that amount, roughly two-thirds would go to reduce the deficit, while another third would be used to pay for increased job creation and long-term investment spending, making net deficit reduction at the end of the four years of the plan about $325 billion (Hager, 1993).
  
  The deficit-reduction package proposed a cut of $493 billion over four years, $247 of it coming from spending cuts and $246 billion from tax increases, almost exactly a 1-to-1 ratio. The ratio of tax increases to spending cuts quickly emerged as the major conflict point in congressional reaction to the plan. Republicans and conservative Democrats were upset that the ratio of cuts to taxes was much less than the 2-to-1 ratio that Panetta had advocated during his confirmation hearings. Though the deficit-reduction plan made notable spending cuts, its heavy reliance on tax increases displays the difficulties the Clinton economic team had coming up with acceptable spending cuts.
  
  Clinton's call for a tax increase was a direct repudiation of the economic philosophies of his two Republican predecessors. By aiming the taxes primarily at corporations and the well-off, Clinton was suggesting that the programs of Ronald Reagan and George Bush, which were designed to stimulate economic growth through tax cuts, came at the price of high deficits. Clinton believed that he could convince the American public--and a majority in Congress--that the economic expansion of the 1980s held negative consequences in the long run. Clinton proposed to raise most of the new revenue with an array of higher taxes on upper-income Americans and corporations, including $126.3 billion over six years mainly through a new top income tax bracket of 36 percent and a surtax on income over $250,000. Overall, more than half of the new taxes were projected to fall on families making more than $200,000 a year (Cloud, 1993). Table 1 shows the distribution of tax burden by income group.
  
  President Clinton's proposed budget faced its biggest obstacle in Congress with the vote on the budget reconciliation bill. The budget resolution only locked in the broad deficit-reduction numbers, but left virtually all of the specifics to the reconciliation process. The reconciliation bill was designed to reconcile tax and spending policy with deficit-reduction goals outlined in the budget resolution. The measure was the heart of Clinton's plan to reshape the nation's economic policy.
  
  In the end, Clinton's economic plan emerged victorious, though just barely. The Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act was approved in August 1993 without a single vote to spare in either chamber: it passed 218-217 in the House and 51-50 in the Senate (with Vice-President Al Gore making the tie-breaking vote). The measure passed without any Republican votes, the first time in postwar congressional history and possibly the first time ever that the majority party has passed major legislation with absolutely no support from the opposition (Hager and Cloud, 1993b).

This was not a legitimate response to Slave. The Senate and House kept Clinton in check when the Repubus took over in 95. Before that The Dems controlled every branch of government. And the spending that he proposes was not going to increase jobs. That is the huge myth that supposedly intelligent people keep repeating. When the government spends money to increase "Jobs" the taxes or deficits created to make those jobs cost more jobs than the resulting revenue creates.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Spanky
War is not nearly as expensive as all the entitlements. Medicare, Medicaid, Social Secuirty all dward the spending on Defense, even during a war.

If you honestly think McCain will cut Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Secuirty, you are in need of a similar trip to your physician.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
What actually happened is that the Democratic party cut taxes by the same amount that they raised spending, thereby balancing the budget. Fringey and I both tried to point this out to you, but the power of your preconceptions is very strong.

Hey, when's the last time that a Republican Congress cut spending unilaterally?

Under Clinton, when the Dems controlled both the Senate and the House, they RAISED taxes. Do remember later when Clinton told a rich audience that he RAISED their taxes too much. They moved towards a more balanced budget by raising taxes more than they raised spending.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Spanky
This was not a legitimate response to Slave. The Senate and House kept Clinton in check when the Repubus took over in 95. Before that The Dems controlled every branch of government. And the spending that he proposes was not going to increase jobs. That is the huge myth that supposedly intelligent people keep repeating. When the government spends money to increase "Jobs" the taxes or deficits created to make those jobs cost more jobs than the resulting revenue creates.

Slave said, "Clinton was basically kept in check by the House and Senate." As 1993-94 shows, this is flat-out wrong. Clinton invested serious political capital in balancing the budget, increasing taxes and cutting spending (in the face of uniform opposition from Republicans on the Hill).

eta: Perhaps the problem here is that when Republicans talk about fiscal responsibility, they have in mind cutting taxes, not than balancing the budget.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Because you don't lose all federal funding. You are required to keep the two separate. If you fail to do that, you're in violation of the accounting principles, and subject to whatever sanctions any institution is subject to for violating federal funding rules (such as including the cost of fancy toilet seats and flowers for the president's mansion in your "indirect" costs).

Sanctions like losing your federal funding?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Spanky
Under Clinton, when the Dems controlled both the Senate and the House, they RAISED taxes.

And CUT spending, which is what fringey and I said. If you're going to argue, try reading too.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
In so doing, however, you hammer the sector of the economy servicing the high end buyer. The pain doesn't hit the rich. They get annoyed by it, so they just bank their cash for a few years and wait for the next GOP administration to roll in and knock out the tax. The people who pay are ultimately the guys working in the yacht building yard.

Taxes are always going to cost jobs somewhere. When it comes to taxes it is all about loss mitigation. It is a questino of where you do the least amount of damage. And the place taxes do the least damage is in the sector of the economy servicing the high end buyer. Do you remember when Patrick Kennedy tried to pass tax breaks for Yacht builders? OK, he is a congressman from Rhode Island, but still, after that effort he lost any crediblity when arguing against any tax cut.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Not Bob
And cut spending. Did you see that part? Yes, there was a separate stimulus bill that passed, but the net effect of the two was a reduction in spending.

And the result was that the deficit went down. Cry all you want to about the tax increases, but your original question ("Have the Dems ever preached financial restraint?") was correctly answered by Adder.

Financial restraint means lower taxes and loweing spending. Increasing taxes more than increasing spending to balance the budet does not qualify as financial restraint.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Ace responds and thinks its more like Tapper 0, conservative (and military) blogosphere 1

I read both and I see it as Guy Who Has a Source 1, Conservative Asshole Who Has no Facts But Still Has Opinion, 0.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Slave said, "Clinton was basically kept in check by the House and Senate." As 1993-94 shows, this is flat-out wrong. Clinton invested serious political capital in balancing the budget, increasing taxes and cutting spending (in the face of uniform opposition from Republicans on the Hill).

eta: Perhaps the problem here is that when Republicans talk about fiscal responsibility, they have in mind cutting taxes, not than balancing the budget.

Again, Fiscal responsiblity does not mean raising taxes more than rasing spending. Clinton and the Dems cut spending in some areas, but ithe areas they raised spending in, was more than they cut. So the net result was higher spending and even higher taxes.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
I didn't call taxation a wealth transfer as a pejorative. It was intended only to observe that it takes money from some or all and, with the limited exception of foreign development and military aid, pays that money to members of the set of taxpayers who paid in the first instance. Whether that money is paid to them in consideration of goods and services (as in the case of government employees and contractors) or as an entitlement because the electorate wants a certain class of people to receive it (as in the case of AFDC or special education block grants) is immaterial to whether it's a compulsory wealth transfer regardless of value judgments about the benefit of particular programs.

Some might add interest payments on national debt as another example of "leakage" from a closed ecosystem of tax revenue, but that's not as clear to me.

Okay, I see your meaning. I read the term "wealth transfer" in its more commonly used sense of tax one person and use the revenue to make transfer payment (e.g., welfare or student loan) to someone else. I haven't typically seen a payment of wages to a person performing a governmental function described as a wealth transfer.