Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Hm. I still don't think that's right. It's "debts" incurred, including those incurred because of certain war time obligations and expenditures. I don't think that makes the pension itself inviolate, just the debt that was taken out to pay the pension.

Also, I really don't know how your reading would work. Does that means once appropriated, no spending can ever be cut by a future Congress? That just doesn't sound right.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Inapt.

Congress has bought the car with financing and is threatening to default on it unless the auto lender agrees to give it haircut on future payments.

That banks are willing to lend to us until we crater is not proof of our long term solvency.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Bullshit. It's attempting to remove the front fender and return it for credit. While still on the dealer's lot.

ETA: Btw, Mexico and many other sovereign have actually negotiated with creditors for haircuts. We aren't there yet, and that possibility is not meaningfully on the horizon yet.

Speaking of inapt.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

I'm just saying that the federal government can't repudiate its debts. You seem to agree with this so far is it applies to people who have a legal claim for money against the federal government based on contract law when the contract involves lending money. For some reason I'm not clear on, you have an intuitive problem extending that principle to people who have a legal claim for money against the federal government based on contract law when the contract involves employment, or one based on other federal law. It all works the same way. If the government owes you money, it can't repudiate that debt. (And it can't achieve this through the back door by forbidding itself to borrow the money.)

Conservatives who like the Takings Clause ought to agree with what I'm saying, since it's a similar way of preventing the government from abusing property rights.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

next Friday I'm meeting with my land lord to tell him he either needs to lower the lease rate, I've already agreed to for the next two years, or I'll leave in two years.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

I'm not talking about foreign creditors.

Banks will run to anything with perceived low risk and decent return in this climate. And recall that sovereign debt crises always go from off-the-radar to acute in periods of days, not months or years. (Your faith in the industry which thought housing was a "can't lose" bet is also kind of amusing. My father was in banking most of his life. I grew up around them, had them at the house, caddied for them, and know a whole bunch of them from school... fuck, I can't get away from the damn people. This I have learned anecdotally and from empirical evidence: Bankers are (1) Brutally overrated in terms of intelligence, and (2) Among the least creative, most herd-like thinkers in the world. But you go ahead and have faith in them.)

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Yes. Those are debts as the word is typically understood.

Okay, maybe you have a point about employment, but yeah, I'm not sure that "other federal law" is necessarily debt.

For example, let's look at the second engine for the joint strike fighter. It was in the 2010 appropriations, but not in 2011. Does that run afoul of the 14th amendment? Does it matter whether de-funding it is a breach of the contract with Lockheed (it almost certainly wasn't)? In addition to damages for breach, does every plaintiff suing the government under a contract get specific performance?

But it's not all the same way. It can terminate the contract for some expenditures. It can fire every lawyer at DOJ and it can pass legislation eliminating Medicare, eliminating the need to make these payments.

It can't do that do bonds that have been issued. In your view, at what point does the appropriation turn into a debt? Upon passage? When the executive takes steps to implement the program? Once a contract is in place?

Perhaps they "ought to" in an intellectual sense, but I doubt many of them think that anyone who enters a contract with the government has a property right in continuing that contract.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

You enjoy that. Those are always such pleasant meetings.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

You're not talking about any creditors. We are not now in negotiations with anyone to take a haircut on money we have borrowed.

I don't think this is as true as some people want it to be, but yes, that things are peachy this instant doesn't mean they will be peachy next week. But these things are still never really a surprise.

Right now, all indications are that if the politicians said "okay, debt ceiling is now 20 trillion" the markets would go on their merry way.

Then, at some point over the next 20 or so years, if the economy continues to perform how you think it will perform (and alternatives to U.S. debt are available, which looks pretty questionable right now too), our long term debt issue will significantly threaten our solvency without entitlement reform. You seem quite eager to take your prediction of the economic future as gospel (always a silly idea) and therefore extrapolate the future crisis to today. Sorry, but it's not here yet. It's close enough that we need to work to avoid it, but it isn't so close that rushing ourselves into it prematurely by stupidly refusing to open an arbitrary and largely theatrical interim gate is stupid.

The thing is, though, is that no one really disagrees about that. They disagree right now about whether more revenue is preferable to deeper cuts.

Well, fucking, duh. Who said I had any faith in them?

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

That's not it at all. We're not negotiating with the lender for a haircut. We're squabbling among ourselves about whether to make payments we've already agreed to. Not only are we not trying to get a haircut, what the GOP is threatening to do will increase our costs of borrowing going forward.

(This from a party whose budget proposal -- Paul Ryan's -- calls for larger deficits in the near term.)

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

No. If Congress hasn't appropriated the money, it hasn't appropriated the money. In which case, where does the legal obligation to pay come from?

I don't know much about government contracts, but I'm not sure how an employee in the executive branch could oblige the Congress to appropriate funds.

We're not talking about plaintiffs here. We're talking about people who are unquestionably owed money by the government, under law, whom the government is just deciding not to pay. Why should that be OK?

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Lawyers at DOJ don't have a legal right to perpetual employment, even if it seems to work that way. Congress can change the benefits that Medicare will pay in the future. It just can't decide not to pay benefits already legally established.

I think what you're saying is, in some cases some additional action by the Executive Branch is necessary to take an appropriation and turn it into a debt. True enough. If Congress appropriates money for FEMA to spend on disaster relief and there are no disasters and the money is unspent, no one has a legal claim to receive the funds. But in the case of old people and soldiers, others have a legal claim to get paid.

I don't know why the word "debt" should encompass only contractual debts. Contract law is one source of law. Federal statute is another.

Right. It's class warfare under another guise.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

So the question is the appropriation then, not the contract? Once congress appropriates, anyone who is supposed to get that money has become a lender to the U.S.?

What if the recipients haven't been identified yet?

Me neither, but I'm assuming that because it was defunded that it could be without a breach of contract. But that isn't necessarily right. It could just be the Lockheed (I think it was them) just doesn't want to sue it's only major customer.

I don't follow you. DOD went to the Hill and said, "we need funds for the joint strike fighter" which congress then appropriated. In this specific instance, if I recall correctly, congress specifically said "buy two engine systems." DOD then went out and entered into the contracts. So Congress arguably would be the one doing the obliging.

But yeah, I would assume that a condition in the contract is continued appropriations from Congress, but I don't know either.

I thought we were talking about whether the 14th Amendment allows it, not whether it was OK. Of course it isn't okay.

I just don't see how the 14th Amendment requires, for example, that each Social Security recipient gets his check. It may be an entitlement, but it's not a debt.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

if congress has agreed to spend but hasn't yet contracted with the company that will get the k, we can dump that right? and like my landlord, we can tell these bandits they give us better deals or the taps getting turned off.

what you're seeing is the adults stepping in to clean up the mess you kids have made.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

So if your wife runs up the credit card bill beyond what you expected, you don't pay the mortgage?

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

That's not what I was trying to say. The Fourteenth Amendment refers to the public debt, authorized by law. I think you were giving examples about expectations of future payments which have not yet been authorized by law. E.g., I would imagine that defense contracts are quite clear to say that the government won't have any obligation to pay if funds are not appropriated by Congress. How could the Executive Branch commit the government to make payments if Congress hasn't appropriated the funds?

But the claims of your old people and soldiers have been authorized by law.

Is that because you're saying that "debt" only exists because of contract law? If I commit a tort against you and a court enters judgment for you against me, and orders me to pay you money, do I not then have a debt to you? And if common-law-created entitlements to money are called debts, then when aren't entitlements to money created by federal law?

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

I guess that's part of it. But more fundamentally I'm saying a debt is when you borrowed money (or bought something on credit, which is the same thing) and have to pay it back.

A debt is not a contractual obligation to continue buying something, and it's not a promise to keep giving someone a promised gift (e.g., benefit).

Which is why I think you have a point about employment. They can fire all federal employees and avoid future costs, but they can't refuse payment for work already rendered. That's a debt.

Right, but does the 14th Amendment mean that legal claim includes a claim to get paid right now? I have a hard time squaring that with the obvious fact that Congress could unilaterally end that legal claim, or delay it, by passing legislation today.

Because that's what a debt is.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

But have their claims for payment for next month vested yet?

That's another good example.

Because they can be unilaterally changed by Congress.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

hypothetically, if she spent that much then I hope I would be in a quid-pro-quo fellatio induced stupor, and you are right, I would likely fail to pay my mortgage.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Yes.

Bullshit. No one is cleaning up a mess here.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Agree this analogy is incorrect.

Analogy is Congress has bought the car and is threatening to default unless the auto lender extends additional credit so that Congress can make payments on the initial loan. And that the additional credit will accrue a PIK, rather than cash interest.

Undoubtedly, you've run across similar situations, Sebby.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Yes, that's exactly it. We have agreed to spend money we don't have. That money will be borrowed from foreign creditors. The Republican majority in Congress, because of its power on the debt ceiling issue, can hold back the wire (to use an easy analogy). And this GOP majority can demand that, in trade for allowing it through, the people who are in favor of spending more money than they want to must agree to pare that spending in the future.

It's a bit odd to describe a demand someone pull back on future spending as a "haircut," but I can't think of a better quick descriptive for forcing someone to agree to take less of something in a transaction.

The Democrats want more spending; the GOP wants less. The GOP is compelling the Democrats to cut expenditures and deal with less of what they expected with the threat of creating an economic calamity that would really imperil future spending. In theory, it's just like me telling a bank, "Take $.75 on the dollar or I'll file bankruptcy and you'll get $.25."

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Of course the people who are in favor of spending more than they want to are most of them, when they voted for the budget to avoid a government shut down.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Have you ever seen a loan workout where the borrower was in the right? Even with most lender liability counterclaims, the admission, "Yeah, we fucked up and can't pay like we promised" is the baseline of the discussions. Of course the GOP is inconsistent. But this is essentially a business negotiation. That stuff's irrelevant.*

*Unless we blow the deadline and rates go crazy, or the mere game of chicken starts to looks serious enough to cause a rate spike, which would cost the GOP dearly. But if that happens, we'll all be more interested in stockpiling Spam than who's running for Congress. So I guess I'd have to say, the GOP's leverage is pretty good. Heads I Win, Tails Everybody's Fucked and It Doesn't Matter.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Yeah, that's exactly wrong. This is a political negotiation, not a business negotiation. And they don't admit they were wrong, but ignore and deny it.

This kind of things happens only in politics.

I don't think the downside is as bad as you think. It's bad, but it's not ammo and Spam bad.

Which is why there is a limit to their leverage, and why the current appearance, that they will choose default over any tax increase, looks so stupid to me.

ETA: Yeah, that isn't right either. They aren't going to choose default over tax increases, they are just trying to position themselves so they can claim in the next election that they didn't want any tax increase and wanted bigger cuts (the latter of which is untrue) but the Dems were for big government. The side effect of hurting the economy is just gravy.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

That? That's the Greek bailout right there. Paper + Time + Magical Event that Creates Cash to Buy Out of the Endless Kick-the-Can Cycle Within a Horizon Our Grandchildren Might See = Success!

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

In theory, it's not like that, because the negotiations about who gets what are entirely on the borrower's side, not with the bank. It's like a married couple that has bought a car and is using the threat of default on that loan to win a fight about what cars they buy in the future.

And anyone who posts hypotheticals in which the Republicans are likened to the responsible ones needs to come to grips with the fact that

1. Congressional Republicans voted last fall for tax cuts that increased our debt, hastening the financial problems they're complaining about now. We have a revenue problem, not a spending problem, because both parties have reduced federal revenues to lowest percentage of GDP that it's been in a long time. The spending is only a problem because we keep choosing not to pay for it.

2. The Congressional Republicans have all voted for a budget plan, Paul Ryan's, that increases the debt in the near term (to pay for tax cuts for the rich).

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Not voted for, insisted on to the point of threatening a shutdown.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

until we can get HCR held unconstitutional or repealed cutting taxes and cutting spending is the only responsible thing to do. it is possible the HCR will survive and if it does we surely need to slash spending otherwise.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

What part of your belief system makes cutting taxes necessary and reasonable? It's going to magically raise more revenue to pay for your predicted wave of cost overruns?

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

No one is opposed to cutting spending, so long as it's someone else's spending.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

In this instance, the Congressional GOP has the lender's proxy. Or at least what should be the lender's proxy (If I were China, I'd be asking for some indication I wasn't buying the paper of a hopeless Banana republic).

I didn't say the GOP was responsible. I think they're irresponsible. But that's irrelevant.

Saying the spending is only a problem because we choose not to pay for it is ludicrous. It is unwise to borrow what can be raised with modest tax increases, true. But it is disingenuous and willfully ignorant to suggest spending in this country is not out of whack. We have overbuilt our government, and its programs. It's just that simple. It should be made more efficient, more effective.*

Ryan's plan is flawed in that regard. You are right on that point.
_____________
*Now give me your argument to that: "Doing so would cost us jobs! You never cut jobs in a recession!" Well, then what the fuck do we do? Let the govt become so enormous and costly it crowds out and stifles everything in the private sector? Govt runs on taxes. Curing the revenue problem without cutting spending is simply shifting more money from the consumer to govt expenditures. Is that a recipe for economic growth? Making us all indirect wards of the state?

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

If no claim has vested yet, then Congress can change the statute entitling them to be paid. But if it doesn't, then they have a debt.

Congress can unilaterally change the common law, too, by passing a statute. Read the Supremacy Clause. You have some intuitive notion that common-law debts are real debts and debts based on federal law don't count. That's not how our legal system works.

The point of the Fourteenth Amendment language is that Congress can't undo the policy decisions it has already made simply by deciding not to pay obligations already incurred by the federal government.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

if you want friends on this board you better stop running a company and basing your arguments on actual experience and start relying on blogs that you read.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Oh, so let me guess... Then your argument against cutting spending is, "It can't be done. It's politically impossible." So we should just give up and let it grow, and as it does, raise revenue. Here's some news for you: Raising revenue is similarly impossible.

See, here's what's going to happen. The uber-rich? They're sheltered. They'll still pay nothing, or simply move. The upper middle class? It's already stretched to the near snapping point, and its municipal taxes are also going up. Tax it more at the Fed level and you'll create an immediate recession. The middle and lower middle classes? Dry fucking well. Good luck getting blood from a stone.

We're going to cut spending and we're going to raise some taxes. We can't afford either, but there's no other option politically, or fiscally. If you think we ought to be doing all of one and not some combination of the two, stop writing about the issue. You're a fucking idiot.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Um, the only people claiming to only want to do one are the House Rs, and I think Ty's whole point is that they are acting like fucking idiots.

So it seems that you and he agree.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

No, it doesn't. Lenders are quite willing to lend more money to the federal government because it is safer than their other options, like Greek bonds.

I do not think that the budget imbalance is not a problem. I said it wasn't pushing us to default, and it isn't. Spending is only a problem because we have stopped paying for it by cutting taxes to their lowest level in decades.

Hank earlier said that Democrats ought to explain why their economics doesn't work. The same could be said of the notion that we need to keep lowering taxes to help the economy. Taxes are, by historical standards, very, very low. The economy blows.

No one -- no one -- disagrees with the idea that the government should be more efficient and effective. Most people disagree with you on the size of the government. When it comes time to actually cut things, people don't want the cuts. They like Social Security. They like Medicare and Medicaid (which is why the GOP is pretending that Paul Ryan's plan won't end it). They like the military budget.

Now, maybe the problem is that politicians keep telling people that they can have all these government programs and they don't have to pay for them.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

I think we need to cut spending and raise taxes. The people who stand for doing one and not the other are called "The Republican Party," and I agree with you that they are largely a bunch of fucking idiots, if the congressional leadership is any indication.

On the other hand, they are doing exactly what their rich donors want, and they really don't need to worry about what you or I think.

eta: Hi, Cletus!

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Obama? Or did you mean GGG?

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Democrats are in favor of PAY GO, and Republicans are against it. It's pretty simple. Obama found spending cuts to offset the costs of his healthcare reform. Bush didn't try with Medicare Part D, and his own party didn't make him pay any price for it.