Lots of red meat for the nutty base in this Pat Toomey speech to the Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce. A few points:
1. Mr. Toomey has joined the furthest right Senators in calling for a Balanced Budget Amendment. Scott Galupo, one of John Boehner’s former staffers, has called this idea “quite simply, insane.” Conservative columnist Bruce Barlett, a former Senior Policy Analyst for Ronald Reagan, explains why it such a stupid idea, and why it would make recessions needlessly brutal. Mr. Toomey himself is responsible for an enormous portion of the short term debt, and comes to this issue with no credibility whatsoever. If he wants to cut spending. let him propose the spending cuts he thinks are needed.
2. Mr. Toomey also incorrectly compared the United States to Greece. It is not possible for the United States to have a Greek debt crisis.
3. He also seemed not to understand that “printing money, creating money out of the clear blue sky” is what the Fed always does in times good and bad. Is Mr. Toomey really joining up with the hard-money End The Fed cranks?
4. The overarching message was that the United States needs the cold enema of immediate fiscal austerity to start growing again. There is not any good reason to believe this is true. As we learned over the weekend, the cut-and-grow Republican plan for jobs works by liquidating labor and driving down private sector wages.
If you want less money and more real debt, that’s what Mr. Toomey is offering.
An independent==="a person who votes for candidates, measures, etc., in accordance with his or her own judgment and without regard to the endorsement of, or the positions taken by, any party."
Jon I haven't seem one post complementing a republican or idea on your Blog.
Lehigh Valley Independent, give me a break.
Are you a relative of Pawlowsky???
Actually, I haven't seen many posts on your blog
This is blog sucks.
How does it fell to be a rabid supporter of a warmonger
And anyone who keeps referring to 'short term debt' as if it's different from 'debt,' and keeps saying things 'are not possible' has no credibility either.
It's that kind of hubris that took out the British Empire, the Roman Empire, and every other Empire you could think of.
An independent is a person who cares about policy, not political parties. It doesn't mean I think Democrats and Republicans have equally good points. I don't think the Republican Party stands for anything aside from protecting the economic interests of white male middle-aged suburban conformists. That's obviously not an agenda that works for America. Maybe one day they will have political positions worth supporting, but right now they're a huge joke.
The Democratic Party is a useful vehicle for better policies, but they certainly aren't above reproach. The point is that you can get good stuff done when the Ds are in power, but you can't when the R's are.
"This is blog sucks" is probably the best comment I've ever received, so thanks for that.
Banker, the short term debt is things that are not increasing as a fraction of the budget. For instance – right now food stamp use is higher than usual because people lost a ton of wealth as a result of the financial crisis. That increased the deficit. But when the economy improves, food stamp use will return to roughly normal levels. That's short-term debt. There are lots of other programs like that.
Long term debt is the things that are increasing faster than economic growth – namely health care costs. The lost revenue from the Bush tax cuts also increases over time. These are the problem areas, not NPR and Planned Parenthood and other dumb ideologically motivated cuts.
Yawn.
The blog definitely sucks.
But we are entertained by What-Am-I-Gettings-From-Big-Government? all the same…
Our standards are low
J. STALIN
speaking for the HISTORICAL GANG
I saw this blog mentioned in the Morning Call and thought I'd give it a look. Once I saw it was Geeting I knew it was a waste of time. Independent, yeah right. A balanced budget amendment is a stupid idea? Typical lib speech. I got news for you, the true conservative wing of the Republican party is the actual party of the WORKING people. We aren't interested in hand-outs, live within our means, PAY our taxes unlike those in the Obama administration, and are tired of footing the bill for those who do not do the same!
Anon: You need to turn off foxnews, actually learn some economics and then you might be able to understand anything that Jon writes about on here. Your hateful posts in this thread are evidence enough that you have no clue how the world actually works.