Robert Waldmann — $ 2.1 trillion here $ 2.1 trillion there and soon you’re talking real money

They are into deep Voodoo. 

Also known as "ledgerdemain."

$ 2.1 trillion here $ 2.1 trillion there and soon you’re talking real money
Robert Waldmann

Robert Greenstein — Trump Budget Proposes Path to a New Gilded Age

President Trump’s new budget should lay to rest any belief that he’s looking out for the millions of people the economy has left behind. He proposes steep cuts in basic health, nutrition, and other important assistance for tens of millions of struggling, low- and modest-income Americans, even as he calls for extremely large tax cuts for the nation’s wealthiest people and profitable corporations.

This disturbing budget would turn the United States into a coarser nation, making life harder for most of those struggling to get by but more luxurious for those at the very top. Most Americans do not seek a new Gilded Age. And the budget is sharply at odds with what the President told voters he would do during his campaign. With this budget, the President betrays many voters who placed their trust in him.

In fact, this stands as the most radical, Robin-Hood-in-reverse budget that any modern President has ever proposed. Consider the combined effects of the health, tax, and spending policies that he’s outlined:

Ultimate supply side: drastic cuts in social welfare to fund enormous tax cuts for the wealthy on the assumption that this will stimulate domestic investment and create "millions of US jobs."

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
Greenstein: Trump Budget Proposes Path to a New Gilded Age
Robert Greenstein | President CBPP

Albert R. Hunt — Republicans Prepare Extravaganza of Tax and Spending Cuts

Republican congress versus Donald Trump. Who wins?

Bloomberg View
Republicans Prepare Extravaganza of Tax and Spending Cuts
Albert R. Hunt

Paul Ryan ascendant, proposes additional $5 trillion in cuts

Nothing left to say about this guy other than he's a very dangerous quack.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on Tuesday unveiled a budget that proposes to cut $5.1 trillion over a decade in a bid to erase the federal deficit, while calling once again for dramatic changes to Medicare, Medicaid and the tax code. Read more. 

Now he's about to become even more powerful as he ascends to the role of Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee as Dave Camp (R-Mich) just announced his retirement.

And throw in the fact that the Balanced Budget Convention is gaining steam. Europe, here we come!

gjohnsit — 4 reasons sequestration cuts are about to get much worse

We are 8 months into sequestration, and if you think things are bad now just wait a few more months.

Here is a list and approximate timeline of things to expect in the near future.

Daily Kos
4 reasons sequestration cuts are about to get much worse
gjohnsit

Breaking: GOP offers debt limit increase with spending cuts

Yawn...what else is new?

Will Obama turn it down or accept?

It's either a fast death or a slow death. Either way, we're going down.

Economic illiterate and degenerate, Bill O'Reilly, rips another meek Progressive

Economic illiterate and degenerate blowhard Bill O’Reilly went ballistic on his show the other night, screaming at liberal Fox News whipping boy Alan Colmes and shouting “bull-blank.” (Utterly ridiculous, bull-blank? Seriously?)

O’Reilly called Colmes a “liar” because he said that Colmes couldn’t name one program that has seen a reduction in spending even though Colmes repeatedly stated, Medicare, which saw a $10 billion dollar reduction in FY 2012 vs FY 2011. In addition, Medicaid was down by $23.7 billion, NASA down by $1 billion, Federal salaries (not a program, but still a target of fiscal conservative ire) down by almost $3 billion and there’s more. The numbers are there.

While O’Reilly did the typical bully job on meek Colmes, Colmes deserved it for doing the usual liberal/progressive thing of not having any facts to back up his arguments. The progressive leadership (of which Colmes is a part due to his media presence) is a BIG part of the reason why the movement is not going anywhere. It is easily countered or destroyed by the "bull-blank" conservative dogma.

Here's the video.

Bonnie Kavoussi — Americans To Washington: Delay The 'Steep' Sequestration Cuts

Politicians have said they may have no choice but to let automatic spending cuts kick in next Friday. But the American people say they better find a way out of it.

The government has scheduled $1.2 trillion in spending cuts, nicknamed the "sequestration," to take place starting on Mar. 1. But 54 percent of Americans support a plan to "delay steep cuts to give the economy a chance to continue recovering which would help reduce the deficit," according to a new Bloomberg poll....

Americans support delaying the sequestration even though 62 percent of Americans believe the budget deficit is growing, the poll found. In fact, the deficit is shrinking, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

The Huffington Post
Americans To Washington: Delay The 'Steep' Sequestration Cuts
Bonnie Kavoussi

Bloomberg proposes spending cuts, but no tax increases, to hit his budget targets

I HATE this Mike Bloomberg with a passion. When will he understand that spending cuts are the fiscal equivalent of tax increases, they just hit a lower income strata? When you say you are just going to only pass spending cuts, but not raise taxes, you are saying that you are going to raise taxes on the middle class and poor. That's exactly what you are doing and it is completely unjust.

NYC schools are going to lose about $250 million in funding thanks to Bloomberg. My kids go to public school and I've been getting hit up for donations and fees left and right from even before these cuts. That's a tax on me and it's about to go up.

I am not one of Mike's billionaire friends, who can easily afford to pay more. It's just unfair and unjust and immmoral to ask me and families of even lesser means to have to cough up more while the wealthy get off scott free.

We need leadership and fairness. This is total bullshit.

When it comes to economic policy the Democrats are their own worst enemy

I wish someone of influence within the Democratic Party would learn some MMT. Unless that happens, their economic ideas are doomed.

Here's an example of the proposed "stimulus" being put forth by Democratic members of the Supercommittee:

Supercommittee Dems push for stimulus to be part of deficit deal By Erik Wasson - 10/26/11 11:49 AM ET Democrats on the congressional supercommittee this week presented Republicans with a plan to cut the deficit that included billions of dollars in stimulus spending, aides told The Hill. In a private session of the deficit panel on Tuesday, Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, proposed trillions of dollars in tax increases that would partially cover stimulus spending for the economy, aides said.

The tax hike thing is just not going to pass. They should stop, already.

Or, they should call it what it really is: income redistribution. They should just come right out and say, "We want to redistribute income. That is our plan."

But for heavens sake, stop calling it a stimulus.

The don't do this because they are ignorant about how our monetary system functions. So are the Republicans, by the way, but at least the Republicans don't lie about their intentions. They pretty much come right out and say they want to give everything to the rich because the rich are "the job creators." We know that's a bunch of BS, but it's a sound bite that they've managed to make work.

This thing will never work. You have one party that is openly and unabashedly creating a policy conduit by which all of the nation's wealth is funneled up to an elite class of plutocrats, and then you have the bumbling Democrats who talk of "fairness" and greater equality, but then act like we've but a few crumbs left and we must struggle and strive and sacrifice in order to find a better way to divy those crumbs up among the citizenry.

It's truly pathetic. Both parties are to blame, but mostly I blame the Democrats. The party's leadership and its "intellectuals" are a bunch of snobby elitists who went to places like Harvard, Yale and Princeton who'll fight you tooth and nail so that that their misguided dogma rules the way they think and act.

It's hopeless.