[RD] Getting SALTy

[metalhead]

Their base will support whatever they are told to support. Up to and including child molestation.

 

[onejayhawk]

I'm only worried about the deficit to the extent that Republicans will use it as a pretext to further ravage social spending while increasing the military's budget.

That's a safe bet. They are Republicans because that is the way they prioritize spending, not the other way around.

That's what money printers are for right? I don't think any politician should be allowed to touch the budget, it needs to be completely redone by technocrats with no political leanings what-so-ever.

Show me a technocrat with no political leanings and I will show you someone too dumb to hold a job. Argue deficits with metalhead. He's the one with the printing press.

J

 

[Cutlass]

I'm only worried about the deficit to the extent that Republicans will use it as a pretext to further ravage social spending while increasing the military's budget.

They won't even get the increased military spending. Not much of it anyways. They've dug themselves into a fiscal and economic hole where it will be technically impossible to increase military spending.

What they are too economically, and mathematically, (not to mention morally and ethically) illiterate to understand is that cutting social spending does not cut spending. For every dollar that comes out of social spending more than a dollar will go into police and prisons. For every dollar that goes out of healthcare more than a dollar will go out of revenue as people are driven out of the workforce by treatable medical conditions. With every dollar of new debt there will be an increase in the portion of the budget which is spent on debt service. Every dollar for 'securing the border' will be a dollar flushed down the toilet for no gain whatsoever.

When the math is finally done on all of this, the amount of money which is available for the military will be less than what they are calling for.

You have to have money before you can decide what to spend it on. The Republican plan is to not have money.

 

[onejayhawk]

For a different take, try this one from The Week.
http://theweek.com/articles/741703/democrats-are-wrong-about-gop-tax-bill

The real problem with the Republican tax reform effort is the opposite of Pelosi's claims. The flaw isn't that it goes too far — it doesn't go far enough. A few years ago, Republicans debated whether a tax-system overhaul should adopt a flat-tax model that would eliminate social engineering and crony capitalism, or the "fair tax" consumption-based model that would end the income tax altogether.

Instead, Republicans have only offered tweaks to the existing system for individual taxes, and in the Senate version hardly even that much; it retains the same number of brackets and just distributes the deductions a little differently. It's only a mild adjustment to the status quo of individual taxes, not a groundbreaking effort to put America on the path of simplicity and fairness. (It does reduce the corporate tax rate much more significantly, but this is hardly some undemocratic travesty of justice.) True national leaders in the Democratic Party would cast the bill for what it really is — an unimaginative tweak with little hope for real impact.
​

J