Apparently Minnesota will learn what happens when spending exceeds inflation and our "GDP" growth. (ie more of our economy)
Duluth News MN Legislature
US Spending History Chart
Thankfully the GOP still controls the House at the Federal level. Maybe they can hold back the spending spree.
Thoughts on the results? Or just need to vent or celebrate? Both comments welcome.
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23 comments:
Maybe we need a pool, a little gallows humor. Pick the final biennial budget the DFL will enact in 2013, probably somewhere between $40 and $45 billion.
Good point Speed. Here is an oldie but goodie. Back when Laurie was still Nokomis..
G2A MN Budget Baseline
According to their plan 2013 was to be $32,617,643, slightly lower than 2011/2012 since the Fed money will be gone. I am betting they go for a 10% yearly increase... (~$35,879,407 in 2013, $39,467,348 in 2014)
I mean it doesn't matter, right, they'll just get it from the rich or companies. And they have to stay here. (don't they???) And I mean that's only 7% per yr over inflation, what a deal.
Then of course they will pass a big bonding bill because that is almost free money with the low interest rates... Don't worry our kids can pay back the principal over the next 30 yrs...
The 2.4% market drop doesn't bode well for investor confidence that Obama will improve things. (Ie jobs growth)
maybe today's drop in investor confidence is due to the tea party GOP retaining control of the house and they cannot be trusted to be responsible, especially about increasing the debt limit.
As for MN, that is what I am most pleased about as I didn't expect the dfl to regain the majority in both chambers.
I believe during the Pawlenty years spending growth did not keep pace with inflation, and growth in population. I probably could find you a historical graph about state spending as a % of GDP, but I don't feel like it. Anyway we are due for an increase in spending and we can start with paying back the schools.
I don't think the House was a surprise. It should have been built into the price.
Just think what Obama offers American business. Higher taxes, more regulation, additional EPA costs, etc, etc. Why would they be happy to see him in office? Remember that the stock market is based on an guesstimate of future profits. Lower estimated profits, lower prices.
I hope they are wrong. I have a lot of money invested in many companies right now.
Incorrect Laurie...MN Spending History
The 2.4% market drop doesn't bode well for investor confidence that Obama will improve things. (Ie jobs growth)
The stock market doesn't care about jobs. Employees are a cost, and businesses try to use as few of them as possible, something the mainstream media never understood about Romney and his role in business. From what I hear, yesterday's rocky day was the result of a focus on the fiscal cliff, the next big thing.
Generally, the stock market does better under Democrats than Republicans, to some extent, in my view, because the presence of Democrats in the White House tends to inhibit managerial greed just a bit, leaving more goodies around for shareholders to divvy up among themselves.
"I don't think the House was a surprise. It should have been built into the price."
What wasn't necessarily built into stock prices was an Obama victory. Not everyone reads Nate Silver. And there is a real challenge here. Mitt Romney's most effective argument was always that Democrats would work with him to achieve a governing majority, while Republicans would never work with Barack Obama. It's an argument that made out Republicans to be hostage takers, but it had an element of truth to it. In any event, we have a window of opportunity here with a lame duck Congress, to make some tough decisions and to put a lot of the nonsense behind us. But we are hearing the same old things, that poor people will have to make sacrifices so that rich people can have car elevators, that we are to redistribute things to which entitled to to those who are not.
--Hiram
Well I hope the Republicans resist the call to tax and spend more.
Remember. A rising river floats all boats. Companies do well, they hire more people.
And I hope the Democrats are good for the market, since I staying in.
Remember. A rising river floats all boats. Companies do well, they hire more people.
Not necessarily true, and particularly in this economy, where corporate managers have used strategies to maintain, and even increase profitability by engaging in cost reduction, i.e. firing old employees and not hiring new employees. President Obama wasn't wrong when he said the private sector was doing well. Check the Dow Jones Industrial Average since he became president. Who isn't doing well now, are the employees of the private sector, and they haven't been doing well for a long time.
Here is my favorite video about how a rising tide doesn't necessarily float all the boats. Sometimes, faced with a rising tide, for not very convincing reasons, management decides to pull the plug on the boat.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2tw688Kbjy4
--Hiram
Elsewhere I have talked about what I consider the false problem of the educational achievement gap. I think it's false because of a pretty clear understanding that measures specifically designed to solve it, flunking out minorities or finding ways to teach white kids badly, would be contrary to overall education policy. Similarly, uncertainty is a false problem, one because life is inherently uncertain, and two, because measures designed to reduce it aren't necessarily consistent with policy goals, and in fact people don't act that way. In the video, Obamacare is one of the uncertainties. If uncertainty were the problem, why would people have tried to litigate it's constitutionality, which prolonged the uncertainty? Why do we have elections which foment uncertainty? And now that the uncertainty of who will be president for the next four years has been eliminated, is it time for the manager in that video to start expanding her business?
--Hiram
"...GOP retaining control of the house and they cannot be trusted to be responsible, especially about increasing the debt limit." -- Laurie
Odd. I have been urging my Congressman to vote NO and continue voting NO every time a request for a debt limit increase comes up; it's the only sensible position. Any D**n fool knows that, when you get in debt trouble, the first thing you do is cut up the credit card and stop making the problem worse. The second thing you do, immediately thereafter, is to figure out how to live within your means, REGARDLESS of what that means to the lifestyle to which you have become accustomed.
J. Ewing
Congressman to vote NO and continue voting NO every time a request for a debt limit increase comes up; it's the only sensible position
You are asking your Congressman to dishonor America, and America's debt. Refusing to raise the debt limit is like telling your banker you won't make any more payments on your mortgage. You still owe the money, and the banker is still justified in taking steps to make you fulfill your obligations. If you feel the debt is too high, stop spending money. But one problem with the debt is that the money was already spent. That's why we have the debt.
"the first thing you do is cut up the credit card and stop making the problem worse."
Yes, that's the idea people have. But what they forget, and what this doesn't address is all the automatic payments we have committed to that are drawn out of the credit card account. You can tear up your credit card into as small pieces, and that has no effect either to the amount of debt you have entered into in the future.
--Hiram
You really need to make up your mind. If they are just taxes, we have the right to renegotiate the entitlements at any time. We don't have to pay SS etc, we choose to.
"You really need to make up your mind. If they are just taxes, we have the right to renegotiate the entitlements at any time."
Possibly, but that's not what the debt limit does. It's simply a unilateral statement that we won't borrow again. It doesn't actually stop the borrowing, or the borrowing necessary by obligations we are assuming. Whether there is a legal or constitutional right to end the spending is a separate, and here, irrelevant issue.
--Hiram
By the way, there is an important legal distinction here, the one between an executed and executory contract. In the case of Social Security, it may be possible to change future benefits, you may not have a constitutional right to those. But you do have a right to past benefits. They become your property protected by the fifth and fourteenth amendments. Once the money is due, it's yours. Over the passage time future obligations become present obligations, debts the government owes and must pay.
--Hiram
Spending in MN may have increased but the current price of government in MN is less than it was through much of the 1990's.
I actually hope the DFL shows restraint which may help them stay in the majority the next election.
Laurie,
I'll try to back check the data from your source. It seems it may have a potential for bias. Though it does seem like an interesting site. Milestones
By the way, I agree that fiscally conservative Democrats would be a good thing. Yet will they be able to say no to all those folks with their hands out. Only time will tell.
Hiram,
Instead of raising the debt ceiling. The gov't can cut benefits, employee compensation, employee head count, etc, etc, etc. Same thing businesses do when the sale revenue isn't there.
It is just a choice. Do we live within our means or do we transfer more debt to the next generation? Or raise taxes? (icky)
. The gov't can cut benefits, employee compensation, employee head count, etc, etc, etc. Same thing businesses do when the sale revenue isn't there.
It may be able to do that, but that's not what refusing to raise the debt ceiling does. I just don't hear Tea Party types demand cuts in Social Security. I vividly recall how Obama's attempts to cut Medicare spending were met with harsh criticism by Republicans. Mitt Romney wanted to raise, now lower defense spending. All these things involve tough choices that the strategy of refusing to raise the debt limits is designed to ignore.
In terms of business, think of the nation as a company in which we are the shareholders. What do you think would happen if management told it's shareholders that their dividends would have to be cut in order to pay for huge increases in the salaries of it's managers? Do you think there would be anger at the next stockholders' meeting?
==Hiram
There you go again, implying that personal property belongs to the state,,,
See dividends are paid from money the company owns and has the right and duty to distribute. Where as the govt has to take from one to pay another.
See dividends are paid from money the company owns and has the right and duty to distribute.
No, the company doesn't "own" it's profits. The people who own the profits are the owners of the company who are it's shareholders.
--Hiram
The company (legal entity) owns the cash, assets, etc, and the shareholders own the company. The shareholders hire employees to manage the company. The shareholders do not own the profits until the Mgmt agrees to distribute them as dividends.
I own a lot of shares of the company I work for, yet it would be illegal if took cash or equipment without mgmts approval. It is not mine...
Just as my private property is not the states. Though I can tell you disagree.
Maybe we should ditch the income tax and go to a broad based property tax... Might discourage saving even more than today? And how set the value may be challenging for many assets.
No personal property. Now no personal responsibility.... oh well
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