I think the GOP may have something here. The idea that law makers should not get paid until they actually pass a real bonafide budget sounds great !!!
It is hard to understand how the Democrat led Senate has been able to legally avoid doing something that every business and most households do every year. I suppose it would be embarassing if the Senate was unwilling to approve the Democratic President's budget... Maybe it was better for them to not vote and show how they disagree with him in public.
The upside is that I think this plan will resonate with citizen's who are very fed up with ineffectual politicians who seem to be unwilling to make the hard choices to balance the expenditures and revenues, and start paying down the national debt.
NO BUDGET, NO PAY !!! NO BUDGET, NO PAY !!!
It should be: NO BALANCED BUDGET !!! NO PAY !!! however it is a good first step if it can be passed. I wonder if Obama will sign it if his pay is also at risk?
Thoughts?
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I don't think politicians should make public policy decisions based on personal financial considerations.
--Hiram
I wonder if Obama will sign it if his pay is also at risk?
For whatever it's worth, President Obama has often advocated measures which personally would affect him adversely.
--Hiram
Do you have a better way to get these politicians to balance the budget?
Or is their current path of passing the bill onto the kids acceptable to you?
Do you have a better way to get these politicians to balance the budget?
I think the solution is to elect better politicians. But the reality is, there isn't much support for measures that would actually balance the budget. In the sense of doing what the public wants, politicians are actually doing their jobs.
Our kids benefited from the fact that we took care of them when they were young. Now, and for a while now, the demographic shift means that the will be taking care of older Americans a while.
==Hiram
It's just one more gimmick to try to accomplish indirectly what we can't even accomplish directly. It's like trying to improve education by spending more money on it, when the way to improve education is to demand that education improve, set objectives, plan for it, measure it, reward success and punish failure. Here, too, the simplest way of getting Congress no pay for failure to enact a budget is to defeat them at the polls, but if what you really want is a balanced budget than a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, similar to that in 45 states, has to be written into the Constitution. How you get that enforced when we currently have no budget at all, I don't know, but at least it is the direct approach. (By the way, Republicans have repeatedly passed this out of the House.)
The other problem here is the failure of the general public to recognize two things: first, that Republicans controlling the House have passed a budget every year, while Democrats in the Senate have not. Second, the Senate is largely made up of rich folks, and nine of the 10 richest are Democrats, so the loss of their "chump change" of a paycheck would be no incentive at all.
I propose a different system of incentives that is more carrot and less stick. I propose that Congress receive minimum wage, plus a per diem for expenses, plus an office allowance. That's pretty generous for people that, as a whole, aren't doing their jobs at all. Then they would receive a year-end bonus, calculated as follows: divide the budget surplus in half, with one half going to debt reduction and the other half divided equally among the 535 people in Congress. I am thinking we might be surprised at how quickly we ran a surplus.
J. Ewing
Hiram,
That is an interesting thought. The adults who had the benefit of lower taxes insist on the benefit of entitlements while passing the bill on to kids that will get neither.
I am thinking these adults aren't very mature or responsible.
J,
That is a creative idea that would likely work.
However until the citizens become responsible and mature adults, I don't see it happening. We as a society seem happy to pay lower taxes while receiving bigger benefits. Otherwise we would have happily rode over the fiscal cliff admitting that it was the responsible and mature thing to do.
I am thinking these adults aren't very mature or responsible.
They weren't actually. They blew the surpluses on tax cuts we couldn't afford. But that's neither there nor here.
But it's also the case that nations are like people. There are times when they are young and productive, when they don't have high health care costs, relatively speaking, and put more into the economy than they take. America was that way for many decades, an effect amplified by the baby boom. But then there comes a time when the population of a country gets older, it starts retiring, drawing pensions, and it requires more and more expensive health care. This isn't the result of government policy by the way, it's just a reality of life to which we can decide to respond to or not. When we speak of government spending being out of control, one of the things we mean by that is that we do not control the things the government spends money on, in particularly the consequences of th fact that the population is aging.
==Hiram
There is one reality here which I think everyone agrees on or should agree on. We spend money on the military, health care and pensions of various kinds. In order to reduce government spending we must reduce spending in those three areas, and how that is to be done is what our national discussion should be about. And in a way, it has been. only some want to discuss these issues in abstract terms, and others want to discuss these issues in terms of what are the real world consequences of these abstract discussions.
--Hiram
As always for me, one of the most significant issues in the last presidential campaign was when the president proposed doing what certainly needs to be done, cut 700 billion dollars in health care spending, it was opposed by Republicans, because of various real world negative consequences they tried to identify. This baffled me. I just don't understand how you can cut any amount in any budget in the abstract; cuts always have real world consequences which some people won't like.
--Hiram
Or we did not control spending adequately. Income vs Outlay
Using my fancy financial calculator and this graph. Revenues have increased by ~2.5% per year since 2001. Where as spending has increased by ~6.5% per year.
The 2.5% per year is much closer to inflation over this time period.
CPI Chart
Personally I think we should get rid of Social Security and Medicare and call it what I think you would like it be... Welfare and Medicaid.
This way we could means test everyone and the upper/middle class and those that did save for retirement would get no/little benefit. And those that made poor choices and did not save would be taken care of.
The result would be the same as raising the taxes on those upper/middle class citizens and giving some of it back to them through entitlements. And it would force them to use up some of their net worth, so their estates would be smaller when they die. (same as higher taxes or taxing benefits)
The down side I suppose is that not as many citizens would politically support a program to pay the expenses of old poor folk that made bad life choices, if they had no skin in the game.
As for the medicare cuts, I think the problem was that Obama cut on the wrong side. He seemed to think that price controls would do something positive. (ie pay less per procedure) History has shown price controls typically have really bad unintended consequences.
The GOP I think would like to have citizens pay more of their healthcare costs if they are able. And let the market set the prices.
This way we could means test everyone and the upper/middle class and those that did save for retirement would get no/little benefit.
Means testing has never been a favorite, first because it excludes people who have actually paid for the service, and secondly because gives the politically influential an interest to protect. You see this in the differing attitudes toward Social Security and Medicare. Generally, wealthy folks have little problem with cutting SS because their retirement doesn't depend on it. But they are significantly more dependent on Medicare so there is much less support for cuts there.
--Hiram
However we are already means testing these programs by making them taxable and adjusting the premiums based on income. Forbes SS and Medicare
So much for people getting the benefits they paid for.
"Regardless of when they claim Social Security, Americans become eligible for Medicare at 65. While most seniors currently pay $99.90 a month for Part B coverage, better off seniors pay additional income-based charges. This year, for example, the monthly Part B premium for a single with adjusted gross income between $85,000 and $107,000 is $139.90, while a single with an AGI of more than $214,000 pays $319.70. High income premiums for couples kick in at $170,000. The income cut-off for high income premiums won’t change for 2013; Congress has frozen the income cut-off 2019, meaning more retirees will be paying the extra premiums each year."
However we are already means testing these programs by making them taxable and adjusting the premiums based on income
We do. The question really is whether we should do that more.
I think it is the case that Americans pay for Medicare. As my Republican friends frequently remind me, health care in America is not free.
--Hiram
If you want to do more means testing, and not give middle and upper class folks their full benefits, then as I said let's call it what you want it to be then.
Welfare and Medicaid
The reality is that too many people have paid too little for their expected benefits and that is why the system trust funds are heading towards financial insolvency.
And your solution would be to not give a group of people who paid the most, their fair and full benefit... So much for it being a benefit that people paid for.
"cuts always have real world consequences which some people won't like." -- hiram
That's just liberal budget dogma. It assumes that spending must increase every year so anything less than what they WANT to spend in a given year, even if it is the same or more than the previous year, is a "cut." If you don't get a raise at work, you didn't take a "cut" in pay, but that's the way Democrats think (or feel). The second assumption here is that whatever is being done must continue to be done in exactly the same way that it always has, and that costs can never be curtailed by reform of the program. That is absolutely false, as so many successful reforms (always Republican, for some reason) have shown. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid could all be transformed to sustainable systems, and the debt bomb defused, by a few simple reforms. But Democrats won't hear of it. The last false assumption is that many of these programs actually are proper functions of government in the first place. Government should not be in the health care insurance business any more than it should be in the food insurance business (which it ALSO unfortunately, inappropriately and inefficiently is). Many of these programs could simply "go away" and, after some short-term dislocations and a lot of howling from liberals, would barely be missed.
J. Ewing
That's just liberal budget dogma.
It is, and it seems fairly obvious to me. But I do understand that it's a disputed argument. Just recently, Republicans were arguing, for example, that not raising the debt ceiling would not have any impact on anything. It's a Republican form of mysticism, I think, that there is an invisible hand out there, first identified by Adam Smith, that will work miracles if only we let it. My view on that is that the invisible hand only helps those who help themselves, and that no invisible hand has ever written a visible signature on a visible check.
--Hiram
"that the invisible hand only helps those who help themselves..." -- hiram
I really like the way you phrased that, and the part after that. But as you write it, it seems to indicate you think people should NOT help themselves and therefore the fundamental laws of economics-- supply and demand-- can't be allowed to work. Unfortunately, Congress can try but will never repeal the laws of supply and demand nor the laws of human nature. If you pay people to not work, they will not work. If you quit paying them to not work, well, hunger is a great motivator.
And the Republicans are right. Apparently we are already over the debt ceiling but Treasury sleight-of-hand-master Geithner has manipulated the books to put off this new "crisis" for political reasons, exactly as Republicans claimed the last time around. At some point, we need to collectively realize that the kid crying wolf is the one stealing the sheep. Or something like that.
J. Ewing
But as you write it, it seems to indicate you think people should NOT help themselves and therefore the fundamental laws of economics-- supply and demand-- can't be allowed to work
Quite the opposite. I think they should. Somehow in this country we lost our way. We thought that great wealth would appear by manipulation of paper or expectations. For me Mitt Romney was always the classic example of that, of someone who created great wealth while not producing anything of value. It's the kind of thinking that has created a series of market bubbles, from which we never seem to learn any lessons. It's the kind of thinking that we gain some understanding of economic issues when we quibble about the definition of the word "cut", quite frankly.
--Hiram
hiram: Perhaps you are not as delusional a leftist as your writings here have sometimes led me to believe, if you believe people should make their own way, without government handouts. That's the fundamental.
Beyond that, though, we continue to suffer from "definitional" problems. I'm not sure that's what you mean by "quibbling over the definition of 'cuts'," but my interpretation of what you are trying to say is that we don't learn anything by quibbling over definitions. You are correct about that in one way, and wrong in another. We cannot learn anything from one another until we have a common language-- the same definition for the same word. But what we CAN learn is that people who abuse the most common definitions of words, as liberals constantly do when talking about government "budget cuts," are trying to deceive us rather than advance our knowledge and allow us to better govern ourselves.
The other part I find amusingly in error, and I frankly think a personal blind spot of yours, is to consider that Mitt Romney individually did not "work" for his fortune. Granted he inherited some wealth and no doubt benefited from a privileged upbringing and education, but after that he held a number of management jobs, where he performed his duties well and was paid accordingly. After joining Bain he became known as something of a turnaround specialist. He not only identified companies (through diligent and exhaustive analysis) that needed capital to survive, but companies where more effective management could produce rapid returns on that investment, making the company profitable and providing a REAL (not paper) boost to the local and overall economy. That's how it's done in the private sector because we can't print money at a whim like the federal government can, nor artificially mess with the law of supply and demand by government fiat.
J. Ewing
if you believe people should make their own way, without government handouts. That's the fundamental.
I don't think people make their way. They get help along the way. The government doesn't give handouts because the government doesn't have anything to give. Social Security money doesn't come from the government, it comes from people who are currently working, and paying FICA tax.
--Hiram
Then social security is not a tax, it is just a self sustaining program???
Unfortunately we are not making big enough monthly payments to sustain it as it is.
So do we reduce the benefits or increase the payments? Or do you plan to make up shortages out of the general fund? Then it will officially be welfare.
And medicare will run out sooner yet.
Then social security is not a tax, it is just a self sustaining program???
Are the two mutually exclusive? And what substantive difference does it make if we call Social Security a tax or not? Does that word choice make the money any less missing from your paycheck?
Social Security isn't really the big problem. And what problems there are can be fairly easily solved. The real problem is Medicare. And while everyone thinks health care in America, no one, it seems, wants to spend less.
What do we gain in understanding when we label shortages made up out of the general fund as "welfare". The military is paid for by shortages out of the general fund. Indeed, since it isn't paid for out by any dedicated revenue sources, it's paid for with nothing but shortages.
--Hiram
The great fiction of Social Security is that it is "insurance" and that funds are "invested" "in your account." None of that is true. You pay a tax which promptly gets sent out as benefits. Any surplus gets transferred to the general fund and spent there, any shortfall comes out of the general fund. Social Security could be "eliminated," the FICA tax added onto the income tax (as a fixed percentage, same as now) and the checks would go out just the same. It is a lousy investment for most people, an unfair and burdensome tax for others, and has been operating "in the red" for a couple of years already. It has ALWAYS been true that benefits somewhat followed the taxes paid. Change that (to some extent already done) and it becomes very clearly a welfare program. My preference is to get rid of the whole program, replace it with (mandatory, if you want) private retirement accounts, and then have poor seniors (of which there will be far fewer) be eligible for the normal welfare programs younger folks get.
Medicare, you are correct, is the biggest problem, and getting rid of THAT in favor of a privatized system (with a fixed government support level for those that need it, no other strings) would completely eliminate the future shortfall.
J. Ewing
The great fiction of Social Security is that it is "insurance" and that funds are "invested" "in your account.
Actually, Social Security is well know to have three component parts, it's insurance, it's a retirement plan, and it's a welfare plan. A lot of it's oddities are the result of it's hybrid nature.
The politics of SS are simple enough. Democrats are for it, and Republicans are against it. It's appropriate for the electorate to make their decision on that basis.
--Hiram
Medicare, you are correct, is the biggest problem, and getting rid of THAT in favor of a privatized system (with a fixed government support level for those that need it, no other strings) would completely eliminate the future shortfall.
It would, of course, but it would also in effect socialize medicine since it would be the government that would fix the support levels, not the markets.
--Hiram
Actually it does matter to me if it is a tax or a payment into a self sustaining system.
If they were payments then they are owed the benefit back, if not then they are receiving a gift from us tax payers and should be thanful for whatever they get.
it does matter to me if it is a tax or a payment into a self sustaining system.
but does it matter to you economically. Is your lifestyle affected? Do you make more or fewer trips to the grocery store? Are any investment decisions you might make affected by it? Does it matter to you that Social Security is considerably more self sustaining than our military, the very same military that won WW II, and today protects us from international territory?
--Hiram
I should have said "terrorism".
Same old same old.
National defense is a core responsibility of a functioning government, just like ensuring "law and order". The country/society will not exist as is if a foreign force takes over. All property rights can be over turned, personal freedoms taken away, etc. (Bad Stuff !!!)
Forcibly taking money from one group of citizens to give it to another is rather new in our country and definitely not a core responsibility of a functioning government in a capitalistic society.
So if it is a mandatory self sustaining program where the participant's mandatory payments cover the program costs. Great !!!
If funds have to come out of the general fund to cover the funding shortfall, then the programs become wealth transfer / welfare programs. A slip towards the Social Democracy end of the continuum.
G2A Continuum
And yes it does matter to me economically, I pay progressive Federal Income taxes. Welfare, Medicaid, etc. take money from my family/children and give it to other people. And soon Medicare and FICA will join them.
Medicare 2024
FICA 2016 and 2033
However "core" it might be, defense, unlike Social Security, and much else the government does, doesn't have dedicated funding. You note, by the way, this "core" idea appears nowhere in the constitution, and that means that nowhere is it's relationship to any sort of funding mechanism established. As an idea, it's of considerably more recent origin than Social Security.
Also note that there is an easy way to solve problems of funding shortfalls in this area. We could put them on a level playing field with the military and other federal expenditures, we could take the dedicated funding stream away altogether, and pay for Social Security out of the same revenue streams as we do everything else. This would indeed be clarifying because it would make no substantive difference in anything.
--Hiram
I think that is what I proposed.
Get rid of Social Security and Medicare, and call it what you truly want it to be. "Welfare, Medicaid and Disability" for those who need it. Paid for by those who do not.
Seems we agree.
Now you're just talking nonsense. Democrats are absolutely determined to run the country into the ditch, off the cliff, into the wall and under the bus before admitting their sacred cows are unsustainable.
J. Ewing
In my experience I have found that Republican citizens are equally resistant to making immediate changes to the defined benefits to bring them into immediate alignment with the available funding.
Though I have been taught to not plan on receiving social security payments during my retirement, few seem willing to really give them up. They seem to think they are owed it after paying all those payroll taxes.
Get rid of Social Security and Medicare, and call it what you truly want it to be. "Welfare, Medicaid and Disability" for those who need it.
I have no problem with labels. Feel free to attach a label of your choosing on anything you like. Making substantive policy is something quite different. "Welfare" is in the constitution too.
"Democrats are absolutely determined to run the country into the ditch, off the cliff, into the wall and under the bus before admitting their sacred cows are unsustainable."
We, individually, and as a society, have made two decisions which are enormously expensive, and for which we have not adequately financed. We have decided to have children, and we have decided to grow older. However benighted it might be, the Democratic Party isn't responsible for either decision. And in fairness to my Republican friends, neither are they. Nevertheless, those choices have to be made, and so the decision we have to make now is whether we will address the consequences of those choices. It really isn't more complicated than that.
--Hiram
I vote that we (ie society) hold individuals accountable to take responsibility for their personal decisions. (ie kids, life choices, saving, etc)
And "we" (ie society) offer a minimal safety net for those that made bad choices. (ie medicaid/welfare)
I vote that we (ie society) hold individuals accountable to take responsibility for their personal decisions.
It's interesting to me how some people view "personal responsibility" in limiting terms, and others view it in expansive terms. In fairness, and in theory, I think it can be looked at both ways. In practice, I have noticed that once a need arises, an individual's notion of personal responsibility often expands very quickly.
--Hiram
Especially when the person has not saved adequately, paid their personal insurance payments (ie health, disability, auto, etc.) or kept learning and improving their skills.
Go figure.
"and so the decision we have to make now is whether we will address the consequences of those choices. It really isn't more complicated than that."
Yes, but as I've said countless times, Democrats steadfastly refuse to address simple solutions, preferring their fantasies where "the deficit is not a problem."
"Yes, but as I've said countless times, Democrats steadfastly refuse to address simple solutions, preferring their fantasies where "the deficit is not a problem."
I think the problem is what drives the deficit. Without that, the deficit is just a number.
And to be specific, health care costs drive the deficit. And I am willing to take a good hard look at those. But let's recall that any effort to do exactly that is immediately attacked as death panelism. And let's recall, that the president's proposal to reduce health care costs by 700 billion, yes 700 billion, came under withering attack from those same Republicans who are so concerned about the deficit.
There are ads on Hulu for a British show set in a restaurant where the waitress submits an order to the cook for an omelet without the eggs. The cook replies "you can't have an omelet without eggs.", the waitress responds, "Have we run out?"
That's the problem with Republican Party at the moment. They want the omelet, they just don't want it to contain eggs.
--Hiram
Back to the topic... The House passed this common sense legislation.
FOX News Houses Passes No Budget No Pay
And Pelosi does not like it. That must mean it is a good thing.
The Hill NBNP Comments
What the house is saying is that their votes are determined by their personal financial interest, something the cynics among us suspected all along.
--Hiram
I thought the House was saying that one must do their job if they expect to be paid. (ie earn their money)
It seems consistent with the Conservative view of the world, though I can understand how that may seem odd to people with Liberal tendencies. Since they often seem to believe that folks should get money, healthcare, food, etc for nothing.
Money for Nothing Video
I thought the House was saying that one must do their job if they expect to be paid. (ie earn their money)
No. There job is legislate, not pass budgets. To give legislators a personal stake in the outcome of any legislative issue, and to expect that interest to affect their judgment, is bribery, basically, and subjects them all to criminal prosecution.
--Hiram
I thought it was very interesting that some local legislators seemed to think it was ok to let personal financial interests determine how they would vote on legislative matters. It's not something I would have advised them to do.
--Hiram
If we were demanding some specific policy in return for payment, then it would seem like bribery.
However demanding that our elected officials develop sustainable policy that balances the yearly budget seems like a no brainer that I find hard to believe even you can be against.
US Spending Debt Charts
I am indifferent as to if the raise revevenues or cut spending. I just want them to bring spending and revenues into alignment.
If we were demanding some specific policy in return for payment, then it would seem like bribery.
they would have to hope that a federal prosecutor finds the distinction you want to make between general and specific as you do. If they don't it means years in prison.
--Hiram
It will be hard to prosecute if Congress and the President sign it. Which it seems they will.
It will be hard to prosecute if Congress and the President sign it.
I am sure clients love to hear that advice. "Go ahead and do it, it won't be easy for them to put you in jail. Lots of legal fees will be involved."
==Hiram
Well as an upstanding citizen who believes that this is "bribery", maybe you should file the law suit.
I on the other hand see it as holding public employees for doing their job. Kind of like measuring the Teacher's job performance based on the academic capability improvement of their students.
Well as an upstanding citizen who believes that this is "bribery", maybe you should file the law suit.
that's what we elect the Hennepin County attorney for.
--Hiram
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