So maybe y'all remember about a year ago, the republicans threatened to shut down the federal government over something called the debt ceiling? Well guess what......IT'S BAAAACCCKK!!!!
Seriously. It's back. Now maybe you remember what happened the last time the Debt Ceiling came up. well rather then just raise it like they have done at least once a year since 1939 (when it came into existence) the GOP decided "fuck that we want budget cuts" and demanded the creation of a super-committee to get them. And just in case the Super-committee failed they wanted a "plan B" automatic cuts that would go into affect at the end of 2012....something generally called the "fiscal cliff", and now of course to avoid going over the fiscal cliff John Boehner is demanding an agreement for massive budget cuts next time we need to raise the debt ceiling (roughly in 2 months), so we are right back where we started. In fact Speaker Boehner is already calling raising the Debt Ceiling his "leverage" in the fiscal cliff argument. Meaning we would do this all again next year unless he gets his way....which isnt possible.
See the budget math is kinda easy. If you want a balanced budget, then what you want is "Taxes(T)=Spending (S). Where it gets complicated is that both T and S have a maximum and minimum value attached to them. In short there is a set amount the government must raise in taxes in order to provide the most minimum of services. on the flip side taxes can only in theory go up to 99%, which limits the maximum number of services the government can provide. And in reality people will only accept a much lower tax rate (historically somewhere between 40-60%) making the limit that much lower
And the problem at the moment is that T is no where close to equaling S. So we have to borrow money and go into debt(D), making the new formula T+D=S. And most Americans agree on a certain level of servicing they would like the government to provide, and the problem is, even allowing for all the fights over entitlements and defense spending differences T is still not able to equal S on its own. So there is no possible way to cut spending down to T level's without dropping below the minimum allowable level of S. Hence why we keep having to borrow money. Now yes to be fair raising T to the level needed to equal S without changing S would also be more or less undo-able since T has to exceed its maximum allowable value. Which means no matter what we do, if we only change the one value we are left with T+D=S....just to differing amounts.
So if you want D=0 and T=S you need to raise the T value and lower the S value (which is basically the Democratic proposal although clearly we can fight over the details of how exactly to do that). But see again republicans refuse to change the T value but also at the same time want D=0.
but here's the incredibly odd part about how they are attempting to do it. The Debt Ceiling is actually all about the money we already borrowed to satisfy the D requirement in the current equation . See generally speaking when you borrow money you have to pay it back, and usually you have to pay it back when the lender says so.
But the law about the debt ceiling says we can only have a maximum value of so much for D. the problem is when the lenders want their money back doesnt always jive with when the federal government budgeting schedule, which in this sense is basically their paycheck.
Think of it this way, your rent is due today, and your paycheck is coming tomorrow. So what do you do? well you go to your friend and say "dude can I borrow $800 and I'll pay you back tomorrow. And hopefully your friend says yes and you get the money, pay your rent, pay your friend back the next day and by tomorrow night are no worse off then you were yesterday.
Seems easy enough right? well except in this case your friend is the House Republican's and they just told you NO. And your landlord isnt gonna give you the 24 hours....so what happens? well you already agreed to give him the money and now you dont have it. So your kicked out of your apartment. And of course your landlord tells every one he knows your a welcher so you cant get another place to live since no one thinks you can pay them back.
Except in this case, instead of your apartment, its more like the countries economy you lose. And just like your landlord the lender we dont pay back, tells everyone else we owe money too that we are welchers. So suddenly they all like their money back. And we dont have it.....so what happens? country goes bankrupt and the country's economy basically implodes.
In short the argument here is not "don't spend more" it's "dont pay the bill"
And keep in mind this is what the so called "fiscally conservative" party wants to do unless we as a country are willing to deny math. because again even if they got 10000% of what they wanted we would still have T+D=S. And in fact since they also want defense spending increases the D value might be larger then it is now. Which means in a year we will do this all again.....and again after that in an infinity loop from hell.
Of course personally I'm not shocked that they are advocating don't pay the bill, since fiscal conservatives arent really conservative.
Let's play a game here to show you the problem with fiscal conservatives argument in the first place. Everyone put your hand up. Now if you have student debt, put your hand down. If you have car payments or dont expect to be able to pay one lump sum of cash for every car you own for the rest of your life put your hand down. And lastly if you have a mortgage on your or expect to when you finally buy a house (so unless you can pay one lump sum of cash) put your hand down.
Now does anyone still have their hand up? yea ok Mitt Romney does, anyone ELSE? anyone who wasn't born rich? yea I didnt think so. What that means is that at some point or another all of us have been or will be in debt, because our personal income (which is the equivalent of T) isnt equal to our personal expenses (personal equivalent of S) so we have all be in T+D=S mode at least once in life. And we are all fine. and we all got out of it.
Now how did we do it? well we got jobs/promotions ect, basically found ways to increase our T value. and lets be honest we saved up, and in some cases gave some things up/couldnt get everything we wanted, basically decreased our S value. And lastly we also made damn sure to pay off all our bills while doing so, so as to not spiral into oblivion. We didnt do it overnight, we did it over years. in some cases 20-30 years.
Now why should our country be any different? its not. A real conservative will try to get us out of debt as fast as they can, will balance T and S as fast as they can. But that's the real point here they will adjust BOTH. values. And they wont expect to fix it tomorrow, since they know that's impossible.
And the only party actually advocating that plan at the moment? the Democrats, even if its not perfect, they are a hell of a lot closer then the Republicans or even the Libertarians (who basically in a nutshell want to just eliminate T and still have at least minimal S)
And heres the really sick part in all of this. Nobody actually wants to go over the Fiscal Cliff long term. Which means even the Republicans know their method of doing it is full of shit, since they dont actually want to carry thought and get the cuts, because they know it wont work and will just make things worse (the spiral into hell)
They know as well as I do, their idea is a sham, its why they wont see it through....they just dont care as long as someone other then them has to deal with most of the negative side effects and they can benefit short term. Even if that means we gotta play this song and circular dance every year.
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