Administration's Deficit Reduction Plan
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-04-14/administrations-deficit-reduction-plan
When President Obama unveiled his proposed spending cuts last week, it included four hundred billion from national security over the next twelve years. The president has ordered a high level review to determine where specifically cost savings can come from. When Defense Secretary Robert Gates ordered cuts of his own back in January, he said he opposed further reductions in spending. The defense department has acknowledged that the budget cuts would require some scaling back of the military. A look at balancing security needs with budget realities
Guests
Dan Mitchell
senior fellow at the Cato Institute
John Irons
research and policy director, Economic Policy Institute.
Congressman Phil Gingrey
Republican, 11th District, Georgia.
Mara Liasson
national political correspondent for National Public Radio and a contributor at Fox News Channel
Rep. Chris Van Hollen
Democrat of Maryland, Chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee
Comments
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We also have the right to work in tall office buildings, and not have airliners flown into them. We have the right to ride the subway and not have Bio weapons released. We have the right to ride the bus, and have it arrive at its destination in one piece, instead of a thousand. That right is being preserved by the men and women in our Armed Forces.
You think they were under equiped at the start of the war? Chop defense spending and see what they are left with!
We can't just cut and run from what bush started in Iraq. Wether we should or shouldn't have been there. Those are the lessons of Afghanistan. Look at Mexico. When the military and police, supported by the citizens, back off of the pressure they put on the drug lords, then the drug lords retaliate and massacre the citizens! If we don't stay and help the citizens of Iraq and Afghanistan get control of their country, the Taliban and other terrorist groups will slaughter them by the thousands.
My only regret. . .Darfur didn't have anything to offer the U.S., so they didn't qualify for our protection from genocide. Can you live with that? If so, i fear you more than Paul Ryan! And he's a pretty scary dude.
Our responsibilities as a world power are to the world. We need to think beyond our little neighborhood.
Support our troops.
Dennis Manske
You are missing the point. We aren't at war against another country who is trying to invade us or is even half as well equipped as own forces. The lack of terrorist attacks in this country can't be traced to the huge amount of money we spend on our military being in foreign countries... If anything, that contributes to terrorists wanting to attack us. We have domestic problems that need to be dealt with, not showing the rest of the world that we have an expansive military.
And I know what you're thinking right now. I am a former submarine officer and know what it's like to be in dangerous places while in the military. Most of us who want to reduce military spending love our troops. I joined and served to protect this country and saw that in most of the people I served with. What we all knew, as well, is that what we're doing now isn't exactly doing that right now. Don't turn this into us against the troops. It's us against the people that send our troops into harm's way without 1st weighing the risks and benefits, moral and financial.
David Walter
USNA '03
Can you please clarify if the proposed Republican voucher insurance plan would obligate seniors to obtain health insurance? I understand that vouchers would go directly to insurance companies but if the senior does not purchase insurance we would just be adding them to the ranks of the uninsured at a time in their lives when statistically medical costs are the highest.
I don't like to hear President Obama being put down after he proposes a so much better plan.
I keep hearing
"everyone has to sacrifice".
Ryan's budget is wrong! It has everyone making sacrifices EXcept! the wealthy!!
Where is the sacrifice the wealthy are making??
When a budget takes so much from the poor and middle class, and gives to the wealthy, the millionaires, the billionaires, that is morally wrong! Morally bankrupt!
Obama's budget is better, no comparison. Why the blatant lack of the golden rule? It is a concept that every religion embraces. the rich are greedy and the poor are are going without basic needs! Wrong!
The cuts planned by Ryan will put thousands more homeless and loss so many more jobs lost. The unemployed want jobs, the jobs are just not there. Not even enough MacJobs to go around.
THe republican plan is morally wrong. The rich should sacrifice every bit as much as the rest! not just pay as much but the equivavlent sacrifice.
I appreciate what you are saying, Mr. Walter,I really do.
We were attacked, and we weren't in other countries fighting at the time. We are now, and the attacks have really dropped. Of course, some of that credit certainly goes to our various law enforcement agencies. This isn't just about terrorism anymore, though that is still a big part of it. We wrecked Afghanistan in response to 9-11. We created a worse situation there, for the people of Afghanistan, by not finishing the job and helping them rebuild. Then against all intelligent thinking, went into Iraq. We cannot 'just pull out'. The war has put on a different face, but we are still obligated to fight it. It is as much now about helping the citizens of their respective countries live without tyranny as anything else. We can't just pull a 'Crazy Ivan' and try to dissapear. We have a job to do, one that we elected to do. We have to suck it up and get it done.
Cont...
We are not going to 'fix' our financial situation by crippling our military. You think life was difficult you on a young offcers pay? Imagine an E-3 with a child. I was an E-4 with a working wife and a 2 year old. We qualified for food stamps! We may need to redirect military funds to other parts of the military, but cut spending? I disagree. My guess Sir, is that you had the luxury of cruising around on a Boomer, not an old Diesel boat. I had the luxury of the safety of an SH-60B, with all its high tech systems and redundancy that kept it in the air when others may have fallen, or at least increased the chances you could walk away from an 'off day'. That is defense spending. A lot of that spending goes to military contractors, here in the U.S. that build what we used! Those are jobs. Taxable incomes, for the workers anyways. Civilians whose job it is to create and install armor for those Humvees. Build aircraft engines. Design more silent screws for boomers. Real jobs, real income, real revenues. Now if we would just tax the CEOs and the companies the way we do their employees. . .
Thank you for your service Mr. Walter. Though you are nuts for serving on a boat that is designed to sink!
Dennis Manske
AW-USN '89
Dennis, I am not saying we need to cripple our military or just pull chocks and run on Iraq and Afghanistan. Do we need to have a large military presence in Germany, Italy, or Japan? We've proven time and time again that we are technologically more advanced so do we need so many people in the military or so many weapons, ships, and aircraft? I agree that a lot of that money goes to defense contractors which trickles back to us in the form of jobs. And yes, corporate tax reform is extremely overdue. But I think that money would be better spent in other areas. Those defense manufacturers should work to bring manufacturing back to the US and not profit off of the blood of foreigners. We need to reform for the future not run away from our past. If we reduce our troop numbers worldwide, find the correct ways out of these unfortunate wars, and properly tax those military companies... We reduce our military spending. That also means we need to restructure how we pay our troops. It pained me to see people using food stamps at the commissary, while the admiral had beautiful huge house and luxury cars. The reason we want to reform our spending is so we can support those people who need food stamps or find ways to get people off of them. In the end, we want the same things: to be safe and take care of those who can't. I just don't think that doing that with the sword is the right way. If only the corporations would keep jobs in our country and not keep all their profits for themselves.
I thank you and everyone for serving our country, be it in the military or back home finding ways for the country as a whole to prosper.
Congressman Gingrey made an important mis-statement during the discussion this morning. He said that proposed changes to Medicare would not apply to anyone over 55, which (he said) includes "all of the people currently on Medicare." This is not true. A person can be any age but still on Medicare, if they have been disabled from working for 2 years or more. I am 52 and on Medicare, for that reason. I cannot afford to have Medicare and Social Security yanked out from under me at this point in my life, having relied upon those promises my entire life and having become disabled relatively early in life.
PART ONE
Obama’s budget proposal was a campaign speech? And what, pray tell, was Ryan’s proposal? What have Republi-Cons been doing ever since the 2006 elections, but offer empty rhetoric, mindless ideology, and campaign speeches?
Last November voters chose a “pig in a poke”. They elected Republi-Cons based on 30 second sound bites, bumper sticker slogans, and TeaBagger rallies. Now they are discovering what all that blather really meant, and they are recoiling. The worst is yet to come.
Of course the Republi-Cons have to play a giant game of chicken, and try to extort concessions by threatening disaster if they don’t get their way. Imagine the outcry if Democrats had behaved that way for the last two years and, instead of spending over a year debating the health care law, had just tried to ram it through in the first four months! But it’s okay if you’re Republi-Con, especially since (for all their bravado) deep down they fear the next election may reverse their “gains”. (Hopefully it will, but I make no prediction.)
Not that the Democrats are innocent in all this. Had they done their job and passed the budget last year the Republi-Cons wouldn’t be able to engage in extortion. But the Democrats wimped out on that one, and put it off till after the election, only to discover that a re-energized GOP wouldn’t let a full budget be passed at all! Anyone with an ounce of sense could have predicted that, but I won’t accuse Democrats of having much of that commodity.
TO BE CONTINUED
PART TWO
Obama’s proposal is a good starting point (far better than Ryan’s), but it’s only a starting point. For me the main point is that, unlike the Republi-Con ideal, it is a step towards shared sacrifice - the only thing that can correct our economic problems. I’d prefer a formula of one dollar increase in taxes for each dollar in cuts, but a 1:2 ratio is better than the Republi-Con proposal of tax cuts for the wealthiest, and a knife in the back for everyone else!
Yes, to use the dreaded term, “class warfare” is being waged, and the Republi-Cons are waging it!
P.S. - Meanwhile, please note that the man from Cato has a well-paying, comfortable job. I wonder how enthusiastic he’d be for laissez-faire if he was unemployed?
Jim Saul on April 14, 2011 @ 9:35 am wrote: “The massive surplus Clinton left to Bush was a result of payroll taxes on common workers... but it was given away in income tax reductions for the most wealthy.”
True enough, but as you also mention, this has been going for decades (and Clinton and some Democrats are guilty of this too).
Here’s the dirty little secret about Reaganomics (a.k.a. “voodoo economics): it never worked. We were not able to cut taxes, increase revenue, and balance the budget. Reagan’s proposal was the start of deficits “on steroids”, and it was only after the Reagan tax increases (which everyone forgets about) that revenue began to increase and the deficit rate began to decline (imagine that, increasing taxes produces more revenue).
BUT those were increases in the payroll tax (FICA, etc.), the very model of a “flat tax” Republi-Cons so love, and the most regressive of taxes. So what actually happened? Tax cuts for the wealthiest, paid for by increased taxes on “ordinary joes”; oh and by using the money Social Security took in as part of the general budget (thus hiding the true level of the deficit).
Part of the “debt” the U.S. faces today consists of government bonds (essentially I.O.U.’s) that the “trust fund” received instead of the money. Now that those bonds are “coming due” (i.e.: we need the money to pay benefits), we’re told how we can’t sustain Social Security, and must do away with it. Of course we have to, the money that should be there helped pay for those tax cuts!
Abstract: Phil Gingrey is not the brightest, and he claims that the majority of Republicans share his rhetoric on a subject that makes him not so bright.
(minute 19)
Republican Congressman Phil Gingrey when asked on how slashing abortion funding and banning planned parenthood caters to the rhetoric of deficit reduction: "..., [it] may be more about policy than it is about deficit reduction, and a very strong feeling from most of the Republican majority that the sanctity of life is a very precious thing; and as far as deficit reduction maybe it is just a minimal amount of taxpayer funding, but we feel very strongly that even $1 of taxpayer money spent on destroying human life is not appropriate."
Ummmm....
Contradictory statements for the win.
Also:
(minute 24)
Chris Van Hollen, sits on the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, who spoke after Phil Gringrey: "..., and by the way, just for the record, not one penny of Federal taxpayer dollars goes to abortions anywhere at any time. "
PROOF: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyde_Amendment
So basically Phil Gingrey is ignorant of the way his Government works. And if the majority of Republicans feel the same way as he does toward abortion... Well I guess ignorance is cool, especially when those ignorant people are being paid by the Government to work for the Government without understanding the Government. Gringrey feels that its inappropriate to fund abortion at the federal level, I feel that its inappropriate for people in a position like his to exhibit such a high level of logical inconsistency (but I guess the majority of Americans feel that this characteristic is an important attribute for our lawmakers to possess).
Too long; Didn't Read: Our congress is run by ignorant people, who love to create logical paradoxes.
sane on April 14, 2011 @ 10:27 am wrote: “Some politicians with these ideas come from states that would be classified as a third world countries if it was not for federal money pouring in. Some of them take $2 in for $1 in paid taxes. Maybe start is to pass a law that state cannot take in more than it pays in taxes.”
Well said!
By the way, there’s another side to this point. I once checked the statistics from the Economic Policy Institute and the Taxpayers Foundation (a rather conservative bunch). The states that receive more Federal money than they pay are also the states with the most “business friendly” environment (i.e.: no regulation). Funny thing was, their economies lagged behind such unfriendly, Federal “donor” states like California, New York, and Massachusetts! If conservatives know what they’re talking about, shouldn’t it be the other way around?
Breakeven, Phil Gingrey's statements aren't contradictory at all, so long as you remember the Republi-Cons' guiding moral principle: human life is "sacred" so long as it costs them nothing!
That's how they can oppose abortion, yet support war - they're not the ones who suffer from those policies.
KME on April 14, 2011 @ 10:25 am wrote: “Everyone says that we spend too much - in fact, we don't spend enough on our roads, bridges, mass transit, education, etc, etc, etc.”
Well said!
Multiple reports confirm we are heading for an infrastructure disaster (there was a story repeated on the History Channel about this just the other day). Gee, when our bridges collapse, our roads crumble, our drinking water disappears (or is poisoned due to poor sanitation), and our electrical grid dissolves just think what that will do for the economy!
Of course, the good news is the survivors will have plenty of employment rebuilding all this. Too bad it will require massive government spending (like it took to build these things in the first place). But hey, the Republi-Cons are busy marching us back to the 19th Century, they just neglected to realize it’s not going to be A.D., but B.C.!
Mike Sergeant on April 14, 2011 @ 10:50 am wrote: “I agree the flat tax is the best way to reform.”
Only if you truly believe that people making over a million dollars a year should pay the same rate as people making under a thousand.
Want an example of a “flat tax” - look at the sales tax. Property taxes are also flat taxes, and they worked so well we had a “prairie fire revolt” about them!
A progressive income tax, when not “rigged” with loopholes and other gimmicks, is the fairest of all taxes. Even Adam Smith (the “father” of Capitalism) supported it. But then, Smith was an empiricist, not an ideologue.
P.S. - You don't need tax lawyers, accountants, or HR Block to use the tax tables (just find your income level and it shows your tax). You need them to wade through all the deductions, loopholes, etc., before you finally get to your "taxable income".
A simple tax doesn't have to be a flat tax. That's another lie Republi-Cons love to tell.
Newfman on April 14, 2011 @ 11:19 am wrote: “Being a Super Power comes with responsibilities. Not just to ourselves, but to the rest of the world. . . . The USSR had a magnificent military.”
While I agree with you that eliminating our military is not a viable option, neither do I think its budget should be sacrosanct. If civilian programs must “take a hit”, so must the military.
The example of the USSR is instructive, but not in the way you think. Yes, they spent fortunes on their armed forces, and the rest of their society suffered for it - until it collapsed. One of the reasons European countries (such as the ones in Scandinavia) can afford better social programs is precisely because they don’t need such large military budgets. But then, they are largely protected by us! There’s the real “foreign aid”.
"Grady Lee Howard wrote:
I look forward to the day when Diane can host a guest as progressive as Dan Mitchell from the Cato Institute is regressive in his advocacy of the Oligarchy and not be threatened with losing her show. Diane Rehm has prohibited the discussion of class warfare while allowing Mitchell to present as possible the fascist program of 1925 Italy. No wonder they can't allow history to be studied in schools. And the most terrible part is that there will be no United States to rescue us from whatever Il Duce the T (tribal) Party puts up for a rubber stamp in the next Presidential election."
Doin great so far, Grady!
(Cont)
Monte Haun mchaun@hotmail.com
(Cont)
OOps, just a minute Grady---
"Both political parties are corrupted by corporate funding so that the People desperately need another alternative....
April 14, 2011 - 10:57 am"
This broadcast, indeed the whole Budget debates, indeed, the destruction of the Country since Reagan / Bush should make it crystal that there is a difference in the Parties!!
The Democrats have been battered over and over again fighting for the ordinary Americans.
You are right however, about the media bias against the Democrats. Oh, to hear a Roosevelt (Either Party) thunder from the Mountain against those who would sacrifice the Young, the Old and the helpless to fill their already overflowing, filthy pockets further.
When Senator Kennedy died, the NeoCon Media blabbed about how the Senator stood up for the little guy, was a great orator, but was consistently denied a Public Platform to rightly condemn what has been done to the American People, indeed the whole World's People.
Howard Dean could have added a great deal to the debate, but he was silenced by the NeoCon Media, in fact destroyed politically, after an extremely mild plea that Israel moderate its genocidal destruction of the Palestinian People.
On the other hand, when VP Biden drew a very apt analogy between the Right's blaming poor people for their own troubles and the blaming a rape victim for her own assault, the NeoCon Media printed 6,500,000 outraged Republican whines.
Monte Haun mchaun@hotmail.com
Jim Saul wrote:
Diane,
As a threshold test of seriousness, please ask your guests what their positions were on the tax cuts in 2001 and 2003.
We had a surplus so recently, are people just pretending to forget that?
The massive surplus Clinton left to Bush was a result of payroll taxes on common workers... but it was given away in income tax reductions for the most wealthy.
The creation of a deficit crisis wasn't some random disaster, it was a political strategy intended to dismantle the social safety net."
Jim, you are absolutely right about the deliberate, cold-blooded and IMO treasonous nature of what Reagan / Bush did to our nation.
Wholesale repeal or ignoring of essential regulation, the Bankruptcy Laws, privatization, insane wars, Welfare, immigration, etc etc etc.
Just let me refine, "The massive surplus Clinton left to Bush was a result of payroll taxes on common workers... but it was given away in income tax reductions for the most wealthy", a bit.
Many years ago, the Black Irish, Orange Irish, DINO Moynihan cried,"If only we could trim 1% from the CPI/COLA for Social Security, we would have abundent Money, Money for Children, Education, Blah,Blah, Blah.
Well, we got 1% trimmed from the COLA, in fact, 1% and 1% and 1% and where did it go but into Tax Cuts?
The attack on the CPI was started by Reagan and Gingrich and continued to the Present with the active collusion of the NeoCon Media in presenting the most pathetic lies about prices and the phony CPI calculations every month and culminating in a 3 year freeze of Benefits for SS Annuitants.
The effect of that treachery on SS Annuitants and everybody who works for wages was one of the major factors that drove living standards and the Economy into the ground.
Monte Haun mchaun@hotmail.com
It'd be great to listen to a discussion like this with everyone attached to a polygraph - one that would sound an alarm when one said something they didn't truly believe. It would probably be hard to hear anything Dan said over the din, however...
I was very disappointed in your choice of Dan Mitchell to represent the conservative point of view. I was hoping to hear an actual adult conversation about the very serious issues this nation faces, but that wasn't possible since you let this Cato-crank dominate the debate with his contrived arguments that are lacking in the integrity department, to say the least. There are a lot of very good intellectual conservatives out there-Thomas Sowell comes to mind-who could have made for a great show. If I wanted to hear partisan wonks spitting out talking points, I would have tuned in to Rush Limbaugh.
Your unwillingness to call Congressman Gingrey out on what has now been established as a complete fallacy about federal funding of abortion, which he stated not once but twice, was also disappointing.
I expect a lot more from NPR.
I was driving so only caught a part of today's (4/14) show. But what I heard included one Republican Congressman (didn't catch his name) saying how he agreed that the rider on Planned Parenthood was not mostly about the deficit but rather about policy. He went on to say how some people feel very strongly that federal funds should not be used for elective abortions. I was disappointed that, right at this point, Diane did not challenge the Congressman on the fact that federal funds are not used for abortions at PP, that it's against the law to do so.
Today, for the first time in 13 years, I turned the Diane Rehm show off.
I could not abide the continued, unchallenged, and outrageous comments from Dan Mitchell.
Diane, if you were to interview somebody who sailed around the world, would you feel the need to give "equal time" to a guest who insisted the Earth was flat? I think not. Then why did you give "equal time" to a similar lunatic fringe in this program?
If you want to avoid class warfare rhetoric on your show, there's a simple way to achieve that: do not invite guests such as Dan Mitchell in the future.
I find the criticisms of Dan Mitchell's contribution to the show pathetic. If you have disagreements with his facts, then refute them, otherwise you're wasting our time.
Basically I think you're frustrated that you can't refute him and neither could the other guests or Diane. His views didn't fit into your close-minded perspective but you can't find a way to justify your own view, and that's disquieting to you. Reality hurts.
Do you know that Charles Koch, one of the now well-known brothers who own Koch Industries, co-founded the CATO Institute? Dan Mitchell of the CATO Institute, presented a view even more extreme than Paul Ryan's far-right view, saying that Paul Ryan's bill was "a start". He advocated for more money for the rich, and removing the safety net for the poor, elderly, disabled and children. And then he had the gall to repeatedly accuse President Obama of being the one to start class warfare.
Mara Liasson framed the discussion by putting Obama's plan on the left. That set false parameters for the discussion. As another commenter here noted, "The People's Budget" from the Congressional Progressive Caucus, the largest caucus in congress, needs to be included.
Bravo, Diane, for having Dan Mitchell from the Caro Institute to offer a non-partisan, fiscally-responsible point of view. He rightly held both Democrats and Republicans culpable for the debt and financial debt we have. Rather than spewing out the apocalyptic falsehoods that both parties talking heads usually do (defaulting on US loans and spinning us into oblivion or grandparents and babies starving on the street, dying of tuberculosis) he refutes these "common sense" ideas with facts and numbers, not only of what has happened here in the US but also around the world. Please have him on again.
hainc, it's hard to argue with facts and logic. It frustrates both Republicans and Democrats politicians who are used to dealing with lies, half-truths and misdirection. I think one of the greatest benefits of the Internet is that anyone can verify politicians' statements and follow if their voting record agrees with their campaign promises.
From reading all the comments, I'm glad I'm not the only one who was upset that Diane Rehm did not call out the "talking points" bleeted by her guest from the Cato Institute and the Republican Congressman as blatantly false. What happened Diane? I count on you and others on NPR to give me facts and that just didn't happen on this broadcast.
Also, why or why did you repeat the "fungibility" nonsense about Planned Parenthood? Under that logic, the federal government should be banned from hiring ANY women because tax dollars spent on their salary COULD be used for an abortion. Please stop this nonsense, don't perpetrate it!
Agreed-the estimated cost saving of closing overseas bases is undervalued--plus the billions of dollars for infrastructure & troops/civilian paychecks would be spent on our own economy-not others.