Debt and Deficit Negotiations
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-07-18/debt-and-deficit-negotiations
President Barack Obama sits with House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, and Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., as he meets with Republican and Democratic leaders regarding the debt ceiling in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, July 13, 2011.
(AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
The haggling goes on. The White House says Congress needs to raise the debt ceiling by Friday to avoid a potential U.S. default, but there were few signs of progress over the weekend. The only plan that seems to be gaining some traction is a bi-partisan proposal that allows the president to raise the debt ceiling … without the support of congressional Republicans. The plan assures wrangling for months, if not years, to come. This week both the House and Senate plan largely symbolic votes on measures aimed at soothing ruffled constituents but little else: Join us for a conversations on the debt and deficit battles down to the wire.
Guests
E.J. Dionne Jr.
senior fellow, The Brookings Institution,
columnist, Washington Post
and author of "Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith and Politics After the Religious Right" and of "Stand Up Fight Back."
Janet Hook
congressional correspondent, The Wall Street Journal.
David Winston
Republican pollster and President of the Winston Group. He also writes for Roll Call and is a CBS News consultant.
Comments
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It is not clear to me who actually gets to decide which services get cut when the federal budget is cut, or if there is a default on the debt. Congress? The President? Let me do it and Congressional salaries and pensions will be at the top of the list.
Sorry for taking up so much space with my posts today. I thought it important in these times to point out how far we have come from the original intent of the laws that made our country great. "Welfare" and how it relates to our personal freedom is at the center of our current budget crisis. As a citizen of this country you are obligated to understand the true intent of the United States Constitution. A "welfare" state is unsustainable and we are ever so slowly finally learning this fact. All too many politicians today and in the past have no problem dismantling the constitution for their personal agenda even though they have sworn an oath to uphold and protect the constitution, they have done and are willing to do just the opposite. Mr. Obama is just the latest example of such illegal behavior with his renewal of the "Patriot Act" that he as a senator said was unconstitutional, abuse of the commerce clause to enact the "affordable care act" and of course his invasion of a foreign country Libia without congressional approval also something as a senator said was unconstitutional for a president to do on his own.
I put a post up last week claiming that "welfare" as we now know it is unconstitutional. It is clear that the meaning of the word "welfare" as defined by the constitution is not at all the same as 20th century definition of the same word used today to justify an unlimited government intrusion into our lives. Welfare as we know it is here to stay but know that all of it was put into place illegally by those who had no respect for the founding principals of this country. Here I present a very interesting series of facts on the evolution of the meaning of the word "welfare" and how it was subverted to serve political goals illegally.
“Welfare”... Theft of a Nation
By Christopher Holloman Hansen
When words lose their meaning, people will lose their liberty.
The foundation of this conspiracy is based on the verbicide of the phrase “general welfare” that the authors of the anti-federalist papers warned us about and that Plubius, (James Madison, Federalist Papers) said could not be misinterpreted. Madison said the anti-federalist arguments could “have no other effect than to confound and mislead” and that their warnings were an “absurdity.” The United States Supreme Court in 1937 in HELVERING v. DAVIS, 301 U.S. 619 embraced this “absurdity” by completely rejecting Madison’s (the father of the Constitution) argument and turned a Constitution clearly establishing a limited Federal government into an oligarchial tyranny limited only by congressional interpretation of what was “necessary and proper” for the establishment of the “general welfare” and congressional rejection of the “ancient phraseology” replacing them with “modern” definitions.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. understood the dangers of verbicide. He said:
Life and language are alike sacred. Homicide and verbicide-that is, violent treatment of a word with fatal results to its legitimate meaning, which is its life-are alike forbidden.
How can the simple misuse of a word honestly be compared to homicide, a mortal sin? And what does this have to do with welfare and liberty? Men of legal understanding have long understood that the meaning of words in the law must be interpreted, as the authors of the law understood the words.
In a letter to Henry Lee, James Madison wrote:
I entirely concur in the propriety of resorting to the sense in which the Constitution was accepted and ratified by the nation. In that sense alone it is the legitimate Constitution... What a metamorphosis would be produced in the code of law if all its ancient phraseology were to be taken in the modern sense.
In a letter to William Johnson, Thomas Jefferson echoed Madison’s sentiments:
On every question of construction (of the Constitution) let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or intended against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.
The Founding Fathers understood the importance of language. Single words, their placement within the Constitution and even punctuation were debated. They also understood that the meanings of words could change or be maliciously and intentionally misinterpreted.
When modern Americans hear the word “welfare” most think of, “relating to, or concerned with welfare and esp. with improvement of the welfare of disadvantaged social groups” and “receiving public welfare benefits.” (Merriam-Webster’s 10th Collegiate Dictionary)
That definition of “welfare” would have been unknown in 1776. Welfare was, in truth, the exact opposite of poor relief. If you have “welfare” today you would be on the government dole. If you had “welfare” in 1787 you had health, wealth and happiness. Such a system of government aid would only have been known as “poor relief” and a law requiring a tax to support “poor relief” would have been called a “poor law.”
“Poor laws” were first enacted in England following the Reformation, and because of the loss of church property the government established the Elizabethan Poor Law of 1601. The Speenhamland System of 1785, continued on with the poor laws. It was a system of out-door relief contrived by the Berkshire Justices of the Peace meeting at Speenhamland. The Elizabethan Poor Laws provided the pattern for the poor laws in the American Colonies, and the original thirteen states.
There were other “poor laws” and poor reliefs of the time. None were ever called “welfare.” Two of them were known as “The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834,” and the “Formation of Dungarvan Poor Law Union - In 1838”
Now let’s take a look at the meaning of “welfare” and “general welfare” as the Founding Fathers understood them and their metamorphosis and verbicide.
“Welfare” is defined in Noah Webster’s original 1828 Dictionary as:
WEL’FARE, noun [well and fare, a good going; German wohlfahrt; Dutch welvaart; Swedish valfart; Danish velfoerd.]
1. Exemption from misfortune, sickness, calamity or evil; the enjoyment of health and the common blessings of life; prosperity; happiness; applied to persons.
2.Exemption from any unusual evil or calamity; the enjoyment of peace and prosperity, or the ordinary blessings of society and civil government; applied to states.
Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary comprised of the 1864, 1879 and 1884 issues updated and revised and published in 1904 and the Revised 1913 edition defines “welfare” with no obvious substantial change in its meaning except that the distinction between “applied to persons” and “applied to states” has been removed. This is an important distinction as both of the Constitution’s “general Welfare” clauses are only “applied to states” and not to “persons.” The definitions of welfare is as follows:
1904 edition:
Welfare, n. [Well + fare to go, to proceed, to happen.] Well-doing or well being in any respect; the enjoyment of health and the common blessings of life; exemption from any evil or calamity; prosperity; happiness.
Webster’s 1913 Revised Unabridged Dictionary:
Wel”fare’, n. [Well + fare to go, to proceed, to happen.] Well-doing or well being in any respect; the enjoyment of health and the common blessings of life; exemption from any evil or calamity; prosperity; happiness.
Government doles such, as Social Security and Food Stamps were not even a part of the “welfare” definition. The term “Welfare work” is reported as first being mentioned in 1903 in Review of Reviews, stating:
The term “industrial betterment”, or “welfare work,” is used in a wider sense to include all of those services which an employer may render to his work people over and above the payment of wages. It has even been used to include the provisions of homes for employees, kindergartens, schoolhouses [etc.]
Even this definition was not about government dole but private employment benefits.
Then in 1904 Century Magazine said:
The Welfare worker of a large retail establishment.
This Century Magazine quote is recognized in Webster’s 9th and 10th Collegiate Dictionaries:
Welfare adj. (1904) 1: Of, relating to, or concerned with welfare and esp. with improvement of the welfare of disadvantaged social groups {~ legislation}
2: Receiving public welfare benefits {~ mothers}
And in Webster’s 10th Collegiate Dictionary:
welfare adj. (1904) 1:of, relating to, or concerned with welfare and esp. with improvement of the welfare of disadvantaged social groups {~legislation}.
2: receiving public welfare benefits {~families}.
Note again the subtle change from just mother’s to families. The lie just grows and grows but only in very small almost imperceptible steps. It is also interesting to note that “welfare” has become an adjective. It had historically been a noun.
Franklin D. Roosevelt understood all of the above. He was a master of politics. He said:
In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, it was planned that way.
It was Roosevelt who, more than any other man in American history, used this verbicide so effectively to bypass the Constitution (he was sworn to uphold) and usurp authority by increasing federal power without properly amending the Constitution. President Washington warned us in his Farewell Address that such usurpation is the customary weapon to destroy free governments:
If in the opinion of the people the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this in one instance may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed.
Let us look into the very act of usurpation as seen in HELVERING v. DAVIS, 301 U.S. 619 USSC (1937).
The crash of 1929 was an intentionally created depression following the alleged adoption of the income tax and the anti-constitutional Federal Reserve. This is a demonstration of a manipulated power grab. First they claim there is a Constitutional question. Then they take unemployment from an individual problem and made it “general.” Then they recognized that since this same problem, which now became general, is similar to the problems of old age and disability that Congress has the right to tax one segment to the population and give it to another because this will benefit the “general welfare.” And just like that America became a Socialist State. Hereditary bondage was imposed. The Constitution became a “worthless scrap of paper” and Liberty was essentially lost because the World War II generation, unlike the Founding Fathers, were more concerned with their own temporary security than with the liberty of future generations.
Here is what the court said:
The purge of nation-wide calamity that began in 1929 has taught us many lessons. Not the least is the solidarity of interests that may once have seemed to be divided. ...Spreading from state to state, unemployment is an ill not particular but general, which may be checked, if Congress so determines, by the resources of the nation. If this can have been doubtful until now, our ruling today in the case of the Steward Machine Co., supra, has set the doubt at rest. But the ill is all one or at least not greatly different whether men are thrown out of work because there is no longer work to do or because the disabilities of age make them incapable of doing it. Rescue becomes necessary irrespective of the cause. The hope behind this statute is to save men and women from the rigors of the poor house as well as from the haunting fear that such a lot awaits them when journey’s end is near.
When money is spent to promote the general welfare, the concept of welfare or the opposite is shaped by Congress, not the states. So the concept be not arbitrary, the locality must yield.
They changed the original meaning of welfare and established, what would have been unimaginable to the Founding Fathers, a Welfare State, and then encroached on State’s rights all in two short rulings on the same day. (USSC May 24, 1937: Steward Machine Co., supra and Helvering v. Davis)
The following Court stated clearly what the Congress; the usurper President Franklin D. Roosevelt and a traitorous Supreme Court did concerning welfare:
State vs. Sutton, 63 Minn. 147, 65 NW 262, 30 L.R.A. 630 Am. St. 459: “When any court violates the clean and unambiguous language of the Constitution, a fraud is perpetrated and no one is bound to obey it.” (See 16 Ma. Jur. 2d 177, 178)
The Supreme Court rejected the words of Jefferson, Madison, Noah Webster, Adams and other Founding Fathers in creating the “absurdity” (see Madison) and a fraud of the Welfare State. President Washington also warned us of such innovations:
Toward the preservation of your government and the permanency of your present happy state, it is requisite not only that you steadily discountenance irregular oppositions to its acknowledged authority, but also that you resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its principles, however specious the pretexts.
You asked E.S., you got it!
Monte
Very well written and thought out. Kudos
I always find it ironic when the Oligarchs talk about things like welfare and shared sacrifice.
You see, as F. Scott Fitzgerald said:
"The rich are different from you and me."
When politicians tell the American Middle class that they must endure shared sacrifice they mean we must cut back, tighten our belts and eat hot dogs instead of steak.
Ahh but when they say this to the rich it means that their lobbyists must pay a little more in campaign donations for those special amendments to the tax code that allow them to hide their money.
Shared sacrifice to the rich means having to donate a little more to right wing think tanks like A.L.E.C. (American Legislative Exchange Council) to make sure that the coordinated effort to destroy the American Middle class keeps chugging along.
And WELFARE !!!! well my goodness welfare is the burden that those nasty little people (guys in the black hats) who have the impudence to be born poor or lose their jobs or get sick, force the “Job Creators” (guys in the white hats) to have to grumble about on the back nine at Augusta, just ruining an otherwise perfectly beautiful weekend. "Why the audacity" they say of having to give their hard earned money to those (dare I say it) USELESS EATERS.
You see my friends, when the government gives the Oligarchs money for nothing it’s not welfare it is something totally different.
As I continue to watch this "Valiant battle" by the right wing politicians to protect their benefactors from the Middle Class rabble, I keep thinking of an absolutely brilliant story by NPR's crack Planet Money reporting team that aired on This American Life back in January (Episode 423: The Invention of Money ) which by the way is available in their archives.
This episode gave average people like us a little window into how money systems work in at least two different instances.
The first part was about how hyper-inflation was wrung out of Brazil's economy back in the 90's. (very interesting).
The second part was about how we the American People pulled the Oligarchs' fat out of the fire by literally giving them about 1.25 trillion dollars ($1,250,000,000,000.00) by loaning it to them at close to zero interest and letting them use their “toxic assets” as collateral. It was kind of like your crazy uncle Larry taking a month's worth of paychecks and buying a bunch of mega millions tickets (because he has a system) losing it all and then asking you to loan him a couple of thousand bucks using his Slim Whitman record collection as collateral. (very, very, very interesting, but not funny)
If you ever wondered how sausage is made you should download and listen to this program.
Let’s face it. The fact of the matter is that the Oligarchs will never have to face any pain for the mess they’ve created. The economy will always be balanced on the backs of the Middle Class no matter what, at least until there is no Middle Class any more. The Oligarchs have declared war on the Middle Class and guess what WE ARE LOSING.
Remember my fellow Peons
“SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE”
An Important Issue that Will Undoubtedly Be Addressed in Monday's Broadcast:
I find it interesting that as the President entered the legislative fray--at the behest of the Republicans--the right is losing its thin veil of rationality; instead, polls consistently show that the American people are losing faith in the ability of the Republican party to responsibly compromise. In order, therefore, to refrain the debate away from numbers, which they cannot win, the Republicans are introducing the idea of a "budget balance amendment."
IN SHORT: The most recent draft of the proposed Balance Budget Amendment (Senate Joint Resolution 23) is a the "very smoke and mirrors" that the Republicans accuse the President. It is filled with so many exceptions to be worthless, and instead is an attempt to graft the Republican economic ideology onto the constitution by making debt-spending on war easy, keeping taxes lower, and by making any increase in government revenue impossible to achieve (since the amendment states that *any* new revenue needs a 2/3 majority).
The name "budget balance amendment" is a misnomer. It offers nothing to get the debt under control except the total and eventual dismantling of all government services except the corporate welfare that is at the root of the Republican agenda.
The problem is clearly Federal spending which has grown to 24% of GDP. Back in the good old days, in the year 2000, it was about 18%. As a result, 6% of private sector GDP has been "crowded out." It's simple - a bigger government = a smaller private sector = slower job growth. Growth in government is muting the economic recovery. For the sake of the economy and job growth we need to go back to 18% of GDP.
EJ ignores the 2010 elections completely and what it meant.
EJ, seriously, name one specific spending cut that the president proposed. The supposed agreement was toothless and complete vaporware on the president's side.
Millions of jobs were saved by the tax cuts; regulatory policy from Democrats unfortunately terminated even more millions of jobs.
Allowing people to spend the money they earn is the foundation on which this country was built; it was not having those earnings confiscated by the government so it can build empires of bureaucracy and create social hammocks.
The major complaints I hear about federal goveernment spending is with regard to social programs. Since Medicare handles medical costs of the elderly and approximately 80% of Medicaid goes to nursing homes, we are left with thrree alternatives: 1) mutualize costs as we are doing now, 2) reduce actual spending on health care - that is, the elderly actually receivng less health care and 3) individuals taking over the health care of their parents and other elderly relatives. Given that many people want to reduce option 1, that leaves options 2 and 3. The consequences of option one is obvious. the consequences of option 3, not quite so clear. In the days prior to Medicare, less than half of the households had two wage earners, today that number is about 65%. Not being an economist I cannot predict the consequences of the elderly moving in with their relatives and many people being pulled out of the workforce to care for the elderly. I would assume that the consequences will be severe since their will be a double loss of jobs - those who leave the workforce to care for their relatives and those who previously held a job caring for the same people. It seems to me that the economy will suffer greatly from changing to amateur health care and the contraction of the jobs.
This is what confuses me. The Repubs say that the economy is stalled because business is unsure about the future. Yet the same people continue to create uncertainty. I see the Dems offering to sacrifice some of their sacred cows but the Repubs are unwilling to.
What agreed upon source of information do the different sides on these tax and spending issues use? Congressional Budget Office? Fed? It sounds to me that our federal representatives maybe living on different planets. Who's numbers are being used by all? Or are they not using the same numbers? Scott from Oberlin, Ohio
What happened to the days when it was a civic responsibility of ALL Americans to respect the President of the United States? I seem to remember a time when to a greater degree political party differences were put aside once the President was elected, and everyone joined forces, respected the President, and worked for the betterment of the country.
Why not enact Simpson - Bowles recommendations? I believe that would solve a lot of problems. I am in an upper income bracket and I do not mind paying more taxes - and while you are at it, cap the mortgage deduction too. It is a farce that the tax increase would fall on small businesses - the number that it would effect is low. Close the loopholes for both individuals and businesses, keep the payroll tax cut, cap mortgage deductions and only allow them on primary residences. Where are the statesmen of the past who believed in serving and not in profiting.
We have heard both sides of the budget seesaw debate: no tax increases, no cuts in entitlements. Why are no leaders talking about the middle: some tax increases and some entitlement cuts? It's obvious to almost everyone watching this time-wasting debate that this is where the solution lies. I'm waiting for the leader who has the nerve to endorse a compromise.
Am deeply troubled by David's comments re: the success of the Bush tax cuts. Two things: 1) we have been in a recession since before President Bush left office which puts pay to any notion of the success of the tax cuts; 2) the non-partisan Center for Budget and Policy Priorities has pointed out that there are two key things that are driving the deficit: 1) the two wars and 2) the tax cuts.
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3490
Would love some feedback on these isssues.
I am on Social Security and it is my primary source of income. I am also dependent on Medicare.
Should those entitlements be cut I, along with countless other American seniors, will suffer greatly. I would probably loose my home.
What are our esteemed members of Congress willing to sacrifice to help balance the budget???
Please comment on the cost of the wars being added to the deficit. Is it not true that these costs were never added under the Bush Administration therefore not creating an accurate account of the deficit and Obama added these expenses to give the American public a better idea of how bad things really are?
When discussing taxes why not discuss corporate tax and income tax separately? They seem completely different things to me, especially if it is all about 'job creation'.
Also, the most advanced countries in Europe are those with high taxes. The countries that are in trouble are those with low taxes.
It turns out about half of American social program beneficiaries believe that they "have not used a government social program" so they don't even realize what the government does for them and hence, might shoot themselves in the foot when voting. http://boingboing.net/2011/07/08/half-of-us-social-pr.html
How much is too much? What I want to see is if the debt limit is raised this time the leading Democrats are paraded out on the record and have to state a figure both in terms of dollar amount and percentage of GDP as to what they would consider a figure that even they would not support going over. I suspect when the debt was 8 trillion many would not have supported 10 trillion. If they don't put a firm number on the record then it's all imploding it's just a question of when.
Diane, please tell your listeners to learn about the Gini index, that measures income and wealth distribution. The US has an unfair distribution of wealth that most people, even economists, are unaware of. The NYT published the Gini index in Egypt as an explanation of the recent social unrest there. They gave the US index for comparison, it is much worse.
The last caller's (Joe's) reason for joining the Republican party (religious) was the reason I stopped voting Republican in the late 1980's. Interesting. If the Republican party returned to the values of Dwight Eisenhower, the party would be more inclusive. I have nothing against religion - I just strongly believe in separation of church and state.
Those who believe the government needs more revenue should feel free to mail some in.
Romer wrote, "Our results indicate that tax changes have very large effects on output. Our baseline specification implies that an exogenous tax increase of one percent of GDP lowers real GDP by almost three percent. Our many robustness checks for the most part point to a slightly smaller decline, but one that is still typically over 2.5 percent." If she has done another study to ammend this conclusion, let's see it.
Some things need to be clarified for people who term Medicare as WELFARE. The majority of seniors who are receiving Medicare continue to pay premiums for their health coverage.
The average 71-year-old pays monthly:
$100 deduction from Social Security
$170 for supplemental plan
$30 for Part D prescription plan
I don't think $300 a month for health insurance is welfare. Do you?