The Diane Rehm Show

When it comes to addressing the lack of jobs in this country I believe that companies that take jobs off-shore should be subject to significant assessments. I suggest a minimum of $10,000 per job per year for 10 to 20 years. Perhaps they will think twice about taking jobs to other countries. Those countries have barely livable wages and zero to minimal benefits for their workers, shame on these companies for taking advantage of the people in this manner.

sallyprn wrote:
"When it comes to addressing the lack of jobs in this country I believe that companies that take jobs off-shore should be subject to significant assessments. I suggest a minimum of $10,000 per job per year for 10 to 20 years. Perhaps they will think twice about taking jobs to other countries. Those countries have barely livable wages and zero to minimal benefits for their workers, shame on these companies for taking advantage of the people in this manner."
sally,
As a "big business" guy, I don't entirely disagree with you. Companies should be penalized for taking jobs overseas. Don't feel bad for workers in other countries - they are happy for the jobs when they have none. That being said, there is another fundamental truth. Many complain about the gulf between the "haves" and "have nots" in this country but don't recognize that there is a great disparity in labor rates between this country and other countries in what is now a WORLD MARKET. That is the key. A great equilization of world-wide labor rates MUST take place before jobs, particularly manufacturing jobs, begin to return to this country. Workers here will probably will always be paid somewhat more to offset the costs of taking jobs overseas, but, as sad as it sounds, many people here are still overpaid.

ANARCHIST__ untie !

CAMtron- unemployment growth triggers food riots, civil unrest creating oppurtunities for further torture, incarceration, and MORE exploitation.

As for the rest of world...

Talia never question semisecret 'stoopid' tax surcharges.

O Barbara, we weep with you, use the designated marks upon your door to avoid being 'selected'.

We added dirt, bugs, and occassional rodent to food supplies. With the addition of USTPA(US TEA(republican) PARTY Approved) Soylent Green(no longer made from just olden and children= NEW and IMPROVED) our country but to fitness trials- er- trails.

Semisecret proceedings of 'super' delegates officially recognizes past practices (just like torture, rendition, detention without charge, etc).

Hope you sure 'new' 'openness' in government O K .

Karl Rove is behind the curtain. Don't foul with the curtain(you have no need to see- see?).

Linda R you are getting want you wanted BUT haven't completed your retraining so do not realize yet. Until you do you may experience some discomfort... suggested you relax and try to enjoy IT(Real Accelerating Progess to End).

Congress ONLY agreed to tolerate nonwhite illegal alien OPUS if castrated. Apparantly working well. 'Movers' and 'shakers' power base so sort of another Catch-22.

Bush jr choice of brother and fathers purchase of Supreme Court(best deal EVER) Linda. Roberts BUT agree our system of choosing between lessor(hee) of two evils means usually near equal choice.

ecgberht-

Let's make it easier for you to understand the difference between budgets being balanced on a state and federal level. I will use a bridge being built as the example.

Cost of building the bridge: $20 million
Paid half by federal outlay of $10 million and the other half by state bond issuance for $10 million.

The federal appropriation of the full $10 million is taken out of FY2012 (fiscal year). Even though the federal government must borrow the money, the whole $10 million counts against the budget that year assuming the bridge is built in one year. Then the repayments of the debt with interest will also be counted against the budget in future fiscal years, but not in a direct way since the bridge building debt is mixed with all other debts.

The state instead issues a bond that is fully subscribed. The state does not count the bridge building from its operating budget for that fiscal year. Instead, the repayment of the debt is carried into future years.

Since building a bridge is considered a capitol expense, the state does not include it in its yearly operating budget. The federal government which does not make a budgetary difference between building a bridge and paying for salaries for workers in a department, must include the full cost of the bridge in its overall budget.

I hope this helps you to better understand budgeting.

Daniel

I had to turn of the DR show today. The guest was so blatantly slanted. Giving specific numbers on corporate contributions than attempting to minimize it by say the unions spend "tons" of money on campaigns too. I think the follow up questions should have been, "What is the exact dollar value of a ton of money? Can you prove that?"

citizencontact wrote:
"I hope this helps you to better understand budgeting."
Oh, I understand budgeting perfectly well so save the condescension.
"Despite what you wrote, it is possible to both have debt and have a balanced budget"
Duh. Despite what I wrote?! That's EXACTLY what I wrote. That's because "debt" gets carried forward period to period when expenses outstrip income.
"Since the federal government does not make the same distinction, speaking of balanced budgets does not mean the same thing.."
The hell it doesn't.
What you don't get, is that the state that incurs the debt for the bridge, is NO DIFFERENT than the Federal Government who has debt sitting in Treasuries. Treasuries are MONEY THAT IS OWED. The FG ALWAYS spends more than it takes in.
They're no different than the state that builds that bridge.
You're trying to differentiate between capital (not capitol as you say) expenditures and budget items. But what the FG is spending is ALSO, essentially, a capital expense. That's because, whether a bill is for expenditures or spending cuts, it always cover multiple years - that's why you heard of 2T in cuts ... over 10 years. You think that was going to be budgeted in one year?! Nonsense.
Here's another factor. That 10M the FG contributes to the bridge SHOULDN'T be more than a budget item. It's a drop in the bucket to the FG, while the state has to issue debt. But when you aggregate those expenditures, THE FG HAS TO ISSUE DEBT TOO.
It sounds like that's ok with you - and it would be with me too if the debt ever DECREASED (like, theoretically, the state's debt would as they paid off the bonds). THE FG N-E-V-E-R REDUCES IT'S DEBT. It grows year to year. Over an economically stressful period, that's acceptable. Over decades, it's not.

I'd like to add to the posters who complained about the way Ron Elving dealt with the campaign spending of conservative organizations. He said that's only half the story and went on to portray the influence of labor unions as equivalent. In future he should be prepared to back up such a statement with figures, because it's nonsense to imagine that labor has a fraction of the resources of conservative front organizations that have billionaire industrialists and most of the corporate sector behind them.

Thanks especially to the Citizens United decision, such organizations can unaccountably shovel $millions in anonymous money to buy elections. Of course, unions can do the same - except that they are accountable to their members and lack anything like comparable resources.

It's one thing to report in a truly objective way, but there's nothing objective - or fair to listeners - about falling over backwards to portray balance where it does not exist. It's not what I expect from an NPR reporter and it makes one wonder in general how reliable a reporter he is

Anatole France wrote:

"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."

If he had still been around, he could certainly have described what Elving said in similarly cutting terms.

"ecgberht wrote:

By the way, S&P just downgraded US debt to AA. That's what happens to borrowers WHO OWE TOO MUCH. It's the same as what happens to your credit score when you incur more debt than you should.
This is not rocket science.
August 5, 2011 - 9:15 pm"

S&P said right out that they want Medicare cut (slashed) and maybe they won't downgrade us again.

It sounds like the Right -wing Lackeys for the NeoCon bloodsucking Bankers have an agenda.

These are the People that pimped the S__t that laid waste to the World Economy, forced Millions into poverty and diverted Trillions into the pockets of the Bloodsuckers. And the filthy scum aren't finished yet, they want our Health Care and Pensions too.

Monte Haun mchaun@hotmail.com

"Thanks for correcting my typo."
Once is a typo. More than once is ... well, something else.
First, I deal in what is real, not what is theoretical. As I wrote the "decades" reference, I thought about the Clinton/Gingrich budgets that brought a brief budget surplus. I'm not going to pick that apart to show you why it was illusory. You can study that for yourself. Although the government budget figures showed a surplus, the amount the FG owed was still about 7T. That's a lot of bridges. Now do you get it? That's no different than the state that owes its bond holders for its part of the bridge.
"So, you are incorrect that on a federal level that it is feasible to have debt without deficit spending in the same way that states do"
You can say the same thing over and over, but it won't make it true. You cannot refute the fact of how states incur debt (by issuing bonds) and how the FG incurs debt by selling t-bills. There is no difference. And whether it's in one year, or many, it doesn't matter. You're trying to make a point about long-term capital spending vs. spending year to year. It's a distinction without a difference and the end result is the same. Think about how the interstate highway system was paid for. Do you think halfway through, Congress would have stopped paying for it?
And you are drifting further and further from your assertion that Republicans are somehow misleading the public about Federal debt. It's just not true.
By the way, you did a great job of scolding the Bush administration (and by implication, the Republican Congress) with respect to debt policy, and rightly so. I'd love to hear your analysis of the Obama Administration and the Democratic Congress from 2009 to 2011.

I personally believe that the government is a democratic institution that should "promote the general welfare" of its participants as is indicated in the Constitution's preamble. Most spending by the government is very productive, mainly in direct payments for the pension/Social Security and medical care (Medicare, Medicaid, VA, fed. empl. insurance/DOD). Other spending was used to create the Internet (DARPA and NSF and gift to the world), the web browser (NSCA), GPS (DOD and still provided free of charge to the world), and pay for cancer research, food safety, roads, public transit, space travel, regulating copyrights, patents and trademarks (which create enormous wealth for the private sector), criminal and civil courts, military, national parks, FEMA, subsidize education (created the land grant university system), ... and countless other vital, life saving and job creating programs.

Not all spending is equal. The Bush administration spent money poorly and tried to hide the misspending. The Obama administration has tried to be more honest about all of the spending even as it has felt forced to continue some of the poor spending choices as part of various compromises with the Republicans. But generally the Obama administration has only added expenditures that will make America safer, stabler and richer. I think if the Republicans are beaten in the polls in 2012, the country can get back to budget surpluses and a happier and healthier citizenry.

Daniel

Monte wrote "all of this is unconstitutional" referring to major aspects of what the federal government is doing. And then explains that my reference to "promote general welfare" is the opposite of what was intended. I looked at the referenced article and I think I understand Monte's confusion. I actually did mean welfare as defined in the 1828 Noah Webster's "1. Exemption from misfortune, sickness, calamity or evil; the enjoyment of health and the common blessings of life; prosperity; happiness; applied to persons." I was not referring to the use that is the more modern application that is called a "welfare" program.

First, Social Security is neither a charity nor unconstitutional. It is a general insurance program that everyone is part of. People pay into the insurance and then like any pension or insurance, receive benefits not because of being poor. The same is with Medicare, as it is an insurance system that works on a national level. It is not intended as a charity. Both of these programs help promote "exemption from misfortune, sickness, calamity..." Neither are "welfare" programs in the sense of charity given to unfortunate.

On the other hand, Medicaid is a form of government charity and more similar to a charity. Government and society has generally unfulfilled its obligation to maintain or promote life and welfare, and should change this and similar programs from charities to general insurance systems so no citizen feels as if it is receiving charity from government. But just because this is more like a charity, does not make it unconstitutional. The framers were brilliant by allowing the constitution to be amended in article 5 - http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html

and thanks to our founders in the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court has the authority and obligation to interpret the Constitution in it court cases and therefore is the sole authority. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marbury_v._Madison
cont...

You can disagree with the Supreme Court. You can hope that the Supreme Court changes its opinion in a future case. But you can not claim that programs are unconstitutional that have been ruled constitutional. That is the opposite of what the founders intended who understood that and made explicit that the constitution might need to be amended.

It seems unfair I know. And there are things I wish were unconstitutional, but I respect/follow the authority that the Supreme Court even when I disagree with their opinion. But belief does not change reality. I am lost on your concern that the government might help people who need it. I am happy that our government can have programs that lift people up when they are down, I just wish the government and the rest of society keeps people from being hurt in the first place.

Daniel

Bort wrote

"There was no Keynesian stimulus. The small increase in federal spending was offset by decreases in state and local government spending."

Bort

I would not call 1.5 trillion in new federal spending a small increase. Remember a Trillion is 14 zeros. Yes there has been a decrease in local and state spending but that has not equal to taxes decreases where people who are unemployed need those tax savings.

Bort also stated" referring to Keynesian stimuls, It did not fail, because it was never tried."
Bort
Where would we get the extra funds? The Chinese told us yesterday by an article in USA Today, 3rd page, that we need to get our financial house in order. In other words who are we going to borrow from and what cost for the needed funds that many Keynesian followers subscribe to.?

chetdude wrote:
Regarding today's Friday News Roundup...

Ron Elving certainly lived up to his reputation when he tried to equate the Multi-Billion Dollar Corporate $lush funds that will successfully buy the Congress and the White House with the pitiful millions spent by Unions to try to protect Working People.

chetdude:

You forgot to mention George Soros helping the Working People. Bernie Madoff before his empire went to the toilet was a big contributors to the Dem/Libs. Saw it on 60 Minutes.