Florida State Seminoles

[Owlman]

My apologies for my response to your post eCat. I have trememdous respect for you even when I disagree with your statements

[Owlman]

Fox News website calls Obama’s birthday party a ‘Hip-Hop BBQ’


Damn!

[AlabamAlum]

Hahaha.

[TheBigMook]

did they call the cops on em?

[eCat]

Here is what the S&P said

"To avoid a downgrade, S&P said the United States needed to not only raise the debt ceiling, but also develop a "credible" plan to tackle the nation's long-term debt."

eCat

You are consistently one of the more honorable and reasoned posters on this board, with things you agree with and those you don't. However, that was the biggest selective bias quoting I've seen from you.

THIS is what the S&P said:

– The downgrade reflects our opinion that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the Administration recently agreed to falls short of what, in our view, would be necessary to stabilize the government’s medium-term debt dynamics.

– More broadly, the downgrade reflects our view that the effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policymaking and political institutions have weakened at a time of ongoing fiscal and economic challenges to a degree more than we envisioned when we assigned a negative outlook to the rating on April 18, 2011.

– Since then, we have changed our view of the difficulties in bridging the gulf between the political parties over fiscal policy, which makes us pessimistic about the capacity of Congress and the Administration to be able to leverage their agreement this week into a broader fiscal consolidation plan that stabilizes the government’s debt dynamics any time soon

I don't know how you can NOT say that the S&P was taking a direct shot at those pols who find no problem with defaulting on debt responsibilities, all in the name of "no tax increases." These Tea Party politicians (not the constituents, who may not know better, but the pols themselves) have gone on record time and time again saying "go ahead and default. We are fine with that, if that means we will stop the US Government from taxing us into oblivion."

That mindset makes Ratings Agencies (or at least S&P) leery of anything being accomplished long-term that will truly impact our fiscal situation.

The idiocy (signs of Obama as Joker/Hitler, guns to Town Halls) used to be blamed on a few random people using the Tea Party as convenient cover. Now, I see elected officials acting reckless and dispensing with rhetoric that has serious consequences on the financial psyche of the public and the forward-looking opinions of the Ratings Agencies (or at least S&P) and the markets, overall.

You have to take a step back and acknowledge that the attribution of this problem to the Tea Party is larger than you're conveying.

here is the thing you can't get around - Congress did what you guys wanted - they raised the debt ceiling and the S&P *still* downgraded us, which is exactly what the tea party guys were saying was going to happen - so what is the point of raising the debt ceiling at all? We might as well have defaulted and forced congress to address balancing their spending. My S&P quote isn't an either/or - its a direct quote saying Congress didn't do enough about their financial orders. It doesn't matter if I left out other stuff (which I didn't even know of because I pulled that quote from a drudge link headline) - because regardless of what my quote says or doesn't say - we raised the debt ceiling AND we got downgraded.

And I can't be convinced that polls say that the American public is for tax increases when a significant number of tea party members were elected for the sole purpose to cutting spending and taxes in Washington. Spacer - you talk about people not willing to have cuts on stuff that matters to them but I can pretty much guarantee you the people want taxes raised are people NOT paying taxes into the system. Its easy to sit there and say tax the wealthiest Americans because the people saying it aren't one of them.

The basic premise to the tea party is that we can't trust the government when it comes to managing programs and spending. And while you can point to specific examples, every person reading this that is an American citizen now owes $46K for their share of the debt. Why would I be compelled to give congress the right to take more money when I can't trust them to make meaningful cuts. The cuts have to happen - there isn't a decade of prosperity starting tomorrow. Obama knows it. The GOP knows it. If they aren't serious about it, then all this talk about revenue increase and gridlock is just a smokescreen to kick the can down the road and not have to face the American voting public and tell them the glory days of entitlements and federal government spending is behind us.

The FAA subsidy issue with Harry Reid trying to protect an airport is a perfect example of clinging to power, and the only power the government official has is spending money.

And you guys know I'm not some Fox news talking head. Boehner and Mitch McConnel don't want cuts anymore than Obama.

[eCat]

My apologies for my response to your post eCat. I have trememdous respect for you even when I disagree with your statements

I think I"m thicker skinned than that.

[Bklyn]

My argument is, if the debt ceiling was raised without all these threats and foolish posturing...and the exact same concessions were passed by Congress well before the 11th hour, then I doubt the downgrade would have happened. That's my point. Moody's and Fitch did not move us with the same information that S&P had, but the tipping point for them was the political climate today. I just listened to an interview with the head of the S&P who said as much.

I'm not saying nothing needed to be done with the budget to keep us from getting downgraded. I'm saying that the idiotic political threats about "let us default, I don't care" is harmful and played a big part in S&P downgrading our debt.

(also, Drudge is a dick)

[eCat]

I'm not a drudge fan - but they do have breaking news


at any rate, politicians are going to have to accept that there is a significant number of Americans who don't agree that we just pay additional taxes just to keep the status quo, or to even have marginal cuts. They aren't concerned with promises made to support a great society when the contributors are declining and the takers are growing.

I think a pragmatic approach for either party who wants any chance to receiving increased taxes is focusing on showing some fiscal humility - and asking for tax increases after bailing out wall street has very little to do with humility.

Ron Paul was preaching unsustainable spending back in 2007 before the additional trillion of failed stimulus. People listened

And speaking of Wall Street, how valuable is a triple AAA rating when mortgage backed securities were rated triple AAA and tanked the world economy?

[TheBigMook]

Why would you say "failed" stimulus? How do we know it didn't work?

[eCat]

Why would you say "failed" stimulus? How do we know it didn't work?

I think this highlights a basic difference between our views Mook.

The stimulus was designed to stimulate the economy, and while we did have many companies post profits, we never saw significant drops in unemployment.

As we have discussed before, most of the stimulus money went to shoring up eroding state debt and funded state projects.

Now if the stated goal on the stimulus was "to keep everything from going to shit" - ok, we might have a debate on that, but then we couldn't call it a stimulus, we'd call it a stability plan.

So at best the economy wasn't stimulated, the economy was kept on life support with the hopes something at some point would break open. That didn't happen. The scary part for me is that some people feel that we didn't spend enough and that is why the economy has limped along. I can't wrap my head around a trillion dollar spending plan not being enough.

[TheBigMook]

Well, the point was to spend more. But at the time, Obama still believed he could be bipartisan and give the GOP some of what they wanted... which was less stimulus and spending cuts (plus tax breaks for their wealthy buddies), which is pretty much the opposite of how a stimulus is supposed to work. So we got a half assed stimulus with half assed results.

Granted "Its Better Than Nothin!" isn't the most inspiring statement, even when its true.

[eCat]

As I said before - we've lost global confidence on our debt spending as it is now, I can't imagine just opening the flood gates with the hopes that funding major construction projects or whatever resulting in hundreds of government funded jobs at taxpayer expense would help the situation

Yea, I'd love to think that those guys in turn would spend that money on housing, cars, durable goods, etc. but its still a propped up economy. Would those workers be absorbed into companies making money? Would banks in turn free up credit to small business and loosen criteria for home loans?

I think the lessons learned from 2008 are now part of the long term business policy.

I really do believe that best approach to our long term economic health is to get the federal government out of it and put money in the hands of people by reduced taxes. You give me a serious tax cut - not some bullshit credit or means based but give me an extra $6K a year in real money - I'll show you who is a job creator.

But the idea of reduced taxes of any significance is a pipe dream with this debt , spending and continued belief that we must meet obligations to retirees and boomers and to the military at rates they deem acceptable. And I'm not even considering the pie in the sky stuff like investing in education, technology and infrastructure as much as I see value in those because the big 3 are always going to take precendence.

[TheBigMook]

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/2011 ... /110806012 oops

[eCat]

you just posted that to get me fired up because you know taser abuse pisses me off to where I'm foaming at the mouth

[AlabamAlum]

My argument is, if the debt ceiling was raised without all these threats and foolish posturing...

Okay, stop. What makes you think for a second that either side of the aisle would avoid jockeying for postion by making foolish threats and posturing? Both sides have done it, are doing it, and will continue to do it about myriad subjects.

[TheBigMook]

you just posted that to get me fired up because you know taser abuse pisses me off to where I'm foaming at the mouth

Lil' bit.

[AlabamAlum]

Yeah, but that wasn't taser abuse. It was a righteous taze if the events happened the way they were reported.

[TheBigMook]

Could have happened the way they said. Or they could be lying through their teeth. You never know. Hopefully someone has it on tape.

[eCat]

if someone dies from a taser then do we really have to have discussion on it being a "righteous" taze?

I mean , ok, the guy is going to attack a policeman, but that in turn doesn't give the police the right to sit there and make him jiggle like a cat stuck on an electric fence.

[Jungle Rat]

He should have just shot him.