Budget-mania

We're getting close to the deadline for shutting down the government, so I better make this fast. Wait a minute, no need to hurry. I'm in the military, so I'm going to work even if there is a shutdown.

I wanted to highlight some good pieces from the Economist's DIA blog on the budget wrangling going on. I nominate the following for Quotes of the Day (ok, maybe they're not quotes, but I sure like them):

Regarding hypocritical Republicans - "I find it hard to watch the same people who ten years ago were desperate to avoid the supposed dangers of government budget surpluses now trying to zero out Teach for America and the United States Institute for Peace, in order to scratch together a few pennies for interest payments on the debt they helped create by cutting taxes. But the most disturbing part is that, then as now, they try to present themselves as "responsible"."

Regarding the triviality of the cuts Republicans are trying to pretend are going to fix the budget deficit - "Once again, and for the umpteenth time: the United States faces a serious debt problem on the order of trillions of dollars over a 20- to 30-year time frame. This debt problem is overwhelmingly driven by rising Medicare and Medicaid spending due to rapid cost inflation in the medical sector. Other significant budget problems include a substantial but demographically limited increase in Social Security expenditures, and immense and spectacularly wasteful defence spending. The final serious budget issue is that American taxes are set at a level that remains several per cent of GDP lower than expenditures throughout the business cycle, a problem either created or severely exacerbated by the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003. Every other federal spending category apart from the ones I have mentioned is, from the point of view of our debt problem, trivial, and cutting any other category has a negligible effect on the debt (emphasis mine)."

Quote of the Day

From Paul Krugman.

Democrats aren’t fiscal saints. But we have one party that has been generally responsible, and tries to pay for what it wants, and another party that consistently, deliberately, takes actions to increase deficits in the long term. Saying this may be shrill; but not saying it is being deceptive.

Random Good News for the Weekend

From TPM - Gov. Scott Walker's job disapproval rating up to 57 percent.

What the People Want

The title is from a post by Kevin Drum. He points out,

"Out in real America, people want to tax the rich, cut stupid weaponsprograms, and stop subsidizing prosperous oil companies. They don't want to cut Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, or education."

Which is great and all. But I want to focus on another line from the post -

"Democrats, if they could manage to agree on a halfway coherent message, most likely hold all the cards in a budget showdown"

Yeah. So it works in theory, but if it's dependent on the Democrats doing the politics right, then you can certainly expect it not to work out.

Air Force Reduction in Force

Interesting goings-on in the Air Force of late. Since the economy has been so bad the last couple of years, the natural attrition of Airmen (officers and enlisted) has slowed to a crawl. So the higher-ups have recently been looking for additional ways to get the numbers down. It looks like they've exhausted all of the voluntary ways for people to go (with the idea being that they're not replaced and this brings our overall numbers down). Next up - Reduction in Force (RIF) boards. Everybody's records meet a group of senior officers and those who don't make the cut have to separate. Looks like the NLT separation date is February 1, 2012. And for those of you who are pretty sure you're not going to make the cut? Opt for voluntary separation during the month of March and you get a little bump to your separation pay.

I just learned that my year group is going to be one of those meeting one of these boards. I'm exempt because I have over 15 years total military service and because I'm within 2 years of retirement. These are anxious times for some of my peers, though.

Republican Budget Cutting will Hurt the Economy

There have been some recent reports (Goldman Sachs, Moody's) which says the budget cuts will hurt the economy (lesser GDP) and cost jobs. John Boehner says, "So be it." I agree with Kevin Drum:

In any case, it hardly matters. Maybe it's a million jobs, maybe it's half a million jobs. Maybe it will cost a point of GDP, maybe it will cost half a point of GDP. But considering that the economy is still sluggish and unemployment is extremely high, why are we considering budget cuts that will have any negative effect on jobs and growth? Especially cuts in the only part of the budget that isn't a long-term problem?

That's the big news from Bernanke's testimony: not that he thinks other estimates of job losses are too high, but the fact that he agrees the Republican budget plan will cost jobs and slow growth. That's coming from a Republican Fed chair! How much more evidence do we need that our current budget cutting mania is insane?

Neo-Con Controversy

I didn't realize this was an issue, but it looks like the dreaded neo-conservatives are bemoaning the outcome in Egypt as a loss for U.S. foreign policy. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, considering the debacle they led us into in Iraq and Afghanistan.

All in all, I agree with this guy.

"I think I can suggest one thing that's more pathetic than the usual round of "who lost [fill in the blank]", and that would be a round of "who lost [fill in the blank]" when we won. Nobody lost Egypt! Egypt just ousted its dictator in a non-violent popular revolution! It's going to have democratic elections in six months! In what perverse universe does this count as a defeat for American foreign policy, for the West, for enlightenment civilisation, for lovers of human rights? Sweet Douglas Feith, what do these people want?"