Showing posts with label deficit spending. Show all posts
Showing posts with label deficit spending. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 19, 2025

Congressional Republicans are unhappy with imprecise and rash spending cuts and personnel reductions, resulting in violations of the law, mistakes, and human carnage in their districts and states

 Trump faces growing DOGE revolt from GOP lawmakers

... "We all want efficiencies, there is a way to do it, and the way these people have been treated has been awful in many cases. Awful." ... some are quietly fuming that their Constitutional role in controlling federal funds could be steamrolled in the process. The House Republican who spoke anonymously warned that many conservatives are "very constitutionalist" and may be inclined to protect Congress' power if forced to do so. "Even though it's our guy in the White House, if there's a lot of executive overreach, we want to protect the institution of Congress," they said. ...

Tuesday, February 18, 2025

Democrat Rosa DeLauro (CT-3) is correct: Elon Musk is an unelected interloper, with no authority and no legitimacy who makes a mockery of the appropriations process


 

 Musk exercises nonexistent dictatorial line-item-veto powers over spending and personnel as a "super cabinet" official who was never confirmed by the US Senate like the other cabinet members he now tells what's what.

The whole scheme is illegal and unconstitutional, which is why Trump is now all of a sudden denying that Musk is head of the so-called DOGE, just like Trump hastily made Musk a special government employee after lawsuits were filed on February 3 questioning Musk's authority.

It's an end run around the constitution no less serious than the National Popular Vote Compact, which seeks to neuter the Electoral College.

Trump has been making this bullshit up as he goes and has been since Musk endorsed Trump after the July assassination attempt and then became part of Trump's circle of intimates in August.

The tech oligarchy got front row seats at the inauguration for a reason.

Congress closing in on shutdown deadline with no clear plan 

“We cannot come to a deal where you hammer out gains, losses, but you come to a conclusion and you come to a meeting of the minds,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro (Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, told reporters. “That should not be subject to some third party deciding that that’s not what they want.”

“We had a deal last year, all of us and so forth, and then there was an interloper with no authority, no legitimacy, nonelected, who said, ‘Don’t vote for it,’” DeLauro said, as Democrats have continued to zero in on tech billionaire Elon Musk, the head of Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Thursday, February 13, 2025

The billionaires never say, Raise taxes now or face an economic heart attack


 

The word "tax" appears nowhere in this story.

Ray Dalio is worth $19 billion.

 

 
“Make sure that you really know what you’re doing and you’re practical, and do it on … the conservative side, because you know, how much can the cutting actually be?”
 

Thursday, February 6, 2025

Kinda like a libertarian convention

 

 
. . . fiscal hawks said they could not support the massive package without more spending cuts. ...

Monday, February 3, 2025

Trump's tariff gambit has little to do with fentanyl but everything to do with increasing revenues on the backs of consumers so that he can pass his temporary tax cut package and not increase deficits

 It's complete madness. It's Donald Trump: "Everything will cost more but I'm cutting your taxes!"

 Wolfgang Munchau, here:

Economically, his tariff war will act like a tax on US consumers. The increased costs are inevitably borne by the consumers. But, as a form of rebalancing, it will raise a lot of revenue for the US treasury and together with the shrinking of the federal government, may well end up lowering the budget deficit and strengthening the US current account balance. Of course, there will be repercussions that could push in the other direction: the dollar might rise; the world might plunge into recession. But the truth is we have no experience of what happens when the largest economy on earth, with the dominating global reserve currency, imposes massive tariffs on its trading partners.

Munchau thinks Trump will win his tariff war. I do not. Munchau overestimates Trump's political support at home, and underestimates the fickleness of the US electorate. Continued inflation will throw sand into the gears of this gambit and sow discontent.

Control of the US House is everything, and Trump barely has it. He has two years and is already blowing it.

Tuesday, December 17, 2024

Average US Treasury yields aggregated monthly started to normalize in November as yields fell for bills but rose for bonds

Interpreted politically one could say yields for notes and bonds reversed their slide starting in October as Harris' lead evaporated at the end of September and bond markets started to bet on a Trump win, bringing with it higher deficits because of his proposed tariffs and tax cuts.

 



Thursday, November 21, 2024

The case for gold gets stronger in a world of global fiscal misbehavior led by the United States under Trump

 “If every country is looking equally irresponsible, then the chances of [a US budget crisis] happening are slim, certainly on a sustainable basis. But when all the countries are experiencing high debt ratios and high deficits, then it′s less likely because in effect there is nowhere to run, with the possible exception of physical assets like gold.” ...

“It would take another country, another region like the euro area supplanting the U.S. with regard to fiscal responsibility. That’s tough to see happening,” he added.

More.

Wednesday, November 13, 2024

Every single dollar spent by government is a dollar thrown into the fire, except for those handed directly to Elon Musk for every Tesla sold, so Trump adding a new Department of Government Efficiency is extremely amusing

Yeah, let's put the HOG feeding at the government trough and getting filthy stinking rich off electric car subsidies and tax credits, and government rocket contracts, in charge of government efficiency.

 


 

 Trump announces Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy to lead new ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ 

What a bunch of phony baloney plastic banana good time rock 'n rollas. 

"Government efficiency" is one of those oxymorons that is more equal than other oxymorons.

Monday, August 19, 2024

Democrats profiting off the little guy: Corporate profits at 12% under Bidenflation have been much better than under Trump at 4%

 


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The dirty little secret about corporate profits: they've been much better after 13 quarters of Biden than they were after 16 quarters of Trump, averaging 4.14% yoy under Trump and 12.13% under Biden.
 
This is a great little arrangement between Democrats and big business. Democrat-aligned business makes off with your cash while politicians pretend to do something about it in exchange for campaign contributions, with the important benefit that inflation inflates away the cost of their spendthrift deficit spending.

The so-called Inflation Reduction Act, which did no such thing and Democrats said would cost nothing, is estimated to cost the taxpayers nearly $800 billion by 2031 according to the liberal Brookings Institution.

This is your fascist America.
 
Shielding price increases by blaming them on inflation has been the modus operandi of the period. Price gouging is real, but gimmicks which address only symptoms won't solve the problem, which is caused by increasing the money supply and deliberately increasing other costs as a matter of policy, like energy and regulation, which businesses also can plausibly blame.
 
But Harris knows the demagogic value of running against price gouging.
 
Price controls poll particularly well. You can fool most of the people most of the time.
 

 
 
 
 
 

Friday, June 28, 2024

Your reminder that Democrat Speaker Nancy Pelosi owns the two worst episodes of federal spending in excess of tax receipts in the history of the country

 Spending originates in the US House by law.

Democrat Speaker Nancy Pelosi owns the two worst episodes of federal spending in excess of tax receipts in the history of the country, by 310% in 2009 and by 309% in 2020, under Obama (Great Financial Crisis) and then under Trump (Pandemic).



 

Friday, June 21, 2024

Monday, April 29, 2024

Nancy Pelosi, The Queen of Inflation, had the worst record of any speaker for deficit spending

 Pelosi Accuses MSNBC's Katy Tur Of Being An "Apologist" For Trump: "He Had The Worst Record Of Any President"

 

Pelosi spent 210% of revenues in 2009

Pelosi spent 196% of revenues in 2010

Pelosi spent 216% of revenues in 2020

Pelosi spent 176% of revenues in 2021