House budget chief: automatic spending cuts "going to happen"

“tax hikes and deep spending reductions – known as sequestration”

Or if your want to use the Greek term “AUSTERITY”.

It is coming people.

Thank God it,s coming, before we spend our way into oblivion. Why do I only see our national debt rising ? As a nation, are we so stupid that we think we can spend and spend and spend forever ?
Wake up America !!

Congress does not have the ability to cut the budget by even one penny, no matter what Ryan says, thinks or wants. Both parties will agree to “postpone” the sequester, just like they did in September.

Congress does not have the ability to cut the budget by even one penny, no matter what Ryan says, thinks or wants. Both parties will agree to “postpone” the sequester, just like they did in September.

Congress does not have the ability to cut the budget by even one penny, no matter what Ryan says, thinks or wants. Both parties will agree to “postpone” the sequester, just like they did in September.

Austerity is coming, that is for sure. There is only one question: Will it be a relatively little bit of self-imposed austerity starting now or a lot of unavoidable and unpredictable austerity later.

Government budgets do not operate like family budgets.

Think of it this way: In years where the cows are fat, the Pharaoh saves up grain and takes more. In years where the cows are lean, the Pharaoh takes less from the people and releases the grain from the reserves.

This translates into our modern government budget very easily and very simply; During years of expansive growth, government is free to tax and *save*. During years of recession or depression, government must lower taxes and *spend*.

The fact that government failed to *save* and *tax* during the good years is entirely the fault of Congress. That doesn’t remove the need to *spend* during the lean years we’re in right now.

Nixonfan has it correct. Like an LP skipping for 4 yrs. Deja Vu!
Burns0011, we are NOT in Egypt(whew). You are confusing the old testament story of Joseph and his dreams.
I see Ryan the Butcher is chewing at the bit. We should tax the money he is slipping to his “poor mom on social security”. Maybe he can borrow Mitzy’s Etch a Sketch. We cannot allow our government to be downgraded again, like the fat cats on Wall St did in revenge!

@Burns0011,

The math is the same for both governments and families. If you spend enough more than you have coming in over a long enough period, reality will eventually impose a harsh and impersonal judgment.

Those responsible will likely drag the blind, the deaf, and those who refuse to “get involved” to the poor house with them. The rest of us point, talk, attempt to persuade, and, perhaps above all, prepare as best we can for the worst.

My personal opinion is that the sequester is the single possibility of fiscal sanity from Congress, even if it won’t balance the budget. Bring it on!

The sequester will at least force our political wizards to again learn how to prioritize spending…a talent lost for far too long.

In the end Money remember is just an Idea, It dosn’t real exsist except
in your mind , what counts is oil, farmers getting gas to plow and sow there fields and that product getting to market .

Paul Ryan is the last person on the planet who should chair the budget committee. He’s one of the biggest wankers in Washington.

Paul Ryan is the last person on the planet who should chair the budget committee. He’s one of the biggest wankers in Washington.

Paul Ryan has guts, conviction and is not afraid to talk about our problems and how to fix them. Unlike Obama, who is beholden to his left wing and prefers to divert attention to social things like having women serve in combat situations (very progressive but very stupid). At some point the American public will wake up and see that he is the problem.

If there’re no consequences for reaching an agreement (the “deadline” for reaching an agreement will just keep sliding to the right), then what motivation do the politicians in Washington have to actually try and come up with any real solutions? Sure must be nice to have a job in which you get paid to do absolutely nothing.

“Government budgets do not operate like family budgets”

Families cannot print their way out of debt like government thinks it can.

@Burns0011

I agree. If you are going to practice Keynesian economics in bad times, you must practice savings and spending cuts in the good times to give you the ability to stimulate the economy in the bad times. The problem with modern governments is they want to stimulate the economy in the good times and live off of credit in the bad times.

Why won’t they go after TAX EVADERS?

TheNewWorld; Exactly. And the old testament reference, for the rest of you, was to show exactly how old the Keynesian economic school actually is. There are two scales, the microeconomic that families and most businesses operate on, and the macroeconomic, that governments operate on. Understanding the differences is key to understanding government policies.

Yes, we’re nearing the point where interest payments on the debt are going to go up. We need to get the debt down, and that starts with generating a surplus of revenue, which can’t be done through cuts alone. Further, you have to cut carefully. Starving poor and low income working class American families by cutting food stamps isn’t going to get us anywhere. Defense companies can get by without another couple hundred billion a year.

w.burton: They do go after tax evaders. It’s difficult, though, with an overall tax compliance rate in this country of 96%. That’s 96 people out of a hundred that file on time and make payments on time, one of the highest rates in the world.

Republicans never met a pointless trillion dollar war they didn’t want to start, or a self-serving plutocrat they didn’t want to give a tax break to.

It’s only when it comes to a civilized safety net, economic opportunity, and a decent standard of living for the average citizen that right-wingers grow “fiscally responsible.”

Bunch of damn hypocrites!

Want to cut Government spending? Then strip the sheets off of the so-called “black” budgets. all of them, and show the American people just how much money the US Government is wasting protecting other countries around the planet while breaking its promises to its own people because it cannot “afford” to pay. Much paramilitary spending and plenty of military spending is hidden in non-military Federal budgets. In other words, no one knows just how much of the “entitlement” spending in the USA is for guns for Syria, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, every other country in the region, as well as dirty trick money interfering in the internal affairs of other countries.

No reasonable reason exists to lie about such spending. The cold war ended in 1989. Stop the lies. Be honest with the voters, for a change. Dump foreign military bases and deployments and dump them now. We could be talking over a trillion dollars of “hidden” spending disguised as social “benefit” spending!

The US spends about 20% of its budget on defense – roughly the same as it spends on Medicare and Medicaid together. It spends more on defense than the next 20 big military spenders combined (about 6 times as much as China for example, which has a huge military budget – 100 billion). This is not hidden spending. Everybody can see it, but it’s like it doesn’t exist. You would certainly not hear Ryan talking about it. The DOD budget is a huge sacred cow welfare program. And then there’s the last ten years of corporate welfare, and tax cuts for Warren Buffet. Ain’t Fox News a wonderful thing!

@mjt: Are you refering to the 2 wars started by GW, that had no tax increases to pay for them… the first in American history ? Is this the spending you are talking about ?

If ryan was serious about spending cuts, first on the plate would be defense. We could cut defense spending in half and be spending more than any other country.

But hey, the Republicans are bought and for and beholden to the military industry complex.

Why do Republicans think they can do what Europe has done by cutting spending, yet get a different result?

The way they howl for spending cuts even though they can see how much damage that has done to the EU, anybody would think they were actively trying to kill off US growth.

Just to keep the debt and deficit talks in perspective. The 10 Year T-Note is at 1.95%, still proving that the private sector doesn’t care at all our big our debt or deficit is. Our currency is a system that we created with the purpose of matching things that need done (roads to be built, children to be taught) with people who have the talent to do those skills (i.e. construction workers and school teachers). We measure this through the unemployment rate.

If today our nation failed to reach full employment (around 5%) then we failed to maximize our full potential. Let’s stop talking about the debt and start talking about how to more effectively fix our crumbling infrastructure, preserve our environment, and teach our children by putting the millions of unemployed skilled citizens back to work doing what they love and were trained to do. Could we create a national infrastructure bank to fix our waterways, bridges, and railways? Could we change who gets access to the Fed discount window allowing more small local banks access to 0% interest loans who would be more willing to lend in their communities?

Let’s get the discussion back on what really matters.

in other words, “Let them eat cake.” (“Qu’ils mangent de la brioche”)

we all saw how well THAT mindset worked out prior to the french revolution.

So whatever happened to the laser focus on jobs? How about coming up with a plan to get back the millions of jobs that our job creators shipped everywhere in the world? Wouldnt that help our deficit? More people paying taxes, less people needing aid?

“Some Republicans have called for delaying the planned spending cuts in defense while increasing cuts in other areas of the federal government.”

Of course they have. Then next they’re going to complain that the Democrats refuse to compromise when they won’t go along with it. And their Fox News-addicted minions will believe every word of it.