U.S. Government shuts down.

[kandrathe]

They believe that stimulus during downturns is low-cost and high-value. That consumption smoothing is a real thing, and that you don't have to balance the budget every year.

What budget? Is it balanced? Who can tell? What is stimulus? Is all spending stimulus? How much stimulus do you need? Is it prudent to incur decades of expensive debt, for years of QE "smoothing" of a temporary fiscal correction. Worse yet, much of the "stimulus" is directed at re-inflating the same bubbles that burst in 2009.

That the US is nowhere near a debt crisis, since borrowing costs are low, and bond financing is cheap.

But it is. The US is not like most other nations. We have over extended debt at all levels from personal, to corporate, to civic, to national. The estimated amount of just federal debt every current citizen owes today is $52,885. There are four people in my household, which means we owe federal bond holders about $211,540. My ability to pay off my share is diminishing, as it is with the boomers. Meanwhile, the amount of debt we are incurring has accelerated faster than our ability to pay it off. The legacy of our generation will be a series of financial fiascoes engineered by the greedy, bailed out by governments, and paid for by our children and grand children. Clearly, an intergenerational swindle. I cannot support it.

And... the financing is cheap now... But, most of the federal debt are necessarily in short term notes. So, once it gets more expensive, it careens out of control. As it stands now, we cannot afford to have the economy improve. It would drive up our borrowing costs beyond our ability to pay. I'd say it is a death spiral.


More ropadope; Then OMB Director Jack Lew promised us something different.

That Obamacare is better than what it replaces, and in the long run, cheaper.

For who? Do you honestly believe that by forcing the uninsured (who mostly either don't see a need for it, or cannot afford it) onto an insurance plan that it will decrease the rates that the rest of us who can afford it pay? Do you believe that by increasing the autocratic Medicare/Medicaid program rolls that the already "in the red" programs will become anymore solvent, and that ultimately FICA taxes won't need to be jacked up to recover that deficit?

I mean let's call it what it is, right? Obamacare is primarily a law that targets those who cannot afford insurance, and forces them to go onto State run exchanges where the are forced to buy an insurance product from a private insurance company, or face penalties. It forces companies to provide an approved health care plan, whether they can afford it or not, or face fines. This is only a great idea if you are a) wealthy enough to not care about insurance premiums, b) an insurance company c) a health care facility who had to write off the unpaid health care of the uninsured d) so poor that had you looked into it, you'd have been on Medicaid anyway.

It is not a single payer system. It is not nationalized health care. It targets the symptom of expensive health care, and solves it by trying to eliminate the symptom. We could probably eliminate headaches the same way. If you report a headache, you are fined $50. Worse, the abuses are not rampant yet, but... the system rewards individuals that skip insurance until they need it, then only get it while they need it. It rewards companies to keep employees below half time, and also to not provide health insurance to their employees. Due to these factors, I would predict the costs of health insurance only increasing.

For me personally; My health care will get worse, less convenient, and more expensive because of Obamacare. The organization where I work really takes care of it's employees and used to have "a Cadillac plan", which they paid the bulk of, and I paid about 30%. Threatened with a 40 percent excise tax, we're now only offered a high deductible ($5000 family, $3000 individual) HSA plan resulting in "no insurance" for about half the year until we hit the deductible. It means that I need to save the last half the year for my out of pocket costs for the first half of the year. In a word, it really sucks.

That it's actually not unpopular, and that the polls are lumping together both rightist critics who think it goes too far, and leftist critics who think it doesn't go far enough.

It is irrelevant. It is unpopular with the constituents of the congress people who've dug in their heels.

http://www.people-press.org/2013/09/16/a...y-persist/

Budgets, by the by, are window dressing. Congress approves spending and taxation.

Our government, at all levels operates on budgets. And funding bills, and the budget originates in the House. The House has attempted to make a budget for the past three years, and Reid, nor the WH have attempted to address the budget. The House controls the federal purse, and this is more than a "hissy fit". I think this is more likely a last stand.

That happens, whether they put it down on paper or not. It's a fair cop that it was cowardly to not pass a budget back when they ran the show. But it doesn't actually affect the fiscal situation, though I agree it looks bad. The problem now, however, is that they can't agree on what spending and taxation should be, which is a much larger problem than passing a document saying what it is.

During Obama's first 18 months, when Democrats controlled it all, they bloated all the budgets. Since they've lost control of the House, and therefore the purse strings, they've maintained their bloated budgets by a) not renegotiating the budget, and b) forcing budget showdowns with CR's and debt ceilings. These are the key events when the House, can assert whatever flabby muscles they have left.

It appears they are the underdogs, with the Executive, the Senate, and the Press, and 48% of the people arranged against them.