Prosecute the Thugstas

Geez, where were you between 2001-2008, or for that matter 1981-1989? I bet you didn't complain one bit. Don't forget, most of the current budget was left over from the previous administration. Yes, they have increased spending. But, in my opinion, necessarily. I bet you, within 3 years, the budget will be closest to being balanced since the Clinton administration (although the budget wasn't met). Although it took Clinton 6 years to get there.

Spudsmckenzie3,

All you do is troll this blog and post ignorance. Well, let me educate you:

The current budget is Obama's and the current Dem Congress. BTW – The Dems have been in control of Congress for 3 years now.

I've also railed against both sides of the aisle. In fact, in this very post, I've called for the prosecution of both sides of the aisle.

The out of control spending goes back all the way to the 60s so sorry to burst your little liberal bubble.

You've already lost your bet. Congress just passed the $1.4 Trillion Omnibus bill that has over 6000 pork laden earmarks in it going into year 2 of this administration. That's not to mention the other bills passed this year amounting to Trillions of MORE dollars.

So spud, why don't you go somewhere else and prove your ignorance. You won't be doing it here anymore.

Have a nice day.

Geez, where were you between 2001-2008, or for that matter 1981-1989? I bet you didn't complain one bit. Don't forget, most of the current budget was left over from the previous administration. Yes, they have increased spending. But, in my opinion, necessarily. I bet you, within 3 years, the budget will be closest to being balanced since the Clinton administration (although the budget wasn't met). Although it took Clinton 6 years to get there.

Spudsmckenzie3,

All you do is troll this blog and post ignorance. Well, let me educate you:

The current budget is Obama's and the current Dem Congress. BTW – The Dems have been in control of Congress for 3 years now.

I've also railed against both sides of the aisle. In fact, in this very post, I've called for the prosecution of both sides of the aisle.

The out of control spending goes back all the way to the 60s so sorry to burst your little liberal bubble.

You've already lost your bet. Congress just passed the $1.4 Trillion Omnibus bill that has over 6000 pork laden earmarks in it going into year 2 of this administration. That's not to mention the other bills passed this year amounting to Trillions of MORE dollars.

So spud, why don't you go somewhere else and prove your ignorance. You won't be doing it here anymore.

Have a nice day.

Actually that's Article I of the constitution which is entitled “The Legislative Branch”, so so far so good, and section 8 of Article I of the constution which is entitled “Powers of Congress”. What this means, obviously, is that Congress is not instructed to “pay the debts” so much as authorized to collect taxes for the reasons specifically laid out there, one of the reasons Congress is allowed to collect taxes is to pay the debts of the United States.

“The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;”

Thus the constitution doesn't instruct congress to pay the debts as you say, but obviously we should want to, and we do, slowly. And guess what, according to the congressional budget office the new health care bill, that I believe just passed both houses, will help us do that more quickly.

EDIT: I almost forgot Clause 2 of Article I – Section 8 that authorizes congress to increase the debt:

“To borrow money on the credit of the United States;”

Jacobvk,

Once again you've demonstrated your inability for simple comprehension. The Constitution was created to instruct our Government.

Article 1 of our Constitution instructs our legislative branch as to what powers the people have granted them.

They were instructed quite clearly that one of the powers they have is to “pay the debts”.

It wasn't suggested and it wasn't offered as a tip either. It was specifically instructed to the legislative branch what their enumerated powers were.

Additionally, Article 1 Section 8 Clause 2 does not authorize Congress to increase debt. It merely instructs them that they can borrow money on the credit of the United States. There's a difference between increasing debt and borrowing money on the credit of the United States. A difference you might have comprehended had you the skills with which to do so.

Finally, it has escaped you that the CBO came out with a correction to it's estimate and noted that they had double counted the savings. Additionally, the CBO has repeatedly stated that they have not taken into account the unfunded mandates within the bills and that the estimates provided have many variables not accounted for. How do you add 30 million people to the health care rolls and have it not cost anything much less reduce the debt? Here, let me help you with the answer – It is mathmatically impossible to do so. Get it? Yet? Jacob?

Please do try and keep up.

The constitution was created as a model for our government. It lays out the structure our government is to take, sets forth rules by which that structure is to be achieved, establishes the responsibilities of the branches of government that it establishes, it also lays out specifically what those branches are authorized to do, with limitations. It's a foundational guideline, much like in networking we have what are called RFC (Requests for Comments) which are foundational guidelines for various protocols, such as HTTP, FTP, IRC, etc. Where the analogy between RFC's and the constitution ends is that the guidelines set forth in the constitution are not allowed to be violated, any laws which violate the guidelines of the constitution are to be struck down by the courts. The view that the constitution was created to “instruct our government” is too simple and leads to too many errors in understanding what it says. You need to look at it as defining a standard for how our government is to operate, including not just instructions but also structure, limitations, powers and responsibilities.

Article I of the constitution establishes the structure of the legislative branch, it's responsibilities, its powers and its limitations, it also lays out the rules that must be followed to obtain its structure.

Article I section 8 clause 1 grants the legislative branch the power to levy taxes, imposts, duties and excises with limitation that the funds collected may only be used to pay the debts, provide for the general welfare or the common defense of the citizens. It's not an instruction to pay the debts. Not by any correct interpretation of the constitution.

Additionally when you borrow money on credit, for instance say you have a shiny new credit card with a $5,000 credit limit and you max that out you have effectively borrowed money on your credit. What do we call that? We tend to call that debt. By borrowing money on your credit you have increased your debt. By borrowing money on the credit of the United States the legislative branch is increasing the debt of the United States. We may have a budget that balances that out at times so that the net effect of that borrowing by the end of the budget year is no increase in debt, but the act of borrowing on the credit of the United States can only be construed by any reasonably intelligent person as a debt increasing act.

Actually if you read what the CBO said carefully it only says that, here I'll quote it:

“To describe the full amount of HI trust fund savings as both improving the government’s ability to pay future Medicare benefits and financing new spending outside of Medicare would essentially double-count a large share of those savings and thus overstate the improvement in the government’s fiscal position.”

It doesn't actually say that they, the CBO, had double counted anything if you read it carefully without blinders around the phrase “double-count”. The purpose of the memo wasn't to say that they had made an egregious error in their calculations of the impact of the bill, they were only trying to clarify that we can't count the increase they project that the HI trust fund will see as also being able to fund additional government programs. The benefit of the bill to the HI trust fund will be limited to the HI trust fund. If you read all of the memo you would see that it doesn't say that the benefit to the HI trust fund will be any less than they projected, this is because it doesn't say that they double counted anything at all.

EDIT: this was the last post I replied to since you banned me from responding (I very easily circumvented the ban ), I expected to see in here somewhere where you announced you were blocking any future responses from me, I'm surprised both that I didn't and that in several comments you were almost inviting me to comment further and continue to be “educated” by you. It's almost as if you wanted to make it look like I was running away…

You sure educated me good!