No Credibility

"The deficit for fiscal 2012, which ended on Sept. 30, came in at about $1.1 trillion, marking the fourth consecutive year that the nation has posted a trillion-dollar-plus spending gap. Contrary to what Dick Cheney said when he was vice president, deficits do matter.  

"Under the most recent budget plans of House Republicans and Obama, the federal government will spend from $40 trillion to $47 trillion over the next decade. Yet in the current negotiations, Boehner has called for only $800 billion in spending cuts and Obama $400 billion, most of which would be pushed off until 2022 or later -- tantamount to saying they won't happen at all. Neither side's long-term spending plans envision a balanced budget in the next 10 years."  

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-18/obama-and-boehner-both-reckless
-spenders.html

How can anyone take these buffoons seriously?

"Politics is the art of the possible." Which is why it is so pathetic. Politics cannot accomplish anything worth accomplishing.

"Whatever you think about the decline of rates under President George W. Bush, it made the U.S. tax system more progressive by reducing the burden on middle- and lower-income people. That's one reason that singling out high-income earners for increases this time will yield such little revenue: All of us paid higher taxes then. It wasn't just the swells at the top of the income pyramid.

"Even if government could attain the revenue levels of seven years ago, it wouldn't come close to covering spending, which crossed the $3 trillion mark, in inflation-adjusted dollars, in 2009. Neither
Republicans nor Democrats are suggesting reducing total year-over-year spending.

"Both the president and members of Congress worry that rapid spending cuts would cause a new recession or slow down the recovery. Such fears are overstated.

"In the 1990s, Canada, for instance, reduced debt-to-GDP ratios through an aggressive combination of actual, year-over- year spending cuts and higher taxes. The result wasn't malaise but a burst in activity."