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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Alighieri who wrote (552122)	2/25/2010 6:05:46 PM
From: TimF	3 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1582736

What was the mistake they recognized? Supporting an idea that biases future decisions about reducing the budget deficit, in favor of tax increases more than spending cuts. The body that would determine the package for an up or down vote would use a distorted "paygo" idea. Also more of the people on the committee would be appointed by Democrats who are more likely to favor tax increases ahead of spending cuts. In Bowles-Simpson you get 6 people appointed by congressional republicans (and I'd have my doubts about even those people), and 10 appointed by either congressional Democrats or Obama. Tax increases are already scheduled. To keep taxes the same requires that the "cuts" be "paid for". Spending increases of some types aren't even counted, and the previously built in spending increases don't require any "paying for" they just become the baseline. If you want "pay go" then set up a situation where every increase in either taxes or spending counts as an increase, ehile keeping taxes or spending the same doesn't count as a cut and I'll support it. If you want a committee to present a package for an up and down vote, don't give them the current distorted version of paygo as a baseline. Have all spending and taxing changes count the same. Even then the committee might indeed just serve as a cover for tax increases, so it might be worth voting against, but at least it would have a chance of producing a positive result.