The Senate Budget Committee's new chair is an unabashed progressive and self-described democratic socialist prepared to be as "aggressive" as he possibly can with budget tactics to help Democrats and President-elect Joe Biden enact their sweeping agenda.
Under a narrow Democratic majority in the Senate, Bernie Sanders will oversee budget and spending work, including the procedural power of budget reconciliation the majority can use to evade the filibuster and pass massive bills without a single Republican vote.
‘Aggressive’: Bernie Sanders on his big plans as Budget chair
(Score: 3, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Wednesday January 20 2021, @10:31PM (3 children)
They can finance it by reversing the Reagan/Bush/Trump tax cuts... Will he go that far? I have doubts [bloomberg.com]
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday January 21 2021, @05:59PM (2 children)
What can be done with reconciliation can be undone by reconciliation.
So the Trump cuts are definitely on the table. Not sure how the Reagan/Bush ones were passed, though.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Thursday January 21 2021, @06:18PM
If the dems perform well, they will easily maintain their majority. Their biggest failures are from compromising with the republicans, as demonstrated ten years ago. The favor is only returned on votes for war and austerity.
But again, you all assume they are adversaries when they are symbiotic team to share power.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2, Interesting) by fustakrakich on Thursday January 21 2021, @08:57PM
Another second reply! Sorry...
Let's hope this sticks
If they don't hold their ground, it will confirm everything I said about them. If they do, then let's move to the next step and start legislatin'. If they start doing what people want, their majority will grow bigger and faster.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: -1, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Wednesday January 20 2021, @10:33PM (1 child)
Glad they finally threw that ol' fool a bonie after all his good work keeping uppity progressives hope-roped into the political party of Jewish Corporatist Baby Boomers funded with Chinese money. And the fools fell for it not once, but twice!
Hopefully those "aggressive" plans include getting rid of the COVID hoax-lockdowns ASAP, because that's gonna be the big issue that will drive recalls and get people primary'd in 2022.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 21 2021, @02:08AM
Do not worry. In the final analysis, the proles will soon draw the necessary conclusions and being pursuing a Marxist-Globohomoist program.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 20 2021, @11:08PM (11 children)
$17.5 trillion in more debt paid for by printing money out of thin air. $1.5 trillion will go to the people and $15 trillion to banks and corporations.
(Score: 2, Touché) by fustakrakich on Wednesday January 20 2021, @11:13PM (10 children)
They don't need congress for that. The fed has been doing it for over 15 months. In fact, QE never really ended, it just slows a little
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday January 21 2021, @04:20PM (9 children)
The Fed can only lower the index interest rate, which they have done.
if you get a low interest credit card did you just print money?
Now, personally, I agree that they should have been raising interest rates while the economy was good under Obama/Trump to make savings a reasonable place to invest money.
Right now though, with unemployment worse than the great depression those low interest credit cards are paying people's bills and jacking up the interest would put them in a hole they can't dig out from.
So yes, there is room for criticizing the Fed but we should base that argument on reality, not false soundbites.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday January 21 2021, @05:22PM (8 children)
They are stuffing Wall Street like a goose. That's the reality
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday January 21 2021, @05:57PM (7 children)
It makes interest based investments uncompetitive, yes, because they have nearly no return.
This encourages people to invest elsewhere, including the Stock Market, but they're not the only beneficiary. Investing in real estate and other commodities also get a boost.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday January 21 2021, @06:04PM
Yes, those industries are also being propped up. All that money could be going for infrastructure, and payroll/pension protection, and including medical, instead it's going into the bureaucratic financial industry, while we hear talk of raising taxes for covid relief.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday January 21 2021, @06:07PM (5 children)
Sorry for the second, but I just realized, you're advocating trickle down. Why do we want to boost investment in real estate and the commodities markets? You think it will trickle down to the rest of us?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday January 21 2021, @07:22PM (4 children)
I'm just telling you how it is, not advocating anything. You keep saying things that are not true like "they could use that money elsewhere" but that doesn't make any sense because there is no money. All they do is set the index rate for commercial credit transactions.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday January 21 2021, @07:29PM (3 children)
Fine, then "index" the infrastructure. They do have the money, and it's going to the wrong places. Stop with the Hollywood accounting.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday January 21 2021, @07:39PM (2 children)
The government sells bonds to raise money, they don't go to fucking Capital One and take out a loan.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday January 21 2021, @08:15PM (1 child)
The fed is "buying", not selling.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 22 2021, @03:24AM
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WALCL [stlouisfed.org]
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 21 2021, @02:05AM (1 child)
https://www.koin.com/news/protests/inauguration-protests-portland-01202021/ [koin.com]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 21 2021, @02:22PM
Now that the D team has been installed, the BLM stormtroopers will get tiananmen-ed real soon now.
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Thursday January 21 2021, @02:54PM (4 children)
The government is not a tyranny. Not yet. Biden hasn't even been in office for a full day yet. Be patient. Give it at least a week. Maybe ten days until the end of January.
Things are in disarray at the white house. They have not yet had time to reallocate the border wall funds to start building the death camps, supervised by Hunter. There has not been time to restart the daily child sacrifices in the white house basement that were suspended when Obama left office. And the coup de grass (higher in THC) is The Holetm! This major project will divert a substantial portion of the military budget to The Boring Company in order to construct a tunnel through the center of the Earth from Washington DC directly to China. Xi can then smuggle a shadow cabinet of specially trained advisors to run the government so that Joe can get more sleep. This way Joe will only need to be awake for major public appearances, and semi-lucid when documents must be signed or missiles launched.
Not all of the administration's plans have been announced by the white house press secretary yet. I hope I'm not letting too much of the short term agenda slip in advance of the announcements.
(wow! I might be able to get a job at Fox News!)
The Electoral College voting is an affirmative action program for low populated states.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 21 2021, @03:08PM (3 children)
Biden was only in office for one day and already purged a gay black man from bring surgeon general.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Thursday January 21 2021, @04:14PM (1 child)
Right....after such a competent Coronavirus response we definitely should have kept him around!
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday January 21 2021, @04:53PM
I also forgot to play the covid card. Oh, well. Maybe next time.
The Electoral College voting is an affirmative action program for low populated states.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday January 21 2021, @04:30PM
Dang! Drat! I KNEW I must have forgotten something! I forgot to play the race card.
The Electoral College voting is an affirmative action program for low populated states.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 22 2021, @07:09PM
Found this and thought it may be relevant to your interests, or perhaps to somebody else's interests: Now Even the QAnon Shaman Disowns Trump: I Was Duped [thedailybeast.com]