This article is being written at 3 P.M. on Sunday, December, 30.
Both houses of Congress are in session on a rare Sunday afternoon. Maybe they are unaware of all the important fool games today.
Congress, and the President, has until midnight Monday to avert the “fiscal cliff” which will affect all American taxpayers and our general economy.
How ridiculous that the United States Congress is waiting until the last hour to even to try to pass such significantly importation federal legislation. Both political parties appear to have intractable positions, and compromise seems a distant possibility. This applies also to the President’s position. No matter what he may think, his narrow reelection was not a mandate. Not when it comes to the national economy which affects nearly every citizen.
The Congress is not doing the people’s business.
Both the Congress and the President have known for a long period of time that this fiscal deadline has a finite legislative action date. They have not yet had the courage to avert $500 billion in tax increases that will take place late Monday. How disconcerting for the American people and especially American businesses, small and large.
In the Senate, with leaders such as Harry Reid, Barbara Boxer of California and Charles Schumer of New York , in key positions, it looks like there is little consensus for compromise. How surprising?
And, welcome to all the new potential millionaires who will make over $200,000 a year. One wonders if the President and his supporters in Congress understand the American people and how the American economy operates.
Then there is the current $35,000 estate tax exemption which could be escalated to $5 million dollars. Wake up and smell the coffee, financial planners and tax attorneys. If this concept passes the Congress, and becomes law, your business may boom, and add to the group of millionaires in those fields of endeavor.
The government giveth and taketh away. It appears that they plan to take away long standing tax incentives and give more money to those who are dependent on government largess. This has been an agenda of the President since he was elected.
Fiscal brinksmanship is not in the best interest of the country and only adds more uncertainty for a stock market that is already very uncertain. The New York Stock Exchange lost 2 percent of its value last week and has fallen below 1300. Real consternation and uncertainty has already occurred.
The leaders of both parties will caucus with their respective members on Sunday afternoon.
Regarding the passage of a new five year farm bill which is long overdue, it appears a six month or one year extension is all that American agriculture can expect. How disappointing.
Let us hope for the sake of our country that common sense prevails and elected representatives act in a decisive and intelligent manner.
Congress must remember they work for the people and should do the people’s business in an expeditious reasonable way.
Stewart Seitz says
Fletcher. My sentiments precisely.!!! I would be very embarrassed as a member of congress these days and the inability to do the people’s business in a thoughtful and deliberative way. After two years , you would think a “grand or not so grand bargain” could have been chiseled by now.
This inability to compromise and reach some middle ground at the highest level of our system is more than disturbing. It is becoming intolerable!!!
That said, Happy New Year!
Stewart
Joe Lill says
Fletcher,
It’s 7 am on New Year’s Day and it looks like the Senate has done the compromising needed to form the basis of an agreement, the details of which contradict some of your statements above. Hopefully the House and IT’S leadership can use it as an example of compromise and get this thing done.
fletcher r hall says
The “compromise” cobbled together by the Senate early on New Years morning, is another short term, kick the can down the road, approach. This package still has to be passed by the House of Representatives.
My concern remains that both the Congress and the White House continues to wait until the eleventh hour plus to enact legislation affecting most Americans.
It will be interesting to see what thw new 113th Congress does, and how it acts, after they are sworn in on Thusday. Stay tuned!
Joe Lill says
Fletcher,
“A journey of a thousand miles starts with one step.” We didn’t begin this journey four years ago and maybe this late night compromise is the first step in shortening the distance we continue to kick the can down the road.
fletcher r hall says
Lets hope you are correct. It will be an adventure to watch the new Congress to see if reason and comprise, to any degree, return to Washington.
Perhaps the new Congress all should be directed to see the film, Lincoln.
Joe Lill says
Fletcher,
Passing the 13th amendment is a great analogy to what is going on now.
Stephan Sonn says
Fletcher, even as a Liberal I have argued
that simple arithmetic
doesn’t support a welfare utopia.
I wish you would concede that lower taxes
on the the peer class or its managers
have not produced anything but benefit for themselves.
Trickle down is real but hardly the way to
build a robust inclusive economy or culture.
Michael Hildebrand says
But you all continue to re-elect the same people and parties to office. You get what you deserve.
Lainey Harrison says
Yet this district votes to send Dr. NO back to DC! Compromise is a two way street and that man is a road block. When we elect extemists, this is the end result. We are now stuck for another two years paying for him to do nothing, propose nothing, consider nothing, except what is good for him. Talk about a wasteful spending! You got exactly what you asked for, dont be surprised and disgraced now.
Joe Lill says
Lainey I agree! If we eliminated his position and the staff that comes with it we could use the money to reduce the deficit!
Stephan Sonn says
Of all the things that sadden me about the election of Andy Harris
it is what it says about Eastern Shore voters. I could have been us
that the storm gutted. And you know what he still would vote against aid.
Large parts of New Orleans are still flattened and broken
and their residents have long since to Texas as cheap labor.
Jersey Shore is upscale, and is another painful story all together
.
But why does this public official, come from such a dark place.
I am a transplant from Miami 18 years ago. I love this place
but not it’s prevailing politics
Bill Parks says
The war is for the control of America’s currency. The fundamental question is “Should the control of currency issues lie in the hands of private individuals and corporation or in the hands of elected government representatives?”
Until the American people reclaim the power to issue their own money, we loose!
Even a blind man can see the devastating effects of privatized currency: debt limits, the fiscal cliffs, a massive national debt, debilitating economic and financial inequality, one in five children living in families with incomes below the poverty line, millions of foreclosures, one and a half million home less children, numerous credit bubbles, recessions and even economic depression. It is a great hoax that has been played on the American public when our national currency is the product of bank credit advanced into the economy as the principal of loans.
Without a constitutional provision, amendment or challenge, the sovereign authority of the United States and the power of Congress to issue America’s currency has been transferred to a private commercial conglomerate, the Federal Reserve System. The Federal Reserve simply wrote credit into it own ledgers and accounts — an action done openly in QE1, QE2 and now inQE3 – then it exchanged the credit for more than $2 trillion of worth of U.S. Government bonds, providing the government with private Federal Reserve System currency to meet its obligations.
These actions taken by the Fed exposed a common misconception: the private banking system possesses money that it can lend to the government – it does not. It simply issues credit to itself. It also reveals a common fallacy used against government currency: If the fed can simply issue credit without creating runaway inflation, the Federal government can issue currency without runaway inflation.
Using Quantitative Easing 2 (QE2) as an example, consider the economic effects of privately issued credit money verses government money. The Fed’s QE2 created $600 Billion in credit, buying Treasury Bonds, over an eight-month period, using intermediary banks and bond-trading firms, mostly on Wall Street enterprises. These banks bought the bonds from the Treasury Dept. at discounts, selling them at full value to the Fed, their making huge instant profits. The New York Times reported that the top 25 Wall Street banks and bond brokerage house paid their employees more than $135 billion in salaries and bonuses for that time period. This action produced very little economic improvement for the public — and it all must be repaid with interest.
Imagine the economic effect of $600 billion if it were issued by the government and distributed directly to the states over the same period, without increasing the national debt, cutting any existing programs or raising taxes.
Stephan Sonn says
Thank you Bill. A fine presentation of a complex topic
brought to an elemental understanding.
I see the makings of a private steering committee entity that could exert
overpowering influence in the event we ever fell
over the cliff and into a reconstruction.
That would augment what they have already gained.
Am I very far off?
Bill Parks says
Everyone needs to know that almost all money is created as debt to the Federal Reserve banking and monetary system, the system identified on our paper money.
With the exception of coins that are issued by the government, every dollar in the economy — including the money in your wallet, checking account, savings account, in the government and all businesses – is borrowed from a privately owned banking conglomerate. We pay interest on every dollar in circulation. Currently there is more than $59 trillion in debt-based money circulating in the economy, and we are paying $3.66 trillion in annual interest. The problem is simple arithmetic. In a decade we must pay $36.6 trillion (3.66 X 10 = 36.6) and in twenty years the interest will total $73.2 trillion (3.66 X 20 = 73.2) to the banking system. That is $14.2 trillion more than now exists.
The use of private currency is not only unconstitutional — it is unsustainable. The economy cannot generate new loans fast enough to pay the interest and sustain the currency at an efficient level for our economy.
Only sovereign governments have the authority, power and flexibility to provide stable currencies. They can lend money like banks, using the interest as revenue in place of taxes. They can issue and spend money directly into the economy, replacing money paid as interest on loans and increasing the money supply to compensate for economic and population growth, and funding needed programs and infrastructure, without increasing taxes. They can fine-tune the money supply with taxes facilitating economic and financial justice.
Private monetary and banking systems can only create debt.