House Budget Committee hearing: U.S. Economic Outlook

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I am back to catching some of the CBO Economic Outlook for 2014.

Correction: I stated "23 million jobs lost" when that is 2.3 million jobs lost. I am sure I just miss heard it and it was not misstated.

Note: American's mobility has actually gone down. Elmendorf did not give a time frame but it seemed to be at least from 2000.

Rep. Nunnelee (R-MS-1st District) is questioning Dr. Elmendorf. Why is it he is proactive trying to find something wrong with Obamacare? Rather than driving down into the way in which the program works he is asking questions to find something wrong. For example he asked where or not a specific part of Obamacare would raise the deficit. Elmendorf acknowledge that that specific piece would but the overall program reduces the deficit. What is Rep. Nunnelee trying to do, find things wrong rather than finding things that are good and go from there?

(Yes, it is a rhetorical question and I do know the answer.)

 

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Rep. Williams (R-TX-25th district) On this guy's questions I would like to take a little time to present what it is he is saying. I believe it is no coincidence that he comes from Texas as does Senator Cruz. Republicans of this type preach and preach about helping small business. If we look at who paid for his campaign however we do not find small businesses. Rather we find 68% from large individual contributions ($685,251) and 24% from PAC Contributions ($240,677), that is 92% of total contributions. His question pertained to lowering taxes on "small business" although the examples he gave were more applicable to large industries and also cited lowering the inheritance tax. He asked what the result would be of lowering taxes on small businesses and broadening the tax base in a "revenue neutral" manner. Now in case anyone does not know what that means please allow me to explain. First broadening the tax base means including people who are not currently taxed to be taxed. The only people that currently are not taxed are low income individuals or families. Second to be revenue neutral every dollar that is not collected due to changes, such as lowering the inheritance tax, would be made up by increasing the revenue from the increased tax base. Rep. Williams asked what such a plan would look like for the economy. Elmendorf stated, "We are standing by to do analysis of economic reform if you and this committee would be interested." In other words there is no concrete plan, only what he would like to do to this country. Rep. Williams stated he is sure this will help the economy. He stated, "it works".

Now for respect of the office, definitely not the person, I will not flame this person. He and Republicans like him will stand firm against extending the unemployment insurance benefits and he will stand firm again raising the minimum wage. Why? Because he is bought and paid for. He does what his masters tell him to do, exactly what they tell him to do. And it is masters who fill the media will headlines about what the CBO said, which they know full well are lies. The Republican sheep dutifully follow along not having enough sense to know better. As I said I will not state exactly what I think of this guy but I think you get a pretty good idea. I will be more than happy to flame any dumb sheep on this board who repeat the bs his masters feed them.