Geithner To Admit Government Borrowing Lowers the Standard of Living

EconomicPolicyJournal.com ^

[Kozman]

In a guidance advisory to the press, the Treasury advises that at 10 am, Secretary Geithner will testify before the House Budget Committee on the President’s Fiscal Year 2010 Budget Proposal. In his testimony, Geithner will testify that unless the budget deficit is cut in half the country "will face higher interest rates as government borrowing crowds out private investment, leading to slower growth and lower living standards for Americans."...

[gwilhelm56]

COMRADES ... We must CUT SPENDING!!!

is that before or AFTER your QUADRUPLING of the BUDGET???

just asking

[Kansas58]

[scooby321]

Jim Rogers has my view:

“Mr Geithner caused the problem when he was the head of the NY FED...does not know what he is doing.”

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Tim suggested yesterday that the oil and gas coporations are causing globull warming and should be punished.

[PGalt]

I just saved bunch of money on my con-game by switching to Geithner. /commercial sarcasm

[jiggyboy]

Whoa, has he gone rogue? Take a different limo to the hearing today Mister Tax Cheat, and make sure your driver starts it before you get in.

[scooby321]

“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning”

-Henry Ford

[InterceptPoint]

Do you notice that politicians never talk about reducing the debt? Their only goal is to reduce the amount of borrowing that they do every year.

My parents taught me that you had to pay your debts off not just grow them indefinitely. Overspending by both the public and private sectors is at the root of our current financial problem and so Obama's solution of a massive increase in deficit spending, a huge growth in the public debt and increased taxes to help pay for the spending spree will certainly crush the natural entrepreneurial spirit of this country. Hopefully we can kick these Socialist/Communists out in four years.

[Need4Truth]

Of course, Geithner's solution will be, to a large degree, to raise taxes

Raising taxes for the common good will help the economy. (the new talking point lie?)

[Huck]

They're just doing what all presidents do. I am pretty sure Bush did the same thing. First, you double the size of the deficit, or more, if you're bold. Then, after you've accomplished that, you promise to cut it in half. It's a worse con than 3 card monte, but until it stops working, they'll keep doing it. And the opposition party, the GOP, has zero credibility on the subject.

As for interest rates, they are damn near zero, so yeah, they'll have to go up. Pumping trillions of freshly printed dollars into the economy will surely lower our standard of living. But like the Bush administration, they are Keynesians. They don't see slow downs as hygenic corrections of excess. They see them as political problems to be solved with the power of the Fed and the printing press.

[kabar]

Duh!

[kabar]

How many tax cuts will you see coming out of an Obama administration? Do you think he will allow the Bush tax cuts to expire?

[Huck]

Socialists don’t do tax cuts. They do tax “credits.” And yes, I think the Bush tax cuts will expire. But why shouldn’t they? They were passed with expiration dates, weren’t they?

[kabar]

Bush had across the board tax cuts, something socialists don't do. And yes the tax cuts had expiration dates because that is the only way they could be passed. I, for one, would like to see them made permanent.

17 cents of every federal dollar is now being spent on servicing the debt. The Dems are in the process of increasing that by up to 40% with the TARP, stimulus package, and the FY 2010 budget. With the entitlement programs consuming about 50% of the budget and growing added to the debt servicing costs, there will be less and less money available for so-called discretionary items like defense.

Like the Europeans, we will be forced to choose between guns and butter and butter will win out. We are witnessing the slow-motion demise of the world's last superpower.

[Huck]

Bush had across the board tax cuts, something socialists don't do. And yes the tax cuts had expiration dates because that is the only way they could be passed. I, for one, would like to see them made permanent.

In some way, the whole permanent vs. temporary argument is pointless. No policy is gubmint is "permanent." By allowing them to be "temporary", they simply made it a fait accompli that they would expire. In short, it was a tax cut and a rescinding of the tax cut, all at the same time. Now they can be allowed to expire without it being called a tax hike.

I agree with you about guns and butter. But I think America MUST choose. You can't have both. Reagan was a guns and butter president. So was Bush. That's why the deficits they created rank among the biggest ever. The only bigger deficits occurred during WW2. Of course, Obama is going to set all new records, but the truth is, we MUST choose. You can't have both. Politicians want to be all things to all people. It's crashing down.

[kabar]

The earth isn't permanent. The point is that we are going to have taxes rise in 2011, which will hurt the economy.

I agree with you about guns and butter. But I think America MUST choose.

You can't have both if you accept the welfare state as permanent and irreversible. As currently structured, Medicare and SS are unsustainable. They are going to have to be changed regardless. The status quo is not an option. The real issue is how they will be changed.