House narrowly approves spending bill, legislation heads to Senate

The House narrowly approved a vital spending bill Thursday night despite deep misgivings among liberals and conservatives alike, sending the measure to the Senate as a funding deadline looms.

The bill passed on a 219-206 vote, following an intense lobbying effort by House Republican leaders and the White House.

Current government funding technically runs out at midnight Thursday, and lawmakers still are expected to move a stopgap measure to buy time as the Senate considers the main $1.1 trillion spending package. That debate could last through the weekend and potentially into Monday.

Passage in the House followed hours of urgent appeals from an unlikely alliance: President Obama and House GOP leadership.

Obama and Vice President Biden worked the phones to sway Democratic lawmakers. White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough also met on the Hill with the Democratic caucus. Despite sources inside the meeting initially saying he did little to persuade lawmakers, a rift emerged in the Democratic leadership late Thursday. As House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi continued to oppose the bill, her deputy, Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., urged passage.

Meanwhile, House GOP leaders did what they could to sway conservative members who, for different reasons, were opposed to the package.

I have no interest in living out in the wilderness and waiting for the SHTF. I like people and culture. And if you read what has happened in places like Bosnia where worse did come to worst, the survivors were not the ones who were sitting on their food caches in the middle of nowhere, it was the people who had a good network of family and associates to fall back on. I think the same is true in less dramatic scenarios or even in good times. Plan for contingencies, yes, but those with tribe do better.

I’m not going to go into too many details...I really think doing your own research and coming to your own conclusions is more valuable. I’ll point you in a few directions, though. First, in my view you’re not going to find a whole lot of cutting edge thought going on within conservative circles. Frankly, I think conservative thought is moribund and is obsessed with grievances about the status quo and dreaming about the past. The future thinkers tend to have more of a libertarian slant. Regardless of whether I happen to agree with their politics, which I often don’t.

Second, consider thinking more in terms of value gained rather than income because of the impact of taxation. A quick example: a steak dinner. Let’s say that a couple goes out for a steak dinner with a glass of wine. With tip, you’re not going to get out for less than say $80. If you cook it yourself, you’re going to be in it for I’d say less than $30. Net difference, about $50. And let’s say it took one hour of your time. That’s a payoff of $50 an hour. And lets say just to keep things simple that you earn $50 an hour at work. So, from the perspective of economics, you could say it was a wash; one hour spent cooking a steak rather than going out gained you the same amount as if you put in an extra hour at work.

But not really. You did better by cooking the steak because of the impact of taxation. Let’s say that with social security, state, and local taxes, your marginal tax rate is 30%. If you worked for an hour at work your take home would be $35, not $50. The point being that its often smarter to train your mind and use your time in ways that expand value for yourself and family than it is to work more and be taxed. And the payoff is orders of magnitude more than spending your time on politics.

I’m not sure what the future holds. I live in a large metropolitan area, so I think things could get dicey rather quickly.

I don’t like the idea of moving off to the wilderness either. I could if I had to. I’m pretty self-contained.

I agree with your thoughts on saving money where you can, and still enjoying the same things. I do value getting out of the house too though, so hitting the restaurant, is of added value to me. Still, you can cut back on that and enjoy yourself.

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