Things Heard: e180v5
Friday, July 8th, 2011 at
8:27 am
Good morning.
- Is there a word for this? Starting an argument on a faulty premise and running from there. “If we don’t raise the debt limit” spending will have to be cut. It doesn’t follow however that interest payments are the first spending items to be cut. Unless apparently, you are a Democrat.
- Statistics and the Law.
- Marriage as lilfestyle.
- Well, to be honest I’m mostly linking this so I don’t lose it and can go back to it.
- Democrats are for voter fraud because they think there should be 0 barriers to vote … as if that some how leads to a more informed electorate.
- Here’s a conversation starter for the Casey Anderson kerfuffle. I don’t know right now how I’d react regarding my children.
- Why we (developers) despise Microsoft and Apple.
- Tree of Life, anti-Semetic (and is that Jewish=Semitic or Middle East = Semitic) and another review here.
- Mr Libby and Fast/Furious.
- Why? Because “smart” doesn’t mean what it used to.
- Speaking of the whole assumptions going into Medicaid and its expansion. Examine the premises.
- Narrative is fundamentally conservative?
- eMPG, I think the fundamental problem with eMPG ratings is it ignores the 30% efficiency loss in generating electricity.
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I suggest you revisit the first article linked to above. I have added an addendum, to wit:
Phillip Melanchthon once wrote that it is impossible to state an idea so clearly that it is impossible to misunderstand it. Somehow- I know not how- two aggregators, Stones Cry Out and Pseudopolymoph- have completely missed the point of this post (stated, I think, rather clearly in the second paragraph), and come to the conclusion that my problem with Bachmann’s position is that if the debt limit isn’t raised, spendng will have to be cut.
But spending will have to be cut no matter what. I am entirely in favor of spending being cut- and in fact, cut drastically. My objection to not raising the debt limit is rather 1) that the Constitution forbids the government from dishonoring any legally contracted debt, and that honoring the provisions of the Constitution is a good thing; and 2) that the result in not raising it would be to cause the United States to default on its debt, with consequences to its credit rating and to our financial position in the world from which it would at best take years to recover, and which would deal a blow to our already-reeling economy that would make all the suffering that has gone before very much worse.
These are not subtle points, and the putting of words in the mouths of others seldom sheds much light on their arguments.
Oh. And two more things.
First, I am not a Democrat- as I would think that this blog, which has linked to mine often enough in the past, would recognize.
Second, it isn’t necessary that interest payments be the first things cut. It is reckless and irresponsible to put the government in a position in which there is any danger of this being necessary, whether first or one hundred thirty-fifth. The consequences are simply too severe.
In short, by all means cut the budget. But dont play chicken with the economic position of the United States and the lives of the American people as a means of doing so. There are less risky and more straightforward ways of addressing the deficit.