Comments

You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name

Your e-mail (optional)

Website (optional)

	My Original Nic Pic-a-Nic Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Foto

Submit your comments on this article

Government

Kicking the Can Down the Road Again - Highlights

2013-10-17

Authority to borrow money extended until Feb. 7.
Happy Holidays!
Government shutdown ends, federal agencies funded through Jan. 15. Furloughed workers receive back pay.
Ah, another taxpayer-paid vacation!
H&HS Department to certify it can verify income for eligibility of gubbamint subsidies for O'care.
That's why getting signed up is taking so long, and always will. But it won't be too long before the scammers figure out how to beat the system.
Next July 1, the department's I.G. will report on the agency's safeguards for preventing fraud.
I'm sure it'll be thousands of pages.

House-Senate committee will negotiate over issues like budget deficits and spending levels. Bargainers must issue report by Dec. 13, but they are not required to come to agreement.
Like all the other taxpayer-funded, United-Nations-like "commissions" to study the "Problem". Lookit the can roll!
Best news: No pay raise for members of Congress in 2014. Also, an extra $294 million for Department of Veterans Affairs to reduce backlogs of benefits claims. Not to mention extending the expired authority for DoD to support African forces hunting warlord Joseph Kony, leader of rebel group Lord's Resistance Army.
They must think it's a Christian group.
Special interest groups get their cut: $636 million for firefighting for the Interior Department and the Forest Service; work continues on Olmstead lock in the Ohio River between Kentucky and Illinois ~~a twenty-year, multi-billion dollar boondoggle~~; Federal Highway Administration will reimburse Colorado up to $450 million for flood-damaged roads, ~~since we have money to burn,~~ exceeding usual $100 million cap; and ~~who knows how much~~ funds for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to continue work on two weather satellites.

Posted by:Bobby

#4 Amazing how a trend that started in Californicate and has been roundly criticized in every newspaper on this and several nearby planets suddenly becomes good news to the lurches and wobble heads in the press.

Kicking a budgetary problem with cash flow, i.e., taking in less money than you spend with few prospects of increasing the revenue stream without sending the cash cow packing for the Caymans, does not lend itself to confidence.

The confidence meter is a nice touch.

Since Wall Street is the only place in the US with any economic sense, albeit extremely unethical and greedy, I don't see how anyone that knows two whits about economics, this side of Paul the Obama Shill Krugman, would think this is good news.

Machiavelli said that avoiding discord only postpones the conflict to the disadvantage of others.

He also said the best way to gauge the intelligence of a leader is to assess those that surround him...OOPS

Posted by: Bill Clinton 2013-10-17 11:42

#3 Apparently there is no stock market 'good news' rally. If there is, it's been delayed. Perhaps none of what has taken place over the past few weeks, or the outcome, was any surprise to Wall Street.

Posted by: Besoeker 2013-10-17 10:41

#2 There is not a single monolithic "political interest group who wants to continue to increase entitlement spending", but a host of them. Getting rid of them is like playing Whack-a-Mole.

Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2013-10-17 08:30

#1 Jerry Pournelle commented a couple of days ago:
"I still think that the only way to start reducing the deficit is to stop spending more money than youre taking in, meaning that while we must fully service the debt, we can sure start reducing government expenses by 1% a year. We can also eliminate bunny inspectors and other federal tasks that may or may not be worth doing, but are almost certainly not worth borrowing money to do. Of course none of this will happen. The nation has become accustomed to obedience to the ruling class and there is a large political interest group who wants to continue to increase entitlement spending not only those who get the entitlements, but those who make their living collecting and paying them. We seem to be approaching a point of no return.

Of course if something cant go on forever, it will stop."

Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2013-10-17 07:32

00:00