To update Sen. Dirkson’s brilliant quip: A trillion here, a trillion there, pretty soon, you’re talking real money.
Governors of five U.S. states urged the federal government to provide $1 trillion in aid to the country’s 50 states to help pay for education, welfare and infrastructure as states struggle with steep budget deficits amid a deepening recession.
The governors of New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Ohio and Wisconsin — all Democrats — said the initiative for the two-year aid package was backed by other governors and follows a meeting in December where governors called on President-elect Barack Obama to help them maintain services in the face of slumping revenues.
Gov. David Paterson of New York said 43 states now have budget deficits totaling some $100 billion as tax revenues plunge.
“It’s clear that the federal government needs to step in and jump-start the economy,” said Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts.
The latest package calls for $350 billion to create jobs by building or repairing roads, bridges and other public works; $250 billion to maintain education; and another $250 billion in “counter-cyclical” spending such as extending unemployment benefits and food stamps, which are typically a responsibility of the states.
The remainder would be used to fund middle-class tax cuts, stimulate the embattled housing market, and stem the tide of home foreclosures through a loan-modification program.
Why not? It’s not real money anyway, it’s just Monopoly money… LITERALLY!
Yes.
It will devalue the currency, but that is inevitable since there is $40 trillion in off the books federal debt in the form of MLM-scheme social security system that will rear it’s ugly head in the next 10 years.
The real wealth of a country is not some dollar figure, but how well maintained the infrastructure of a country is.
Now the sad secret of the above is the real losers are people with a lot in investments and retirement savings, the true value of which will precipitously decline.
But the true value of the dollar was always destined to decline due to not only our retirement system — for which the accounting system is not unlike the much maligned problems General Motors faces (but gee, it is fun to point fingers at the auto industry while ignoring the US government does the same) — but also due to the fact that Asia is not a giant rice field like in the 1950-60 but the home of some powerful industry and as the rest of the world economically grows, our share of world “wealth” shrinks.
No–for the same reasons HMyers gave, plus others.
Money for infrastructure can be identified by the Feds themselves, no need to run thru the State Skim Machine.
The IRON FIST of Economic REALITY is going to come down some day. The more we “bailout” the fantasies of deficit spending governments, the harder the fist will fall.
Its interesting that there is a NEWS BLACKOUT or worse, just a complete non-recognition of the immense and continuing failures of the Federal Government in this current financial crises. Why isn’t the ENTIRE CONGRESS under scrutiny and voted out of office? This crises did not happen like an asteroid from outer space===CONGRESS CAUSED IT!!!!!
This same lack of accountability should not further metastasize to the States who are busy doing the same thing.
“Should The US Government Provide $1 Trillion To The States?”
Correct title:
Should The US Tax Payers Provide $1 Trillion To The States?
The end result of running the government without asking people to pay for it. Oh, leave it to “the market” ? That’s worked out really well, hasn’t it. The 21st century is already China’s, as the 20th was American, and no amount of armament will change what is ultimately more powerful: money. The ability to destroy is ultimately useless, while the ability to create is ultimately what life is all about. Have at it, pseudo-con’s.
Money to governmental agencies to help them provide basic services? Isn’t that what governments DO? So maybe reduce taxes at the Federal level and states have a corresponding increase, but this “borrowing” money from the Fed is silly and doomed to dig the hole even deeper.
Pretty soon we will all be Billionaires driving $200,000 automobiles, drinking $1000 bottles of wine, from $50 glasses.
Inflation is a good thing.
# 8 tyates said, “Inflation is a good thing.”
Especially for the gov when you have fixed tax brackets…
Exactly. I’ve got about $500 in US dollars from my last trip to
NY. I’ll need to get rid of it soon while it still worth something.
This won’t happen.
And if they say it did.. it’s imaginary.
Notice that only Dem Gov’s are asking? I’m surprised Arnold isn’t…
@Bobbo
My reasons for yes versus your reason for no probably vary on this one point:
My view: Money is imaginary. Only the human labor part is of actual true value.
The value of the currency really means quite little in my mind because any currency has a real world true value of exactly zero.
[But the labor and infrastructure is real.]
All you economic experts (who have jobs for the time being) are amusing and sad.
Instead of getting your philosophy from bumper stickers, try reading economists Krugman snd Stiglitz. Easy to find on the web.
#13–HMyers==if you want to get philosophical from an existential bent==nothing has meaning. So, what has meaning is artificial as a grant from homo sapiens==whether it is love, religion, or money. Money, whether it is clam shells, giant heads, gold, paper, or labor.
Everything is a theoretical construct. It is within those constructs that issues gain their meaning, relative meaning, and relative merit/worth.
Silly to stand outside a construct and espouse that those things within the construct have no meaning. Of course they don’t, from outside the construct.
I could rant on about the economic reality of how government failure results in inflation to the harm of savings/assets, but I suspect once we clear the epistemological boundary, your knowledge far exceeds mine. So==stop being silly.
Arnold does not want to hitch his wagon to such a modest request. He will be next to ask for 1T just for California.
Oh, heck yeah, give them all they need. Let’s at least party on the way down!
@Bobbo
I’m not being philosophical.
Regardless of the valuation of a currency, various goods have fixed relative worths compared to other goods and products and this change is inelastic based on the valuation of a currency.
The US economy will sink or swim in the future based on what products and services the country provides that other countries are interested in buying.
If our investment in infrastructure sucks, we will be in trouble.
Consider that unlike any Western country, the population of the United States will rise 30% over the next 30 years to somewhere around 400 million, we certainly won’t be in a labor shortage versus say Western Europe where population growth is flatlined or China which due to their 1 child policy will have 1 billion elderly people (yikes!).
#1 8–HMyers==hah, hah. With all due warm regards, you don’t know WTF you are talking about do you?
Is money imaginary?
Is relative value REALLY “fixed?”
How can a goods worth be inelastic yet based on currency evaluation?
What “under current projections” ever continues on that projection?
Only correct/rational thing you said was: The US economy will sink or swim in the future based on what products and services the country provides that other countries are interested in buying.
Seriously===what point are you actually trying to make? Close your eyes and think real hard before posting.
#14
Krugman thinks Obama’s stimulus (printing more money) will work. It won’t, printing more money drives up inflation. Just look at Zimbabwe. That’s America’s future.
# 20 jim said, “Krugman thinks Obama’s stimulus (printing more money) will work.”
Everyone knows Krugman is brain dead. Not news.
There is a good chance the party is over in the US. So far we have avoided the much higher tax rates as in most of Europe. We are in new territory financially. There is no guaranty a FDR type recovery plan will work. Many historians says his didn’t, rather WWII turned the economic tide. If you go through personal bankruptcy, things can get very hard. You get back to the business of surviving, not partying. The entire nation is bankrupt, and all of us will pay the fiddler now. There’s no point in spending on federal projects if the states has to cut essential services, postpone improvements and lay off workers. It will undermine the effort.
#21 – Paddy-RAMBO
>>Everyone knows Krugman is brain dead.
>>Not news.
No, everyone knows Paul Krugman is a Nobe Prize-winning economist, who was educated at Yale and MIT, and who taught at at Yale University, MIT, UC Berkeley, the London School of Economics, Stanford University, and Princeton, after working for Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisors.
He’s a proud, card-carrying liberal (like most intelligent people), so rednecks and minimum-wage counter boys like you jerk themselves off by pretending to be smarter than him.
Tee hee! Titter titter! Paddy-RAMBO critiquing Paul Krugman’s intelligence. HAW!!
One day Americans will have to pay for all this welfare.
That’s when the shit hits the fan.
#19 – Bobo
Are your really that much of a dim bulb? Do you seek to cover it up with endless verbal diarrhea, bizarre punctuation, and alien grammar?
A mansion will always be worth more than a hovel, whether the relative prices are $5 : $500,000, $5000 : $500,000,000 or $50,000 : 50,000,000,000
# 23 Mister Mustard said, “No, everyone knows Paul Krugman is a Nobe Prize-winning economist, who was educated at Yale and MIT”
Oh, you mean the same type of education that people who have screwed everything had?
LOL
#26–Mustard==Will a mansion always be worth more than a hovel? Sure, because you will use a tautology to secure your idiot statement. If your brain were more flexible than a slab of concrete, you could hypothesize a Mansion being worth less than a previously less valuable house.
CHALLENGE (none of which you ever engage because you see your FAIL right from the start): connect what you just said to anything I posted. Try to make it make sense==other than the verbal diarrhea part, which does require acquiring the taste.
I just hope there will be enough time after the big crash to properly thank all of our wonderful politicians responsible for this.
How does a nice necktie party sound?
The whole point of not living in states like Cali is so that I don’t have to pay their taxes. Now I do? Great.
#23
So what, Bush was educated at Yale. The simple fact is that he supports Obama’s solution of printing America out of it’s hole. That will only lead to one thing, inflation. America will soon look like Germany of 1923.
Our fearless leaders in Congress got us into this mess by being reckless with money and they haven’t learned jack. They’re going to fix things by keeping right on spending until the dollar isn’t worth the paper or the ink used to print it.
For those that don’t know Congress actually does have the power of the purse and the Dems have been the majority in Congress for at least the last two and maybe four years.
Yeah I know the poor babies couldn’t do anything because the bad old Rep maniorty wouldn’t let them and Bush vetoed everything they passed. NOT!
I think I did hear a that Bush might have used the veto once but I can’t even swear to that.