patrick.net

Troy says

"Refusing to execute his constitutional duty to propose a budget to Congress for two years running qualifies."

Shrek did not earlier answer where in the Constitution this duty is created.

Shrek says a lot of wrong things I've noticed. It's not even clear that he/she has even read the Constitution.

I have found that most people who make an argument based on the Constitution who have not studied constitutional law either a) haven't read the Constitution, or b) are making a crappy argument because they should be able to articulate a good policy argument without reference to the Constitution first, and then describe how the Constitution affects that good argument. Starting from the Constitution first is usually misguided.

Here is the entirety of Article II of the US Constitution -- where do you see this provision, Shrek?:

Article II - The Executive Branch Note

Section 1 - The President

The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice-President chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows:

Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.

(The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two persons, of whom one at least shall not lie an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves. And they shall make a List of all the Persons voted for, and of the Number of Votes for each; which List they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the Seat of the Government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the Presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the Certificates, and the Votes shall then be counted. The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President, if such Number be a Majority of the whole Number of Electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such Majority, and have an equal Number of Votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately chuse by Ballot one of them for President; and if no Person have a Majority, then from the five highest on the List the said House shall in like Manner chuse the President. But in chusing the President, the Votes shall be taken by States, the Representation from each State having one Vote; a quorum for this Purpose shall consist of a Member or Members from two-thirds of the States, and a Majority of all the States shall be necessary to a Choice. In every Case, after the Choice of the President, the Person having the greatest Number of Votes of the Electors shall be the Vice President. But if there should remain two or more who have equal Votes, the Senate shall chuse from them by Ballot the Vice-President.) (This clause in parentheses was superseded by the 12th Amendment.)

The Congress may determine the Time of chusing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States.

No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

(In Case of the Removal of the President from Office, or of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office, the same shall devolve on the Vice President, and the Congress may by Law provide for the Case of Removal, Death, Resignation or Inability, both of the President and Vice President, declaring what Officer shall then act as President, and such Officer shall act accordingly, until the Disability be removed, or a President shall be elected.) (This clause in parentheses has been modified by the 20th and 25th Amendments.)

The President shall, at stated Times, receive for his Services, a Compensation, which shall neither be increased nor diminished during the Period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that Period any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them.

Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Section 2 - Civilian Power over Military, Cabinet, Pardon Power, Appointments

The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to Grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.

He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.

The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.

Section 3 - State of the Union, Convening Congress

He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States.

Section 4 - Disqualification

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

The best you can find is probably "He shall from time to time ... recommend to [Congress'] Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient." That is a discretionary power, not a mandatory requirement.

I support tax loopholes going away, just too many who get them kind of enjoy the free perk on the back of others and call it a tax increase if these are gone.

"We have a spending problem, not a revenue problem" is nothing more than a right wing talking point. Tax revenue is at a 60 year low

IF peopel had bothered to do their research, they would know that tax revenue has fallen off a cliff thanks to the recession:

HousingWatcher says

hey would know that tax revenue has fallen off a cliff thanks to the recession:

Sorta. the bulge in 2006 was simply driven by the bubble machine.

How is it that we have a $15T economy but only collect $200B in corporate income taxes? Why even have a corporate income tax if it collects so little?

We should tax incomes less and land more.

Troy says

How is it that we have a $15T economy but only collect $200B in corporate income taxes? Why even have a corporate income tax if it collects so little?

Some people think it should go away entirely because shareholders and consumers are effectively paying it. It doesn't really cost the corporation itself anything. Either they charge higher prices and it gets passed onto consumers, or it reduces profits, which means shareholders get lower stock prices and lower dividends.

There are arguments for keeping it too, of course.

You are correct that corporate tax in the US as a percentage of GDP is historically low and is the lowest percentage in the OECD.

Ron Paul is he's a TOOL.

I mean that in several senses. Sure he voted against Glass-Steagall, but lately?

Glass-Steagall should be reinstated, do you see him proposing that? Nope.

TBTF banks should be either broken up, or have protection removed, did he propose legislation for that? Nope.

Volcker and the CFPB under GOP assault, do you see Ron out defending them? Nope.

All Ron does is give the Anti-Fed people a nutty old man to rally behind and cluster all of these ineffectual individuals where they will do the least real damage to the FIRE industry.

Bad link

Troy says

HousingWatcher says

hey would know that tax revenue has fallen off a cliff thanks to the recession:

Sorta. the bulge in 2006 was simply driven by the bubble machine.

How is it that we have a $15T economy but only collect $200B in corporate income taxes? Why even have a corporate income tax if it collects so little?

We should tax incomes less and land more.

“Nessuna soluzione . . . nessun problema!„

that idea is unlikely to go anywhere past this message board.

"that idea is unlikely to go anywhere past this message board."

LOL. It's funny how something so efficacious is so well hidden.

The entire field of economics was reconstructed to confuse the difference between land and capital. Even the heterodox schools like the Miseans are bootlicks to wealth and thus intentionally obfuscate the merits of land taxes.

At least some noises are being made against commercial properties enjoying Prop 13 protections.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0710-lopez-mayoronprop13-20110710,0,3252606.column

Yeah, they both went bankrupt and lost their seats on the NYSE after a couple of maverick upstarts thwarted their attempt to corner the market in frozen concentrated orange juice.

Oh... wait.. that was 1982's "Trading Places"

My mistake.

Seriously though, even LV looked horrified at the post-Potter carnage!

EMan says

I support tax loopholes going away, just too many who get them kind of enjoy the free perk on the back of others and call it a tax increase if these are gone.

I support removing tax loophole as long as parents have to pay the same taxes as non-parents.

Dumb Asses, the electric non existent trains don't run out there...
how on earth could they shop at Trader Jose and Hoe Foods living out there?

They must love Ferin Oil.

What's the matter with them, $800,000 1 BR town houses too good for them?

At $8/gallon gasoline there will be a re-think, with many young people moving to downtown outdoor non-luxury condos with open heat vents.

The city can be really disgusting, but it's hard to see how the 'burbs will do well if it's so expensive to get to a job. Rural areas, on the other hand, will see a rebirth, as young people flock to the new growth sector of the job market: manual agricultural labor.

"More intriguing, and perhaps counter-intuitive, “hip and cool” core cities like San Francisco, New York and Boston have also suffered double-digit percent losses among this generation. "

As it was true in the past, you find after 10 years, your life living next to the gutters, spending everthing you earn, and little to show. Hopefually you didnt fall in the bad crowd and picked up bad habits/addictions like so many have in the past. Living in big cities can become self destructive in the long run.

thomas.wong1986 says

Living in big cities can become self destructive in the long run.

Yes, there are various degrees of this. For example, I never understood my friends who refused to live anywhere in NY other than Manhattan, even though they didn't make Manhattan wages. This is a few years ago, so don't tell me about Brooklyn being expensive now (also, hey man, you don't live in "East Williamsburg", you live in f'n Bushwick).

If they had lived in Brooklyn or the nicer parts of the Bronx, or even (gasp) Queens, they could have saved a massive amount of money and been better off. In some cases, their commutes would have been shorter, and they wouldn't have lived in hovels in crappy neighborhoods. Sometimes the pull to be hip and cool is too strong.

Similarly, Oakland and Berkeley vs. SF. Sure, both of the East Bay cities are still expensive by national standards, but SF is nuts, all so you can live in a hasn't-been-renovated-since-Prop 13-passed apartment. Berkeley and Oakland have a lot going on for the young urbanist, and the BART or express bus ride is short (possibly shorter than riding Muni from certain parts of the city to downtown).

I get it, the hip and cool people don't live in the Valley 10 mins from their job in the Valley, but live in West LA or Santa Monica instead. I get it. It's your future, man.

thomas.wong1986 says

As it was true in the past, you find after 10 years, your life living next to the gutters, spending everthing you earn, and little to show. Hopefually you didnt fall in the bad crowd and picked up bad habits/addictions like so many have in the past.

Hmmm, I agree, there is no unemployment or drug addiction in rural areas like Victorville, CA and Medford or Klamath Falls, OR and certainly not North Dakota or Wisconsin.

People who stay in the rural areas never experience working for decades with nothing to show for it but a run down trailer.

Cities are the centers of civilization.

http://www.adp.state.ca.us/Meth/pdf/methmapusa2.pdf

And of course, alcoholism. No alcoholism in the countryside?

Folks, you can be from the city or from the country and still work your ass off with nothing to show for it; and you can have a drug or alcohol problem whether you live in Barstow or Bakersfield or Burlingame.

thunderlips11 says

Cities are the centers of civilization.

They might be the center, but that's just it. They're the center. But that means the mass is around that center.

As an example, there are probably more jobs available in the East Bay than San Francisco.

I'm not sure where the Victorville stuff comes from. No one said to go there.

I'm pointing out that there are plenty of poor people and drug addicts everywhere, not just in San Fran Freako or Long Island City.

There are plenty of them in the suburbs and in the rural areas. In fact, there may be more. It's easy to point to the grafitti covered building with hobos loitering outside. It's neither easy nor legal to spy on Mrs. White and discover she pops alot of oxycontin and has several after-dinner martinis each and every day.

Furthermore, there are plenty of desperate, underwater homeowners in the suburbs who have been laid off for more than a year, they can't even pick up a part time job at Best Buy as they are 'overqualified', and they have a mountain of monthly payments from student loans to mortgages.

When the economy crashes and jobs are scarce, people don't run to the hills, they run to the cities.

The reason suburban pops are picking up is because junior is moving back w/ mom and dad. Or mom and dad are moving back with junior. One more job loss, and they'll do want unemployed people in the hinterland have done for centuries - go to the city.

So do I. If Obama sells out this country, I'm perfectly happy to let it go.

我的中文越来越好。。。

Stupid well-paid public sector jobs, who needs 'em. Race to the bottom for all.

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/USGOVT

Stupid government-controlled insurance market-place. Everyone knows the free market will give us more affordability.

Let it go. Let the conservative have this place.

It's too early to celebrate shrek. Obama as said that if he does not get his tax increases, he is going to let ALL of the Bush tax cuts expire. Lucky for him, he does not need a single Republican vote to raise taxes since by law taxes go up on 1/1/13.

What's missing from the story is why they're moving: They can't afford the housing in those urban areas. Even in the East Bay city I live in the prices are too high for average people. We make above average incomes and it would be a stretch for us. For years the biggest gainers have been 2nd tier cities like Austin, Raleigh, and other primarily Southeastern cities. Mostly because they all have housing in the under 200k range.

As far as the snootiness you get in major cities- whether you live in the "core" or in the burbs, you definitely get a whiff of this here. People in SV think that the East Bay might as well be Mars. People in SF seldom if ever leave or cross the bridge. Usually there's this commentary made- as in how AWFUL it must be for us- we who commute from SV to the east bay. Truth be known it takes us 35 minutes these days. Perhaps not as long as it takes those fighting traffic the few miles through SV neighborhoods clogged with soccer moms after work. I have friends in SF who haven't left the city in YEARS except to visit out of state families or take the occasional Tahoe ski trip.

HydroCabron says

At $8/gallon gasoline there will be a re-think, with many young people moving to downtown outdoor non-luxury condos with open heat vents.

Well we could have 3 bordegas on every urban block, like they do in Peru. believe it or not, people live quite well with out Wal-Mart and Trader Joes in the rest of the world.
Wake up in the morning and want breakfast, walk accross the street knock on your neighbors iron door, he opens up a pas-through and you ask for a kilo of eggs, and 7 Pan Fancis.
Later in the day you want a refreshing beverage you walk to another neighbor bordega on the other side of the neighborhood, and buy a Inka Kola, then at 5:30 you can go yet to another neighbor bordega and buy a 6 pack carton of 1 liter Crystal Beers.

Go to bed at night spending less than 10 us dollars, and never burned an ounce of gas, or made one single investor in the Grocery Racket one thin dime.

Did I mention our consumerism is what sucks, we are our own worst enemies, and just maybe, the Middle east foreign Oil is a boogie man that our political leaders on both sides of the isle invented for their own political agendas?

And BTW, all of the greedy Libs that are trying to brand a Liberal elite utopia at the expense of the POOR and the Conservative Corporate Meat puppets, will be in the soup line, when Obama gets done shitting on the Flag.

I think people will wake up and say enough is enough, and take this country back, and elect "ANYONE" not affiliated with either of the two political parties.

If not 2012 then 2016.

The Tea Party is already splitting from the heard.

Yes they've got as good of a chance as the Change regime had in '08,

edvard2 says

What's missing from the story is why they're moving: They can't afford the housing in those urban areas.

give that man a cigar

I for one find Obama's "jack up the 35% tax rate" kinda dumb.

What they should have done is phase back in the Clinton rates over 5 years, 2011-2015.

But the electorate voted out the Dems for raising their taxes in 1993, so I can see why Obama can't get the Congress to raise taxes now.

The Republicans would vote 'no', leaving the fallout to hit the Dems again.

Obama could try to say to people "these tax raises are just to repay the cost of liberating Iraq" -- which would be true, but who wants to pay for wars!

Total defense spending 2001-2010 was $3T over the FY2000 baseline. The interest on that alone would be $100B/yr at 3%.

The Republicans really fucked over this country 1993-2006. Is there anything they didn't FUBAR completely? NAFTA, MFN with China, Bush tax cuts, $3T wars, deregulation & the ensuing housing bubble . . .

HydroCabron says

At $8/gallon gasoline there will be a re-think, with many young people moving to downtown outdoor non-luxury condos with open heat vents.

i can do my job from my parents basement in my underwear.

shrekgrinch says

So, if we see an all-cuts bill signed by Boehner's Bitch OR one signed by Proud & Tall Obama with the $1 trillion to $3 trillion in tax increases but no more ObamaCare, I will be celebratin' either way, thank you very much.

Whatever. I don't know why people even take you seriously. You don't even know what provisions are contained in ObamaCare (as post after post has shown), and yet you claim you're against it. No credibility when you keep spewing nonsense. You never say anything of substance or actually make an argument -- you just call people names and bring up talking points.

No, I admit that I didn't read the whole thing as I am somewhat busy, thus my bad. Whether 20-somethings are moving back in with Mom and Dad is probably a significant factor. That said, I tend to think that those who make a lot of hoopla over living in some sort of urban utopia- with walkable gentrified neighborhoods and expensive grocery stores are usually in their late 20's-mid 30's. As in they're in their early nesting stages and many are finding that they can't afford what they want. This is why Austin and other smaller cities have become popular with this age group. Austin, Raleigh, Atlanta, and a few others along these lines have the youngest populations in the country while the older established cities grow older. The average age in my east bay city is 47. That's a full 14 years older than the average age in Austin.

So in my opinion its those in the age bracket wanting to settle down who are most likely abandoning the major urban cores for smaller urban areas. I'm probably going to be one of them at some point for the same reasons.

The bigger question is what will this do to the cities they leave? Younger people tend to bring innovation. Cities that have a lot of them tend to grow faster economically. As seen in recent data that's whats happening in these smaller 2nd tier cities.

Troy says

The Republicans really fucked over this country 1993-2006. Is there anything they didn't FUBAR completely? NAFTA

NAFTA was Clinton's Brain Fart

corntrollio says

You don't even know what provisions are contained in ObamaCare

Nobody does, that's the POINT!

"Well I guess we will have to pass it, to know what's in it..."
Some senate douche bag, that was definitely NOT a Republican that I will not name.

I know Owebama Careless as of now, has me on the hook for a 1600 a month premium and no one in my family has been sick or seen a hospital in over 16 years.

That 1600 a month is still climbing and the architects of the Health Bill are negligently sitting back and watching, like their hands are tied to stop it. By time it goes into effect it will be 2100 a month easy.
The middle class NOT poor enough to be on the Dole will work to sign their weekly stipend over to Obama Care and his corporate masters that are the hypocrisy oathers.

Shrek is a good example of the evil in the conservative soul -- "got mine fuck you", and why I can't vote for even "moderate" Republicans any more, since moderate Republicans coalition with the nut jobs when the chips are down (see Schwarzenegger for how that worked).

Obama is bad enough, LOL.

The bullshit in this country has risen to very dangerous levels.

Perot called out the neoliberals on NAFTA and he was right, partially. It's not the job loss (the "sucking sound") that's the macro problem per se, it's the trade deficits our trading partners are running against us. We should just fucking print the difference and not worry about it, except that the inflation this would cause would hurt us more than help, since the most inflation-protected sectors are energy and health care.

Spending $6T on the military in the past decade while cutting taxes was also bullshit. That was the main bust-out conservatives managed to do.

Deregulating government oversight of the financial sector and letting them do their thing 2002-2006 was also bullshit, and the AEI attempt to pin this on minority borrowers, Barney "Fag", and the CRA is even more so.

But like I say, I don't blame the Republicans. They are just fighting their battles and winning them. I blame the American people, for not seeing what's going to happen to them down the road. Much of the history of the 20th century was fixing the shit that was wrong with us 1850-1950.

We can undo it all like people like Shrek want, but eventually we'll have to revisit the same damn social and socio-economic problems we fell into 1850-1950.

Shrek's main purpose here is to just spout his bullshit.

I called him on that recently -- the President being constitutionally required to submit budgets to Congress -- and he slinked away, only to repeat the lie the next day.

He, like nearly every other conservative poster on the internet, is a real piece of work. Getting closer understanding of how the conservative mind works is really something. These people are basically insane somehow.

Here we have Shrek cheering the apparent death of "ObamaCare" even though it is something the AEI recommended as late as 2004 or so. Winning their political and ideological fights are more important to conservatives than seeing Americans with better health care.

Well, for conservatives, they know that health care is something of a zero-sum thing so if millions of people have more of it they will have to have less.

Conservatives' recent swing in support of Qaddafi is even more bizarre. I don't even know how they rationalize that. Not being rational people, they don't have to I guess.

Why do you think this will occur?

Obama will cave, he always does.

Troy says

FICA collections aren't going to rise that fast so SSA will have to start redeeming its treasuries for cash, and for the Treasury to get the cash they either have to sell more treasuries, get more tax revenue, or have the Fed print the money.

Ah, good, thanks Troy. We need substantial inflation to lift the burden of debt, both private and public. Here's another excuse to print more money.

Troy says

Congress should never have let this debt grow so high, cutting taxes in 2003 while expanding a war was a colossal mistake.

Strangely so obvious to you and me.

Why does everyone else think it's the fault of "socialism"?

thunderlips11 says

We need substantial inflation to lift the burden of debt, both private and public. Here's another excuse to print more money.

Can't inflate away future promises.

$10 gas isn't going to do anyone's finances any favors, except if you're Alaskan.

Then Social Security is dead, because it's been so thoroughly looted there is nothing in there but promises which as you say, cannot be inflated away.

Unless we make a radical change to the way our economy works.

Without getting the balance of trade under control, in the long term, no budget balancing is possible.