Shutting Down the Govt. - Where Do You Stand?

While a bit oversimplistic...if I were the house? I'd pass a budget (at least a short term one) that funded anything for the American people directly (entitlements, medicare, welfare, etc) but cut the sh*t out of everything else (PBS, foreign aide, any kind of defense that wasn't absoultely required, etc)...and send it to Reid for an "up or down" approval in the Senate. That would keep the doors open.
Originally Posted by Rudyard K

Somebody was watching FoxNews last night and is taking unwarranted credit.......

...there is going to have to be tax increases (with the upper end folks shouldering considerably more of the burden) Originally Posted by Rudyard K

Naive......and........
Sounds like the Bush/Cheney version of "conservatism" from one of the 47% who doesn't pay any income tax.....our problem is not that we are undertaxed, it's that we overspend.....you need to read the thread where PJ and "MYSELF" tried to educate Doove on taxes......

<H2 class=headline>Morning Bell: Chairman Ryan’s Budget Resolution Changes America’s Course

Posted April 5th, 2011 at 9:56am in



America needs to change course. Our current direction is fiscally and economically unsustainable and politically and culturally bankrupting. It is threatening the well-being and future of our country.
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s (R–WI) budget proposal, for the first time in recent memory, sets our nation on a different and better path. It tackles the massive spending excesses of the recent past and the entitlement crisis that is beginning to command our fiscal future. It rejects the politics of government dependence, massively higher taxes and the inevitability of national decline. No budget in decades has had the potential for so fundamentally improving the nation’s prosperity and restoring its vast promise. This is a monumental budget proposal for monumental times, and it opens a serious and necessary conversation about the future of our nation and its great legacy of freedom, opportunity, and self-government.
Chairman Ryan’s path toward solving the twin crises of spending and debt is achieved through real spending reductions and reforms—not new taxes or higher rates. The proposal includes welcome changes to the budget process, which, after all, is partially responsible for allowing spending to explode. This budget pares back non-security discretionary spending—the small part of the budget that Congress actually writes a budget for—and tackles other parts of the budget such as farm subsidies and the federal bureaucracy. The budget also repeals Obamacare. Most crucially, Ryan’s budget tackles entitlement programs with transformative changes in Medicare and a solid approach to controlling Medicaid’s spiraling costs. These changes will result in a stronger and bigger economy with more job creation, more savings and investment, and higher household incomes.
Ryan’s budget resolution proposal brings non-security discretionary spending back below 2008 levels and then freezes it for five years. The budget cuts corporate welfare, rolls back Pell grants, reduces the size of the federal bureaucracy by 10 percent, and reforms federal workers’ compensation. It also reins in mandatory spending by addressing food stamp spending and trimming farm subsidy programs that predominantly go to large agribusinesses; they cost taxpayers $25 billion annually even as farm incomes climb.
For Medicare, Ryan creates a new premium-support program for all future retirees in 10 years. With a premium-support program, each Medicare enrollee would get a fixed government contribution to the health plan of his or her choice. That is essentially the system that Members of Congress themselves enjoy. Health plans and providers would be compelled to compete directly for enrollees’ dollars. The record shows that this approach to reform would control the growth of health care costs while increasing patient satisfaction. For good measure, the Ryan budget guarantees cost control through a cap on the growth rate of Medicare spending.
The Ryan budget puts Medicaid on a more fiscally sustainable path for both federal and state taxpayers through a block grant. The proposal replaces the open-ended financing arrangement with a fixed federal contribution to the states. In exchange, states would have greater flexibility to design their programs to better serve those in need. As Congress fills in the details, the best way to implement Ryan’s budget changes would be to mainstream moms and kids from the poorly performing Medicaid program into more popular private health insurance options and then focus on delivering more patient-centered care to the disabled and elderly.
The Ryan budget would finally begin to take entitlements off autopilot, forcing Congress to consider the long-term costs of new entitlement programs beyond just the 10-year window. Importantly, the Ryan budget would lock in savings and require continuous cuts with multi-year enforceable spending caps not just on discretionary spending but on total government spending.
On the tax side, the budget resolution focuses on economic growth by reducing key tax rates. The plan reduces the highest-in-the world corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent and the top individual income rate to the same level. The lower corporate tax rate would reverse the flow of jobs to foreign countries, and the lower individual income tax rate would improve incentives for workers and businesses to produce more and for investors and businesses to create new jobs.
Like any budget plan, which is the result of give and take, there are also elements in this plan that are missing and places where it is deficient. America’s prosperity depends on the security we provide. This budget proposal rightly does not recommend pulling back on America’s military commitments. This creates a challenge; the defense funding in this budget is inadequate. Lawmakers must fully fund forces to protect America and its interests around the globe. Doing so requires an average of $720 billion per year (to be adjusted for inflation) for each of the next five fiscal years, plus funding for ongoing contingency operations. Without a strong national defense, America cannot reap the benefits of a strong economy.
Although this budget does rein in welfare spending on Medicaid and food stamps, it continues to approach the rest of the $950 billion welfare system in the same piecemeal fashion of the past. More notably, Ryan has not touched Social Security, preferring instead to fast-track solutions outside the budget process. He has also opted to essentially grandfather the grandparents: Benefits for those in or near retirement will not be touched. That also means that spending reductions will come slower than they might otherwise. Will we exempt so many baby boomers from contributing to the most urgent economic problem we face? While it is politically difficult to consider benefit changes for this group, it is virtually impossible to balance the budget within the near term without doing so. This is a discussion we must have as a nation.
But in the end, let’s remember where we are and what Chairman Ryan has accomplished. Last year, neither the House nor the Senate passed a required budget resolution. This year, President Obama proposed a budget that more than doubles the national debt. In the first budget of the new Congress, Chairman Ryan has forged a serious path to fix our nation’s fiscal and economic crisis. The House, the Senate, and the President must now do their part so that we may reclaim our nation’s future.

</H2>



Economic Analysis of the House Budget Resolution



Published on April 5, 2011 by William Beach , Karen Campbell, Ph.D. , John Ligon and Guinevere Nell Working Paper #04-10

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Updated as of April 6, 2011.
Read the statement on the update.
Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI), chairman of the Committee on the Budget of the U.S. House of Representatives, requested by letter that the Center for Data Analysis (CDA) undertake an economic analysis of the House Budget Resolution for federal fiscal year 2012 through 2021.[1] The Chairman specifically asked the CDA to perform conventional and dynamic budget analysis, or analysis that is based on largely “static” budget models and on economic models with dynamic economic properties. These economic models estimate the likely effects of policy change on the major components of economic activity—supply of resources, prices, demographic change, and so forth—which might affect federal fiscal results through revenues and outlay costs.
This report summarizes the results of the CDA’s analysis of the House Budget Resolution using these models. As a general matter, the CDA found that implementing the policy changes behind the Budget Resolution would significantly strengthen economic performance throughout the economy and dramatically improve federal fiscal results. This analysis demonstrates that significant actions can be taken now to reform our tax code and rein in the drivers of fiscal imbalances.
Indeed, our work shows that those steps can be taken with a strong confidence of ultimate success.
CDA employed its tax models and the U.S. Macroeconomic Model of IHS Global Insight, Inc., to estimate the fiscal and economic effects of the House Budget Resolution.[2] Center analysts primarily employed the CDA Individual Income Tax Model for its analysis of the effects of tax law changes on a representative sample of taxpayers based on IRS Statistics of Income (SOI) taxpayer microdata. Data for these taxpayers are extrapolated or “aged” to reflect detailed taxpayer characteristics. These data are aged for consistency with the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) baseline forecast in order to produce effective and marginal tax rate estimates with which to forecast the dynamic economic and fiscal effects stemming from changes in tax burden.[3]
Staff of the House Budget Committee supplied the CDA with sufficient detail on the House Budget Resolution to allow Center analysts to simulate the fiscal effects of changes in tax law and major programs and outlay categories. Details on the steps taken to incorporate these policy changes in the model are contained in Appendix 2 to this report.
What does policy simulation mean? Model simulation of public policy change requires two sets of data. First, estimates of how the changes affect outlays and revenues, which become the policy inputs to the dynamic model. Second, analysts need a baseline of economic and fiscal data that do not contain these policy changes. The model then calculates the difference it makes to the baseline when public policy changes. Thus, when we report, for example, that Gross Domestic Product increased by an annual average of $150 billion because of the policy changes contained in the Budget Resolution, this means that the dynamic model has estimated much more economic output over the amount contained in the baseline.
The baseline economy and fiscal world within which CDA simulated the policy changes of the House Budget Resolution is the Alternative Fiscal Scenario developed by the Congressional Budget Office. The CBO described the Alternative Fiscal Scenario in the following way in its June 2010 report, The Long-Term Budget Outlook:

The alternative fiscal scenario embodies several possible changes to current law that would continue certain tax and spending policies that people have grown accustomed to (because the policies are in place now or have been in place recently). Versions of some of the changes assumed in the scenario—such as those related to the AMT and Medicare’s payments to physicians—have regularly been enacted in the past. Those and certain other changes included in the scenario—such as changes related to the tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003—are widely expected to be made in some form over the next few years.[4]

Revenues may rise under the Alternative Fiscal Scenario, but not as much as under CBO’s other and more frequently cited forecast, the Extended Baseline Scenario. Under the Alternative forecast, fiscal imbalances worsen as the years go by and Congress repeatedly fails to address the main drivers of ballooning deficits: the mandatory spending programs, largely for retired Americans. Some of these fiscal problems are assumed to be fixed in the Extended Baseline.
Thus, the Alternative Scenario is better suited for analyzing the House Budget Proposal than the Extended Baseline. It provides a baseline reflecting a largely unreformed tax code and persistently worsening fiscal results stemming from the absence of any major budgetary or program reforms.[5] In short, the policy changes behind the Budget Resolution stand in very sharp contrast to an economic and fiscal world without reform.
Center analysts introduced these microsimulation results into the U.S. Macroeconomic Model that has been specially adapted to work with the Alternative Fiscal Scenario. Details on how this adaptation occurred are contained in Appendix 2 of this report.
The tax and program changes behind the Budget Resolution produce much stronger economic performance when compared to the rate and level of economic activity in the baseline.[6] Lower taxes stimulate greater investment, which expands the size of business activity. This expansion fuels a demand for more labor, which enters a labor market that contains workers who themselves face lower taxes. Consequently, significantly higher employment ensues.
Gains in employment along with lower taxes lead to higher household incomes. The growth of business enterprise coupled with the increase in disposable income fuels more extensive savings and investment by households, which results in the growth of household assets. The stock and value of residential structures increases, as does the volume of household net worth.
As a consequence of the growth in the size of the economy (for example, $1.5 trillion over ten years in additional economic output results from the budget plan), the income base from which the federal government draws its taxes grows significantly. The growth in federal tax revenues under the budget plan matches the growth in the baseline, despite a significant drop in the tax rate and other changes in tax policy favorable to taxpayers.
This obvious strengthening in the tax base and in federal receipts is accompanied by substantially improved fiscal results on the outlay side. Total outlays fall by a total of $9.3 trillion over the ten-year period, 2012 to 2021. This significant decrease leads to a sharp reduction in the total amount of federal debt: By 2021, publicly held debt is $9.9 trillion lower than in the baseline, which forecasts an economic and fiscal scenario without the policy changes of the Budget Resolution. The yields on 10-year Treasury notes fall by 84 basis points by 2021, and the effective interest rate on the Federal Reserve’s interbank borrowing rate is nearly a full percentage point lower than it is in the baseline.
These are highly positive results, but more steps need to be taken to rein in spending by reforming the drivers of fiscal imbalances. The period 2012 through 2021 is the opening scene in the nation’s long struggle to fund the retirement of the most numerous generation ever to retire while keeping the economy moving forward for those Americans who are below 30 years of age today. To achieve such fiscal sanity given these changes in demography, the tax code and the mandatory spending programs need substantial reform.
Nevertheless, this model-based analysis of the House Budget Resolution and the policy changes underneath it clearly show that a solid step toward a stronger economic and fiscal future can be taken with every confidence of success.
A simulation of the House Budget Resolution using the U.S. Macroeconomic Model from IHS/Global Insight produced the following results for the period 2012 through 2021:


Major Economic Indicators

• <LI nodeIndex="1">Employment: Private employment grew by an annual average of 1.6 million jobs above the CBO alternative budget baseline. Total employment grew by an average of 1.3 million jobs, which indicates shrinkage of public-sector employment of 300,000 on average. <LI nodeIndex="2">Economic Output: The Gross Domestic Product grew by an average, inflation-adjusted amount of $149.5 billion above baseline over the 10-year period. By 2021, GDP is $401 billion higher than baseline. <LI nodeIndex="3">Disposable Income: The after-tax, inflation-adjusted disposable income of households by 2021 is $164 billion higher than the baseline. Lower taxes and a friendlier economy led to the formation of an average of 123,000 more households per year. <LI nodeIndex="4">Savings and Investment: Stronger economic growth led individuals to increase private savings by an average of $202 billion over the ten-year period. <LI nodeIndex="5">This increase in private savings was matched by increases in investment in residential structures ($110 billion on average), non-residential equipment ($216 billion on average), and non-residential structures ($30 billion on average). <LI nodeIndex="6">Interest Rates and Inflation: Interest rates are generally lower than in the baseline. The yield on ten-year Treasury notes fell by an average of 37.6 basis points. The Consumer Price Index was virtually unchanged.
• Household Net Worth: The net worth of households increases by an annual average of $564 billion after inflation across this ten-year period.

Major Fiscal Indicators

• <LI nodeIndex="1">Federal Debt to GDP Ratio: The ratio of publicly held debt to GDP in 2021 (the end of the 10-year budget window) is projected to stand at 65 percent. Without the policy changes of the House Budget Resolution it would stand at 107 percent of GDP. <LI nodeIndex="2">Federal Revenues: Total federal revenues as a percent of GDP remain virtually unchanged from the baseline over the forecast period despite significant tax policy change: The House plan is 0.2 basis points (less than 1 basis point) lower on average than the forecast. <LI nodeIndex="3">Total receipts are $591 billion higher over the ten-year forecast period. <LI nodeIndex="4">On personal taxes, the income tax base grows on average by $279 billion, and personal tax receipts are $681 billion higher over the ten-year period. <LI nodeIndex="5">Corporate tax receipts are lower by $355 billion over the ten-year period. <LI nodeIndex="6">Federal Outlays: Total federal outlays are $703 billion lower on average over the ten-year period 2012 through 2021. In total, there are $9.3 trillion fewer dollars spent by the federal government over this ten-year period. <LI nodeIndex="7">Non-Defense Discretionary Purchases fall by an average of $118 billion per year.
• Defense Purchases fall by an average of $128 billion per year.

The House Budget significantly reduces the deficit in the ten year (2012-2021) time frame compared to its current policy fiscal path. The tax reform policies lower rates on labor and capital, which provide incentives to supply more of these productive resources. This causes revenues from these sources to be higher than a static estimate would project. Reductions in government spending lower expectations of future higher taxes and encourage greater investment in private sector enterprises versus precautionary savings in risk-free bonds. The lower supply of government bonds puts downward pressure on interest rates.[7]
However, the strong economic growth resulting from the tax and spending reforms also puts upward pressure on interest rates. A dynamic analysis shows that the net effect is lower interest rates from their current trajectory but higher than a static score predicted.
The static score of the House Budget seems to use much lower interest rates in the net interest payment calculation. The rates assumed are consistent with the current deflationary and slow growth economy, but would not be reasonable to assume these rates would continue especially if the economy begins to exhibit robust growth.
This again highlights the need for dynamic scoring to better understand the interactive effects of a complex economic system and take account of them. This will help better guide policies by (a) guiding expectations of deficits so as to minimize surprise budgetary needs (b) allows for better allocation of resources to meet the budgetary needs and (c) undertaking greater budget reforms that are in their direct control to offset effects that are not.
Appendix 1 (PDF)

Appendix 2

IHS Global Insight March 2011 Long-Term Model
CDA analysts used a version of the IHS Global Insight March 2011 Long-Term Model of the U.S. economy to estimate the overall net economic effects of the House Budget.[8] The adjusted GI March 2011 long-term model baseline represents the most likely path of the U.S. economy if the federal government extended policies consistent with those economic and budgetary assumptions underlying the Alternative Fiscal Scenario forecast as published by the CBO Long-Term Budget Outlook Report.
Description of the Adjusted GI March 2011 Long-Term Baseline
CDA analysts used a version of the GI March 2011 long-term model (referred to as the adjusted GI long-term baseline) of the U.S. economy to estimate the overall net effects of the House Budget plan. This adjusted GI long-term model of the U.S. economy reflects as close as possible to the Alternative Fiscal Scenario (AFS) forecast published in the June 2010 Long-Term Budget Outlook Report by the Congressional Budget Office.[9]
Economic Variables Underlying the Adjusted GI Long-Term Baseline. The economic projections in the CBO Long-Term Alternative Fiscal Scenario forecast are the same as those underlying the CBO Long-Term Extended Baseline Scenario forecast.[10]
For the 10-year fiscal outlook, the adjusted GI Long-Term model used the detailed assumptions in the 10-year Economic and Fiscal Outlook as published by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Thus, the economic projections underlying the adjusted GI March 2011 long-term model are exactly the same as those underlying the CBO’s Budget and Economic Outlook for the 2011 to 2022 projection period.[11]
The economic projections underlying the adjusted GI long-term baseline in the years 2022 to 2041 trend to the percentage change in the series applied to the value of the previous quarter beginning with 2021 Quarter 3. There is less detailed economic projection data underlying the CBO long-term alternative fiscal scenario forecast, so where possible the adjusted GI long-term baseline corresponds to the economic projection data assumed by the CBO.[12]
Demographic Variables Underlying the Adjusted GI Long-Term Baseline. The assumptions on the demographic variables in the adjusted GI long-term baseline are the same as those underlying the CBO Alternative Fiscal Scenario forecast.[13]
Spending Assumptions Underlying the Adjusted GI Long-Term Baseline. The adjusted GI long-term baseline used the same assumptions on federal government spending as detailed for the CBO long-term AFS forecast.[14]
Medicare. Medicare consumption in the adjusted GI long-term baseline was adjusted in two components: the amount assumed in the long-term CBO Alternative Fiscal Scenario forecast for Medicare premium payments and then by the forecast of the general amount of projected Medicare mandatory spending as a percent of GDP.[15] The payment rates to physicians are assumed to grow with the Medicare economic index, and the several policies that are proposed to restrain program spending are assumed to never take effect.[16]
Medicaid, CHIP, and Exchange Subsidies. The spending on these programs in the adjusted GI long-term baseline was the same assumed spending as a percent of GDP in the CBO long-term AFS.[17] Under current law there is assumed policy that would “slow the growth of subsidies for health insurance coverage” which is not assumed in the CBO long-term AFS. Therefore, the assumption underlying the spending in Medicaid, CHIP, and Exchange subsidies accounts for the 1 percent of GDP difference between the long-term Extended baseline scenario and the AFS forecasts.[18]
Social Security. Spending in Social Security in the adjusted GI long-term baseline was assumed to grow at the same percent of GDP in the CBO Alternative Fiscal Scenario forecast.[19]
Other Non-interest Spending. GI variables that reflect aggregate federal defense and non-defense real spending were generally assumed to change by the last value (in fiscal-year terms) applied to a ratio of the real baseline value to the last real value (in fiscal-year terms) in the adjusted GI long-term baseline using detailed budgetary targets from 2011 to 2021.[20]
Net Interest Payments. The federal net interest payments in the adjusted GI long-term baseline reflect that assumed in the CBO long-term alternative fiscal scenario.[21]
Revenue Assumptions Underlying the Adjusted GI Long-Term Baseline. The adjusted GI long-term baseline used the same underlying assumptions about federal government revenues as those underlying the CBO’s long-term AFS forecast.[22] Second, the policy alternatives that affect the tax code as outlined in the 10-year Budget and Economic Outlook are assumed in the adjusted GI long-term baseline. The changes used as targets in adjusting the baseline are the effect on the deficit and the debt service to extend certain income tax and estate and gift tax provisions scheduled to expire on December 31, 2012, and index the AMT for inflation and also to extend other expiring tax provisions.[23]
Description of the Dynamic Simulation
CDA analysts conducted the dynamic macroeconomic simulation using the static estimates of the tax and spending levels as provided by the House Budget Committee. The GI long-term model, as stated before, is a dynamic model of the U.S. economy that is designed to estimate how the general economy is reshaped by policy reforms, such as the tax reform and spending changes proposed in the House Budget plan.
The relationships in the model are calibrated by historical U.S. data and mainstream economic theory. The model is a tool that provides insight into likely magnitudes and the direction of economic variables due to policy changes. A dynamic analysis of a policy change is important because in an ever-changing and market-based economy, indirect and feedback effects need to be taken into account to obtain a true estimate of the likely overall economic impact.
Direct effects happen, for example, when many individuals make small changes in their labor and leisure trade-off decisions. These changes, in turn, change capital-labor trade-offs made by businesses. The macroeconomic model estimates these changes in relative prices dynamically such that these changes affect investment and output levels. Tax-rate changes, as an example, also affect personal disposable income and demand variables.
These have further feedback effects with supply variables as well as interaction with the fiscal revenues and spending variables. The feedback effects further increase or decrease the longer-term impact of the policy, providing a quantitative picture of whether the economy would tend to be stronger or weaker if the proposal were implemented compared to its baseline.
The adjusted GI long-term model produces dynamic responses from the CBO long-term Alternative Fiscal Scenario forecast as a result of the proposed revenue and spending changes in the House Budget Resolution.
Static Revenue Estimates. The IHS GI long-term model contains a number of variables that are used to conduct the macroeconomic simulation of the House Budget plan. CDA analysts made the following changes regarding tax inputs in the adjusted GI model to account for static estimates provided by the House Budget Committee:
Average Marginal Tax Rates. In the macroeconomic model, overall average marginal tax rates were changed by the amount simulated by the microsimulation tax model for individual filers. CDA analysts adjusted the GI variable (RTXPMARGF) that directly measures the average federal marginal income tax using percent changes from the baseline instead of the actual estimate (in the microsimulation tax model) to minimize biases in the estimate due to slightly different baseline values between the micro-model and macro-model.
Average Effective Personal Tax Rates. The add factor on the average effective federal personal income tax rate was changed by the percentage change from the baseline estimated in the microsimulation model. Adjusting the add factor allows for the dynamic indirect effects could continue to influence the average effective tax rate. The simulation was solved in stages. The final stage endogenously re-estimated the add factor on the average effective rate in order to target the percentage of revenue to GDP outlined in the House Budget Resolution.
Maximum Marginal Tax Rate on Personal Capital Gains. CDA analysts made an adjustment to the GI variable (RTXCAPGMAX) that measures the maximum marginal tax rate on capital gains given by the House Budget Committee.
Statutory Federal Corporate Income Tax Rate. The statutory federal corporate income tax rate variable was adjusted to the rate outlined in the tax policy specification of the House Budget Resolution.
Difference Between Effective and Statutory Corporate Income Tax Rate. CDA analysts made an adjustment on the GI variable (RTXCGFRES) that measures the difference between the effective and statutory corporate income tax rates to account for modest base-broadening proposed by tax policy specifications in the House Budget Resolution.
Static Spending Estimates. Static spending estimates for the House Budget Resolution were obtained from the House Budget Committee. The macroeconomic model has broad spending categories for Mandatory and Discretionary Spending. CDA analysts made changes to these variables as follows.
The changes in federal government Medicare and Medicaid spending were given in percent of GDP terms compared to the CBO baseline. The difference between the baseline percentage of GDP and the House Budget Resolution spending as a percent of GDP was used to find the spending reduction equivalents in the macro-model variables.
Real Medicare Payments on Behalf of Individuals. The spending level for Medicare was adjusted by computing the static difference in spending by applying the percent difference to the GDP in the adjusted GI long-term model baseline. This nominal dollar difference was then divided by the GI variable (JPCSVHC) measuring the health care services price deflator to obtain real values on the change to the variable YPTRGFSIHR.
Real Federal Medicaid Grants to State and Local Governments. The spending level for Medicaid transfers was changed using the same methodology as the Medicare spending given the percent of GDP changes supplied by the House Budget Committee. CDA analysts made an adjustment to the GI variable (GFAIDSLSSMEDR) that measures the real federal Medicaid grants to state and local governments by deflating the nominal dollar difference.
The inputs for the macroeconomic changes to OASDI, other mandatory spending, and the federal non-defense and defense outlay spending were provided by the House Budget Committee in nominal dollar amounts over the ten-year time frame 2012 to 2021. CDA analysts converted these amounts to a percent of GDP and applied the same methodology used to adjust the Medicare and Medicaid variables. This static difference in percent of GDP was applied to the adjusted GI long-term model baseline. Then, the nominal dollar change was adjusted to real dollar change by dividing by the relevant price deflator for that GI variable. Finally, the annual amounts were changed to quarterly inputs by applying the quarterly weighted average value to the annual value. The following variables were used to make these adjustments.
Federal Government OASDI Payments. CDA analysts adjusted the add-factor on Federal Government OASDI Payments (YPTRGFSISS) in order to allow indirect effects to continue to play a role in the spending level.
Real Federal Non-Medicaid Grants to State and Local Governments. CDA analysts made an adjustment to the GI variable (GFAIDSLOR) that measures real federal non-Medicaid grants to state and local governments.
Real Federal Defense and Non-Defense Discretionary Spending. The spending changes for non-defense and defense discretionary spending were adjusted by the spending level given by the House Budget Committee. The GI model has three broad discretionary categories for defense and three categories for non-defense spending. CDA analysts made adjustments to these variables by apportioning the total change in the budget by the historical weight of total spending in each of the three categories. This was done for both defense and non-defense category variables.
The variables directly affected by the changes to the tax, entitlement, and spending changes were also adjusted to simulate the policy reforms.
Dynamic Economic Estimates. Labor Participation Rates. Taxes on labor affect labor-market incentives. Aggregate labor elasticity is a measure of the response of aggregate hours to changes in the after-tax wage rate. These are larger than estimated micro-labor elasticities because they involve not only the intensive margin (more or fewer hours), but also, and even more so, the extensive margin (expanding the labor force).[24]
The change in the labor supply variables were adjusted by the macro-labor elasticity of two, which is a middle estimate of the ranges. The adjustment to the add factors allowed the variable to continue to be affected both positively and negatively by other indirect effects.
In the final stage of the simulations the add factors were endogenously recalculated in order to take account of the new estimates of the average tax rates mentioned above.
Cost of Capital. The cost of capital changes are affected directly and indirectly by the dynamic effects. (1) Lower corporate tax rates reduces the value of the interest rate deduction, which can put upward pressure on the cost of capital. (2) Lower corporate tax rates, though increase the after-tax rate of return to capital, which puts downward pressure on its cost. (3) Lower government spending decreases the demand for borrowed funds, which puts downward pressure on the cost of funds. (4) Labor and capital trade-offs as labor supply increases also plays an indirect role. These effects were all allowed to operate and then an adjustment was made to the federal funds rate, ten-year treasury rate, and corporate triple-A bond rate for the estimated percentage change in government debt. The model was then re-solved with this adjustment.[25]
Private Investment. Economic studies repeatedly find that government debt crowds-out private investment although the degree to which it does so can be debated.[26] The structure of the model does not allow for this direct feedback between government spending and private investment variables. Therefore, the add factors on private investment variables were also adjusted to reflect percentage changes in publicly held debt. This can also put upward pressure on the cost of capital (thus helping the model balance the demand and supply effects on the cost of capital).
Further details of the simulation are available upon request.
CDA analysts principally responsible for this report are:
William Beach, Director, report preparation,
Karen Campbell, Ph.D., Senior Policy Analyst, macroeconomic simulation,
John Ligon, Policy Analyst, macroeconomic simulation and methodology, and
Guinevere Nell, Research Programmer, microsimulation

Appendix 3 (PDF)

our problem is not that we are undertaxed, it's that we overspend.....you need to read the thread where PJ and myself tried to educate Doove on taxes...... Originally Posted by Marshall

.....but failed.

you need to read the thread where PJ and myself tried to educate Doove on taxes...... Originally Posted by Marshall

Correct English would make you sound smarter.

Somebody was watching FoxNews last night and is taking unwarranted credit....... Originally Posted by Marshall

Huh? I'm not sure what you're talking about, but I watched Bobby Jones - Stroke of Genius (in prep for the Masters) on my DVR last night.

Nevertheless, most of my thoughts are far from novel.

Shut the fucker down. That will save some money. Call in a few months if anyone outside DC notices.

What strikes me most is the fatuousness of the congressional debate, in view of the fact that these guys are quibbling over a few billion in the presence of a $1.6 trillion deficit. Deep down inside, everybody knows how much trouble we're in, and that no one has the political courage to do what we are sooner or later going to be forced to do.

I won't get into who's been schooling whom on tax issues, but am amazed by the lack of understanding demonstrated by a few posters in this forum. Apparently, some people still labor under the delusion that raising taxes on the top 1% would go a long way toward reducing our budget deficit, even though you'd have a hard time even coming close to eliminating a nickel of every deficit dollar by doing so.

We're going to face serious economic problems over the next few years. That's already baked into the cake. The baking process started about 8 years ago and continues unabated. It accelerated in 2009-10. We've just been digging a bigger and bigger hole.

A difficult period of reckoning is on the horizon.

Naive......and........
Sounds like the Bush/Cheney version of "conservatism" from one of the 47% who doesn't pay any income tax..... Originally Posted by Marshall

Damn Rudyard, Marshall seems to think you are in the lower half of the tax bracket!




Marshall, I don't know how much you make but my money is on Rudyard by a long shot.

They had a debt commission and my guess is that that will be a huge issue come 2012.

People might start getting what they wish for which will be higher taxes and less services. Only way you can bring down the debt.

Rudyard is spot on on this one Marshall.

Admittedly, that is the "read between the lines" message. Originally Posted by Rudyard K

j/p

Decide on the appropriate spending level. Take into account the cost (and it is a real cost) of raising money to pay for this spending. Then decide once more on the appropriate spending level. Then make the tax rate appropriate to generate revenue equal to that spending level.

BTW, the tax rate is actually a set of rates, a whole system of taxes. Make the tax system efficient, so that it raises the needed revenue at the lowest cost to the economy, where cost is efficiency. This may be difficult politically.

Hell, all of this is difficult politically, but it is NOT rocket science.

Our politicians are spineless. Both parties. They will act when circumstances force them to act and when all voters except the absolutely ignorant recognize the need. Until then, they dither. Then any politician with the guts to stand up and make a proposal is subject to attacks, and the attacks work because we the voters buy into the idea that there is an easy way out.

Damn Rudyard, Marshall seems to think you are in the lower half of the tax bracket!

Originally Posted by WTF

Shhhh!! Maybe he'll flash that big wad of cash. And we all know what happens then...When a man with money meets a man with experience...the man with the experience ends up with the money, and the man with the money ends up with the experience.

Shhhh!! Maybe he'll flash that big wad of cash. Originally Posted by Rudyard K

And the gal he flashes it at will think he has enormous amount of respect for her; oops wrong thread

Alexander Hamilton started the U.S. Treasury with nothing, and that was the closest our country has ever been to being even.

I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.

If I studied all my life, I couldn't think up half the number of funny things passed in one session of congress.

If Stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out?

If you ever injected truth into politics you have no politics.

It's a good thing we don't get all the government we pay for.

It's easy being a humorist when you've got the whole government working for you.

The only difference between death and taxes is that death doesn't get worse every time Congress meets.

There ought to be one day - just one - when there is open season on senators.

Things in our country run in spite of government, not by aid of it.

This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.

~ Will Rogers

You first have to realize what you're dealing with. It's a game of political chicken and a battle for the hearts and minds (to the extent that they have minds) of independent voters. And of course, this is just the dress rehearsal for the real fight, the 2012 budget. For the Democrats, a shut down is better than a bad deal because I think that the majority if independent voters will blame the TeaNuts in particular, and the Republicans in general.

The Democrats should also make public everyone's final offers. I understand from two phone calls today, including one with a Congressman, is that the sticking point isn't dollars and cents, but the Republican insistence on defunding Planned Parenthood and eliminating the ability of the EPA to regulate greenhouse gasses. When independent voters learn that, even more blame will fall upon the Republicans. They will eventually have to crawl down and eat crow.

Now whether this spineless SOB that we have as a President has enough balls to stand up to the Republicans and tell them to go pound sand like Clinton did is another issue.

Appendix 3 (PDF) Originally Posted by Marshall

Correct English would make you sound smarter. Originally Posted by charlestudor2005

And please, for the love of gawd, quit making it difficult to read these threads by cutting and pasting fifteen feet of some article you Googled. Just give us a link to go and read if you really think it supports your stated positions. Most of us can use a mouse.