Comments for Fiscal Cliff Notes Have no Place on NPR at http://www.cepr.net , comment 1 to 3 out of 3 comments http://www.cepr.net Thu, 20 Jun 2013 03:37:01 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/fiscal-cliff-notes-have-no-place-on-npr#comment-19255 In the past you have reminded folks that only under unusual (i.e., irrational) circumstances does it matter whether the govt finances its spending with debt (current framework) or taxes (the cliff). In your columns, you often remind folks that debt to GDP does not matter, from which the clear inference is that debt v taxes is irrelevant. Spending (not transfers), which might matter, does not decline, I suspect, but probably only falls below projected growth levels. This is for other folks to figure out...to me watching projections and CBO stuff are like a 3 card monte game. Again, probably not a cut per se. No cliff, even if congress does nothing next year. Now about that the spending anyway: Many like Rachel Madow want to keep us addicted to high energy use, subsidizing wind and solar with govt power lines, killing bats and raptors, and building more freeways so families can continue to live segregated lives far from the city in the pretty suburbs and drive in on their cute electric cars. So these folks want more spending, more damming up wild rivers and so forth. Whose backyard will those power lines go in? Nobody wants them. Anyway thankfully these will be delayed with the cliff, for sure. And of course 65 years after vanquishing Japan and Germany the US has troops all over the place, and in new places like the mideast. The pentagon could protect the United States without being the worlds policeman. Cutting the overseas defense spending where dollars flow to Japan, Germany, Afgahns, Saudis, etc., would have to be a net gain for US gnp. Plenty of costless cuts. - pete Tue, 02 Oct 2012 16:45:21 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/fiscal-cliff-notes-have-no-place-on-npr#comment-19233 .. sadly - see http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/02/us/senate-leaders-at-work-on-plan-to-avert-fiscal-cliff.html?hp&_r=0. Do those guys never take note of your comments? No doubt it helps to make talk about "savings from changes to social programs like Medicare and Social Security" seem more of a necessity when it's presented against an alarmist backdrop of a "fiscal cliff" - julian Mon, 01 Oct 2012 23:34:41 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/fiscal-cliff-notes-have-no-place-on-npr#comment-19232 Fiscal Cliff Clavin (after the pompous, perpetually misinformed character from Cheers) Fiscal Clifford, the big shaggy-dog-story (that can go on forever without saying anything) Fiscal Cliff-off-the-ol'-block (direct descendant of the budget scare tactics we've seen so many times before) - David M Mon, 01 Oct 2012 11:37:49 +0100