News bits: When rights collide, some people whine about it; Trump lawsuit yawner; Etc.

The Telegraph writes about attitudes in the UK (note I now question the reliability of the information posed here - I retract this news bit): 

Women’s rights have gone ‘too far’, say majority of Gen Z and millennials, study shows

More than half of younger generations polled say women's rights are now discriminating against men

Some 52 per cent of Gen Z and 53 per cent of millennials say society has gone so far in promoting women’s rights that it is discriminating against men, a survey by Ipsos UK and the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at King’s College London found. In contrast, four in 10 baby boomers (40 per cent) and Gen X (46 per cent) said the same. More than half of all men (55 per cent) held this opinion, compared to 41 per cent of women.

Men, what a bunch of wuss. No wonder so many of them in America are Christian nationalists. They get to sanctimoniously whine about being severely persecuted and oppressed with backing from the self-righteous wrath of loving, infallible God.

Note added after posting earlier today: Another reference in another story mentioned The Telegraph. That suggested that The Telegraph might be a radical right or hyper-radical right source. I checked on a fact accuracy and bias assessment source and found that The Telegraph is too often not reliable. Therefore, I retract this news bit as too likely unreliable.

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The NYT writes about Trump and the absent without leave law: “Prosecutors Signal Criminal Charges for Trump Are Likely -- The former president was told that he could appear before a Manhattan grand jury next week if he wishes to testify, a strong indication that an indictment could soon follow”

Yawn. The only news bit will be if (i) he is indicted or not, and then (ii) if he is acquitted or found guilty and liability for lawbreaking survives appeal all the way to the US Supreme Court. Everything else is the same empty white noise we have been hearing for some years now.

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Budget wars are heating up -- the GOP proposes blither and crackpottery, Biden proposes something that might work: This is posturing in advance of the radical right in congress ready to force the US to default on its debt. A NYT opinion piece by Paul Krugman argues these points:

• In 2013 radical Republicans proposed a budget that was economic nonsense, i.e., it would not have reduced the debt. It included a move to privatize Medicare over a period of some years, which would have achieved a goal the GOP wanted.

• In 2023 radical Republicans propose things that are even more nonsensical, while claiming the federal debt is a crisis. If the GOP was serious about there being a crisis, one could not see that reflected in their proposal, which preserves debt-increasing Trump tax cuts, with no cuts in in defense, Social Security or Medicare. Krugman comments on that: “Yet it also claims to balance the budget, which is basically impossible under these constraints.”

• By contrast, Biden’s proposal might do some good. He proposes to modestly reduce the ongoing spending deficit, while shrinking the federal deficit by about $3 trillion over 10 years. In essence, Biden’s proposal reduces deficit while modestly expanding social programs by (i) raising taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals, and (ii) cost-cutting measures in health care, e.g., via using Medicare’s bargaining power to reduce spending on prescription drugs. 

• Biden’s budget proposal is not far out of synch with what the Congressional Budget Office comes up with in its analysis of the Biden proposal. So, unlike the blithering nonsense from the GOP, there is some credibility in what Biden proposes.

• Krugman sees no economic sense in the Republican plan and muses about why that might be: “The modern G.O.P. gets its energy from culture war and racial hostility, not faith in the miraculous power of tax cuts and small government. So why not give up on the ghost of Reaganomics? Why not come out for a strong social safety net, but only for straight white people?” 

Was that last comment by Krugman snark? 🤨

Of course, there is zero chance that Biden’s proposal would pass in congress. The entire Republican cadre hates taxes and government. So, we will be left with gridlock probably right up to the time of a US default, maybe some time thereafter if the radicals force the US into  default.

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More fun with the budget -- the hyper-radicals throw down the gauntlet: The WaPo writes about what the foaming at the mouth hyper-radicals want in their budget utopia:  

The House Freedom Caucus insisted on steeper spending cuts than some GOP lawmakers had been considering, along with caps on future spending, as the fight over the debt ceiling intensifies

A powerful group of far-right Republicans on Friday issued a new set demands in the fight over the debt ceiling, stressing they would only supply their votes to raise the limit if they can secure about $130 billion in spending cuts, cap federal agencies’ future budgets and unwind the Biden administration’s economic agenda.

The ultimatum from the House Freedom Caucus — led by Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) — threatened to deal a massive blow to government health care, education, science and labor programs.

That’s more like what we have come to expect from the hyper-radical wing of the GOP. They believe in blue space lasers, babies and microchips in vaccines and lizard people Democrats. Those crackpot freaks are so far to the extreme right, they almost make the radicals look centrist. Almost, but not really.

Come June or whenever the US hits its spending ceiling, things are going to get real interesting and extremely ugly.

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More on the budget: The WaPo editorial board argues that the debt really is at crisis levels and a lot more than what Biden proposes is necessary. This paints a really scary scenario:

As debt gets bigger than the economy, the interest costs become so onerous that there is little money left for anything else. By 2033, the nation will be spending more on paying creditors than on the entire defense budget.

Even the more modest goal of attempting to stabilize the debt as a size of the economy would take close to $8 trillion in savings, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget says. Mr. Biden proposed about $3 trillion in net savings over the next decade, achieved mostly by hiking taxes on the rich and a proposal for the government to pay less for the prescription drugs it buys through programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. He deserves credit for offering some cuts and revenue raisers, but his plan underscores the reality that getting anywhere close to what’s needed over the next decade will take heroic political efforts.

The scale of sobriety that is now necessary means we will need to do a lot more than lawmakers are acknowledging. Republicans falsely claim that the nation’s budget situation would be fine if it just cut back on welfare, waste and foreign aid. Democrats are equally misleading when they suggest it will take raising taxes on big businesses and the rich and perhaps shaving a bit off defense to get where we need to be.

The CBO projects Medicare will have to start making dramatic cuts to benefits by 2030 and Social Security by 2033. There’s another reckoning coming even sooner, at the end of 2025, when Mr. Trump’s individual tax cuts expire. The GOP made the corporate tax cuts permanent, but not the cuts for families. If the tax cuts are extended, the nation’s finances look worse.

Is it just me or does the budget issue look this time like it is going to force a solution on us sooner rather than later, e.g., in the next 4-5 years? Some experts have been arguing for years that the longer we dither, the worse the pain will be later. That argument feels right.