I agree about abortion. You’ve framed the abortion debate before in terms of, “Anti-choicers don’t want you to get laid.” Making sure you can get laid is obviously nowhere near feminism’s top priority, but on the other hand, stopping people from getting laid is a worthless exercise in both futility and sadism. And more importantly, punishing women for getting laid is abusive and dehumanizing. And while the idea of sluts getting what they deserve is still depressingly common in our society, when you put it in such naked terms, it tends to push people away and make them realize certain things.

I’m not 100% sure it’ll work out that way with the economic discourse in the US. Even people at the bottom of the ladder, who should be supporting social safety nets for their own sake, are all to easily capable of imagining themselves as the Galtian bootstrappers and everyone else as the real proles. “I work hard,” they think, “there’s no way I’m one of those lazy proles.” Because they’ve swallowed the Republican notion that accepting welfare is a moral failing.

Yet another negative impact of religion on public discourse: the belief that suffering is a virtue, and that wanting to have a reasonable standard of living makes you some immoral monster.

David Gregory is a pompous, bitchy, millionaire talking head. In the interest of “full disclosure,” he and his ilk really should announce that they make millions of dollars a year.

He feels pain at even the suggestion that his income above $250,000 be taxed an extra 4 percent. He just won’t say that on air. But he will say that “some” must suffer, guiding the fucking conversation away from his fucking paycheck.

See, David Gregory is a dick.

Is it too much to ask for a politician to respond “I’m not going to worry about abstractions like balanced budgets and focus on minimizing people’s pain”?

It’s always other people that need to suffer, I am sure if you ask Mitt Romney he will tell you he has suffered enough, but other people need to toughen up like he did.

“If we could get Mitt Romney trying to outdo Newt Gingrich by explaining how he won’t be satisfied until good Christian women are selling blow jobs in the church parking lot to make rent, I think that would probably work out pretty well.”

...see, if they were dirty, liberal, hippie chicks doing something like that in the parking lot of a Walmart, it would be an indicator of just how far America has slipped into moral decline.  But if Good Christian Women discover and exploit a market relieving Good Christian Men of their spermal burden on the sanctified grounds of their Christian church, then that’s the sort of plucky entrepreneurial spirit that made America a great nation, and should be celebrated!...

I have been waiting since W vetoed increased funding for the SChip program for a republican to slip up and really admit what they want to see happen—the 13th Amendment repealed so that “job creators” can finally keep all of the money for themselves without the burden of having to pay their loathsome workers.

The OWS was ‘outing’ a lot of beltway bastards as well. The couldn’t help themselves or hold themselves back - they probably thought they were even being ‘reasonable’ about it.

What we need is more ‘on’ off mic exchanges.

Remember that scene with Andy Griffith in “A Face in the Crowd”?

“three areas where Americans will feel real pain…”

WILL feel real pain? How about the ones that are already feeling “real pain”, you gigantic asshole.

Fuck you David Gregory.

They know, as I know, that it’s probably not best for them to show their hand like this, which is why they’re constantly on about “babies”, but if you push hard enough, the “sex is evil and women should be punished for it” belief always comes out.

there, i fixed that for you.

“You know, something may be going down tonight, but it ain’t going to be jobs, sweetheart”

Considering Chris Christie’s recent response (with Romney standing right next to him) to the female hecklers, it looks like Mitt Romney might be quite comfortable with a fellatio-for-rent economic scheme.

I work hard

One thing I have learned in 51 years of life.

America does not reward hard work.

“America does not reward hard work.”

True.  In fact, in many circles “working hard” (physical labor, or anything truly difficult) is looked down on, as if had you been a truly successful person, you could/should have gotten/paid someone else to do that for you, and in fact you are probably a fool or a pretender to the upper classes (those classes that we loudly claim don’t exist here in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave…).

(This is one of the reasons having staff — servants/maids/gardeners/drivers/etc. — is so important among the upper levels of our society.  Paying for services — the more extravagant the better — is a big class marker.)

Now if you’re doing something “hard” as a hobby or sport, then that’s acceptable or even encouraged.  But if you can’t afford to pay a plumber to fix a leak in your house, and so you did it yourself, or fixed your own car, or dug-up and replanted your whole back yard, there’s a scent of fail/loser/class-traitor about it, as it was smarmy somehow.  (We won’t even get into thinking about those who actually work hard every day in their jobs…)

The only “hard work” that is respected is when you’re a CEO or a Wall Street financial gambler or some other Galtian hero, and claim the fact you work long hours (for unbelievably generous money) makes you a more sympathetic figure than any poor bastard digging ditches or washing dishes. 

Poor you!  Good thing you can take the limo home to your palatial estate and trophy wife, where you can sip the best (best always equating to “most expensive”) liqueurs and watch something on your 8-ft. wide bigscreen while decrying the laziness of those ghetto people who are soaking up all the nation’s money…

It makes perfect sense that Republicans want to test their candidates’ general ability to inflict pain on other people.  Almost all of the things they are asking their elected officials to do will cause pain to other people, and everyone knows it.  This is a test to make sure they don’t accidentally elect someone who will have a crisis of the heart once they get some authority and are forced to face their campaign promises in the cold light of day.

Slightly OT, but you might want to do something about the Ron Paul ads?

I certainly agree that the Republicans want us to suffer, but let’s not pretend for a moment that the Democrats are not equally serious when it comes to passing out the pain. Obama and the Democrats in Congress are fixated on fixing the deficit when the real issue is unemployment. The lesser of two evils is still evil.

I certainly agree that the Republicans want us to suffer, but let’s not pretend for a moment that the Democrats are not equally serious when it comes to passing out the pain. Obama and the Democrats in Congress are fixated on fixing the deficit when the real issue is unemployment. The lesser of two evils is still evil.

Hear, hear!  (Where are those like and dislike buttons? )

The cost of borrowing now is lower than any time I can remember.  We should put people to work rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure.

Since Obama would answer using more or less the same language, I’m not sure any Obama supporter wants this meme pushed.

Well, that’s not quite true.  Obama would stop at good Christian women giving handjobs instead of blowjobs, then claim that his vision of America is so profoundly different that we should drop our lives and send all our money to his campaign.

I guess if you accept an unborn child is a human life, sex becomes something you take more seriously?

I know a few pro-choice college girls who were atheist/agnostic and became pro-life after reviewing the evidence. I don’t think they wanted to punish female sexuality, most of them were sexually active!

Obama would stop at good Christian women giving handjobs instead of blowjobs, then claim that his vision of America is so profoundly different

Really? So let’s say Rush Limbaugh dropped trou and you had to chose one of those two options. Would you be more likely to reach out or get on your knees?

Sorry, but while I certainly know that there are precious few actual liberals in the Democratic party, there is still a hell of a difference. The “both sides do it” is a meme pushed by the conservatives to confuse frustrated liberals. Don’t be fooled.

Just remember - higher taxers on the rich is one pain that cannot be accepted.

Why?  Because shut the fuck up, that’s why.

Slightly OT, but you might want to do something about the Ron Paul ads?

Why? Letting Ron Paul’s campaign waste money advertising to people who aren’t going to be swayed by his bullshit seems like a great idea to me.

I guess if you accept an unborn child is a human life, sex becomes something you take more seriously?

Well, no, because I don’t have sex with the intention of impregnating anyone. Planned Parenthood and the rest of us pro-choicers are preventing far more abortions than your side, because we take sex seriously enough to advocate that people do it safely.

I know a few pro-choice college girls who were atheist/agnostic and became pro-life after reviewing the evidence. I don’t think they wanted to punish female sexuality, most of them were sexually active!

I know a few anti-choice college girls who were devout Christians and became pro-choice after reviewing the evidence.

See? I can do that too. And it’s just as worthless and evidence-free as your assertion.

“So let’s say Rush Limbaugh dropped trou and you had to chose one of those two options. Would you be more likely to reach out or get on your knees?”

...that is a choice so repellent it boggles the mind.  You might as well ask someone to choose which their own children should be killed, or would you rather be blind or deaf, or Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum are your only choices for POTUS.

The proper response to de-trousered Limbaugh would have to be along the lines of “I’ll take this cyanide instead”...

The proper response to de-trousered Limbaugh would have to be along the lines of “I’ll take this cyanide instead”...

Nope.  The proper response is to pick up two bricks and tell him to spread his legs wider…

I know a few anti-choice college girls who were devout Christians and became pro-choice after reviewing the evidence.

See? I can do that too. And it’s just as worthless and evidence-free as your assertion.

Triplanetary,
I think you missed the point. Which is that I don’t think it’s fair to claim that EVERYONE who is pro-life secretly just wants to punish people for having sex. It’s actually a strawman.

Don’t want to argue that an unborn child is not a human life? (Not surprising, the science is against you) Pretend your opponent just wants to punish you for having sex and argue against that instead. Strawman.

Pezzy, who cares? If I need a kidney, I can’t make you give me one, any more than an unborn child can make its mother donate nine months of life support.

I’m gonna dissent here.

The reality is that while Gregory’s “pain” formulation is replete of various Beltway insider tropes, the impulse behind it—that we have to pay for the amount of government we want—is a correct one that both liberals and conservatives love to ignore in favor of unconstrained spending and unconstrained tax cuts.

WHENEVER I hear a politician propose that we’re going to spend on this or that, or we’re going to slash taxes on this or that, the first question that comes to my mind is “how are you going to pay for it?”.  And when a liberal proposes raising taxes only on rich people or a conservative proposes cutting wasteful programs only, the first question that comes to my mind is “OK, how are you going to get the other 95 percent of the money you need?”.

We’re in a recession, of course, and that means that in the very short term, you can get away with deficit spending as a stimulus. But once we do get the economy back on track, that becomes a bad idea again.

It’s no fun to pay for programs. But Gregory, fundamentally, is right—we’re going to have to pay off all the bills we ran up, and that’s going to require some middle class pain. We can’t rely on supply side growth theories or some tax hikes on the rich to pay it all off.

“It’s no fun to pay for programs. But Gregory, fundamentally, is right—we’re going to have to pay off all the bills we ran up…”

...yes, but we don’t have to do it right now when the unemployment rate is so high.  Keynes, and many country’s experiences, showed that increasing government spending is the way to get out of a recessions/depression, probably the only way to do so. 

Gregory only asked the question because he’s a smug little prick who thinks he showing how big his journalistic balls are by asking such a pointed/provocative “gotcha” question.  If he was really sincere, that would be one thing.  But he’s faking sincerity about as much as he fakes being a real journalist.  William R. Murrow would not be impressed…

”...and that’s going to require some middle class pain.”

...possibly, but its not at all clear that strip-mining the people who are just barely a notch or two above the level of the lowest 60% of Americans is necessary.  On the other hand, when the 1% own 60% of everything, why should they not be required to recompense the cost of maintaining the country that they used to generate all that wealth? 

(Also, people at the Mitt Romney level, no matter how much they may think so, are not “middle class”.)

God knows the 1% are not giving it back to us in wages or jobs (the only good job is one in a third-world country where we can pay them chickenfeed), so what’s wrong with bringing back the tax rates that were in place while Ronnie Reagan was selling missiles to the Iranians?  Somehow, all those rich people not only managed to live through those “hard times” but in fact thrived…

“We can’t rely on supply side growth theories or some tax hikes on the rich to pay it all off.”

Everyone who doesn’t get Wingnut Welfare agrees that “supply side” was bullshit.  However tax hikes on the (only) people who benefited from “conservative” economic policies over the last 30-40 years seem perfectly reasonable.

Some rich asshole might be upset because he’ll have to wait an extra year before he can replace his Gulfstream jet, but it’s a small price to pay if a hundred other Americans got jobs repairing our crumbling infrastructure, as well as healthcare, not to mention the way that investing in the country pays us all back in economic success over the long run…

@Dilan Esper: It is true that you have to pay for the government you get, but the poor and the lower middle class are already paying as much as they can bear in the current economy. Asking us to suffer more when we already have high unemployment, low wages, and crushing debt is pretty goddamn cruel.

@Pezzy: “Pro-lifers want to punish people for sex” is not a strawman. Just look at all the pro-lifer attempts to ban contraception, and their opposition to safe sex education. Also, they’re not “unborn children”; they’re balstocysts, then embryos, and then fetuses. Only once they are born are they children.

Funny how when the rich were adequately taxed there was money for, well, everything.

And booming economies!

Check out the tax rates for the wealthy during the Eisenhower era—or pre-Reagan eras—during booming economies, that wasn’t a coincidence.

I remember the public school systems not strapped for cash, tuition free universities in California, infrastructure repair, a space program, an anti-poverty program, the non-profit health insurance that actually meant an illness or accident included adequate health care (no, not government funded, but not the privatized greed schemes Nixon ushered in, either.)

Again, a mere coincidence that the ultrawealthy were adequately taxed pre the Republican takeover of government (Eisenhower, a nominal Republican, with Democratic Congress, of course.)

What a fracking coincidence!

And it’s also no fracking coincidence that the ecomony continues to suck for all but the top 1% as long as “deficit slashing” and forcing the poor and middle class to “pay for” the debt run up to spare the wealthy from contributing their fair share.

WHENEVER I hear a politician propose that we’re going to spend on this or that, or we’re going to slash taxes on this or that, the first question that comes to my mind is “how are you going to pay for it?”.  And when a liberal proposes raising taxes only on rich people or a conservative proposes cutting wasteful programs only, the first question that comes to my mind is “OK, how are you going to get the other 95 percent of the money you need?”.

Apart from the teeny tiny minor fact that a true progressive tax system in America would be a vast improvement on the effectively regressive taxation that leaves the middle class paying more than the rich proportionately, you’re also forgetting the teeny tiny little point that the government never has to worry about getting money.  It can make it up out of thin air.

Now, usually there are problems with this.  Money is a tool for manipulating the real economy, the production of actual wealth in the form of goods and services.  Print money with abandon and you degrade its utility, with all sorts of nasty effects on that real economy - usually.

These are not usual times.  To be specific, the US economy is performing way below its actual capacity, losing perhaps a trillion dollars annually in wasted potential.  In stuff that could be produced which isn’t.  And, incidentally, in people unemployed, suffering, and living in tents while unoccupied houses rot.

The government never has to “pay” for the money it spends.  It does, however, have to balance the share of the economy it commands through spending money it creates with the reduction in private demand created by the money it destroys by taxation, or through borrowing.  At this point, it can and should be creating money in order to bring the unused portion of the real capacity of the economy back into play.

A GOVERNMENT IS NOT A HOUSEHOLD OR A BUSINESS.  It doesn’t exist to make a profit or balance the books, and it no more needs to tax in order to spend than a referee needs to take points away before they can award them.

It’s really kind of staggering that, given the current situation, not one of those people on the stage had the urge to say “Americans are feeling plenty of pain”. I honestly don’t even care if they used that as a throwaway line to explain why social security should be gutted or some such. The fact that they don’t feel they even have to pander to that idea is shocking in itself.

David Gregory blows. The dude doesn’t hold a candle to his predecessor (Tim Russert), and I was never much of a Tim Russert fan.

I guess if you accept an unborn child is a human life, sex becomes something you take more seriously?

And when you do have drunk, unprotected sex, the lucky bastard who managed to impregnate you doesn’t lose his one and only shot at reproduction ever. Instead he gets to marry you, his dick grows three sizes, and he now has the confidence to cheat on you with a bunch of other drunk sluts. Who will be having abortions, by the way.

Pezzy, who cares? If I need a kidney, I can’t make you give me one, any more than an unborn child can make its mother donate nine months of life support.

As far as I’m concerned, the ‘pro-life’ brigade would give more rights to dead people than to fertile women. You can’t take an organ from a person who has no more use for it out of respect, but you CAN require a living person to bear the strain on all her bodily resources that pregnancy entails.

We can’t rely on supply side growth theories or some tax hikes on the rich to pay it all off.

Actually, we can rely on tax hikes to the rich to pay for the programs that are being cut in order to pay for their tax break.  http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/02/tax_breaks_infographic.html

And that’s not even considering a tax RAISE, just eliminating the present tax cuts.  Don’t swallow their Kool-Aid.

“As far as I’m concerned, the ‘pro-life’ brigade would give more rights to dead people than to fertile women.”

...well, naturally.  The dead deserve more rights.  Regardless of their crimes and moral failures when they were alive, the dead’s opportunities to give new offense are over.

OTOH, fertile women can still give into temptation and have pleasurable sex without consequences by using contraception, or have sex, get pregnant, and then decide to avoid the consequences of their dirty deeds and abort their own children.  They can even dress up in seductive ways and (understandably) attract rapists — men who would not be able to control their primal urges in the face of such temptation, and therefore are not responsible for what they might do to a painted trollop who was asking for it. 

Depending on their age, fertile women may have decades of fertility ahead of them, during which they will have countless opportunities to exploit old ways of breaking man’s and God’s laws, or find new ways to offend.

Fertile women are just walking moral time bombs, not to mention walking wombs.  No wonder they are considered by many to be the lowest form of humanity…

(...forgive me, brother Poe...)

I think you missed the point. Which is that I don’t think it’s fair to claim that EVERYONE who is pro-life secretly just wants to punish people for having sex. It’s actually a strawman.

No, I think you missed the point, which was that your argumentum ad a couple people you supposedly know is worthless. Further, it doesn’t actually matter whether or not everyone who’s anti-choice is anti-choice because they want to punish people for having sex. Punishing people for having sex is the core and the point of anti-choice morality (and by the way, it ain’t no secret). If some anti-choicers are naive enough to believe that the anti-choice movement is sincere in its concern for unborn life, that doesn’t change the fact that it’s not.

Don’t want to argue that an unborn child is not a human life? (Not surprising, the science is against you)

I don’t want to argue it because it’s been argued a million times before. I can link you to some feminism 101 if you want. But more importantly, the argument is a distraction from the actual point of abortion politics (see above).

Unfortunately, the uninformed voting feel-good against their own interests is not only a US problem - see Egypt’s election results re tourist areas and the stances on one of the two big winners re drinking, beachwear, mixed cafes/restaurants/public venues.

...yes, but we don’t have to do it right now when the unemployment rate is so high.

I agree, but bear in mind, Keynes also says we need to cut the deficits and run surpluses once we get out. Long-term, you need to pay for your programs.

...possibly, but its not at all clear that strip-mining the people who are just barely a notch or two above the level of the lowest 60% of Americans is necessary

That’s actually where the money is. As much as the rich have done well in this country in the last 40 years (and they have), it’s still the case that broad-based taxes collect far more money. The Bush tax cuts on the rich cost $700 million over ten years; the Bush tax cuts on the middle class cost $3 billion over ten years.

Every European social democracy taxes the shit out of the middle class. If we follow the blueprint of “we can never raise middle class taxes”, we also can never have liberal government.

Everyone who doesn’t get Wingnut Welfare agrees that “supply side” was bullshit.  However tax hikes on the (only) people who benefited from “conservative” economic policies over the last 30-40 years seem perfectly reasonable.

It’s totally reasonable to soak the rich. Just don’t expect it to pay for the cost of the government.

It is true that you have to pay for the government you get, but the poor and the lower middle class are already paying as much as they can bear in the current economy.

I am not sure I really buy this. Under Clinton, tax rates on the middle class were higher. And bear in mind, tax rates are indexed to your income; if you can’t “bear” taxes because of your income, the tax system exempts you.

Apart from the teeny tiny minor fact that a true progressive tax system in America would be a vast improvement on the effectively regressive taxation that leaves the middle class paying more than the rich proportionately, you’re also forgetting the teeny tiny little point that the government never has to worry about getting money.  It can make it up out of thin air.

This is false and as dangerous as the conservative supply side view. Government can make money up out of thin air short term, but in the long term, that strategy gets you inflation. Indeed, just about every left-wing government in the world that thought it could solve its problems by increasing the money supply eventually got forced out of office when the economy tanked. (And by the way, this happened to more than a few right wing governments too.)

Now, note, I am not scaremongering about inflation. I agree that in the short term, we can boost the money supply no problem. That’s the monetary side of Keynesianism. But you can’t use the printing press to fund liberal programs long-term. You have to tax the middle class.

Actually, we can rely on tax hikes to the rich to pay for the programs that are being cut in order to pay for their tax break.  http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/02/tax_breaks_infographic.html

Long term, this is not true for two reasons: (1) over time, as health care costs increase, Medicare and Medicaid are going to swallow larger and larger portions of the budget that you can’t make up for by solely taxing the rich, and (2) if you rule out ever raising middle class taxes, it’s impossible to propose any new, expensive government programs. In other words, future liberal government is out under such a principle.

  “you’re also forgetting the teeny tiny little point that the government never has to worry about getting money.  It can make it up out of thin air.”

This is false and as dangerous as the conservative supply side view. Government can make money up out of thin air short term, but in the long term, that strategy gets you inflation.

Just as a brief hint, Dilan - don’t call my comment “false and dangerous” with one breath and then admit it is true with the next.  It just makes you look like more of a fool than you usually do.

Now, before you started bleating your Econ101 comments on inflation, did you bother reading this part?

“Print money with abandon and you degrade its utility, with all sorts of nasty effects on that real economy - usually.

These are not usual times.  To be specific, the US economy is performing way below its actual capacity, losing perhaps a trillion dollars annually in wasted potential.  In stuff that could be produced which isn’t. ”

Krugman’s been arguing ever since the recession got this bad that a few years of 6% inflation would actually be a really good thing for most Americans (but not, needless to say, for the 1%, which is why the Fed isn’t going to let it happen).

PiatoR - Clearly he did not. 
I flippantly noted that the government could just print whatever money it needed, noting that had drwbacks, to the troll last week, which was all he deserved for his the US government is the brokest nation evah rant, but was suprised no one followed up or protested with the inflation arguement.

Phoenician:

Before you accuse me of not reading your post, why don’t you go back and look at the context of this debate. Gregory is talking about the LONG TERM DEFICIT. That’s the only context in which “pain” makes sense.

So saying “we can print money in the short term” is irrelevant. We still have to raise taxes on middle class people in the long term, and we need to not demagogue tax increases on the middle class in the short term or pretend that the middle class never has to feel any pain in order for that to be politically feasible. The alternative is we create an atmosphere where tax increases are even more verboten and we end up with severe cuts in liberal programs and no new ones in the future.

In the debate that Gregory is trying to have, talking about short term deficit spending is completely orthogonal.

Krugman’s been arguing ever since the recession got this bad that a few years of 6% inflation would actually be a really good thing for most Americans (but not, needless to say, for the 1%, which is why the Fed isn’t going to let it happen).

I agree with this. But we’ll still need to jack up middle class taxes, at least to Clinton rates, plus impose a carbon tax on the middle class, when we come out of the recession.

Before you accuse me of not reading your post, why don’t you go back and look at the context of this debate. Gregory is talking about the LONG TERM DEFICIT. That’s the only context in which “pain” makes sense.

God, where to begin?

i, Firstly, there is no such indication that he is talking about the “LONG TERM DEFICIT”. Gregory’s actual question was “name three areas where Americans will feel real pain in order to balance the budget?” and he was addressing it to one of the current crop of Republican candidates.  This suggests that he’s talking about the current Republican talking point of, you know, balancing the budget ASAP - regardless of the cost.  In context, the same thing places like Britain have done IN THE LAST FEW YEARS - much to their cost.

Wishful thinking, Dilan.

ii, Secondly, you’re ignoring the point I made that you called my comment “false” when, in fact and as you admitted just after, it was true.  Which says something for your credibility on the issue.

Attempted distraction, Dilan.

iii, Next, the US budget deficit is not a pressing problem as yet.  See this graphic. the red line on the second graph, debt held by the public as a % of GDP is the relevant figure, and is under control - except for the uptick caused by the current economic recession. Germany and France have been over 60% for the last decade, and doing okay during that time.

Ignorance of the situation, Dilan.

iv, The current yield on a 10 year Treasury bond is 1.92%. If there’s a crisis due to out of control government borrowing, why are the people who, you know, lending money to the US government not concerned?

Ignorance of the situation, Dilan.

v, Currently the short-term problem is getting those resources back into play. Remember, the US is currently losing about a trillion dollars in potential production?  In a choice between dealing with a large and real short-term problem or a possible and managable longer-term problem, you should probably go for the former.

Ignorance of the situation, Dilan.

vi, And lastly, repeating an earlier point THE GOVERNMENT IS NOT A BUSINESS OR A HOUSEHOLD.  To be more specific, the government balance is not something that just happens autonomously - it sets other macroeconomic balances.

http://mmtwiki.org/wiki/The_Role_of_Government_Deficits#Sectoral_Balances

As a matter of simple accounting, the government’s fiscal balance is the inverse of the non-government balance; a government deficit over a year corresponds to a non-government surplus, an increase in non-government’s net financial assets.

In aggregate, there can be no accumulation (net savings) of financial assets in the non-government sector without the corresponding cumulative deficit spending from the government.

The government is the only entity that can provide the non-government with net financial assets.

You are currently running a trade deficit.  The money for that must come from reducing net private domestic financial assets OR from a government deficit.  You are currently in a recession and need to reduce private debt to stimulate demand - increasing net private domestic financial assets. The money for that must come from a trade surplus OR from a government deficit. And now you want to balance the government budget for ideological reasons?  At the same time you wanna run a trade deficit and increase private financial assets?

Make up your mind - either you degrade the US dollar and drastically alter your terms of trade to reduce the trade deficit (greatly increasing the price of imports such as oil), OR you keep running down private financial assets (greatly extending the current recession), OR you run a government deficit.  At least ONE of those HAS to happen.

Ignorance of economics, Dilan.

Gregory is talking about the LONG TERM DEFICIT. That’s the only context in which “pain” makes sense.

No, he’s not.  And if you say, “but then he’s not making sense,” then you finally understand David Gregory.