EPTThe US debt (proper debate) - Page 40
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ampson
United States2355 Posts
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Danglars
United States12133 Posts
Back to some core thinking: Is the problem the current debt or the current track of spending? Keep spending beyond your means, passing entitlement bill after entitlement bill, and pretty soon gov'ts stop buying your debt. They realize eventually you will be unable to make everybody's payments on the debt and default. Nobody wants to get stuck with that bill.This debt problem is not one tax increase from being solved, for after every increase in revenue in recent days, there's an even greater increase in spending! Compare the year to year increase in the deficit compared to revenue the U.S. takes in. Politically, nobody wants to be the first guy that cuts a politically-favorable program because you can't afford it. It never stopped us in the past, why now? Well ... because we'll soon have no way of paying for that, or federal employees, or the military, or the big social security and welfare payouts. Keep kicking the can down the road for it to be somebody else's problem, because the first person to treat the issue seriously will not get reelected. Reform Social Security & Medicare, together accounting for ~30% of government spending and increasing? Kiss that idea goodbye together with your future political aims as you get smeared as wanting to cut off old granny from her check. And Federal Reserve buying Treasury securities? Can you say right hand lending to the left? Aughhh when will the insanity end? My hope for control over the growth of the debt lies on future brave congressmen/senators willing to hold the line on new spending bills and push for spending cuts regardless of political opinion. Before, as it's already been said in this thread, inflation and default trash our currency, making it worthless. I gotta believe there's still a chance to buck the political trend and make grown-up decisions with money instead of giving in to a titanic collapse secured by political pressures. | ||
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jon arbuckle
Canada443 Posts
On July 30 2011 01:57 bonifaceviii wrote: So they need to delay and delay and delay, and hope that the Democrats are the ones that flinch first and propose cutting social security/medicare. I think Barack Obama would rather do the 14th amendment thing and fight it out in court instead. Obama already proposed raising the age for Medicare eligibility, which is for him a radical compromise. Even Reid's plan (which fingers crossed just gets stapled over whatever heads into the Senate so this whole thing can be some crisis in American history books someday) proposes no new revenue increases. Obama raising the debt ceiling on his own means nothing; there would still be a credit downgrade, which would on its own have catastrophic consequences. Fact is that some seem unfazed by or unaware of what a credit downgrade or default would mean; in fact they want it. Some running in the GOP primaries think it's good to stoke this maelstrom of dipshittery as much as possible, and Eric Cantor's behaviour has been almost entirely careerist. Others are living in a world where compromise is a more dire consequence than default. Some are just emphatic about "not playing politics," encouraging no political compromises, which I'm tempted to term "bovine libertarian anarchism." America: choose life. | ||
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Harbinger631
United States376 Posts
Bam. Debt crisis solved. | ||
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Telcontar
United Kingdom16710 Posts
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14340470 Latest figures from the US Treasury Department show that the country has an operating cash balance of $73.7bn (£45.3bn). Apple's most recent financial results put its reserves at $76.4bn (£46.9bn). | ||
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TheGlassface
United States612 Posts
On July 30 2011 02:26 Harbinger631 wrote: http://www.foxbusiness.com/on-air/stossel/blog/2011/07/29/take-chainsaw-budget-2 Bam. Debt crisis solved. "Eliminate Dept. of Education (includes Pell Grants): $106.9 billion (Cato Institute)" BAM. Batshit crazy ideas from John...fucking...Stossel of all people? Really man? Come now, try harder. That's just one the many "eliminates" that would start to fuck this country in half even more. This can't be a serious post. It just can't... | ||
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0neder
United States3733 Posts
On July 30 2011 01:57 ampson wrote: the Tea Party is still outrageous. Yes, it's so extreme and outrageous to believe we should spend no more than we make. What a bigoted and ridiculous position. It's sad how many people have had common sense indoctrinated out of them. | ||
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jdseemoreglass
United States3773 Posts
On July 30 2011 02:43 0neder wrote: Yes, it's so extreme and outrageous to believe we should spend no more than we make. What a bigoted and ridiculous position. It's sad how many people have had common sense indoctrinated out of them. Well said. I know the media was trying real hard to portray the entire tea party as the few fringe lunatics and racists, I just didn't know they would succeed so thoroughly. I guess people just believe what they want to believe. Spend no more than we make? Wow... what a novel idea. On July 30 2011 02:26 Harbinger631 wrote: http://www.foxbusiness.com/on-air/stossel/blog/2011/07/29/take-chainsaw-budget-2 Bam. Debt crisis solved. I read through that article, and to be honest it really scared me. The fact that it would take such drastic cuts across the board to put us just barely over our deficit is ridiculous. We should have never allowed ourselves to get into this position, between a rock and a hard place. I've got $100 that says these politicians just pass the buck to the next crew, as they've been doing for decades. In the end, our grandchildren will be the ones suffering. | ||
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0neder
United States3733 Posts
On July 30 2011 02:37 TheGlassface wrote: That's just one the many "eliminates" that would start to fuck this country in half even more. This can't be a serious post. It just can't... How would eliminating Pell grants @#$(* this country in half? It would mean that people over 23 would have to get a degree from a smaller local private university that hasn't exponentially inflated costs over the last few decades like public universities have. Our finances are in shambles. We have to do things that aren't fun and be adults. It's not a matter of whether we want to cut stuff. It must be done, and there's no time like the present. | ||
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don_kyuhote
3006 Posts
And that was 6 years ago.... | ||
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TheGlassface
United States612 Posts
On July 30 2011 02:50 0neder wrote: How would eliminating Pell grants @#$(* this country in half? It would mean that people over 23 would have to get a degree from a smaller local private university that hasn't exponentially inflated costs over the last few decades like public universities have. Our finances are in shambles. We have to do things that aren't fun and be adults. It's not a matter of whether we want to cut stuff. It must be done, and there's no time like the present. Cutting education access is an awful idea. People under 23 get them too by the way. The answer to getting finances in order isn't some catastrophic meltdown of everything. You gradually step back in a planned time line and yes, I'm afraid we're going to have to increase taxation as well. That's how things work. You don't just cut, cut cut. You have to add in some money to get back to even in the fastest possible manner. That entire article reads line after line of "eliminate." The transportation department? Really? You want our roads in even worse condition? If you want to "fix" pell grants, make it more of a work/study program or reduce the fraud in the system by enforcing strict rules on what the money can be used for. If we really want to make more money, reduce the amount of waste and fraud going on across all programs. If we started there, then moved to cut/tax issues, we'd be so much better off. There is money missing in almost every department. There is countless funds missing/misplaced overseas. | ||
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jdseemoreglass
United States3773 Posts
On July 30 2011 02:52 don_kyuhote wrote: lol one of my high school US history teacher used to always say during class "thanks guys, you guys and your children will be paying for our generation's debt" And that was 6 years ago.... People don't PAY debt these days. They keep increasing it until they get bailed out by the government. Who is gonna bail out the United States? lol.... We've all heard of "Too Big To Fail," but what about "Too Big To Bail-Out"? Thank god I don't have any children, and hopefully never will. | ||
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sunprince
United States2258 Posts
On July 30 2011 02:43 0neder wrote: Yes, it's so extreme and outrageous to believe we should spend no more than we make. What a bigoted and ridiculous position. It's sad how many people have had common sense indoctrinated out of them. Yeah, and you're a perfect example. Try reading what their Contract from America and consider what it actually entails. Or consider poll data that shows that the group is disproportionately composed of racist older white Evangelical males who voted for Bush twice (in other words, not that different from the Republican party in general). Believing in a balance budget might be flawed from economists' perspectivies, but you're right, it's not bigoted and ridiculous. The problem is just about everything else they believe in and who they are. These are the same people who supported Bush through two terms of massive deficit expansion. They supported the renewal of the Bush tax cuts even though that makes the deficit even worse. Despite pushing for spending cuts, they don't actually want to cut Social Security and Medicare (because they are disproportionately beneficiaries of such programs). They're trying to repeal healthcare reform that drastically cuts the deficit. They oppose a carbon tax/cap-and-trade which drastically reduces the deficit (not to mention makes for a better planet). In other words, their position is fiscally impossible. I don't think that Tea Party supporters are bad people when you break them down. They're well-meaning Americans who realized that our deficit is going to ruin us (even if it's without realizing they were largely the cause) and want to fix it. The problem is that they don't actually understand the numbers, and as a result have been co-opted by wealthy interests into supporting things that actually hurt themselves. They've been tricked into thinking that there's massive amounts of government waste that can be cut, when the reality is that you can't fix the deficit without (a) increasing taxes, and/or (b) cutting Social Security and Medicare, both of which they oppose. | ||
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ampson
United States2355 Posts
On July 30 2011 02:43 0neder wrote: Yes, it's so extreme and outrageous to believe we should spend no more than we make. What a bigoted and ridiculous position. It's sad how many people have had common sense indoctrinated out of them. It's not an outrageous idea to spend no more than what you make, it's outrageous that they want to accomplish this by LOWERING taxes and still not cut Social security and Medicare, which are HUGE contributors to the deficit. It's just not a practical solution. | ||
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jdseemoreglass
United States3773 Posts
On July 30 2011 03:45 ampson wrote: It's not an outrageous idea to spend no more than what you make, it's outrageous that they want to accomplish this by LOWERING taxes and still not cut Social security and Medicare, which are HUGE contributors to the deficit. It's just not a practical solution. The Tea Party people I have listened to are strongly in favor of cutting both Social Security and Medicare. I'm strongly in favor of both. I'm not sure how we are defining the actual "Tea Party" or how polls are being conducted to reach these absurd conclusions. In either case, it's completely pointless to blame this undefined group for the inability of politicians to balance a budget. They've failed to do that for decades, before there was even a thing called the Tea Party. | ||
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DetriusXii
Canada156 Posts
On July 30 2011 02:04 Danglars wrote: Back to some core thinking: Is the problem the current debt or the current track of spending? Keep spending beyond your means, passing entitlement bill after entitlement bill, and pretty soon gov'ts stop buying your debt. They realize eventually you will be unable to make everybody's payments on the debt and default. Nobody wants to get stuck with that bill.This debt problem is not one tax increase from being solved, for after every increase in revenue in recent days, there's an even greater increase in spending! Compare the year to year increase in the deficit compared to revenue the U.S. takes in. Balanced budgets aren't some unattainable phenomenon. Canada had them under the Liberal government. And you're thinking is flawed. The Cato Institute released a study that governments that increased taxes also had a tendency to then look at programs to cut. Governments that cut taxes didn't reduce their spending levels. So it seems that if you're serious about cutting spending, you have to raise taxes first. | ||
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Traeon
Austria366 Posts
What is the reason for this? This is an honest question. | ||
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farvacola
United States18835 Posts
On July 30 2011 04:06 jdseemoreglass wrote: The Tea Party people I have listened to are strongly in favor of cutting both Social Security and Medicare. I'm strongly in favor of both. I'm not sure how we are defining the actual "Tea Party" or how polls are being conducted to reach these absurd conclusions. In either case, it's completely pointless to blame this undefined group for the inability of politicians to balance a budget. They've failed to do that for decades, before there was even a thing called the Tea Party. Michelle Bachmann: "Gay marriage is probably the biggest issue that will impact our state and our nation in the last, at least, thirty years. I AM NOT UNDERSTATING THAT." Glen Urquhart: "The exact phrase 'separation of Church and State' came out of Adolph HItler's mouth, that's where it comes from. So the next time your liberal friends talk about the separation of Church and State, ASK THEM WHY THEY'RE NAZIS." Yeah, the Tea Party is the party for me..... | ||
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jdseemoreglass
United States3773 Posts
On July 30 2011 04:21 farvacola wrote: Michelle Bachmann: "Gay marriage is probably the biggest issue that will impact our state and our nation in the last, at least, thirty years. I AM NOT UNDERSTATING THAT." Glen Urquhart: "The exact phrase 'separation of Church and State' came out of Adolph HItler's mouth, that's where it comes from. So the next time your liberal friends talk about the separation of Church and State, ASK THEM WHY THEY'RE NAZIS." Yeah, the Tea Party is the party for me..... So you are defining Tea Party to be a quote from two Republicans... Thank you for completely proving my original point about how we choose to define things. | ||
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aristarchus
United States652 Posts
On July 30 2011 04:18 Traeon wrote: As an outside observer, I often get the impression that cutting military expenses is a taboo in the US. What is the reason for this? This is an honest question. This is a complicated sociological question, and I can't give you a real answer, but I will suggest some things. First, we're involved in two (or more) wars right now, which are extremely expensive, so it's hard to cut much without sever effects. But it's also sort of taboo in the long-term too, which is trickier. The biggest reason is that the military as an institution has a lot of respect, a lot of it well-earned. People don't make decisions rationally, and if you think the military has good people, you don't want to cut it, whereas "government bureaucrat" is not a title that gets you a lot of respect. Also, people don't have opinions on the actual level of military spending. No one says "It should be $743 per capita" as their political position. If you like the military, you think it should get "more", and if you don't like it, you think it should get "less". This is sort of true everywhere in all debates, but it causes particular problems here. Finally, no country is able to guarantee complete security, and all countries have a history of overestimating potential threats. But different countries get different standards. Lots of countries are worried about large-scale invasions and so forth. But the US is well beyond that concern. Instead we worry about another country we're on good terms with getting invaded, or terrorists killing a couple hundred Americans, etc. These are things most countries just write off as impossible to really protect against, but in the US they're considered *needs* rather than wants. So that requires a whole lot of military spending. Also, it's a huge interest group. Lots of businesses make tons of money from military contracts. Lots of people have jobs because of the military. Lots of towns would practically not exist if the military base there closed. So for (probably unconscious) selfish reasons, all those people like more military funding. | ||
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