EPTThe US debt (proper debate) - Page 43
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cfoy3
United States129 Posts
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UberAxolotl
United States29 Posts
Nice. Copy pasting an opinion article really adds to the debate. Well played. | ||
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cfoy3
United States129 Posts
If you had followed along, I have commented on numerous facets of this debate. That copy and paste was the last in a long line of discussions on this problem.Please do not judge too quickly. | ||
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LaLLsc2
United States502 Posts
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cfoy3
United States129 Posts
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TOloseGT
United States1145 Posts
On July 30 2011 14:57 cfoy3 wrote: Only one thing to do, educate yourself and elect more responsible members of Congress. We need to weed out radicals. Educating ourselves isn't the problem, it's rehabilitating the mouth foaming masses sucking up Foxnews. | ||
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LaLLsc2
United States502 Posts
On July 30 2011 14:57 cfoy3 wrote: Only one thing to do, educate yourself and elect more responsible members of Congress. We need to weed out radicals. Weed out radicals? Lets unite our focus on weeding out the satus quo. Look at where we are in comparison to where we could be with our advantage of being the worlds reserve currency.. Overreaching federal government ftl. | ||
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cfoy3
United States129 Posts
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LaLLsc2
United States502 Posts
On July 30 2011 15:08 cfoy3 wrote: When I mean weed out radicals I mean the ferocious tea party movement, that does not know basic economics. We need politicians who will tackle the deficit in a responsible way, not like this. Who are centrist and can work together to solve our problems. I couldn't agree more, although our definitions of politicians who will tackle the deficit likely differ. The tea party isnt a legitimate organization imo. There's no question our government needs to ease up on spending.. The real question is, how do we do it.. This is where the Tea Party fails and a libertarian stance triumphs. End these wars. | ||
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cfoy3
United States129 Posts
The biggest problem I have with libertarians, and I do not know if you have these views, is that I disagree with their thoughts on the size of the government. Their are certain things that the federal government needs to handle in this 21 century. The size and complexity of problems lend themselves to national organizations that can mount a unified response. People like entitlement programs and are willing to pay for them.People like education and government regulation (on some business). I think the government could defiantly be trimmed down. The level of waste and redudancy is astounding. This means privatizing many institutions to make them more flexible and provide better quality than a bureaucracy. For instance schools. Now obviously context is everything, but these are my feelings regarding the size of government. | ||
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nukeazerg
United States168 Posts
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LaLLsc2
United States502 Posts
On July 30 2011 15:48 nukeazerg wrote: Democrat President surged Afghan and started War in Libya. He voted against the debt increase last time. He says his trillion dollar stimulus wasnt shovel ready. He does not deserve any respect on budget matters. Whats sad is the neo-con movement in today's politics. They're all pro war. Warning some graphic images in video, natural consequence of war Summary of video is that war is evil. It has cost the world over 200,000 lives in the past 10 years, and its cost us over $4 Trillion dollars. And every single "Republican" candidate today supports them, with the exception of one. | ||
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cfoy3
United States129 Posts
I do not think that is really fair judge of Obama. The surge worked. He didn't get us in, but at least he immensely improved the situation. The libya is more complicated than that. The government is supposed to spend money when crisis happens such as when the economy takes a hit. The problem is that America had no piggy bank. We already had massive debts that the recession didn't help. This is compounded by the States having restrictive balanced budget amendment that hurt the economy. Further, you can perhaps criticize that his spending was too lopsided and more money should have been spent on tax breaks for the layman. Yet, spending money on new technology and infrastructure is not that bad of an idea. | ||
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blah_blah
346 Posts
On July 30 2011 09:18 0neder wrote:Sure, there are a few insanely rich people. Like Bill Gates. Look what he did with all his money. Why did he do that? Because America is the most giving nation on earth, and we don't need to be compelled to do it. It has been proven that conservatives are more giving, monetarily, than liberals, by percentage of income. Conservatives largely give money to churches, many of which are de facto businesses and whose tax-exempt status is one of the biggest ongoing shams in American culture. They also give money to organizations who aim to reshape American culture into a socially conservative, regressive society. It's not like conservatives are giving this money altruistically -- they are actively investing in partisan, ideological groups. I mean you shouldn't equate a conservative giving ten dollars to an abhorrent organization like Focus on the Family or donating to Liberty University with a liberal giving money to, say, Oxfam or NPR. As noted earlier, secular conservatives are extremely stingy with their giving. [B] Do you realize that the majority of millionaires in America are 1st-time millionaires (didn't inherit it) and small business owners? Do you realize that's who Obama wants to raise taxes on. Do you realize that raising taxes will make the job situation even more horrible than it already is? Why does it matter how they gained their money? It's not as if millionaires (small business owners or otherwise) are one tax increase away from falling back into poverty. And the rich and ultra-rich are already the group which have unique access to tax shelters on which they have to pay far less taxes than the middle class. See e.g. Warren Buffett noting that he pays less in taxes than his secretary. Besides, a substantial majority of millionaires are not in the highest tax bracket (close to 400k/year), i.e., the group which gained the most, percentage-wise, from the original Bush tax cuts. Moreover, taxation is progressive. If taxes are raised for the highest income bracket, than the only money that they pay the additional taxes on is the amount of money they make in the highest income bracket, i.e, basically the 400,001th dollar and onwards. Truly, something to be outraged about, right? Even with a tax increase, Americans would still be paying far less in taxes than those in other first-world countries. A couple of additional percentage points is not going to disincentivize making stupid amounts of money. | ||
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userstupidname
Sweden272 Posts
On July 30 2011 11:20 xDaunt wrote: http://www.aim.org/on-target-blog/cnn-poll-americans-like-balanced-budget-amendment/ Summary: 74% support for a balanced budget amendment. 66% support for a "proposal like cut, cap, and balance." In short, it looks like I have a far better understanding of the people's feeling than you. =) the poll entails around 1009 americans in a country of 300 millions, that is just such a dwarf number that... I can't even express the words, the hell would you base of that dumb ass poll? Even here in sweden the same poll regarding parties change on a weekly basis. | ||
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ControlMonkey
Australia3109 Posts
On July 30 2011 16:26 userstupidname wrote: the poll entails around 1009 americans in a country of 300 millions, that is just such a dwarf number that... I can't even express the words, the hell would you base of that dumb ass poll? Even here in sweden the same poll regarding parties change on a weekly basis. As long as the sample is truly random, 1000 is enough to have a fairly accurate poll. | ||
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blah_blah
346 Posts
On July 30 2011 16:26 userstupidname wrote:the poll entails around 1009 americans in a country of 300 millions, that is just such a dwarf number that... I can't even express the words, the hell would you base of that dumb ass poll? The mathematics behind polling is well understood. As long as you are careful that your sampling is fairly random (i.e., not picking 1009 people from the same zip code), very accurate polling can be done even with very small numbers of people. http://www.surveysystem.com/sscalc.htm | ||
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iPlaY.NettleS
Australia4456 Posts
On July 26 2011 15:31 Nightfall.589 wrote: Getting rid of the federal reserve carries plenty of other problems. (And going back to gold-backed currency would be one of the saddest non-solutions imaginable) You do understand the USD only has a couple of years maximum left as a fiat currency before it completely collapses right? Or do you think the US can up the debt limit by a trillion or more every year with no consequence? When the USD collapses (inevitable) the entire world fiat system will also collapse.It's so obvious. Yet, tax reforms/increases weren't any part of your suggestions. Raising taxes will damage the economy further , what is needed is tax cuts (Go google Laffer curve) and large cuts in government spending. | ||
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sunprince
United States2258 Posts
On July 30 2011 11:31 xDaunt wrote: The question regarding medicare and social security is "do you think that they worth it?" That's not the right question and that's not the point that I was making. The correct question is "Do you support REFORMING Medicare and social security?" Again, the only politicians actively advocating such reforms are "tea party" politicians. If the programs are 'worth it' then that means they are worth the cost, and therefore cuts are not desirable (and reform = cuts, regardless of how you want to spin it). On July 30 2011 11:31 xDaunt wrote: As for tea party composition, here's a different poll, and one that particularly highlights where the tea party came from: http://www.gallup.com/poll/127181/tea-partiers-fairly-mainstream-demographics.aspx You're failing reading comprehension, either of what your own links say, or this conversation. You claimed that the tea party is "not limited to right wing republicans" and that "the movement extends to the much broader base of Americans, including independents and many democrats". Both your links and mine indicate these to be factually untrue, as the Tea Party are certainly composed disproportionately of right wing Republicans (your own link concludes "Tea Party supporters are decidedly Republican and conservative in their leanings"). On July 30 2011 11:31 xDaunt wrote: Again, my point is that the tea party is greater than those that actually identify themselves as "tea party" supporters. It encompasses a very broad-based segment of fiscally conservative individuals. These people may not consider themselves "tea party" members, but they're still part of the movement that is voting fiscally liberal democrats and republicans out of office en masse. I call BS. You cannot consider people who merely agree with you on some issues to be supporters of your group. That would be like Democrats calling anyone who supports Social Security to be a Democrat. Unless someone considers themselves to be 'tea party supporter', it is factually incorrect to label them a tea party supporter. | ||
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sunprince
United States2258 Posts
On July 30 2011 17:21 iPlaY.NettleS wrote: You do understand the USD only has a couple of years maximum left as a fiat currency before it completely collapses right? Or do you think the US can up the debt limit by a trillion or more every year with no consequence? No one is arguing that the US can can continue to raise its debt limit by a trillion or more every year with no consequence. To the contrary, this entire discussion about debt reform is about getting it under control because it is already a problem. Please leave your arguments against fiat currency out of a thread that has nothing to do with it. On July 30 2011 17:21 iPlaY.NettleS wrote: Raising taxes will damage the economy further , what is needed is tax cuts (Go google Laffer curve) and large cuts in government spending. Economists do agree that raising taxes hurts the economy in a general sense. Know what hurts the economy much more? Runaway deficits and cutting the wrong areas of government spending. | ||
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