I Want Your Money

A controversial look at Government spending....

What's that leave you thinking?

Keith

KK,

I was thinking I could buy tickets for you to the movie theater for this one.... Did you catch the trailer above?

Keith

Didn't Ronald Reagan run up a deficit of around 190 Billion Dollars? I think the only time the budget was balanced, at least for a short time, was under Bill Clinton. The country was already in the throws of a deep recession as well as debt when Obama took office from GWB.

I just don't see where the average american is going to benefit under the policies of the Republican Party. If someone understands how you can cut taxes and at the same time cut the country's debt, I sure as hell would like to know. Don't say cut spending, because that isn't going to happen. But if you insist, quote a Republican in leadership who has explained in detail what they are going to cut. Then re-read the first sentence in this paragraph.

If you really believe in this concept of individuality and everyone should just do for themselves, try making that your family policy and let me know how it works out for you.

The Republican answer isn't about improving the state of the nation; it's about further improving the economic state of the "have mores" as GWB called them. They've long since committed themselves to running the nation down a rat hole, but they're equally dedicated to doing so along with the really important stuff like preventing gay marriage, keeping gays out of the military, banning abortion, and otherwise controlling the lives of other people, while driving the U.S. into becoming the next feudal state.

Coming from the party that rammed Obamacare down the throats of the American people with bipartisanship.

Without even reading the bill.

you have to pass the bill to see, uh whats in it.

Sol Duc,

Show me an R that wants to improve the state of the nation, and I'll show you an optical illusion. But hey, feudal states are great, if you happen to be among the upper one-half of one percent. Are you?

Aunty,

I forget a lot, but not that I'm a moderate. I'm reminded of that every day.

Sg

The wild thing, SG, is that you (among others) with what I view as quite moderate views, are painted as a left wing zealot by what now passes for the conservative party.

Yeah, except I'm not sure I agree entirely, Hank.

The two big lightning rod issues, healthcare and bailouts/stimulus, I presume?

Healthcare -- that "extreme left wing" piece of legislation -- pretty much GOP candidate Bob Dole's healthcare plan in the end. Or Mitt Romney's ... I don't think of these guys as particularly left...

Bailouts were being voted on in Sept 2008--while I concede the stimulus passed in Feb 2009, really do you think this is something different from what the GOP controlled executive would have done had they been in office for 2 more months?

Which kind of gets back to my point, that what NOW is taken for "extreme left" (your words) would have easily passed for GOP/Conservative positions a handful of years ago.

I have an idea......let's just keep doing the same thing....that will make things better. Just what part of spending more than you take in, don't you get?
On my wall I work I have a newspaper clipping. The headline reads, "Obama Vows to half the National Debt in Four Years." (or something very close to that).

He's going to have to pick up the pace.

Hank, fine, then we need the people who SAY they want deficit reduction to be the leaders of the charge on the BIG costs of our federal government:

* Downsizing our military (those "cut it by half and it's still 4x the budget of the next closest nation arguments e.g.)
* Hatcheting social security and medicare somehow

Because unless you're going after this stuff, then your deficit reduction above-all-else position just watercooler CRAP.

The real money -- if you truly want to go get it -- is there for the taking. You just have to be the guys who are comfortable scaling back military industrial complex and entitlements.

What *I* think is that the so-called "spending is out of control" crowd really wants is to be back in power. They have a compelling, scary story to tell, and it's working. But they have absolutely no chance of achieving their stated goals -- it's just good advertising.

Fair question, my suggestions are:

* Halve military spending -- $3-400B/yr
* Extend Bush tax cuts only on income under $250K/$500K incomes -- $300B/yr
* I think you have to start pushing up the retirement age on Social Security--it should track with increases in average US life expectancy
* I don't know enough about the medicare issues to have a sense what to do here...

That's gotta be near a trillion per YEAR on my plan..

What's your plan? 10% reduction in military, okay, that gets you $70B. Only $930M to go. Oh, did you want to extend all those bush tax cuts, now you've got $1270B to go (that's right, nearly $1.3T).

Meanwhile Congress goes home early so they can campaign????

It's a mess and as long as we choose sides America is doomed!!!!!

Most of us agree on most things, at least where we would like to see the country be, but not necessarly on how to get there.

The problem is the system has been raped by Washington and Big Money (both sides of the aisle) and thus we are all screwed.

But at least we can call each other names as we see who can dig the biggest hole the fastest!!!

Don't matter who we elect none of what you write will ever be implemented. See post above

If you have a sense of irony you can easily find a very similar headline quoting GWB making the same promise.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/12/17/politics/main589170.shtml

A cursory review found that the following promised a balanced budget:

Herbert Hoover
John McCain
Bill Clinton
Ronald Reagan
GWB
Barrak Obama

They are all assholes. Every last one of them.

Which is exactly what drives me crazy about the Tea Party. They *say* they care about this stuff, but you and I know they don't. They care about power, and money -- just like the rest of them.

Where, oh where, have all the good people gone?

A lot of squabbling that will amount to a hill of beans. Meanwhile the house is on fire.

Thinking either party will fix this is laughable. How gullible some of you are. DaveV's pointing out the others who promised deficit reduction points out the obvious,..... they are liars, all of 'em.

Dems keep asking what would you cut, point to specifics. OK here goes;

If I were king the military budget would be halved, overseas bases dismantled, sold, and troops brought home to police the border areas, north and south. Both wars would be OVER post haste. Foreign aid/military aid to ALL countries would be eliminated.

The Federal Reserve would be audited then phased out of existance. Along with the Depts. of Ed, Energy, Agriculture, and the EPA. Legal tender laws would be repealed to allow currencies to compete with the dollar.

At which time these are implemented and eliminated the federal income tax would be repealed and replaced with nothing.

Saving $ in these places would curtail the need to immediately address both medicare and SS and enable us to take care of those who need to be taken care of. As the economy improves entitlements are reduced.

Really? I'm saying the Tea Party advances their fiscal responsibility mantra, and then has no realistic intention or plan to do anything more than token work in this direction (in fact, they support the bush tax cuts, which is the opposite)

The current administration -- for all their considerable faults -- they at least have fought for the things they campaigned on to some reasonable extent. Look, I'm not an ideological purist, I'm not inexperienced enough to believe any politician will keep 100% of his or her campaign promises.

Do you really believe the Tea Party will reduce our deficits in any way? What makes you think so? Given this is effectively their ENTIRE reason-for-being, what am I missing? Yeah, they're angry, outraged and motivated, but about what?

Actually it wasn't Aunty. I totally understood your point, I just disagreed with it. Note I asked a question, I didn't assert I knew how you felt.

I'm actually not blaming anyone either. Economies are wildly complex (arguably un-knowably so) and slow moving things. The president & congress -- as much as we wish otherwise -- has relatively little and high latency impact on the economy.

What I am asking is where are the SOLUTION oriented people in this world? Where have they gone?