The Last Homely House
General => Council of Cobra => Topic started by: legolas3333 on July 29, 2011, 06:26:23 PM
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Apple Computers Inc. now has more cash than the U.S. Government.
Thank you, Democratic party for coming to the center, even though the Republicans won't meet you there.
And thank you, G.O.P. for trying to kill our economy even more.
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Actually...pretty sure both of them have been unable to compromise, though the Republicans are being tactless and the Democrats are making political capital out of it.
Moderate opinion: Our country is run by idiots on the right AND left.
Though that post doesn't deserve a thumbs down people...come on.
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I'm just saying, the Democrats have been willing to give up some entitlement programs in exchange for fixing tax loopholes and slightly raising taxes across the board, but the republican house keeps voting through bills that are shot down in the senate so, you're right. No real compromise.
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i think anyone with less than a few trillion dollars in debt has more cash than the US government. honestly, i wish we would realize that just like a business, household, or any other institution, a nation needs more money coming in than being spent.
the hemorrhaging could be slowed if we would start exporting goods, and stop buying stuff from china, and start making it here. also, legally and illegally there is a pipeline of money flowing into mexico and central america.
people come to this country because they can make more money, and then they send it back to their families. nothing wrong with that, but it does hurt our economy, and the illegal money doesn't get taxed, so that hurts our government.
i think that if we had any brains we would drop the income tax (too many loopholes and it doesn't tax illegal business (drugs, prostitution, freelance landscapers who get paid in cash, such as myself)) and we should instead implement a 10% sales tax across the board.
i do not think that this could reverse our current situation, but had some of these issues been dealt with much earlier, maybe it would have helped.
i also think a good way for any federal government to not get so messed up with debt and junk is to only allow it to take a percentage of what each province has already levied. that way, people wouldn't get taxed twice and and there is a clearly defined limit to what the federal government can spend. and then maybe it will stick to the tasks its there for like the police force, judicial system, roadways, military, the basics, just the basics.
i'm just glad i'm not in politics.
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The Reid bill and the Boehner bill are pretty similar. The only real difference is that the Boehner's bill had a balance budget amendment. I'm not sure how you can say no to that and survive politically. They are asking for 900 billion more in debt and fighting about 1-5 billion dollars in cuts. Drastic changes need to be made, but does anyone have the will to make them. It appears that they do not.
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when a business runs out of money, it closes shop. when a government runs out of money, it clings on for dear life because nobody wants to lose their political power, and a lot of people don't want to lose their jobs. but at some point, the government won't have the ability to govern any longer, and we have to hope we won't have an invading army breathing down our neck. look back through history, and it hasn't boded well for declining nations. they usually got sacked or conquered or sometimes outright decimated.
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Until our representatives start voting for what is best for our country and not their own careers, then we will remain in very bad way.
I agree that we are in decline as a nation, both economically and morally, but government expansion is not the answer to our problems. Anything outside the scope of what government was intended to do, is best done by private industry. I think history bears this out.
when a business runs out of money, it closes shop. when a government runs out of money, it clings on for dear life because nobody wants to lose their political power, and a lot of people don't want to lose their jobs. but at some point, the government won't have the ability to govern any longer, and we have to hope we won't have an invading army breathing down our neck. look back through history, and it hasn't boded well for declining nations. they usually got sacked or conquered or sometimes outright decimated.
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This is a good start, but I don't think 10% would be enough. 20% is more in line with what the so called experts say would be needed. I like this sytem, as everyone is vested in paying for the system. It would still be less than I'm paying now in federal withholding, that's for sure...
If I make more and spend more than I pay more total dollars, but not more of a %. There's no free lunch in a system like this, which is what tends to ruin all government programs. Over 50% of Americans don't pay any federal withholding taxes. If that's not broken, then I don't know what is.
i think that if we had any brains we would drop the income tax (too many loopholes and it doesn't tax illegal business (drugs, prostitution, freelance landscapers who get paid in cash, such as myself)) and we should instead implement a 10% sales tax across the board.
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We have a 19% tax on everything we buy. But than again, in American eyes we're almost a communist country. :). We pay a lot of taxes, but life is good here. I really wonder where this is going. Rise and fall of an Empire? We'll see.
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You crazy Americans and your bonkers money.
In the words of the immortal Kenny Everett (at a Tory party conference in the 80s)...
"Let's bomb Russia!"
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I'm not sure how quoting a Brit says anything about Americans...
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Apple Computers Inc. now has more cash than the U.S. Government.
Thank you, Democratic party for coming to the center, even though the Republicans won't meet you there.
And thank you, G.O.P. for trying to kill our economy even more.
Spending more than you make is unintelligent. Trying to spend more and delay the inevitable is idiotic. The center is no more than an equal distance between two points. If point one is "Spending beyond our means" and point two is "Spending like the world will end tomorrow," then the concept of meeting in the middle is no more than political rhetoric. The last Democratic majority congress, the 111th Congress increased the deficit by billions. It is the responsibility of the 112th Congress to hack away as much of that spending as possible. The economy is a ship sinking in debt. There can be no compromises.
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you know that more than 50% of our expenditures goes to programs like medicare and social security. areas where the government has no business being involved in. on top of the fact that each working citizen would have to pay 13,000 a year in taxes to support the retired citizens. that doesn't include the money in taxes to support programs like the military and department of defense. needless to say, its no wonder we are in debt, our government promises TONS of money which they just frankly don't have.
and its gotta stop somewhere. any family knows you can't go on borrowing forever. someday the banks will stop lending to you. and for our government, someday other nations will stop lending to us. its really inevitable, unless we start making TONS of money.
of course we could just threaten to nuke the world unless everyone cancels our debts and then start over from square 1.
j/k
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Politics+Government+Partisan+More Politics=Game. Government, get a life please.
My two cents.
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Apple Computers Inc. now has more cash than the U.S. Government.
Thank you, Democratic party for coming to the center, even though the Republicans won't meet you there.
And thank you, G.O.P. for trying to kill our economy even more.
The "center" in this debate will not fix the debt problems our country faces. The "cuts" in both the Boehner plan and the Reid plan are not actual cuts to our spending, but rather decrease in the growth of spending. If congress were to implement a spending freeze, the CBO would score it as 9 Trillion in cuts over 10 years.
Also, our economy is more likely to be ruined by massive debt than spending cuts. Look where Greece is now, that is where we are headed. In addition, the current administration will never approve a bill that contains enough cuts to prevent a bond downgrade (somewhere in the region of 4-5 trillion dollars), and when our bond rating is downgraded, it will immediately become more expensive to borrow than it was before, due to higher interest rates.
Finally, we will not default on our loans if we pass August 2. Parts of the government will shut down, but we still take in enough money each month to pay for interest on our loans, social security, medicare, the DoD, and a few other important functions.
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The point is that "slowing spending" is better than "not slowing spending because nobody can get along." Ideally, we cut spending and balance the budget, but misguided stands on principle = stalemate = nothing happening = economic collapse. I feel for the Republicans, but I fear they've been too swayed by the tea partiers. And I understand the Democrats, but they've got to cut some of their pet projects in order to get spending under control.
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Brazil had a pretty huge international debt. I don't know if it applies to you guys, but the internal debt here was the bigger problem, although international debt gets more screen time. Anyway, thing is, Brazil is one of the countries with the highest tax rate in the world (seriously, you wouldn't believe how much we pay in taxes), and is corrupted to the core, meaning a huge chunk of that money up and vanishes, and we were still able to sit down, re-evaluate and pay the international debt in a bit more than 4 years, while it seemed impossible a few years before. And the U.S. is a much more productive country in terms of money, which basically goes to show that it's not done simply because the people responsible for guiding the nation are not interested in doing it - pick your reasons. Also, having basically two major political parties (ok, ok, three, but in all fairness...) means the attrition war is pretty severe there, to the point that I wouln't be surprised to see one party letting the country nuke itself just to prove the other party was incompetent. Pretty scary, actually.
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Well, yeah, pluralist countries do have an advantage there. (I'm all for pluralism, I think the U.S. should have gone for that a while ago).
The thing is, the United States has built into the government tons of Sunshine laws, meaning everything is open for scrutiny, to the point that even classified documents are leaked to the press. So the populace is allowed to know everything that's going on- and corruption hasn't really been able to take hold. At least, not in the sense you would think. The threat here in American is pork-barrel spending- meaning there's not so much embezzlement as there is Congressmen going out of way to secure money for pet projects that their constituents like. Like, say, Iowa getting corn and pork subsidies, and such stuff. It's eerily similar to the bread-and-circuses phenomenon of the collapsing Roman empire.
By far the biggest money drains are welfare and medicare- welfare taking to the form of essentially government handouts to anyone who is unemployed. The Republicans largely oppose welfare spending, while the Democrats have been highly in favor of it, and this has been one of the major dividing points on the debt issue. The Democrats wouldn't cut welfare/medicare spending, while the Republicans wouldn't raise the debt limit (which was necessary to keep the government operating at the current level that it's going).
Which is the third, by the way? Because I only really see two major political parties. :S And I live here.
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Well, you did have the Green Party as well a while back, didn't you? Is it dead already?
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Oh the Green Party? Yeah...so since America's a first-past-the-post-system, we have a number of "third parties." Essentially, they get a marginal percent of the vote, and since they can never get a majority, they never get elected. So they kind of get ignored.
The Green Party's one of those, as is the Constitution party, the Libertarian party, etc, etc.
The way third parties are "successful" in the United States is to snag enough votes to throw off the margin. For example- if a third party gets 5% of the vote, and a major party wins an election- let's say Democrats 48% vs Republians 47%- then the 5% of the vote could have swung the vote to a 52%-48% victory for the Republicans (or at lest to a 49-48 if they'd accommodated 2% of the party). The Republicans then adjust their policies to try to accommodate the third party. That's unfortunately about the only way that third parties can have their voices hear. Its why I favor a pluralistic system, but my views are an infinitesimal minority in the United States. In the mean-time, I back third parties anyways because I view both major parties as corrupt, even though if I had to, I would lean more Republican than Democrat.
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I see. Thanks for the explanation! Do you have a Communist party? Just curious, because we actually have 2 in name, and probably 1-2 more in ideology (not Communist ideas, but straight out Communism), which I find kinda funny given the current political (and economic) system we have, so they end up relegated to a similar aspect here to that of the Third Parties in the U.S.
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Yeah, barely. It's tiny enough that nobody cares.
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But how about the military as being a drain? Not to poke or to get into a nasty debate again, but I am wondering whether the US is cutting in those funds as well, since there is no country in the world that spends so much on defence as the US is. I know here in the Netherlands there are major cut backs, in the UK some equipment, that had been bought and never used, is brought to the scrapheap, just because the maintenance is way to expensive.
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There are some military cuts, though not as much as some would like (small compared to the total military spending). If we actually pull out of the Middle East, we'll save far more just by not having as many National Guard/Reserve personnel on active duty deployments.
As it stands, all branches of the US military are trying to get rid of personnel (primarily officers) in order to make ends meet.
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The military could probably remove several off its off-country base sites to help reduce costs as well. For instance, having a base in Germany seems rather unnecessary in this day and age to me.
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Again, if we weren't at war . . . Ramstein/Landstuhl (in Germany) is a major medical facility in support of the wars in the Middle East. Basically, the field hospitals in the desert stabilize serious cases and send them to Germany for major surgery. That facility can do basically anything that they could do states-side, but is ~8 hours closer to where people are getting hurt, which makes it far more effective as a medical facility.
Most other bases in Germany are combined bases (meaning that we share them with NATO or at least one other country). Is our participation in NATO worthwhile post-USSR? I think so in terms of fostering cooperation and sharing information about terrorist groups, but perhaps we could reduce our NATO-aligned manpower.
In any case, we still, as a people, expect our military to be ready to do anything that needs doing at a moment's notice. Whether it is providing aid to tsunami-struck Japan or removing a mad-man from power in Lybia, the military's ability to handle these tasks quickly depends on having assets nearby. Only when/if we're ready to step down as global military leaders will we be able to shutter the overseas bases and bring everybody home.
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To clarify, I do personally support NATO, but I believe restructuring is in order: A reduction in NATO manpower oversees would probably help financially in some marginal way at least. The U.S.'s allies are that for a reason (in Europe anyway), and with terrorism being a global threat, I believe confidently can be entrusted to keep current multinational facilities in order without U.S. personnel present. (That being said, multinational training exercises and wargames are excellent.)
In any case, I think it's evident that having no major military commitment in the Middle East would ideally be the best condition for the U.S. (though I'd hope they would continue to support endeavors such as Libya that require less overall, but worthwhile and significant, commitment). It's entirely possible (I think, though I'm no number-crunching expert) for the U.S. to remain a dominant military power even with some form of solid spending cutbacks.
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A critical aspect of U.S. culture (at least in theory, as far as practicality goes, well...) is self-sufficiency. The United States is very keen on being able to handle its own affairs, and not have to rely on anyone else. This is a part of what Washington talked during the founding era, when he cautioned against entangling alliances.
Consequently, the U.S. is more likely to spend more on a military than work with allies, as she doesn't want to be dependent. But then again, she's dependent on China economically so yeah, whatever.
That, plus us being at war, means defense cuts are unlikely.
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The time has come to do what is right regardless of political affiliation or personal benefit. It's time for the government to spend within it's means and to quite putting our children's future at risk just to satisfy the things that it wants for today.
The American people are ready. It's the politicians, whom are supposed to represent us, who are not. Cuts are coming and they will be across all spectrums when they do. The 2012 elections will be the beginning of some massive reforms.
IMHO or course...
A critical aspect of U.S. culture (at least in theory, as far as practicality goes, well...) is self-sufficiency. The United States is very keen on being able to handle its own affairs, and not have to rely on anyone else. This is a part of what Washington talked during the founding era, when he cautioned against entangling alliances.
Consequently, the U.S. is more likely to spend more on a military than work with allies, as she doesn't want to be dependent. But then again, she's dependent on China economically so yeah, whatever.
That, plus us being at war, means defense cuts are unlikely.
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The time has come to do what is right regardless of political affiliation or personal benefit. It's time for the government to spend within it's means and to quite putting our children's future at risk just to satisfy the things that it wants for today.
That would be what's called responsible government, IMHO!: People (in general) at this point in time, I believe, are too concern with immediate satisfaction to think long-term and properly plan for the future, and it's reflected in our governments world-wide.
A critical aspect of U.S. culture (at least in theory, as far as practicality goes, well...) is self-sufficiency. The United States is very keen on being able to handle its own affairs, and not have to rely on anyone else. This is a part of what Washington talked during the founding era, when he cautioned against entangling alliances.
Consequently, the U.S. is more likely to spend more on a military than work with allies, as she doesn't want to be dependent. But then again, she's dependent on China economically so yeah, whatever.
It's very true, but I believe that self-sufficiency is a principle that's probably over-stayed its welcome (and, as you pointed out, hypocritical economically, which has been the case eternally anyway). It's more a matter of pride that of necessity or wisdom in this age, which unfortunately can't bode well.
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The budget deal that they passed does have the promise of substantial military cuts, which is the wrong place to make them IMO (The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan cost ~1 Trillion over 8 years, which is less than the democrats spent in the 8 months after their election in 2008).
Also, China is looking to dethrone the US as the world's superpower, especially in the southeast asia region, though I don't think they will be successful since there is enormous economic stress caused by their economic bubble which will burst in the next few years. In addition, their "population control" programs have skewed their population to a heavily male, quickly aging population which will not be able to keep their economy growing.
As it is, we need to see major reforms in all the welfare programs, as well as a restructuring of the tax code, and an end to "baseline" accounting. I would also like to see a committee of honest, small government congressmen and women (oxymoron right?) go through the US code and recommend for elimination as many of the useless red tape laws as they can find.
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This is technically a no-win situation regardless of what your political persuasions are.
In order to balance the budget-- and I mean truly balance it to where the government is only spending as much as it's collecting in taxes-- we'd have to cut the defense budget by almost 40%, cut Social Security and welfare by 45%, and generally cut 1/3rd out of government spending in just about every other area, meaning laying off over well over a million government employees. Such a drastic move would utterly collapse the economy. So there is literally no way to balance the budget unless you want a national (and possibly global) depression.
Then again, increasing the debt limit (or even continuing with the limit we have) ultimately makes the budget situation even more impossible, and creditors know this. Which is why we have now been downgraded to a AA+ credit rating, and unless something drastic changes in the next 2 years, it will go down again. We are in a hole we can't climb out of. Increasing the debt limit only puts off the problem temporarily. Even if we were to cap the debt limit at its current levels, the stock market would STILL collapse as a result of that action.
The only real solution would be to slowly cut government spending over 12 or 15 years. It would continue to slow down the economy, but it wouldn't be as painful as cutting it all at once. There is no compromise that can fix this problem, because this problem was created via a combination of Democratic AND Republican stupidity over the last 20 years.
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honestly, i think we should completely get rid of social security and welfare etc. it really isn't the government's job to make sure you save money for your retirement, or even to guarantee that you survive. it IS the government's job to protect its people from invasion from without, and crime from within, to offer a just judicial system, and to maintain relationships with other countries and between provinces.
don't get me wrong, i think that healthcare, social security and things like that are fabulous if a country has the resources to field them. but the USA, as we are all well aware, does not.
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The role of the government is one open for debate obviously. But that is an whole other debate and it has been held on numerous occasions. Nonetheless an interesting one. Basically I see the whole budget dilemma for any country as the situation in a family. You have to do what you can do, but cut that what isn't necessary. Sounds simple, but turns out to be not. The biggest cut can be made on emotions I guess, since every cut is guided by emotions, making it very difficult to make an honest decision.
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We need to raise revenue. How exactly to go about that, I don't know. Full Employment for a start. Keynesian Economics maybe?
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The role of the government is one open for debate obviously. But that is an whole other debate and it has been held on numerous occasions. Nonetheless an interesting one. Basically I see the whole budget dilemma for any country as the situation in a family. You have to do what you can do, but cut that what isn't necessary. Sounds simple, but turns out to be not. The biggest cut can be made on emotions I guess, since every cut is guided by emotions, making it very difficult to make an honest decision.
very good point GE. right now 56% of the USA budget goes to social security, medicade, and welfare. we could cut more than half the spending by getting rid of those programs. my remarks on government responsibilities was to somewhat explain why i think those should go.
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We need to raise revenue. How exactly to go about that, I don't know. Full Employment for a start. Keynesian Economics maybe?
"Revenue" is the government bureaucratic code-word for "taxes". Keep than in mind whenever you hear politicians talk about "raising revenues". They do that because nobody wants to hear the 't' word. The government has no other way of making money. Not because they don't have the resources to be productive, but because the government is so utterly wasteful and incompetent with their money that they are incapable of generating any sort of ROI or managing their income properly. If you want to argue that point, ask me how much money the City of Long Beach charges their police department for an oil change.
The only way to "raise revenue" for the government without increasing taxes is for the economy to improve. The more money people make, the more they produce in taxes, and the more income the government receives. Of course, if the government can't balance their budget, then no amount of incoming taxes can possibly resolve the problem...
The role of the government is one open for debate obviously. But that is an whole other debate and it has been held on numerous occasions. Nonetheless an interesting one. Basically I see the whole budget dilemma for any country as the situation in a family. You have to do what you can do, but cut that what isn't necessary. Sounds simple, but turns out to be not. The biggest cut can be made on emotions I guess, since every cut is guided by emotions, making it very difficult to make an honest decision.
very good point GE. right now 56% of the USA budget goes to social security, medicade, and welfare. we could cut more than half the spending by getting rid of those programs. my remarks on government responsibilities was to somewhat explain why i think those should go.
This would be an utter disaster on so many levels. I don't completely disagree with your premise that government babysitting has gone way too far-- but to just cut it all out of the budget would be absolutely catastrophic. It would mean hundreds of thousands of government employees laid off, which means a massive flood of job competition on an already strained job market. Those government employees don't just disappear; they have families and lives to support. They ultimately have to find work like everyone else.
Then there is the consideration of how many people who are dependent on welfare and medicaid. If a 70-year old woman living on a shoestring government check suddenly doesn't have that check next month, how is she going to pay for food and medication? Not everyone on welfare is a lazy bum who refuses to work. You can't cut aid indiscriminately or the toll in human suffering would be enormous.
The only real solution in that situation would be to make bureaucracy more efficient by eliminating waste and streamlining processes. But an efficient bureaucracy is sort of an oxymoron to begin with.
As I said, there's really no way out of this mess other than some sort of significant technological breakthrough that will jumpstart the economy. For example, a new source of fuel.
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"Revenue" is the government bureaucratic code-word for "taxes". Keep than in mind whenever you hear politicians talk about "raising revenues". They do that because nobody wants to hear the 't' word. The government has no other way of making money. Not because they don't have the resources to be productive, but because the government is so utterly wasteful and incompetent with their money that they are incapable of generating any sort of ROI or managing their income properly. If you want to argue that point, ask me how much money the City of Long Beach charges their police department for an oil change.
Yes. Taxes=revenue. I know that.
The only way to "raise revenue" for the government without increasing taxes is for the economy to improve. The more money people make, the more they produce in taxes, and the more income the government receives. Of course, if the government can't balance their budget, then no amount of incoming taxes can possibly resolve the problem...
Actually yes, enough incoming taxes to balance the budget would solve the problem. If the economy hadn't tanked and the bush tax cuts expired we would be significantly closer to the balanced budget. I just finished running 11 miles over two cross country practices so I don't feel like researching the exact figures now.
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I think his point is that, if the government doesn't place a balanced budget as a priority, then no matter how much money they get in taxes, they will spend more. If the income goes up, the expenditures will go up even more.
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I think his point is that, if the government doesn't place a balanced budget as a priority, then no matter how much money they get in taxes, they will spend more. If the income goes up, the expenditures will go up even more.
Precisely my point. And the higher taxes go, the more the economy slows down, requiring increased tax rates just to maintain government income levels. The less money people have to spend, the less money goes into the economy. Then again, cutting taxes can (sometimes) actually INCREASE government revenue because it frees up consumer money to fuel the economy, which in turn generates more wealth, resulting in equal or increased returns in taxes. It sometimes blows my mind how even people who have studied economics their whole lives still think raising taxes fixes problems like this.
I challenge anyone to point to one time in history when raising taxes in and of itself stimulated an economy. It has never worked, ever. Sometimes extenuating circumstances like war necessitate higher tax rates, but the industry boon created by a large-scale war happens not because of the taxes but because of the necessity for mass production, which (usually) creates jobs. More than that, extensive wartime requires mass mobilization of a major country's resources and ALWAYS creates new technology, which helps maintain the economic boon after a war ends. That's a simplistic explanation, but taxes are still only a part of that equation and don't really solve anything.
Government spending on a massive scale also doesn't stimulate the economy unless it's spent on industry development and in a very precise way, other than just providing handouts in the form of "stimulus" money. Increasing competition by providing technology-based grants is a more effective means. Both this administration and the previous administration have failed catastrophically on both counts. Bush's defense spending DID actually bring a strong boon to the defense industry, but that's only a fragment of the economy so it doesn't hold anything up.
Please don't misinterpret me; I'm not against taxes. They're important. Nobody likes them, but we need them. The problem is the government is utterly incompetent with managing its revenues. I don't trust the government with the money I already give them. Why would I want to give them more of my money when they can't handle the money they have? That makes no sense.
It really is just a mess.
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I agree with pretty much all of this.
The policies of this administration have failed on a massive, massive scale. To argue otherwise is just simply silly. They took a bad problem and made it ten times worse. They pushed their agendas through with reckless abandon, at times with no regard to the democratic process, and definitely against the will and opinions of the majority of its citizens. They've been on the wrong side of American opinion on just about every major issue from almost the beginning of his presidency. I've never seen anything like it in my lifetime. They doubled down against the will of the American people and lost their gamble. I don't see how any Democrat can recover from this fact politically and I say that from an Independent Voter standpoint.
They have proven themselves to be incompotent and untrustworthy in my opinion. And, here lies the problem. There is simply no confidence remaining that Obama or the Democrats in power can solve any of these issues. Their solution is to keep spending. As bad as all of the mistakes are though, its the lack of confidence in his leadership abilities that's the real killer in my opinion. That has the potential to topple us over into another recession.
Nothing personal. Just an opinion of a independent voter.
I think his point is that, if the government doesn't place a balanced budget as a priority, then no matter how much money they get in taxes, they will spend more. If the income goes up, the expenditures will go up even more.
Precisely my point. And the higher taxes go, the more the economy slows down, requiring increased tax rates just to maintain government income levels. The less money people have to spend, the less money goes into the economy. Then again, cutting taxes can (sometimes) actually INCREASE government revenue because it frees up consumer money to fuel the economy, which in turn generates more wealth, resulting in equal or increased returns in taxes. It sometimes blows my mind how even people who have studied economics their whole lives still think raising taxes fixes problems like this.
I challenge anyone to point to one time in history when raising taxes in and of itself stimulated an economy. It has never worked, ever. Sometimes extenuating circumstances like war necessitate higher tax rates, but the industry boon created by a large-scale war happens not because of the taxes but because of the necessity for mass production, which (usually) creates jobs. More than that, extensive wartime requires mass mobilization of a major country's resources and ALWAYS creates new technology, which helps maintain the economic boon after a war ends. That's a simplistic explanation, but taxes are still only a part of that equation and don't really solve anything.
Government spending on a massive scale also doesn't stimulate the economy unless it's spent on industry development and in a very precise way, other than just providing handouts in the form of "stimulus" money. Increasing competition by providing technology-based grants is a more effective means. Both this administration and the previous administration have failed catastrophically on both counts. Bush's defense spending DID actually bring a strong boon to the defense industry, but that's only a fragment of the economy so it doesn't hold anything up.
Please don't misinterpret me; I'm not against taxes. They're important. Nobody likes them, but we need them. The problem is the government is utterly incompetent with managing its revenues. I don't trust the government with the money I already give them. Why would I want to give them more of my money when they can't handle the money they have? That makes no sense.
It really is just a mess.
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The big problem is that both parties are inept, and we don't have a viable third option, because the American people are to obsessed with the two-party system and friggin' tactical voting.
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We need to raise revenue. How exactly to go about that, I don't know. Full Employment for a start. Keynesian Economics maybe?
Keynesian economics doesn't work. The theory is that for every dollar of money the government spends, that dollar will generate some multiplier of wealth. However, it completely ignores two things: A) That taxes will deduct a percentage from that multiplier, and B) The government will go into debt, which must be repaid at some point.
Governments cannot create wealth, since they do not offer a "service" so to speak but rather serve a function. That being said, economic theory states that lowering taxes will also cause a mulitplier of wealth, since there is more money circulating the economy. What lowering taxes also does, however, is create a better business environment (the US currently has one of the higher corporate tax rates in the world), which can attract more wealth to the country.
Ronald Reagen used tax cuts to turn around the economy in the 80s, he still ran up a large deficit because they were accompanied by defense increases to run the Soviet Union into a corner, but the government took in a highly increased level of revenue and the economy began a boom that lasted until the 90s.
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The big problem is that both parties are inept, and we don't have a viable third option, because the American people are to obsessed with the two-party system and friggin' tactical voting.
Exactly. As horrible as the Democrats have been, the Republicans really have nothing inspiring to offer. They're basically still the same party they were when Bush was in charge, except smaller and more defiant. In this case that's not a bad thing because it's putting a door-stop in these insane Democratic policies, but it doesn't mean they're going to do any better if they're the majority. Saying "no that's a bad idea don't do it" isn't the same as saying "I've got a better idea", and they just don't have any.
We need to raise revenue. How exactly to go about that, I don't know. Full Employment for a start. Keynesian Economics maybe?
Keynesian economics doesn't work. The theory is that for every dollar of money the government spends, that dollar will generate some multiplier of wealth. However, it completely ignores two things: A) That taxes will deduct a percentage from that multiplier, and B) The government will go into debt, which must be repaid at some point.
Governments cannot create wealth, since they do not offer a "service" so to speak but rather serve a function. That being said, economic theory states that lowering taxes will also cause a mulitplier of wealth, since there is more money circulating the economy. What lowering taxes also does, however, is create a better business environment (the US currently has one of the higher corporate tax rates in the world), which can attract more wealth to the country.
Ronald Reagen used tax cuts to turn around the economy in the 80s, he still ran up a large deficit because they were accompanied by defense increases to run the Soviet Union into a corner, but the government took in a highly increased level of revenue and the economy began a boom that lasted until the 90s.
That's a great way to sum it up. Democrats like to say that Reagan's policies created a large deficit that had to be fixed by Bill Clinton's wonderful liberal economic moves, thus proving that conservative economic policies don't work and that the Democracts were right all along. This could not be farther from the truth.
As you said, Reagan took the mess that Jimmy Carter left HIM and turned it around. The deficit happened because we had to outproduce Russia to win the Cold War, and we did. The cost of that was a large national debt, but the debt wasn't nearly as out of control as it is now simply because we were still maintaining a stable economy, which was why it was even POSSIBLE for Clinton to balance the budget by the end of his time in office. Clinton did a good job of that. Unfortunately, he also championed the Community Reinvestment Act, which was directly responsible for paving the way to the housing market crisis that caused the CURRENT financial nightmare.
The point of that is, tax cuts do benefit the economy as a whole, even if they mean reduced government revenue short-term. Typically within 6 months to a year, tax cuts rebound in the form of increased government income, as Reagan proved. He used that income to bury the USSR war machine, but the principle is still sound and so is conservative economics.
People also love to argue that Bush's Jr.'s "conservative policies" helped create this mess, further 'proving' that Republican budgeting doesn't work. But people who say that think Bush's economic policies were conservative. They weren't. In fact his economic policies-- short of the tax cuts at the beginning of his first term-- absolutely sucked. Unlike Reagan, Bush didn't cut government spending ANYWHERE. So he cut taxes but he didn't reduce spending. That's like pouring less water in a leaky bucket hoping it will stop leaking. In fact, spending skyrocketed because of the Afghan and Iraq wars, so in addition to pouring less water, he also punched some more holes in the bottom. Defense agencies start sprouting up like mushrooms and absorbing money as though it was infinite. That's not conservative economics, that's irresponsibility.
So the economy crashed right as the national debt was ballooning and Bush had no idea what to do.
And then spend-happy Obama comes in declaring he will save us by...spending more money? Uh, ok. Oh look, now we've had our credit rating dropped because everyone knows we can't possibly pay our bills. Good job, President.
As I said before, there's very, very little that can be done to fix this other than slowly cut spending over an extended period of time while simultaneously cutting taxes and plugging regulation loopholes. That, and drilling every single source of oil on American ground to reduce our spending on foreign fuel. That'd help.
Either that or invent fusion-powered cars.
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I don't know if you noticed Creator, but the forums linked two of the words in your post to cards on the database lol.
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We need a form of proportional representation... we are one of the few democratic countries still using a two party system and it is solving nothing. The American people are frustrated with government and instead of trying to change anything they tune it out because its easier. Americans get political for a few months every 4 years and go about their business. And people wonder why everything is so out of control... welcome to an apolitical society.