Budget Near Collapse as GOP Leader Quits!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Stan_Shmenge

Are you fucking joking me? You really believe this? We could zero out a whole alphabet soup of government agencies and no-one would be the wiser, unless they noticed the improvement in their lives.

None of the stuff you mention is low hanging fruit and aside from defense, none of your suggestions represent even 1% of the deficit never mind the overall budget.

DEA? Zero it out tomorrow. Legalize that shit.

That’s not fat, its enforcement. Your policy preferences does not turn their legitimate enforcement activity into fat. Besides, their budget is about a billion dollars, or about one one thousandth of the deficit.

Department of Education? Zero it out. Can anyone seriously argue that schools are better now that they have been federalized? Return education to local control.

Do you know where federal student loans come from? Pell Grants? only about 1/4 of the Dept of education’s 60 billion dollar budget is used for No Child Left Behind (legislation supported by Kennedy BTW). The fact that teachers unions don’t like it doesn’t mean its entirely bad.

[quote]
Department of Energy? Yeah, they have done a FAAANTASTIC job. Thanks to them we have cheap gas, electricity is almost free, oh wait…

[quote]

Do you know what the dept of energy does? 10 billion of its 27 billion dollar budget goes to nuclear security, 10 goes to environment and energy 5 goes to science and the rest goes to all sorts of other stuff (a lot of what they do is build nuclear reactors for submarines and build/decommission nuclear weapons. Sure they haven’t invented cold fusion yet but its a tough nut to crack.

ATF? You mean those clowns who are approving the sale of munitions to the drug mafia? Great job! It should be a convenience store, not a federal department. Burning children alive for being part of a religious sect that never harmed anyone was just a bonus.

Once again they are enforcement. They spend about a billion dollars a year.

Defense Department? We could cut about 75% of that one, if their mission only involved actual defense of our country. Bring our boys home, and close our bases around the world. What are we still doing in NATO, now that the cold war is over?

This is not what I meant by low hanging fruit. I happen to agree that we SHOULD cut defense significantly but thats not fact, thats opinion.

I know that right wing talk radio will never propose this cut, because their stations benefit, but how abouts we do away with the Ad Coucil? It seems that 90% if the ad space in overnight dead time is purchased by the Ad Council, reminding us to eat our vegetables and brush our teeth and fasten our goddamn seat belts. Zero it out.

I’m not sure that the ad council is a government agency:

Ad Council

PBS. Planned Parenthood. NPR. National Endowment for the Arts. All of that can go as far as I am concerned. Let people pay for the art they enjoy.

Other than the NEA, I’m not sure which of those are government agencies. NPR receives about 2% of its $180 million funding from federal grants. An aggregate total of about 10% of all public broadcasting is funded by the federal government. Its been that way since the 1980’s when Reagan had the same idea you did.

The Federal Government could easily shrink by at least one-third, without touching a dime of entitlements, which should also be scrutinized.

You realize that the federal budget is about 2/3 entitlements and interset on the national debt right? As the numbers above might indicate, all these savings that you think exist are fucking peanuts.

Speaking of which, why does anyone think Social Security is a good idea? A regressive tax, linked in imagination but in no reality to a benefit that pays more to people the less the actually need it. At least remove the income cap from withholding and means test the benefits so only those in need receive it. Does Bill Gates need to get Social Security payments? Well, he is eligible, even though he only paid in on his first 100k of earnings.

Its a form of forced savings with a HIGHLY progressive payout.

Just getting rid of the cap would be enough. Someone who averaged 10 million a year over a 35 year career would get a $150K check from social security every month but they would have to live past 100 just to get their money back with zero interest. If it would make you feel better we could make the payout a bit more progressive so that you would need to have averaged 50 million/year to get that sort of monthly benefit.

Also, can we please end the farm subsidies? Last time I checked, ADM wasn’t a small family farmer. Want to save the family farm? Leave them alone, and stop the insane new food legislation that will put the final nail in their coffin.

I don’t know if you’ve heard about the ethanol subsidies being repealed. Sure we could repeal more and these days it seems silly to subsidize farm products. I would prefer a subsidy system that is triggered by extraordinarily low prices which would create soft floors.

Already cut out the fat? Give me a break. If anything, the fat has been growing and growing.

You obviously have no idea what you are talking about.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@foolsguinea

But again, a lot of unionized private sector jobs rely on building military hardware, and much of the US relies on those workers’ incomes.

So you don’t think we can turn swords into plowshares?

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Stan_Shmenge

Wowsers. Couple of nutcases here. No wonder we are in such dire straights! And they let these people vote…

I think the problem is that you have no idea what you are talking about.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

I love it that you have consolidated all the conservative myths in one place to ridicule at once.

@Stan_Shmenge

I’m cool with that.

So you still think its waste or just something you disagree with?

Ha ha ha ha ha ha haaaaa. Snerk. Ha ha. Ever hear of the farce called “No Child Left Behind”? No, of course you haven’t. Moron.

Its one quarter of the department’s budget. Once again a policy issue, not exactly a bridge to nowhere.

No, I have a very good understanding of what a government department is for. It is for sucking in an increasing and endless vortex of the people’s money in order to establish control over the populace.

You seem to have a very poor understanding of government.

All functions of government that are extraconstitutional and should cease, forthwith.

The Supreme Court disagrees with you.

The cabinet post would dissolve when the useless alphabet soup agency is dissolved. God you are a moron.

Federal functions don’t disappear unless the need for that function disappears, if we could have privatized it easily it would have been privitized decades ago. We even tried to privatize tax collection once and it simply doesn’t work very well.

What part of zero it out don’t you understand? No it wouldn’t. Personnel in the department would be made to take honest work, and the department would be dissolved. It would cease to exist and it’s regulatory authority would be over with and it’s budget would end.

So we wouldn’t need to regulate nuclear power plants any more or build nuclear submarine engines or build, maintain or decommission nuclear weapons? You really have no idea what you are talking about do you?

Now, here we have it. Constitutional rights are a redneck vice. Thanks for playing. You are now officially done. Bye.

I think he was talking about alcohol tobacco and firearms (which frankly don’t wound any more redneck than any other list of things we want to control).

I would like you to look up the definition of the word “fungible”. We borrow, but according to you, all that borrowing is because of the military. Fail.

You realize that once you take out entitlements and interest on the national debt, then defense and security account for 2/3 of what is left. In other words we spend twice as much on defense/security as we spend on the rest of the government combined.

Actually, a very small amount of private sector jobs depend on military spending, and if those jobs are unionized, that is between the contractors and the labor force they employ. They take this into consideration when they bid on defense contracts, and when they negotiate with labor unions. This is in stark contrast to public employee labor unions where there is a built in conflict of interest in that the labor unions are major contributors to the elected officials who supposedly are negotiating in the public interest.

In what way are politicians any more beholden to federal employees than federal contractors? You do realize that federal employees cannot strike, don’t you? You do realize that their standard health benefits are lower than the health benefits provided by employers that provide health benefits. Beating up on federal employees (total federal non-military payroll + benefits is about $100 billion/year) and 1/9th of the federal budget to try and close a gap equal to 40% of the federal budget makes you look kind of stupid.

Yes, and I would have no problem with them if they didn’t TAKE PUBLIC MONEY. I, personally, feel abortion should be legal. I also feel that it is a horrific procedure that many people have a legitimate philosophical objection to, and that they shouldn’t be required to fund through their taxes at the point of a gun.

The federal government does not fund abortions at Planned Parenthood. The defunding planned parenthood bill said that we will not pay for the OTHER stuff that planned parenthood does like mammograms and pap smears if that organization ALSO provides abortions. You sound like you WANT to be fair and objective but you are getting too much of your information from people whoa re lying to you.

Did I say anything about the Bush tax cuts? I think taxes should be cut far more than Bush ever dreamed of, and that they should be targeted more at the working class.

You can’t do that if you want to balance the budget unless you are willing to make large cuts to entitlements and you seem to think social security is a good idea in principle at least.

Under my plan, the budget would have a surplus and we would pay down the national debt in maybe ten years.

[

It wouldn’t even come close.

I am against a tax that targets the poor linked to a benefit that helps the rich. Social Security in a nutshell.

Not really.

I have no idea what you are talking about here, and I suspect neither do you.

Not only do you have no idea what he is talking about, you have no idea what you are talking about.

Again, WTF? What does cutting ADM off the gravy train have to do with Marx? Maybe Groucho? You sir are a first class maroon.

I think the point is that the ACTUAL cost of food is much MUCH higher than what we end up paying.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus

Inflation’s a funny thing. If a government is unable to increase revenue by imposing truly progressive taxes, then it may well end up printing money to fund the necessary functions of government. And this type of inflation is nothing more or less than a flat sales tax across the board.

Its usually a wealth tax because incomes tend to increase to match the inflation
[/QUOTE]

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Penderel

Try to divorce yourself from this slavish pavlovian devotion to paying taxes and compare the situation to the “real world.” If you make $100 a week and spend $150, the solution to your woes is to spend less, not to demand that your boss pay you more. If you don’t believe this, try it some time - I guarantee that your employer will not see your side of things. And don’t worry about losing your job - there are plenty of social programs, untouched by those horrible “tax giveaways,” that will support you in the manner to which you’re accustomed.

That is not really a good analogy. A better analogy would be to say that you have rental property with rent of $1200 and cost to carry (mortgage, insurance, maintenance fees, etc.) is $2000 and your rent is relative low compared to similar properties in the neighborhood, then perhaps lowering your expenses isn’t the only thing you should be focusing on.

Of course you could just let your property deteriorate and charge even lower rent.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Penderel

Just to be clear here, are you comparing the current state of spending in Washington with a family that has “cut every single corner [they] possibly can?” Spending is going UP - no corners are being cut at all. Your analogy doesn’t work.

Our taxes don’t cover our structural costs. Even if we eliminated everything the CATO institute wants us to cut, we are STILL running a deficit.

Congress and the President don’t want to raise taxes to erase debt and get their house in order, they want more tax revenue so they can keep spending at the current pace.

cite? Considering their willingness to match $2 in spending cuts for every dollar in tax increases, it seems like you have no idea what you are talking about.

Not to get off on a tangent, but where does it stop? Keep spending, keep accruing debt, keep taxing the people to pay for it - eventually (theoretically), as in your scenario, 100% of your income and mine will go to the government, which can neither pay off the debt nor raise “income” any further. I have to live within my means, why can’t my country?

Can you please cite the politician that is saying that we should be increasing structural spending (as opposed to temporary stimulus) rather than cutting it?

I said nothing about cutting taxes to raise revenue. I’m no economist and can’t speak for or against that (though I’ve heard some compelling arguments that cutting taxes does raise revenue).

No you haven’t, you’ve been tricked.

I’m arguing that the notion that if you’re spending more money than you have, then the only option is to get more money comes straight from a kindergarten mentality. When I was five I wanted a new G.I. Joe. My mom told she didn’t have the money and I retorted, “Just write a check!” That economic plan didn’t work for my family then and it doesn’t work for the government now.

And you can’t cut enough to balance the budget without severely cutting entitlements. Good luck with that one after the Republicans poisoned the well on medicare during the health care debate.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Penderel

I comprehend that there are such things as necessities, but I also comprehend that the federal (and local) government spends billions of dollars that aren’t necessary. I recently saw a story on the local news about Detroit police cars not having enough equipment - to the point that during a traffic stop the officer had to call in the plates on his personal cell phone. The car they pulled over had tinted windows, custom rims, a huge stereo system, and other extras - the driver complained that he couldn’t afford a ticket because he was on food stamps.

I bring this up for two reasons. One, I think that it provides a useful analogy to government spending - the guy had no money for food but plenty for a tricked-out car. Government, in general, tends to throw money around recklessly, then complain that they don’t have enough revenue to keep the country going. There is a serious prioritization problem.

The second reason I bring up the food stamps driver is that he obviously doesn’t need food stamps. But the system is such that taxpayer money is wasted on those who don’t need and those who are defrauding the government - not only to the detriment of the average taxpayer, but also to those who really do need help.

I’m starting to ramble, but the real issue here isn’t whether or not there are necessities, it’s what those necessities really are. The problem is not that I can’t comprehend that there are necessities in government spending, it’s that you don’t seem to comprehend that billions of dollars are wasted on non-necessities.

We need trillions not billions.

The plural of anecdote is not data. Pointing out one or two instances (without a cite) does not carry the heft of a study or statistical analysis.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Penderel

I was told the following in an earlier post:

Speaking of only considering one side of the equation…

I’m not sure how yelling, “It’s all Bush’s fault” and hiking taxes is going to magically make debt disappear and bring Congress in line with their spending. A tax cut doesn’t cause a deficit unless spending isn’t cut too.

I thought that the wars in the middle east involved spending.

Not that I agree that this is all we need to do (I think we need entitlement reform) but those two things would get us most of the way to a balanced budget when the economy recovers.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Penderel

Years of politicians “borrowing” from SS, as well as population and life expectancy changes, has made it into what’s basically a federally sanctioned ponzi scheme.

This makes you sound ignorant.

The underlying concept that we can’t cut anything without utter failure is where my problem lies.

Which politician is taking that position? Which poster HERE is taking that psoition? Or do you just like beating the shit out of straw men?

The government’s obligation is to provide basic services and protection, not to bail you out on a bad investment, put food on your table, save money for when you get older, cure world hunger and disease… and the list goes on. Name-call all you want, but the current system is unsustainable.

Other than medicare and defense, it is only unsustainable if tax increases are off the table. You seem to assume that tax increases during a period of the lowest tax burden since the just before the great depression (funny how these low tax regimes precede economic crises) are not a possibility in addressing the deficit.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Bosstone

The problem with SS is not necessarily that losing it will cripple the nation (I’m ambivalent about it myself), but that there’s absolutely no political will to address it. It is an untouchable part of the budget because no one will touch it.

Social security is entirely sustainable if you eliminate the cap and frankly you can reinstate the cap about 20 years after the baby boomers die off.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Penderel

So, to follow your logic, if “The Rich” pay less in taxes they will have more money to invest with, meaning that companies will have more money with which to hire employees. These employees will be taxed on their income and on their expenditures, which will increase tax revenue. Thanks.

I used the household budget as an analogy. Since you feel that this is ignorant, perhaps you can explain how it is not ok for an individual to spend beyond his/her means, but it is acceptable for a government to do so.

Again I’ll mention the obvious philosophical hurdles here. I work to get money to support myself. You apparently work to get money for the government (which can then dole it out as it sees fit).

You are trying to push a rope. Corporations are currently sitting on 3 trillion dollars of cash waiting for the economy to improve. They are not doing so because the demand isn’t there. Despite the fact that they are getting almost ZERO return on their sitting cash, they aren’t investing because the demand isn’t there to buy anything they would want to sell.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Penderel

I don’t think that tax increases have been taken off the table. Republicans have simply demanded that corresponding cuts in spending also be made.

You are misinformed. They are demanding that the deficit be balanced entirely on spending cuts. The Democrats have proposed one dollar in tax increases for every 2 dollars of tax cuts (or eliminating loopholes).

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Penderel

Regginbrow - I apologize for any inaccurate ascriptions. You’ve done quite well explaining these economic theories (I will stay far away from the Laffer theory, if you don’t mind). To relate what I’ve been rambling about to your above post, it seems that many who are arguing that reform isn’t possible without tax increases seem to ignore the fact that, in a great many ways, Congress is “blowing $500 [they] don’t have on a TV.”

I think you should take a look at the budget and see where we are blowing the money because you seem to think we are spending most of our federal budget on stuff that accounts for a very small percentage of our federal budget.

My contention has been with the idea that raising taxes will solve the problem. I don’t see what’s wrong with Republicans demanding corresponding cuts in spending. If Congress wants to allocate money to create a highway system that will increase commerce, so be it. But adding the expense on top of frivolous, unnecessary expenditures (shrimp on treadmills and the cowboy poetry festival have been popular examples lately) is simply foolish and irresponsible.

Once again, that is not what Republicans are doing. They are talking tax increases off the table. http://www.gopusa.com/news/2011/06/24/boehner-let-me-be-clear-tax-hikes-are-off-the-table/

Its the Democrats that wnt a balanced approach and the Republicans are once again fooling you because you are too busy to keep up with the facts. They count on the fact that you are too busy to know the facts in order to take advantage of your visceral reactions to their dog whistle politics.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Penderel

Just to get all this straight: The surest way to get out of debt is to spend more and accrue more debt? Apparently I’ve been living my life entirely the wrong way.

Since political pragmatism has been brought up, I’ll mention again that increased tax revenue won’t be seen by politicians as a way to pay down the debt, it will be seen as more money they can spend.

I’ll also mention (once again) the stark philosophical difference running through these posts, this time the demonization of corporations and the wealthy.

And while I’m at it, the idea that increasing taxes and entitlement payouts will help everyone (apparently because of a trickle-up effect) doesn’t seem to have worked out yet. Why would it suddenly work now?

ONE person in this thread has talked about stimulative spending to point out that cutting spending has negative economic consequences (consequences we may have to face, but consequences nonetheless). I don’t recall anyone saying what you are saying. Why do you even bother posting on a board, why not just beat up these straw men at home on your own?

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Penderel

Isn’t there any correlation between the lower budget deficits that you mentioned and the fact that fewer people were on welfare during that time period?

No. Not enough to matter.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Penderel

I know that we’d still have a huge deficit - as I’ve said, cutting medicaid and welfare can’t be the only solutions, but I was addressing something you wrote earlier in response to my saying that increased welfare output doesn’t help everyone. You said that we are running greater budget deficits now with lower taxes than in past decades, but declined to address the fact that the welfare rolls were smaller in those decades. You seem to be moving the goal line - rather than defending the proposition that budget deficits are higher because of lower taxes, you’re suddenly arguing that elimination of entitlement programs won’t cure the deficit. If I’m wrong about this, please let me know.

Do you know what entitlemeent program means? It is largely (overwhelmingly?) social security and medicare.

[Bosstone]

Overkill much, Damuri?

[Penderel]

Thanks to Damuri, I no longer have a straw man to beat. He (she?) has changed my mind on all of this. Democrats, without exception, are kind-hearted, intelligent folks who only want the best for me, while Republicans (again, without exception) are heartless, mindless assholes whose sole purpose is to scare people and ruin the country. How could I have been so small-minded as not to see that one side is always right while the other is always wrong?

[CannyDan]

@Penderel

Thanks to Damuri, I no longer have a straw man to beat. He (she?) has changed my mind on all of this. Democrats, without exception, are kind-hearted, intelligent folks who only want the best for me, while Republicans (again, without exception) are heartless, mindless assholes whose sole purpose is to scare people and ruin the country. How could I have been so small-minded as not to see that one side is always right while the other is always wrong?

That’s hardly fair to Damuri. He has clearly not been trumpeting a blindly partisan position, and has not even come close to asserting what you claim here. He has merely pointed out, with cites, the position taken by the Republican Party as stated by its leadership and as demonstrated by its actions, and has contrasted that with the position taken by the Democratic Party as stated by its leadership. He has not ascribed goodness or evil to either side.

That the current GOP position is, by objective measurement, both intransigent and foolish and if followed (followed further, perhaps I should say, given the history of the past decade or so) will be harmful to most “regular Americans” is the assertion. Indeed, in this I fully agree with him. Whether the motivation behind the GOP’s actions is merely ignorance or actual malevolent design remains a debatable point.