Again, you seem to not understand what not increasing our debt ceiling would do to us.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/04/debt_ceiling
“Strings” is a little tame. How about, “fucking the economy so deep it pukes jizz”?
I forgot you were the king of monkey punching expertise. You should change your name to grayback.
Putting your vast experience in this area aside (I concede to your brilliance in this most important of matters) please explain the concept that Congress decides what we need. We have a constitution that was written in great clarity as to the responsibilities and limitations Congress and I don’t recall anything about that being in their job description. Your premise that they decide what we need would suggest that every stupid thing they earmark is needed. Should we go back and refund the bridge to nowhere after it got so much public reaction?
I have no illusions that you will actually learn anything here and develop as a person, since in the monkey punch thread you ignorantly argued against the laws of physics for ten pages… But in the interests of making you look like a fucking idiot, I will do my best.
Congress is elected by people. It makes laws that determine the specific functioning of our government. If there is a bridge, it’s because the people, in the form of congress, have decided we needed one.
If you think there is something we don’t need, you should elect people who will get rid of it.
By your logic we will continue raising the debt until the end of time. Actually the end of time is when people stop lending us money. But before that happens the increases in debt will lower our credit rating which will raise the cost of debt.
Are you under the impression that our structural deficit is 1500 billion or are you just saying that to make the bush tax buts look very small?
What does the deficit look like without the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (~$150 billion, which presumably will be winding down over the next several years)?
What does the deficit look like without the wars and without the bipartisan stimulus stimulus packages (~$400 billion, which is pretty much done in 2011)?
What does the deficit look like without the wars, the stimulus and with a normal economy.
So if you back out another $300 billion for the Bush tax cuts (note this is ALL of them, not just the ones for those making more than $250,000 (in which case the increase in revenue is only about $80 billion/year), then you get pretty darn close to that 1.5 trillion deficit.
Bush inherited a surplus. Much or the road between there and here was paved by the wars in the middle east, the stimulus and the revenue, the costs of the recession, AND the Bush tax cuts.
The war will eventually end, the stimulus is already pretty much over and the recession will not be here forever but the Bush tax cuts seem to be taking root as the Republicans have taken repealing the Bush tax cuts “off the table”
That’s only because its had a ten year head start, medicare will catch up eventually and then eclipse it.
Just because the Republicans think that medicare is a problem doesn’t mean that it isn’t a problem. The real problem is that the only real solution to medicare is a combination of universal health care (which republicans don’t like) and cutting benefits (which democrats don’t like).
They did in fact, decide to build an expensive bridge in Alaska that served few people. It got a lot of flack for wasteful spending. They then un-decided to build it. Should we build the bridge?
Funny you should mention that given the last election. That’s exactly what happened.
The other side of the overspending coin is being undertaxed.
I know about the bridge to nowhere. We should do what congress decided to do. I assume you now understand that the congress decides on what we need, right?
I’m also aware of the results of the last election. There are a lot of people who are stupid, angry and ignorant. And the Tea Party got them to turn out. And now the congress, including the TP halfwits are deciding what we need.
Democrats have made me lactose intolerant, God damn them.
No, not really. Not until you’ve eliminated all unnecessary spending.
Congress, when looking at the Constitution, has a very limited role. It is subject to abuse when a person is in a position to buy a vote by promising to spend money. “A chicken in every pot” is an easy statement to make but that doesn’t mean it can be budgeted for. It’s easy for a union or business to buy that vote and even easier for a politician to sell it. There are no penalties for fiduciary malfeasance.
When you talk about talking money from someone (taxes) there is a responsibility to spend it wisely and also to limit what it is spent on. Again, going back to the constitution the duties of our elected officials are limited. They should be held to a standard of financial care in both respects.
Not WRT money.
sooooo, should we build the bridge or not? They decided both ways? Which vote counts in your book? Are there projects like that which can be cut?
soooooo, the people who don’t agree with you are stupid for electing the people who decide on what we need?
It seems logical that when voters are presented with a Congress that continues to raise the level of debt that they would vote for people who would get it under control.
I agree. And it has shit all to do with President Obama. The legislature controls the purse strings for this country, not the President. When we have spending of x, it is entirely because that is what congress has enacted (in the budget they pass). When we have revenue of y, it is entirely due to the tax structure they have set up. The president, outside of veto power, has no real control of this process; so I don’t understand why people are putting this mess at Obama’s doorstep.
Regardless of all this, the top marginal tax rate is low and revenue from corporate taxes has been dropping at the same time outlays have been going up. The rich in this country, including corporations, have made a dramatic shift in the preceding two decades. They have stopped financing the US through taxes, and are now financing the US by loaning it money… Meh…
One quick question, can you imagine what the reaction would be if the Democrats said that reducing the deficit by cutting spending was a non-starter? This is about how extreme I view the Republicans; that any attempts to raise revenue are off the table for them while they claim that the future of this country is on the line makes me dismiss them as a bunch of ridiculous ideologues.
Quoted for truth.
you are absolutely right that congress makes the budget but you cannot ignore the President’s influence as he puts forth his own budget and that is listened to even at a greater level when they in the same party.
the final vote counts, stupid. Don’t you know anything?
no, the people who don’t understand the debt ceiling is important and think cutting taxes raises revenue in all cases are stupid. You know, people like you.
The republicans are the ones who raise the debt.
I’d like to see any case of that in the real world.
They were both final vote counts. Which one was correct? One vote was for the bridge. Another vote was to cancel the bridge? You don’t seem to grasp the concept that there is government waste. You are as dense as the politicians who were voted out of office. In your world we just keep raising the debt limit until we are in the same situation as Greece.
Of course, “unnecessary” is quite easily defined no doubt.
Probably “That spending that Magiver does not agree with”