What’s amazing is how big of a deficit we ran when supposedly the econommy was humming along in the mid 2000’s.
We had a budget surplus after WWII that helped us with Korea and Vietnam, and after that we still had plenty left over. That was all blown on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. You see, the Towers had been attacked during the Clinton Administration in 1991, but the terrorists failed to accomplish their objective, and they treated it as nothing. Then in 2001 when 4 planes were hijacked and 3 of the 4 hijackers accomplished their objectives, We OVERspent on both wars to hunt down the men responsible for it. The American people did not question the massive raise in defense spending.
To be fair, that’s the narrative that’s pounded into our heads from every mainstream media outlet except Fox News and parts of MSNBC. It relies upon the supreme coincidence of 50-50 blame for every single policy issue.
In other news Harry Reid calls the House Republican’s bluff: he agrees to 100% spending cuts. Republicans move football:
http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2011/07/25/277811/harry-reid-calls-house-republicans-bluff/
I’m not sure where the oligarchs stand on all this. I suspect that they might think about acquiring a better set of puppets.
The Iraq war had nothing to do with Al Qaeda.
The Bush administration was more concerned with missile defense in the Spring of 2001 than with terrorism: they thought the warnings of the Clinton administration were overblown. Richard Clarke had an inside look at both Presidencies and concluded that Al Gore would have been more on the ball than GWBush.
So, when they said they wanted the spending cuts 3 months ago, it was a lie?
So, they aren’t thinking like humans, they are only thinking “party line” and that’s it?
I can’t see why anyone would want to be president if the economy is tanked.
I’d think that the Republicans would be extremely concerned with what Wall St thinks, if the stereotype is true and they are all well off fat cats. As for responsible policy, shoot how often have we had that and has it ever lasted any longer than one term?
Merely an indication of how little you know about the subject.
Which is a hell of a lot different than what you said at first. Face it, if I were over 65 and/or didn’t hold views you disagree with, you wouldn’t keep pissing and moaning about this. Which is your burden, not mine.
And? Did I say anything to the contrary? Of course not.
How about you just shut the hell up and actually try to understand what I post? Everything you say here is wrong, which you would know if you would read without bias.
Sheesh.
No, if you were over 65 and sucking on the social security teat instead of the disability one I’d still call you a hypocrite, because you are. You benefit from one of largest entitlement programs ever devised, while looking down your nose at others who also receive money from the government. In reality, you’re no better than they are.
Even if curlcoat paid into it, and would’ve been happier pocketing the money instead of paying into SS every month, and now only wants the money back?
It simply amazes me that you cannot see the difference between a retirement plan (that was forced on me by the feds) and an entitlement program. Further, that you are either willing to lie about what you believe, or that you are actually dumb enough to state that you think that every senior getting SS is “sucking on the social security teat”. Perhaps some day you will be able to look beyond your jealousy or whatever the hell your problem is and get perspective.
That’s the thing, I did pay into it, for decades. Broomstick thinks that because SS has had it’s funds plundered that my taking it is the same thing as people who spend their lives on the dole.
Please tell me what federal government dole one can spend their entire life on?
There has been a 5 year lifetime limit on the so-called “dole” since the mid-1990’s. In other words, it’s been impossible to be on the dole for life for 15+ years now.
On top of that, quite a few people on government benefits used to be tax payers for years, even decades, and given half a chance will go back to be tax payers in the future.
You, on the other hand, will be extracting money from the government for the rest of your life.
Just to add a few more facts: the number of families on welfare (such as it is these days) has been reduced by more than 60%, and the amount spent on Temporary Assistance to Needy Families has been frozen for the last five years – not “Washington DC frozen” where there are inflation adjustments, but real frozen as in the budget for TANF has not changed in that time: $16.489 billion.
It isn’t his money. There’s no account at the Social Security Administration with a cash balance of how much you, I, or anyone else has paid in. Asking for the money back is as stupid as me going to State Farm and asking for my money back because I paid $1,400 in car insurance last year and I didn’t get into a single accident.
Oh, I know there’s no account; that’s why I never wanted to pay in to begin with – and why the analogy needs to involve someone who hadn’t wanted to pay State Farm in the first place, as curlcoat specified.
Ah, then your remedy is to elect politicians that want to repeal Social Security. Good luck! 
How about this then?
“I don’t have any children, why should I pay for public education?! If I want the American economy to collapse because we begin producing generations of illiterate children, then that’s my own business and nobody else’s! Nobody ever said knowledge of arithmetic is guaranteed in the Constitution, so poor children should either become rich and buy their own education, or they should go pound sand. Now get off my lawn!”
“Whiff” [the diminutive of “Whoosh”]
Not remotely the same thing.
Curlcoat never wanted to let the government hold that money in SS to begin with, and is now getting branded as a hypocrite for getting the money back. How does that compare to someone who doesn’t want to pay for public education but – has to and does? No analogy is perfect, but you’re glossing over the key component.
Well, Obama just used his bully pulpit. Boehner is now on giving his take and of course they don’t appear to see eye to eye at all.
The hypocrisy is not in getting the money back (and really, there’s no “back” here, as noted, there is no account with her name on it), The hypocrisy is
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Her continued insistence she doesn’t accept any sort of government assistance while accepting government dollars every month, and
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Looking down on others who get government assistant, but are not her kind of people.
The whole problem is that there’s no account with her name on it. She didn’t want them to hold her money at all; she didn’t want them to hold it without putting it in a specific account in particular; she now gets characterized as “accepting government dollars” when she would’ve been happier to keep her own dollars throughout.
Do you truly not see that? It’s not assistance; it’s recompense.