Which means that even less money is going towards our fighting forces. I’m not claiming the DoD is underfunded, just that if you’re going to bitch about spending growth being less than you’d like, that you treat all budget categories the same. If the Pentagon can get by with 10% less, so can everyone else. Especially since not everyone else has to also account for growth in health care costs. The military has had to tighten its belt a lot more than the agencies funded under the domestic discretionary category.
We’ve also made a decision as a country that we a) won’t cut entitlements, and b) won’t raise taxes on the middle class. Not even on the upper middle class. Not even on the pretty darn rich. Only the richest of the rich, and there just aren’t that many of them, so revenue gains from that group are minimal. Meanwhile, we cut taxes on ourselves even more with every passing election.
The only outcome of those priorities is shrinking discretionary spending in both the domestic and defense spheres. So quit bitching and embrace your small government. You voted for it.
On the middle class, you’re probably mostly correct. Not on the “pretty darn rich” and higher. There’s lots of revenue that could be gained by restoring taxes to Clinton-level rates for incomes about $250K or so.
In future, please have a coherent point in mind before you start ranting randomly.
In the post I objected to, you wrote that “[despite flat spending, we] still have Social Security …” Now you’re attributing the lowered spending on military to increased spending on SocSec. Can you grasp the inconsistency? Do you understand the difference between a clear argument and random babble with lies mixed with irrelevant factoids?
Oh. BTW, military spending has increased in absolute terms since 2005 and increased as a share of GDP. I think it’s also increased as a percent of the budget (though that’s a very STUPID basis of comparison) when related expenses like VA are included.
But at least, after 2 rounds, we finally got you to point to the misleading webpage that gave you your misleading numbers. In future don’t post any “facts” without cites, please. Over and over and over we learn that adaher is a master of confusion, lies, and misleadings. Whenever I see an adaher post with uncited “factoids” I’ll write AFFAWCAI – “All ‘facts’ from Adaher without cites are ignored.”
AFfAWCAI
But then he wouldn’t be adaher, would he? This is the same guy, remember, whose “solution” to understaffing problems at the IRS is to cut its budget - to “punish” it and thereby teach it to do better.
Its effectiveness and usefulness vs. the real world it has to face, maybe not so much. A lot of money is going to administration of pet projects in a lot of districts, but are we better off for it?
Since that isn’t going to change, how about we just keep laughing at him?
Pity is, he does show occasional signs of lucidity and awareness of reality. There’s something there, if it could only force its way past all the partisan talking points that are so much easier and so much more fun. So many of his colleagues show no such ability that it’s all the more tragic in his case.
We already did over 400K. There’s not that much more to be gotten between 250K-400K.
Now 100K and up, then you’re talking.
Stupid liberal idea of the day: that you can gain large amounts of revenue by taxing the top 1%.
Total revenue gain from ending the Bush tax cuts for those making over 250K: just under a trillion over 10 years, or just under $100 billion per year.
That’s not nothing, but it doesn’t even approach the fiscal challenges we face. There is no alternative to cutting discretionary spending. And no particular evidence that agencies can’t handle those cuts, because we have no evidence that the money they have is spent wisely and plenty of evidence that it isn’t.
How did we get surpluses under the last Clinton administration? Or the legendary prosperity of the Eisenhower years? Hint: Not by gutting Social Security.
I love that conservatives see American exceptionalism in everything and everyone except the government. We’re the most successful country in the world, with the largest government budget. That is evidence. Beyond that, we have a lot more evidence that people don’t spend their own money wisely.
Spending as a % of GDP fell during the Clinton years to 18%. No, we didn’t gut Social Security, although we did cut SS by raising taxes on SS benefits.
There are three reasons the theory of American exceptionalism doesn’t apply to our government:
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We are a nation with a limited government. We recognized the evils of government and so limited the power of that government. There has never been a theory of American exceptionalism that involved having the most awesome government. What makes us exceptional is having the most hamstrung government while still being able to perform its basic duties.
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The US is a large and diverse nation. Canada recognizes the shortcomings of this and gives arguably more control to provinces than we do to states. Even many small countries, like Sweden, see virtue in decentralization. Thinking that DC can impose solutions on a diverse, vast country like ours is a Stupid Liberal Idea.
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The nature of our country and culture means that we’re going to have less devotion to the idea of government than other countries. We have bad government for the same reason we have bad soccer teams.
Mostly because GDP grew 31% from 1993 to 2001 ($8.5 trillion to $11.2 trillion)
I don’t believe you without cites. Show the math, and we’ll see what your definition of “not that much” is.
This is a statement of opinion, not fact.
“Thinking that DC can impose solutions…” is an incredibly vague and simplistic statement, and largely false in any case – DC (the federal government) does in fact often “impose solutions” on this vast and diverse country.
This is another statement of opinion, and even if it’s true, this is far from immutable.
It’s mixed. There can be no doubt that, factually, the federal government is one of limited, enumerated powers, and not one of plenary authority.
Okay, the first sentence “We are a nation of limited government” is true, but so mundane and uninformative as to be pointless. Yes, our government doesn’t have unlimited power – this isn’t particularly special in the modern era.
You left out a rather large part of the quote.
I don’t know if I agree, although the reason I’m thinking of may well be inapplicable to the discussion and thoughts adaher was having.
In most of the world, governments aren’t limited. That is, they may limit themselves, but there is no legislative area in which they may not tread. In the United States, our dual-sovereign system means that the federal government can only legislate in the specific areas granted to it by the Constitution, and it’s the states that have authority to legislate in any area – except areas preempted by the feds.
That’s not trivial, and it’s unusual enough that a year doesn’t go by here on the SDMB in which someone disputes the truth of that proposition.
It’s not trivial, but it’s not the only way in which governments are “limited”. For example – various forms of freedom of speech and freedom of religion granted by many countries’ founding documents constitute a “limit” on government power (and “legislative areas”). There are many other examples, as I presume you can imagine.
So I’ll dispute that “In most of the world, governments aren’t limited”, unless you’re strictly talking about the dual-sovereign state/federal system.