As the saying goes, Democrats tax and spend, Republicans borrow and spend. The sort of fiscally conservative politics that some people, mostly Republicans like to play up rhetorically almost always gets trumped by the politics of pork. Maybe we need a Jewish-Muslim Congress so that we can get a Halal-Kosher budget.
Plus the American people don't give a **** about their govt wasting money. As long as they continue to be happy with their representatives provided that their representatives are wasting that money in their district then the political incentive for waste will insure it sticks around as policy. I mean people go vote in someone and go bitch to someone when they don't get what they want or get jobs or projects in their district. They bitch when they don't get a turn at the trough, rather than bitching when their congressfücker doesn't do the right thing. I'm not sure how much you can blame people for that sort of narrow self-interest but it does exist and drive the system. Look at military base closings. That shit was a no-brainer and it still got chopped at the knees after a decade because it was a political enema for anyone whose district was gonna lose bases. Even though those districts that did get sauced and tossed all did bueno post-pork.
Beyond that, cutting spending in a substantive way is not quite as easy as people want to make it out to be. All but a very few politicos are unwilling to touch Social Security and Medicare in a substantive way because it is not good politics. The military budget is also not gonna go down anytime soon because of politics. Our $300 billion in annual interest payments is also untouchable, unless of course we want to avoid paying it and simply borrow to pay it so that we can owe even more next year. Add up Social Security, Defense, Medicare, Interest and you've taken up a significant portion of the budget right there with political untouchables. No doubt there is lots of waste and lots of little waste. But working with the big figures is not quite as easy as some make it out to be.
I agree with just about all of this. People here think I'm nothing but a polarized Republican, but I'm not happy with the amount of spending they have allowed. They also haven't changed the tax code enoough.
We need to change the way Social Security is funded, perhaps with a national Sales tax. Or, we even need to consider phasing it out. I'm not sure how that would work, but our government really isn't supposed to be providing for our retirment. Perhaps it should only be for people who have medical/mental disabilities. The problem is that SS is now an addiction. Can you imgagine how indiscriminately crazy people would go if someone announced they wanted to phase it out?
Medicare is a little different. I actually think a limited medicare system is needed. Though, it should only provide basic and essential care to seniors. The proliferation of elective medications like Allegra and Lamisil has pushed drug prices throught he roof....and the isnsurance compaines pay for them.
The first part your post is correct as well: No one cares about waste. Just to venture a guess, I bet we could cut spending hy 20% if the pork was eliminated.
The first part is really flawed in its own right. First, being a liberal, you assume that the government creates posperity. It doesn't...it hinders it. And the engine you speak of...the problem is that the engine gets about 1 Mile per Gallon. It's an efficiency problem. That same engine also tries to pull everyone's train. So, it takes some of their power to pull the trains without as much. Problem is, the more it takes, the more fuel it needs. That's our government for you.
Granted -- efficiency is nice but i also believe that outsourcing has and will continue to cause much of the inefficiency unless there is truly a competitive process for the contracts but given that prior sucess predicts to some degree future sucess and political donations speak (i know cynical ) there is very little chance that outsourcing with aid efficiency at all... especially concidering that the bidding process delays the start of any contract so if something needs to be done, it just wont happen in a timely manner.... efficiency isnt simply a matter of passing the buck to lower managers or private corps, the government needs to have a permanent review board that is as apolitical as possible, since efficiency really shouldnt be based upon the political nature of the administration/congress but it tends to be...
Quote:
Now, as far is 5% is concerned: That would be fair. You prbably don;t pay much more than that now. I paid about 10% this year, even though my bracket is 27%. Imgaine the reveue if we eliminated almost all cheating. Imagine the boost to the economy if people like me got to keep another 3,600 a year.
Now the second part. Small government is good for everyone. Big government historically creates misery. This is historical fact.
Oh, and BTW, every state has money to a degree. Well, exceot California I suppose.
i paid somewhere around 5000 dollars in taxes (on income and an inheritance) so no i didnt pay 5% or anywhere near that number... what needs to be asked is this: does a government dollar spent equal a citizen dollar? that is if the government is purchasing a baskin robins birthday cake does it spend the 15 dollars that a citizen spends? does it spend more? does it spend less? and where does it spend more and where less? I honestly believe that in some cases the government pays less (say for dixie cups bought in bulk) than a citizen and in some places they pay more (like in 200 dollar toilet seats)... without a complete run down on this analysis claiming that "if i had the extra 3600, the economy would be doing better" doesnt mean squat, because it might actually do a lot worse... and reading over this i think the government spending more on an item than the average citizen might be better for the economy anyway... (hmm, strange thoughts running around up in my very molecularly oriented mind)... historical fact or no... i am from SC and there is no money in SC and there are very rare exceptions to the fact that the state is one of the most uneducated in the country, so, no, understanding that makes me realize that states even incrediably wealthy states never have enough money to do their citizens the service of education and otherwise...
Quote:
Your post is predicated on the fact that the federal government is responsible for everything around you. It's not. It gives very little money to local roads and school budgets and mom and pop boutiques. It doesn't build Wal-Marts and movie theatres and , and it shouldn't. I haven't seen too many cultural centers and YMCA's pop up because of federal funding. No, it's good at building train museums in towns where there are no trains (Altoona, PA), researching the sex life of salamanders and other fine endeavors. What it SHOULD do is defend our borders, protect and defend our natonal security abroad, maintain the infastructure, fund education equitably, and enforce laws that help the common good. It should NOT regulate our lives. It should NOT provide for our retirment by taking 12% of our paychecks very week.
here is where assumptions make sense... i am a synthetic chemist in a biophysics research lab in a private university. the lab i work in recieves most of its funding from government (as is the case in most us labs -- but i will get back to that later) so everything i see at work and everything i touch is due to the government investing money in science. i take public transit to work everyday (or i would drive on the federally subsidized highways) and while the government is notoriously bad a funding public transit, without that federal money there would be no even nominally efficient transit system in philly. i drive under a federally subsidized highway every day, my loans for college were mostly federal standford loans, my father a physician at a public hospital works primarily with indigent patients whose care is subsidized by the federal government, and my mother is a special education administrator/teacher whose job would not exist if it werent for federal rules and funding for programs, i listen to npr every day, my high school was created by a federal court mandate to desegregate the schools in charleston sc -- it is one of the best in the southeast now, i take advantage of public parks and recreational facilities that would not exist had the federal government not seen to it, my entire life has been affected and moved by the federal government and its programs, and i would have it no other way... perhaps in some hinterland there is no federal government and perhaps this is where fear of the control comes from, but i have seen that the government if directed by open minded (not necessarily liberal or conservative because the programs mentioned above came from a mix of people) people does more good than foul... i cannot understand a claim that the federal government is not responsible for everything you see around you -- that walmart you mention was not built on federal money, but hell, it wouldnt exist if the walmart trucks couldnt take the federal highways to deliver the goods... the backroads of SC let alone PA cannot support the type of flow of goods that the highways can...
to science... this nation is one of the strongest (if not THE strongest) in its percapita output of scientific discoveries. the NIH is, i believe, the second largest governmental organization after the pentagon. our nations sucess and thriving existence is dependant on and due to the investments the government has made to science be it salamander maiting (which is pretty interesting) or synthetic chemistry... without the government the rate of progress would not exist and that is for shame... so when i say 5% wont cut it -- i mean 5% cant possibly fund a sizable military like the one bush wants and continue to contribute to the scientific growth of this nation... no science perhaps is not the end all, and i believe there also needs to be federal funding for cultural and artistic endevors, but if this nation isnt a military industrial complex, it is a scietific industrial complex and this fact couldnt be true if the federal government didnt use its taxes to fund it...
also one last thing -- the government uses social security to help convice people to retire at 65, without that incentive we would have the problems we had in the 1930s that there was virtually no turn over in the employment until the workers die, basically it maintains a somewhat reasonable rate of retirements, imagine for a second if all of the baby boomers stayed on in their jobs until they died -- we, their children would have no jobs until they died... with the caveat that if the job market grew enormously maybe employment numbers would be reasonable but the job market hasnt grown that big...
so while mismanaged, social security makes sense...
Since national defense is essentially the only thing the government is required to do per the Constitution I don't mind seeing that huge chunk, wouldn't mind seeing it bigger.
I wonder what the $40b in "Health" is and why it's not in the $217b in Medicare.
$30b in unemployment? Shikes.
Sod it. I agree. It would be quite a laugh to see something between a revolution and a civil war in the US.
End everything but defence.
If you have those millions without a job and they have no source of income they won't be able to eat. They will either die (you want that?) or they will get violent (or that?).
... You're going to have one almighty crash / massive devaluation / stunning inflation; something like that, unless this gets sorted. Ask an economist.
An economist will tell you that deficits in and of themselves are neither good nor bad. Everything depends on context. During a downturn, the government probably should run deficits. When the economy is growing, the red ink should stop.
An economist will tell you that deficits in and of themselves are neither good nor bad. Everything depends on context. During a downturn, the government probably should run deficits. When the economy is growing, the red ink should stop.
Comments
Originally posted by ColanderOfDeath
As the saying goes, Democrats tax and spend, Republicans borrow and spend. The sort of fiscally conservative politics that some people, mostly Republicans like to play up rhetorically almost always gets trumped by the politics of pork. Maybe we need a Jewish-Muslim Congress so that we can get a Halal-Kosher budget.
Plus the American people don't give a **** about their govt wasting money. As long as they continue to be happy with their representatives provided that their representatives are wasting that money in their district then the political incentive for waste will insure it sticks around as policy. I mean people go vote in someone and go bitch to someone when they don't get what they want or get jobs or projects in their district. They bitch when they don't get a turn at the trough, rather than bitching when their congressfücker doesn't do the right thing. I'm not sure how much you can blame people for that sort of narrow self-interest but it does exist and drive the system. Look at military base closings. That shit was a no-brainer and it still got chopped at the knees after a decade because it was a political enema for anyone whose district was gonna lose bases. Even though those districts that did get sauced and tossed all did bueno post-pork.
Beyond that, cutting spending in a substantive way is not quite as easy as people want to make it out to be. All but a very few politicos are unwilling to touch Social Security and Medicare in a substantive way because it is not good politics. The military budget is also not gonna go down anytime soon because of politics. Our $300 billion in annual interest payments is also untouchable, unless of course we want to avoid paying it and simply borrow to pay it so that we can owe even more next year. Add up Social Security, Defense, Medicare, Interest and you've taken up a significant portion of the budget right there with political untouchables. No doubt there is lots of waste and lots of little waste. But working with the big figures is not quite as easy as some make it out to be.
I agree with just about all of this. People here think I'm nothing but a polarized Republican, but I'm not happy with the amount of spending they have allowed. They also haven't changed the tax code enoough.
We need to change the way Social Security is funded, perhaps with a national Sales tax. Or, we even need to consider phasing it out. I'm not sure how that would work, but our government really isn't supposed to be providing for our retirment. Perhaps it should only be for people who have medical/mental disabilities. The problem is that SS is now an addiction. Can you imgagine how indiscriminately crazy people would go if someone announced they wanted to phase it out?
Medicare is a little different. I actually think a limited medicare system is needed. Though, it should only provide basic and essential care to seniors. The proliferation of elective medications like Allegra and Lamisil has pushed drug prices throught he roof....and the isnsurance compaines pay for them.
The first part your post is correct as well: No one cares about waste. Just to venture a guess, I bet we could cut spending hy 20% if the pork was eliminated.
Originally posted by SDW2001
The first part is really flawed in its own right. First, being a liberal, you assume that the government creates posperity. It doesn't...it hinders it. And the engine you speak of...the problem is that the engine gets about 1 Mile per Gallon. It's an efficiency problem. That same engine also tries to pull everyone's train. So, it takes some of their power to pull the trains without as much. Problem is, the more it takes, the more fuel it needs. That's our government for you.
Granted -- efficiency is nice but i also believe that outsourcing has and will continue to cause much of the inefficiency unless there is truly a competitive process for the contracts but given that prior sucess predicts to some degree future sucess and political donations speak (i know cynical
Now, as far is 5% is concerned: That would be fair. You prbably don;t pay much more than that now. I paid about 10% this year, even though my bracket is 27%. Imgaine the reveue if we eliminated almost all cheating. Imagine the boost to the economy if people like me got to keep another 3,600 a year.
Now the second part. Small government is good for everyone. Big government historically creates misery. This is historical fact.
Oh, and BTW, every state has money to a degree. Well, exceot California I suppose.
i paid somewhere around 5000 dollars in taxes (on income and an inheritance) so no i didnt pay 5% or anywhere near that number... what needs to be asked is this: does a government dollar spent equal a citizen dollar? that is if the government is purchasing a baskin robins birthday cake does it spend the 15 dollars that a citizen spends? does it spend more? does it spend less? and where does it spend more and where less? I honestly believe that in some cases the government pays less (say for dixie cups bought in bulk) than a citizen and in some places they pay more (like in 200 dollar toilet seats)... without a complete run down on this analysis claiming that "if i had the extra 3600, the economy would be doing better" doesnt mean squat, because it might actually do a lot worse... and reading over this i think the government spending more on an item than the average citizen might be better for the economy anyway... (hmm, strange thoughts running around up in my very molecularly oriented mind)... historical fact or no... i am from SC and there is no money in SC and there are very rare exceptions to the fact that the state is one of the most uneducated in the country, so, no, understanding that makes me realize that states even incrediably wealthy states never have enough money to do their citizens the service of education and otherwise...
Your post is predicated on the fact that the federal government is responsible for everything around you. It's not. It gives very little money to local roads and school budgets and mom and pop boutiques. It doesn't build Wal-Marts and movie theatres and , and it shouldn't. I haven't seen too many cultural centers and YMCA's pop up because of federal funding. No, it's good at building train museums in towns where there are no trains (Altoona, PA), researching the sex life of salamanders and other fine endeavors. What it SHOULD do is defend our borders, protect and defend our natonal security abroad, maintain the infastructure, fund education equitably, and enforce laws that help the common good. It should NOT regulate our lives. It should NOT provide for our retirment by taking 12% of our paychecks very week.
here is where assumptions make sense... i am a synthetic chemist in a biophysics research lab in a private university. the lab i work in recieves most of its funding from government (as is the case in most us labs -- but i will get back to that later) so everything i see at work and everything i touch is due to the government investing money in science. i take public transit to work everyday (or i would drive on the federally subsidized highways) and while the government is notoriously bad a funding public transit, without that federal money there would be no even nominally efficient transit system in philly. i drive under a federally subsidized highway every day, my loans for college were mostly federal standford loans, my father a physician at a public hospital works primarily with indigent patients whose care is subsidized by the federal government, and my mother is a special education administrator/teacher whose job would not exist if it werent for federal rules and funding for programs, i listen to npr every day, my high school was created by a federal court mandate to desegregate the schools in charleston sc -- it is one of the best in the southeast now, i take advantage of public parks and recreational facilities that would not exist had the federal government not seen to it, my entire life has been affected and moved by the federal government and its programs, and i would have it no other way... perhaps in some hinterland there is no federal government and perhaps this is where fear of the control comes from, but i have seen that the government if directed by open minded (not necessarily liberal or conservative because the programs mentioned above came from a mix of people) people does more good than foul... i cannot understand a claim that the federal government is not responsible for everything you see around you -- that walmart you mention was not built on federal money, but hell, it wouldnt exist if the walmart trucks couldnt take the federal highways to deliver the goods... the backroads of SC let alone PA cannot support the type of flow of goods that the highways can...
to science... this nation is one of the strongest (if not THE strongest) in its percapita output of scientific discoveries. the NIH is, i believe, the second largest governmental organization after the pentagon. our nations sucess and thriving existence is dependant on and due to the investments the government has made to science be it salamander maiting (which is pretty interesting) or synthetic chemistry... without the government the rate of progress would not exist and that is for shame... so when i say 5% wont cut it -- i mean 5% cant possibly fund a sizable military like the one bush wants and continue to contribute to the scientific growth of this nation... no science perhaps is not the end all, and i believe there also needs to be federal funding for cultural and artistic endevors, but if this nation isnt a military industrial complex, it is a scietific industrial complex and this fact couldnt be true if the federal government didnt use its taxes to fund it...
bruce
so while mismanaged, social security makes sense...
Originally posted by SDW2001
2. Are deficits bad? Should we stay in at least rough balance, or does it not matter?
2. I really don't think they do in reality.
He he he.
Remember when profits didn't matter to a company's worth or viability?
This is every bit as lunatic. And your administration is every bit as deluded. Like they're on happy pills.
You're saying, "If you run out of money, print some more of it."
You're going to have one almighty crash / massive devaluation / stunning inflation; something like that, unless this gets sorted. Ask an economist.
Originally posted by groverat
gah! Don't show me that it makes me cringe.
Since national defense is essentially the only thing the government is required to do per the Constitution I don't mind seeing that huge chunk, wouldn't mind seeing it bigger.
I wonder what the $40b in "Health" is and why it's not in the $217b in Medicare.
$30b in unemployment? Shikes.
Sod it. I agree. It would be quite a laugh to see something between a revolution and a civil war in the US.
End everything but defence.
If you have those millions without a job and they have no source of income they won't be able to eat. They will either die (you want that?) or they will get violent (or that?).
Originally posted by Harald
... You're going to have one almighty crash / massive devaluation / stunning inflation; something like that, unless this gets sorted. Ask an economist.
An economist will tell you that deficits in and of themselves are neither good nor bad. Everything depends on context. During a downturn, the government probably should run deficits. When the economy is growing, the red ink should stop.
Originally posted by zaphod_beeblebrox
An economist will tell you that deficits in and of themselves are neither good nor bad. Everything depends on context. During a downturn, the government probably should run deficits. When the economy is growing, the red ink should stop.
i for one completely agree...