Deficit Reduction: How?

Post by **TheCatt** » Tue Jul 12, 2011 12:14 pm

I appreciate that Republicans want to do this without increasing taxes, but fuck - can't they just agree to a 5:1 ratio or something (similar to what the debt commission proposed) and get this done?

Rich people can afford it.

Post by **GORDON** » Tue Jul 12, 2011 12:24 pm

While I don't feel tax increases are needed, because the federal budget is bloated beyond recognition even from 5 years ago, I would say just do a 5:1 compromise just to get it signed.

Of course, I don't think it will happen this way. With this government I am expecting worst case scenario.

Post by **TPRJones** » Tue Jul 12, 2011 3:39 pm

Deficit Reduction? Don't you mean Increasing the Debt Ceiling?

Post by **TheCatt** » Tue Jul 12, 2011 3:48 pm

TPRJones wrote:Deficit Reduction? Don't you mean Increasing the Debt Ceiling?

What I want is debt reduction, but no one's talking that game.

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Tue Jul 12, 2011 7:05 pm

GORDON wrote:While I don't feel tax increases are needed, because the federal budget is bloated beyond recognition even from 5 years ago, I would say just do a 5:1 compromise just to get it signed.

Of course, I don't think it will happen this way.

I'd say this echoes my sentiments. This entire country needs a crash course on zero-sum games.

EDIT : I still vote "nothing but spending cuts," though. If you want someone's cash, just trick them out of it like everyone's been doing since the dawn of time; it's not that hard. Taking it right out of my paycheck is just kind of a dickslap in the face. You get much less resistance when people get to waste it themselves.

Edited By Malcolm on 1310512112

Post by **TheCatt** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 11:40 am

All spending cuts... but we're super broke anyway so we're kinda already screwed.

Post by **GORDON** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 12:03 pm

I'm not going to read the article.

Is it real spending cut, or the pretend ones where they say "Well we're going to increase this program by $100 billion this year instead of $200 billion, so that equates to a $100 billion cut, and over 10 years that is $1 trillion. Mission accomplished, we're saved."

Because I know they have been talking about that shit for a while.

Edited By GORDON on 1312214647

Post by **TheCatt** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 12:31 pm

Well, the point of the article I linked is that our net present value of obligations is like $221 Trillion more than the NPV of our revenues.

Post by **Leisher** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 1:03 pm

The thing that drives me insane is the core issue behind the deficit never gets addressed: If you make $10 monthly, you cannot spend $15 monthly.

How much longer can we continue just boosting the debt ceiling without making actual changes to federal spending?

How long before the bubble bursts?

Post by **GORDON** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 1:10 pm

The argument I hear is WELL HAY TEABAGGER HOW WOULD U LIKE IT IF WE JUST WENT BACK TO 1995 LEVELS OF SPENDING???

They say this like it is a bad thing.

I don't understand that. Sounds like a best-case scenario, to me.

Post by **TheCatt** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 1:29 pm

Depends on when China goes "haha! We're not buying your debt any more."

Post by **GORDON** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 1:41 pm

Was obama able to put the real issue off until after the next election?

Post by **TheCatt** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 1:51 pm

Post by **GORDON** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 2:18 pm

Well good for him.

Post by **GORDON** » Tue Aug 02, 2011 1:29 pm

New York Times: Tea Party = terrorists.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011....emc=rss

These last few months, much of the country has watched in horror as the Tea Party Republicans have waged jihad on the American people. Their intransigent demands for deep spending cuts, coupled with their almost gleeful willingness to destroy one of America’s most invaluable assets, its full faith and credit, were incredibly irresponsible. But they didn’t care. Their goal, they believed, was worth blowing up the country for, if that’s what it took.

Yeah.

Fiscal responsibility is truly a heinous philosophy.

Post by **GORDON** » Tue Aug 02, 2011 1:34 pm

Biden: Tea Party = terrorists.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0811/60421.html

Vice President Joe Biden joined House Democrats in lashing tea party Republicans Monday, accusing them of having “acted like terrorists” in the fight over raising the nation’s debt limit, according to several sources in the room.

I guess the message has been identified, framed, and is in the open.

Post by **thibodeaux** » Tue Aug 02, 2011 1:37 pm

Good thing we have this climate of civility. Also, it's great that dissent is the highest form of patriotism.

Post by **GORDON** » Tue Aug 02, 2011 2:58 pm

Time editor Fareed Zakaria: Tea Party = terrorists.

http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2011....=hp_bn2

...if you think about what's going on, the Tea Party is trying to pass a particular agenda, which is basically this all-cuts budget. It cannot get it through the Congress of the United States. It cannot get it through the political democratic process that we have, which is that Congress passes something and the president must sign it. That's the normal workings of democracy.

So, instead of accepting some compromise that can get through the democratic process, what they're saying is we'll blow up the country if you don't listen to us. We'll hold hostage the credit of the United States, the good standing of the United States and we'll blow it up.

Post by **GORDON** » Tue Aug 02, 2011 3:06 pm

New York Times: The Tea Party have always been terrorists.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010....rrorist

Joseph Stack had barely finished flying his airplane into a Texas office building when the battle over his legacy began.

Bloggers on the left asked why people — especially people on the right — weren’t calling him a terrorist. “If this had been done by a brownish-looking Muslim guy whose suicide note paralleled Islamist political themes,” wrote Matthew Yglesias, then right wingers would be “demanding that anyone who refused to label the attack ‘terrorism’ be put up on treason charges.”

Anyone seeing a trend, yet?

Post by **GORDON** » Tue Aug 02, 2011 3:09 pm

Politico: Tea party = terrorists

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0711/60202.html

It has become commonplace to call the tea party faction in the House “hostage takers.” But they have now become full-blown terrorists.

They have joined the villains of American history who have been sufficiently craven to inflict massive harm on innocent victims to achieve their political goals. A strong America has always stood firm in the face of terrorism. That tradition is in jeopardy, as Congress and President Barack careen toward an uncertain outcome in the tea party- manufactured debt crisis.

As we stumble closer to Aug. 2, it has become clear that many in the tea party are willing to inflict massive harm on the American people to obtain their political objective of a severely shrunken federal government. Their persistence in rejecting compromise, even as the economic effects of the phony crisis they have created mount, has taken their radicalism beyond tough negotiating, beyond even hostage-taking.