Whitey–consider yourself lucky that a conservative is telling you how to spend your money. Not only does Mrs. Triedaq tell me how to spend my money, but now my dog is demanding a more expensive dog biscuit than I had been buying.
The dog’s demands for the number of dog biscuits to chase each rabbit out of my garden got so high that I wouldn’t make a deal and just let the rabbits have the beans.
Your analogy doesn’t hold water, or even dog biscuits. Try again.
CSA…I agree our government spends too much…and we really should get it under control…But I also agree that there are times we need to spend beyond our means. We probably never would have won WWII if we only spent the tax dollars without borrowing. There are times we need to borrow. There are times buying something now is good and will benefit generations to come.
But 2 Trillion is beyond absurdity.
CSA Sets Record Straight.
I never told anybody what to buy or what not to buy. I wouldn’t do that and nobody wouldn’t listen, anyhow. I did say to tell me if a certain purchase was to be made. I didn’t want to hear about the others. I was joking because I am true coffee lover. I have been to some of these coffee shops that sell dozens of different flavored “coffee” drinks with different junk in them and even toppings on them. I cringe at the thought of what they’re doing to that coffee ! Besides, I am very thrifty and wouldn’t pay what they charge for a coffee. Buy what you’d like and charge it, too, if you’d like. Just don’t make me watch. 
I don’t have or use a credit card. I need no credit, nor do I need to borrow. I live within my means. That’s the problem. I don’t expect people to require me to send them my money (taxes) so that it can be wasted and then keep on spending when that’s gone and then charge some more and give me the bill.
Perhaps some countries don’t, but this particular country definitely needs a debt ceiling. Does anybody have to explain why ? Watch the evening news.
“But 2 Trillion is beyond absurdity.”
CSA
Every country in the world has a debt ceiling. Every government, local, state, or national has a debt ceiling. We all have a debt ceiling. I’m sure Whitey meant self-imposed debt ceiling.
CSA,
It’s nice that you live within your means and don’t purchase things on credit. I wish our government would do the same thing, except if that were the case, we would have never gained independence from England (France loaned us a lot of money to fight that war), and it’s possible we would be speaking Japanese or German now instead of American English, since we had to borrow a lot of money to fight WWII. However, even if you would prefer to live under a foreign occupier, when you choose to live within your means and not use credit, you make that decision BEFORE you go out and buy stuff, not afterwards, right? I mean, you aren’t the kind of person why would go out, max out a credit card, and then decide, independently, not to pay the bill, right? That would be all kinds of wrong. It would be unethical, and illegal.
If you want to address the wasteful spending, I am all for that. I’ll be right there marching next to you in Washington, DC. However, without borrowing money, the USA would not exist as a country.
Buying war bonds to finance the USA’s involvement in WWII was considered our patriotic duty. Paying taxes back then was a patriotic duty. Conserving resources was considered a patriotic duty. Remember when it was patriotic to do your patriotic duty?
Well, I guess I’d better take good care of my current car. I guess I’ll have it for the rest of my life. I couldn’t afford to pay the hybrid premium now, I certaiinly won’t be able to in the future. The new CAFE standards will be unobtainable unless the bulk of the fleet is hybrid.
So much for the idea of a car that people can afford.
“If you want to address the wasteful spending, I am all for that. I’ll be right there marching next to you in Washington, DC.”
It might be a misnomer to call it wasteful spending because there are many different versions of waste in government spending. For instance, some people would consider military spending wasteful, while others would consider Medicare and Medicaid a big waste. Those are just two examples, but you get the idea. By trying to meet to the expectations of so many, government spending has ballooned. Well, not really, but it has grown when compared to revenues - over the last 2 years. The last time Federal revenues were lower as a percentage of GDP was 1950. Outlays were a steady 19% to 20% of GDP until 2009 when the mortgage bubble burst. Current receipts are about 15% of GDP. And the greatest difference between revenues and expenditures was during the 1980s and early to mid-1990s. As you might guess, outlays were higher than expenditures during that time period. Outlays as a % of GDP during the 1980s were 66% higher than the last ten years, in fact. How many of you that remember the 1980s thought that the federal government spent way, way beyond its means? Yes, we are in a difficult spot and it took decades of neglect to get here. We can’t solve it overnight, and it seems to me that $900 billion in spending cuts next year will put an astonishing number of people out of work. Since the federal payroll is only $150 billion per year and I think that most federal workers will retain their jobs, the losses will almost all private sector jobs.
Here’s an anectdote about the unintended consequenses of high taxes I would like to pass on.
I was browsing in a fiddle shop and overheard the guy behind the counter and another customer discussing why a certain brand of cello strings was always on back order. The guy behind the counter explained that this company, located in Sweden, basically only makes so much product a year and then closes shop, laying everybody off until next year because the Swedish government believes that “at some point, you’ve made enough money”.
When you apply super progressive tax rates to the producers in an economy because you think “at some point, you’ve made enough money”, the producers in an economy respond with “at some point, we’ve done enough work” and ironically, total tax revenues actually go down.
It’s like overfishing a lake. At first the catch is large but as the fish are depleted, the total catch actually becomes lower than it was when there were catch limits.
Congress and politics in general is built on compromise. Efficiency always takes a hit. As far as the “wasteful” spending whine we hear all the time; that Wasteful spending for the most part goes back into the economy and becomes a stimulus of sorts. Even the “bridge to no where” was a jobs boost to the area. Any government spending that has a multiplier effect helps the economy overall which includes most infrastructure spending. Government support and outright spending has led to more major development, job growth and inventions that have benefit the middle class more than any private sector profit motivated initiative. Unfortunately it occurs too much during wartime.
Too much govt. efficiency is not good. Remember the govt. IS NOT suppose to show a profit like private business needs to continue it’s own existence. The govt. Supports directly and in directly through it’s spending a huge part of our economy which maintains the health of our private industry. This includes the majority of the technology that has been developed that we all enjoy.
Be careful what you wish for, you may get it tea party. Moderation is the key. As far as critiquing other govt. in other countries with democracies is concerned, that is their right. They voted for it in the people they elect. For the most part, those that preach free enterprise with democratically elected govt. regulated oversight have it right.
B.L.E. that story told by the guy at the fiddle shop sounds dubious. Are you sure it is actually true, and not just an urban legend passed around by those who are against taxes? I am willing to bet the shop in Sweden shuts down to keep supply for its strings low, and to keep the price high, or so its employees can take a nice long vacation.
We gave tax cuts to the rich and large corporations because they said it was necessary to create jobs. Unfortunately, the recession has taught them they can still make lots of money with fewer employees, and they have chosen not to live up to their commitments to create new jobs. It’s a shame the promise to hire people after the tax breaks passed isn’t binding. We’ve been hoodwinked … bamboozled.
“…or so its employees can take a nice long vacation.”
That’s the way it works in Europe. My wife’s cousin lives in Germany. He and his wife get a few weeks off during the summer. The companies where they work shut down and everyone gets a holiday. They like to spend their holiday on an island in the Spanish Mediterranean.
Political compromise doesn’t always work and when it doesn’t the trouble can be very bad. Take 150 years ago in the United States, political name calling and rancor were at an all time high and compromise proposals were met with distain. The idea of that man from Illinois as President of the United States was viewed with alarm, mostly by people from the Southern states. The year was 1861 and the results were the worst national disaster in our history. If you don’t know history you are bound to repeat it and our leaders seem to not know… by the way anybody who doesn’t know what happened in 1861 is probably serving in congress.
It’s a shame the promise to hire people after the tax breaks passed isn’t binding. We’ve been hoodwinked … bamboozled.
Some people were…I wasn’t…I KNEW they weren’t going to create jobs…It’s been the mantra of many corporations for years now - "Move manufacturing/engineering and resource management (i.e. Human Resources, Accounting…) overseas and keep management and headquarters here in the US. And when CEO’s lay off people to move the jobs overseas they get huge rewards from wallstreet.
It’s a shame the promise to hire people after the tax breaks passed isn’t binding. We’ve been hoodwinked … bamboozled.
What are you talking about? They hired plenty of people. China and India are no doubt grateful for the boost to their employment numbers.
What gets me is that it’s our fault we’ve been hoodwinked. Supply-side economics is so obviously stupid that even GW Bush saw through it before he jumped on board for political expediency. That we’ve allowed it to go on for 30+ years is entirely the fault of the voting public.
… and yet we keep hearing “cut taxes on the rich to create jobs” from the right, and people (at least my Republican friends), keep buying it.
“Most men without property would rather protect the possibility of becoming rich, than face the reality of being poor.”
–John Dickinson in the movie “1776”
What we have seen so far is that the US Government will cut expenditures. This means a cut in private company employment, not civil service employment. Count on it. Programs are populated mostly by private industry; the civil servants provide oversight; often very little (by plan, not because they are lazy). This is done because it is expensive to train government employees, and therefore they act as managers. It is also much more expensive to lay off a government employee than a private business support contractor. So, we cut government outlays, and that cuts American jobs (exclusively), so that we can provide more money for private employers to hire people, which they are not doing. What a strange world we live in. At least the slash and burn crowd may get the idea when lots of good-paying jobs disappear, and reconsider who pays for all the deficit reduction. There’s another $1.4 trillion out there to be cut from somewhere. It could be tens of thousands of jobs lost as it is now, or it could be millions, depending on how the of 12 Good Men handle the second stage. Everyone will pay in the end, whether by direct effect in the loss of a government support job, or indirectly because millions of unemployed workers can’t afford anything but food and shelter. Does this sound ominous? It should.