QuakerOats;582046 wrote:Actually it is very meaningful. It is continued confirmation that THE PEOPLE want LESS government and lower taxes. I could whack 20% from government spending in a heartbeat, and no one would know the difference. It is time to get on with it!

The timebomb is ticking and getting louder - http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/12/the_four_questions_every_liber.html

Interesting article. The first part instructs liberals to answer simple math questions. I'm certain every one of the libs on here can answer them without looking for the answers ahead of time. The second part deals with the interest on the debt. When interest rates rise (and there is no other way for them to go), then the service on the debt (that's akin to interest) will consume our spending. All this chit-chat about whom to blame is taking our eyes off the prize and what really ails us all....wanton disregard for financial stability and sanity. For those that choose not to read, when our debt reaches $20,000,000,000,000 in the year 2015 and our 3 month T-bills (the servicing agent) are sold at 6% interest (which is historically still low), then the service on the debt will be 1,200,000,000,000...that's $1.2 TRILLION that purchases NOTHING. Absofuckinglutely NOTHING. No health care, no payments for first responders, no defense, no social security payments, no medicare, NO NOTHING.

stlouedipalma claims me and those that think like me to be the real Chicken Littles. Well....stlouie....we went to public schools and learned how to multiply numbers. Unfortunately, these numbers don't fit into my fucking calculator because they are too damn high and unsustainable and will collapse our nation. Guaranteed. Oh...blame the R's...blame the D's....blame whomever makes you "feel good". We are drowning in debt and the doomsayers are speaking up because it is obvious to see.

+2347839174837124239

Excellent post. I'm guilty of blaming Rs for things instead of offering solutions sometimes. But both sides need to wake the hell up. Dems and Liberals need to maybe slow their roll as far as spending and some social programs go and the Rs need to realize that we cannot infinitely cut taxes and believe that that will somehow solve anything.

I Wear Pants;617172 wrote:+2347839174837124239

Excellent post. I'm guilty of blaming Rs for things instead of offering solutions sometimes. But both sides need to wake the hell up. Dems and Liberals need to maybe slow their roll as far as spending and some social programs go and the Rs need to realize that we cannot infinitely cut taxes and believe that that will somehow solve anything.

The real problem is anyone who votes against the little guy commits career suicide. Once these entitlements and social programs pass they almost never get repealed. And in one sense, it's hard to get too upset with such politicians. I mean, you go to Washington and want to have a real impact and really do good for America...but you take a stand "against the little guy" and your political career is over. You pick and choose your battles and the problem is no one is going to pick that particular battle to fight. And, regardless, junior congressmen are going to get run over. The real problem is power-hungry ego-maniacs like Pelosi are running amok and the liberal media refuses to hold them accountable.

Even go down to the voter level. Let's say you can vote for a Rep or Senator who promises to take a stand. Great. But you know where it's going to start? Right there in your home state and why should you and your neighbor's subsidize CA or whomever? Why do you have to be the first to sacrifice? It's easy for us to sit here and say "this is what needs to be done" but for practical purposes it's not easy at all. The leadership in Washington needs to make a fundamental change in their approach and I just can't see that happening because they've learned counter-productive behaviors that get them re-elected year after year. You have to cross your fingers and hope voters just oust the career vote-buyers, but lo-and-behold we just had an election and both Pelosi and Reid got re-upped.

I agree that the war on drugs is hella $$$$.

Does the rehab numbers include followup? I should have included that in my initial post, but my mind was focused on about 20 different things this morning lol
I know my friend has several different places he goes to for follow up, most free (AA/NA) but some aren't. Prescriptions for non narcotic painrelievers (painrelievers are what got him in this mess in the first place, but, different thread one day) and such.

I don't know if it includes followup but I get the feeling it does.

And even if it doesn't. The Prevention/Treatment way of going about things is probably still cheaper and even if it costs the same, has been shown to be more effective. I cannot see how it would be more expensive. Though even if it somehow was, it's enormously more effective.

I just don't see why anyone would want to continue what we've been doing forever with the DEA and such that has not worked. At all.

stlouiedipalma;616844 wrote:Quaker, is that brown shirt getting a little tight around the collar these days?

Is stealing another $10,000 from every man, woman and child in the country by saddling them with additional debt not a crime? I think it is high time we label it as such and start holding those who commit such accountable.

http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/balanced-budget-plan

A good start .............

QuakerOats;622894 wrote:Is stealing another $10,000 from every man, woman and child in the country by saddling them with additional debt not a crime? I think it is high time we label it as such and start holding those who commit such accountable.

Sad thing is those most responsible for this crime will be in the grave (and they know it) and their decendents will be held accountable. It would be like grandpa racking up massive amounts of debt on the credit card knowing his grandchildren will be left with the bill.

QuakerOats;622915 wrote:http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/balanced-budget-plan

A good start .............

I actually like CATO. That is a good start, but a hard sell, especially the Agriculture cuts. Privatization is a good idea, if done right. Initially, it needs to be a PPP, Private-public partnership.

Some hard pills to swallow, but I agree needed.

QuakerOats;622894 wrote:Is stealing another $10,000 from every man, woman and child in the country by saddling them with additional debt not a crime? I think it is high time we label it as such and start holding those who commit such accountable.

Why is it stealing when we keep voting for people who keep doing it? At what point does the voter need to look in the mirror? The politics of your party has hammered as many nails in that cross as the bleeding hearts.

BoatShoes;623200 wrote:Why is it stealing when we keep voting for people who keep doing it? At what point does the voter need to look in the mirror? The politics of your party has hammered as many nails in that cross as the bleeding hearts.

I think people have already started looking in the mirror. I also think that that is why politics (as usual or otherwise) is now such a hot topic. It is showing in many ways, in almost every headline. There's no more ducking out of it.

In my mind, the bunch that just got voted in can be hitting the bricks the next cycle too. There's none of them that are near and dear to me and I won't have any problems voting against them too... if they don't do SOMETHING beneficial. Even a little bit is a good start and an excellent standard.

I saw a stat recently about how the defense budget has gone from like $300 billion a year in 2000 to almost $800 billion a year just a decade later.

It is not the entitlements that are swallowing the budget, as they at least for now and have paid for themselves through the taxes people pay.

No one seems concerned about the bill for playing world police because it doesn't touch people on a day to day basis as they don't have it deducted from their paychecks every week like the entitlements.

If we were paying a "war tax" to fund our nation building efforts I think people would take a much more critical look at whether the benefit of the nearly trillion dollars we spend is really worth the cost.

I am by no means a dove, but it just seems odd that we are literally bankrupting our country playing world police and nation builder and yet the defense budget has turned into a bigger sacred cow than the entitlement programs that actually offer a direct benefit to our own country's people's everyday lives.

If we are too broke (and need to cut benefits) to make good on the promises made to people who spent a lifetime paying into the system (S.S and Medicare), then aren't we too broke to play world police at a cost of nearly a trillion dollars a year?

China is kicking our ass because while we are wasting almost a trillion dollars a year on military adventures and maintaining our empire, they are plowing their money into productive assets and development that will provide long term economic benefits and growth going forward. They are spending their money putting up nuclear power plants and developing new energy technologies at warp speed while we are busy chasing the Taliban around in the land where empires traditionally go to die.

Tell me what investment of those 2 options will pay better dividends in another generation.

We don't have the money to be all things to all people anymore, and I hope at some point the light bulb goes off that we are not putting what financial resources we do have to their most productive uses.

Good post.

IggyPride00;623774 wrote:I saw a stat recently about how the defense budget has gone from like $300 billion a year in 2000 to almost $800 billion a year just a decade later.

Good point. I remember seeing some data perhaps a decade ago, when perhaps the budget was $300B....we were spending more than than the next 15 countries combined!

It's really hard to say we could send our troops off to war without the best technology available. But the reality is it's helping to bankrupt our country. I'd easily cut military spending in half and maybe the solution is don't be so eager to be the world police, and also war is ugly - we can't afford to tip-toe around collateral damage. It's a good place to start. We CAN get to a balanced budget with some tough (not really that tough) decisions. Then you bump taxes a little and we can start paying down the deficit.

To be fair, a lot of scientific and technological advancements from military research (and NASA) trickle down into the private sector, but the ROI sucks. We need to throw more resources at alternative energy. Imagine if we become the oil barrons of the 22nd century.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-04/scott-takes-office-pledging-5-florida-workforce-reduction-to-cut-deficit.html

Cutting is not difficult; especially when there is so much largess and non-productive activities (fat) from which to cut.


“Our government has grown too fast compared to the private sector,” Scott said in an interview on Bloomberg Television last month. “When that happens, jobs go away, so we have to reduce the size of government.”

Amen.

BoatShoes;623200 wrote:Why is it stealing when we keep voting for people who keep doing it? At what point does the voter need to look in the mirror? The politics of your party has hammered as many nails in that cross as the bleeding hearts.

While true...I don't see many (any?) "bleeding hearts" jumping to the front of the line NOW to help lead the effort to cut government spending.

At least conservatives are talking the talk at the moment, and promising to make cuts. Democrats aren't even doing that much.

Whether or not the Republicans follow through is another issue, but RIGHT NOW there is only one side of the aisle that is leading the talk to cut spending as a way of reducing the debt.

Reducing the deficit. Neither side has said anything that will do even the smallest thing about the debt. Smaller deficit is the goal right now. Much smaller. But we're not going to be running a surplus anytime soon so the debt will not be reduced.

see if you can fix the State budget. I got a 1 billion surplus.

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/insight/budget/index.html

Well Gates is starting to pull the DoD budget back a little bit.
http://www.defense.gov/releases/release.aspx?releaseid=14178

I would say a small, but good first step.

Bigdogg;628269 wrote:see if you can fix the State budget. I got a 1 billion surplus.

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/insight/budget/index.html

I got a 3.13 Billion surplus.

About Gates proposed Pentagon cuts.

Brought to you by the department of "More of the Same", new Republican House Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard McKeon told reporters:

"I'm not happy," He said, the cuts were greater than defence companies had been expecting.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12130628

Notice how his first comment about the cuts is not about how it will effect national security, or troop readiness or any of that sort of thing.

It is that defense contractors weren't expecting cuts that big.

This in many ways can be considered a Freudian slip, because it gets to the root of who are politicians (of both parties) are really serving.

Both major parties are completely bought and paid for by their corporate overlords and campaign benefactors, and it is robbing this country blind. I keep telling myself their has to come a point where people wake up and see it for themselves, but sadly I grow more and more pessimistic that it will ever happen before it is too late.

Writerbuckeye;627460 wrote: At least conservatives are talking the talk at the moment, and promising to make cuts. Democrats aren't even doing that much..

That's because an avalanche of a mandate carried the Dems into power and they were deadset on giving handouts to ensure their continued newfound power. Glad that didn't last long.