Jesus Christ. And You Wonder Why We're Broke?
If we just cut the "Defense" budget in half, we'd be half-way toward balancing the Federal budget. And we'd still have a more powerful military than any other country in the world.
This is just ridiculous.
We need to cut the size of government, but nothing should be off the table.
"That tyranny has all the vices both of democracy and oligarchy is evident. As of oligarchy so of tyranny, the end is wealth; (for by wealth only can the tyrant maintain either his guard or his luxury). Both mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms." -- Aristotle, Book V, 350 B.C.E
We could do the same by cutting discretionary spending in half (you know, things like HUD, EPA, Dept. of Education, etc.) and still maintain a strong military...
If we refuse to rule ourselves with reason, then we shall be ruled by our passions.
He, Who Will Not Reason, Is a Bigot; He, Who Cannot, Is a Fool; and He, Who Dares Not, Is a Slave. -Sir William Drummond
There are some things I will not abide within my sight!
Half the defense budget is $370 billion, our deficit is closer to 1.2 trillion. Half the defense budget is less then 1/3 of the deficit.Originally Posted by LAGC
Didn't they just say OBAMACARE is now projected to cost double the original $900 billion? Our military will save more American lives than Obamacare ever will.
Gunsnet member since 1999
USN 1978-86
BCCI Life Member #2068
•" We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm. " George Orwell
Medicare is mainly what's going to drive our deficits from here on out, to institute a new larger (and basically unpaid) medical program for the masses at this time should be criminal.
Well, you can thank Dubya Bush partly for that. (Prescription Drug Benefit, anyone?)
Medicare is out of control. We really ought to raise the Medicare tax a few percent to cover its costs, if everyone expects to get free health care when they retire. I mean, at least Social Security is paid for and isn't running deficits right now. Can't say the same for Medicare...
"That tyranny has all the vices both of democracy and oligarchy is evident. As of oligarchy so of tyranny, the end is wealth; (for by wealth only can the tyrant maintain either his guard or his luxury). Both mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms." -- Aristotle, Book V, 350 B.C.E
The medicare tax would have to quadruple to be viable, and that would have to grow yearly since medical costs will continue to increase.
You Richard Dawkin F***ing little marxist. We are sending in our guys on 4,5, 6 deployments per man against raghead terrorist, and it ain't because we have the strongest military in the world. It's because we have less than bare bones troop strength. If you ever knew what you were talking about, other than it echos nicely in your empty skull, you might come up with something that makes sense.
I say we cut Welfare significantly and institute drug testing as a conditon of acceptance. In addition you must prove you are looking for a job.
WAIT!!!!
Better yet:
1. 3 year limit on welfare, random drug testing for all three years. Fail twice and you're out.
2. No more babies while collecting welfare. Pregnant again?? Too bad!! you're on your own!
3. You must look for a job to collect welfare and be able to prove it, or be going to school for a marketable career.
(3 years is plenty of time to get an education, my wife got her BA in 2 years when she was laid off and couldn't find work)
4. If you don't want to go to school or look for a job, you will work in a government controlled and supervised daycare center for those who are actually trying to be productive citizens. (This is about the only time you'll see me advocate for government control). This will be a minimum wage job.
5. All illegals (anchor babies or not), are deported to make room for ALL job seekers, whether on welfare or not.
This country is run by taxes collected from the productive members of society, the more who put into the pot, the better the country and everyone in it does.
I always love seeing comparisons of the USA to other countries. Why not consider the USA as 50 different countries (states) and then compare the individual defense budgets versus the gigantic country of Germany, which could fit inside the great state of Texas and get lost.
While it takes a lot more to defend a country the size of the USA, I would prefer seeing money spent on the military and us remaining free, than watching the money go down the toilet feeding those who refuse to feed themselves. And I am not talking about those who truly can't.
Wannabe free? Gonna cost you, and I for one thank The Lord for our brave soldiers and the money we spend on them to protect both them and ourselves.
I note that as you can't even begin to defend your opening post, you've opted for a subject changing tangent, attempting to lay blame elsewhere for our deficits, fully ignoring the current POTUS who's increased deficits more than all all previous Presidents combined.
If we refuse to rule ourselves with reason, then we shall be ruled by our passions.
He, Who Will Not Reason, Is a Bigot; He, Who Cannot, Is a Fool; and He, Who Dares Not, Is a Slave. -Sir William Drummond
There are some things I will not abide within my sight!
They could abolish public education and the literacy rates would skyrocket, along with saving a chunk.
No I don't wonder why we're broke; I already know. Like the pie chart indicates we're spending most of our cash on handout programs. Virtually everything that isn't military should be removed from the federal budget, because defense and law enforcement is the government's ONLY purpose. Its not a charity. Unfortunately we're running the most generous handout for votes scheme in history. That's why we're broke. Medicare and SS should go away, today, now. Those that didn't pull their own weight should pay the price. This would actually be for the greater good; this way the nation could continue to live and thrive while those that don't pull their weight stop holding back the rest of society.
Do you have any older relatives who are over 65?
What do they think about just suddenly ending Social Security/Medicare? After they "paid into it" their whole lives?
I have no problem making some adjustments to our welfare programs to make them sustainable, but only if the military budget is cut too.
There's no reason the richest nation in the world can't take care of our senior citizens.
And we can still protect our borders without spending $700 billion on "defense" with bases all across the world.
"That tyranny has all the vices both of democracy and oligarchy is evident. As of oligarchy so of tyranny, the end is wealth; (for by wealth only can the tyrant maintain either his guard or his luxury). Both mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms." -- Aristotle, Book V, 350 B.C.E
Ending ss would put a lot of people who paid into it and are now relying upon it out on their asses. Ending medicare/caid would kill off a lot of them more slowly. Also, ending ss would put some elders into torch and pitchfork mode.
Sadly we have "bare bones troop strength" because Dubya and Rumsfeld embarked on a strategy of 'long war' in the Afghan. War perhaps without end. There was/is no plan to provide the troop strength for 'long war'.
Unlike even Vietnam, there is no draft. The .gov borrows the money to fight and the public is hardly aware of any inconvenience.
There was no plan for the peace in Iraq. There was no understanding of Iran's role as regional leader. There was no understanding that removing Saddam removed the primary impediment to Iran.
Wart
The Sgt served longer than virtually any of our WW II troops.
It's funny to me that you guys are back and forth over social services and defense as the problems when a huge portion of the budget is labeled "discretionary"....it might as well read "Beer and hooker money".
That's the big problem area! We are borrowing money for things that are discretionary?!?
That and the 6% going to interest.
Sure we could trim quite a bit off of both social services and defense, but if they just slide over to the discretionary side, which is what appears to happen when we trim ....then what is the fucking point?
It's actually really sad that you all don't seem to see that as the obvious biggest problem...nearly 20% of the budget essentially labeled "petty cash"?!?
Ahh the Republicans favorite step child to beat around, discretionary spending... You know the stuff that builds our roads, airports, bridges, pays for emergencies (Katrina anyone?) and the like... But even if were to cut all of it, how exactly does cutting 18% of the budget solve 40% overspending
Maybe that is why those new TEA party Reps elected 2 years ago have not been able to fix much of anything...
There's no reason the people of the richest nation in the world can't take care of themselves. We are in this position because people abdicated their responsibility for themselves to the state. They thought the state would provide for them with no effort on their part. It worked - in the short term.
These programs *will* end. It is when, not if. Just like Greece, the USSR, Cuba, etc. Its based entirely on consuming more than you produce. Everyone expects to take out more than they put into the system. Otherwise, why would anyone consider these programs a good idea? If you expected to get out what you put in, you could just have kept your money yourself. Many people did take out far more than they paid in. Someone will get stuck holding the bag.
When the time comes they'll gradually dial down the benefits. They've already passed over cost of living increases for SS lately. Back in the 80s to keep the system solvent they dialed down benefits by making part of SS taxable for some people. They'll continue raising the retirement age, squeezing the benefits from all sides until its even more meaningless than it is now. The government spent that money buying votes long ago, so its not there to give back. Retirement age will probably be pushing 80 by the time I get there. So after 50 years of working I'll receive token payments from SS if I'm lucky. They will also raise taxes to prop the scam up, and bleed what little life is left from the economy. It will collapse someday its only a matter of when and how. Knowing what the future holds an abrupt and painful cut off of the old folks today will seem mild in comparison. The pain is unavoidable, its just going to get worse the longer this goes on.
If the money the government collected for SS on my "behalf" went into my 401k I'd be reasonably planning to retire and live off the interest of my 401k and other savings by 45 (potentially 43). It would maintain my current standard of living, and this is assuming I never got a raise and my 401k never gained anything over the duration. Or I could continue working with the finacial security to do the type of work I wanted to do. Most people aren't able to use that fancy math stuff to figure out things like this though; they went to government schools where you learn dependency.
I find it interesting the only group actually interested in fixing the over spending problem is consistent blamed for the over spending of everyone else. Kadmos is right about the beer and hooker money part. Though that makes it sound like its used more constructively than it is. Infrastructure building is among the largest government scams ever. Like the airport built by that guy from west virginia (murtha I think?). Hundreds of millions to build an airport in the middle of no where that serves a handful of people every day. Yeah it'd hurt if we cut stuff like that.Ahh the Republicans favorite step child to beat around, discretionary spending... You know the stuff that builds our roads, airports, bridges, pays for emergencies (Katrina anyone?) and the like... But even if were to cut all of it, how exactly does cutting 18% of the budget solve 40% overspending
Maybe that is why those new TEA party Reps elected 2 years ago have not been able to fix much of anything...
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