Thats what gotten us in this mess. Fiscally conservative people seem to have given up. Its not the answer, we must pound the thought back in peoples head that you shouldn't spend money you do not have. You should not try to live beyond your means. And saving money is a good thing.

What is interesting is this story I read how Jack Kemp lamented about how liberals always promised the farm and were wreckless financially, and he wanted some.  So, tax cuts became candy that was offered as the answer all the time.  I believe that the tax code can be tweaked and optimized, but not used as some sort of sugar rush with cuts as the only answer.   Budgets need to get balanced and the tax code be left alone.  There then needs to be efforts made to reduce the need for government by coming up with solutions that work, and then cut taxes accordingly.  Tax cuts are NOT supposed to be the answer... citizens taking charge IS.

A problem faced now is that congress gets elected for bringing pork home, so the GOP  also spends insanely also when in power.   It is like, the only way to get the GOP to at least talk the walk is to keep them out of power.

I also recall Reagan being asked in his first year (may of been first 6 months) why things weren't fixed yet.

Who is stopping people now from solving problems today? 

On the other side, you had individuals who supported Bush and not think they were problems, now think they are problems.  The Hannitys of the world say deficits don't matter because we were "at war".  Now these issues do matter, I guess because we aren't "at war".  Apparently "emergencies" are used to justify any extreme measures and throw out every principle.  Like now of course.  How can deficits matter when we face a crisis like this?

I wonder how many principles Bush cost people.

Dunno, but maybe you can got hunt down some of those conservative "think-tank" and see what kind of a deal you might be able to get...don't get your hopes up tho, since it is an urban legend.  But hey...you might actually spark them to pay you, since people NEVER posting anything related to video games on a video game site might have some merit.

you don't know any of this.  It's all supposition, so you can't treat it as fact.  You know it is, as you're writing in the conditional.

"You are facing the first dip... and then a dip that could end up being just as bad as the first."

Ot it could be much less.  Or it could not happen.  We don't KNOW the extent of any, but we it's a decent guess, just as the decent guess of the experts were that we couldn't let the potential big drop happen.

And we treat cancer that way all the time successfully by the way.  You remove the tumor and then use radiation or chemo to try and rid the other cells.  But if you don't remove the tumor first, the chemo or radiation won't have time to work.  So thanks for the analogy that helps my point. You're right. It is a good one.

I'm not sure where it said anywhere in the bills that to bail someone out once ensures you will be bailed out again later.  I agree they need more reform in the meantime, but that's unpassable with the way our political system i set up and with the influence the banks and corporations have over the money in the system.  But I'm not sure what that has to do with whether or not to allow a complete system collapse in the meantime.

Why do you care? Aren't you the guy who wanted to move to New Zealand to get away from all this?

Dammit. I go without internet for two days and the thread blows up =P

Ok, the reason why I believe that in some cases the stimulus was healthy was because it pushed companies to the edge of bankruptcy without letting them actually topple. This forced them to slim down and actually become strong companies again, the best example of this is GM.

Ideally a recession should trim the fat off of companies, strong companies should weather it without government help (as Ford did) but with government help weaker companies can come out strong.

There is no question that without government help companies such as GM would have failed - would that have left the US economy in a better state than it is now? While an argument could be made that it would allow new stronger companies to come through I personally don't believe it would have done much other than left more people unemployed and the US with fewer exports.

In some cases the stimulus wasn't as such healthy as necessary. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are possibly the only examples of this. The god-awful overblown companies that are too big to fail. If those two went under at that time there is simply no denying that the US economy would be in the shit even more at the moment.

While I never supported Bush's deficits, I do think that the people who defended the Bush deficits have a "get out of jail free card" in that they can claim that supporting a defict of 2% to 3% of GDP is quite a bit different than supporting a deficit that is over 10% GDP.

Perhaps.  But, when you are coming off what you had and the foundation to get the debt paid off, and you waste it, you give youself no slack now to deal with when you may have to run deficits briefly.  That is the real issue.  And people who support 2-3% GDP debt are supposed to support it how long?  Aren't the bills going to eventually come due?  What happens when the economy tanks?  You certainly won't just have 2-3% GNP. 

The issue became that, when in power, they don't care about deficits.  The defense wasn't that the deficis were manageable.  It was that "we are at war".  Yes, cutting  taxes and running pork, like the highway bill, during a war.   Up until Obama, Dubya grew government at rates not seen since LBJ.