The economic structure of the world is batshit insane. The inflationary economy and self-interested egos that tend to accompany such strutures are a crime against life. Still, we'll never convince the egotists like the Randians that this is the case. They think they are rational. Makes me laugh.

Which america?

As are legislators claiming that they want to balance the budget entirely without raising any extra revenue. Honestly most of your politicians are full of crock on the economy.

If you want the government to be profitable, simply tie their income to the gross. If the government makes money, they get higher income.

The problem is that Republicans only want to cut on the backs of the poor furthering our debt, this will  not solve the problem. Iit will only drive crime up and make people suffer. While the rich are off on there way to the bank laughing there arse off. Wall street is booming right now. The rich are doing great but not passing the buck on. Let the bush tax cuts expire which cater to the rich and corporate power houses. Then shut down both wars, which are the reason we are in this dept. The poor and needy didn't do this, it was bush and his hand outs to the most wealthy upon us and then started 2 wars he didn't plan to pay for. This would cover 50% in just these programs. Then use that saved money and put it into infrastructer, which in turn those workers will be paying taxes and stimalating the ecconomy. Next put tarriffs in place and cut corperate loop-holes and use it to invest in clean energy. BOOM balanced budget.

The problem is some in high place started a movement(tea baggers)which is meant to destroy the middle class. kock brothers started that movement for obvious reasons. When clinton was in office the rich where paying 4% more in federal income taxes. The trickle down effect does not work and it's been proven not to. Reagan started this thought process and the numbers show it has only served the rich and crushed the middle class. The united states most wealthy owned about 7% of the wealth when reagan was in office, now they own about 23%-24% of the wealth. Where do you think the money has shifted, yea thats right. In off shore bank accounts and corperations that use loop holes to completely go around paying taxes.

In the cayman islands there is a building that could house no more then 50 companies but it is used for a tax loop hole and there are 36,000 companies registered to this one address and that is just one. These corperations used to have to pay offshore taxes(Tarriffs) and now it is a free for all. While they use our roads, rails and pollute our cities, while paying for none of that. We do, why do they get a break.  I think both sides are bad but Republicans are a mess. Democrates are weak and spinless and give into there bull.

BERNIE SANDERS> now there is a name to be proud off.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPeUrJF6AM8&feature=relmfu

That's good if that happens it should shift voting into republican side for next few elections which is exactly what USA need.

Through I saw Obama already is trying to shift the blame on republicans.

If you want them to reach a decision quicker, freeze their pay until a partisan agreement can be made.

Saves money and produces a result.

It's interesting how the debt ceiling is only an issue when the democrats are in charge. This same kind of dirty play was used in 1995 when Gingrich tried to limit the debt ceiling on Clinton. Funny enough, Clinton left with a deficit surplus, and I don't recall any debt ceiling crap like this when dubya was in power, then all of a sudden they have a > 1 trillion defecit when he leaves. You really think that's what America wants again?

A downgrade from AAA to AA is simple realism, rather than a collapse. The US doesn't really deserve its AAA rating, with such big deficits and debt as a percentage of GDP.

That said, it is true that the US government is painting itself into a corner. The budget deficit will need to get reduced, and that will cause a negative impact to the economy which reduces tax revenue, a double whammy which makes the deficit and debt bigger as a percentage of GDP. So the needed cuts are probably bigger than they seem, and both parties are not even making the cuts which seem necessary...

The real "fun" part starts if the debt ceiling is not raised, that will force an immediately balanced budget where the US treasury will need to decide which of its bills it pays. Since the US treasury borrows 40 cents out of every dollar it spends, it's a huge 40% immediate cut in the budget, that would leave a mark in many ways...

What I'm hearing is that whenever there's a new piece of legislation which includes cuts and tax increases, the plan is done for 10 years. The tax increases are usually front-loaded (i.e. many are effective immediately), while the budget cuts get planned for the last few years of the 10-year period. Later on the budget cuts never actually happen or get drowned in other increases...