Richard, when Obama came in to office he had a supermajority in congress. Govt spending went from 3.1 tn (bush's last year, which was the 2.8 + his half of tarp) to 3.7 tn. Don't tell me that Obama has agreed to any budget cut. It clearly was not on their list of priorities.

My opinion is that we have to cut expenses and raise revneues.  If you are short of money as an individual, you look for more work and look to cut your spending.  The country needs to do the same thing.  To discount one of these is folly.  And to be honest, each party basically makes this folly from different ends.  If you look at Stein's comment, he is saying that you can't solve the fiscal issues without doing both -- and it should be started where it would have the least drag on the economy (on those with the highest disposable income) and phased in across the board. He is not saying "tax the rich" exclusively.

As for the educational credit example, the tax code is a mess and needs to be overhauled -- both for indivudals and corporations. It is littered with inefficiencies and inequities.  I do not disagree with that. 

Finally, remember if social chaos breaks out, the rich have the most to lose. That is why many governmental services -- from police to inspections to securities guarantees -- have a greater value to them than the poor.

If you raise taxes growth stalls unless there are some rather unusual circumstances like the dot-com boom. You can raise revenue by growing the economy. It doesn't have to come from tax hikes.

I have heard that theory before. I also know that Britain cut the government and cut 0.5% off its GDP.  There are no easy solutions and to take something direclty off the table because you don't like it is simplistic and foolish. 

I am not saying that you should not examine it before enacting it -- but that everything has to be on the table. We cannot "ready, shoot aim" which too many people seem to want to do.  Nor can we fight the deficit with one hand tied behind our back.

The first year of Obama in office was a mess as far as the economy went.  You had numerous stimulus and other things thrown in, trying to prevent a great depression level, if not worse, meltdown.  Money was thrown at things, including bailouts.  You can't use the first year of Obama's administration as anything.  A lot of that was baked in also from Bush's budget.  

But you need to look at now here, Obama did support the budget cut plan without tax increases for ANYONE.  Obama also slashed taxes for the middle class by reducing FICA.  There was agreement here.  But, Obama doesn't support budget cuts alone.  And that is the reality of things.

Does this mean that shrinking the government for its own sake is Obama or the Democrat's approach?  No.  But there is reality of trying to contain costs, which is hitting hard now.  The debate now is over whether or not the marginal tax rate on the upper end should go back to the pre-Bush era or not.  

Regarding being fillibuster-proof congress (supermajority), it was less than 80 days Obama had:

http://sandiegofreepress.org/2012/09/the-myth-of-the-filibuster-proof-democratic-senate/

Government certainly contributes to GDP, but not in a sustainable way. If it was sustainable then we could have the greatest economy on earth by borrowing $15 trillion a year and spending it on bridges. (oh wait, we sort of are doing that.) How many private sector workers paying taxes does it take to finance one government job? When government cuts too fast there is a hiccup that will lower GDP but if government allows growth it will recover. All the high paying jobs around where I live (with the exception of doctors and lawyers) are government contractors. So if they close down half of that and people move out small businesses in the area will suffer. Or, maybe someone in the private sector will see this pool of educated people and the relatively cheap real estate and start something up.

Even if it wasn't a full two years, what did they achieve? The Senate has not passed a budget since April 2009. There were not any filibusters on them because Republicans wanted the democrats on record as supporting the president's budget. (which had no cuts! not one of obama's budgets proposed cuts to anything except NASA) Not sure how you can say Obama supported budget cuts when each year his suggested budget was larger than the previous year's suggested (and unpassed) budget.

They spent a year focusing on Obamacare while telling us it would create jobs.

Hey, anyone remember the stimulus unemployment promise? Remember the chart we were treated with? Let's see what really happened.

It was less than 80 days with a super majority, including Ted Kennedy on his deathbed.  I spoke to you about this, and was addressing it, because you brought up the whole supermajority thing, which was an argument that Obama had a prolonged period of time with a fillibusterproof congress.  It wasn't so.  

As far as budget cuts go, it wasn't just cutting them for the sake of cutting them, but to reduce the size of the deficit, in addition to raising taxes on $250K+ in revenue.  It is Obama would go with budget cuts, if they include tax increases.  But also Obama did approve the cuts without tax increases, in order to raise the debt ceiling.  

Actually, if you look at Obamacare, there is over $750 billion in cuts to the growth of spending in Medicare to pay for it.  The GOP harps on it.  There were also cuts to defense budget also, the GOP harps on.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/08/fact-check-obama-ryan-romney-backed-medicare-cuts/

You can see more cuts here:

http://money.cnn.com/2011/02/14/news/economy/wacky_budget_cuts/index.htm

Budget cuts in Washington consists of cutting the rate of growth of government.  It leads to issues with talk of the Department of Defense being gutted, when rate of growth in money going to it is being cut.  The budget is a forecast of need, and you slash the increases in growth and thus cut it.  And in regards to this, you see the rate of growth, past 2009, has ended up being only marginally more.  Yes, under Obama, the rate of growth is less.

As for your other post at the end, let's stick with the budget, deficits, cuts and taxes increasing or not.  You are free to talk about the stimulus failing in another thread.  It is important to try to stay on topic here rather than chance down distracting rabbits.  It is a fine subject to discuss, just not connected to this topic.  Feel free to start another thread to harp on it if you like.

I couldn't disagree more.

I mean, look at countries where there are huge breakdowns.

The rich are essentially kings.

If society completely collapses the rich would to aquire durable valuables and land, and use what they have to hire their own police forces and essentially become warlords who are now above the law.

The rich can go off and do their own Galt's Gulch and gated communities.  But, during a complete breakdown of society, these rich people will see their net worth shrink down to astronomically smaller levels than before.  Considering that a large number of wealthy are that way due to making money in paper assets, they wouldn't really know how to manage things.  And they are possibly not going to be able to get much staff to tend to their own needs.  And the money will end up likely worthless, likely being hyperinflated due to the amount of goods and services they have greatly reduce from the meltdown, and destruction that is likelky to follow.

Monetarily, they will have the greatest to lose, even if from a position of power, they have gained.