Sorry, I just have to rant.  People act like the government is NOW wasting their money, but have conveniently forgotten that this has been going on for years.

Its ludicrous.  I have been saying for months and years that the deficits the government were running were unsustainable, but the deficits remained enormous.  Now that we are in a recession and there actually is a risk that the economy will slump into a depression, everyone is a fiscal conservative.  How ridiculous is this?

I just don't understand why people are so short-sighted.  NOW they care about being fiscally conservative.  What about the last eight years?  What the hell were they doing then?  Just turning their head while the government racked up innumerable debts while the economy was doing fine?  I'm just so frustrated that people are so hypocritical.  When the government has no need to be spending so much money, they don't care.  When the government probably should be spending the money so that the economy doesn't collapse, they think it is time to be a fiscal hawk.

Its just plain ridiculous, and everyone who now thinks the government is wasting the taxpayers' money but weren't protesting the deficits we have been running for the last eight years (excluding some of the recessionary periods such as after 9/11) is a flagrant hypocrite.

/End rant.

first you want them to complain about spending, now you want them to shut up about spending....perhaps everything would go better if you just made up your mind

MrBubbles said: first you want them to complain about spending, now you want them to shut up about spending....perhaps everything would go better if you just made up your mind

I just want to see some kind of rationale behind their thought process.

1) If you are against deficit spending ALL the time, I completely understand that.

2) If you are against deficit spending in good economic times and for deficit spending in recessionary times, I completely understand that.

3) If you are for deficit spending ALL the time, I don't agree with you if you think deficits don't matter, but at least you are consistent.

4) If you are for deficit spending in good times and against deficit spending in recessionary times, you need to go back and take economics, because this option just doesn't make sense as the economic repercussions are catastrophic.

i was just joking...you didnt have to continue to rant...

I realized, I was just further fleshing out how rationally untenable the attitude is.

Finally something I can agree with you on. ;) Government should put money away and pay down debt in the good times, while lowering taxes to jumpstart the economy in the bad times. Right now we already have a massive deficit (not to mention debt) because of our stupidity in the good times, and we are at a point where it would be advantageous to lower taxes and allow that money to flow in the private sector instead of being used inefficiently by government. Instead, we are giving money to failed companies and talking about increasing taxes. Earth to morons?

People love bitching about stuff. That's why they complain about government spending now but they didn't 25 years ago. It doesn't have to make sense.

Also, if that didn't make any sense, it's because it's 4:45 EST as I am posting this.

I think it really just depends what the money is being spent on. The problem is less the things they are spending our tax dollars, and more about the fact that they don't regulate that spending. There is too much fraud and double spending for the same items/programs. I've seen numbers that show the government spends 40% more than is needed because they are double paying for a lot of programs.. and many times the money is stolen via fraud.

Maybe because the government is looking at spending half our GDP with money we don't have?

When the government does something stupid, people don't usually care. When they do something ungodly stupid, to the point that a 4 year old knows better, then start to pay attention.

I blame bush. He cut taxes AND raised spending. Clinton was kind of bad with foreign policy, but at least he had good domestic policy and ran a surplus. Bush did pretty good in foreign policy, but then got stubborn and screwed up everything, including foreign policy. I just hope Obama can clean up the mess.