The thread title is having an inner conflict between being a question and a declarative statement.

If you wanted a fiscally conservative country, you should have been born in a nation that wasn't obsessed with war and its own capitalism. The classic American "spend now, pay later" policy was born out of the 1950s after World War II. Go to the mall, use your credit card to spend obscene amounts of money, visit Santa, and deal with the consequences later. This policy is what let America be as powerful as it is today, but it eventually caught up to us. And like any government formed on the people, the leaders of the country decided to adopt the destructive habits of its citizens. Reagan thought he had the genius idea to propel the Republicans into domination in the 80s, and it worked. Just like the people, spend insane amounts of money, pay later, and borrow from others if you don't have enough. Cut taxes to keep your followers happy, and swell your military to keep them feeling safe. It was a genius way to exploit the citizens, and even today, millions of people believe he was a great president.

I've gone down the same route as you and went on a long rant, but everything I said was so true that I scared even me.

Sorry!

Guess I would of lost that bet.  Thought for sure that would of turned into another New Deal arguement.

Here's to the bread lines.

I've been a fiscal hawk since I was old enough to vote.

The irony of the situation is that right now, the government should have a massive surplus to spend its way out of this deficit and then when things get good, they should be trying to slow it down and amass a new surplus for the next down time.

Funny how politicians always seem to forget that second part and even funnier how people are too fucking short-sighted to vote in people who will enact financial strategies based on the longterm instead of five minutes from now.

Anyway, people are stupid. Always have been, always will be. Learn to accept it or you'll have an ulcer by the time you're 30.

I've accepted long ago that the average person is a complete idiot, but its so unnerving when they act like they know what they are talking about when they clearly have no idea whatsoever.

I just ask for a consistent and effective economic policy even if I don't always agree with the policy.  If Bush and the other Republicans had slashed taxes but had managed to keep the deficit at bay, I wouldn't be upset at all.  Its just obscene that the Republicans in Congress now are acting like they have always had a sound economic policy and are now trying to obstruct anything from being done.

Even Bush and Cheney have the right idea (wow, am I actually saying that...).  They know that in times when the economy is according to all sources plummetting like a rock that it is better to err on the side of doing something rather than doing nothing.  As Cheney so eloquently put it, its almost as if the Republicans are trying to go down in history as the "Herbert Hoovers" of the 21st century.

That's what's sad about the system. You can have a good president (I haven't seen one, mostly mediocre) and then the next guy can totally f-it up. Someone was mentioning that the President doesn't have power to pass budgets etc. Constitutionally true, and true in practice sort of. Executive power has increased with every presidency since FDR (maybe earlier, not a huge history buff) but that power never seems to recede. Anyway my point being, Congress doesn't excersise it's budget powers except for trivial things and since we have an Executive WORSHIPPING country(a king you vote for), they would take a lot of flak and don't really seem to bother, at least not in the last 8 years or so (probably longer, but I was only 15 when clinton was in so don't remember much). I think we really need to get a realignment of power in the Capitol. The ideal 33/33/33 would be nice. Does the Supreme Court even review congressional laws? Sorry getting off topic.

I know a lot of hawks are going to be mad at me, but I think we should cut defense spending, coupled with smart bids and maybe actually have the military due some of the jobs that have been outsourced to the private sector (like the shipping of supplies/food trains etc.). I'm sure you could cut a lot of the excess by having the military maintain it's equipment, and maybe give some good formal technical training. (I haven't been in the Military, but my girlfriend's Dad is a retired commander [i think that's it, its equiv to colonel in navy] and we were discussing how you could lower costs by having several 'simple' jobs be done by enlisted men instead of contractors). The defense budget and everything that falls under that I think is around 60% of discretionary spending. (Discretionary is set apart from entitlements)

In reality though, all of the spending could be more closely managed.

Think of it this way. Smarter spending = less tax necessity = less tax burden = greater growth = more tax revenue overall (eventually)

This will never happen because the Government and Corporations and those with money are too closely intertwined. Major party candidates combined raised almost a billion dollars to run for president-and that money doesn't have strings?

RealMafoo-The problem is that if we had an utter collapse people would be more demanding for Government intervention. We live in a nanny state and people would immediately run to the governement for answers.

I wish I were an economist so I could be qualified to say "The Party is over," "The days of mindless shopping and spending are gone" --I will miss you.

I 100% disagree.

There are times, when the thing you NEED to do, is to do nothing at all. This is one of those times.

yes. that's the problem. We need to not be that kind of country.

Oh, and your military idea only had one flaw. The US Military does nothing cheeper then the private sector, so it would cost more to use the military for the things you propose.

Building the weapons systems would be much more costly, but what if we had like engineers who could actually fabricate specialized parts? My Girlfriend's Dad (who was in charge of a strike fighter fleet -not an appeal to authority here) was talking about this specific part of landing gear on the hornet- it had a fault and developed cracks after several years of use. The company that originally manufactured the part had moved onto something else and couldn't make it. Anyways, they ended up buying a couple hundred units of this landing gear from Israeli manufacturers with a huge markup... wouldn't something like this be better for the military to do? Or is it too specialized that they couldn't possibly maintain certain parts?