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Forums - General - How do you think we are going to pay for it all?

TheRealMafoo on 28 April 2009
highwaystar101 said:
Feel sorry for us Brits, we have a £200,000,000,000 hole to fill withing the banking/insurance sectors and no money to fill it with... Basically we're f***ed no matter what we do.

 

We are 10X the size, with 10X the deficit, so we are in the same boat.

Sucks doesn't it?



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highwaystar101 on 28 April 2009
TheRealMafoo said:
highwaystar101 said:
Feel sorry for us Brits, we have a £200,000,000,000 hole to fill withing the banking/insurance sectors and no money to fill it with... Basically we're f***ed no matter what we do.

 

We are 10X the size, with 10X the deficit, so we are in the same boat.

Sucks doesn't it?

 

Yeah, it sucks big time. Brtiain will be lucky if it doesn't end up like Iceland. America should be able to last hopefully, but yeah as you said we are  in the same boat.



akuma587 on 28 April 2009
TheRealMafoo said:
akuma587 said:

Government increasing its share of GDP during a recession is normal, and during a recession such as this one necessary.

But yes, I totally agree with you, waging war on the national debt by raising taxes alone is not enough.  Nor is waging war on the national debt by cutting spending enough.  We have to do both.  That includes comprehensive reform of all our entitlement programs, all government spending, all government subsidies, and getting rid of sacred budget cows in both parties (like farm subsidies, which now go to corporations rather than farmers).

Obama's biggest weakness at this point is whether or not he will take this issue on.  Although I have to admit that the effect it will have on him politically is questionable.  Americans have an extremely short memory and don't ever seem to worry about the debt unless we are in a recession.  Hell, Reagan, Bush Sr., AND Bush W. got elected by Republicans running a deficit EVERY SINGLE YEAR they were in office.  All at the same time claiming they were fiscally conservative.

To the Republican Party, fiscally conservative means cutting taxes, not addressing the national debt.  I would like to see that change in BOTH parties as I think Democrats and Republicans have dropped the ball on this issue.

 

I have nothing against government spending in a recession. I do however think the way you spend matters. Giving large corporations billions is not the answer, employing people to do government project are however. (Improve roads, IT systems, Police stations, whatever).

But what Obama is doing is not trying to spend money during a Recession. He is trying to pass a spending bill that will obligate us beyond out tax collecting capabilities indefinitely. It’s not a short term expense. It’s a long term one.

So we agree on this text I quoted here. Being that we both thing taxing more and spending less is needed, are you for his 3.6 trillion dollar budget that will spend, long term, more than twice what we would spend without it?

It might be appropriate for this fiscal year as it will help solve unemployment, as unemployment always takes much longer to fix than any other part of the economy.  It can even be years behind sometimes.

But in the long term, no, I think in the following years he should narrow his budget back down to the 3.0 trillion area or possibly lower.  Or at the very least keep the budget from growing.  Even keeping the budget at the same mark means you are spending less money, as you have the offset from inflation and from the overall growth of the economy and increased revenue as a result.

So, no, I don't think Congress should go on a drunken spending binge.  And if they do, they at least need the revenue sources to back it up so that the deficits don't get out of control.

 



We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls.  The only thing that really worried me was the ether.  There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke

It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...."  Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson

mesoteto on 28 April 2009

look at the sig



 

Rath on 28 April 2009

The reason why the cutting spending and raising taxes doesn't happen is because democracy is fundamentally flawed.

Politicians aim to give the people what they want rather than what they need, raising taxes and cutting spending are both unpopular things.



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akuma587 on 28 April 2009
Rath said:
The reason why the cutting spending and raising taxes doesn't happen is because democracy is fundamentally flawed.

Politicians aim to give the people what they want rather than what they need, raising taxes and cutting spending are both unpopular things.

Pretty much.

 



We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls.  The only thing that really worried me was the ether.  There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke

It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...."  Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson

SciFiBoy on 28 April 2009

raise taxes on the rich, close as many loopholes in the tax system as possible
cut all non essential public spending (we dont need nukes or id cards for a start)



jv103 on 28 April 2009

You know what sucks about war these days? It's more expensive to have a war then all the shit we could plunder.



Slimebeast on 28 April 2009
TheRealMafoo said:

Ok, so Obama's budget will probably pass. I am going to guess around 3.5 trillion.

 

That's 1.75 trillion more then the government will bring it. Or, $5,800 per american citizen.

Where do you think this money will come from, and how do you think we can pay for these kinds of services in the long run?

 

 I feel those numbers are misleading. It cant be that the budget spending is twice the amount that comes in. Usually a budget deficit is only 3-4% for a Western governent, perhaps 5-10% in a Crysis.

Can someone xplain the budget numbers?



Slimebeast on 28 April 2009
Rath said:
The reason why the cutting spending and raising taxes doesn't happen is because democracy is fundamentally flawed.

Politicians aim to give the people what they want rather than what they need, raising taxes and cutting spending are both unpopular things.

 

 I agree with this, and I hate it! (although u mean 'democracy' in it's current Western form, 'parlamentary democracy' or something I think is the term)

The tempation to raise taxes for all these spending projects (whatever they are passionate about, it can be military, it can be a health care reform) is too big for politicians. And the methods of control are too weak. Yes you can vote them away, but instead comes another party with the same kind of thinking, just different projects.