NYC housing authority spends $43.4 million in overtime

[Jester2138]

You know what - I might summarize my fiscal views like so:

"Government should spend as much as it can while keeping budgets rigidly balanced year-to-year and taxes for all income brackets at the top of the laffer curve."

^That reduces the debate down to where is the top of the laffer curve.

[urbanlife78]

Originally Posted by Jester2138

You know what - I might summarize my fiscal views like so:

"Government should spend as much as it can while keeping budgets rigidly balanced year-to-year and taxes for all income brackets at the top of the laffer curve."

^That reduces the debate down to where is the top of the laffer curve.

I agree with this statement, and I did read your entire post as well as looked at the links, very interesting and thank you for those, I love things like that.

I'm talking about math. It's physically impossible for the government to run $1 trillion + budgets every single year without horribly crashing at some point. But that's what we're doing under Obama. It's simply unsustainable. But the left is treating it like it's some moral imperative, that we have to spend it in order to be fair to everyone. But the numbers don't add up.

Let me ask you: do you believe we're spending too much or too little on welfare? Of course, that's academic because the math doesn't care what you think. We are spending too much. We will have to cut back eventually, and the sooner the better. Really, morality is not an issue because there isn't enough money for us all to have as much as we want. There simply isn't.

I agree, we are running on a bloated budget when you look at it on a federal level rather than total which includes state budgets as well (or at least that is what the chart seems), but I think you are laying the blame on the wrong thing, why should we cut welfare when it has grown very little, when you compare it to pensions and defense, welfare is a drop in the bucket. Why not cut defense in half? Do we really need to be spending three times what China is spending, or however much more we are spending than they are?

Government Spending Chart: United States 1996-2016 - Federal State Local Data

But these are all relatively small social issues. We're talking about trillions of dollars and the fiscal future of our nation and you bring up drug testing and marriage? Now, I mostly agree with you on how Republicans are foolish in this area. But I don't think we can afford to vote based on social issues right now – not with the future existence of our country quite literally at stake.

If you want to sacrifice our existence for the sake of feeling good about having supported gay marriage, fine. But I don't.

Replace "gay marriage" with "slavery" and tell me if your statement reads the same? Social issues are very important to societies because they are linked directly. If we could reduce the budget by 50% by bringing back slavery, would you support it? Most sane people would say no because it is wrong to sacrifice a social issue for an economic issue, so some times you have to stand up to principle, not because it gives me a "warm feeling" but because it is the right thing to do. Those two things should be separate, and I agree Republicans foolish for fighting these issues, but if they are foolish for this, what makes me think they are not going to act foolish with our money? They have given little proof that they can properly handle money without cutting programs for the poor and reducing the taxes for the rich, if you want to talk about running a country into the ground, we should be talking about these problems instead of worrying who can and can't get married because government should not be in people's relationships.

Who do you support, by the way: Mitt Romney or Barack Obama? Or one of the others, I suppose?

Between those two, I would pick Obama without thinking because I have always had a strong hatred for Romney and his need to be elected, you can watch him say anything to get elected and that is a very shallow attitude for a politician. Is Obama a typical politician? Sure, but I don't feel like he will say one thing to me, then turn around and say the opposite to the Republicans and not think I won't notice. But if you are asking me if I am happy with Obama, we have had better presidents, and we have had much worse, but as a country I am happy that we have finally elected a black man for a change rather than the run of the mill old white guy.

Government should not be in the business of controlling the production of goods and services.

What if those goods and services involve pumping sewage into our drinking water because that is a cheaper way of dealing with waste? Should the government be involved with that or should we just deal with the funny tasting water?

Well this is a discussion of patent and copyright law. Are you suggesting that we do away with such things?

To some degree yes, there are plenty of patents that larger companies hold that they do not use simply to have control of their competition, this has been going on in the auto industry for decades.

Actually the free market does pave the roads - but the government pays it to do it so you're partly right. Like I said before, I'm not interested in pure capitalism. Some government is necessary. Some. But I've gone into that at length above.

Yes, government should be involved in some things, but not all. Anything that affects the people of the country as a whole or majority should be apart of the government, infrastructure, healthcare, defense, education, and welfare, all things that actually benefit and help the country as a whole. Should we be giving any industry tax breaks? Very limited to none.

It's called the Constitution and we were great until the left started calling it irrelevant in this day and age (I'm only half-serious, I agree that it's not as easy as we like to pretend).

The problem starts when people think the Constitution was written as a ceiling rather than a foundation.

I don't think a centralized government is ever the best solution. Empowering citizens is always better than empowering bureaucrats. Centralized government is a necessary evil.

By the way, I appreciate the sane discussion we're having. There are many on this forum who couldn't stand to talk to someone who disagrees with them – at least not without resorting to constant personal insults - so thank you for that.

So you are saying we don't need government? We can survive without a government? So who would you suggest run the country? All centralized government is, is a collection of elected representatives around the country representing the people of their district so that we as a country can function properly, unfortunately we have a Congress that is set up in a way that is making it harder for government to govern, that is the bigger problem.

What would you suggest if we didn't have some form of centralized government, should we simply band together in small tribes and packs?

I am sure you don't mean get rid of government, but you seem to want to remove something that isn't broken and replace it with the private sector, if I am wrong with this statement please correct me and better describe what you mean by "I don't think a centralized government is ever the best solution." because empowered citizens can become politicians....unless our government isn't elected Americans, then we really have a problem.

[Jester2138]

Originally Posted by urbanlife78

when you compare it to pensions and defense, welfare is a drop in the bucket.

Welfare spending is currently $744 billion, pensions are $775 billion, and defense is $878 billion (all rose sharply after Obama took office). Not exactly a “drop in the bucket compared to X” since we spend about the same amount on each.

I'm not arguing that we only cut welfare. I'd be all for cutting defense too. We need to cut pretty much everything.

Replace "gay marriage" with "slavery" and tell me if your statement reads the same? ... If we could reduce the budget by 50% by bringing back slavery, would you support it?

Of course not. But since I don't think gay marriage and slavery are comparable, I'm not sure what your point is. I could ask a similar question of you: replace “welfare” with “free $1 million for every citizen” and would your statements on welfare read the same?

I agree Republicans foolish for fighting these [social] issues, but if they are foolish for this, what makes me think they are not going to act foolish with our money?

Because they generally appreciate the value of the free market more than Democrats, even if they don't appreciate the value of liberal social policies more than Democrats. Everyone has their area of expertise. Just because Einstein was a great physicist doesn't mean he was also a great biologist or filmmaker or factory manager.

you can watch [Romney] say anything to get elected and that is a very shallow attitude for a politician. Is Obama a typical politician? Sure, but I don't feel like he will say one thing to me, then turn around and say the opposite to the Republicans and not think I won't notice.

I view Obama exactly the same way, especially since he (and the White House staff) makes a habit of blatantly lying about his policies (especially budgets and spending – see recent news). Also, his bit “those darned Republicans keep stonewalling my proposals” is almost laughable. For one thing, his last proposal was rejected unanimously by both sides of the aisle because it was so bad (I believe it was an embarrassing 97-0...).

What if those goods and services involve pumping sewage into our drinking water because that is a cheaper way of dealing with waste?

That's a straw man argument (I believe I have already said certain oversights are necessary).

Besides, pumping sewage into our drinking water, in a fair market, would not be cheaper because nobody would buy that drinking water. Of course, right now concern that a company would do that in our plumbing exists because only one company provides any given area its drinking water and so there's no redundancy.

But that is only because the government gave them that monopoly in the first place... Can you imagine if one of the bottled water companies (who are not regulated so much) pumped sewage into its bottles? They'd be bankrupt overnight! Consumers should have control over what they consume, not the government.

The problem starts when people think the Constitution was written as a ceiling rather than a foundation.

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

That sounds pretty clearly like ceiling to me.

What would you suggest if we didn't have some form of centralized government, should we simply band together in small tribes and packs? I am sure you don't mean get rid of government, but you seem to want to remove something that isn't broken and replace it with the private sector...

So you're perfectly fine with our government the way it is?

By the way, what is your opinion on the so-called "Nordic Model"? Do you think the U.S. should head in that direction?

[Hieronymus Bosch]

Originally Posted by Jester2138

Not vague. It's pretty straightforward: Is this regulation necessary to maintain fair competition and/or equal opportunity? If yes, then good - keep it. If no, then toss it. That's easy to say and hard to implement, of course, as all philosophies are. But I believe it is far more straightforward and simple than trying to determine what constitutes the "correct" amount of favoritism and welfare.

Basically, there are two major philosophies in American politics from a moral standpoint:

1) Republicans/classical liberals: Only what is needed for fair free market competition and equal opportunity, so that everyone succeeds or fails based on their own merits.

2) Democrats/progressives: Only enough so that everyone "feels" equal.

Which do you think is more finite and straightforward? Which do you think is actually possible? #1 is definable, understandable, enforceable. The problem with #2 is that "enough" keeps getting larger and larger.

One might even put it another way:

The given: government is required to keep the markets free and fair.
When there are economic problems,
-Democrats assume capitalism is fundamentally broken, or that there's some great conspiracy.
-Republicans assume the government messed up. Since mixed capitalism has proven to be the only sustainable large-scale economic system that is compatible with human rights, it would seem to me as obvious that they're right.



That's probably because right now they're fighting the biggest increase in government size and reach in the history of Planet Earth, with the possible exception of the USSR.



None. I think they all have strengths and weaknesses (mostly weaknesses). I vote based on an individual politicians merits, not which party they affiliate with.

The Republicans, for instance, tend to be more sensible on economic issues but completely stupid on social issues. There's no one-size-fits-all.

The Republicans have never had any problem writing blank checks to Dear Old Dad.