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This whole idea that starving Washington of revenue will restrain spending hasn't worked out. We now have the parties of borrow and spend (Republicans) and borrow more and spend (Democrats).
No one wants to admit the truth:
We will need to cut spending on ALL of the following:
Medicare/Medicaid
Social Security
Defense
The rest of the Federal Government
We will need to raise taxes too, preferably by getting rid of all the loopholes in the tax code...and that includes (but is not limited to) reducing or phasing out the home mortgage deduction. There is widespread consensus on this from economists from across the political spectrum. Some favor tax increases more and other spending cuts more. But all agree BOTH spending cuts & tax increases are needed.
Since most Americans will not accept the harsh medicine needed, preferring instead to "blame the guy who votes for the other party" (as exemplified by the posts in this thread), conditions are very likely to get even worse than the draconian scenario outlined above. We are rapidly going in the same direction as Greece, except that no one is going to step in and bail us out.
It would also help our economy greatly if we could reduce our dependence on imported oil. This would help our trade deficit & GDP growth greatly, since almost 1/2 of our trade deficit is for oil. The higher the GDP growth, the greater the tax revenue. We will need to: 1. Drill for more oil domestically, 2. Reduce consumption (Can you say "gas tax"?), and 3. Invest in more R&D for alternatives. Once again, this needs to be an "all of the above" scenario. The luxury of only picking one of the 3 options listed above is long gone.
A couple years ago on this very forum, I called for a Manhattan project to increase fuel economy of domestically produced vehicles, but the main obstacle with this approach to solving our oil dependency is it requires leadership on the level of a JFK or Reagan. The reason I would like to see massive research into the area of automotive efficiency isn't as much to solve the problem of dependency as it is to give us a giant club with which to beat OPEC over the head. The Strategic Defense Initiative (star wars) presented a problem to the Soviet Union for which they had no answer. They were forced to negotiate from a position of weakness. So why should we take whatever OPEC offers when we could just as easily cut them off completely?
To be sure, the day we announce we are ending our dependency of foreign oil through an all of the above approach and with all the determination America can muster, terrified oil sheiks will flood the market with oil so as to make our plans seem a solution is search of a problem. At this point our oil suppliers will be our personal b*tches in the same way Khrushchev was after the Cuban Missile Crisis or Gorbachev was after ReykjavÃk. Of course, we'll never have this sort of advantage over our present keepers as long as presidential campaigns accept foreign donations from fake donors with made up names and addresses and which are processed with untraceable prepaid debit cards. Like I said, this will take leadership we don't presently have.
No doubt, that 700 billion in spending the radial right forced though for their oh-so-precious tax cuts for the rich extension is the absolute worst thing we need right now, but the republicans don't care. Spend spend spend spend spend, that's the republican way.
You've been brianwashed well! Yeah, it's the republicans that are spending. Last I checked the Dems were the ones spending........
Ooooh, can I max out all my credit cards and blame them too?
No doubt, that 700 billion in spending the radial right forced though for their oh-so-precious tax cuts for the rich extension is the absolute worst thing we need right now, but the republicans don't care. Spend spend spend spend spend, that's the republican way.
Could you clarify? Are you referring to the $787 billion obama stimulus??? Or was that okie-dokie?
The spend a buck dems are doing exactly the opposite of what the voters in November asked them NOT TO DO.
Spend money we do not have and pile up the debt.
No wonder the tax and spend dems got their butts handed to them in November. People wised up and saw what kind of fools they really are.
Obama is spending thousands a month on flying a personal trainer in the DC from Chicago for his two a week session while most Americans do not have enough food.
OBAMA AND DEMOCRATIC PARTY = WASTE and BANKRUPTING AMERICA
No, we haven't learned. We all still think some mythical "other guy" is going to bear the brunt of what needs to happen, leaving ourselves unscathed.
Republicans think it can all be fixed by getting rid of waste. Democrats think we can just end the wars & tax the rich.
The truth is that all of the above ^^^^ and much more will be required.
I fully expect the blame game to continue as the useless blame game shows no signs of abating from either side and only a minority of people will be willing to accept the harsh measures that are truly needed.
Social security? Nope, 80% of the country likes it just the way it is.
Medicare? Nope, 70% of the country likes it just the way it is (along with 60% of the TEA party)
People have a way of liking stuff that isn't affordable. Most of us have champaign taste with beer budgets.
The amount we spend on medical care in this country is outrageous. 2/3 of us are overweight & 1/3 of us are obese. Yet we expect more and more expensive pills to fix what ails us. It isn't working. But politicans are not going to tell us to stop eating crap and to get off our lazy behinds so that we don't need the expensive pills for everything. Health care costs, along with many other things (wars included), are bankrupting us.
Ultimately what's bankrupting us is the entitlement attitude that has infected every element of our society and the lack of willingness to change our behavior.
The dot.com boom was in the 1990s, not 2004-2007. Duh.
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